Thursday 12 July 2012

Mixed Media in Vinland

So back in March I began to discuss the background to MixedMedia writing, and how it is currently being used by others in the industry; but then how does this feed into the Vinland world, and my own plans with it?

Well at the moment, there are two sides to my work here, the games and the books. I have big plans for both, as laid out below. Films will (hopefully!) come later, but nothing concrete is planned for that medium just yet.

Books; if you were among the first readers of this blog, then you will be well aware that it all began with an idea for a book. This in time became Vinland: Revelations, a text that I am still labouring diligently away at. It all began with an idea... what if the Vikings survived in America? What in history would have to change for this to happen? To explain this, I applied the Butterfly Effect, where one seemingly minor change in time can cause a dramatic transformation of history. Therefore we need a situation just like the butterfly flapping its wings, and causing a hurricane.

The event I settled on takes place in the early history of Vinlandic exploration and colonisation, and was at the time attributed to the intervention of the gods. But these gods are fickle creatures, and in this telling they chose not to intervene, and rather to let events play themselves out. The result? Well that is up to you to discover.

Revelations was created to explain how the Vikings made it to the New World, it will then spawn a parallel series that will take place sometime later and covers how the Viking people in this alien world have developed and made it their home.

Games; now that the bones of the story have been set, we find that we need something to fill in the gaps or detail, and games happen to be very good at doing this. They allow the player to actually visit and take part in the setting, and to see with their own eyes the wonders seen by the characters, their decisions there can really matter.  

As you will be aware, our first release was Vinland: Arctic Assault, a simple game which traces the journey undertaken by Leif Erikson in Revelations (now released on Desura, please do support this project by following the link below!), however this is more about survival and discovery. Where the book concentrates more on the characters and their personal challenges, the game is more about the dangers faced at sea, and by actually putting the player in the role of the helmsman, makes this nuance all the clearer.

Desura Digital Distribution

Arctic Assault is certainly not the end of the road for this, we have already begun work on a second game. Although this one is not directly related to the Vinland series, it will use Vinlandic factions, and allow us to build up a little more detail on the different factions in power, and their relationships with each other. The ultimate goal of this game is to provide the technical backdrop for a full on RPG, set in early Vinland, where the player will be able to visit the towns detailed in the books, and using those as a base, evoking and expanding on topics only touched upon briefly in other mediums, thereby allowing us to broaden the Vinland universe. 

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