Sooner or later, you just have to put it out there. So here it is. The beginning. Promo 1. In Mongril’s words.
I’ve always struggled with ‘when’ will Carny Island be ready? Is it ready?
I have often said had the technology available to me today been around 30 years ago, this is what The Video Board Game Nightmare and ATMOSFEAR – and its sequels – would have looked and felt like.
Bent horror.
I had always hoped the rift between me and my partner in A Couple ‘A Cowboys Phillip Tanner would have healed enough to release this under the Nightmare banner.
It has only widened and deepened over the years.
And that’s probably a good thing.
Carny Island needs to stand on its own four feet.
As a passion project, the game has had the luxury of going through many iterations over the years.
Each one has improved the game play, enhanced the characters and emboldened the art.
I don’t believe I have hidden under the blanket of development.
The game just didn’t have enough secret sauce.
Then along came Motion in Adobe‘s Fresco, freeing me to animate – admittedly in 12-frame increments but it is animation enough to tell the story.
Then I struck on the idea of telling the story of the game in empathy with the antagonists – Crookwood’s evil undertaker Uncle Shrift and his canine sidekick Mongril – instead of the protagonist. (The player).
This put a unique spin on it as I found myself really relating to their purpose – protecting the Crookwood cemetery from desecration.
The Player now becomes the Villain.
This has also caused me to re-think Uncle Shrift‘s personality. Up until now it has been pretty foul and abrasive.
I now find myself wanting to re-write much of his dialogue so he vacillates between good, bent and bad.
This new twist ads more intellect. Demands much more creative writing.
There will be a Potty Mouth mode but it will be a choice.
As much the sense of humour in Carny Island is Australian, I’ve embraced our culture, setting the game in a country called Stralia.
Mongril has a thick Australian accent and there’s a few moments when he’s seriously deranged.
You might detect the change when he starts talking about meat making for good eatin’. Shudder!
I laid down Mongril’s Voice Over in the newly soundproofed van (Thanks to Linda), using a Shure podcasting mike plugged into the Rodecaster Pro and recorded it in Garage Band with ‘Narration’ as an effect to give it some depth.
Pro Logic is on the menu for some serious tutorials.
I exported the segments from Fresco as PNGs then imported the file into Photoshop as an image sequence at 25 frames per-second. I cut the promo in Final Cut. I used SLOW at 50% to increase their length. This had no visible impact on the quality.
For effects, I turned to artlist.io – seriously the best resource for sound and music I have come across.
Promo 1 will obviously be updated as I refine more elements. I hope you like this first glimpse into Carny Island.