#outside of the visual aesthetic it just fails the genre as a whole

[carelesscuriosity]

Captain Laserhawk kinda sucked? It felt like an ip-focused cash grab that didn’t actually have anything meaningful to say covered with a coat of cyberpunk paint

[hellomynamiseglaf]

🌰Chestnuts and Warm Milk🍂

My List of ~Favorites~ for Interactive Fiction and Visual Novels

(This is a work in progress so please bear with me)

Interactive Fiction:

The Wayhaven Chronicles (WIP Series in Development) - @seraphinitegames  (Look,,, I’m just... obsessed.. I can’t stop thinking abt it,,, and I'm..... sometimes, I read and I think I feel like I know what love is.)

Mind Blind (WIP) - @mindblindbard (I just,, UGH it’s so good. I can't even say that much because my feelings about it are so potent that everytime I see an update I try to tell myself to leave it alone to play larger portions of updates as a treat and everytime my willpower FAILS and I replay the demo like twice in a row)

Demon: Recollect ; Forsaken (WIP) - both by @bathalafiction (whew...WHEW!!! Are you kidding me?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Look. I was attached to Demon: Recollect. I loved it. And then I played the Forsaken WIP and now I can't get over my absolutely BOMB character design for my player persona. Also it's kind of fun being considered a jerk in the game, because it opens up a lot of different options that I usually feel bad about taking)

Shadow Society - @carawenfiction (the concept is so interesting,, I dream of more. Also Quaiel...baby...)

The Soul Stone War - @intimidatingpuffinstudios (also whew!! I really enjoyed it and the characters all picture themselves really vividly in my mind for some reason.)

Greenwarden (WIP) - @fiddles-ifs (reading this is like thick fog.. but in a good way? I don't know how to describe it without pictures but this IF smells like fog over wet grass)

Divine Intervention (WIP) - @divineinterventiongame (the concept?? UGH SO GOOD. For some reason it's always the first game I click to check for updates)

Golden (WIP) - @milaswriting (😈😈😈😈)

Blood/line (WIP) - @bloodlineoffical (simply put,,, LARRY)

Supernatural in New York ; The Bastard of Camelot (both WIPs) - @llamagirl28  (UGH Both of these are so good in their own ways but equally as exciting to see updates for. I haven't consolidated my feelings much further than "my MC for SiNY is so cute" and "Mordred is a child" but they're all generally positive.)

Ace of Spades (WIP) - @steph-writing (I keep thinking about,,, con........)

Nevermoore (WIP) - @asteristories (AHHHHH.... let me say it again for those in the back: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Son of Satan: The Mortal Coil (WIP) - @sosthemortalcoil (YES.)

Shepherds of Haven (WIP) - @shepherds-of-haven (yes. I just have to sigh because it's very good and I like saying those funny little words of power. But also outside of the game I can only picture this game as a great, grey border collie)

Attollo (WIP) - @attollo (Also a very interesting concept, whoo... I almost forgot how immersive it was untill I played the demo again and was reminded of how 'into it' I was straight off the bat. Also the seperate, short little piece on the blog with Sysba was also really good and I had a dream about it the other day)

Into the Shadows (WIP) - @wynnakang​ (whooo.... I'm sighing again, but louder. I press restart and play the demo again)

A Comedy of Manors (WIP) - @sviyaginthegreat (I kept replaying options that I hadn't chosen before because I wanted there to be more lmao)

Fallen Hero: Rebirth - @fallen-hero (I think there's a sequel coming up? I haven't stopped thinking about this storyline since I finished it omg... the.. the details are really good and I've become ridiculously attached to my tragic villain? Character... she IS the standard for my reusable IF persona, or at least one of my most prominent ones ;-D )

Samurai of Hyuga (WIP series) - (I'm pretty sure multiplechoicestudios.com is the development blog for this game, or at least what I've been checking for updates..... this is a series with four book currently out.... and I've been playing through book 4 at slower than a snail's pace in a desperate attempt to prolong my experience. I really didn't think I was going to like it as much as I did but I got a little too into it and now I'm horribly attached to all the characters)

The Porthecrawl Witness(WIP) - @porthecrawl-witness (I'm pretty sure this is a WIP?? But ugh. SCREEEEEE- it's so good. It's SO GOOD. I really want to punch Talbot in the face. And Asher, if for a different reason. And sort of Staci just to try. Quinn is just a cutie I could never hurt him like that. Ugh but they're all so good and I forgot that I was reading a WIP untill it suddenly was over..... I'mfeeling really aggressive rn as I'm writing this, so please just note that the punch comment is meant as a statement on how interesting the concept and immersiveness of the characters and story is)

Forgotten Names (WIP) - by Alexandra_Zorila on the CoG Forum (turn the volume up. AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Look, look. It's..... delicious. It's SO interesting and I obsessively have a tab open on my computer to check for updates)

OFNA: Birds of a Feather (WIP) - @ofna (the vibes are so grey and smoky but the fog is definitely from a party smoke machine and the room is only dark because the walls are taped with those huge sheets of black construction paper that teachers use to cover their bulletin boards with... the game definitely falls in the 'dark and mysterious' genre but something just strikes me as really funny when I play it. Anyway it's good and it's in a lot if recommended lists for a reason. Also I'm very attached to my American Goldfinch)

More Things in Heaven and Earth (WIP) - @morethingsgame (in the same way that it's fun to play Guenevere in the Guenevere game or Mordred in The Bastard of Camelot, playing Ophelia in the sort-of Hamlet story is really fun. If anyone has read the Missing collection- which I absolutely love- by Margaret Peterson Haddix, this gives me similar vibes for some reason. Anyway, I really want to give Hamlet a hug and make him a flower crown or something)

A Tale of Crowns (WIP) - @ataleofcrowns (It's kind of not even funny how much I love this game... It's hard to even describe why I like it, just that it's so well rounded in terms of the story, characters, dialogue, and relationships. It's such an interesting plotline and it's pretty immersive. Also the first time I read the demo, there was an update as I was reading and the high that sent me on has very rarely been matched. Also Dara running to save my Crown in the tunnel?? 🤚😩🤭💓 ugh. UGH!! That's good food for my fool heart)

Scout: An Apocalypse Story (WIP)- @anya-dev (I'm usually not that into apocalypse themes/plots but I really enjoyed this game, and the plot was very good and intruiging... it really pulled me in and I like my character in the story a lot. I don't know why but it tastes like chikuwa, atsuage, and this specific type of carmelized onions that my mom makes sometimes)

Nothing left to burn (WIP)- @clowdee-works (......ouch. I *knew* what was going to happen and I STILL became attached to Drew)

Smoke and Velvet - @roast-ifs (It's good. And I am VEDY much into my character design. Also the story is really interesting, and I enjoy the setting a lot somehow)

Speaker (WIP)- @speakergame (very fun to play, and each update gets me more interested in the aspects of the plot. I also really like the little descriptions of what the characters think of the player)

The Nameless (WIP)- @parkerlyn (interesting plot, I like the characters a lot, and The aesthetics of this world are so interesting. Definitely had a good time visualizing what everything looked like)

Fields of Asphodel (WIP) - @asphodelgame (I think it's really cute so far!!! I like mythology in general, and the persephone/hades dynamic is *mwah!*... I like the way the story progresses in the beginning, and I think it works well in drawing the reader into the world. I also very much enjoy petting large dogs.)

...there are so much more.. and I have followed so many blogs.........

I'm not sure why I can't find it rn but there's this one WIP game that I really like where the MC buys a manor for like dollar and moves to go live there with her best friend and shenanigans ensue as they try to settle in and fix up the estate

Harbringer (WIP) - @harbringercog (....are you KIDDING me?? I was fully planning on just enjoying the demo and keeping a mental note to update the list sometime later,,, but this game... THIS GAME really made me fold. It's very immersive and regardless of how nervous the author claims to be after releasing the demo, it's of my humble opinion that those nerves can be calmed. It's very good. I was planning on procrastinating and reading a little bit and then going back to this essay I need to write, but somehow I got pulled in and ended up reading through the whole demo and it's apparent that I honestly had no chance of getting through this without becoming invested in the plot.... just... so good.. I'm very excited to see how this will progress)

Visual Novels:

Andromeda 6 (WIP) - @andromeda-six​  (I repeat: Obsessed, I come back every few months to see an update and I fall deeper into the hole every time...)

To the Edge of the Sky (WIP,, probably) - by Ajané (??) on Steam (I think, it’s been a while)

Next on my list to check out: Perfumare by pdrrook

Does.... does The Arcana game by Nix Hydra count as VN?? If so, then yes.

Similarly, the FictIF games are all entertaining, although Last Legacy and Heir to Love and Lies are my favorites rn (and.....unfinished....)

I also don't know if this counts, because I kind of consider Otome games to be their own genre, but on the Love 365: find your story by Voltage Inc. There are a bunch of fun stories, my favorite of which are: the Shinichi Kagari route on After School Affairs and the Saejima and Keiichiro routes on Bad Boys do it Better

..To be continued...

[centrally-unplanned]

Random question: how do you feel about shounen anime?

I feel ~fine about shounen anime as a whole? I do think about genres but I tend to focus on individual works and will watch anything from any genre as a result.

Overall I do struggle a bit with shounen's addiction to the action spectacle - I saturate quickly on fight scenes and so I look for them to either progress the narrative, be intellectually engaging on the mechanics or at least be visually unique, and a lot of shows don't hit that threshold. Others definitely have a higher tolerance, which is fine, it just means the median show is aiming for a different market than me.

Its certainly not all shows though - Mob Pyscho is the most recent shounen anime that is a masterclass in how to do the genre well - constantly visually inventive, fun and hilarious character dynamics in each plot, and always underscored by the central conceit of Mob being ludicrously stronger than everyone else in existence such that the action scenes are never about what you think they are. Kill la Kill is the literal definition of This Fucks and is absolutely hilarious in its very animation, which is a tall order that Imaishi/Trigger excels at. And of course classics like Samurai Champloo abound that are the peak of certain aesthetics.

