Houses
Since I have started some redecorating with my blog (wip! but i really do like the background actually....some other parts WIP...though!) which is inspired by The House in Fata Morgana as well as my own gothic tendencies, it got me thinking of a bunch of other games which I got into after it.
For me, that game was so exceptional, so beautiful, and came to me at such a perfect time. I'm a few years too late hehe but....I am writing a review for it in my game review section. It is quite unfinished, but I plan to put soo much in there, plus an analysis on each door because I replayed it last year and there was...so much.
Nevertheless, I have always been a huge visual novel buff... I have read probably most of the big names, while avoiding some of them by nature of being...weird. Regardless, VNs hold a super duper special place in my heart as it was the medium which first inspired me quite some years ago now to make something, anything.
When I saw the capabilities of being locked into a supposed medium, and what you can truly do with it inspired me to start writing my own, albeit...scrambled stories.
I never played too much with Renpy, but what I did find out was just how easy it was. My dream goal is to write and publish...something! Most likely a more basic VN, that is, more like a kinetic novel, which I love too...
I have ideas for interesting mechanics, with genre switches and mixed media being my favorite. I want to create, and have created some things already/written, but it'll be a while before it all gets put to fruition. Some years ago now, about 4 years, I sat at this wobbly little round table with an old friend of mine; there were plans to make a visual novel or something once. I may have left that person, but those dreams never died, and there will be a time, where I will realize that dream. I don't wanna do it alone, I want to work with someone.
Ere I get too off topic, after Fata Morgana I sought, and sought many games that were just like it. It was only natural, and while I found some gothic stories, there was one VN which, funnily enough, stood above the rest as reminding me ever so much of Fata Morgana.
For me that would be the...goodness, the one and only Umineko, which came out BEFORE Fata Morgana, and is one of the most aclaimed VNs of all time of course...but still. The music, the Ushiromiya Family's Mansion, and Rokkenjima itself all were exactly what I was looking for. They're very different pieces of work, but it was the closet one for me. I actually never finished it yet, but I do know most of the major major spoilers. I've only got around 30 hours total which, in the scheme of all of Umineko, is not much. I was around the time looking for a great game to play on the treadmill also, and Umineko was a mostly kinetic novel which provided that option, a sort of habit of mine.
The length of the novel is what drew me in.
It was also around the same time I learned of a book called House of Leaves though. It is now quite well known and I believe popuarlized by social media, but I remember digging through pages and pages of VN recs after Fata Morgana until finding it. Okay so it's a book, but ergodic literature which is difficult to traverse on purpose is my favorite, I love solving a mystery. See...this is where Umineko comes into play as well! Umineko also ties in with my favorite manga Golden Kamuy because there are both massive piles of gold but I am getting too ahead of myself, I love so many things!
Since I'm doing my yearly Fata Morgana return though, I've been decrypting these various pieces of media for a while in my head. Not really in a mystery solving sort of way but in a "they were there for me" kind of way.
To bring up Umineko again, I should probably continue reading it soon, along with House of Leaves...something I love is to get into something and kind of fully ingest it. For Umineko I wish to cosplay Battler and Beatrice at some point, I've had those ideas rummaging around for a while...I really like them both but, ah no spoilers. >~<
I sort of became fascinated by stories revolving around houses though, and everything, every little thing which can go on there. Etched memories in the walls...fragments....and there's me who tends to have nightmares of certain houses from time to time, it both intrigues and allures me.
I wrote, over a few years, small little stories I had ideas for in my head, which were all supposed to coalesce into one big piece of history and lore. I still use those ideas in other projects of mine but purrhaps I can still use them even more.
Hm...I guess I just really love games and stories about houses. : p
One final note...tomorrow i get to see baseball, so, horray! "take me out to the ball game," isn't that the song you're supposed to sing when you see baseball?!?! I mentioned in a few posts ago but I get free food with my school so..that is so great...baseball played an integral part of my youth.
For now though, I hope everyone is taking care of themselves...
goodnight!
- Victoria