UPDATE #2 ON FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

Woke up this morning to find our Original Sin City Sampler is ranking at #2 on Amazon's Noir Free List and #29 on Hardboiled Free List!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

UPDATE ON FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

It's 17 hours into the 2-day long Amazon giveaway and the "Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" has hit #3 on Amazon's Noir List and #38 on the Hardboiled Mystery List!

Great! Please pass the word around and tell your friends about this free offer! Our novels are very cinematic in content!

FREE EBOOK SAMPLE ON AMAZON

From Today, October 9th to October 10, ebook samples of my wife and my hard boiled crime fiction novels are available on Amazon for FREE!

"Original Sin City 20,000 Word Sampler" contains the first 9 chapters of our Barry Award Nominated novel "Little Mexico" and the first 3 chapters of its sequel "In the Name of the Father." 

We hope that if you enjoy having a taste of our storytelling, you will buy the complete novels. Only $3.99 each.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FLA8KN8

ON WRITING LOGLINES

For those who are interesting writing for animation, check out my other blog that I write with my wife Cathie: Original Sin City. We are beginning a series of posts on writing mysteries and crime fiction novels. Those posts are informative regarding writing for animation as well.

The link to this first post is:
http://cathiejohnc.blogspot.com/2013/09/talking-about-loglines-1.html

The second one follows a couple of posts later. See you there!

New Blog and Older Website

I've started a new blog that focuses on my crime fiction writing (http://cathiejohnc.blogspot.com/). As some of you may already know, I've written five crime fiction novels with my wife Cathie (www.cathiejohn.com).

In that new blog I'll be focusing on the process of creating stories, which is very much an integral (but very neglected) element of animated film-making.

Please give them both a visit. And if you like what you see, pass the word on to others.

 

Thoughts On Developing Educational Mobile Game #1

To me, one of the most important elements of a successful educational game for preschoolers is the ability to capture their attention. One way to do this is to have characters who show appealing personalities. The younger the child, the bigger the language barrier is to communicating the character's personality. Thus, I'm using pantomime to convey personality in the game play actions.

The preschool player should be entertained by the way the character performs the actions chosen.

I'm also planning a variety of ways each character can do a specific action, so that the player won't become quickly bored with the actions they are controlling. I want various versions of the actions be programmed to come up in random order, so that it'll be a surprise to the player which one appears. It'll be like the character has made it's own decision how to perform the action.

Various Bear Actions Across The Screen

Educational Mobile Game

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted. For one reason or another, I haven't had much new to add to what I've already said in previous posts. Now I do!

I'm starting my educational mobile game project for preschoolers and I'd like to post my progress as I develop it.

Here's the logo for the game: