Hey MJ... let me throw this at ya.

I was driving to work today, listening to Lost Cause (yes, I burned BOTH of them to CD, and listen to them... consider yourself and the cast complimented.) And, from nowhere, a possibility occured to me. I dunno if I actually wanna do it, but I thought I'd toss it at you anyways.

Aside from listening to your radio shows, I do a bit of game mapping and SP mods for Jedi Academy... and since you are already planning a 3D animation style version of Tierra, I thought to myself, "Hey... the same thing could be done for the Lost Cause, and we won't even have to render the characters seperatly!"

Basically, all that would have ot be done is map up the scenes themselves, script the movements and the lines, and viola! The most difficult part would be getting all the lines for the characters.

Tell me that Vapour's voice from Vader's mask wouldn't be a laugh. Let alone Han Slo-mo's.

It's do-able... really, all it would need is two things.

A) Me deciding I want to put in the time to map the scenes and do the scripting.
B) You deciding it's worth trying.

Again, it's just an idea, but I think it could get a good following on the JA mapping sites, which might draw more attention to your great work here. Or wherever Nightlight ends up later.

So - yell at me, scream at me, whatever. Just try not to throw things at me. After all - that's a long throw from Australia to Washington State, USA. Wouldn't want you to throw your arm out and prevent you being able to type/write scripts now, would we?

I don't know, it sounds cool on paper... but personaly, the way these shows are structured a visual medium doesn't seem to suit them. It's like, something would be lost in the translation.

Eh, it's just me I'm sure. Though I still think Terra de los Muertos would make for a bitching stage play.

That would be my main concern as well... this is obviously just a bare bones idea, it would need a LOT of development to be viable as a visual. In all likelyhood, in the fashion of just about every radio-to-TV (or vice versa) show, there would be some differances. But I think that if we (meaning MJ as the writer and me as the guy who knows the JA engine) work on it a bit, it could be good. The only SERIOUS limitation would be a lack of action animations... eating, drinking, and the like. All the animations in JA are pretty basic. But I am pretty sure this could be worked around.

There is one more thing that occured to me on this idea.

IF it were to be done, would we leave the little inconsistancies in it? For example - Mouldy-Bun is referred to as a Jedi Master in a few episodes, and in another as a "Red-Eye" Master. And then, in LCII, it's back to "Jeedai" Master.

Tattooine is sometimes Tattooine, and a few others just Tatoo.

Things like that... and never mind a few of the accent/personality shifts of the characters. Especially Leer. She went from a malevolent Feminist to a whiney noble who only speaks in a modified third person.

Leaving tham as is is definately OK - don't think I want to change it, but as a writer (of somewhat less talent than MJ, obviously), I know that ideas and names change as you go through the process, and sometimes they don't match up too well. We could fix these little things and still get the same results.

Or, for all I know, they were intentional, and part of the joke. *shrug* Just another thought.

Yes, Lost Cause is chock full of blissfully funny inconsistencies. Lube's accent swich from a Fonzi type greaser to a southern cowboy is one of my favorites.

That one didn't bug me - in fact, with the exception of Leer, none of the changes bugged me. Maybe if MJ puts her away in an institution for being Bi-Polar - since he's not using her in LC3 anyways, it's be an easy explanation. :) But seriously - I liked the militant feminist... and can't stand the royal snob in LC2.

I've been looking around, and I haven't found a model for Davros yet... but given what he is and how he's shaped, I DONT see it being a problem to get made. I'll ask around.

Davros?

Here's a pic of a Dalek

http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/5127/resurrectiontardisvu4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

All Daleks look the same, so a Google Image search for DALEK should get you all the referance matterial you need.

Huh. This is something I'm going to need to think about.

Although what are we talking here, a game? Or a movie made with the JA engine? Because I'm not entirely sure I've got that bit right in my head.

I can imagine Vader stalking around with a Vapour voice.

Let me explain why there are inconsistencies. I hate to say it, but at times it's been unavoidable:
I think 'Red-Eye' was maybe just used in a mocking smart-assed sense. Also like how Number Two refers to Vapour as Vicks Vapour, Paint Scraper, Darth Flubbla, or whatever comes to his mind at the time.
As for Tattoo, Tattooine, or for those who listen carefully, Pantooine, that's often just scipt mistakes. Ah well.
There was no intentional change for Princess Leer. Sarah Farley wasn't available for Lost Cause 2 (too much time had passed, and everyone kinda lost contact with her) so the part of Leer was played by Stanley, who read it in his own, very noble, style.

