The
I've had a chance to sit down with Julius and ask him a few questions about the project.
Just one screenshot today, but it's still a nice one to look at!I'm sure most people reading this will have had the pleasure of playing one of the older Piece by Piece maps and will be dying to hear a little about the story. Could you tell us a little about it? Well I don't want to give too much away, but it's a clean break from any of the previous installments and is set on the mysterious island of Terra Incognita. Like last time, our heroes are an ensemble of characters brought together through unfortunate circumstances and compelled to undertake a difficult and dangerous task. They must retrieve the lost son of a local chief, but on the way they encounter rather more than they bargained for, including powerful magic and ruthless enemies. You've probably got more experience with this kind of project than any of our other community members; you have hosted it twice! What advise would you give to someone who would like to host a similar project? A few things. It's important to start it well, because the characters and storyline that the first person introduces has to last through the entire project. With Piece by Piece 3 I was pleased that some of the character quirks I included in the first square where used cleverly much later on, but if the characters are dull and interchangeable and don't have a clear quest then there's a risk that they become generic heroes faced with a series of separate obstacles. Also very important is keeping the project together as more squares are filled in; with so many different designers it can get very buggy and if you don't make sure it's playable that makes it much harder for people to work on. They can't test their own squares if they can't get to them, and struggle to understand the story if they can't play through it, so understandably they tend to introduce more and more errors. Thirdly, something I think any future host should try is to establish greater consistency. I think the project would benefit from having clear ground rules; there's a tendency for people to introduce loads of complications with little attempt to tie everything together. It might even be good to discuss the storyline collectively, at least a little bit, so that it's easier to set up and pull off plot developments. I think that would give the impression of a project that really is a community project, and not lots of tiny projects stitched together. Certainly my favorite parts of the Piece by Piece scenarios have been where it felt like people had co-operated with each other, and everything came together, so I'd like to see more of that. We're all eager to play this project, do you have an estimated release date? At the moment we're still short of people interested in designing a square, so I encourage anyone with a few days to spare to drop by and sign up. Assuming we can get enough interest, I would expect to see it uploaded before November, unless we run into any more delays.
______The Successor: Act One (4.8) - voted Best Story of 2011______
______The Successor: Act Two (4.9) - voted Release of the Year 2013______
______The Successor: Act Three - Retribution ... In progress!______
______non-AOK work______