Great Wall

From Telkoth.net

I really wish I could draw, or paint, or do something to produce at least semi-reliastic sceneries... because sometimes I have these dreams where the landscape is just amazing. Last night I had such a dream... though it started off as me teaching my friend Raul how to play a remake of Settlers.

It was all 2D, and it was going through a tutorial, but while the tutorial gave you basic objectives, it didn't really tell you how to get to them: the road system in Settlers is kind of unique, and none of that was explained, either, so I was watching him play and explaining everything.

I think on the 3rd tutorial level or so he was supposed to find some burried treasure, and I thought to myself "I have no idea... but they must mean that a geologist should find something," and there was this one road that ended suspiciously at the feet of some hilly area, so I pointed out that flag and explained how you could send scouts and geologists.

Just as he was doing this, however, we noticed an unfamiliar soldier fleeing our city, chaced by one of our own... and this is where things took a turn for 3D, as Raul and I gave chace on horseback.

I think the horse quickly stopped mattering, because I don't remember it existing after that point... but I do remember the beautiful scenery that emerged: we were traveling across this massive, hilly landscape, and in the distance was a huge wall in the style of the Chinese Great Wall... it stretched out to the left and to the right, and turned around and around... I thought to myself "ah, these are being used as borders on the map," as we approached... but this is where I really wish I could draw or something, becuase it really looked amazing... I have this one particular view stuck in my mind, where we're approaching the wall (from the west, I suppose, based on how things were oriented in the game), still so far ahead it looks maybe a few inches tall, and I'm looking to the right, where I can see it going up and down the hills, and it starts to lose saturation before turning west... not a tree in sight, just rolling brown and green.

We finally get to the wall, having never found that soldier unit that attacked, so we decide to explore the wall. There seems to be covered walkways on the outside of the wall, up long sets of stairs, and that's all something else I'd like to draw.

And here's something else: for whatever reason there's a rope along top of the wall. It's mostly on the other side of some decorative crenelation (it was too short and not in front of anything someone would walk on), but a part of it was looped over to the outside, and by looking at it I realized: I can hold on to this, and slide along the wall downhill... so I did just that.

I would totally draw some guy, from behind, rounding a corner of this wall as I did, with the landscape stretching out on the right-side.

It was so cool! Don't ask me the physics behind this, because there clearly aren't any, but I held on to this rope with one hand or the other, and my weight pulled on this loop such that in unhooked in the front and hooked up in the back, or I don't know, but I just cruised along that wall! So cool! And then at one point that ended, followed by hanging ropes - whatever: I swung on these, from rope to rope, keeping my momentum. Eventually I came to a place where, now that I recall it, there were some trees, but more importantly the rope fun ended, and I gently swung to a stop, realizing I had to turn around, and that going uphill would be more work than going downhill.

I guess going uphill would have been no fun to dream about, so I didn't, or maybe my friends caught up with me, I don't know, but we met again, and they told me I was crazy: what if I hadn't been able to simply turn around, and was forced to jump down all that height? I admitted I hadn't given it any thought, because it looked too fun not to try.

Oh, right, "friends" - it wasn't just Raul there, and Raul may not have been among them at all now... I can't quite remember, but I feel that at least one of them was someone from real life, but I really can't remember.

That's okay, because for some reason they're out of the picture now: I'm exploring a part of this wall where it meets up with some ruined city, built right on top of an older, ruined(er) city. I seem to recall it was a Roman city on top of a Sumerian city, but whether or not there's any real historical basis for this, I have no idea.

Anyway, the Romans - at least in my dream - had fun when they built on top of this ruined Sumerian city... you could clearly see where one architecture met the other, and though the Sumerian city had been half-filled with mud and dirt, the Romans still bothered to connect up, say, some staircase to one of their walkways, such that you might imagine that they were all meant to be there connected, but if you actually went down the staircase (as I'm sure every Roman living there knew not to do), you'd end up in some dirty, long-since-dried mud-filled Sumerian structure.

I did just this. Or maybe I started at the bottom, and went up, and then down again. I don't remember, but I was wandering around, and this one Sumerian staircase that lead from some Sumerian temple up to some Roman walkway was apparently of some interest, because it's where I spent most of my time.

I don't remember seeing any more of the city, other than shadowered Sumerian pillars beneath the Roman city (again, covered half in dirt), but I can imagine the city, stretching out, a strange combination of archs, buildings and walkways, almost something out of an Escher painting, though I don't mean that it had that "doesn't make geometrical sense" thing going on - gravity still applied as normal - but that crazy mixture of stairs and walkways and buildings and windows and doors...

Anyway, as I said, I really didn't see the rest of the city aboveground. Mostly I was down in this ancient Sumerian temple, which had been cleaned up somewhat and filled with replicas of Sumerian pieces (whether or not they would have been found in a temple), and I met some museum-guide like guy at some point, who walked me around and told me about the various things, and it was about this time that I was back and forth between consciousness and dreaming, so nothing more really happened in the dream, and I woke up with Jordan lying next to me and Katie on her computer...

But yeah! The great wall! The rolling hills! So cool. I remember at one point, actually, and I told Katie about this after I woke up, but forget precisely at what time in the dream it happened: but in the dream I was thinking to myself "if only the stupid graphics library would support," such-and-such older graphics mode, "I could have made this game," (Settlers, remember? That's how it started...) "in a weekend, but like this it takes me forever and I'll never get it done."

... Anyway... point is: drawing! If only felt like I had any time to do nothing for hours but draw.