I have definitely find less (definitely not zero, but less) western media that connects with me these days, and I think at lot of that has to do with a narrowing aesthetic palette that they are permitted to pull from. Shounen anime is one of those places where a whole swatch of aesthetics western media fails to deliver on these days is being perfected, particularly in the "Sakuga Revolution" era of today with more and more focus on short, blazingly-high impact scenes that have a universal appeal even outside of the context of their shows. I may struggle with some shounen but the ~5% that truly excels can justify the struggle.

[algernoninwonderland]

Miraculous, intertextuality and why referencing other works all the time isn’t necessarily a great idea

TL;DR: Miraculous loves itself some pop culture references, they’re in the show all the time for you to enjoy, especially if you’re a big nerd.

Only, making a list of references and trying to replicate what other works did before yours doesn’t make your show good by association, and when it comes to Miraculous, these references seldom do these original works justice. Instead, it makes comparing these other works with Miraculous really easy, and the comparison is rarely flattering.

Miraculous would be a much better show if it tried to be its own thing, a few scenes are just that and they are great. It’d be a wonderful show were they not so few and far between.

Miraculous is made by nerds, as is the case with most cartoons. The show itself lets you know that right away. It’s a pastiche of magical girl anime and Silver Age comics, it uses a lot of their visual languages, and references its other inspirations a lot, for instance:

The name of its fictional locations, (Françoise Dupont is a regular kid with a masked detective alter ego named Fantomette, Marinette’s address is a reference to a French illustrator who often drew a talking ladybird)

The way its characters look (Master Fu is both Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid and Muten Roshi from Dragon Ball, when akumatised, Mme Couffaine becomes basically Captain Harlock and her houseboat becomes the Arcadia) 

Sometimes entire scenes are references to other works (Aurore’s akumatisation is straight out of Utena’s Dark Rose Saga, “Gorizilla” has a King Kong pastiche). 

You could fill an entire Wiki with all the references in Miraculous if you wanted to. If you paid me well, I’d do it myself.

Wearing your inspirations on your sleeves is a double-edged sword, really.

On the one hand, you showcase the things that inspired your creative process, a way to say, “hey, that show/film/book exists within a landscape, it’s the heir to such and such work”. You acknowledge that you owe a lot to your predecessors, you acknowledge that there’s no such thing as a 100% original thing. That’s a great act of humility. 

And intertextuality conveys meaning, too! Let’s take a very mainstream example. When you notice that ha! The pod-racing scene in Phantom Menace comes from the 1959 movie Ben-Hur for instance, you get the sense that you understand the cinematic masterpiece that is Episode 1 a bit more. It tells you that your movie about space wizards owes a lot to other genres, and that it transposes these genres to another setting, space! “It’s Ben-Hur, in that that slave kid is pod-racing for his freedom, but I gave it my own spin,” George Lucas tells you. “Look, the funny Gungan stepped into that space cow’s poop! Haha, sure hope I’ll sell lots of toys and buy myself some death sticks!”

You feel really smart when you get a reference, too! “Hey, that’s a Dezaki effect right there!” “Wow, is that a robot from Castle in the Sky in Age of Ultron?” Likewise, if you don’t recognise the work being referred to, you might get curious about it! References send back to other things and your knowledge of these things and when you get it, it feels nice. Lots of people discovered Utena thanks to Steven Universe and that’s really cool, and these references add to the meaning of the cartoon! Folks who casually got into RWBY but didn’t know Soul Eater and Cowboy Bebop heard about those shows and many others while discussing RWBY and I’m sure lots of them got into anime thanks to RWBY!

On the other hand, by being so open about your sources of inspiration, you expose yourself to criticism, especially in the case of your work being compared with what inspired it: it might be seen as derivative, or even worse, unable to do these previous pieces of media justice by only retaining and replicating their most superficial elements without a great understanding of what made them work, gratuitous fanservice for nerds.

And I’m not quite sure where Miraculous stands. Oftentimes, it feels more like a Spider-Man/Kamen Rider crossover with bits of outdated shoujo manga and superficial wuxia sprinkled in there than a show at least trying to be its own thing.

And the problem is, Sailor Moon is better at being Sailor Moon than Miraculous could ever be, as it uses its visual language better, and it has a tiny thing called “the main character having a group of friends who aren’t props and a plot you can follow” that is the very reason why people liked the manga and anime in the first place. Miraculous only retains the very superficial aspects of the manga/anime and of the genre. Marinette still trips over a cat in the opening. Because that’s how it happens in Sailor Moon. Her characterisation as a civilian screams “Usagi Tsukino but more stressed out”.

Spider-Man is better at splash pages than Miraculous because ML’s CGI is pretty meh when it’s not in motion, these weird filter effects don’t look great, that only works when you’re Into the Spiderverse and have comic-book aesthetics. Queen Wasp has a whole sequence that is just that scene in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 only this time Queen Bee sabotaged a metro on purpose to stop it. It’s not an awful scene, it carries its point across rather well (Chloé is a selfish nerd who thinks she can be like these comic book characters but truly isn’t fit to be a hero) but the original did it better, it was more impressive, there was more tension to that original scene, some really interesting camera and foley work that made you feel the weight of that train. It didn’t feel cheap the way that scene in “Queen Wasp” did.

Utena’s Black Rose Saga explores the psyche of some of its secondary characters the audience is already familiar with, with problems we could already identify within them. It offers an examination of the storyworld from another point of view, and helps build it further. There’s always a proper buildup before these characters have a mental breakdown in an moody elevator with a butterfly pinned on the wall that turns back into a chrysalis, because the characters are going through a kind of regression that makes them easier to manipulate and turn into “villains” while acting out their true desires in a twisted way. “Stormy Weather” has most of that, an elevator with dramatic lighting, a butterfly and a mental breakdown, but the character is all new to us so it’s just not that impactful. Often, that one secondary character who’ll get transformed has had spoken lines, yes, but that’s only minutes before they get akumatised.

“Kinda the same but a bit worse and missing some of the key aspects of what made the original thing so good” isn’t much of a tribute, is it?

In an earlier post, I stated that Animaestro was basically “I have watched a lot of animated shows and I know how to mimic them, the episode”. It told us nothing about animation as a medium except that it’s cool sometimes and that you get to imitate other people who are much better at the things they do than you are. 

It’s not a clever metacommentary, it’s just “me likey moving pictures”. Good for you, I guess… Did you really need an entire episode to make that point?

And then you’ve got all the bad outdated shoujo tropes with characters falling on top of each other, aggressive flirting (harassment, really) from Adrien portrayed as really sweet and romantic because it’s just like in the shoujo manga (which one?) you see… And that’s just not great, is it?

Miraculous is a much better cartoon when it doesn’t try (and fail) to emulate other shows and movies and comic books and manga. The only thing it tells us about these works is that That Guy and co really like them and that copy-pasting them is the best way they’ve found to show their love. Imitation and flattery and all of that I guess.

“Look, it’s like in that scene in the anime! Did you like the anime? It sure was a good anime, and if our show makes you think about it, then it’s also good, right?”

No, you guys, I’m sorry but no. If making references was all it took to be good, then gaming webcomics would be regarded as masterpieces. 

Very often, the show seems interested in being anything but itself. And it’s a shame, because there are lots of ideas the show kind of brings up but never quite touches. Marinette is interested in fashion design? That’s great, show us more of that! Make it an important part of her character, and by the same occasion, make her creations look not-laughable. Miraculous could be the first cartoon to explore what it’s like to be a biracial kid with a Chinese parent in France (would that work with a crew of almost strictly middle-aged white men is another question to which the answer is a resounding “no”). The show is set in Paris? Cool, how about exploring the city outside of its landmarks every tourist and their mom already knows?

Inexplicably, in the middle of an episode when you expect it the least, you get brilliant bits of directing that aren’t references to other works. Alya becoming Rena Rouge and her first steps as a superhero? Brilliant, really immersive, loved it, not a reference. The sad car scene in Puppeteer 2? It’s really really good, not a reference either. All the unexplored lore? It seemed really promising and having more of it would help us understand things a bit more!

People don’t just like your show because it reminds them of another show. Why watch it if you can watch that original work in the first place?

Trying to make a superficial mashup of all things you think are great in other works is not the way to do these works justice, nor is it the way to make your show interesting, let alone good. 

[ghouladventures]

Real Writing Advice

I just thought I’d share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years in regards to writing. I am by no means an expert, but I’ve been writing screenplays (at least attempting to) and fanfics/short stories for around 7+ ish years and I have definitely learned a lot from my mistakes. I’m partially making this post to combat some of my own imposter syndrome, and motivate me to work on a script I’ve been avoiding. This is just advice from my own experience, not a bunch of regurgitated stuff from the internet. 

“Write what you know” (stay with me on this!)

I know, you’ve heard this before a million times. But that’s because it’s true. I’d like to extend more on this idea though because it’s often overlooked due to how vague it is. 

To me, “write what you know” means taking your life, your experience and putting it into the story. Nobody else will ever have your exact life experience, so use material from your own life. DO NOT worry about it being done a million times, because I can assure you, if you do it your own way, it will end up being unique. 

WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING. As a comedy writer, it can be really hard to create funny situations/dialogue out of thin air. But observation is the key to comedy and writing in general. Anything funny I hear, a story that happens to me or a friend, I have a strong opinion about something, etc. I write it all down. Your phone is right there, open the notes and write it down because you WILL end up forgetting it. I cannot tell you how much effort I have saved because I have a whole bunch of notes that are just pure material. 

Character writing is very difficult for me, as I always end up making characters that are just like me. In fanfics I end up projecting myself onto the characters hella, and I only notice during the re-reads. But...you’re the only one to reference. You ARE the main character of your life, so it’s only natural. What I do to create characters is look within. Make a character who personifies the person you want to be, the type of person you hate, the type of person you crush on, a character that shares a flaw with you, who you feel like inside vs. outside, etc. Make a list if you want, as many things you can think of. Share a piece of yourself with every character, your own experience adds a realness that can’t be replicated through research. DO NOT be afraid of flaws! Flaws are the absolute best thing you can give to a character. The character has to overcome these internal flaws to get where they want to, so don’t shy away from character flaws! 

