It’s been an odd week, to say the least. Uni’s now in break (which is nice) and I’m at loose ends for a couple of weeks - I have work to do, but I really don’t feel like doing it.

A few things that have become incredibly dear to me have been teetering on the edge of jeopardy (if you’ll excuse the poor phrasing) with the apparent disappearance of a friend and partner who I’d grown rather close too. Epitheisterra has been frozen for a while for various reasons, and it’s quite painful to consider really. Epi has been a huge creative outpouring for me in the past two years (almost) with a great deal of thought, effort and time going into the world, the characters and the story. I even began to develop (and continue to do so) a unique language for the world, for various reasons both creative and… psychological? At any rate, I’ve been unable to get in touch with Celchu, as I mentioned before, and without him it’s incredibly difficult to continue.

You see, the world of Epi was originally based on a short story that Celchu submitted to the Coldstone Chronicles board, which I moderate for Ambrosia Software. He and I began to communicate about collaborating on a world, and after some discussion, we took his world (well, kind of) and rewrote it from the ground up, taking Norse, Judaic and Greek myth and weaving them into a kind of tapestry to create an alternate Earth, where Gods and legends walk the face of the planet, and where we could reshape history and legend to tell the ‘real story’ of how things happened.

We’ve always been very compatibly as writers… I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, imposing, saga style writing, which sweeps along like an avalanche, whereas he’s always been excellent at the fine, minutiae that makes the world really breathe. We can, of course, both write otherwise and do so.. it’s just that, together, we work very well indeed.

Epi went through several stages, and has rebounded a few times back and forward. The story of the actual player(s) has been hypothesised, written down, torn up, rewritten, and done yet again. The world itself has been more or less completed, the politics and legends as well, as well as the histories of the world… which gets a bit tricky, as during the game the history of the world can in fact change depending on the character’s actions… which makes writing a real headache, let me tell you. :-)

As neither Celchu or I possess (or at least possessed) any great talents at high powered programming, we’d decided to use the Coldstone Game Engine to build the game… and, in creating the various concepts we’d like to have in the game, led to the creation of numerous simulations of storyline actions that we thought were possible in the engine. Quite a few were feasible, some not, and as such a lot of testing and workarounds were attempted to make various plot elements work… All of which, in some way or another, was sabotaged by bugs in the engine…

Yet, we still persevered. We recruited an artist early on - too early, really, as the game was in no way complete enough to require unique graphics. That relationship ultimately ended, and Celchu and I tried again to work out exactly what we’d do, and how we’d do it.

Life, as always, interfered, with Uni for me, school for him, and the difference in time zones and holiday times not easily forming peak mutual activity areas.

… Sigh. I could easily go on… I may yet do so, but I’ve rather overwhelmed myself. Suffice to say, without being able to get in contact with Celchu, and thus to work on Epi as we have been working for so long, makes me feel incomplete… and it’s wrong.

I don’t know what I’ll do. If I can’t get in touch with him at all, I suppose I’d have to assume something has come up… and that the project is totally in my hands. And I’m not the only one who’s put in a lot of time and energy… I feel morally obliged to continue, and, in truth, I’d want to continue…

I just don’t know if I have what it takes. Perhaps I can recruit assistance from my friends, perhaps not. Either way… I hope I can get in contact with Celchu. It’s something that I’d rather not make a decision about alone.

-Andiyar