Thoughts on the Project

So far I've identified a fistful of potential projects in past works I've developed:

1 - "Maddox," a concept for a web sitcom I developed some time ago, as an interactive game. My worry about it is that it will inevitably wander too close to Sam & Max as it's very similar in tone and concept.

2 - A new project based somewhat on the concepts I'm analyzing in Deus Ex, based on neutralizing a terrorist threat or hostage situation. Depending on how this gets defined it may turn out too heavy on gameplay and too light on thematic elements.

3 - "La Tarasca," a story a friend and I developed for a game some time ago revolving around a fellow named Edward Jones, a city slicker who returns to his hometown of La Tarasca on the border of Texas and Mexico to solve the mystery of his sister's death. It's a historical western, one of the important aspects about the town being that nobody in it is who the player would want to have doing their job. The priest is also the town bartender, for instance, the town undertaker is the most exuberant, friendly man in town--and always looking for the player's business--and the telegraph operator is a nice old lady who hogs the telegraph to gossip with someone at the other end of the line. Nothing I pick is free from ambition, but I fear this one may be among the most ambitious projects I can pick. It's also the one I'm most excited about thus far.

The other unsolved question in all this is what platform I'm going to use. I've been leaning towards Unreal, but there's the chance that a ten-week deadline may be imposed on this project next quarter as my friend Adam Price has an interest in incorporating it into his Studio 2 and Unreal... tends to be a little unfriendly. It's the most powerful tool there is for what we're trying to do, but Unrealscript is a very obtuse language with little resources as opposed to Unity, which is extremely open but not as powerful. One way or another I'm going to need to devote a good portion of my time in the next several weeks toying with both of these to see what I can do with these.