I seem to have my head back in this story now.
One of the first tidbits Taskforce passed to me when I started writing on this project again was how the main theme was so repetitive throughout. This is because all of the chapters feature the same basic threat, albeit to different "countries". I encountered a similar experience in Burning Heroes. The difference was that varying characters walked through the same world in Burning Heroes' chapters. In Minerva, the same characters walk through different countries in each successive chapter. A challenge has been to find slight variations in the different countries of Minerva's world to keep the same characters interesting.
We have pursued two methods of doing this. One is to have the all-girl squad in Minerva keep internal skirmishing heated up through the actions of having some of the girls function as foils to others. Taskforce and I have kept these mini-central metaphors popping up as the game progresses, even through the use of flashbacks to previous chapters and countries, none of which the girls are able to physically return and explore deeper. In addition to embellishing the humor, this technique has served to tie the chapters together more cohesively.
A second technique we've employed to hold a player's interest has been to build themes in which some of the townspeople become foils for the girls' antics. In doing so, the main girl characters and NPCs make light of real people in our world who are always inventing reasons to have their feelings hurt, when their real purpose in creating trumped-up (phony) "cultural conflicts" is to gain unequal power and control over others. In the real world, in which this so-called "multicultural" concept being mandated by certain nations is failing miserably, this sort of satire illustrates the abject stupidity of governments attempting to force incompatible cultures to exist harmoniously side-by-side.
Another challenge in Minerva has been to localize a game who some have described as verbose. In doing my research a few years ago, one non-Japanese speaker who completed the game reported that copious amounts of dialogue bloated the scenes between moments of action. Well, my good-natured response to that is, "What did you expect? All of the fighters are women! And that's what many girls do: talk a lot!" Recalling from my personal experiences, let me add truth to my declaration in a humorous way. I hope this will explain my perception of how men and women sometimes approach the same issues differently.
I was a member of an intelligence gathering organization once, in which representatives from various government agencies worked in a centralized location to manage resources shared by all. Since the sum of needs from the various organizations always exceeded resources, 10 or 12 of us would sit in a conference room every morning to debate and resolve our priorities, top to bottom. Usually, this meeting lasted between 15 to 30 minutes, depending on whether some crisis-level needs conflicted. Departmental representatives were almost equally split between male and female. An impartial staff member hosted the meeting, arbitrated, and executed final decisions.
Once adjourned, departmental reps returned to their individual work spaces, typed supporting statements of their agency's requirements into a data base, and released this electronic instrument to staff for formal approval and assignment of the task. Typically, I would depart from the conference room immediately, make a few quick phone calls to my organization, type supporting justification into my requests, release them to staff, and have everything approved within 15 to 20 minutes following the meeting. Freed up to perform new tasks, occasionally I would leave my office, walk down the corridor, pass the conference room, and see a cluster of ladies still sitting in there, hotly debating what was already settled, approved, and assigned in the system!
That, my friends, is one difference between men and women. In Minerva, we have expanded some of the verbose, repetitive girly prattle into humorous conflicts that build directly from the game's culture and story line. From my own previous work environment, I quickly deduced that we who had the advantage of military combat experience processed requirements quickly. Although some of the ladies wore military uniforms, at that time none had served in war zones. Therefore, the ladies frequently took a more leisurely approach to debating our subject matter, especially in crisis management situations with competing priorities.
The men's approach was similar to final preparations for a military operation about to shove off. The ladies approach was more like a courtroom procedure in a peaceful town with lawyers yapping every little detail to death! Men who have been in battle know that the very first thing that can happen is you throw out the plan and play it by ear as the situation develops. A few women are serving in combat units now. Maybe some of these have returned and changed the culture upon assignment to stateside bureaucracies that plan and manage tasks that support the operators and decision-makers.
Due to personal reasons and what I've outlined in this update, I'm needing longer to do my part in writing this game than some others that came before, but I believe the effort and wait will be worth it. I hope to do my second pass and have this one ready for beta testing in March-April - of THIS year.
Currently, I am working the last town in Chapter 4.