Enjoy Writing! 

Too many times it’s easy to get caught up in the stress of writing. Making sure your story is cohesive and engaging, and trying to juggle a million things at once is HARD. Writing is hard. But please have fun, I beg of you. 

If you love a certain movie, watch it, analyze and learn why! Don’t copy the entire movie, but take things that you really love and put it into your own story. Great artists steal. You love a certain plot point, character element, message, dynamic, etc., find a way to incorporate those things you love into your work. 

Put yourself in the audiences shoes. Create the type of movies you love watching, the type of movies that cause you to jump into a fandom! Once you find out why you love the stories you do, you start getting excited about your story. For me, doing this has taken the negative connotation of “working” on a script away that I often can’t get away from my notepad. You start getting excited to write, and while that passion unfortunately dies down, keep finding reasons to be excited about your story. 

Play around with genre. Tell a story from a different perspective. Add that element you thought was “too weird” to add. Don’t shut down ideas that seem too self indulgent or ridiculous, it might just lead to something. The screen/page is your place to play! Try something new, test it out. Do not be afraid to “fail” because your just brainstorming! Failure doesn’t really exist, it’s just testing and trying things until you find gold. You have a whole page of just scribbled nonsense? So what! Everything is part of the process. Stop beating yourself up before you even start. 

Vibes are important

A lot of times I have no story ideas, but I want to make a movie like ______. But hey, vibes are a start! Maybe you just have a few scenes in mind, a color scheme, etc. If that’s what’s bouncing around your head, start writing them down! From there you can start connecting dots. Throw in a character you’ve been working on. Basically all of my stories start out as “just vibes”, so don’t dismiss them. 

When I’m starting a new project, I’ll make a playlist of music. Not music that will be part of the soundtrack necessarily, but just music that relates to my idea. I take soundtracks from other movies and just put them all in a pile, throw it on shuffle, and write. It makes everything 100% more fun and engaging, and having the music match the “vibe” helps immensely with creating the vision. 

Like making a playlist, I make a pinterest board filled with just everything related to my idea. Aesthetics, character looks, locations, etc. This helps me really create a vision of what I want this movie to be. Not the story, not the plot. 

Your Brain, Your Process

There is no correct way to create anything. When I was starting out, I would read and watch a lot of “advice” and “screenwriting process” stuff. While I felt like I was gaining knowledge, it really only made me feel like I didn’t know what I was doing. 

USE YOUR STRENGTHS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. So your visual? Great! Make little idea bubbles, make a venn diagram, use a story circle, draw lines connecting ideas, use a punnett square, etc. Maybe you’re really good at writing fanfictions but not screenplays. Great! Write your scenes out like fanfictions before formatting them like a script. Just some examples but my point is, use the skills you already have. This makes it so much easier, it takes away the daunting feeling of writing and allows you to progress. 

Find writers you look up to and learn from them! One of my favorite writers is Dan Harmon, so I looked up writing advice from Dan Harmon and found a bunch of advice that was extremely useful to me (highly recommended for visual people). Look up the writers to your favorite movies/shows/books, and see what you find! You’d be surprised how much extremely useful information is out there if you look. Learn from the people you look up to, the writers you want to be. I keep little notebooks and write notes (like i’m in class), of everything I learn, and when I need some help, I whip out my little notebook and find some advice, it has helped me get un-stuck countless times. Over time, the concepts you learn will become more instinctual, making writing easier. 

It takes time. This is my biggest problem. I will work on a movie for a few months, then get bored and desert it. But look at any movie, if you see any storyboard or “first draft” type of stuff. It’s like a completely different movie! Great things take time, you don’t have to speedrun a whole script. Just keep working on it, it will take a long time, but it will be worth it. 

I hope that was helpful to some of you writers out there! 

[passionate-reply]

Are you tired of Great Albums being about music people have actually heard of? Do you want me to just go ape shit, and review obscure minimal wave cassettes from the 80s? Admittedly, Oppenheimer Analysis’s New Mexico is one of the most famous weird minimal wave cassettes, and for good reason: it actually holds up quite well as an album! Come check out what all the fuss is about. Transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be talking about a very cultish cult classic, and an album that’s one of the definitive works in the very underground scene of so-called “minimal wave”: New Mexico, the only full album released by the duo “Oppenheimer Analysis.” The band’s namesake was actually lead vocalist Andy Oppenheimer, who became acquainted with instrumentalist Martin Lloyd at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention, where the pair bonded over speculative fiction, Midcentury graphic design and propaganda, and the work of early British electronic pioneers like the Human League. 1982’s New Mexico was these two’s first recording as a group, but Lloyd did go into it with one credit--the year prior, he and David Rome of Drinking Electricity released a double A-side, featuring the jumpy, playful instrumentals “Surface Tension'' and “Connections.” They referred to their act as “Analysis,” making it feel very much a part of the Oppenheimer Analysis story.

Music: “Surface Tension”

Oppenheimer, meanwhile, was a true outsider artist, making a living as a nuclear science writer without any substantive musical background. While not all minimal wave is “outsider music,” and not all electronic outsider music is minimal wave, there’s certainly a correlation there. Oppenheimer’s reedy, somewhat strained voice lends New Mexico the punkish charm that only utterly untrained vocalists can offer: a vessel that cracks and buckles as it fails to contain the raw emotion within.

Music: “Martyr”

The addition of a singer is one major distinction between New Mexico and Lloyd’s earlier compositions, but they’re also very different in tone. As I said earlier, the “Analysis” instrumentals are sort of light-hearted and sprightly, a bit reminiscent of the jazzy synth experiments of artists like Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley. New Mexico is substantially darker and more gothic, as befitting an LP that’s at least partially a concept album about the nuclear age.

Music: “The Devil’s Dancers”

While nuclear anxiety is an indispensable theme of the album, it’s never a suffocating one that makes it feel horribly antiquated to modern ears. It’s a very aestheticized rumination on nuclear themes, that never jumps up and hollers, “bombs are bad!” Take, for example, the track “Radiance,” probably the best-known track on New Mexico...to the extent that any of them are that well-known. It’s one of the album’s most languorous, atmospheric moments, and paints a vividly desolate picture of ground zero after a detonation, with its fluttering, delicate, but ultimately frigid synth flourishes.

Music: “Radiance”

I think my favourite part of “Radiance” is actually its lyrical turn: an atomic blast isn’t like the radiance of a thousand suns, but rather, vice versa. The latter is the one that’s merely theoretical and dwells in the realm of poetic license, whereas the former is a historical fact that we all have to contend with. “Radiance” is quite solid, but in many ways it’s a pale imitation of the title track, a seven-minute sprawl that works exquisitely as a kind of musical landscape painting:

Music: “New Mexico”

Painfully evocative, with an eerie, almost yearning undercurrent, “New Mexico” is easily the track that feels the most grand and epic. I would really have loved for it to be given more of a place of honour in the tracklisting, possibly as the closing track, but it’s wedged somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the second side. I suppose we can’t expect quite as much from a gonzo underground mail-order cassette release, though. At any rate, while “Radiance” and “New Mexico” are absolutely about atom bombs, they remain very emotionally intimate--almost torturously so. A lot of the other tracks are less about the bomb itself, and more about the rise of “Big Science” in the Midcentury consciousness in the wake of the Second World War--chiefly, “Men In White Coats.”

Music: “Men In White Coats”

As in “The Devil’s Dancers,” Oppenheimer happily accepts the role of an evil or insidious narrator here, and sells us this megalomaniacal perspective with aplomb. A lot of early 80s synth, minimal wave and otherwise, is characterized by more deadpan vocalists, but I can’t stress enough how much Oppenheimer’s piercing lead vocals bring to this album. It’s perhaps the most critical on the tracks that delve into more traditionally emotional topics--chiefly, the standard romantic love numbers. Take, for instance, the harrowing, neurotic “Scorpions”:

Music: “Scorpions”

I’m certainly a fan of the title “New Mexico,” which just ties together all the right connotations. First and foremost, New Mexico is a place--a place you can visit. And this is one of those albums that really wants to ground you in a narrow and specific sense of place, a sonic landscape. New Mexico is mostly empty desert, large tracts of which have been government land even before it started being used more intensively for military research in the 20th Century...most famously, of course, on nuclear weapons. I like to think that the name also suggests novelty and recency of place. We are, after all, entering a “new” world, defined by the advances of science, and the upending of earlier ideas about the world.

The representation of the album art for New Mexico that I’ve been showing you is actually the imagery of the 2010 reissue of the album, which I’ve chosen because I think it’s a bit better known, and I simply prefer it, personally. The most striking thing about it is this colour--a ghostly green, that instantly evokes the common imagery of atomic phenomena. Radiation doesn’t really glow green, of course, but, like everything else about the album, it’s clear that this choice is meant to be a reflection upon the greater cultural imaginings and social impact of the Atomic Age, so I think it’s a perfect fit. At the center of the composition, we see a figure, head bowed and face shaded to provide some sense of anonymity, reaching a hand towards the side of his face in a gesture that’s almost reminiscent of using a cell phone at first glance. What exactly he’s up to is as unclear as his identity. Between the modernist styling of the architecture to his left, and his antiquated attire, the image is quite suggestive of a Midcentury setting. But the real narrative angle here comes from the right side--several figures are approaching that central character, possibly in hostile pursuit. Espionage gone wrong? A desperate attempt to silence a whistle-blower? Much like the music, there’s an ambiguous, mysterious, but also menacing ambiance to this cover.

For historicity’s sake, I’ll also discuss the original cover of the homemade cassettes of New Mexico. As we might expect from the nature of this release, it’s a fairly simple graphic, featuring a nude woman whose full-figured body type, popular on pin-up models, and short hairstyle convey that Midcentury aesthetic almost as well as her clothed counterpart on the reissue. Our eyes are naturally drawn to her exposed breasts, where they meet a pair of radiation warning signs censoring her nipples. A simple image, but a deeply perverse or twisted one. Is it a kind of union between the vulgar, crass profanity of pornography, and the depravity of atomic weapons? Is it a visual representation of the way Oppenheimer Analysis have beautified the nuclear landscape, conflating man’s inhumanity to man with something voluptuous or pleasurable? This cover is at least as complex a symbol for the album as the reissue one is. And while it’s easy to dismiss it as lowbrow, I think it’s worth noting how the salacious or saucy aspect of it would have helped it fit in with other underground cassettes of its era, many of which had lurid or provocative imagery.

