Let's see if I remember how to do this...

First off, if this is your first time here, feel free to browse at all the old stories posted. That's what this was originally designed as/for. A place to post first (and sometimes second) drafts of whatever story I was working on at the time. And then life got in the way, kids, work. You know how it is.

But I recently began a new project and thought it might do me a bit of good to write about it, in addition to writing it. It's not a story per se, but it has a story. Or will as it gets more meat on it's bones.

The Last Standard

So, what is it?

It's an idea I've had for quite some time for a video game. The concept has evolved over time, but at it's core, it's always been a tactical RPG. Think Tactics Ogre (Ogre Battle if you're old like me), Final Fantasy Tactics, or Disgaea... the list does go on, and there are a lot of great games out there.

So what makes it different?

At it's heart, The Last Standard is a rogue-like. Get your Vanguard, keep your leader alive, and survive for as long as you can! Earn Renown and spend it on upgrades - better chances to find rare units, upgrade some abilities, etc. Then jump right back in. Buy, promote or even find new units as you make your way through different battle types across seed-generated maps. The core mechanic is build a small warband, get out there and fight another warband on a random generated map, make your units better, and then go on to the next battle. Different leaders with different abilities. An exhausting number of unit types, many of which start out as one of 4 basic troops and then can get promoted in a number of different ways. Mix, match, find the units that work for you! And then make them better!

Status, or where it's at?

Well honestly, most of that is in there already. Still needs a lot more testing and verifying things work - I have 4 pages of things to check on between last play and it's current state! Very little artwork is done so far, that is a major hurdle to figure out and overcome - have some plans, but we'll see. Placeholders for everything right now make the game playable, but not very visually appealing. We'll get there.

Future Plans?

Right now, I have a roadmap of over 200 different unit types, many of which are promotions from lower classes, but develop into unique units as you progress. And that's just the humans! Over 40 of these units are already in the game and need to be balance-tested (again, big roadmap of things to work on). I have plans and ideas for a whole slew of additional units already in a pipeline, but I've back burnered some of them as to be able to focus on getting a game actually built. Achievements, unlocks, many more units - large ones, summoners, beasts, beastmen, additional armies. A lot of this is in the roadmap down the way a bit, been pushed to a later date to help with keeping things realistic, but most of that framework is already designed

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That brings us to now. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen the random posts I've made recently calling for opinions, and I thought I'd take a minute and discuss what those were about.

What started off as a brief sketch on paper quickly turned into a number of ideas, done quick and dirty in Photoshop.

The original thought here was an illuminated manuscript, was really trying to nail down font for the illuminated initial with this original pass. Little did I know... The next pass after the votes were in tried to focus on the actual design of the T and it's bounding box.

But I wasn't satisfied with either of these things, so went back to the drawing board. Had an idea, but it required me to build my own T... So be it, and after a few quick pen and pencil drawings, back into Photoshop I went. And came up with this. Much closer to what I was looking for, although still a long way off.

It was at this point I decided to move away from quick and dirty Photoshop work and into a software I am much less comfortable in, Illustrator, where with the exception of the actual T shape, everything was built from scratch so it could all properly be scaled as vector art. This slowed me down considerably, but is always the better course of action - vector art scales without pixelation, and the intention for the Initial will be to not only use it as part of the title, but it becomes an icon that can be used for a website or a system tray as well.