THE FUTURE OF DALE JOHNSON PRODUCTIONS
By Dale M.A. Johnson

9/28/05
rev. 10/5/05

Since I started up Dale Johnson Productions in late 2000, it has been a primary outlet for my creativity. The site has had its highs and lows; it has both encouraged me and discouraged me. Yet it has managed, somehow, to survive. I would like to take a moment to discuss with you my thoughts about the site and its content, as well as its future.

First of all, what is Dale Johnson Productions? Why does it exist?

Dale Johnson Productions is not really a company or a group; it is primarily simply a web site. Dale Johnson Animation, which is actually a company that I own as a sole proprietorship, is considered the “owner” of Dale Johnson Productions and its content. This is actually different from when I first started the site, something that I discuss in my “site history” article, where DJPro was, in my mind, an actual psuedo-company entity. To sum it all up, DJPro is an extension of DJAnimation, which is kept off the main page so that it won’t clog up my freelance work.

DJPro’s existence is summed up nicely in the purpose statement that you can find on the “about” page. Dale Johnson Productions exists in order to provide quality art and storytelling in order to entertain and inspire. What does that mean? I come up with stories, ideas, and games all the time. I figured I might as well polish them up and put them somewhere. I do this not only to share, but also to encourage you to do the same thing! To make your own stories, games, cartoons, and make your own web site.

Is Dale Johnson Productions fulfilling its purpose?

Currently, DJPro has six “worlds,” as I like to call them. They are “Lizy the Lizard,” “Block Drop,” “The Pickles,” “Ace Foxworth,” “Shadow Warrior,” and “Fire Emblem Factory.” I call them worlds, because they are like small, independent universes that spring from my imagination. I would like to talk a little about each one.

Lizy the Lizard

First, there is Lizy the Lizard. Lizy is DJPro’s official mascot. However, for a mascot, besides showing up on the front page, you don’t see him a whole lot. Lizy truly kicked off DJPro with “The LizVenture,” a choose-your-own adventure story that introduced Lizy, a character that I had come up with when I was nine years old. He also starred in a short-lived series of three on-line comic books. Eventually, I got around to truly telling his story with a 25-part online story. Each “chapter” had a (poorly) painted picture to go with it, but it consisted of a short narration of text.

The story was never finished, because my paints were lost four chapters from the end. Overall, the story was somewhat of a success. I actually started getting feedback near the end, though. However, Lizy has still gotten a lot less attention than he should, perhaps for several reasons.

One of the most obvious ones is his name. “Lizy.” Lizy, more commonly spelled “Lizzy,” is a girl’s name, not to mention a bit cliché. At nine years of age, Lizy seemed the obvious choice, although I wouldn’t have picked it if I knew it was a girl’s name. Now the poor lizard is stuck with a name that requires me to go out of my way to explain that he’s a boy every time I do something with him. Traditionally, he’s also been a bit difficult to draw, since he’s a rather unorthodox design.

But whatever the reason, I’ve failed to give him the spotlight, and therefore he has continued to fail as a mascot. He can’t represent something that he’s not really a part of…

Block Drop

Next, there’s my first game, Block Drop. Block Drop doesn’t even have a page on the site anymore. In fact, you probably even know it existed. That’s how bad it turned out. I don’t hold anything against it, really, it was just the first game I actually stuck with long enough to finish. In the end, though, I tried too hard, yet got too lazy, and the game ended up as a mess that you could get a higher score at by pressing random buttons than by actually playing.

The Pickles

If DJPro only did one thing right, it was “The Pickles.” The simple puzzle-action has many faults, yet it still managed to make its way around the world with excellent ratings from various freeware game sites. To this day, I still get E-mails asking for help in languages I don’t understand.

Ace Foxworth

Dr. Ace Foxworth seems to be lacking something… Luck. His worst stroke of luck came about because his game got started just months before I started college. College leaves little time for freeware games, and thus the poor guy was stranded for two years. Even worse, my ideas got out of hand, just like they did for Block Drop, and a rather simple game that was progressing well got turned into a monster that had to be rebuilt several times – At one time, the engine even had to be scrapped and built over again from scratch…

At this point, I’ve given up, cut out over half the game, and am cutting my losses. If Dr. Foxworth is lucky, I’ll give his game some menus and finally release it bugs and all… But, as we’ve seen, the poor geologist is not very lucky at all. I’m tempted to just give him the boot altogether and let him die in peace.

Shadow Warrior

After the three Lizy comics, I wanted to do another, simpler comic. Shadow Warrior, which started out as a short narrative told with shadows, was modeled after more mainstream style web comics, as opposed to printed comics. The result? A total, complete, absolute mess.

It takes forever to complete a single page – Only thirteen of which have actually been completed, and the thing’s nearly a year old. The art is also greatly lacking, and it gains little, if any, interest.

