#I think it's the weirdly tactile nature of his character - which is a lot to do with how Brad Dourif played him and the excellent costume | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 1 year

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How about some meta about what Grima drinks? What do you think he prefers when it comes to ales and wines, how does he take his coffee, and so on? And does he like something to nosh on while he drinks (meats/cheeses/veggies with wines and ales, sweets with coffee, etc)?

Oh I do love a food history question! I’ve answered asks about alcohol preferences before and also food so for reference, links to my previous ramblings: here and here and here and here and here.

I. might like to talk about Grima & food a lot. Maybe.

Tl;dr: I don’t think Grima’s ever had coffee or “true” tea (i.e., tea from the tea plant). Granted, if it existed in Rohan Grima would have a coffee IV drip inserted into his arm because that man looks like the walking dead in terms of a clear need for sleep.

Much more likely, he would have been drinking herbal teas/infusions/tisanes (e.g., dandelion or nettle). For alcohol: he mostly drinks wine, because it’s a status symbol. But he prefers ale and mead. I don’t know how he feels about ciders—I can see him going in different directions on that.

I also ramble about what he’d be snacking on as well—sweets mostly, breads (he loves carbs, we all know that is a man who loves carbs), various cheeses and yoghurt/yoghurt adjacent things.

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As always, I wrote you all a novel.

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Some Preliminary Meanderings on Trade

So first, I don’t know that Rohan has coffee or tea? (When I refer to “tea” here I mean tea from the tea plant (Camellia sinensis, which is native to China) I’ll distinguish other teas by calling them herbal teas or infusions etc.)

It’s hard to parse food and trade customs in Middle Earth because Tolkien wasn’t thinking like a historian, he was thinking like a linguist and a literature professor. Therefore, things are a little wonky when you try and work them through from a regional economics perspective.

For example, we know hobbits have tea, but no one else is mentioned as having tea. When drinking happens in other places it’s almost always wine or ale or mead or some other alcoholic beverage.

We also know hobbits have tobacco, which is a North American import. Obviously Tolkien created lore around how they got tobacco, since he seemed to be trying to keep Middle Earth pretty pre-colonization of North and South America in some ways. So they wouldn’t have had access to foods like tomatoes, potatoes, certain squashes, avocado, bananas, pineapples [yes, for all my tomato & pineapple jokes Grima wouldn’t know what they are], corn, certain beans etc. Most of this food wasn’t imported from the newly colonized north, south, and central America and the Caribbean until the 16th century.

LOTR is, first and foremost, a fairy tale smashed with legends such as those found in Arthuriana (Frankish and English versions), Italian legends, and the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon mythos (think: Beowulf, various poetic Eddas etc.) This is why there are moments where things don’t quite work smoothly if you think about them long enough. (Hobbits are weirdly self-sufficient and technologically advanced yet we know they have regular contact with Bree who seems a hundred years behind them?)

The big, key thing is that Middle Earth, in the third age, is a fundamentally disconnected world. Even before Sauron’s return to Mordor, the human population across Gondor and Rohan and other areas has been decimated through war and diseases of the second age and early third age.

When we meet Rohan they’re a bit isolationist, aside from the strong connection to Gondor—how much of that is Grima, how much is Theoden, Thengel, Fengel, who knows. I can see Fengel starting the trend, Thengel and Theoden had strong pro-Gondor biases so would have repaired any fraught connections with that country, but I don’t see either really caring about anyone else. Rohan seems to have some strong xenophobic tendencies.

Grima, in his treason days, would have seen the benefit of an isolated, weak Rohan so would have kept it that way. If not made it worse.

Therefore, who is Rohan trading with? Gondor. Maaaaaaaaybe Laketown/Dale? But I personally see that as a stretch given the mass amount of pretty much desolate land between Laketown/Dale and Rohan. Also, it’s clear by Eomer’s reaction to Gimli that they’ve had no interactions with the Lonely Mountain. Like. Ever. If they had, Eomer would have known Gimli’s name and even if he’s the most truculent man Rohan’s ever produced, he knows how to do Prince Behaviour and would have acted accordingly.

Anyway, it's one thing to send a delegation or ambassador across such swaths of land on a specific mission, another to have merchants trekking that distance with no real support or safety network. They’d get robbed in a heartbeat.

Gondor has been on tense terms with pretty much all her neighbours, save Rohan, for a few generations at this point. Trade relations with Harad, Umber, and out east (Rhun etc.) are likely non-existent. And have been for a good while.

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What does this mean for coffee and tea?

