Topic: A lesson in being over-ambitious... presented by yours truly.

[Claimh Solais]

So I recently got over my embarrassment of this, and I've finally fully accepted it as one of the truest fuck-ups of my life, particularly on the web. I fully embrace it now as probably the biggest lesson I could have ever learned.

Disclaimer: I was originally gonna put this in HG101 since it's about a video game, but since there's no actual video game to download and/or show off, I put it here instead. If any mod or anyone feels it should be moved, a move would be appreciated. ^_^

A few years ago, back in late 2010, me and a pal named Ivan were talking about fighting games. Things we liked, things we didn't like. See, I met Ivan on a voice acting forum and we became pretty decent friends. We were both aspiring voice actors, and we became close enough to the point where he almost actually bought me recording equipment since I couldn't afford it (I refused vehemently. I'm glad he backed down). One of the dreams he and I both had was to one day voice act in a fighting game. That's when I had a (not-so) brilliant idea. See, I was fiddling around with M.U.G.E.N. at the time, and I was coming to get a decent understanding of it. So I was like: "Oh, shit. Dude, what if I make a fighting game, and we do the voice acting in it?!" He agreed wholeheartedly and we jumped into working out concepts.

Let me pre-face by saying this: I was fourteen at the time. Ivan was nineteen. You already know that it's gonna be a damn disaster just from that. What began as a simple journey for me to learn how to program in MUGEN became a full-blown audition. We went to the voice acting website that we frequented, and I put together an audition that nobody could refuse (and to my horror, nobody refused)... you can make and voice your own character for our game. Give me a character type, a move-list idea, an appearance description or picture, and you do the voice acting, and you can make it in (assuming you were picked).

Some of you are probably thinking: "Wow, that sounds like an awful idea." That's because it was. And it added to fuel to the fire because me and Ivan were literally accepting everybody. And before I knew it, I had a roster of upwards of 45+ characters that I was absolutely committed to putting into the game. Even Kira Buckland joined in (mind you, this was before she became a well-known actress and her only noteworthy video game role was Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires, which isn't noteworthy at all). I had no fucking clue what I was getting into, and thus began the worst two years of my life.

Me and some of the guys we met through the board that were truly passionate about it became good friends. I met my friends Richard and Chris through this, and while we don't talk all that much, we're on pretty decent terms and still get a laugh from each other every now and again. We talked for months about ideas, characters, forming a story, and wound up creating a larger than life world that was not only action-packed, but dramatic, and funny, and even had biblical ties. I even contacted Reuben Langdon who agreed to guest-star in the game. Let me repeat: Devil May Cry's Dante agreed to guest star in my game. How the hell was I going to pay him? The man's a professional. No way in hell was he going to do this for free. Here's the kicker though: My fourteen-year-old mind didn't care. It was too clouded by the fact that one of my favorite voice actors/motion capture actors agreed to be in the game.

And this is when disaster first started striking. I'm sure you all remember me talking about the part of the Lament of Innocence manga I had? Well, I did have it. And remember when I talked about how I lost it due to hard drive failure? Well, that also happened. I did manage to recover the hard drive, but a lot of what I had was corrupted, that manga included (I either posted about that or PM'd someone about it, I forget which). But what also was lost were family photos I don't have copies of anymore, game saves for some of my favorite games... and nearly all the work I had done on the game. I wasn't much, just a few WIPs of characters, some sprites, etc. But that was a whole half-a-year's worth of work, down the drain. What else I lost besides just game data was:

-The voice files for nearly the entire cast (about 35 character voice packs were gone, and the few I had left weren't complete)
-The entire soundtrack (which I thankfully recovered after the composer sent me another copy WHICH I STILL HAVE)
-The entire script for the story mode, which was about 30+ pages, all gone.
-All the artwork we had done (wasn't much and wasn't that great since we all sucked at drawing)
-Pretty much all of my morale.

