"Happy New Year!"? I really should push the Update Journal button a bit more often. Oh well, here's an update. Oh, and it refuses to change my mood emoticon from "Jolly"...

I have now finished my three years of Game Design at Gotland University. Or, almost.. There's a paper left to hand in, but that's all. This fall I start art school! It's going to be awesome, I'm really looking forward to it.

During the summer, I'm once again taking summer classes. This year, it's concept art. We're going to develope a concept during ten weeks, ending up with images of two main characters, a number of props and weapons, an envirnment shot and a storyboard (of a scene in the story, I hope. The whole story seems a bit much).

Anyway, I thought I'd post my story idea here, a little preview of what art might show up here in a not so distant future.

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A world that never was, or a world that could have been

A parallel universe, not unlike our own world but still different. A steampunk inspired world, developing and growing rapidly with a bright future ahead. A new continent is found, a new world to explore.

The Explorers, a group of people from the Big City in the Old World. Crossing the ocean in their airship and eager to uncover the secrets hidden on the New Continent. They encounter the Tribe, remnants of an ancient civilization that built its power on magic rather than technology. There are also the Spirits. Weakened and exiled in the Old World, they still reign free and strong on the New Continent. Not malevolent, but unpredictable and dangerous, Tribe and Explorers alike have reason to fear the wrath of the Spirits.

The Story

The Explorers are exited to find people in the New World, and are eager to make friends with them and learn about their culture. The Tribe however, are very hesitant, even hostile, towards the Explorers. Change and new things are not something appreciated within the Tribe, they stick to the old habits and traditions that have been the same for centuries. They realize though that they need to learn more about the Explorers, to find how much of a threat they pose and how best to get rid of them.

Sent on the mission to learn more about them is the Girl. She is fairly young, this will be a kind of Rite of Passage for her, to aid in the protection of the Tribe. She is too afraid to approach the entire group of Explorers. Instead she decides to separate one of them from the others with help of a spirit and some magic. The one she picks is the Boy. He isn't exactly one of the Explorers, he is on the trip as an engineer, taking care of the engines and other machines on the airship. Taking a walk a bit too far from the camp, he falls into the Girl's trap and gets lost in the forest.

The Girl reveals herself to the Boy and they attempt to get to know each other. The Girl is hindered by her fears of the unknown, she looks down at the boy and doesn't treat him well. He struggles to win her trust, both because of his curiosity about the exotic girl and because he depends on her to bring him back safely to the Explorers.

A disaster happens, which upsets the Spirits. The Girl is in danger, and the Boy saves her. She is starting to understand that her prejudice about the Boy might have been wrong. But the Spirits are still upset, they threaten the entire Tribe. The Boy thinks of a way that the Explorers could save the Spirits. After managing to persuade the Girl to try his idea, and to persuade the Explorers to help, the Tribe is saved.

The Tribe learns to trust the newcomers and to let them learn about the New World. The Girl and the Boy realizes how much they have come to care about each other. The Boy promises to show the Girl the old world, and the story ends with them sailing back across the ocean in the airship.