Going on Tolkien’s structuring of the world, I presume coffee and tea came from Harad and out east of Rhun since those spaces broadly represent middle east/parts of Africa (e.g., some aspects of Umber was loosely based on Ethiopia) and The East as seen through the lens of an Englishman steeped in a racist, orientalist culture.

Now, we know that Harad and Rhun are both aligned with the dark lord (just coincidentally, not at all for racist reasons /sarcasm/), and have had a historically fraught relationship with Gondor (lot’s of attempted colonization by Gondor, wars, bad international relations), I’m assuming there’s not been trade between them for a good, long while.

So, if there is coffee or tea in Gondor it’s been smuggled in. Therefore, if there’s coffee or tea in Rohan it’s what’s been smuggled into Gondor and somehow managed to be sold on into Rohan for a whack, whack tonne of money.

Perspective: In 14th c England a pound of ginger cost the same as a sheep—and that is a more or less accessible product procured legally.

Could Grima afford coffee or tea? I honestly don’t know. If he could, it’d be like half a year or a whole year’s income. That’s even presuming he would have had an opportunity to procure it. If he did, it’d be a rarity and would have been sold on the down-low, because of the obvious implications of what it means to have access to it.

Post-war of the ring? Gondor throws her weight around, (re)colonizes some places, forces others into subjugation, and as a result trade networks are likely reopened—either willingly or by force. So, after the war I see coffee and tea becoming far more accessible in Gondor and therefore, more accessible in Rohan.

I could see it being something people remember. Theoden’s father remembers his grandfather drinking coffee, that sort of thing.

Since I have Grima’s mother coming from the east as a quasi-refugee, she’d recall tea from childhood/young adulthood. It’s just they can’t get any, because of the war and the distance and lack of reliable trade network.

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What does this mean for our favourite snake man?

So, what would Grima be drinking aside from ale and mead and wine and imported liquor?

Water, of course. There’d be wells also possible access to spring water (depending on where they are). So that’s an option.

There’s also milk. The Anglo-Saxon and early Medieval Scandinavian foodscape did funky, fun thinks with lightly fermented milk products—and aside from turning it into cheese, skyr, and iterations of kefir, they’d also soured dairy run-offs to cure their meat over the winter as an alternative to salting.

The one really relevant to the ask is herbal teas/tisanes/infusions. These would be drunk in medicinal settings as well as for ritual/spiritual reasons. Some were also likely imbibed for the pleasure of it. The ones noted below are a mix of medicinal, ritual, and herbal teas that taste nice.

Some common herbal teas Grima might have access to include, but are not limited to: dandelion, rosehip, elderberry, mugwort (do drugs, commit treason), valerian (as a sedative), mint, yellow gentian, fennel, nettle, clover, pine, rosemary, sage, poppy (another sedative, but also used for other ailments), St. John’s wort, apple and berries, local mushrooms etc.

Some options he’d have easier access to once he is in the king’s household would include ginger, cinnamon, liquorice, vanilla (so. fancy), cardamom, hibiscus and so on.

In the wine camp, he’d also have access to verry and fruit wines—elderflower cordial being one example. But there’d be apple and berry wines. In the early middle ages, based on accounts from Arabic travellers, it appears that these were highly alcoholic and people were spinning after only a few cups and these are people with a phenomenally high alcohol tolerance.

As mentioned in previous posts, I believe Grima likes his wine as a status symbol because bitch yeah, I made it. Look at my anachronistic pineapple decorating the table. However, outside of the wine I think he had a preference for herbed ales and meads infused with berries and other additives.

I always run his palate from sweet to tart. So he’d like Jamaica, if that version of hibiscus tea existed in Middle Earth. Sweet and sour, he’s into that flavour combination.

For herbal teas, I think he does a similar approach as he does for alcohol wherein he’ll drink ginger and cinnamon and cardamom once he’s in the king’s household as a status symbol. He can afford the fancy tisanes.

That said, as with alcohol, I think he does have a preference for the simpler teas he would have grown up with. Apple, nettle, rosehip, the various berry infusions/tisanes, and mint. He would be the person who adds a lot of honey to it, though.

Healer person: You know you should drink the dandelion tea straight with no additives, right?

Grima: I am going to put my body’s weight worth of honey into this cup and there is nothing you, or the gods, can do to stop me.

If we’re running with Grima doing some iteration of seidrcræft, there are some herbal teas that would be used to induce a trancelike state such as mugwort, henbane, mandrake, vervain and the like. Yeah, some of these are deadly, but in small doses are mild intoxicants/hallucinogens. Not to mention those Local Mushroom Teas.

One day I will write Grima doing more historic seidrcræft and not like Fantasy Seidrcræft and we will just get to see him being high as a kite while meditating and rocking back/forth to rhythmic chanting.

