Nov 08

More Crossovers!

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments tags: The Crossover Zone
After some further research, I’ve come up with a third set of Crossovers. The other two sets were posted here and are known as: 1. Formal (or Direct) Crossover When a character, celebrity, icon formally lands in another medium. 2. Analogue (or Parallel) Crossover When a character or icon is mimicked in another medium.   These two kinds of Crossovers don’t capture the aspect of time, be it the past, the future, or archetypal and I decided that this would constitute its own collection of Crossovers. So I’m pleased to present the Scenario Crossover:   3. Scenario (or Temporal) Crossover The media property or its creators engage formally or directly, allowing characters in a media or medium or milieu to meet each other. There are five Formal Crossover sub-categories: Type A – Past versions of self Type B – Future version of self Type C – Shadow-versions of self Type D – Anima/Animus versions of self Type E – Archetype versions of self What follows is some examples of this using comic book heroes where Crossovers standard fare. Type A – Past versions of self Marvel 1602 was a series that had the Marvel comic universe being transported back to […]
Mar 08

The Crossover Zone

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments tags: The Crossover Zone
I’ve been long fascinated with how media properties and their creators interact with each other. The idea that a media property can be seen to possess a kind of meta-consciousness that interacts with other medias is something captures my imagination. This kind of activity is typically named a Crossover and is pretty common practice in the superhero comic medium, but has become more common in all entertainment media. Crossovers are imaginative play and are fun. As I thought about what Crossovers mean, I defined Crossovers to be where two or more media properties engage directly or in parallel with each other. But as I dug deeper I gleaned there are actually different kinds of Crossovers. They are as follows:  1. Formal (or Direct) Crossover The media property or its creators engage formally or directly, allowing characters in a media or medium or milieu meet each other. There are four Formal Crossover sub-categories: Type A – Celebrity Pollination (i.e. celebrities are fans of other medias) Type B – Trans-Media (i.e. toys become a cartoon) Type C – Character Salad (i.e. characters proper interact) Type D – Character Mashup (i.e. characters take on another character’s properties)   2. Analogue (or Parallel) Crossover The […]
Jan 10

Tales of Strange Cyberworlds Episode #1

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments tags: Pulp Roleplay, Tales of Strange Cyberworlds
Welcome to my new serial Tales of Strange Cyberworlds, a future set of posts that explores strangeness in Video Games. Being an avid Video Game fan, I have always been interested in both Video Game history and how some games stood out to me. It could be a technical achievement, innovative genre, or something different that triggered my interest. Tales of Strange Cyberworlds is about Video Games that have captured my imagination written in a pulp fiction narrative, a kind of historic-adventure Fanfiction. The avatar I’ll be role-playing for this narrative is Doc Surge a fictional adventurer similar to Doc Savage, who has developed the Strangervision Computer as a way to to catalog and interact with various Cyberworlds (Video Game platforms) and their sub-worlds (the Video Games themselves).     Those Cyberworlds that grab the attention of the Strangervision are a glorious collection of Video Games that contain game state transmigration (game events that carry over within and between games), genre mashups, meta-textual treatments, player-less win states, and flipped perspectives. You won’t find games that contain hard-core twitch difficulty or genre-typical themes. Tales of Strange Cyberworlds is not intended to be a history of Video Games but it does use […]
Sep 28

Resetting Priorities

by Chris Billows in Business Beller, Hobby Heedings, Jets Flight Control, Playstates Theory 0 comments tags: Blogging, Change of Mind
This past summer has been a time of review in relation to this blog and my ventures (billo.ws/cyber.holdings). I’ve followed enough game developers on Twitter to witness the carnage in the industry and have decided that I am not going to put any effort for the next year or two on new game projects. My plan is to re-launch CreateOrConquer.com, do some promotion to its mailing list, do exploration of viability for Urbaniacs.com, and casually work on design ideas for Heropath.com. I still love the industry as a fan and advocate, but there simply is no way to justify any serious time investment. There is almost no Return on Investment in Video Games as a game developer. The Video Games industry has become just like the other creative industries with the barrier to entry becoming so low that anybody and everybody is doing game development. This is an abundance of riches and comes with its own downside which is that it is extremely difficult to compete. My focus will shift to website properties which can be developed to attract an audience. I have a couple of projects that I will be turning my attention to, one is related to Sports […]
Jul 28

Media Filter Idea

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings, Mental Mischief 0 comments tags: Self Analysis
I was playing with my Mindmap app and came up with a tree of medias that I engage with. Essentially the branches of the tree are separated by their verb (i.e. reading books, browsing websites, playing games, etc.) and then further separated by the method/place (i.e. bedside books, iTunes music). Sharing for hopeful utility.

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Jul 14

A List of Superhero Origins

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings, Mental Mischief 0 comments tags: Comics, Superheroes
Years ago I was an avid comic reader of various DC/Marvel characters. I loved origin stories and found that there was a theme among some of the origins, becoming the basis of an archetype, not unlike character classes you find in most RPGs. Here is my list of Superhero Origins:   – Accidental origin: A single or combination of events that culminate in the non-chosen attainment of superpowers. Examples: Flash, Spiderman, Hulk, Fantastic Four. – Alien origin: Essentially a hero not of human origin that possesses super powers. Examples: Superman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Namor the Submariner. – Bestowed origin: Essentially a human who is given super powers by a higher, more powerful force. Examples: Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, Captain Marvel, Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Starman. – Creation origin: Essentially those sentient beings either intentionally exposed to superpowers or created. Examples: Captain America, Vision. – Demigod origin: Essentially a minor god who becomes active in human affairs. Examples: Thor, Hercules. – Disciplined origin: Essentially those humans who train their bodies to become exceptional in the martial arts. Examples: Batman, Nightwing,Green Arrow, Wildcat and many of the heroes of the JSA, Black Panther,Daredevil, Hawkeye. – Gadgeteer origin: Essentially […]
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