Fire Emblem Factory

For something that hardly even exists, Fire Emblem Factory has certainly made me famous, even more so that “The Pickles.” It’s hard to keep up with people’s expectations, I’ve learned. You see, there’s a big mistake I made with Fire Emblem Factory: Trying to get people’s opinion of it. Now everyone has big hopes, and I know I can’t deliver on them (or rather, I could, but I don’t have the time), but I hate to let them down.

The game was originally chosen to test OFE: The Open-Ended Framework Engine. However, the FEFactory editor is a bit on the complex side, so it’s really not a good choice for testing it.

The Future of DJPro

So what is to become of DJPro? You’ve noticed I’m pretty critical of the site’s lifetime so far, but I think there’s still a place for it. There are also some very interesting ideas I’ve come up with as of late. I would like to share these ideas, as well as hear some of your own.

Video Game giant Square-Enix has come up with something they like to refer to as “Concept Brands,” or more correctly, "polymorphic content." The idea is not wholly original, and is really a bit of a gimmick, but at the same time it intrigues me. The premise is this: One world, different medium. Final Fantasy VII, for better or for worse, is an example of this. It originally premiered as just another Final Fantasy on the Sony PlayStation, but now it has a computer-animated movie sequel, as well as several other games for a variety of consoles in the works. Code Age, however, is a better example.

Code Age is a new brand that will soon debut in Japan. I know little about the actual story itself, however, it will be told across several platforms: A PlayStation 2 game, a mobile phone game, and a manga (Japanese comic book) series. The idea opens up whole new possibilities of one world with different stories told with all kinds of art forms! I would like to begin experimenting with something like this for DJPro.

You could get a complete story with your favorite characters, as a freeware computer game, a short online comic, etc. The problem is, it would be very short compared to a commercial release. To make up for this, you would get another entry into that world with another type of medium that would build on previous releases. This may even enable me to complete more releases, and be able to do it quicker. Such an idea is far from bearing fruit, but I am looking into it, and considering how to keep it fresh and original without staying a simple gimmick.

I also want to see community play a bigger part in the site. We already have a forums which continue to grow, thanks to the announcement of Fire Emblem Factory. However, it still needs some TLC. But I want to go beyond the forums, with such things as special events and possibly even contests.

The Open-Ended Framework Engine

“OFE” is an idea I’ve had for a while now, inspired by Johan Peitz’s Duga Engine. OFE, on its own, is just a skinable interface, but it would greatly speed up the game making process. Obviously, this would feed into the “Concept Brand” idea. Setting up custom game keys and things of that nature would be handled entirely by OFE, meaning I only have to do the code once, then copy that code to another project, completely intact. Game design would be quicker and less painful, and allow me to concentrate on the game itself instead of the interface and compatibility issues.

Fire Emblem Factory was originally chosen to test the developing engine, but that choice proved to be a poor one because of the game’s complexity. A new game will be chosen to be developed first, and the FEFactory would follow it (in theory).

Animation

On the DJPro site, it touts “Animation, Art, and Storytelling,” yet there’s no real “animation” to be found outside the freeware games. Hopefully, this will change soon. I am looking into the fastest, easiest way to produce animation with a once person team, but in such a way that the visuals are still high-quality. Macromedia Flash is one possibility that I am very excited about, but there are also others.

I would also be interested in something else that has become popular for web animation: Compilation DVD’s. Every five episodes or so, for example, I would release a one DVD-set that would include the episodes, as well as making-of video, deleted scenes, and other extras. Each of these DVD’s would be released at as low a cost as possible, but I still would want to make a profit off of them. However, the episodes themselves would still be available on my site.

I don’t know how this will work out, like I said, it is only something I’m looking into at this point, but I think including extras, as well as a good DVD case with artwork, is a good enough deal that some people may be interested in ordering it.

Fire Emblem Factory

There are two possibilities for the future of FEFactory.

The game continues to be built on the OFE engine, but is dropped from the DJPro site and developed “independently.” Continued development under the DJPro name could cause some unwanted copyright problems down the road.
The game is renamed “Strategy RPG Factory.” This would allow me to develop my own simplified stat engine, simplify a host of other features, and open up the engine to all kinds of new game ideas. The engine would still be Fire Emblem-clone friendly, and many would welcome it, but I fear what some of the hard-core proponents of Fire Emblem might think about the change…

Conclusion

I have a lot of fresh ideas for DJPro’s future – Some will come of age, others will fall by the wayside, but most importantly, I want to hear from you! Would you be willing to buy a DVD online just for the extras and improved video quality? How much would you be willing to spend? Do “Concept Brands” spark your interest, or ignite your worst fears? Which sort of games and genres do you want to see in the future?

I’ve always taken people’s input seriously, and I wish to continue to do so. Visit me on the forums, or E-mail your input and ideas! I can’t wait to hear from you!