Terribly overwritten, especially in the opening, and clearly hammered up in a lunch-hour and lobbed on a forum, but I still like the cut of its jib near the end.

It was, basically, Cassandra’s overall plot’s themes in a short story.

KG

KG

[Taped conversation of David Kohl, Freelance Journalist specialising in videogames to unknown parties on the subject of the previous night out.]

I believe I recognize that name :P

(It was kind of a compressed version of the full Cassandra narrative – as in the character blowing up the server who was storing the game they were in)

Other Cassandra stories are still on Archive.org. It’s more little character pieces to do with the game. See here for the archive.org
http://web.archive.org/web/20070705020258/www.deusex-machina.com/cassandra-project/recon-mission1-diaries.asp

And yes – I do a bit of fiction. I have a second career as a writer of comics.
http://www.phonogramcomic.com/blog/
Is the site of my Image comic, and what I’m probably most known for.

bustedwonder.com
Is a webcomic I did with a friend.

And there’s other stuff out there I’ve done – some work for hire stuff for Marvel. I’ve a Warhammer comic coming out in a few weeks too. And a Starcraft thing. And other bits and bobs.

Axonn: Thanks!

KG

holder’s lawyers, but a terrible lack of imagination comes with such a priec.

That said, if there ARE others, I would LOVE to read them.

And big kudos for your work. Did you do any other fiction writing?

KG

Is this short story still available somewhere? I’d love to read it again.

I responded to the Cassandra Project’s original call for mappers 7 years ago. I had no experience mapping, but was upfront about it. I had tons of free time at university, and wanted to volunteer some of it for something cool. As mentioned in the article, Kieron did indeed ask for me to build something and send it to him as a tryout — a Dartmoor cottage, if I remember. Which I promised to him in several increasingly reassuring emails. And which I never sent.

Though it doesn’t excuse me from being an inconsiderate time-waster, the truth was that I did in fact spend many, many hours doing the task to completion, but was so ashamed of the unbelievable crapness of the result that I thought it better to feign disappearance than send it to Kieron.

I’ve genuinely felt guilty about this for about 7 years. And now, buried in the quiet end of a four-day-old thread, I share it with you, dear reader.

And I may as well throw in a shameless plug of something I wrote along the lines of the ‘release early, update often’ mantra. I’ll admit the article pulls examples primarily from MP mods because I play more of them, they tend to get finished more often than SP and they are more popular, making them a useful showcase for readers. There is a short section on single-player releases explaining how I think the episodic route can be made to work well (anchoring gameplay and story features to release modules).

I suppose Cargo Cult is too busy working for Valve *seethes with jealousy* to contribute to this thread…

Actually, I spent today stumbling my way through pitch-black military bunkers in obscure parts of Poland, with only the useless light on my mobile phone and the focus-assist on my camera to guide me. Sorry.

I’ll upload photos to my Flickr thingy when I’ve got time. And perhaps post a comment here once I’ve read the article. ;-)