Just a note: This entry isn't going to be a very fun one. It's more of a history lesson. Also, there will be some bad news, but also some good news, toward the end of this post.

Now, to all those aspiring gamemakers out there who haven't been on the forums very long (if Piraka Mania was the first game of mine you noticed, listen up): Good gamemaking takes lots and lots of practice. It may not seem like I've had much at a casual glance, but go a bit deeper, and you'll realize just how much I've had over the past five years (yes, I've been gamemaking that long). Here's a brief list of those games of mine that made it to completion:

Taluka: A Ta-Matoran's Tale (2005): Yes, there was a Taluka game before the current iteration, meaning that Gold is a remake of a remake (more on that later). This one was fairly simple, though it was just starting to get interesting when my hard drive got wiped in the spring of that year.

The Taluka Chronicles: Book 1 (2006): I got right back on the horse, though, and with a new plan, a new set of programming skills, and a bold new vision, The Taluka Chronicles began its epic journey.

The Taluka Chronicles: Book 2 (2007): Immediately after completing the first, I began on the second, an even more ambitious game that, unfortunately suffered from overzealous design and generally being too big for its own good (500 maps and fields that frequently went over 300x300 units each).

The Taluka Chronicles: Book 1 Silver Edition: Not a real remake, just a re-skin and some extra challenges added and some revamped dungeons. This is a lesson to everyone: NEVER RUSH A GAME PROJECT! This was rushed, and it shows. It's also half the reason I'm going with the total remake approach with Gold.

Piraka Mania (2009): Two years in the making (read: delay), this is my most recent game, and the design clearly has improved across the length of the game, as the early challenges are far less interesting, in my opinion, than the later ones. It was also my first time in a long while that I attempted to use the classic-style RPG battle system.

Now, that may seem like a lot, but there's more. The games I'm about to speak of have never been fully released. For one reason or another, they just didn't make it. This is the hall of the Canned Games.

Taluka: A Ta-Matoran's Tale (2004): My first real attempt at RPGmaking, it started with RTP tilesets and crude charsets based on the Rayge Kit 2.0 masks. It never got very far, because a virus found its way onto the computer, and the hard drive had to be wiped. It managed to escape, though, on a CD with the compressed .lzh file from saving the gamedisk.

Unnamed Takanuva RPG (2005): This was a direct precursor to the second version of Taluka, and it was set in a post-Mask of Light Mata Nui, where Takanuva went around the island performing various quests. It didn't get very far, since I realized the things I was having Takanuva do were better fit for a Matoran than a Toa, so I re-worked the setting and character and Taluka rose again.

Taluka: A Ta-Matoran's Tale Part 2(2005/6): I originally planned a sequel to the first released Taluka game, which went along with the flashback story of the time, telling Taluka's story from the beginning. That aspect was revamped and started as Book 0

Taluka: A Ta-Matoran's Tale Part 3(2005/6): I just couldn't stop... This one was barely formed, and was supposed to put Taluka and co. on Voya Nui, where they would somehow have adventures and become Toa. It progressed to a point where you could walk up to a crude map of the island in the middle of a cave, and that's it.

TOA (Unknown): This was actually two games. One was in Gamemaker, and barely worked (you had to jump in order to move, and the best you could do was run around and try not to die). The other was in RPGmaker, and was set to feature linear levels, each one contained on a different map. Level 1, Tahu on a beach, wasn't even completed.

TOA 64 (2006): So I tried again, modelling the quest of the Toa off Mario 64. I had just gotten into the swing of production when the hard drive crashed, wiping the computer. I tried again using the coding techniques I had learned from Taluka Book 1, but projectile code was still new to me, and it didn't really work right. The structure of gameplay may yet... maybe... come to fruition. I shouldn't say anything more on it, though.

INIKA (2007): This project was one that only two people on BZPower knew about: Me and co-conspirator 401K. The plan was to make a hybrid RPG/Shooter in either RPGmaker (what it was decided to be on) or Gamemaker. It was set to be dark, gritty, and generally an awesome game. It even had a moral choice system planned that yielded both different endings and different semifinal bosses. It got to the point of making a basis map from which the maps with enemies would be copied and modified, and some graphics were made, but the tech demo part of it didn't quite materialize, and when 401K disappeared, the project quickly faded.

Unnamed RPG with Moral Choice System (2007/8): This was another ambitious project, recycling the moral choices from INIKA. It faded primarily due to lack of interest on my part and the imposing force that was Piraka Mania. Certain aspects of it, though, including a world-spanning quest, a global disaster and a late-game tragedy among the heroes, are still in the mix for another project, which I won't name right now.

The Taluka Chronicles: Book 2 Silver/Gold(2008): I had originally planned to remake both Books 1 and 2, but neither materialized. It's a shame, too, because there was an awesome idea for an arena-esque minigame planned for the remake.

The Taluka Chronicles: Book 3 (2007): Yup. Here's the bad news. I've decided not to make Book 3--as a game. The reason is that the gameplay structure felt too stretched and stale to be worth making in that way, and didn't allow for nearly enough story. I may decide to make the game in a radically different form, or write it as an epic, but the version which was teased back in 2007 (before Piraka Mania caught the delay bug) will not be finished.

Look back at that there: Counting all of the iterations, that's twelve games cancelled: That means that those games I've made are a pretty exclusive club. Now look at the number of iterations of Taluka: Not counting Silver, Gold is a fourth-generation remake. I think I can call myself a perfectionist now...

Now for the good news I mentioned in the beginning: Part of the reason for Book 3's canning was another project, one that is still very early on and very secretive, but already, it shows remarkable promise. It has so much potential that I'm afraid it will eclipse Taluka in its epicness. All I can reveal right now is its codename: Project Terra, and it's one of four codenamed projects, each one at various stages of production. One of them isn't likely to come to fruition, but the other three... oh, it's going to be epic. BZPower had better last long enough to release these games. They are too amazing to be left by the wayside of the internet.