o
Before I started posting this story I got on the
Glitch forums and asked people’s opinions on doing a single gender version of
the story vs. doing two different versions or trying some gender neutral alternative.
My thinking was that gender and sex don’t play a role in Glitch at all so I wanted this character to embody that and for
readers to be able to put themselves in Wonder’s shoes. The debate got a little
bigger than I intended but there were a lot of good points made. In the end I
realized there were no perfect solutions so I decided to do two different
versions because it seemed less confusing than using completely unfamiliar
gender neutral pronouns.
o
I also purposely left Wonder’s physical
description as vague as possible for the same reason. I never actually say what
Wonder looks like or what clothes he/she is wearing so that readers would fill
in the blanks on their own. Incidentally Wonder is intended to be naked in the
beginning until she/he finds clothes later in the story.
o
I had a lot of fun writing this part of the
story. Probably the most fun because it was entirely light and comical and I
knew things would get serious later on. I tried to channel some of the
ridiculousness that Tiny Speck was so good at including in the game. Mostly I
just tried to imagine what it would be like to find yourself fully formed with
some idea of what life was about, but without the benefit of Magic Rock’s
guidance in the early stages of our lives. Wonder didn’t get a tutorial before
he/she woke up.
o
If you look at the tags at the bottom of the
posts I tried to include the prominent regions and streets included in each
chapter, even if they’re not named in the text. I never stated it, but Wonder
woke up in Middle Valley Clearing, in Groddle Forest.
I chose this because I’m fairly certain it’s where my Glitch woke up. I know
for a fact it was Groddle Forest, but it may have been another street near
Middle Valley Clearing, like Groddle Forest Junction or Pasha’sPlace.
o
There would certainly be plenty of things for
Wonder to be curious about upon waking up. I chose to have Wonder focus on a
Musicblock first because it seems to me like such an iconic item from Glitch
that it’s instantly recognizable to any player, even noobs like me. Which
Musicblock is it? I don’t know, umm… how about BB-4?
o
As soon as I started this story I knew I wanted
to build a company around Wonder and I knew it would include a Rook. I love the
look of ravens, crows and other black birds, and I was always intrigued by the
idea of the Rook. I figured a Glitch who didn’t know anything about the world
would have no reason not to befriend a Rook as long as it wasn’t trying to kill
him.
o
Koro mentions that her name is not really a
name, but more of a rank. This was a concept of the Rook social structure that
I never fleshed out in the story because it didn’t really matter. “Koro,” as
you probably realized, is an anagram of “Rook.” Almost nothing is known about
the Rook so I started thinking about how their society might develop. They seem
like a very single-minded, militaristic society so I thought maybe they
wouldn’t have names because individuality is shunned (which is why they hate
the Glitchen), so I imagined they would be identified solely by their ranks.
Again, not being very creative, each rank would be an anagram of “Rook” with
“Koro” being the lowest rank and “Rook” being the highest. Koro-the-character’s
values didn’t align with the rest of the Rook so they cast her out and she
remained at the lowest level her entire life and was never given another name.
o
So I know the bit with Koro naming Wonder is
maybe a little cheesey, but I got stuck on the name Wonder really early on and
I wanted to work it in. Cheesey as it is it also fits the character. It also
put me in mind of Wander from Shadow of the Colossus, another hero
traveling a strangely empty world looking for answers. Also, by some miraculous coincidence, there wasn’t an actual Glitch avatar named Wonder. There were
several that used the word “wonder” in some form in their name, but none just
named “Wonder.” That was a big plus because I didn’t want there to be any
confusion on whether this was an original character or someone else’s avatar.
o
Every Glitch knows that jumping is an essential
and enjoyable part of life. I used to jump endlessly for no reason. It’s so
much more fun that just walking from place to place.
No comments:
Post a Comment