Of course, this discussion of the differing incarnations of the album is a natural segue to addressing the release history of New Mexico. The story of Oppenheimer Analysis is deeply entwined with that of New York-based Minimal Wave Records, founded in 2005 by Veronica Vasicka, a radio DJ fascinated by underground electronic music. The label specializes in making obscure, self-published works like New Mexico widely available in digital form, so that more music enthusiasts can get a chance to hear them. Without her, I myself might never have heard this album, and certainly wouldn’t be in a position to make a review like this! Vasicka felt strongly about the artistry of Oppenheimer Analysis, and gave the honour of her label’s first-ever release, “MW001,” to a self-titled EP compiling several of the tracks from New Mexico. Later, in 2010, when she was able to rerelease New Mexico in its entirety, she gave it the honourary designation of “MW001D.”

Vasicka is the one responsible for coining the term “minimal wave” to describe the subgenre she was interested in, and, fifteen years later, I think it’s safe to say it’s had some staying power. While it may be a bit vague and subject to individual interpretation, that’s a problem all genre labels contend with, and I think fans of minimal wave ought to be proud that this term was at least coined by a passionate and dedicated fan, who made her favourite music more accessible to everyone, as a labour of love. It’s also not the only genre term to come about much, much later than the music it seeks to describe. At any rate, New Mexico will always have a place in the minimal wave hall of fame, and it’s a genre-defining work, if in hindsight. The stylistic hallmarks of New Mexico are, for better or for worse, now also those of a whole movement: harsh, tinny rhythm machines, strident synth lines, anxious, unmannered vocals, and technological themes.

But what actually happened to Andy Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd? In light of the renewed interest in their work in the 00s, they actually got back together for a bit, releasing some archival material from the 1980s and laying down a handful of new tracks, very similar in style to those on New Mexico. Lloyd passed away suddenly in 2013, but Oppenheimer has remained interested in keeping their ideas alive. He’s been performing live as well as putting out new music, first as “Touching the Void,” alongside Mark Warner of Sudeten Creche, and more recently as “Oppenheimer Mk II,” with Mahk Rumbae of Konstruktivists.

Music: “You Won’t Disarm Me”

Something that I think really stands out about New Mexico, especially when compared to a lot of other small-time minimal wave releases, is that it’s a very consistent quality throughout. As you might expect with an underground genre, a lot of the music to choose from is varying degrees of amateurish and clunky, and it’s arguably better to listen to Minimal Wave compilations than the LPs that exist. New Mexico is an exception, though, and doesn’t have any particularly weak tracks. The favourite tracks cited by fans of the album tend to vary pretty widely. My top pick, though, is the album’s opener, “Don’t Be Seen With Me.” It’s a perfect marriage of dizzying, spiraling synth runs, and one of Oppenheimer’s most frenetic vocal performances, that creates a masterful portrayal of being swept up in infatuation with somebody you really shouldn’t be fooling with. That’s all I’ve got--thanks for listening!

Music: “Don’t Be Seen With Me”

[alexcaldownapier]

Film Genre - Week 4

I am excited and happy - things are going smoothly with this project.

The group has met up a few times and have decided to create a hectic, tense crime thriller with influences from Michael Mann and the Safdie Brothers.

Tom also did a lot of great work researching and conceptualising a psychological horror film, however, Bonnie and I did not quite have the stomach for Tom’s inspirations (we’re lame) and we also felt that horror might be a genre that a lot of other groups would go for. Bonnie has recently been watching some crime thrillers so was very enthusiastic about creating high tension and grit while leaning into the style of the genre. 

We came up with a simple set-up - a man and a woman arguing in a flat when there’s a knock at the door - the police have been called about a domestic disturbance. This is when it is revealed that our characters are drug dealers and have just far too many drugs on the coffee table. So the film becomes a race to hide the drugs and distract the police. Bonnie added a great wee wrinkle - the woman has a black eye so is unable to go to the door to talk to the police as it would play into the domestic disturbance and neither can the man. (I just checked and the police do have the power to enter private property if sorting out a disturbance). Anyways, we had a great meeting where we nailed down our idea and roles in a whirl of creativity. Lots of fun. 

Our roles became: 

Bonnie: Writer and Director Cal: Cinematographer Tom: Editor and Colourist Jenny: Production Design Alex (me): Sound

I absolutely love the visual style of the Safdie Brothers’ films (our main inspiration) - the claustrophobic close-ups, long lenses and fast editing. It’s all so purely emotional, really forcing the panic and adrenaline. It also works so well with their characters, Connie from Good Time and Howard from Uncut Gems are both egotistical adrenaline junkies who are so absorbed in the panic that they fail to see the whole picture. (Close-ups and a blurred background......am I right?). This style works so well for crime thrillers and I’m excited to see how Cal and Bonnie adapt this to our story. 

I think camera is where my mind goes immediately when thinking about a new project but this time, it is not my area, I’m trying something new. I haven’t had a lot of practice doing sound so I’m really interested in thinking about it and coming up with something effective and interesting. I want to rewatch Good Time and pay attention to the sound design but from what I remember it was very naturalistic and crunchy (the only word I can think of :/). I think this is the right direction for our film as well. We need to be very aware of the hectic movement of our characters - rustling, scratching, stumbling - while always feeling the presence of the police outside the door - knocking, murmuring and shouting. 

I’ve been thinking about Mid 90s (2018) and a moment at the start where a boy is beat up by his brother. The sound design here is just so visceral. Each blow is loud and CRUNCHY and really hammers home the brutality. Going to need to research and ask about how to create this texture. I’m really excited to learn more about sound!! I have thoughts and stuff!

So, a realistic layered sound design (no score! no bassy tones!) with some heightened aspects to draw attention to the tense/hectic parts of the scene. 

So for the Master Shot exercise. We wanted a shot of one character moving about while the door is also in shot - keeping the action and the threat in the same shot. We used red and blue LEDs (like police lights...... am I right?) to create depth and steer into the neon aesthetic of many crime thrillers. Looking at the photo however it does come off a little sci-fi but I still think we pulled it off well. We’ve used a wide shot of two doorways - one is the front door, the other opens into a room where our panicked protagonist stands. One difficult thing, we gave our actor props to signify that it was a crime film - a joint in his mouth and assorted baggies in his hands - but I don’t think this is entirely visible in the still. But yeah, we’re well ahead of schedule and may even re-shoot it if needed. Tom’s doing some touch-ups on it as I write.

Aaaaanyways, long post, sorry. I’m just excited, man. We’ve started looking at the sound project as well, starting to source the obvious sounds for the scene and we used Ben, a sound designer friend, to teach us a bit about Pro Tools so I think we’re on track for that as well. Need to meet up again soon. Lots happening :)))

[yesgabsstuff]

   I wouldn’t call Hunter x Hunter a show with a Gothic atmosphere visually. However, I think the way that the show approaches beauty qualifies it for the genre. “Hunters hunt” is something repeated a number of times during HxH. The language used there of course has implications of animal satisfaction. At the same time, the whole concept of a professional Hunter is almost that of a professional  connoisseur. Any pro-social ends are a byproduct of the desire for knowledge for its own sake. The Hunter exam is profoundly dangerous and it becomes clear the lengths that these professionals are willing to go for art. These elevated sensibilities are not presented as being at odds with the more traditional idea of the hunt; the animal and the aesthetic are one and the same.

    Perhaps the most on the nose fusion of the flesh and the intellect is Hisoka. His pursuit of the perfect opponent in combat consumes his entire life, with every action he takes bringing him closer to one of his chosen partners. His deliberation in battle, his efficiency, and the way he uses his body are the product of discipline and oddly, the ability to delay gratification. His half articulated vision of the perfect opponent is almost a platonic ideal. These monkish abstractions however have become the wellspring of his sexuality; a bestial force that doesn’t particularly care about small things like promises, loyalty, or the prey’s age. Battle itself is of course carnal in its own right. Hisoka takes the subtext of the fight as lovemaking to it’s logical and grotesque conclusion. The pleasure of his art cannot be disentangled from violence or sex.

    Gon’s aesthetic vision is less externally focused. His project is perfecting himself. He views his body as an instrument, using it primarily as a site of learning. Gon enters the Hunters Association having already become a skilled predator. He honed his athleticism, intuition, and even his sense of smell blending into his ecological environment. He became an animal. Our first exposure to him is when he is hunting a river monster. But unlike an animal, he’s not hunting for survival but to test himself.

     As the series goes on, it becomes clear that seeking out new challenges to beat his own standard is more important to him than almost anything else. He puts himself danger to meet this benchmark early; going after Hisoka with his fishing rod after seeing him kill several people, just to see if he could. He later courts mutilation on purpose to learn something for a single fight. (Just like Hisoka, incidentally.) He puts others at risk to do this; allowing Killua to injure himself in the volleyball game against Razor. He doesn’t do this out of a lack of care but out of the assumption that Killua is as motivated by the challenge as he is. A part of his anger at the death of Kite had to do with his own sense of failing to meet that ideal, perhaps as much as the loss of a friend. This of course leading to his transformation into a version of himself that is terrifying in it’s perfection.

   Chrollo is not a professional Hunter but is in the same rarefied company. He too, has built his life around the pursuit of his passions. He created his surrogate family around it, even. (I think that there’s a case to be made for Chrollo resembling a cult leader in that respect, but I digress.) Chrollo  doesn’t really steal for material gain. His art is in exerting power over his environment through violence. His thefts and murders are shows; he literally stands as a conductor over the Troupe’s revenge plot. The horror on the faces of his victims as they realizes they’ve been had, pleases him. Goring strangers and using the bodies and emotions of his troupe pleases him. It is like he’s winking and the concept of criminality; taking pleasure in chaos while professional criminals are engaging in a pissing contest below. He is a predator because he is true to his muse.

