A few months ago while walking home from work ( more of a chore than you might think in Singapore ... always 85F and 60% humidity; first world problems, right? ) I was thinking about a conversation with a colleague who enjoyed toying with ethics as they applied to robots, and more specifically what he felt would be the rise of robotic prostitution. For whatever reason I had latched onto this idea and used my twenty minute stroll to sort out a few questions I had about it. What should the consequences be for abusing an android prostitute? Would the fees be the same, less or even more? If you altered the programming of the android to suit the whims of each client, how would the android feel about it? Should ( or would ) a client feel guilty about mistreating the android? To me it seems a foregone conclusion that there will be people who develop feelings for androids, so how would that play a role in the entire equation?

Then, as I am want to do, I started playing around with story ideas involving an android prostitute in order to explore how these questions would be resolved. A series of stories or novels about an android prostitute would be fairly dull, I thought. And I really don't want to write erotica anyway. So something else had to be added.

What if the android was a spy?

Spies posing as seductresses in order to gain intelligence is an almost universal practice, historically traced back centuries upon centuries. Why not program an android to do the same thing?

Then I stumbled on an idea that I thought was interesting.

A pair of spies, both human, are on a mission. The female agent is shot and killed. But, her male partner, who happens to have a bit of a crush on her, manages to get her brain scanned and creates a positronic imprint of her thoughts, memories and personality. He then takes this positronic imprint and grafts it onto the most advanced android available ... which, if technology has taught us anything? Will always be sex related. So, naturally, the most advanced android is a Muse model sexbot.

So, now he has for a partner a spy in a sexbot's body. Infinite customization ( her hair is a hologram, her skin can change colors, her programming is adaptable, etc. ) but it comes with a price. Her default programming is to please someone. This would work great if he was trying to save his wife, or even his girlfriend. But what if the agent he was trying to save was actually a double agent that wanted to kill him? This would directly clash with the artificial intelligence of the android. Would this result in an android developing schizophrenia? Multiple personalities?

For sake of my own experiment, I said sure! And then proceeded to write a 1300 word short story about it. I showed it to my colleague and he thought it was good. Enjoyed the concept, thought the pacing was nice and steady ... and, more importantly, encouraged me to flush it out with more detail and make it a short novella.

And that was the genesis of my summer writing challenge.

Can I write one novella a month for the summer? And then get each one published to Amazon?

The editing would be done myself, with the aid of some software like Grammarly, and unfortunately the cover art would also be in my own hands. But that's beside the point. For someone who's never been able to lock himself into a solid writing schedule the challenge is: Can you write 50,000 words a month, every month, for five months ( while I'm on holiday between contracts ).

Well ...

Step one of my summer challenge is in the bag. I have twenty days to get step two done and posted ( wasted a lot of time needlessly, but I enjoy the pressure of the deadline so it's all good ).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VUF95Q4

That's the fruits of my labor ... if anyone is interested in seeing what I did with the initial idea. It's one novella ( just a touch over 50k words ) so I didn't fully explore everything. And I also made a bit of a cowboy science fiction espionage story out of it, rather than a hard science fiction thriller piece. But, it's out there now and hopefully someone thinks it's fun.

If you want to give it a try, the first couple chapters are free on Amazon. If you have any questions about it, or just think it's a smoking pile of shit? Well, now you know my Giantbomb ID, shoot me a PM.

Keto

aka Cel / Moon

Each one of these games are, to me, better than at least one of the games on the official Top Ten list. I am not writing this to say, "Their List Was WRONG!" And,I am not writing this to say I Destiny shouldn't have been on the list ( although, I don't think it should have been on the list over several of these games ).

I am writing this list because ... there were some Great games out this year that didn't get their due on the Top Ten list, in my opinion. Some of them were overlooked completely ( Shadowrun, Endless Legend ) others were brought up, but not really talked about ( Divinity: Original Sin ). Some were talked about, but ultimately dropped in favor of other games ( Dragon Age: Inquisition, Banner Saga ) and are therefore the "odd duck" of this list ... but, I included them, regardless. Because ... why the fuck not? Others came out too late, and would've only been seen by one member of the staff anyway ( Elite ).

Anyway, here's my list.

Elite: Dangerous - Holy. Fucking. Shit. I really hope that Drew gets into this game in a major way, and forces the guys to make this next year's "Best Game of Last Year." It was released in December, which doesn't help it. It's a simulation game, which only Drew would seriously play ( and there really should be a "Drew's Simulation Game of the Year" category to acknowledge these types of games that are often overlooked on this site, but have been a huge part of the content for years ). This game looks incredible. It can be played with a half dozen monitors, or on Oculus Rift. It can be played with a keyboard, but you should really look into getting a full fucking flight-chair. This game ... there hasn't been a game since EVE first came out that made me go this space-crazy. And all I can do is dork around in the combat tutorials trying to learn how to pilot the damn thing! It's an incredible mix of Freelancer, Independence War and Freespace 2.

Divinity: Original Sin - Easily the best RPG I played this year .. and I haven't even been able to push myself to complete it. I want to take my time, play an hour here, an hour there. Move through it slowly to enjoy it. Dragon Age is something I can play mindlessly, Divinity I have to sit and contemplate every turn, every action point ... each dice-roll deciding the outcome of the encounter. Sure, I can drag barrels along and strike people when they're not defending themselves ... but I like beating things straight up. And with creative use of skills, potions, items, scrolls and placement of characters? I always feel like I can.

