Tagged: art

The Ten Million Invocations of Esnesnon 22/02/2022

You might have come across The Ten Million Invocations of Esnesnon before – it was my entry for IntroComp 2020, and later published in Issue 2 of Backslash Lit – but previously, unless you yourself were extremely dedicated, there was little hope of ever seeing the later invocations. At four per minute (the rate at which they’re recited), it would take the best part of two days to get through just the first ten thousand – a tiny fraction of the full ten million.

This new version – The Ten Million Invocations of Esnesnon 22/02/2022 – is a little different. Rather than reciting the invocations only while you personally are running the thing, it will run through them non-stop regardless of whether or not anyone is watching. At 222 milliseconds after 22:22 on 22/02/2022 (GMT), it’ll show Invocation 1:

Continue reading →

Clowning Around

Flash Fiction Month 2021, Day 19

The doors of the museum burst inwards with an inexplicable fart noise, causing everybody at the event to look in that direction and one particularly sensitive socialite to faint immediately.

A cloud of evil purple smoke swirled inside, and out of it stepped a sinister clown-faced figure. “Wait ‘till they get a load of me,” he said, twirling a cane.

He was soon followed by a small crowd of goons and what appeared to be a hyaena wearing a crop top and hot pants. Continue reading →

Asdfghjpoopingassassfartbutt

Flash Fiction Month 2021, Day 11

In the words of the immortal bard— Yes, it’s all one word. But—No, it’s not just placeholder text that the graphic designer forgot to update. It’s— Well, if you’d just give me a minute I’d be explaining it right now! Is this an artists’ introduction or just some free-for-all?

Thank you. Sorry. I didn’t mean to fly off the handle like that. It’s been a difficult week.

And actually, now that I think about it, maybe this is a bit of a free-for-all. I may be the “sculptor.” I may be the person whose vision is streaking through the heavens. But any undertaking on such an astronomical scale is inevitably a team effort, and I think we’ve all been aware of that from the very beginning. Continue reading →

Announcing Project Ptocheia

Things have been busy for the past several months so I haven’t been as active online as I’d like, but I have been working on several very interesting projects in the background. One of those is Project Ptocheia.

This is something a little different to most of my interactive work. It’s not primarily concerned with narrative, more with eliciting a certain response through a combination of procedurally generated instrumental music designed to accompany a pre-recorded video montage. I’m obviously very fond of traditional branching path narratives, but having become well familiar with Twine by now, I’m interested in exploring some of the more ambitious multimedia tools on offer. I firmly believe that these online creations can prompt real-world change.

This is also something of a trial run for a few of those other projects I’ve got in the works. I still hope someday to release Girth Loinhammer and the Quest for the Unsee Elixir as a gamebook, and naturally there’ll be an HTML version to go along with it. I’m well familiar with how to release paperbacks and ebooks, but less so how to go about publishing a commercial game through itch.io. So Project Ptocheia is my first attempt at that! Don’t worry, though: it runs in-browser, and it’s pay-what-you-want. There’s no obligation to fork over any money just to give it a go – just a gentle hint within the game itself that if you’d like to support my work, that’s one way to do it.

Flash Fiction Month Omnibus – Send Me Your Artwork!

I’m putting together an illustrated omnibus of all my Flash Fiction Month pieces from 2012 to 2017, and I need your help! This thing will include 186 stories – 31 for each of the first six years I took part in the event – and I’d like at least a significant portion to have an image to go with them. Read on even if you’re not an artist: it matters less than you’d think!

This Google sheet lists the full selection of stories, organised by year (as well as a link to each one to refresh your memory). Produce an illustration for any of them – even if it’s just a doodle on a napkin – and I’ll consider it for inclusion in the book. I don’t promise to add in everything that’s sent, but I don’t rule it out either! Here are some tips to maximise your chances:

  • The images will probably be included on their own page, which means it’s preferable for each one to be portrait (taller than it is wide).
  • Colour illustrations are absolutely fine (and people reading on phones and tablets will see them in all their glory), but bear in mind the interior of the paperback will be printed in black and white. Most e-readers will show the images in greyscale too.
  • Bigger is better. I can always shrink or crop a large image to fit the book, but I can’t do anything to conjure more pixels out of a smaller one!
  • Scans are preferable to photographs (if you’re working on paper/canvas/whatever). Each of my #draw365 images is just hastily snapped with my smartphone, and they really suffer because of it. If you don’t have access to a scanner, this blog post offers some handy tips on how to get good photos (even on a phone).