     This pattern repeats in characters we have less time with as well. Illumi’s obsession with his idiosyncratic interpretation of the Zoldycsk aesthetic gave birth to extreme sadism. He also has paired it with his own vision of ideal submission; wielding these ideas to physically and psychologically torture Killua. The Chimera Ants (they deserve their own analysis some other time) are animals fighting to survive, but their desire for self actualization (after consuming humans no less) and becoming “better” versions of themselves that makes them become “monstrous” to the human population. The pursuit of the ideal is inseparable from becoming a monster, something outside of ordinary humanity. Hunters and their peers are exalted and savage.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Let's Talk about that Last Attack on Titan Final Season Opening

                                    Seid ihr das Essen? Nein, wir sind die Jäger! Even if you’ve only dipped your toe in anime, there’s a decent chance you can recognize this lyric from the very first Attack on Titan opening. Such is the nature of all of its theme songs.  

As one of the most popular anime of the past ten years, Attack on Titan is known for its gorgeous animation, horrifying visuals, and of course, its epic opening themes. From the war anthems of Linked Horizon’s “Guren no Yumiya” and “Sasageyo” to the emotional swells of Hyde’s "Red Swan," these themes easily rank highly among anime openings that you just don’t skip. Attack on Titan Final Season, openings don't fail to make an impression, either.

  Of course, it bears mentioning that “My War” by Shinsei Kamattechan is certainly … unique, even among Attack on Titan theme songs. Its intensity is more downplayed in lieu of a wildly different aesthetic.

  In case you haven’t seen it, check it out on Pony Canyon’s official YouTube channel:

    Let this whole video sink in for a moment. Think of the very first opening and how it evoked excitement and Titan-slaying exhilaration. Or how "Red Swan" spoke to the heart-rending dichotomy between Eren Jaegar’s ambitions and the truth of the outside world. The last opening of Attack on Titan Final Season doesn’t do … any of that, it takes that artistic expression in a wildly different direction.

    At first glance, this opening is a far cry from the exhilarating emotions brought on by its predecessors. Whereas the first openings squarely place the characters in their trajectories for the upcoming seasons, the visuals for “My War” tease very little of what happens in the actual story, lacking any sort of explicit scene or even feature more than one named character at the very last second. The song itself doesn’t feature many vocals and the melody is borderline chaotic and disorienting in its own haunting way. Its aesthetic is even notable for missing a distinct color palette, but replacing it with splashes of psychedelic color clouds to accent the pandemonium onscreen. Titans and humans clash in a cacophony of destruction, and we only ever get a sense of the violence that ensues between them, never truly delving into the specifics.

  Truly, this theme song isn’t something Attack on Titan fans expected from a series that gave us epic ballads that have topped our workout soundtracks and all-time favorite anime opening lists everywhere. One would be hard-pressed to find anime enthusiasts who wouldn’t belt "Guren no Yumiya" at the drop of a hat. But as far as current developments are concerned, this is the perfect theme song to encapsulate every jaw-dropping moment and major climax we can expect from the final season of a groundbreaking anime. With how far the Survey Corps has come and the horrors they’ve been subjected to leading up to the final battle, there’s no better opening to capture the essence of the ongoing trauma than “My War.”

    The newest opening, in all of its disturbing surreality, is nothing if not wholly emblematic of everything Attack on Titan has built up to. What "My War" lacks in spectacle and ferocity, it makes up for with a bone-chilling sense of forboding. Even if characters aren’t present and the scenes aren’t specifically indicative of what will happen in the climax, the song and the imagery embody the horrors of this centuries-long war that has consistently blurred the line between human and monster. 

  Eren and the rest of the Survey Corps have uncovered plenty of shocking revelations and made immense sacrifices to achieve the freedom they’ve long yearned for. Even in the endgame, it’s difficult to say if all the trauma and terror they’ve experienced will even be worth it. Friends have been lost, humanity has been questioned, and no one can seem to tell the difference between the oppressed and the oppressor anymore. Inner emotional turmoil seems to hold as much weight as the overall conflict. Everyone has their own wars. Taking all that into consideration, the tumultuous and chaotic nature of “My War” makes it the most appropriate opening to illustrate all of that. 

Attack on Titan consistently displays the drama and devastation of war at its forefront. Fighting for your freedom was inspiring enough at first, and songs like “Guren no Yumiya” accurately illustrated the nature of that admirable sentiment. But things got far more complicated with that, and the harder the Survey Corps fought, the darker the world became. The fight became personal, and the wings of freedom that humanity once flew on became stained by blood.

    There’s nothing left for the soldiers but to see this war through, and since this is the last war, the anthem needed to be something as confusing and horrible as their entire conflict leading up to the climax. “My War” is that anthem, and nothing else would’ve done Attack on Titan justice.

  Which Attack on Titan opening was your favorite? Comment and let us know!

      Carlos (aka Callie) is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their pop culture pieces on Popdust and Looper as well as their satirical work on The Hard Times.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Carlos Cadorniga

[somethingimnotembarassedbylater]

academia

to be honest when i first heard the term dark academia i thought it cheapened the whole aesthetic but it’s a tumblr community that romanticizes one specific genre of media made about one particular time in history, so its not like it was the most untouchable thing to begin with, but if it exists ofcourse i’m into it. 

i don’t know exactly when i first started watching things that subscribed to wearing tweed, classist university culture, and romantic literature but i remember finding this term when i was looking at things related to kill your darlings. its a good movie, not bad but the amount of fucking disappointment i felt after reading into who Allen Ginsberg really was, you have no idea. he’s known for being a pioneer for beat poetry and i think his contributions to the work are and should be appreciated but goddamn it, he was also a pedophile. what the fuck. i have yet to hear about one man, a single male, who is known for contributing to the art and history and is simultaneously not a disgusting piece of shit. how hard is it really? is it that hard to just, not be straight evil? BUT for all purposes of this i’m considering the character daniel radcliffe plays in the movie as completely removed from the real life inspiration and as a completely fictional man. i know you can never really separate the art from its origins completely and at the end of the day, the story is just a snapshot of a time in his life, but its not right glorifying him as a person knowing what his actions were. i don’t know how to separate the man from his actions because isn’t that who he is? i’m just gonna refer to the character as dan. dan was the nice boy who liked poems and fell in love with the cute troubled boy.

what i loved about kill your darlings and dead poets society and that one snk fic i read, is that they all kind of have common main elements. academic setting, love for the arts, a sense of adventure/murder/mystery, and they all follow protagonists that are insecure or unsure of themselves or naive, and they meet that one person who’s everything they’re not-the person that’s going to take their hand and lead them into a life that’s never going to be the same. its not just this, its also the visual aesthetics. they’re all in a place that bigger and outside their control. old buildings, wooden desks, exposed brick, hanging vines, beige trench coats, wool sweaters. plaid trousers. it’s also running through the rain, dimly lit by streetlights. brown tweed jackets, dress shoes. the inherent eroticism of cold fingers and colder gazes, dark candlelit rooms with ancient wood floors/walls. ofcourse that doesn’t capture it all but you get it. 

ah to be the one yearning for your eccentric roommate who’s eyes light up when they’re passionate, for the one who wakes you up at 2 am to sneak out to see the stars, to explore the grounds, to break into the forbidden part of the building just to see what’s out there. to steal glances in class, to intertwine your legs under the library desks, to mysteriously wake up next to them in the morning. to understand each other, to linger a little too long when your fingers touch, to be completely lost in them. shit that makes you feel like love exists. 

i think i find the romantic and aesthetic part of it most appealing. the academia i’ve spent my life participating in hasn’t ever had a focus on the arts. partly my fault, i’ll admit. i don’t think i ever gave it a chance. i don’t think i ever found it to be a defining part of my identity either. sure i’ll do all nighters to finish my assignments, sure i’ll do extra research on topics i find interesting, but nothing about the things i enjoy learning about has had me spending time inside a class and listening to my professor rant about something passionately. the closest i’ve gotten to this was a world issues class that had nothing to do with art or creation, but to do with social commentary. there’s not one person that i’ve met in my field of study that is passionate about their work, least of all me and i think because of the inflated and overly romantic view of academia i had, i’m disappointed. is this just real life for most people? i have to admit to myself that i’m most people? i have to accept that i’m just not destined for more? maybe if i followed through with applying for social work, maybe if i applied to public policy, maybe if i had some real passions that i was actually good at. i’m not saying i’m not a passionate person. i know i feel, and i feel a lot. i care about almost everything i encounter. i do want to spend my life doing. i want to help children in pakistan, i want to spend my time travelling every corner of the world, i want to get to know people, every kind of person that exists, and i want to know everything i possibly can. understand how the world works, how people think, how we can change, how we used to be, i want to spend my time listening and seeing. i think my want to create is less than my want to consume. maybe that’s selfish. maybe. 

there’s a lot i can say about academic culture being elitist and exclusionary, about mainstream stories told solely through eurocentric male lenses, about only catering to a tiny demographic, but it never fails to make me want it anyway. the shallow, vapid, aesthetic focused part of it that exists on tumblr never fails to make me think a good turtle neck and trousers combo will make me happy either. 

its a chilly june morning. i drank some tea and ate some leftover omlette. i hear pakistani news in the back, baba rattling his pill bottles, and the wind blowing outside. it’s a normal summer day. 

[prokopetz]

Do you have any reccomendations for PC video games that are easy to play for short periods of time?

I’ve got a few, yeah. The most straightforward approach is to go with abstract puzzle games, the sort that can easily be picked up, played for one puzzle, and set down again; they all have the same basic gameplay flow, so I’m not going to trouble you with detailed descriptions here – I’ll just list a few whose puzzle design I’ve found quite engaging:

Blockwick 2

Disoriented (warning: not for those prone to vertigo)

Hook

Induction

KNIGHTS

Linelight

Link Twin

Lowglow

Lyne

PUSH

Quell: Memento

Zenge

The trick is not to let your self get caught up bashing your head against any one puzzle; if you’re stuck for more than five minutes at a stretch, put the game down and go do something else. They naturally lend themselves to very sporadic gameplay when approached that way.

