Some Exciting News: We're Back!

Well, 2014 has been a really quiet year for DynaDim Media and Joquan Games Studios, hasn't it? That's a pretty bad way to spend a fifth anniversary (JGS), huh? Well, unfortunately this was, and somewhat still is, an issue that was mostly beyond our own control. There are a variety of reasons, I won't go into them all, but the basic gist of it is this: we all were dealing with personal issues that forced us to take an unexpected hiatus from development.

That being said, I've not been totally inactive in that time. In fact, while I was dealing with these personal issues, I began dreaming of ideas to make both DynaDim and JGS better. A few of these ideas will be listed and explained in the following paragraphs, but keep in mind: these are all concepts in the pre- pre-production phase, so the ideas may be rough or not fully fleshed-out. Also keep in mind that not ALL of these ideas may make it to completion. So here we go.

Game-related

1. We will be now considering Joquan Games Studios as a DynaDim Media group; I am doing this only because, IF I decide to incorporate one day, I'll probably be registering the corporation under the name, "DynaDim Media", with Joquan Games Studios perhaps being a subsidiary of sorts.
2. We will officially be renaming Joquan Games Studios to, ready? Yokaan Games Studio! The main reason behind this change is due to the fact that, while we have been known as Joquan Games Studios for five years, that name sparked from my original Jagex tribute. Now that we're trying to make a name for ourselves, I figured a more unique name would be in order. Yokaan Games Studio is pronounced the exact same way as Joquan Games Studios was meant to be pronounced, but it resembles the appearance of a fantasy language, particularly like the Dragon language in the Elder Scrolls series. It feels more unique, it looks cooler, and I think it would just work better in the long run for our future endeavors.
3. I have decided that I want to turn the Ilxder series into a full-fledged series featuring Steorth's entire history rather than just the story of the Ilxder. Therefore, I've decided to rename the Ilxder series to the The Legends of Steorth series, with the Ilxder series becoming a subseries that focuses only on the Ilxder's story. This will allow us to create our future games in different time periods and featuring different characters without stepping on the lore of the Ilxder's story. Also, since we're in the renaming mood, I've decided to remove the cliche tag, "The Adventure Begins". The first Ilxder game is now going to be titled, Ilxder I: Tempest Horizon.
4. I mentioned above that I want to expand the series (LoS for short). What exactly does this mean? It means that I want to go beyond simply developing video games. One of my passions, personally, is writing. Therefore, I'm officially announcing that I have been working on an official LoS novella titled, The Dark Era: The Reign of King Tulas. I won't be revealing much about the plot until I'm closer to finishing it, but needless to say, I'm really liking the way it's going so far. :) I plan on writing regular stories and novellas based on the LoS series for those who don't care for games. Additionally, I'd like to try to find some artistic people who would be interested in designing a graphic novel or two, and possibly even an animated cartoon/short some day. At this time, that's just an idea- no plans have gone into action to make that part a reality. However, if you are artistic and would be interested in this idea, feel free to contact us!
5. We are gathering ideas for creating our first 3D game, an action-RPG that is currently unnamed but dubbed Project Opus. I don't want to reveal TOO much at this point, as we haven't even created a design document or anything, but the plot involves a semi-futuristic Pennsylvania that broke away during a nation-wide crisis and created its own nation. The gameplay ideas include things like Mass Effect-style shooting/cover system (no forced teamwork though), dynamic battles that would be generally different each playthrough, a decent amount of weapon and armor customization, use of global strategy (strongholds, ambush points, food/supply stations, etc; you get the idea), and so forth. We're excited about this concept, and we hope to build a game that makes story and gameplay equally important to the experience. It will utilize Torque3D tech to bring some pretty good visuals, though graphics are less important to us than story and gameplay. Again, this is just a concept at this point: there's no guarantees we'll get to this very soon, if at all, so please do not get your hopes up too high.
6. We lost a team member recently, as he decided to move on to different things; this was a friendly resignation, but still, we now have a gap in our team. I would like to start looking for other people to help us out. I want to have two primary teams: main (develops all of our bigger titles) and intermittent (develops smaller releases, possibly browser releases, in between our bigger titles). This pursuit is perhaps the hardest of all, being that we can't provide salary/benefits. If you're interested in helping, or know someone who is, please feel free to contact us.
7. We are working on a brand new site for Yokaan Games Studio, completely designed from scratch, rather than Weebly. The primary reason is due to the fact that Weebly has changed many of its features, and some of these changes contradict our budget policy. However, in the meantime, I will be finishing a temporary site that still uses Weebly, just until I finish developing the new site.

DynaDim-related

1. Remember my plans I mentioned to create a big social network of forums, dubbed DynaNet? What about my author platform idea? What happened to those two ideas? Well, I've re-examined them, and I've decided to, instead of using SMF as its base software, I will be utilizing a CMS like PhpNuke to create these sites, that way we can go beyond the features that would be limited should we use SMF as the base software. This project has been placed on the backburner for now, but I will announce the name I've decided to choose for the author platform: it will be called Scriptorum.
   
2. What about website/forum customization? Well, I've temporarily paused that idea as well, as it wasn't a feature that was often demanded. I have decided to, instead, shift focus with DynaDim to our software for the time being. I will be going over some of the software concepts I and my team have come up with, and if I feel any of them would be good for a first release, we will begin working on it as soon as possible. The issue for us right now is that our ideas are ambitious and far beyond what a two-man dev team can create. We're going to try to start smaller and build into those larger ideas, which is what we should have been doing all along.
3. Will DynaDim ever expand beyond media? If things go the way I hope them to, I'd like to expand our products/services beyond just the media/software/entertainment field. I'm thinking WAY into the future, but if things go well, I'd like to eventually start a team that researches computer tech and tries to create affordable self-sufficient PCs that require little maintenance and don't even have to plug into power to run. This is wishful thinking, there are no plans whatsoever, it's just an idea I have and hope to work on YEARS upon YEARS down the road. 

I just wanted to let people know that I do have long-term dreams for this whole thing. I really feel God is using me through these endeavors to do something great, and as long as I'm doing what He wants in my life, I truly believe anything can be accomplished. Of course, it's not going to happen without help and it's going to take some time, so as I mentioned before, if you're interested in helping us out, please do let us know!

Thank you all for your support and God bless,
-Jacob