I've always had a huge morale problem. Like, you ever play a game, and then you die, and you see that you were sent pretty far back when you reload? That never fails to make me turn off the game out of frustration. Now, imagine that frustration for something like a whole half-a-year's worth of work. My morale was pretty eradicated. That's when it first started setting in about just how in-over-my-head I was. The next problem came from my low-morale: I became a total bitch-baby.

I took every chance I had to complain about things or people or everything. So much so that my friend Ivan actually stopped talking to me until around late 2015, and even now we barely talk. I made impulsive decisions, like responding to an email about getting the game published by Aksys Games (which I have since learned was a scam. Phew, thank god I turned it down), or even just moving things around on our forum that shouldn't have been moved. People sent me music or voices or artwork to use in the game, and I didn't even look at most of it before I accepted it or denied it. I absolutely love the main theme song for the now-cancelled game, but I didn't even bother listening to it until its third revision which came a long time after the original version.

More and more people began dropping off the project, to the point where our team of about 20+ people had dropped down to just me and a handful of others. We had a music composer, an everyman (who was me), and an artist, and a couple of idea-people, and that was it. How the hell we went on for another year with such little progress was beyond me. So many things fell apart from there...

-Thank god, but Reuben Langdon never got back to me about the game, and probably even forgot about it. So I never got myself into that nightmare of a situation.
-Due to my huge never-ending lack of morale, I came up with the idea of making it an RPG on RPG Maker instead, since it would have been less work. But I couldn't even commit to that because I'd still be starting from scratch again.
-My hard drive experienced another failure later, and eventually my careless ass broke my monitor screen, which resulted in me being offline for months. The fact my team stuck around without any word from me was unbelievable. This is the point in which I just gave up on the computer I had and got a new one.
-The team began to talk less and less about the game and just have general chats with each other. Our forum just became a chatroom where we hung out and talked about things going on in our lives. I could hardly keep up with most of the chatter since my team was much older than I was, and things like college and jobs were way over my head.

Eventually, it came to the point that I just didn't want to do it anymore. I only really wanted to stick around to talk to these guys since they were really cool. And then quietly at the end of December 2012, with a final "Merry Christmas!" the board went dead. We never spoke there again, and the game was quietly cancelled. Most of us went our separate ways, and I'm still friends with a couple of them. And hell, I'm so god damn lucky none of these people hold me in any bad regard for all that.

In the end, not much is left of the game. Ideas here, maybe a couple bad artworks there, a couple poorly-made sprites over there... but the whole soundtrack is intact and I plan to release it to the public (which I said I'd do a long time ago but I keep forgetting). I got permission from our old composer, and I feel it's the least I can do since it was the best part of our game. Outside of that, here's a bunch of videos that survived the fall...

SHERRI vs. ZERO - Demo Voices - Early work-in-progress voice acting for a cutscene between a robot named SHERRI and my ninja named Zero. SHERRI and the Doctor's voices are both done by my friend Richard, while Zero's voice is (horribly) done by a fifteen-year-old me.
Cutscene Theme 1 - Originally composed by me, and remixed excellently by our composer KungFuFurby.
Cutscene Theme 2 - Again, composed by me and remixed by KungFuFurby.
Cutscene Theme 3 - Same as above two.
Cutscene Theme 2 (Demo) - Original version of above song that was made by me.
Cutscene Theme 3 (Demo) - Same as previous.
Forces of the Twilight - Battle theme from RPG Maker remixed by KungFuFurby. We planned on using for... something? Some kind of battle. I don't remember.
Opening Theme Ver 3.3 - Third rendition of the opening theme. BGM is a remix of "Prologue" from SotN. Vocals by my friend Richard.

Mostly just music, but the soundtrack was the best part of what we had, and really the only remaining thing we've got. It was never completed, but a hefty number of tracks exist -- 41 as a matter of fact! I'm gonna bundle them all up and release them eventually.