The difficulty I forsee would be between getting the Dud Star look like a fast food flying restaurant. And trust me, there's settings in Lost Cause 3 that'd just make you want to give up on the entire idea.

A movie, I think, would be... very difficult to do. I know for a fact that Lost Cause wouldn't translate to movie as well as Tierra does.

We'll discuss it over messenger, okay? I've been trying recently to make a Tierra based game using the Adventure Game Studio engine, although it looks like it'd involve a lot more time and art skill then I have. As for this, we'll see.

I've been pokeing around with the SLUDGE (http://www.hungrysoftware.com/#/tools/sludge/) engine for making adventure games. Infact I used Doctor Who as a test setting. Unfortunatly I can't draw worth beans.

As I'll illustrate here...

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5253/doctorwhogamexg6.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

Yeah.... you should see how badly the Doctor looks when he walks.

A Terra adventure game could be very very interesting, it does have the issue of multiple main characters, and the need for some tweeks for puzzles.

Thoughts occur, you could break the game in chapters, in each chapter a different main character which is played.

Which Doctor is that meant to be? I don't remember any being dressed like that.

My problem is (in my opinion) my art isn't bad or anything... it's just a long process. And that's just the artwork for the game, let alone coding it and writing it!

As for the storyline or the character problems, I imagine it'd be set within the same world as the radio series but have a completely different storyline. A sequel, but in a video game format, if you get my drift.

Which Doctor is that meant to be? I don't remember any being dressed like that.

All new Doctor, non-cannonal so I can play around with the mythos. This Doctor's personality is that of an older fella looking for the pefect vaction spot the perfect drink in a coconut shell. Hence the hawiian shirt. It borrows some modern ideas (he's the last of the Time Lords) and throws back to the days of the Hartnell and Troughton Doctors when the Doctor was more of an older man.

I should have a tech demo done here in a couple of days, if I can find hosting I'll post it up. It's not much, but I've got opening cinimatics and rather basic puzzle, which I used to learn the coding of SLUDGE.


My problem is (in my opinion) my art isn't bad or anything... it's just a long process. And that's just the artwork for the game, let alone coding it and writing it!

As for the storyline or the character problems, I imagine it'd be set within the same world as the radio series but have a completely different storyline. A sequel, but in a video game format, if you get my drift.

I get your drift clearly. A great idea. Fantastic even.

To clear up the confusion :

The movie would be rendered in the game itself, and then recorded. From there, it would be converted into a computer based movie format (Probably WMA, though I'm not certain yet), and then released to the public that way. Owning and use of the game itself would not be required.

As I said, this is just a crazy idea that occured to me. I still haven't found a model for Davors (though I don't think it would be hard to make). If it's no, so be it. Also, at this point, I'm NOT thinking of doing all three LCs... just the first.

Now, if later on the brain matter gets ambitious... well, that's another thing.

Oh, so we're talking Red vs Blue style?

Yes - Machinima. :) RvB RULES! GO CABOOSE!

Never watched it, but I'm familiar with it. I think it's... doable. But they'd have to be seperate to the radio series. Lost Cause - The (appropriately) Lost Episodes or something else to that effect.

Never watched it, but I'm familiar with it. I think it's... doable. But they'd have to be seperate to the radio series. Lost Cause - The (appropriately) Lost Episodes or something else to that effect.

I'd imagine that the first one would be something between Vapour and Number Two. You'd need a Number Two. :S

Of COURSE we'd have a Number Two! As to the actual form the series would take, I imagined it would be something like that - in a way capturing the same essence and course of events, but maybe from slightly different viewpoints or with some new material.

Kinda the way no two mediums of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" are the same, yet at the same time, they are.

Inspiration (of a sort).

I was listening to LC2 again last night, and one of Vapour's lines jumped out at me. Something to the effect of "Isn't that what you said in the prequel to Lost Cause? Build a Dud Star?" So, we could build from that - do the prequel to Lost Cause!

"The Lost Cause Zero - (Insert No Hope Subtitle Here)"

Basically, it could be a super compressed version of SW 1-3... the fall of Vapour. Especially with the "Lubes your son" episode, we've already got a bunch of stuff to build off of there. Everything from building Creepio to destroying the Jeedai (who run a series of 50's style diners where you don't get served unless you have perfect table manners). I'd have to find some way of bringing in Maul and Dooku... and I'd also need to know how you're gonna handle the Emporer in LC3, but with this kind of idea in mind...

It makes more sence than my original idea of a straight LC translation.

Actually, I thought something along the lines of 'what happens in between Lost Causes' style of things. Like Darth Vapour and Number Two testing out the fly-thru, things like that. I should probably talk this over with Sal as well.