This was going to be the last page. Sort of an explanation of the entire story.
Amazon had a children's book creation tool. I hadn't finished but I thought I would give it a try... to get an idea of how I would pace the book. Later, I filled in more of the scenes but I never really went back to redo the story overlay. Without the Princesses there didn't seem to be a point to it.
I used the app, "Paper" with a small iPad Pro 10" and an Apple Pencil. It worked out pretty well.
The only real issue was that although the app could cut out part of an image and paste it on another, once you exported it out of the app and imported back in, it lost the ability to do this. Apparently, it couldn't recognize the layers... even though it made them itself.
See how the empty room is now full? All copied from another toy-filled picture I drew (shown at the end). I re-used a lot of assets to make the story without getting too burned out.
'Paper' was a very nice app to use but it lacked the ability to rotate or flip the images you were moving from one frame to another. You could export, edit, and then re-import but then you lost the ability to recognize layers and you could only copy the empty layer. Not too useful.
Here was supposed to be a scene of the Pricessess showing off their powers. Since its blank, please imagine awesome art and feats of superpowers FAR beyond my ability to draw.
Some of the tiny trees were copied and pasted to provide thickness. I never got the granularity I wanted. I wanted to speckle the trees as you would with a real brush but the most I could do with the program was shade and smear.
The original version of this looked like a huge mud puddle. I had to lighten it up a lot to make it look like a path... mostly.
The trees were fun to do. Adding the little creatures were like hiding easter eggs.
The original mountain was pretty large. Fortunately, the resolution is high enough that I could split it and zoom parts the highlight various portions of the chase.
I did this after the muddy trail so I already knew to avoid dark colors.
No rabbits were harmed in the making of this book. Well, except in my mind. That doesn't count, right?
This might, possibly, be too much time spent fighting bunnies...
Princess Amber was supposed to be throwing that boulder to block the cave entrance. There is no 3rd Princess with the power of invisibility and Telekinesis. Wait... yes, there is! In fact, all the Princesses are invisible. Yes! I can now publish!
Not the best volcano... maybe too much lava? Wait... that's not possible!
So peaceful...
Until you add the sharks. Darn vermin. Have to ruin a perfectly good fishing spot. And they don't even have laser beams!
This is NOT modeled after my foot, I swear! Don't think about it too hard or you'll be worrying about where the rest of him is. If the kids don't ask, I won't tell.
What a boring room. Looks like someone got here before the Princesses.
Oh, wait. There's the treasure! Good thing I can copy and paste from my toy and treasure page.
It's empty again... let's just assume the Princesses have looted it all. The invisible Princesses... right...
Man, that picture of treasure on the door sure is convenient!
The squid turned out surprisingly well. I got my kids two stuffed cutsie Cthulu dolls but this looks less monstery.
Wait, I don't need to draw in the Princesses...let's just say they hid from us too!
World's first Bigfoot ballerina. Remember, don't think about his other foot...
So peaceful again.
Darn sharks again. Like a pop-up!
Ever had that re-occurring dream that your ina desert? No? Er, me either...
This is like my house just after I clean up. Well, except for the torch.
This is my house two minutes after I clean up.
The real way to tell that this is a fantasy is that the bed is made. There is no spoon... or neat beds.
Peeping Monkey King. Not creepy at all. Would it be better or worse with a Mrs. Potatohead?
Oh, no! The bed is made! Freddy Kreuger is about to pop up!
See the anime style reflection in his eyes? It can make a shark look cute.
This is where the sharks came from. There was absolutely no room for head-mounted laser beams. It makes me very sad.
All the loot and toys you could want. Or at least all that could reasonably fit on a page. There's an entirely separate page for the toy dragon I need to dig up.
This is the conga line of extras. 'Paper' is great with moving things to convenient locations right up until you export them.
This never made it back in the picture. It was supposed to fill in the creepy cave plateau on the way back. Anyway, Apple... or Paper ate my homework. So all the original pictures are lost. I do have these exported pictures but since you can't import pictures into Paper and copy/paste your images, there's not much point in doing so.
Coming Soonish...
What is litRPG?
(From wikipedia) - LitRPG, short for Literary Role Playing Game, is a literary genre combining the conventions of MMORPGs with science-fiction fantasy novels.[1] LitRPG is a literary genre where games or game-like challenges form an essential part of the story. A LitRPG work simultaneously narrates the story of characters inside and outside of the game-world. At least some of the characters in a LitRPG novel therefore understand that they are playing a game: they are 'meta-aware'. So, while Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel, a book about people creating avatars and interacting in a Lord of the Rings MMORPG would be a LitRPG novel.
Why do I read them? You know, I am not too sure. I love MMOs. I played them, quit them, joined up and repeated the cycle. They are fun! They are a massive waste of time but so are most games. Do I want to read about someone else playing them? Sort of?
The advent of VR and the possibility of VR someday becoming so immersive that you can't tell them from reality sets the imagination on fire. What if this could be life? But most stories fall short. At the end of the day the protagonist hangs up his VR helmet and goes to have dinner with his mom and dad or other family and it becomes meaningless. It's like the story that ends because the main character woke up and nothing you read matters.
There have been some books that explore the concept of the intersection of reality and total immersion VR. Enders Game is a classic. There were a few others that escape me but they exist, however, the cross between the game and reality is weak.
So what if the game was real? The technology needed for total immersion VR is so advanced that by the time we reach that goal technology should have naturally evolved to include several items.
- You must have direct neural input. You simply can't have a total immersion (all senses and perfect presence) experience without this basic prerequisite.
- If you have direct neural access, you can probably do neat things like feed knowledge and skills directly to that person. You can undoubtedly do many horrible things as well.
- Muscles are controlled by the brain. If you control the brain why would you let the body just sit there and rot? A person that sits unmoving for 24 hours a day will have their body whither away just like a coma patient. However, if you control the brain you could control the muscles. On a basic level, this would be isometric impulses, working muscle group against muscle group to avoid atrophy. Taken to its logical conclusion you would be able to gain muscle mass and program muscle memory. The flip side is that you could remote control their body... but let's not go there.
So what would people do if it were real? Well, they would probably limit and regulate it since the drawbacks are very obvious. Even if you look at the basic aspects of this you can see some negative possibilities. Look at the Sword Art Online anime. Personally, I think they missed the boat by putting a bomb in the VR helmet. Do you really need a bomb when you have direct access to the brain?
So what kind of events would you need to have a situation where the obvious drawbacks haven't been explored? Maybe a society where the advancement of technology has so far outstripped the explorations of its applications that ignorance was truly bliss? Okay, so I had to put in an alien invasion to kickstart the premise, but that was just one of the possibilities.
The first few chapters are published on Royal Road. This is sort of an experiment to see how well this venue works. See it here.