Today we introduce the official writer of Lila’s fiction: Ted Ludzik.
Writer, actor, and all around really smart guy, Ted has been a tremendous asset to the project since he began collaborating with us about a month ago. Bringing his own style to the game’s world, he’ll weave the words to chronicle Lila’s ups and downs.
So, here we present a short vignette from some of the experimental stories being created to help us define Lila’s life in all its dimensions. In this brief excerpt, Lila is at her grandmother’s funeral reception, which is taking place at her grandmother’s house.
(Disclaimer: the events herein may or may not be in the final canon of Lila’s story. We’re still exploring possibilities.)
Lila hadn’t realized the turmoil that had been roiling under her skin. Like a greasy-backed sea serpent three inches below the surface of an algae choked Sargasso, she had been alone with her frustrated sadness upstairs. In the midst of her “closest” family, she had flailed with a hydra of simmering anger and was befuddled by how she was supposed to act in a never-before-experienced situation. Nobody told her how to do this yet!
But her jaw released and what her dad described as “the only pouting smile on the face of the planet” and “Lila’s lip mushroom!” began to billow up.
With her dad’s butt sticking out of the dishwasher, she couldn’t help but smile.
In his best suit (which was half a decade out of style), he was scooping out small wads of tomato chunks, bloated spaghetti strands and amorphous dollops of dishwasher-digested globs.
“Izzat dinner, dads?”
Startled, Lila’s dad spasmed a little further into the gloom of the washer. Bravely, he clambered back out, his caterpillar thick brows rose in greeting, “Naw, just some maintenance.” He looked almost fondly at the dead food gathered in his hand. He stuck it up towards her, “Unless you’re hungry?”
“Ewgh! I’m all good, thanks.”
He kneeled to standing and shook his hand into the garbage can, then washed the remainder out in Grandma’s white porcelain sink.
Lila talked over the gush of water. “I thought she never used that thing. She was a hand washer, wasn’t she?”
Dad dried his paws on the tattered rag that hung off the oven’s wood-patterned handle. “Yeah. But she was feeling pretty dragged out those last few weeks. Amazed she even had enough mustard to get up and dirty a few dishes.
“How are you doing, pod?”
Pod. His first ever nickname for her. Born before Lila was born; it came from her dad’s favourite veggie from Grandma’s garden and the furious cell-division that was carbonating in his wife’s pregnant tummy. His little pea-pod.
His work as mechanical engineer changed things up occasionally; she was also his “favorite little cog;” when she misbehaved, it was “Spanner;” when she was acting all goofy, she transformed into his “wankle rotary engine.” But now, even as she started to wrangle teenhood by its grade five horns, she retained the “Pod” moniker.
How was she? “Um, I dunno, kinda… empty?”
“I think you did a lot of your, mm, accepting while she was sick,” he said to her, but his eyes were looking through the yellowing lace curtains hanging off the kitchen sink window.
“Is that what it was? I thought I had turned into a drippy snot-machine.” At her dad’s subtle smirk, she asked gently, “Whaddaboutyou? I didn’t see you cry at all.”
The smirk flattened and his pupils suddenly seemed miles deep. Kneeling back to the dishwasher he stated quietly, “Well, like your mom says, ‘We all grieve in our own way.’”
His torso crawled back into the maw of the dishwasher and his elbows began to produce more grease.
And, here’s your weekly concept art: buildings from a city called Experius.
16 comments ↓
Like the concept art.
-Really- like the Lila backstory. Getting a glimpse of the setting/Lila, so to speak, heh. The writing is kind of surreal, as though we were seeing things through the eyes of a child.
Her dad seems just a smidge out of touch - doing maintenance work in a suit?
Mister Ludzik looks like he’s ready to kill something.
Interesting writing; how will it affect the actual game?
I like the concept behind the backstory, but the writing is a little turgid. Maybe hire an editor as well?
(colour me “blue meanie”)
Great writing, very easy to visulize in my mind while reading it
I think at this point, I am almost scared of this game… I mean it just seems all too amazing! Amazing things like this can sometimes never come to fruition so I really hope you guys just keep on truckin…
Keep up the great artwork, ideas, writings, and vision!
Show gamers the potential that games are capable of when created by independent creative people who aren’t in it just for the money, like corporations.
Omit needless words.