But yeah. I felt like sharing this with you all as it's one of my biggest mistakes, and a huge lesson in being over-ambitious. The mistakes from it and how awful I became during it even led me to be embarrassed to go by my online handle of "Zaurask" afterward, which is why I signed up as "Claimh Solais" here. I don't even use the "Zaurask" handle at all anymore, which is good cuz I made it when I was 12 and the full name was "Zaurask Snakebite" and while it comes from Dungeon Siege it sounds extremely edgy. I've since really learned from this, which is why I'm not embarrassed anymore. I thought that maybe sharing this with you all would probably be a good thing.

So that's the end of my story!

[Shiroi Koumori]

Whew, that was a long read.

Think about the good side of this: You made the mistake when you were young, at least now you are wiser from that experience.

As for the dead harddrive, I had the hell of a scare when my desktop died while I'm writing my undergraduate thesis. It was a good thing that I printed out hard copies for manual editing.

[Claimh Solais]

Funnily enough, I actually chopped quite a bit out of it. After writing it out I was all, "Ooooookay, no one in their right mind would read this." lol. But yeah, the whole thing has been a huge learning experience for me. I know my limits now. I know what I can and can't do. And it also made me realize that maybe game design isn't what I'm cut out for. I know that could sound like I'm being hard on myself, but I felt relieved when I came to that conclusion. I've been doing a lot of comics lately, and honestly, I'm much better at it and have so much more fun doing it.

That's not all really either. I've started taking serious care of my computers. I give them regular maintenance, make sure they're in tip-top shape. Other things like my monitor and such aren't in such precarious positions like before. One thing I didn't mention in that whole post above is that I actually shared a room with three other people while I was trying to develop that game, and we didn't have room for a computer desk. My computer setup was on my bed, tower and all, which was on a top bunk. I knocked my monitor off and it smashed on the floor, so that's the story on how that broke. Basically, I have a desk now. lol

Also, I'm sure anyone who knows me knows that I seriously need to get into the habit of backing my data up. Most of my computer problems lately could be solved if I just went out and bought a USB drive. lol

[Mooning Freddy]

Good lord man! If I were you, I would be proud.
A friend I had in the army once told me: never regret anything that you've done. It made you into what you are today.
It doesn't mean you never make mistakes that you later regret. But if through failure you improved and learned a lot, then it was not a wasted time! Only a learning experience.
Nothing to be embarressed about.
Last year I wrote about a hundred pages of a novel I'd want to publish one day. I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but despite the fact the novel is on hold until I finish my studies, I'm a hundred pages closer to completing it! 

[theANdROId]

Seriously, the fact that you got so far and were (as far as I'm concerned) so focused is pretty amazing in my mind!  To this day I'm horrible at having about 1 billion started-yet-incomplete projects and another 3 billion ideas I "wanna do someday" and I'm well over 14 years old!  One might think I'd have gotten better at that by now!

As for the dead harddrive, I had the hell of a scare when my desktop died while I'm writing my undergraduate thesis. It was a good thing that I printed out hard copies for manual editing.

Glad to hear that all worked out!  During my masters classes I had two scares where technology threatened to destroy my hard work! :-S  Thankfully, luck was smiling at me both times and I was able to save my skin!

[zangetsu468]

Dante Must Die.. Or be paid 

[X]

That's quite the life story Claimh Solais! I'm kinda in the same boat as theANdROId, however no-matter how many projects I want to do or how long they take me, I will never make a profit off of any of them. I'm of a mind (my mind of course) where artistic talent should not be used to gain wealth. I can make money through other means, but I'd be very happy knowing that I created something and sent it off to everyone to enjoy without the "issues" of money to consider.

[Claimh Solais]

Yeah, I've definitely strayed away from game development as my passion, as I've realized I... well, I wasn't passionate about it. Going on for that long, it hit a point where I just didn't want to do it anymore, and I stopped. I still mess around with things like RPG Maker or Clickteam Fusion for fun, building simple stuff every now and again, but that's really it.

My passion is comics. For over a year now, I've been working on my comic series The Fate of Keisuke, and I recently completed the second story arc. It's been ongoing for over a year now and there are 60 chapters of it out currently. (Currently on temporary hiatus before the third arc) This whole thing was eye-opening for me and while it was a pretty embarrassing collapse, I came out of it better.