Outside the abstract puzzle realm, there are a number ways you can go for very short play sessions – some puzzle-oriented, some less so. Here are some personal favourites:

Assault Android Cactus - You’ll want to bring a controller for this one – it’s a top-down twin-stick shooter with strong bullet-hell elements. It’s broken up into bite-size levels that demand total focus for a couple of minutes at a stretch. Atypically for the genre, it isn’t actually possible to die from getting damaged – you just eat a time penalty if you get knocked down; actually failing a level is time-based, so quick, aggressive play is practically a requirement.

Celeste - A precision puzzle-platformer might seem like an odd fit for short-duration play, but this one’s framework particularly lends itself to it. Each screen is a self-contained puzzle, ubiquitous checkpoints largely eliminate lost progress, and even the longest screens take scarcely thirty seconds to complete; of course, multiply that by the number of times you die trying, which is likely to be a large figure. As above, it plays better if you frequently set it aside – gotta give that muscle memory time to set.

Dead Horizon - I’m just throwing this one in for fun; it’s good for short-duration play because the whole game is only about five minutes long! It’s a bite-size (and free-to-play) visual novel about a gunslinger’s final duel with a demonic opponent who may be Death Himself. The story is related in a series of brief flashbacks during the fatal confrontation. Some twitch gameplay.

Endhall - A turn-based micro-roguelike. You play as a goofy little robot using a variety of chess-move-like weapons and tactics to to fight other goofy little robots; each run is divided up into ten small, randomly generated “boards”, and takes about as many minutes to complete once you get the hang of it.

Fist’s Elimination Tower - This one’s another precision puzzle-platformer, though with a much stronger emphasis on speed of execution. You have twenty-five lives to climb a tower 150 floors high, with one puzzle per floor. The catch? You only get five seconds to complete each puzzle. Better think fast!

Melody’s Escape - Pretty much any bring-your-own-MP3s rhythm game is good for short-duration play, as a session is by definition as long as a song. This one happens to be a personal fave, mostly for aesthetics. Its beat recognition algorithm is definitely biased toward dance electronica, so maybe not the best choice if that’s not your genre; on the other hand, if it is your genre, the included soundtrack is fantastic, albeit brief.

Metrico+ - A puzzle-platformer with an emphasis on the “puzzle”. I almost included it under abstract puzzlers, above, but it’s got just enough narrative to set it apart. It’s about exploring a living spreadsheet. No, really – that’s the actual premise!

NO THING - I’ll level with you: this game is basically the poster child for the “setting tedious minimalist gameplay to vaporwave and calling it Art™” school of game design. I’m including it solely because I find it weirdly easy to just space out to it for about ten minutes at a stretch. Whatever you see in the demo video, that’s literally what you get.

Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt - A free-to-play retro RPG – and by “retro” I mean ZX Spectrum, not Super Nintendo – that casts you as a medical-student-slash-princess healing people’s problems by going into their bodies and fighting their ailments bullet-hell style. Save and quit anywhere, and there’s no complicated story to forget if you end up going a while between sessions. The sequel’s even better, though it’s not free; definitely check it out if you like what you see from this one.

Run or Die - This one combines short, hand-crafted levels with the mechanics of an endless runner – i.e., you move from left to right at steadily increasing velocity, and if you stop, you die. There is an endless mode with randomly generated levels if you’d prefer, but the mission mode – which is excellent – is better for short play sessions.

TIMEframe - This one’s duration of play is limited by its premise: you’ve arrived on an alien world ten seconds before the Apocalypse, and have that long to explore and figure out what happened. Time is slowed by a ratio of 60:1, so every session ends after exactly ten minutes, regardless of where you are at the time. Puzzling out all the lore will take multiple loops, so you’ll need to be good at setting short-term goals!

Velocity 2X - An odd little genre hybrid, this one has you swapping back and forth between top down twin-stick shooter mode and side-scrolling runner mode. Some of the very late levels can drag on a bit, but you can shoot through most of the rest in under five minutes a pop. Includes multiple ranking systems for each level (time, completion percentage, high score), so you have a lot of freedom in how to approach things.

If anything on this list particularly grabs you, let me know – I may be able to suggest other titles along similar lines.

[thisplaceistillbelong]

ｗｈｙ　ａｍ　ｉ　ｈｅｒｅ？

As you can probably tell, I have decided to start a vaporwave blog. I have been writing recently, and I’ve been playing around with ideas on how to start this all out. When reading back on what I’ve written however, I’ve always felt that there were some foundational ideas missing from my articles. What I have ultimately decided would help with this was to begin with an introduction.

This is why I am here.

I’ve always had a creative outlook on life. A lot of the fulfilment I feel is based on the things I create. However, I tend to move on to new ideas quickly, and am not great at overcoming hurdles along the creative process. I end up not finishing anything I start, almost without fail.

By my expertise, I do programming. I have tried many times to create games and interactive content, but that takes time and effort. Every time I get myself involved in one project, I move onto the next before I get anywhere with the first. I also have tried to produce music, but with production not being a field of experience for me, it often doesn’t pan out well.

And this is sometimes frustrating, because, well… I have a message I want to put out there. In fact, I have had, and currently have, many different things I want to convey through my projects. Sometimes I find it difficult to reconcile the fact that, despite being one of my biggest life goals, I have contributed next to nothing to the artistic scene as a whole.

So I thought, what’s the easiest way to get myself where I need to be? If I want to tell my ideas to the world, what is the best, most productive way to do so? And the answer was right in front of me. If I want to tell my ideas to the world, I should, well, tell my ideas to the world. No getting bogged down on bugs in the code, no worrying about the adequacy of my visuals, no worrying about the subtle portrayal of a single concise set of emotions through an album that takes months to produce. Just my ideas, out in the open for anyone who wants them.

I originally wanted to create my own website, so I could have more freedom in my expression and aesthetic, but that was just another thing stopping me from getting things rolling. For now, I’ll be here, and if I move later then so be it.

While converging on this approach, I’ve realised that it’s appropriate for me in more ways than one... because I talk too much. Sometimes I annoy the people around me with the lengths at which I talk about things that, I guess, don’t mean much in the long run. Especially if it’s about the music that I enjoy, it’s just difficult for people to relate to me on a scene that they aren’t involved in. Being able to work those ideas into something that I can put out to people who want to hear it, will save me from talking at length to people who don’t. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think in any way that ultimately, I deserve an audience for what I am saying. If it turns out that nobody ever reads what I’m writing right now, it doesn’t really matter to me. The fulfilment I get from having my ideas out in the world, somewhere, is enough.

This would have been a couple of years ago now, but there was some advice I heard while watching videos on the internet. It came from a musician, and she said that when writing music, you should always create what you think is missing from the scene. When it comes down to it, this applies more globally to any creative endeavour, no matter what you are making. Even outside of creative pursuits, the notion of being the change you want to see in the world is a well-recognised one. Nevertheless, this idea resonated with me, and whenever I lose my sense of direction, I come back to thinking about it.  

For the most part, I feel a stark disconnect between existing media and my experiences with the vaporwave genre. Throughout my incessant attempts to create something which contributes to the scene, I have kept these disparities in mind. Ultimately, in this project, I want to convey what vaporwave makes me feel, in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere. There is something special about this genre that I don’t feel is explored enough. 

Obviously, this isn’t always simple. I’ve found that even in the writing I have already done, I can easily loose the vision and veer off track. Whether or not I stick to my intentions though, I’ll do my best to make sure that what I write is meaningful, in one way or another.

If you are interested, you are welcome to stick around.

With Love,

Rae x

[sigmalied]

Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors. 

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future. 

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101. 

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield. 

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game. 

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters. 

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety? 

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution. 

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is. 

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design 

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.  

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful. 

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least. 

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast. 

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you. 

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse. 

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer. 

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future. 

[comicteaparty]

August 3rd-August 9th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from August 3rd, 2019 to August 9th, 2019.  The chat focused on the following question:

Describe your comic’s setting.  What made you choose this setting?

Steph (@grandpaseawitch)

For https://oldmanandtheseawitch.tumblr.com/, I chose a very nebulous interbellum period because I felt like that sort of gave me the best of all worlds. At heart, I just love me some vintage settings, especially the early 20th century. I knew I wanted a setting without modern conveniences, not only because it helps the comic stand up to aging and reduces the risk of falling out of date, but presents its own challenges and advantages. But while I wanted a vintage setting, I also wanted one that I felt like hadn't been done before in regards to mermaid stories, which are almost always set either in modern days or in the rough time period of the Little Mermaid--1700s to early 1800s. Interbellum Scotland felt like a unique setting that was, at once, hearkening to classical mermaid settings with sailboats and old-timey fisherman, tiny fishing towns, but with some trapping familiar to modern readers even they have vintage twists, like telephones but with switchboards, cars but they're old model Ts, things like that. I also felt like this period brought some neat ideas. I've never seen mermaids dealing with old radios or model Ts or a setting that had just recovered from a brutal world war with trenches and ocean mines and diesel and radar. Transitioning from pastoral to industrialized. Where does this element of fantasy, the mermaid story, come into play and interact with this? And you'll see that, even between Witchy and Ainsley, things revolving around mermaids are more fantasy-based with monsters and magic, while things revolving around humans are more realistic and down to earth, wondering about income and walking to work and selling your goods and what's going on south in england. And over time, things start to overlap and entwine as their relationship progresses, magic seeping into the human world and the mundane seeping into the mermaid world.

But overall I just love drawing and researching vintage things. ;3 And Scotland's just pretty as heck.