If you’d like to submit an illustration, simply add your name and a hyperlink to the Google sheet. That’s all there is to it, but if you’d like to tell your friends too then that would really help me out a lot!

The goal here is ideally to have one illustration for each of the 186 stories in the book. I’d settle for less, and I might consider more, but that one per story seems like something to aim for. Obviously nobody’s had a chance to ask any questions yet – let alone frequently – but here’s an FAQ anyway.

An FAQ Anyway:

Q: Will I get paid for this?

A: No.

Q: Will I at least get a copy of the book?

A: If I end up using your artwork, I’ll send you a free ebook! I’ll probably send one even if I don’t.

Q: Why should I send you my work for free?

A: Literally the only reason is “Because you want to.” If you don’t, then don’t. Absolutely do not consider doing this for exposure. That’s a terrible idea in general and in this particular case I can’t even promise it’ll get your work in front of a significant audience.

Q: No, seriously, is there any reason I should get involved with this thing?

A: I think it’ll be fun! If you like any of the stories I’ve produced for Flash Fiction Month, this is a chance to engage with them and create something for future readers to enjoy. If you just like drawing and want to get involved with a big project, that’s great too!

Q: What’ll happen if you get more than one illustration for the same story?

A: I’ll probably just choose my favourite and the other(s) will go unused. However, if it’s a long-ish story then I may be able to fit both in.

Q: How should I add my name and link to the spreadsheet if someone else has already illustrated that story?

A: Just stick them in the next available cells on that row. I don’t anticipate that there’ll be too much competition.

Q: What’s stopping me doing an absolutely rubbish scribble just to get a free book?

A: Nothing. Scribble away! But again, there’s no guarantee I’ll use it and therefore no guarantee of a free book. (This is the internet: I acknowledge the possibility that 5,000 people will send me a hastily scrawled dickbutt, but I’m not emailing out books for the privilege.)

Q: Can I submit more than one illustration?

A: Yes, submit as many as you like!

Q: You’ve emphasised that quality isn’t much of a concern, but I’ve got an idea for something really good! Will that look out of place?

A: I certainly hope not! I hope that people will endeavour to produce work of the highest possible quality, much as I did when producing these six years’ worth of stories. However, I realise that people may find they don’t always quite manage to achieve their own expectations, as I did when producing these six years’ worth of stories.

Q: What exactly am I letting you do with my artwork?

A: By submitting an illustration you are granting me the non-exclusive right to reproduce that image for commercial and non-commercial purposes, which is what I need to make, sell, and promote the omnibus. You maintain all the rights you would have if I weren’t using the image at all (which is actually kind of a grey area when it comes to fan art, but I’m not exactly going to sue people for drawing things I’ve invited them to draw!).

Q: I’ve already drawn fan art of one of these stories! Can I submit that?

A: Yes! I actively encourage it.

Q: I’ve already drawn something that wasn’t specifically based on one of these stories, but might as well have been. Can I submit that?

A: Yes, that’s fine too.

Q: Is there a deadline for this?

A: Not currently, though I’d like to be able to release the omnibus sometime in 2020.

That’s it!

If you’d like to submit an illustration (or a few!) then here’s that link to the spreadsheet again. Even if not, I hope you’ll consider sharing this around. I think it could be a neat project, and I’d like anyone who might be interested to have a chance to get involved.

#draw365 – a Drawing a Day

I’m not a big fan of New Year resolutions, but January 1st is a handy time to start a new project just for ease of keeping track. This year, I’ve been producing one drawing every single day (and this’ll likely be old news if you follow me on Twitter). It started – as so many fun things do – with Satan trying very hard to play the trombone.

