Posted 2/27, the 2/24th updates!
Yu-Gi-Oh! started off as a manga all about a boy who, after he unlocks powers of Egypt, doesn't quite stay the same high schooler. He now has an different personality within hisself that is able to play dangerous games of death, often traumatizing opponents by turning them into clocks or revealing their hideous forms.
At some point, a fake card game inspired by Magic: The Gathering appears when he faces off against Seto Kaiba. Many fans were interested in this card game, and therefore even called on Kazuki Takahashi and asked his thoughts on writing more of this card game "Duel Monsters", eventually causing the creation of not one, but two different arcs featuring the game, and then ending the series with a final Duel Monsters clash between Yugi and Yugi.
Obviously, N:Era has a similar card game known as "Towers". Now, Towers actually existed pre-N:Era in different forms, and even in N:Era, the game is kept mysterious in rules to adjust, because the point is mostly to show the girls have certain hobbies.
However, some have asked more about Towers, or even want to see more and more full versions. This isn't something I haven't worked with, in all actuality, game design is a partial hobby.
What's kinda weird is writing feels less like a hobby, and more like a behavior, like something that is done overall. Maybe like singing, right? Singing is a behavior, same as how the bird sings, same as how even the gorilla sings. This isn't necessarily a hobby or profession, but an action a smidge more sophisticated than yawning.
But game design feels like a hobby. Something that is meant to fill the time, that requires craft. Not something fathoms deep in the soul, but something actively engaged in. Writing is intuitive, just comes in randomly. Game design requires focus.
But, is Towers ever going to be realized? No, but yes.
Now look, logistically, this game would be hard to produce, for sheer factor that there are nine different elements (at least), all requiring Tower cards to supplement as Tower is the main resource overall. Tower supplement cards give the initial building blocks to Call the Fighters, and Fighters usually have Build stats to create Tower at the end of each turn.
During fights, a player picks up to three Fighters to put in the Frontline and these fighters can attack that turn and defend on the opponent's turn. Keeping some Fighters in the backrow can allow them to Build more Towers, but also puts Soul Points at risk, and with only 60,000, this can be some major blows.
The point of this has always been to draw from major card games, while also adding in unique spins and twists. Having created many fanmade Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, these definitely aren't hard to generate, but the thought of painting them and also playtesting seems impossible overall. For 60 cards in either player's Stack to draw from, and 9 different elements, this requires . . . well assuming 40 cards in a player's stack are elemental spells or Fighters . . . that would be 360, and then some type of element generic support cards, or staples, and finally the Tower Supplements themselves, getting to about 400 cards necessary in the initial set. Even subsequent sets would likely require tons of unique cards, except for two options:
-Reduce number of elements. For instance, maybe Light, Lightning, and Fire can be paired together, or Lightning and Fire overall. Maybe Psychic and Darkness. Maybe water and ice can be paired together.
-Screw some elements and make most monsters Dark like Yu-Gi-Oh! Actually, this is sorta how all games with element systems work overall.
. . . Maybe element systems never were for cards.
But yeah, Towers will always appear in N:Era, or at least get some winks at points. In fact, there will be a new game between Cyras and a character named Vilit in "AAA'.
When this comes to short stories, I have different names and terms internally. Saying internally is fun like being an actual studio, but basically . ..
There's really four types of major short stories.
There's what is known as internally the ".5"s. Like, Cycle 1.5 had "Message in a Bottle", "Liberty of Fangs". These are usually transitionary stories between the major novellas, but are still importants reads to get the flow of the story.
Side Stories are less relevant. I want to say "oh these develop the cast", but really, they're more the essence of what N:Era was originally planned as. Something more slice-of-lives. But of these, there's basically the Spongebob and MLP. And what this refers to is really
Spongebob: These are shorter stories more about a funny thought. Like, what if Ahmond says a Russian curse and Cyras and Lilu try to get her to teach them more, and that story is actually going to come out eventually. Everything was written a couple years back but never got published overall.
Quick ramble, but there's so many things I actually do develop but never fully publish. Actually, when I didn't have any good internet over a month or any water, I wrote a bunch of various pages of scripts for short stories. That actually brings the next category. And yes, I said MLP was next, but I lie a bunch.
Neopedias: Named after Neopets own short story showcase for their lores. These stories are stories about characters who live in the world of Wysdom or N:Era, but don't necessarily overlap with these character events.
MLPs: These are more heartfelt. More longer stories that develop a single premise more thoroughly. These are like 22 minutes.
In some cases I also call some the "Yu-Gi-Oh! Filler" wherein the plot is 22 minutes as well, but is more about a deeper or dramatic event. But I don't really define this that often, moreso that Yu-Gi-Oh and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic have entirely different plot styles.
I have a small docket full of the various short stories that are planned, and honestly haven't actually gone through this in a bit.
Like, there's one docket that's full of these various tags: [Adventure][Quest][Normal][Light][Dark][Mystery][Comedy][Romance][Drama][Horror][With KIERAL the Scourge.]
And you might be wondering, "What's with all these funky colors? Is there a disco story?"
Well, actually, yes, but that's for "Underlife". However, this was because many of these were tags from Equestria Daily and their tags usually had some types of colors. Or maybe that was Fimfiction. Okay . . . yeah. Was Equestria Daily, basically.
Beyond that, there's some physical papers with the actual notes. For short stories basically. But these stories end up being way, way less interesting in physical. Maybe because more letters can be put on one page in text, so paragraphs look way smaller than when written, where a similar paragraph of four lines might actually look like twelve or thirteen lines, and just look supermassive when you're trying to write a short story.
For instance, one is about a bro gryphon who is going to college wherein his need to get to work is opposed repeatedly. Or one about a wolf who finds out his eyes generate flames.
Oh yeah: Progress, nonexistent.
https://www.deviantart.com/saviorfoxowlis/journal/Update-Chinese-New-Years-1301112465