O ho! I thoroughly enjoyed that! The snippit of conceptual backstory is most appreciated. The tone is slightly lighter than how I original imagined it, but I can easily say that I really like this style of narrative. I still can’t wait to see how it continues to evolve…
Konig: TY! Yep, I agree. Her dad is a bit of a character. Hopefully his mini-oddball-ness lends support to the reasons why Lila has created a whole world in her brain.
Mister Lorne: Kill? No. Maim? Perhaps. Playfully cuff on the shoulder? Always. Actually that’s my 8×10 for auditions and such. Since I’m almost always going for the choice Thug#1 roles, I gave them the ol’ “hairy eyeball” grimace right up front.
And how will the writing affect the game… that’s a question for our wonderful Creative Mule, Jason.
Erigami: Editors?! Editors can’t breathe the atmosphere in indie game land; that’s one of the reasons i’m here, to feel the breeze flapping the wattles under my creative chin!
Kevbo: Thank you sir! And yeah, great expectations can lead to great disappointment. But my faith is in Jason and the Creatrix crew. I think you’ll see that they’re something special.
Strunk: Guess I should burn my Stan “The Man” Lee School of Viviacious Verbose Vernacularity diploma, huh? I’m no Poe…
I tend to go less mathematical than he,
Emotional output is my constancy.
— Tedgar Allan Poo
Okamo: Thanks, Okie! Yeah this 3rd sub-chapter (the other 2 haven’t been posted here) was my attempt to balance out the deep darkity doomness a tad. She is after all an 11 year old. They’ve got that emotional swing going on, as I recollect.
It’s cool to see a glimpse at Lila, who’s been mentioned so many times, but we really knew nothing about. I Okamo, it does seem lighter than I expected. But it’s written in a way that’s easy to visualize, but there do seem to be needless adjectives in there.
Anyways, good work as always!
Like the game, this story stuff is pre-alpha.
So, we will be polishing it up along the way.
But, for me at least, the important thing is the ideas. The execution (ie, writing style) can be refined and shaped, but if the ideas are not there to begin with, well…. ya can’t polish a *you know what*
Good on Ted, says I! There are some really cool character ideas in the other short pieces he wrote. (Do we get all David Lynch on people, or go more middle of the road? Probably some kind of sensible mix.)
There’s more to come.
Nice writing. Great to here some more from the story now too.
Wow. Can you possibly mix any more metaphors in that purple prose?
First emotions are roiling under her skin. Then she’s a serpent (greasy at that!) roiling under the water (the Sargasso Sea, even!). Now she’s no longer the serpent, she’s fighting with it (a hydra! a hydra of simmering anger!).
Throw on top of that ludicrous dialogue — is Lila an idiot-savant? — awkward characters, uneven pacing, and a tedious scene and we have fiction PERFECT, just PERFECT for gaming. Huzzah! Games are art!!!!!! See, they’re boring and self-important and impenetrable and roccoco. Three cheers!
Like Jason said… it’s very early in the process, but thanks to ALL for their comments. It really does help me/us to focus, and certain comments charged me up to make the character and characterizations, and the writing, completely impregnable.
I like the premise of the story, but I’m going to have to vote for omitting some of the more verbose sections. That second sentence (”Like a greasy-backed sea serpent three inches below the surface of an algae choked Sargasso…”) almost made me want to just stop reading. It often seems as if there is text there simply for the sake of adding descriptors.
I look forward to seeing the game as it comes together!
This question comes a little late, but since it’s somewhat related to backstory I’ll put it here: If the game does get big enough to be hosted on one more than one server (sure hope it does!), wouldn’t there be different outcomes for which emotional faction gets control of Lila’s mood, and therefore different versions on each server for how Lila reacts to a given situation? Or would they all be totalled up to yield a single progression of emotions? And if not, wouldn’t that mean Lila’s life diverges into multiple storylines? I’m assuming that Lila’s life is an ongoing event while Lila’s Dreams has players on it.
Reply would be appreciated, but if this comes too late (or the idea of multiple servers too early), then that’s alright.
Do please keep up the work, it’s looking pretty good so far ^.~
Neko, in the event that there are multiple servers, there will be different moods on each. There is not really a single linear narrative, so diverging conditions across servers shouldn’t present too much trouble in that regard.
However, it might mean that each character will be locked to the server it starts on. I haven’t thought about that quite yet.
Thanks for the feedback!
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