Does Rohan have drums? The Vikings didn’t. Tolkien doesn’t mention them having drums, only various wind instruments. Who knows.

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Rohan has breakfast—when Aragorn et al arrive at Meduseld there’s mention of Theoden’s meat having arrived at the board, but it’s morning, so presumably it’s breakfast. Not all societies do breakfast, so that’s a notable thing.

Early medieval Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians seemed to do three meals a day, with breakfast being light, and lunch/dinner being heavier. Not that people didn’t have light snacks here and there, they for sure did, but the three/four o’clock afternoon break for tea or coffee wasn’t a ritualized thing. I also have Rohan following that example.

All of that said, I envision Grima as a snacky person. He’s always nibbling on something at any given moment. He was that kid who could eat a cow and then some and still be hungry. Hollow leg, that sort of thing.

So, he’s sitting there in a council meeting or something and out of no where an apple materializes and people are like “where did you get that” and Grima just smiles and eats it and Eomer is like “Why do you think his robes are so big? They’re full of lies and also snacks.”

Eomer has ransacked Grima’s anachronistic office that Fandom, myself included, have given him for snacks. He knows where Grima keeps his secret stash of baked goods and other treats snaffled out of the kitchens.

Grima’s light fingers extend to procuring treats for himself as well as shiny objects.

And for sure Grima has a sweet tooth—which I think is an across-the-board fandom read on him? At least, those of us in the Grima Camp have that read, from what I’ve seen on tumblr and in the fic I’ve read.

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Does Grima have a ritual around at least one of the smaller meals that’s not a formal event? I suspect he does. He strikes me as someone who likes his rituals and habits and so on.

For me, I like to think it’s breakfast. This man is not a morning person. He drags his desiccated carcass out of bed, splashes water on his face, contemplates if he needs to shave or not, drops himself into his clothes and shuffles out into the main hall.

He then procures for himself some herbal tea of some kind with a half-tonne of honey dumped in. It has made Eomer nauseous watching Grima add honey to his tisanes. He just chucks a whole ass honeycomb in.

Eowyn: vile. that is disgusting

Eomer: Pretty sure the spoon can stand up in it.

Grima: I need the sugar. We don’t have caffeinated beverage in our country. You don’t know how much I am suffering, Eomer “I wake up at 4am for a light 10k and some push-ups” son of Eomund and Eowyn “I have more energy than the gods ever intended one person to have” daughter of Eomund.

Anyway.

After he gets his tea made to his liking he gets a bowl of some sort of yoguhrt/skyr adjacent product with some berries and disappears around the back of Meduseld to consume it in peace and allow himself to slowly wake up without the rucous of people like Eomer being bombastic and entirely too awake for the hour (it’s like 10am).

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For some sweet foods he could be snacking on, that I assume him to be partial to, here are a few examples (taken from a previous post):

Sweet & fried breads (e.g., gingerbread, apple loaf, proto-funnel cake etc.)

Fried, baked or stewed fruits, also candied nuts

Sweet cheeses

Custards

Tarts, pies, cakes, and cookies (a very wide range of these existed, include medieval cheesecake)

Sweet toasts i.e. toastee (most usually topped with spiced honey and available nuts)

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Some brief notes on day-to-day food

Obviously everything Grima eats is seasonal. And I’ve talked about it before, in other posts, but I have never envisioned him as being a picky eater (until Saruman & the Lotho Incident). He was raised in a subsistence-based society, that seems to be pretty much living harvest-to-harvest therefore diets of those who are not nobility are mostly limited to what they have access to locally. Which can be quite diverse! But it depends on the time year and where they are in the country.

Obviously the average Joe living in Edoras, the capital and a trade centre, will have a wider variety of food to choose from than a farmer in the countryside. But still, everyone is constrained by season as well as income.

Bread would have been a huge thing, considering it’s a staple of their diet. I also see Grima just fucking loving carbs. He eats so many of them. They make him so happy.

Neil Price writes:

A whole doctoral thesis has been written on just on Viking bread, and it is in the details of daily life like this that the vividness of their world really emerges. From graves and settlement contexts all over central Sweden, but especially from the Birka burials, at least nine distinctive kinds of bread are known. There were rectangular loaves baked in a form; round loaves threaded on a thin wire; oval buns; thin, soft and foldable flatbreads made on a circular griddle pan—rather like a sort of Nordic tortilla stuffed with food; thin, circular wheels of dry, crisp flatbread with a central hole so they could be hung up for storage […]; at least two different kinds of biscuits; little balls of friend dough; and crunchy figure-of-eight shaped snacks that resemble pretzels or, more particularly, the Swedish nibbles still called kringlor. They made their bread with hulled barley and oats, sometimes wheat for the thinner forms, and very occasionally rye.