Transistor - Combos, all about the combos. And status effects. And movement. And the damn sniper skill. Everyone had their own playstyle, but everyone saw the amazing world. It was far too short, but it was incredible while it lasted. It might not have been Bastion, but it was an amazing game all on its own. A female protagonist that didn't feel over-sexualized, gave you the impression of feeling empowered and independent ... in a world that is fascinating, stylized and down-right amazing to look at. She was a tragic heroine that was not a damsel. She was a powerful yet sympathetically flawed character ... and you never "felt the need to protect her" because she was fully capable of it all on her own. What you did was go along for the journey of her story, and left the you at the end of it with lingering questions and sincere concern if she was ever going to return to her old life, with her former talents intact. How this game did not even get Mentioned in Best Style is beyond me. How it told the player so much, yet so little? And guided the player With A Talking Sword?! An amazing game.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Dramatic step up from Shadowrun: Returns. The characters are fun and engaging, the story is pretty good as well. The action is great, just the right mix of tactics and skill-based core mechanics to make yourself feel either cool for figuring it out, or powerful for just saying "fuck this, shotgun to the head, now you die." Much more open than the original, with multiple paths through parts presenting themselves often enough that you don't feel constrained. Really, all in all, a great little game that you could pick up for a song ... or, not much more than a "retro-indie-game."

Endless Legend - This is a 4X strategy game that does some really cool things with combat. I won't play a Civ game ever again, and it'll be really hard to go back to any other 4X strategy game as well. The art is great, the race options are all interesting. Cities look cool, and the expansion aspects of building up your city is interesting. The tech tree also does some neat things, giving you some freedom as you progress and not locking you into any one path; thus freeing you up to get technologies you can actually utilize with the resources on hand, rather than wasting turns researching something pointless that you can't build, just to get to the tech beyond.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Massively flawed, but no more flawed than Destiny. Where one is too light on content, the other seems weighed down by it. Where one has absolutely no story exposition, and a confusing plot that your character is locked into following, the other gives you a mountain of plot ( and, often, every road, tunnel, dungeon, castle, keep, cave, molehill, ant-farm, golf course and tiki bar on, in, under, beside, alongside, caddy-corner to, adjacent from the damn fucking mountain ) that you have absolutely no obligation to follow ( and leaves you feeling fucking lost unless you're paying absolute attention to it ). Where one gives you "a story for every weapon," the other throws weapons at you like they're candy ... and some actually Have a story ( such as an insanely powerful dagger that I found, very early on, my friends never saw ... they still don't believe me when I tell them where I got it ). Dragon Age continues to reek of everything I dislike of a Bioware games, but it has just enough going for it that I enjoy it.

Lords of the Fallen - I've only dabbled in the Souls games, but the combat and exploration in this was great. Perhaps people didn't think it was a great game because it was seen as a "Dark Souls Copy" and thus downgraded it; or, because it was "A Souls Game" and therefore avoided it. But, I was eager to play it, and I had a lot of fun with it. Bosses were fun, the enemies were varied enough to keep it interesting. Exploring the game was enjoyable ... especially when I got knocked off the stairs and fell into a pit the very first time I went into the dungeons. Trying to overcome each obsticle that presented itself, learning how each weapon's inherent combo system could be best utilized? Really a great experience. It might be "Dark Souls Lite" ... but it's a Lite version of a game that's in-fucking-penetrable. So, what's the problem with making it a bit easier to play?

Shadow Warrior - Originally released in 2013 for the PC, it was released on PS4 in 2014. This thing is a Video-Game-Ass-Video-Game. It's not the "Best" game out there, but Flying Wild Hog makes a damn good shooter. The sword action and magic on the touch-pad of the PS4 controller is very easy to utilize, and simple to learn. That feature won't win the rave reviews of the Nemesis feature, for obvious reasons, but it's a really nice control scheme that other games could pick up on.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros - Face it, that game looks fantastic. Dan might've given up the good fight, but this is My list.

Child of Light - Whimsical, light-hearted, simple but enchanting. The game is fantastic to play. Other games have caveats ... this game doesn't. It's simply a really enjoyable game. It's pretty to look at, will make you smile, and requires you to engage with the combat mechanics enough to feel interested for as long as it's in front of you. Is it an 80-hour epic? No. But it's a fun game ... with a story that's probably longer than the Call of Duty campaign.

Banner Saga - Heartbreaking, promising ... with just enough on both sides of the ledger to keep it off of people's Top Ten, I'm sure. The animations of the units look great, but there's a very limited number of unit types. The scenerios are fascinating, but if you remember your choices from a previous play-through ... you can get essentially the same outcome, if you want.

Some other good games I need to play more?

Xenonauts - Ryan.

Bravely Default - The Quicklook made this game look amazing. When the "New Nintendo 3DS" comes out in NA, I'm all over it.

Persona Q - I'll give it a shot, like any Duder should. Charlie really should be introduced as the "Official English Name" of the main character.

Wasteland 2 - I'm not a huge fan of the UI, and the character models look like a hot mess ... but there seems to be Something in there that's damn cool.

So, that's 15 games that, to me, could've ( or should've ) been the number ten game on "The list." And, now That's off my chest ...