As I mentioned in my last update, I'm off to the Game Developers Conference today. Depending on how the internet at my hotel turns out, and how busy I am at the conference, Friday's update may be late (or skipped entirely if it turns out that I don't have internet).

After years and years of waiting, Final Fantasy XIII is finally out! For those of you who don't know, the Final Fantasy series if my favorite game series of all time. It was Final Fantasy VII that both convinced me to get a Playstation and got me into RPGs (which eventually led me to Pokémon). Since then, I've eagerly awaited each new Final Fantasy game (a few spin-offs and the MMO aside). FFX is my current favorite game and many other FF games are pretty high up on the list. I've got nearly every Final Fantasy game, soundtrack for most of them, a bunch of figurines (most of which were bought while I was in Japan), and several wall scrolls as well. So, of course, I've been eagerly looking forward to FFXIII ever since the first trailer debuted. I was particularly happy to hear that XIII had a lot of the team from X working on it, since X was my favorite and all. While there were a lot of things I really liked about XII, I had a few fairly serious issues with it as well and, in the end, it wasn't one of my favorite entries in the series.
Anyway, back to XIII. Gamestop had a midnight launch so I hung out at the store for a couple hours (while playing (and joking about) Dante's Inferno with a couple of other people there) then picked up my copy. I thought about playing it as soon as I got home but I figured that I'd rather wait till I was completely awake and alert instead. Since I'm leaving today and won't be back until Sunday evening (really lousy timing) I wanted to get in as much playtime as I could so I ended up playing nearly straight for about nine hours yesterday. Which was in itself unusual since (outside of car and plane trips) I rarely play games for more than two or three hours at a time (often I just don't have the time, but sometimes I just want to go do something else instead). I'll give FFXIII a full review once I finish it, but for now here's my thoughts so far.
Final Fantasy XIII is, without question, the best looking game I've ever played. The characters, world, and animations are all spectacularly done and filled with nice little touches and details. The music is excellent too. It's too bad Uematsu didn't compose the score for XIII but I've really liked the music I've heard so far and the normal battle theme is one of my favorites ever. I like the characters and the story is interesting so far, though I really can't say much about it until I get a lot further in the game. The level structure is more like that of X and XII (more linear and tightly done than sprawling and open), which has its pros and cons (better design and appearance but less freedom). I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of towns to explore but, considering the level of detail they put into the graphics in every scene, I can believe the devs' claims that modeling big sprawling towns like those in past games would have taken way to much time. And hey, it makes sense from a story perspective that the characters aren't wondering around towns anyway. The battle system is something like the one from X-2 (really fast with the ability to change jobs mid battle) with a bit of XII (AI controlled party members, though this time you don't have to set their strategies, they're pretty smart) and Chrono Cross (creating chains of actions). Though the first few hours are more or less a big tutorial, once you get access to most of the features, there's actually a lot of strategy involved. It's fast and fun and even many of the ordinary enemies offer a decent challenge. I already died several times, which is usually rare for me outside of optional super battles, fortunately there's a ton of save points plus if you die you always have the option to restart from right before the battle and try again. While I'll have to see how the battle system fairs in later more complex fights before I can give a final opinion on it, I like it quite a lot so far. The character development is good too (a mix between X's sphere grid and the job system) if a bit simpler than that in past games.
To summarize, while I can't give my final opinion of XIII until I've played all the way through it, it's been pretty awesome so far. In many ways it's a departure from previous entries in the series but, when it comes down to it, the FF series has always been about trying new things and redefining the RPG genre. Will XIII supplant X and my favorite game? I have no idea. But I can't wait to play more and find out. Even if you're not normally a fan of RPGs, I highly recommend giving Final Fantasy XIII a try.

Josiah

Now that my guide on writing mistakes is finished, it's time to return to Ink. More or less anyway. On Wednesday I'm heading to the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco and I'll be gone until Sunday night. Wednesday's update shouldn't be affected by the trip, but since Final Fantasy XIII is coming out Tuesday and that's the only day I'll have to play it before going off to GDC... Well, PV will update. I'm just not sure if I'll actually be taking the time to type up a big Ink post or anything. I'll probably be able to update Friday (my hotel is supposed to have free internet) no guarantees. Finally, next Monday's update should go as planned, as long as my return flight doesn't get delayed. Now for Ink...

Ink's Voice Acting
Ink will include full voice acting tor all key scenes.