As for meat Grima would eat mutton, goat, beef, pork, chicken, duck, geese, various other waterfowl and game birds, deer, boar, other game meat and forms of venison (Rohan doesn’t have elk, moose or reindeer, it seems, but they’d have deer and the like). He’d also eat freshwater fish, eels, snails, molluscs, plants (e.g., watercress), and other things of that sort.

Pre-Lotho Sackville-Baggins Possible Cannibalism: He’ll eat pretty much anything put in front of him. He has his favoured foods, but there’s no real show-stoppers for him.

Post-Lotho Sackville-Baggins Possible Cannibalism: he goes basically pescatarian + chicken unless he feels he must be polite and eat the meat put in front of him. He’s better with beef or goat but he absolutely can’t do pork.

The reason for the fish + chicken is that I firmly believe Middle Earth is composed predominantly of societies that don’t see chicken as real meat. So, if Grima is like “I don’t really do meat” everyone is like “that’s fine, we have chicken.”

Grima: I’ve gone off meat. After the Saruman Incident.

Eomer: Reasonable. Entirely reasonable. But that’s ok because we have fish and there’s also lots of chicken, gamebirds and waterfowl. So we’re all good! You can avoid meat very easily.

Luckily for Grima, he is born and raised in this society and so therefore would agree with them.

I feel like vegetables and fruit are all pretty self-explanatory. Pretty much keep it pre-colonization of north, south, and central America and the Caribbean and you’re probably on the right track.

Grima would be eating lots of carrots, turnips, parsnips, beetroot, cabbages/lettuce/chard/other herbage, onions, garlic, certain beans, peas, other legumes etc.

For fruit the local options are likely various apples, pears, plums and other stone fruits, many different berries (gooseberry, blackberry, red currant, bilberries etc.). Theoden’s household could likely import more exotic options of oranges and other citrus, pomegranates, quinces, grapes, rhubarb, and the like.

Depending on the kind of orange that exists in middle earth, they may not have had the sweet varietal, only the bitter or sour orange.

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Holy shit, I have written way too much on this.

Thank you so much for the ask! My apologies for how fucking long it got.

#I love everyone's love of thinking about Grima and Food #I think it's the weirdly tactile nature of his character - which is a lot to do with how Brad Dourif played him and the excellent costume #which the design team orchestrated brilliantly #in the books it's just we know how hungry he became because of Saruman. Also there's just something about Grima and Hunger #hunger for power; wealth; control; to love and be loved; to desire and be desired; safety; security; a home #who doesn't hunger for such things?#grima wormtongue #lotr meta #lord of the rings #grima thoughts #rohan #grima and food #I need to make a separate tag for that apparently #ask #reply #anon

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fuckmaniknowbuthey · 7 years

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i took 3 grams of magic mushrooms & saw ghost in the shell (rupert sanders, 2017)

