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	<title>Kōtiro</title>
	<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com</link>
	<description>The Making of an Indie Game</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:07:57 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Storyline Progress</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve posted the first quarter of the plot in the Writing section. It&#8217;s definitely a rough draft screen play, some of it is more filled in than other parts. You should not read it if you want to play the game without spoilers&#8212;it isn&#8217;t a teaser, it&#8217;s the draft I&#8217;ll be using to produce the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/writing/storyline-progress/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Tellmesomethingnice about Kōtiro&#8217;s Music</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Kōtiro is really a labor of love for me. When I&#8217;m not working on it, I want to be. I&#8217;m always synthesizing the world around me through the lens of: how can I apply this knowledge, this beauty, this wonder, to my game, Kōtiro? 
So I really didn&#8217;t expect any help with the project because [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/meta/tellmesomethingnice-about-kotiros-music/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Updates Forthcoming</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been hard at work for a while on a couple really cool things. I like to post things once they are complete, and since I&#8217;m at a &#8220;sort of but not quite&#8221; complete stage on several things, there hasn&#8217;t been much activity here. Here are some of the updates coming up:

Writing &#8211; I&#8217;ve made [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/meta/updates-forthcoming/</link>
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		<title>The Courage to be Immoral</title>
		<description><![CDATA[(Warning, there is tasteful nudity in this post).
After waxing poetic about sexualized heroines in games, and extolling the virtues of courage in storytelling, I find myself backed into a corner.
Whatever I do, I will be an asshole. Here&#8217;s the story:
I wanted to create a good female character. Someone who was respectable, strong, competent, yet feminine. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/production-notes/the-courage-to-be-immoral/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Ethics of Beauty and Body Image in Video Games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m in the concept phase of designing my game’s female main character, Kō. Of course, when designing characters the goal is to make them distinctive and memorable, which means a distinctive silhouette among other things. 
Let’s be perfectly clear here: most games solve this problem for women by giving them inflated boobs and tiny waists. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/production-notes/ethics-of-beauty-and-body-image-in-video-games/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>The Story Conversation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[(You should read my primer on character archetypes if you haven&#8217;t already)
Many flat stories, especially in games, are about a bad guy who wants control and a good guy who doesn&#8217;t want to be controlled. The reason it&#8217;s flat is not only that it has been done to death, but that there is no real [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/writing/the-story-conversation/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Note on Settings: History vs. Mythology</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Game settings and back stories often read like mythology. This is a problem.
What is Mythology?

Mythology is a narrative explaining how the world came to be in its present form. This is also the frame most authors are writing from when they develop their back story: how did the setting get the way it is? 
The [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/writing/history-vs-mythology/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Contours of Knowledge</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Are you ignorant? Would you know if you were? 
One reason I have a continuing passion for games is that they combine many of my interests. Digital and oil painting. Graphic design, information theory and architecture. Software development. Human-Computer interaction. Fiction and non-fiction writing. Math. Ancient cultures and philosophy. Music. 
What does a person with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/production-notes/contours-of-knowledge/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>On Drama</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a taste of what drama actually is, how to achieve it, and how it relates to game writing.
At its core, drama is about conflict. Tension between one force and another must exist to generate interest. We build characters that the audience can relate to in an effort to invest them in the conflict that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/writing/on-drama/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Rape and Other Uncomfortable Topics</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my reading I&#8217;ve hit something I mentioned in a previous post about the killer vagina. In many Maori legends women are raped. What&#8217;s confusing to my western sensibilities is that no one makes a fuss about it, including the women.
In the story of Suki, goddess of rebirth, Tuna-roa, father of eels, rapes her while [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/production-notes/rape-and-other-uncomfortable-topics/</link>
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