Admittedly I haven't made much progress on the Undertale Project as I would have liked. Originally, when I announced it, I said it would come out in 2016. Well, 2016 came and went, and I'm still nowhere near the half-way mark. So instead of talking about my thoughts and vision of the project in general, I think it would be more useful for anyone reading this to go over some of the problems I've encountered in the project and how I've dealt with those problems.
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The first of these problems is the issue of structure. I think people approach writing in different ways, with many people writing in the exact way they talk in real life, others writing with a certain formula or pattern, and others still writing in a very abstract way. My general strategy has always been to write almost everything like I would an essay, because I've always been good at writing essays.
For example, let's take a look at the video I most recently made on Metallica's St. Anger. The video was pretty clearly divided into multiple sections, with an introduction followed by a declaration of thesis - that thesis being that St. Anger suffers from extreme variants of problems from Metallica's prior albums, and then three main body sections which are built to support that thesis with a conclusion at the end. This very blog post is an essay, with the first section being the short intro + thesis, and every subsequent section being an argument to support that thesis of "here are some problems I have encountered with Behind the Barrier".
The key problem is the Behind the Barrier simply is not able to be structured in that way, because I'm going through the game chronologically and pointing out everything as I go. Not only is there no structure to support my thesis, there are mutliple thesis arguments being made throughout the video. As a result, the video has to be a lot more conversational, and it has to constantly reference prior material. That's hard to figure out, and it's something I never really considered before diving in.
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The second issue is pacing. The reason I wanted to do this critical commentary in the first place was because of the almost uncontainable flow of thought I had when I originally played the game. There were things I absolutely loved about Undertale (hence it being my favorite game of 2015), but there were also a lot of things that really struck me as awkward or just plain bad design decisions.
The good things are really easy to point out because they're constant and can be pointed out at any time, but the bad things are really hard to fit in, because it's hard to find a specific time to point out these problems. The most obvious thing to do would be to indicate the problem the first time it appears and then point it out when it happens again in the future, but that causes a problem of its own: if I talked about everything in the first two videos, then those videos would be extremely long and the remaining 5 or so would be much shorter.
I established those rough word count goals for each section for this exact reason: I knew that I couldn't say everything I wanted to say at the exact time it happens or I would run out of steam by the third or fourth video. Even good things, such as the music, have had to be pushed to later parts of the commentary simply because it would unnecessarily pad out the videos on the earlier parts of the game. My biggest issue with the game has to be saved for the end for a similar reason.
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The final, and perhaps worst, of these issues is one of value. My buddy hatwearinggamer and I have sort of teamed up to give feedback on each other's scripts. The system really works well because I'm a good writer and he's a good listener. We look at these scripts from different perspectives and getting the second angle on our scripts can sometimes result in a restructuring of script, as it did with a video I later ended up scrapping entirely on game scoring (I recommend LambHoot's video on the subject, which is unilaterally better than what I was working on) and Hat's fantastic Diddy Kong Racing Original vs. Remake video.
One issue I have constantly brought to Scott (Hat) is the trap of summary vs. substance. Many game reviewers and critics, especially on YouTube, painstakingly summarize the entire plot and sequence of events in a game, something which I and many others agree is a waste of the viewer's time, especially if your video is made under the assumption that the audience has played the game. I highly doubt anyone would want to watch a 5-6 hour-long video series about Undertale without having played Undertale, so I'm running under that assumption.
Since, like I mentioned before, the commentary is being done such that it follows a player's journey through the game, it can sometimes be really tempting to just state what happens in a room instead of commenting on whether what happens in that room is good or bad. If there is no criticism, then there is generally no real reason to point something out, and I have caught myself writing a lot of that sort of unnecessary stuff.
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I hope that was at least somewhat helpful. Either way, here's my status on writing at this point. You may notice that the word count for the intro is different. Many of these numbers will change despite something saying "complete" because I will go back and add more content or edit something.
3,378 words - Introduction (complete!)
7,330 words - Ruins (complete!)
5,483+ words - Snowdin
0 words - Waterfall
0 words - Hotland / CORE
0 words - New Home / Secret Area
0 words - Final Boss(es) / Ending(s)
0 words - Conclusion
If we're still sticking with the 54k word approximation, that means I have ~37,809 words left. Fun fun.
Now, my goal is to get this thing out by the game's second anniversary this year, but I have no idea whether that will actually happen. My plan is to work on this in the background of other projects until the summer and then power through the rest of the project then. Ideally I have most of it written so the only "powering through" part will be script editing, VO, gameplay recording, and production. But it took 10 months to get 10 thousand words down so there's no real way of knowing. I'd rather have a good product than a rushed one. Miyamoto once said something like that, and then subsequently released Super Mario Sunshine. Go figure.
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