I should probably mention at this point that I am not an artist. I sort of lucked out in that this first sketch of Satan pursuing his dream of playing in a jazz band was both amusing at a glance and not too poorly executed. It’s also kind of a nice frontispiece to the whole project, with the begoateed Prince of Darkness attempting an artistic endeavour despite a lack of any real progress to build on (though doesn’t work the other way around, as I’ve already been in a jazz band). Continue reading →

Lovely Pleasant Teatime Simulator

I have a brand new Twine game for you, and this one comes with Prizes!

Lovely Pleasant Teatime Simulator is a relaxing narrative game about—

Actually, you know what? I’m not gonna bother. You know this isn’t really a straightforward Afternoon Tea simulator, and I know you know, so there’s really no point in me typing up a description pretending that it is. Continue reading →

Codename Caerus Application Deadline Extended to June 7th

Codename Caerus – my portfolio-building game project – has had a phenomenal level of interest since I announced it a couple of weeks ago, and although I’ve yet to look through all the example pieces people have sent in, I’m now pretty much certain we’ll be able to get a great team together. Every role has at least one person going for it, and in most cases more than that. I’ve been hugely impressed by some of the work people have chosen to share.

However, if you’ve been meaning to put your name forward to work on this game and haven’t yet got around to it, don’t worry. You haven’t missed your chance.

I’m still on the lookout for anyone else who’d like to work on this thing!

In a way, you’ve actually got more of a chance than you did when I first announced this project because I’m extending the deadline to apply. When I decided to stop taking applications at the end of the month, I neglected to consider that I’d be attending Feral Vector from May 31st to June 2nd. Continue reading →

Codename Caerus

So I made a trip to London for EGX Rezzed last month, and up until now I’ve totally neglected to write anything about it for two reasons:

  1. I’m still just a little freaked out over how many people recognised me as “that Girth Loinhammer guy.”
  2. The event gave me an idea for something big and it took a while to come up with a plan for it:

I want to get a team together to make a game.

At this point I feel as though I’ve got a pretty good number of games to my name – I’ve even set up a separate website as a portfolio – but it would really help to have a few more team projects out there for people to enjoy. I expect plenty of other people are in the same position. So far I’ve mostly worked alone, and (with the exception of the two commercially released videogames I’ve had a hand in) when I haven’t it’s generally been for Game Jams. Game Jams are great, of course, but the results are never particularly polished and they don’t really demonstrate the ability to work with a team on an extended project. As a writer, I don’t feel as though there are all that many opportunities already out there. Some, certainly, but far from oodles.

That’s why I’m planning to set something up: not having a title for the game itself yet, I’ll refer to this whole endeavour as Codename Caerus for now. This will be an opportunity for anybody who wants to get more of a foothold in games to work on something polished and substantial as part of a team. Continue reading →

The One and Only

Flash Fiction Month 2017, Day 2

Captain Caulk stared in amazement at the cache of treasures tucked away in the basement of the Château d’Erfitter. Just like that, the missing Sisley was the least of his concerns. Here were The Scream, The Thinker, The Mona Lisa! The theft of any one of these works could be considered the crime of the century, and yet these acts had gone completely undetected. What mastermind could have executed such a scheme? And what villain would resist taking credit for such a success?

There came a slow clap from the shadows. “Félicitations, Captain.” A man in an opera cape and a domino mask stepped forth to rest a hand on the buttocks of Michaelangelo’s David. “Vraiment, you are the real McCoy. Few others could have uncovered my little enterprise.”

“Who are you?” demanded Captain Caulk, falling for none of this flattery, “and what have you done with the Count?”

“Ohhh.” The villain tutted. “And just like that you ruin it. For you see, in truth…” he removed his mask and shook out his silver curls, “the Count d’Erfitter and the soon to be notorious Count Erfitter are one and the same!”

“That’s a pretty poor secret identity,” observed Captain Caulk, who could at a moment’s notice don his heroic Glasses of Obfuscation to become mild mannered reporter Clint Cark.

“Is it?” asked Count Erfitter, passing behind a pillar. When he emerged, he was wearing the mask once more. “Or is it a very convincing copy?” Continue reading →