ramblyyyyyyy but here we go

- not an adaptation of the oshii film or the manga and a distressing amount of dipshit fans & critics will scorn it for this but fuck 'em - very very aware of the multiple schools of thought on ghost in the shell (in conceptual reverence as much as aesthetic, this was clearly a film made by ppl who had intimately explored the possibilities of ghost in the shell & decided that this would be the most palatable configuration for an american audience in 2017 - the script, as a consequence mostly of the "for an american audience in 2017", is very banal & while it respects franchise legacy & prior characterizations it is also A Superhero Origin Story so that scarjo can have a non-marvel franchise BUT as a standalone film aside from the screenplay's cloying ambitions of franchise-building it is very good & enjoyable - kin very much 2 johnny mnemonic & for more reasons than just being a highly polarizing hollywood attempt at cyberpunk w/ a prominent beat takeshi supporting part, it has that same strange glee abt taking the big studio budget and going "now let's tease out past/present/future of an aesthetic", it's a film built entirely in its tiny little details (costuming, set design, the general dreamlike vibe, the sound editing, physical gestures) - scarjo is amazing in this!! i am generally not a fan but her interpretation of motoko kusanagi is fucking fascinating & weird & very much in the spirit of standalone complex's ver. of motoko (not quite at that level of brashly confident & comfortable yet, but possessing the same intensity & directness); she approaches the idea of "playing a robot" like, not just as "oh i've gotta be clumsy w/ my speech & motions + not emote very much" but instead like, genuinely behaving in a kind of alien impression of what "humanity" is??? like it's not even the usual sort of "robot that wishes it was real" shit, like she's hostile & inscrutable in affect in all moments where she isn't being hostile & there are so many weird little facial twitches + bits of odd body language she uses 2 communicate this is idea of like, struggling w/ being a constructed version of human rather than an authentic person and the arc is that she kinda just makes peace w/ the idea that she was once a person and now she isn't but she still retains like, this faint shred of this prior experience + she'll use it as fuel 2 live her new one fully in the terms afforded her, it's fucking weirdly heavy-lifting in acting terms for what plays out in plot beats as basically just tryna chum up ghost in the shell's whole franchise history into a post-raimi superhero origin story - the scene w/ the prostitute that's been in every trailer since the earliest teasers is a great moment for showcasing this performance's general vibes in a nutshell, she's like...not just doing bog-standard "oh wow this is a real human, how i'd love 2 be her" sorta wistful detachment, she's forceful + very fixated on how tactile & real the other woman is, like she wants 2 touch her not because she doesn't understand touch or the form of a face or the nature of skin but because she has an intense hunger for her original human perceptions of these ideas and she's got 2 find a way 2 reconcile this w/ her new body in a tangible way instead of just intellectualizing it - michael pitt's hideo kuze on the flip feels very much like a gimmick performance, but it's also a fun one: he's working w/ a lot of the same basic themes, but like cast as a villain for the bulk of it he's gotta dumb the shit down 2 shtick + so he's got the prosthetics & CGI freak body + he does a max headroom meets microsoft sam voice and he screams clumsily w/ every mannerism "I WAS HUMAN, I FEEL THAT I MAY STILL BE, BUT THAT I AM UNSURE I AM HUMAN IS AN IRRECONCILABLE TRAUMA" but he's fuckin' michael pitt so he's having a lot of fun w/ it and it's an interesting contrast of scarlett fucking johansson doing this very subtle character work while pitt's ham monologuing w/ scratched CD stutter tics at her from under cover of darkness - like seriously fuck this dumb screenplay it's very trite but unhelpful 2 focus on cuz this is a film that functions on so many more levels in ways that are compelling - the action is cool, riffing a lot on the peppier moments of oshii's films + kazuchika kise's arise OVA series but never just settling for carbon copy, uses 3D well (reminded me a lot of the sense of texture & movement & space in tron: legacy, which is a tragically overlooked film that maybe just doesn't work quite right outside of a theatre unfortunately) - pilou asbaek's batou is surprisingly good, i had him written off as far 2 generic action man but like he clearly did his research, his batou has a heart & a sense of humor & he absolutely has the body + the voice necessary 2 pull this character off (he manages 2 make the inherent goofiness of rendering batou's tiny camera eyes as a real thing on a person totally workable by having batou be proud as fuck of his augments & not remotely uncomfortable at the notion of them as a replacement for his real eyes, which considering they give him a dramatic "he got hurt on the job" moment after introducing him 2 the audience as a dude w/ normal eyes is cool & not corny cuz any other fucking film would've milked this for a subplot where batou could go "MAJOR, I ALSO FEEL YOUR PAIN, FOR I LOST MY EYES AND THEY GAVE ME ROBOT ONES, THAT'S JUST LIKE LOSING YR HUMANITY, RIGHT??" and that would've sucked) - beat takeshi gets way more screentime than you'd expect and as much as his performance is very much just him Doing His Thing that's honestly an ideal vibemarriage for the daisuke aramaki character + this also feels like a corrective 2 how sloppily he was used in johnny mnemonic hahaha like hollywood just karmically owed this dude one and he finally got it - chin han is a very good togusa, like all incarnations of togusa tho he gets fuckin' paltry screentime compared 2 everyone else and he also is just there 2 be like "he's the normal guy who is a pretty good cop" which is a downright shame - the rest of section 9 all feel like characters who are begging for a sequel and/or spinoff 2 rly flesh out proper but that also means they serve in a perfect capacity for fulfilling both the superhero origin shit (give you a hook 2 intice you 2 dig deeper) and also just like the general cool fringe sci-fi genre piece vibes (everyone looks badass, there's some neat little distinct tic or visual quirk on top of said general badassness that makes you think "maaaan i wanna see more of this guy" which fucking like all of these movies have, like again johnny mnemonic, that's an entire film of characters like that) - i love the retrofuturist plastic shell cars, it's extraordinarily "some high school kid's loving blade runner fanart" but it's executed w/ a respectable unwinking nature abt its whole shit, like it doesn't try 2 make this like the slick CGI ver. of a retrofuturist plastic shell car, it's just a shitty old car w/ hyper-stylized plastic shell on it hahaha - most of the spider-tank scene pales in comparison 2 mitsuo iso's beautifully animated take from the oshii flick but the actual exact sequence where motoko breaks 2 pieces prying the tank open is fucking gorgeous & riffs on iso + oshii's original work sublimely w/o just straight-up jacking it (this is a moment where the 3D rly shines, the frantic swaying of the arm as the last tendons shred and it pops off)

overall this was dumb as fuck but very gorgeous & kept compelling by performances that are strong & play well w/ the genre elements

