Hello all! Sorry I didn’t update at all in June! I was busy working on this and my D&D campaign. I would like to show off my first public project in over a decade. If you would like to just play the game click here! (Will not work on mobile and needs a physical keyboard) If you would like to read about an old tale and why I am starting Alien Outkast Studios continue on!
First off, why am I abandoning Elvenmonk Studios? As I outlined in my first blog post here I have been having issues working under that name. I had also been toying with abandoning the name as my game company for a while. This is because I have gone by Elvenmonk online for a long while. So, I feel it is very self-centered of me to name my studio Elvenmonk Studios.
Why did I use the name in the first place? Lack of resources. See, I bought Elvenmonk.net a long time ago. I was using it as a portfolio site and more. When Kim and I first got the idea to start up a studio we figured we’d need hosting, a domain name, and all that jazz. As a joke I suggested Elvenmonk Studios and somehow it stuck. It could’ve been all the Elvenmonk.tk shirts I had. I never really gave it much thought until years later. It felt weird when Kim would turn in art works with “Property of Elvenmonk” on it. Which, someone did take those journals labeled as such. Journals which also had my writings and characters in them too.
As you can see there, and was mentioned in my first blog post, there is some bad blood attached to the name. When re-branding this as a blog most of the goal was to get me excited to use the name again, to do something active with the site, and just talk about things. Which brings us to Alien Outkast Studios.
Where did the name come from? My friend Kareem, who I haven’t talked to in forever sadly. For those who don’t know I love to skateboard. I am not good at it, I just love to do it. In high school I met a dude named Kareem. He helped me a lot by talking to me and introducing me to my friend Frankie and some guy named Jose. Kareem and I actually didn’t get off to a good start. He actually borrowed my skateboard without me knowing because he told my mom it was okay shortly after we met. We had a short angry discussion over this. As time went on and we kept skating together him, Frankie, I, and sometimes Jose or others our friendship group. Later Frankie introduced us to his friend Terrence. As a group we went out skating and trying to film stuff to get our local skate shops to try and sponsor them. I knew I wasn’t good enough.
During this time I would walk around my home city a lot by myself. It was a nice calming thing to do. I found many hidden skate spots this way. By using these spots Jose got in with Murder Boys, the local big skate group. A lot of people wanted to get into Murder Boys because they pretty much had the lock down on local sponsors and it meant you were a local legend. Jose was by far leagues ahead of any of us. One day we all head over to a Chinese restaurant’s parking lot to skate when Jose tells us he won’t be skating with us anymore and he has joined Murder Boys. To be honest we all felt like shit. We sat on our skateboards and just talked. Kareem pitched the idea of forming our own team. One that was about friends and helping each other. The idea wasn’t well received until it became a “fuck you” to Murder Boys and conversely Jose.
We were all hyped up! We started to talk about our lives. Where we were born, what growing up was like, why we skated, and why we wanted to stick together.
Kareem was from Iraq, I can’t remember if he was born there, and after the attacks on September 11th he was basically and out cast in society. He was the enemy of the US simply because he was from Iraq. He told us what it was like growing up in the Iraqi fear days. This opened my own eyes up to shit I did during then too.
Frankie was born in Germany on a US base. He moved around the US a lot and had problems fitting in. Frankie is black but he didn’t really fit in with a lot of black culture. We actually used to joke a lot about him being a “non threatening black guy”. A joke he started himself. Hanging out with him really opened my eyes up to a lot of bullshit that happens to black people in the US I just never noticed.
Terrence, like me, was born in the US and grew up a social out cast over our hobbies. However, Terrence was black too and mentioned some issues of prejudice against him. He laughed it all off trying to maintain that happy composure. I’ve always regretted not becoming better friends with him. He seemed like such a great and cheerful dude.
Then there was me. Born in the US. I looked white but am half Mexican. I grew up a social out cast. Not many friends, bullied a lot at school and home, and spent most of my times just playing games.
So there we are four out casts trying to come up with a team about banding out casts together. I had no idea on team names. I don’t remember Frankie’s suggestions. I remember Terrence suggesting “Chicken and Waffles”; which we laughed at for a good while. Then out of the blue Kareem had an idea. Alien Outkast. His reasoning? We’re all out casts, we’re all aliens in our own society, and half of us were aliens. Him being from Iraq and Frankie being born in Germany. They tried to rope me in on being Mexican but I ain’t that Mexican. We then skated more then ever as a team. We were Alien Outkast and after that our friendship grew a lot stronger. You know, until time and life withered it away.
Unfortunately we never produced any demos as Alient Outkast. Getting a camera was hard and by the time we got one reliably Kareem had graduated high school and was working in his dad’s auto shop. Frankie transferred schools, but we hung out regularly, and I have no clue what happened to Terrence. A few people would join Alien Outkast here and there like Junior and Aaron but ultimately when Frankie and I graduated high school that was the end of it. However, the name has always stuck with me. Every time I stand on a board I think of Alien Outkast. How much it meant to us. What it meant. I never felt right using the name. I never felt I was good enough for it, despite being one of the founders. Simply because I was never Alien.
I may have been a shit skater, still am, but I will always be loyal to our team. Since I have moved across the globe I finally fully understand Alien Outkast. Not only am I an alien in a foreign country but I realize how moving here has alienated myself from my former life. I have lost many friends moving here. I have people who I used to talk to daily wishing me to die, calling me a traitor, or just not responding. They don’t openly admit they want nothing to do with me but it’s obvious I am nothing to them. Simply because when I moved here I started to debunk a lot of fucking lies people were spreading.
For some reason when I moved here people expected me to expose everything they’ve ever heard of China to be true. When 90% of things I heard turned out to be false. As I started to correct people I was getting added to “Chinese double agent” lists on twitter “Chinese boot licker” and all sorts of negative and horribly racists lists. Why? Because I was sending pictures of Winnie the Pooh merchandise being sold here. Everyone’s main gotcha at China “You can’t even buy Pooh!” turned out to be a lie. Rather then admit it and move on I was all of a sudden a double agent. Get the fuck out of here with that shit.
Now I am not only an alien in my new home but in my old home too. I am also an out cast more so then I was in my old home. I finally understand Alien Outkast. To remember the friends who helped me see things differently and question what I know to be true I have decided to dawn the name as my new studio. It is just me working here and I am working a way at demos to get out there, but it is already more productive then Elvenmonk Studios ever was.
Will it get its own site? Yes, eventually I will make an Alien Outkast Studios website. However, I will use my blog for a while to help ease into it. Plus it’ll save on costs not having to get a new domain name. I will be adding at the top a section for Alien Outkast Studios. This will have a direct link to all games released. I’m also adding a category for Alien Outkast Studios.
With all that said I do try to update and post more about developing software. I will also do post mortems of software I’ve released or failed to. I feel a public post mortem is a good idea and it lets people understand the issues they are having may not be so different then the ones I am having. You can learn from my mistakes and if I can find your dev blog I can learn from yours.
Thank you for reading this far. Click here (Will not work on mobile and needs a physical keyboard) to play the game. Just so you don’t have to scroll back up.
– Eager and Inspired Joshua