Respheal

Galebound http://www.galebound.com/ takes place on a tidally-locked planet shortly before their equivalent to earth's industrial revolution. Steam engines are getting more popular, mostly used by merchants where the fixed wind and currents aren't helpful, and they're on the cusp of science and medical advancements that will make their planetary and magical system very problematic. The tidally-locked world came first, just 'cuz they're neat! Planets like that have one side constantly facing their sun so you get that whole fire-ice world with a narrow band of eternal twilight and safety in between. These type of planets, if they have a good atmosphere, also usually have a giant storm at the subsolar point. So I made that storm the carrier of their magic system, the Gale, because why not. This sorta setup causes some interesting narrative features, like the complete lack of night and seasons and huge swaths of the planet that are completely uninhabitable. The time period sort of just happened, but it worked out. I wanted it to take place later than sword-and-sorcery times, but it couldn't be too modern, so the early 19th century was about right. Also it sort of sets a time limit on fixing certain things, because certain scientific advances would make the magic system so ridiculously broken I don't think it could be salvaged ahahaha :'D(edited)

spacerocketbunny

http://www.ghostjunksickness.com/ the setting in GJS is in a universe that has a variety of different time period aesthetics in one. It takes on a retro futurism where there's outdated tech from the 80's and 90's but there's also spaceships and technological advancements to make travelling from one planet to the next into a day trip. There's aliens and a variety of different people that make humans a minority in the population in a very mixed and blended cultural mosaic. The main setting of the story, which is a planet called June7 is also a place recovering from a inexplicable catastrophe which destroyed a majority of the planet's surface. It's unstable and crumbling structures make it difficult for the residents to thrive and something like transient bounty hunters have pretty much taken over the main livelihood of the planet.

We wanted to make a really well lived in setting, so we took inspiration from a variety of different cultures and stories that the science-fiction genre hadn't quite delved into.

LadyLazuli

For Phantomarine, http://www.phantomarine.com/, the basic concept was simple - I like the ocean, and I like ghosts, so I mashed them together into a haunted ocean But I also love worlds where beauty and danger are close neighbors - in this case, a network of sacred lighthouses keeps swarms of hungry ghosts away from the living population of the sea. I love stories where civilian life is pretty uncomplicated and chill - I've got a nice tropical fantasy vibe going on in these last couple chapters - but there's always a massive danger element looming over everyone's head. What if those lighthouses fail? What if you fall overboard outside the barrier? All that relaxing energy can change to morbid tragedy in a flash...(edited)

LadyLazuli

In terms of rough time period, I've kept it incredibly vague, mostly for my own enjoyment I have sailboats and motorboats existing side by side, color cameras, radios, electricity... certainly not technologically advanced, but it's got some 19th-20th century bits-n-bobs here and there. It's a fantasy world, but more supernatural than magical - gods, ghosts, some humans with strange gifts, but more often than not, a very strong boundary between ordinary and extraordinary. It's a story where a few normal people get swept up into all sorts of divine shenanigans, and have to find their way through.

Steph (@grandpaseawitch)

Finally getting a chance to read through phantomarine and I thought that blanket was familiar! Absolutely love the PNW-inspired outfit, @LadyLazuli !

LadyLazuli

AAH! Yes yes! I've spent far too much time at the Museum of Anthropology here in Vancouver to NOT be inspired by it. My world is truly a mishmash of cultures

Steph (@grandpaseawitch)

OHHH I WANNA VISIT SO BAADD. I need to get my washington license upgraded so I can take a trip up there to the museum!(edited)

But your whole comic is a delight. <3 I'll be retweetin' it in a bit when I finish reading.

AntiBunny

AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ is pretty straight forward. The city is inspired by film noir, hardboiled comics, and detective novels. It's an old city, so everything should look weathered, especially the old town district where most of the stories take place, so it's all brick work, broken plaster, cracked window panes and such. To some degree I also take visual inspiration from the historic district in my home town, and surrounding areas.

MJ Massey

Black Ball http://welcometoblackball.com/ is set in an alternate 1920s in the New York area. Because of course you set a 1920s comic in New York! But also, I used to live in the metro area and loved it, so to me it was natural to have the setting there. There's a lot of good reference, and lots of sneaky places one can hide a speakeasy. There are a whole bunch of good historical references as well, which makes it easier.

snuffysam

Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/ is set in a deliberately anachronistic fantasy world. There are biplanes and 20's cars, but there's also online message boards and cell phones. Fashion makes no sense, climate makes no sense, etc. The reason I built the world like this is because I wanted to mix up my background designs (and crowd designs) between scenes, and making a world that has no real consistency was the best way to get away with this in my mind. One town has modern art and roller skates, another has tents and open-air shops, there's a city on a hexagonal grid with triangular skyscrapers, this city: http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/comics/524/ uses a fractal pattern for its layout, etc.

Desnik

http://ask-a-warlock.tumblr.com/ is based on the idea that a medieval fantasy can be MORE than a DnD piggyback ride. And like, the medieval time period was a couple thousand years, yo, there's differentiation between different time periods. I used it as an opportunity to revamp my worldbuilding techniques and I've learned a lot about frontier-style governments and societies that function without a central authority. Also marginalia are the best comics and no one can tell me otherwise.

Attila Polyák

The setting of Tales of Midgard https://talesofmidgard.com/ is at a glance pretty much what you’d expect a generic fantasy world to be. Aaaand in a way that is right. The setting is a world that used to be kinda medieval-Europe like a long time ago, magic became commonplace, and the world reacted. Instead of developing technology, like in the real world, magic became technology and ultimately it became so common that it satisfied the needs of everyone in every niche possible. And then modernization happened, because why wouldn't it? What we in real life call science and technology slowly got discovered and integrated with a magic-based economy. The end result is a world that looks a bit anachronistic but if you look at it more closely you’ll notice that most things either don’t have a real-life counterpart or if they do they actually mean very different things. This is the point where my main story takes place and the world we see in my comic.

Funari (Raison d'Etre)

Well for Raison d'Etre ( http://raisondetrecomic.com/ ) I was always inspired by anime and general Japanese culture/pop culture growing up, so I had a handle of 90s/00s Japan pretty well that I wanted to use it! I also grew up during the 00s as a teen so the fashions and stuff have stuck. Kinda giving off a sense of nostalgia with the memories that way. And the "Present Day"'s trends are just based off what I grew up with and what a future would look like if we re-cycled back to millennium pop culture, including the love for 60s/70s-inspired stuff, so it's a "neat mess" of that stuff

We haven't shown much of the other planes of existence yet, but we plan to soon. But the idea with those is alternate/fantastical takes on plain ol' Earth (the Middle Plane). Mildly so, though, as even Umbria and Celeste have evolved over time like Earth's denizens have. Little bits of modernization, and assimilation with Earth trends due to the eventual discovery of these planes by Earth's NKP folks.

KAME (commissions open!)

Describe your comic’s setting. What made you choose this setting? For http://tapas.io/series/dragonclawcomic I chose fantasy because I’ve always loved stories about epic adventures, and magical creatures, and I also love the elements from mythology that are often integrated into fantasy stories (gods and demons, heroes and villains, etc.). There’re so many wonderful worlds and characters and creatures that exist within a fantasy setting, and so many more you can create on your own, it’s overwhelming (I mean, Dragons, man, they’re awesome!). Probably one of the first things that got me into fantasy was the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon show, but recently and more importantly, the thing that inspired me to write my own story was the The Legend of Drizzt novels, which I absolutely love (and I’m thankful to my brother who sent me the first like 9 novels for me to read, when I didn’t know a thing about them, and now there are over 20?, I lost count, but I always look forward to the next book) and needless to say have and keep inspiring me a lot

[spilledreality]

"New Fiction is Psychic Occupation” is generally warm piece on this trend in contemporary autofiction (Knausgaard, Ferrante, Lin, Kraus, Ben Lerner, Maggie Nelson) of really letting the reader occupy a certain psychic filter. Mark de Silva "Past Resistance" notices a similar pattern but calls it "Facebook Fiction" belittlingly. Here's de Silva making the case against types like Knausgaard:

Here are a few platitudes about memory. It’s subjective. It’s plastic. It’s often self-servingly selective, when it’s not simply fiction. Naturally, memoir, by which I mean that recounting of a human life in which protagonist and author are one, can’t help but inherit these liabilities. They once would have counted as such, anyway. In many quarters—in humanities departments, for some time now, and more recently and troublingly, in American politics and popular culture—acknowledging the frailty of memory and narrative history, whether personal or collective, seems to have brought with it a kind of relief from the age-old demands for objectivity (or even intersubjectivity). In many spheres of life, and especially online, we are now asked to admit to the looseness of memory’s grip, and the tallness of every tale. It’s what authenticity and honesty require, we are told: a frank reckoning with human finitude. But the news isn’t all bad (or is it?). For we are also invited to celebrate a newfound power over our pasts, and our presents too, through a curious form of autonomy that would have come as a surprise to a philosopher like Immanuel Kant: freedom from the tyranny of fact. Subjectivity, partiality, the fragment and the shard have all become refuges from the fraught, anxiety-making project of assembling wholes.

As a novelist, I have watched closely and with some dismay as this phenomenon has manifested in literary circles. Lately, mainstream critics and readers appear besotted by a shrunken, self-pitying strain of autobiographical fiction, one you could call with some fairness Facebook fiction, to distinguish it from the far thornier versions of the past, like Jacques Roubaud’s The Great Fire Of London, the first book in a notoriously vexing six-volume cycle of memoirs. Novels by Geoff Dyer, Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner and Karl Ove Knausgaard, whose own memoir cycle, My Struggle, might be usefully compared to Roubaud’s, if only to measure the diminution in ambition, seem premised on the notion that if it is our fate to embroider and even fabricate our pasts, insulating our preferred identities from the sharp edges of actuality, we ought to openly acknowledge our fraudulence and fantasize with purpose, even panache. (The current White House has taken note.)

For my part, I’ve never found this particular conscription of the imagination, whether in literature, electoral politics, or daily life, especially appealing. Some liberties aren’t worth taking. Reading these authors, one feels that if they had more conviction, they would exercise their imaginations properly in the invention of characters, plots, and settings, without simply lifting them from their own lives; or else they would get down to the painstaking work of research and corroboration that’s involved in any plausible (authentic, if you like) history, including autobiography. Instead, they’ve settled on a middling path, both creatively (why struggle to invent from whole cloth, when you can just use your life, your memories to fill in your novel?) and intellectually (why sift and weigh the facts when you can just make up what suits the tale you you’d like to tell, the person you’d like to be, whenever reality doesn’t oblige?).

