Origami Flash Game

Since I cannot draw worth anything, one way I express myself artistically is origami. In the back of my mind, I've had a dream about doing an origami fumetti (comic made with photographs) or origami "puppet" video . . .

Also, in the very very forefront of my mind I've got the dream to have some Flash games made for the TimeFlyz website I'll be bringing out in the next few months (you've seen the results of the beginning of my quest here and here, but unfortunately with those games you have to link back to a web 2.0 site that, frankly, has some pretty awful content that I don't want my kid, parent, and teacher friendly TimeFlyz website to link to, so the search goes on for either a simple game creator that even someone like me could use or some people who have the necessary skill set) . . .

So, here I've found a Flash game using origami!

O-RI-GA-MI is a "trapped in a room" style game, where you must point and click to find the clues necessary to escape. Even though it's all in Japanese (although you can find a translation here, at the JayIsGames blog, if you scroll down to the comments), it's easy enough to do without knowing what the words say.

I find it quite fascinating.

~ Ben

The Cure for Writer's Block

I've discovered the cure for writer's block.

It's origami.

You heard it here first.

Monday, I was working on my most recent draft of a possible ArmorQuest feature story. And I hit a snag. A huge snag, right at toward the beginning. It was bad.

Now, one of the activities we're doing in church this month with the kids is an origami project. And I bought some extra paper for myself and I thought I'd give it a try.

I found the folding allowed me to focus my mental energy in a creative way, but in a way that allowed me to continue thinking about the story. This happened three or four times during the day. And each time, I was able to work out and work through the story problems I was facing.

It will be interesting to see if this works again. But I enjoyed it and I may have found a new hobby.

Oh, and I had an idea . . . I found a traditional origami fly! So, I'm running a new little promotion for TimeFlyz. Anyone who orders a copy of TimeFlyz from the Community Comics website will not only get the autographed copy of the book, they will get a free origami fly, folded by me!

You can order TimeFlyz here from Community Comics.

~ Ben