I'm of a mind (my mind of course) where artistic talent should not be used to gain wealth. I can make money through other means, but I'd be very happy knowing that I created something and sent it off to everyone to enjoy without the "issues" of money to consider.

I'm mostly like this. My comic has been free-to-read from the get-go. You can read it on the Facebook page I made for it (since I still haven't sourced it over to other sites), and they're free to download. I do want to do this stuff professionally one day, though. Which is why I'm forcing myself into deadlines (did them weekly. Every Friday a new 10-page chapter would be out). I'm happy with how it's turned out so far, and I'm currently in the process of writing the next arc.

[Mooning Freddy]

That's quite the life story Claimh Solais! I'm kinda in the same boat as theANdROId, however no-matter how many projects I want to do or how long they take me, I will never make a profit off of any of them. I'm of a mind (my mind of course) where artistic talent should not be used to gain wealth. I can make money through other means, but I'd be very happy knowing that I created something and sent it off to everyone to enjoy without the "issues" of money to consider.

No shame in capitalizing from what you're good at. Art has no price but an artist must eat. And there are loads of ways to do it now, with kickstater, patreon, etc.

[Shiroi Koumori]

No shame in capitalizing from what you're good at. Art has no price but an artist must eat. And there are loads of ways to do it now, with kickstater, patreon, etc.

Or do what I do, commissions on the side.

[Claimh Solais]

I'm not totally confident enough to actually be at the point of charging for my work, commissions or otherwise. I do wish to one day author comics professionally, but as it is now, I don't even create my own artwork. All of it is made through Manga Maker. And while it is legal to sell the comics you make through it (dug through multiple FAQs and the company confirms you can), I don't really feel right about it since it's artwork just about anyone can do. (Though, to be fair, I've done so much with the program that you shouldn't be able to do, since the program is built to create school-based slice-of-life manga.)

[X]

I don't really feel right about it since it's artwork just about anyone can do. (Though, to be fair, I've done so much with the program that you shouldn't be able to do, since the program is built to create school-based slice-of-life manga.)

People a very versatile beings. We can make even basic computer programs do things the designers never intended, or even contemplated about. If it can be done, it'll be done.

And while it you may feel that using a computer program to make manga doesn't feel like it's truly coming from you, I'd have to disagree. Some people out there simply can't do art and yet want to. Utilising a manga program to do this is like a dream come true. Don't feel bad at all for relying on a tool to help you achieve what you want. The program is merely assisting you, while it is you yourself that is bringing about the creation of your ideas.

[Claimh Solais]

And while it you may feel that using a computer program to make manga doesn't feel like it's truly coming from you, I'd have to disagree. Some people out there simply can't do art and yet want to. Utilising a manga program to do this is like a dream come true. Don't feel bad at all for relying on a tool to help you achieve what you want. The program is merely assisting you, while it is you yourself that is bringing about the creation of your ideas.

No, what I mean is the artwork in Manga Maker is literally something anyone can do. You pick from pre-made outfits, faces, and hairstyles and apply them to a character model, and then choose from pre-set poses to place them into the manga. It's equivalent to the character creation in a video game without much in the way of customization. The artwork really is nothing special.

The part not anyone can do is the stuff I managed to do with the program, in working around its limitations. The program is only designed to make a slice-of-life dramedy manga taking place in a school setting, but I've managed to work in a few action scenes, gratuitous violence, unorthodox scenes like people being tied to chairs, etc. All of which required me to use multiple character models for one pose. I've been far more creative with it than pretty much anyone I've seen use it.

The creativity with the program I am most definitely proud of. However, at the end of the day, I'm still using character models and backgrounds provided to me that I didn't make. Even the backgrounds I use that aren't from the program are just pulled from a random Google image search. So while I'm legally allowed to profit off the manga, I don't feel right doing so since 80% of the work was already done for me.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Actually you can profit from it.
Look at all the vocaloid producers sitting down with money in Japan.