#movies #long post

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kayawagner · 6 years

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Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design

Semblance takes players to a soft, soothing, squishy world, one they can deform in order to solve its platforming puzzles and to explore the environments in their own ways. With a hard thump from their blobby character, players can create indents that can be used as platforms, adjust the terrain to get around hazards, and otherwise use the land's pliant nature to wander and maneuver.

"We stumbled on a sort of digital tactility. The sort of thing we're all after when talking about 'game feel'. We made something that really feels like some sort of digital playdoh," says Ben Myres of Nyamakop, developers of Semblance.

This softness, which the player can see at a glance, was a key part of Semblance's play experience, intertwining with every part of the game and its creation. Through this almost tactile feeling the game gave off, players would have a sense of how to interact with it, and it also helped guide the developers in how they would create their game, allowing for a kind of creativity born of touch that would have the game's creators and its players all having fun with it.

Glitch Born

"The softness in the game was the result of a saturation of soft references from other games, combined with a glitch that we let ourselves find the fun in. A total stroke of luck that we then remade much of the game's mechanics, story, and visuals revolve around," says Myres.

Semblance came from a desire to create something soft and squishy from its very beginnings. "Cukia (Nyamakop co-founder Cukia 'Sugar' Kimani) made this prototype in university set inside a Rothko painting. You had this character who could change shape, and the idea was you would change the painting too. I begged him to let me do levels for it, and he eventually relented. From that point we focused on this interesting idea of the character changing shape and expanded on it mechanically. We also spent a lot of time making this character feel really squishy and soft - expanding on the character ideas in INK," says Myres.

"For about a year, we focused on this idea and explored it, but it was hard to generate enough content and we discovered the incredible Mushroom 11, which did the idea much better. But we ventured on, and explored making the world of this soft character feel soft too, and so Cukia was making these little impressions when you touched platforms. They would also dent a bit when you dashed into them. This made the world feel really soft to interact with," he continues.

This focus on softness came with a certain creative spirit - a spirit of fun being found in unlikely places, popping up where you might not be looking for it. Simply being able to make a dent in the ground when bumping into something lead to a further gameplay idea, this one born from a glitch.

"For a long time, Cukia's favorite game was The Floor is Jell,y which has these wild jelly platforms and is so calming to play. I loved it too, but I was interested that the deforming itself wasn't explored a ton apart from a bit at the beginning and in a fabulously glitchy way at the end of the game. So, when I saw this denting of the platforms, I experimented a bit and found that there was a glitch - if you dashed into platforms quickly enough, you could actually make them deform quite far beyond their initial position. I put a collectible behind one of these platforms and found you could actually collect it if you were quick enough, " says Myres. "At this moment I turned to Cukia, and said '... Sugar... lets make this the whole game.' I'll be damned if he didn't somehow figure out the blood magic that made it possible," he continues.

With this glitch came the game's play style, which would revolve around deforming the squishy world by thumping into it. The feeling that the world gave off, which the developers had been chasing, slowly seemed to choose its own means of interaction, giving Nyamakop an excellent idea on how players would interact with their world.

"The deforming mechanic evolved out of chasing a soft aesthetic, and we just kind of ran with it. Semblance is really just a game that asks two questions about innate affordances of the genre: what if you could affect platforms' shape/position and what if the character's shape could change," says Myres.

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Chasing Digital Softness

How does one make something 'feel' soft, visually? How do you make something have a certain feeling when no one will ever make real contact with it? This is a question that dogged Myres and his fellow developers throughout the creation of Semblance. However, it would also lead to them capturing many different ways to represent the feeling of 'soft' in their game's world.

"It was really challenging! We got a lot of the feeling innately from the core mechanic of the deforming world - just being able to deform platforms makes players sense how soft things are. However, we spent a ton of time iterating on many things to make that softness clear at a glance. The character has a weight on deforming platforms, kind of putting little impressions on them as they move over the platforms. We also made as many things as possible jiggle and wiggle as you move past them," says Myres.

