Game development wars

Here are the battles and wars I have pasts through in the making of the world of Pangaia.

## Pencil-and-paper role-playing games

In the early 80s I began work on developing my world for pencil-and-paper role-playing games using, at first, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (AD&D 2nd Edition), later, after bouncing from game system to game system, I focused on the Chaosium RPG system in the mid-80s to early 90s when I began working around the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) which I stuck with to the early 2000s.

## Role-playing video games

Initially, I was looking into the *Ultima series* using *Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar* (U4) to *Ultima VI: The False Prophet* (U6) style game engine during the mid-90s. Looked into what it took to develop a game from the ground up since there were no "plug-and-play" game engines on the market, I shelved the video games idea going back to GURPS.

Then *The Elder Scrolls: Arena* and *The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall* brought forth another story-rich world. *The Elders Scroll III: Morrowind* game was released where one could make and use plugins. Making a world with different and unique creatures, and playable characters would be a massive undertaking. Using the Morrowind game it was impossible to develop a world. Then the release of *TES IV: Oblivion* TES V: Skyrim made developing a world easier, but the graphics issues of Morrowind was still present.

Looking at other video games I saw both good and bad points until seeing RPG Maker VX Ace in the early 2010s. Looking over the official and unofficial creatures and characters available I saw some gaps, but I saw that it would not be *that* difficult for me to draw. It was then I became serious about developing a game using the Pangaia world as a backdrop. Finding RPG Maker MV engine I bought it when it was on sale.

## Paperwork of my RPG world

I have worked on my world since the early 80s keeping track of the work I had until the early 2000s when it was lost in either of two moves I made. Upset, I began the long drawn out process of redeveloping the world, creatures, characters, species, etc. Of course, the world has lost a lot that made it what it was. Still, I am satisfied with it so far but see a long way to go.

## Pangaia series

Taking RPGM MV and the developing world of Pangaia, I started work on *Pangaia Airdtriath Èirich* (Ancient Greek: Pangaia *all goddess* παν- pan- *all* + Γαῖᾰ *Gaîa, the Earth personified as a goddess*, Anglo-Saxon: Airdtriath Èirich *Highlord Arise*, derived from airdtriath *highlord* and èirich *arise*) which as a massive game growing with every touch of a pen to paper taking place on a subcontinent the size of Germany and Switzerland, Ynys Afallach (Welsh: *Isle of Avalon* derived from ynys *island, isle* + Afallach *Avalon*).

I saw the work that was going into *Airdtriath Èirich* was growing into a massive game covering the subcontinent of Ynys Afallach, so I put that game on hold and began to develop *Pangaia Incestus* (Latin: incestus lit *incest*) takes place in the farm town Rithertun (the Latinized version of the Anglo-Saxon Hríðertun derived from the elements hríðer *cow* tun *farm*).

Rithertun is the town that *Airdtriath Èirich* begins about a generation later. And me being me, I started work on family trees and a village of approximately 110 individuals along with jobs, sexual interests, and more. Plus I am going to leave hints and clues on some of the people, places and such in the later game. Finding or missing these hints has NO effect on the game, kinda like easter eggs.

While working on *Incestus*, I found a couple Twine HTML-text based games that were fun to play. I was intrigued by this new game engine for me, thus I began work on *Pangaia Hinxworth* (Anglo-Saxon: Hinxworth *horse-enclosure*, derived from hinx *horse* or *stallion* + worth *enclosure*), a much smaller game than PI. Or so I thought. It is much smaller, not as much as I had originally anticipated. I mean *Incestus* has approximately 110 characters scattered about the game. Only a few characters will be in the game from beginning to end.

I decided to work on *Pangaia Oidipous*, a straightforward, single path love simulator which I added a couple of endings, again using the Twine system putting *Hinxworth* on hold.

I thought of the titles *Pangaia Kaine* and *Pangaia Orichalcum Effect* with the roughest of concepts. Those I put on the back-burner where they will not have any work on until much later. Both of these games I haven't worked out what game engine.

So, I had thought the WIP games would be *Incestus* and *Oidipous*, the smallest of the RPGM and Twine games.

Sometimes after making the "final" decision the HDD that had all my RPGM work, maps, texts, graphics, and more, decided to crash. I have all my Twine work on my main HDD, and fortunately, I had a backup on the internet. Problem? The backup is about two-months-old and I did not have a replacement drive. Until I got a new HDD installed I was limited to *Hinxworth* since my main drive is packed.

Now, with the new drive in hand and the nostalgia when playing RPGM games, I have altered all games to the RPGM game engine since all of the work to date dealing with game engine development has been on *PAE* and *Incestus*, the two RPGM games from the beginning.

When I got the new drive installed (I have a problem doing so due to back and bipolar issues), I began work on *Oidipous* to get my feet wet in RPGM development till later when I added all of the Pangaia games.

So, now *Oidipous* running on RPGMaker MV, *Hinxworth* on Twine. Right? Nope, I decided to shift all the games to Ren'Py a game engine that would limit the size of the game though add more to the artwork.

So, putting all games except *Oidipous* on hold, I began gathering the assets I needed to get it underway. I'm still gathering those assets not being able to get the finalized look and feel having to wait until I had purchased them all.

So, since I could not begin work on the game's graphics I began working on sidequests, sex-quests with fetishes that could be disabled in-game. These had to have more characters and fetish related components, sooo...

I have purchased over $1000 worth of assets over that past couple years, though, me being a noob is Daz3D I pulled from all genesis and generations not thinking there would be any problems using that in single pix and the sort. Human character does not match well, while come monsters can work well with Genesis 8 though are many who look awful.

After looking at the number of assets I had purchase and seeing that there are no chapters with all the needed artwork components I decided something I should have begun months ago: get all backdrops needed for the chapter, characters, hair, clothing, accessories, etc. and only those items to my used in the next chapter. sidequest, sex-quest including those with extreme fetish material that may be disabled ingame like in Gates Motel.