Foolish Earth Creatures: October 2026
This month I've finished the “Action Hero” chapter I talked about last month. This took longer than most chapters: as well as turning out to be one of the longest chapters in the game, a lot of it is one big fight scene, which is something I find difficult and kind of exhausting to write. Plus, about 1/3 of the way through you get to pick your badass weapon, so nearly every passage from that point on had to have separate versions for each weapon.
In order to get to this chapter at all you have to choose it over the stealthy, non-violent options, but even so I think it's turned out kind of bloodthirsty, so when I come back to revise I might try to add a less lethal alternative path. But for now, like the hero in the story, I'm pressing forward!
I'm now working on a chapter called Laboratory of Death, where the player ventures into a sinister laboratory to stop development of a bioweapon that can wipe out humanity. Appropriately enough for Halloween, I'm giving this one more of a sci-fi horror vibe.
Besides pulp sci-fi, my main inspiration for Foolish Earth Creatures is games with a villain who talks at you while you play. In this scene in particular I'm being inspired by the classic of that genre, System Shock, which has you survive a creepy space station filled with mutants while a mad computer monologues at you. But don't worry, the overall tone is still going to be “fun sci-fi adventure” and not “disturbing body horror.”
I don't think the next few chapters will be as difficult to write as big fight scene was, so I'm hoping to have some more to show next month.
Our hero has overcome the difficulty of writing an action-packed fight scene...but can his writing do justice to the horrors of the laboratory of death? Learn more in next month's developer diary...IF YOU DARE!
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In other news, the post I wrote last year about Dan Dare has inexplicably become one of the most viewed posts on this blog. So in case anyone's interested in more of that, I've started a very nerdy side-blog in which I do commentaries and analyses of the Dan Dare stories.