Simply being able to have an impact on the ground in a visible way gave that feeling that things were soft. The player could sense that squishiness as they watched the ground move under their slime hero, as well as when it shifted due to an impact. Visually, this touch was enough to give the player a tactile sense of what the world was like.

Watching that ground bounce around the character also helped the developers convey a certain feeling in the world. "Weirdly, 'springiness' of objects also makes things feel soft," says Myres. "If something springs back when you touch it, you brain assumes it's soft to touch, and absorbs a lot of pressure before springing back. So, we put springs everywhere we could - to animate the character procedurally, to move impressions back into place, and of course to reset/deform platforms. Again, this is something we got from focusing on the core mechanics."

The landscapes themselves, untouched, could also convey that sense of softness. "We also spent what feels like an eon in the concept art phase. We iterated through so many textures and shapes to try to find something that visually looked soft. We settled on something pretty simple ultimately: rounded edges for soft, and corners for hard things. We experimented with alot of textures to try to support the softness, but it was too tricky to get right, so we ended up putting textures only on hard objects to make them feel crystalline and hard. We also got a lot of tactility from the background and foreground elements our artist, Jean Roux, put together. Having rounded branches on trees, and even rounded mountains really makes you feel like this whole world is soft and squishy," says Myres.

"Contrast also helps a lot here - making things feel hard helps the soft things feel soft too. So that crystalline texture on hard platforms and infected objects was important, too. Making spiky things dangerous and feel visually distinct to the soft things helped a ton as well. Additionally, making the character change shape when dashing into hard objects helps the character (who is literally a piece of the ground brought to life) feel ultra squishy and soft. The character is so soft that a hard impact with something hard will change its shape," he continues.

Visual and gameplay elements contributed to that soft sensation, but the sound design was equally important in making players really connect to that tactile feeling. "The sound effects are also important, of course. We really gave our sound designer, Keith Kavayi, free reign on exploring this sensation. He went through lots of iterations to settle on the perfect balance of soft and squishy, but also springy and deformable. The game sounds soft in the right places, but also the deforming makes auditory sense too. He also made a wonderfully gross set of sounds for the character changing shape and drifting over the terrain," says Myres.

Squishable Heroes

This world wouldn't have completed its soft sensation with a hard hero, which challenged the developers to make a truly jiggly blob hero for players to take control of. "The character was a really interesting and complex thing to make. Cukia started out with a simple deforming character in his first prototype, but we spent a lot of time deepening the feeling he had," says Myres.

"To get a strong sensation, we actually had to procedurally render and animate the character. The shape is rendered using bezier curves, and then the character 'frames' are made up of bezier curves in unique settings and formats. Then we use a numeric springing algorithm to move between those 'frames', which acts as our animation. Then the eyes on the character also have specific positions for each animation, and jigglier settings on their spring algorithms that emphasize the motion and give the character's movement a feeling of momentum," he continues.

Having that wriggly character bounding about and reacting to the player's actions, with both eyes and body, was key to making that rubbery sensation clear in the world. Making it react to the world it had misshapen was also important to that soft sensation, too. "Finally, the character also moves over the ground smoothly in any way it has been deformed. It's not just the motion here, but the character's shape also matches the shape of the deformed terrain, " says Myres.

"Cukia always says 'people think the platform deformation was the hardest thing to do, but it was actually making the character contour to platforms,'. This enabled us to make the character feel super jiggly in a ton of different situations, without having to manually animate every one," he continues.

All of these things, working in tandem, would give Semblance its powerful, tactile sense of softness - that feeling that the player could reach out and find it squishy on contact.

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Soothing, Soft Results

The results from the developer's focus on sensation have given the game a great power, one many players react to naturally.

"The most striking example is kids under 5 playing the game. They can barely master the controls, and don't really progress in the puzzles, but my-oh-my they love deforming the terrain - it just feels so good to them," says Myres.

It's an extremely satisfying thing to do, based on that sensation of visible touch the developers at Nyamakop worked so hard on. "So really, the deforming terrain is just an innately satisfying thing to do - people love doing it. It also puts them into the mindset of 'this is a toy', which makes them want to experiment and explore the game more. We also want it to feel soothing - because the enjoyment of the mechanic feels so good, we didn't want to put in too many roaming enemies. It should feel relaxing and satisfying to play, not necessarily adrenaline-inducing. The soundtrack Daniel Caleb put together really deepens this calming feeling, too. We also tried to avoid too many hardcore platforming challenges to avoid frustration for this reason," says Myres.

This softness, born of found fun in an unexpected place, would also tie into the game's play style and its soothing mood, creating puzzles with various solutions that would encourage players to find out what worked rather than seeking some specific solution. Not that the developers knew this at first.