Designer's Comments:
It's a filler section! This section could eventually contain things like: a list of characters that will need voice actors, a list of each of those voice actors, and a list of all the voice audio files and where they go (though that would probably be spun off into an appendix or a document of its own). This space could also be used to include a few notes on what type of voice would be most appropriate for each character, to aid in casting.
Casting voice actors for a video game is pretty much the same as casting them for an animated movie or TV show (though games often have a bit less of a budget to spend on voice actors). If you've not familiar with it, you usually have a bunch of different people come in an read lines for one character or another with a group of people (probably including the lead designer, lead sound guy, and maybe the producer listen to them all and choose the best one for each roll). These days, it's common for big games to have voice overs created in several different languages (usually English, Japanese, and an assortment of the more popular European languages). Sometimes the main design team handles the voices for other languages, though most just focus on the voice overs for their home country and leave the others to whoever is localizing and publishing the game in other territories.
My ideal for Ink would be to have voice acting for every line of dialogue in the game. Of course, RPGs like Ink tend to have enormous scripts so full voice acting is often very expensive and time consuming to create. Even many of the big RPG companies, such as Square Enix, limit voice acting to cut-scenes and/or important characters only. Chances are, Ink will follow a similar route. Cut-scenes and at least most of the dialogue spoken by the main characters will be voiced, while the rest will not.

Josiah

There's a new voters' bonus comic and a new ROM. Now, time to wrap up this special guide on common amateur mistakes in writing.

Mistake #8: Everywhere isn't Just Like Home
The best way explain what I'm talking about here is, you guessed it, with a bit of sample dialogue.

"Tom, stop beating around the bush! Do you want to go or don't you?" James groaned in exasperation.
"To Olive Garden? Of course I do. But it's like, five miles from here, my parents won't want to give me a ride, and I only have around eight dollars anyway."

Well, that seems simple enough, right? No problems as all...assuming that it's taking place in the modern day US. But what if this was supposed to take place in Japan? Obviously, James and Tom aren't Japanese names, the Japanese currency is the Yen, not the Dollar, and (as far as I know) Japan doesn't have any Olive Garden restaurants. A bit less obviously, Japan measures distance in kilometers, not miles, and "beating around the bush" is not a Japanese idiom so it would be very unlikely for a Japanese person to use or understand it. Finally, in many parts of Japan most people get around using bicycles and/or public transportation so Tom's comment about getting a ride from his parents might not fit either. And that's just from two lines of dialogue. Even though you may be writing a story in English, people in other countries talk differently, live differently, and have different idioms and manners of speech. They'll also react differently in certain situations. Everything isn't just like it is in your home country (or even your home town) so you've got to take that into account, research the place where your story takes place, and make sure that your characters, terms, and the like are appropriate for the situation. And even then, that's just modern day Earth. If you mix in other time periods, things change even more. The US of the 50's, for example, was a very different place than the US of today. Technology, stores, lifestyles, mannerisms, and the like were all considerably different back then and you need to take that into account if you're writing a story that takes place in that time period.
You also need to be careful if your story takes place on another world. Other worlds are not Earth and would naturally have their own currencies and units of measurement, so you should probably avoid, inches, miles, kilometers, and the like. They'll also have different names for the days and months (and may even have different numbers of days and month). And, even if the people on another world look and act like Earth humans and talk in a fairly similar fashion, they're still going to have different terms for some things and different idioms as well. Chances are, most people wouldn't have common "Earth names" as well, so James and Tom may be out. Of course, there's a fine line between making things different enough to clearly differentiate your fictional world from Earth, and making it so different that readers have to constantly check an appendix (assuming you write one) to find out what all your new terms and words mean. Like with everything else, it takes thought and practice to figure out exactly what should and shouldn't be changed. It also varies a bit by story and target audience.

Conclusion:
While this is hardly comprehensive list of potential writing mistakes, it should at least tip you off to many of the more common ones made by novice writers. But, in the end, the best things you can do to improve your writing are to read lots of well written books in all styles and genres and then practice, practice, practice. And don't just write something and move on. Instead, reread and edit your writing while keeping and open and somewhat critical mind towards what could be improved.
Like any skill worth having, the ability to write well takes a lot of time and effort to develop. Not everyone can become a great storyteller. To a certain extent, the ability to create interesting characters and stories is something that you either have or you don't. However, with enough effort, just about anyone become a good writer. And that's a skill which will serve you well in many ways all throughout your life.

Josiah