Some Thoughts on the Final

I feel I should make some comments regarding the final project for videogame class, the text of which can be found here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWgWwM-Bh7toZHd6aGd0c18zNWZiOXIyOGhr&hl=en

I'm not sure whether or not I consider this project a success or a failure. In some ways, I think it won out admirably; it's more or less historically accurate, as Denmark was once the leading Viking group in Scandinavia, and was the primary colonizer of Western Europe in the Viking Age (approx. 793-1100). The Danish founded the city of Dublin and the Kingdom of York, as well as controlling huge swaths of territory in northern France and, at one time, much of England itself (although Norway controlled a great deal of England, too). Given this historical backdrop, and the legacy of warrior-culture, trade, and technological advancement, I think the piece was fairly effective. In retrospect, I should have spent more time examining the Danish motives for conquest; trade and land expansion, as opposed to colonization in the post-Enlightenment sense.

In terms of the fiction established, I am not so sure. Fiction, even when the actions that occur are rooted in the progression of a game (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWgWwM-Bh7toZHd6aGd0c18zM2dqbmZ3OGRu&hl=en), proved to be somewhat difficult, and I was forced to invention (at least of motive but not action) in a few instances. As I am not an experienced fiction writer, it was an interesting struggle for me to come up with a myriad of events and purposes behind them. It also takes a lot longer to write in this fashion than I'd anticipated. Further, I am not at all content with the closing, and I plan to heavily revise this piece for publication on my main 40oz website later.

In terms of marrying fiction to the gameworld, with a historical backdrop, I think the piece was more successful. More than anything I wrote this semester, this piece was entirely experimental and was something I've never done before - and I fear this comes out in the piece, particularly in the abrupt transitions into dialog from exposition. I originally intended to combine the prose with images of both battle and map, and to draw up battle plans for major encounters, which I found I was unable, due to time constraints, to accomplish in time to turn the piece in. I plan to add these in for the final piece on 40oz.

My main concern is that not everything ties together, and I'm not entirely sure how to do so. Even still, it provided an interesting platform for me to experiment with; not quite fan fiction, not quite history, and not quite NGJ, it's something of an intermingling of the three - which is appropriate, considering the social and genetic legacy of intermingling of the Viking people as a whole.