"We don't mean to toot our own horn, but we could really tell the mechanic was interesting when we... well...had absolutely no idea what to do with it. We had to spent a ton of time exploring and really discovering how this mechanic changed the genre. We came up with lots of ideas, created dozens of puzzles, playtested them and then players completely destroyed our painstakingly constructed solutions. Designing puzzles for Semblance was like driving in sand, you can't try to direct the car, you have to go with the flow of the wheel as the sand gives way here and there. We had to experiment, see players find alternate solutions, and follow them down the rabbit hole," says Myres.

"Seeing as the mechanic came from a glitch, we had to be true to that starting point. We had to be aware of fun coming from unexpected places - undesigned places. Often players would create solutions, or try things that didn't work, and we would think 'Oh... that's interesting. That's a whole new set of puzzles to explore.' We were discovering the possibility space with players as we went along. We also often found that it would be a mistake to try make single solution puzzles, and instead ended up with 'solution ranges'. Most puzzles have many small varying ways to solve the platforms (as the deforming enables), and some even have major different solutions. As long as players are solving puzzles more or less with the specific tools we wanted, then we decided to leave those solutions in," he continues.

In this way, the developers at Nyamakop had to be pliant as well, willing to bend and reshape their image of the game to suit what the players were drawing out of it, and the interesting ways they were playing with the toy that they had created. That softness, which bled into every aspect of design, was also personified by the attitudes and designs of its creators. They would allow themselves to be shaped by the game, embracing it as a mindset as well as a feeling to be conveyed.

As the developers opened themselves up to these solutions, more puzzle ideas came along. "At a more pragmatic level, as we discovered the possibility space, we started restricting it in certain ways (some things were technically too hard to do, or not interesting enough design-wise), and designing puzzles around certain interactions. Like as simple as 'let's make some wall jumping puzzles' and so on. In this process, we made a bunch of puzzles for the goal interaction, but also kept finding other interesting interactions - so it was a rabbit hole all the way down," says Myres.

"As we figured out the possibility space, we realised we might be left with an inaccessible mess of lateral thinking puzzles. This lead us to think hard about learning and the meta level design. We started to think through the lens of how a player would learn about deforming the platforms and the associated mechanics. We also wanted to avoid restricting players - if you get stuck on a puzzle that shouldn't be game over. You should be able to leave, solve some other puzzles, and come back, perhaps learning how to solve that puzzle from a different puzzle further on," he continues.

The world's solutions would be pliant and soft as well, open to interpretation by their players. Open to new solutions, or leaving and coming back with new experiences. It would push the game away from that hardness that comes with focusing on challenging the player in a single way and forcing them to learn it, instead leaning toward a world that could be moved by creativity within the developers and those who would play Semblance.

"So, we spent a bunch of time figuring out how to teach the basic deforming aspects with level design, and then built up to our more complex puzzles. We also isolated mechanics to certain levels, so players could move between levels without necessarily having to master each level element. Then in the last 1 or 2 levels of a world, we challenge the player to figure out something tricky. This enabled a rather lateral mechanic, deforming platforms, to become quite accessible," says Myres.

Softness infused every aspect of development, from a look to a play design style to a developmental philosophy, resulting in the charming, soothing experience of Semblance.

youtube

Semblance is available for $9.99 on Steam, GOG, and the Nintendo Switch. For more information on the game and developer Nyamakop, you can head to the game's site, the developer's site, or follow them on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

0 notes

barbosaasouza · 6 years

Text

Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design

Glitch Born

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Chasing Digital Softness

Squishable Heroes

All of these things, working in tandem, would give Semblance its powerful, tactile sense of softness - that feeling that the player could reach out and find it squishy on contact.

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Soothing, Soft Results

The results from the developer's focus on sensation have given the game a great power, one many players react to naturally.

Softness infused every aspect of development, from a look to a play design style to a developmental philosophy, resulting in the charming, soothing experience of Semblance.

youtube

Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

0 notes

barbosaasouza · 6 years

Text

Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design

Glitch Born

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Chasing Digital Softness

Squishable Heroes

All of these things, working in tandem, would give Semblance its powerful, tactile sense of softness - that feeling that the player could reach out and find it squishy on contact.

-Photo Credit Nyamakop/ Jean Roux

Soothing, Soft Results

The results from the developer's focus on sensation have given the game a great power, one many players react to naturally.

Softness infused every aspect of development, from a look to a play design style to a developmental philosophy, resulting in the charming, soothing experience of Semblance.

youtube

Squishy, Soft, Soothing - How Softness Infused All Elements Of Semblance's Design published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

0 notes