This fall, I’ve been examining problems for the autobiographical self in our research seminar here at the University of Tulsa. I’ve also been teaching a course in the philosophy of art at Oklahoma State University. The combination has been revelatory. My aesthetics course has me thinking that the deepest difficulty attending the autobiographical self is one that afflicts art too: sentimentality. Nostalgia, its most obvious form, is hardly the end of it. For the tint of the glasses needn’t be rose. The red of self-lacerating shame, say, or of righteous indignation, will do just as well. As will the gray of ironic ennui.

Do just as well for what, though? Evasion—frequently of the self- variety. This, I think, is what binds the various forms of sentimentality together: the desire to feel a certain way about oneself or the world perverts the desire to know. Fantasy comes first. Yes, memory is malleable and subject to all sorts of failings, no one can seriously deny this, and no one should want to. But why treat these banal faults as insuperable, a limiting horizon of our humanness? When it comes to memory and personal testimony, we nearly always have some form of corroborating evidence to aid us—written records, videotape, artifacts of various sorts, and of course other people’s memories—which we can check our memories against, if we genuinely interested in the truth.

Now, the significance of events may be impossible to settle definitively, no matter how much checking and rechecking we do. But this fault cannot be accounted a failure of memory or narrative; it’s simply a consequence of events almost always being able to bear multiple interpretations. That lends no credence to the more extreme claims we now hear, for instance, that all narrative or memoir is really fiction. This claim is of just the same order as that all news is really fake, even if the people making these two assertions tend to belong to different political parties.

So here’s my provisional conclusion: rather than any intrinsic limitation on the faculty of memory or the practice of storytelling, it is sentimentality—ginned-up outrage at political goings-on that barely touch our lives, say, or tender melancholia about what America used to be like—that stands in the way good autobiography, good politics, and good fiction. That sounds like something we can work on, though, if not exactly master. Nothing like fate.

By way of mediation:

੪: Adding Dyer and Heti to the pack is sharp. "Facebook Fiction" seems more like Megan Boyle's Live Blog than someone like Ben Lerner, who is maintaining a serious ironic distance from his actual lived experience. My reading of 10:04 is that it's as many parts science fiction, poetry, and criticism as it is memoir. But the line that really loses me is:

Reading these authors one feels that if they had more conviction, they would exercise their imaginations properly in the invention of characters, plots, and settings, without simply lifting from their own lives.

It's a deontological appeal to work ethic that falsely equates proper procedure (or traditional conception thereof) with successful results. It seems like a mistake to think of art this way, where technique and materials are given values in themselves outside of their efficacy in imposing themselves on (& providing value to) the reader. Anyway, it seems like he allows that fiction-as-subjective-lived-experience can be valuable as an art form if it's done without sentimentality, so maybe the real point of contention is over how much sentimentality is in the air and how/why/the extent to which sentimentality hinders.

The phenomenology of consciousness isn't captured in this approach to writing, I think I agree, and also that it's troubling so many have taken a literary enterprise at face value. I think it probably speaks to the neutering of critical discourse.

I guess what I'm saying is perhaps there's a way the takes aren't mutually exclusive? Something like, “memory and writing are highly lossy, flawed forms of preserving and disseminating subjectivity, and should be treated skeptically/critically as such — but they're also probably the best we've got, and constitute a central reason why literature is still healthy despite major technological change” (compare the visual arts world, which is in a total mess).

I was messaging with a friend today about how I felt like one of the main benefits of experimenting with drugs was getting a glimpse into an alternate brain state, the experienced possibility of another way of being. This might even be part of the mechanism that makes LSD and ketamine such successful antidepressants: a glimpse, via serotonin or mu-opioid distortions, of a world packed with meaning and significance, helping disrupt the depression's feedback loops.

I wanna quote Brian Evenson here again because he made the same case I would before I did: for me [such fiction] is successful to the degree to which it allows readers to undergo an experience outside their immediate realm of possibility, and to the degree to which that second-level experience in turn functions in relation to the first-level experience that we think of as living. That’s not the same thing as a meaning. Nor does it have much in common with information or figuring out a puzzle. Rather, it is a form of affect intensively conveyed by utterance. […] Fiction is exceptionally good at providing models for consciousness, and at putting readers in a position to take upon themselves the structure of another consciousness for a short while. It is better at this than any other genre or media, and can do it in any number of modes (realistic or metafictional, reliably or unreliably, representationally or metafictionally, etc.).

[rugeon]

Breaking down the Dust: higher level design goals and challenges

Here’s that second post of stream of consciousness mechanical thoughts and ideas. Just ideas for now.

So one of the goals I have for developing this idea is creating a creatively expressive music game. When compared to other music games often times there is a great emphasis placed on technical mastery and execution. Most rhythm games focus on matching the timing + accuracy of your input; eg. guitar hero, rockband, singstar, rhythm heaven

While technique and timing are strong elements of mastery in music, there’s more the experience of playing music than simply playing the ‘right’ notes at the right time, and these prescriptive styles of matching the notes to established songs ignore the creative and expressive aspect of playing music. Often times there is more than one way for someone to express the same musical idea, which is subject to that person’s individual tastes. There is more than one way to play the same song or jam over the same idea, different notes/chords to get to the next part of a song.

More recent guitar hero+ rock band iterations, as well as other music games, will have improv breaks in the song where a wider selection of inputs are valid and contribute to score, and while I haven’t really played these games, these sections are 1. de-emphasised and 2. often result on people ravingly hammering all over their controller/ singing somewhat flippantly. This is good fun in a party setting where these games thrive on replicating the ‘feel’ of being a guitarist frenetically twisting their fingers into knots all over the fretboard to shoot thunder out of the sky, but don’t really capture that feeling in improv of musical expression + intent.

One game that I feel gets closer to this (albeit in a somewhat limited capacity is the captivating recreational program ‘Hylics’ by Mason Lindroth

Which has an optional section available near the end of the game where the player is able to assemble their band and cycle them each through various tracks to play at the same time, and then selecting from their own range of sounds and play select set of notes / chords in each style you switch to. It’s fairly freeform and without much in the way of constraints/ judgements on how you play. You can’t fail, it’s entirely optional and is sort of just a fun short side outlet of maybe improving over some pre-arranged grooves/synths/beats.

This brings up the question of how to create a musically expressive game for players that has depth and facilitates some degree of creativity, but still in the context of something that is engaging as a stand-alone experience. As much as I’m a big fan of the concert you can play in Hylics, it’s very strictly an optional part of the game and not the main focus of the experience. There is no feedback given to the player on how good they’re doing which in someways is great. As a relaxing side thing it’s nice that the player has the opportunity to just ‘play’ and decide for themselves whether they like what they did, but its ultimately something that doesn’t reflect the constraints that are an essential part of playing music.

Musicians respond to eachother, they respond to the context of where they are in a song and where they’re going, and also respond to their audience on some level while performing as well. A music game that is purely expressive without constraints while appealing to me, certainly more appealing than making something with a different note highway, runs the risk of not actually resulting in people making something recognisable as appealing music. Some constraint on when you should be playing notes, feedback on playing things is necessary to some degree to encourage players to create a performance.

This brings the challenge of creating a musically expressive game without requiring a vast musical understanding.

Something like Rocksmith which is sort of just an interface for a real guitar (complete once again with note highway) while teaching musical concepts and opening up the ability to start learning an instrument, is way too complicated in terms of fidelity of representation in playing an instrument for most people just looking to play a game. Besides that this game has some modes that offer a practice space where you can express yourself as opposed to playing the written notes (and even within the framework of songs there is some greater degree of expression in terms of strumming available) this game also isn’t really trying to convey the idea of self-expression, but start handing you some tools that could be used to make it, outside of the game, on a real instrument.

So the major challenge to take from this is how to create a fun musical or musically themed game, which facilitates player expression and depth without requiring an intimate understanding of how to play music.

If I were to guess what my design arrives at, it will probably share some more with a game like ‘Floor Kids’ the recent breakdancing game:

I haven’t played it but it judges you on score and variety of moves, while allowing for different inputs and moves to be interpreted as valid and mostly just requiring a steady tempo for inputs, as opposed to matching them to a scrolling sheet of different specific inputs at different times. In order to be able to express yourself, you need to have meaningful options.

When looking at other games that allow for some degree of creative player expression some ones that come to mind are:

Fighting Games:

[Absolver]

Sports/trick games  in the tradition of series like tony hawk:

And spectacle fighters like Devil May Cry:

These games all have systems that make judgements on play that deign there is such a thing as ‘optimal play’, but still within each of these games there are vastly different types of players who will feel happy with how they play relative to their own sense of mastery and targets within their evaluative frameworks. The better scoring systems in something like Devil May Cry are designed to make the assigned value between different modes of play more even. Still other players ignore the scoring systems entirely to just make it through the game, or because they prefer their own way of playing over what the game says is desirable. Fighting games at the high-level trend towards certain styles of play, moves being completely unutilised because they are bad and others used more because they are optimal. When the requirements to pass or succeed are high the ability to self-express reduces. I think the most potentially interesting of these is something like Devil May Cry, which features distinct switchable movesets that have different strengths but are all potentially viable. Some players will specialise in one and not make use of all of its moves but develop a mastery over its core features (dodging, parrying etc.) While other players will be more broad. 

The room for this specialisation and ability for several moves to accomplish the same task is tied up in the game’s enemies which are effectively challenges that prompt the player in different ways to respond to that enemies strengths and weaknesses. The utility/threat of these enemies varies massively, with some being only a threat when near another enemy or in a large number, others having more deadly versions introduces later once the player has improved in skill etc. 

One of the main differences however is that in music repetition is often desirable. Things can repeat aesthetically but have a different accent, articulation or energy because of where they are in the song and still feel really effective. This is one of the aesthetic features often noted in the desert rock / stoner rock genre. They are very repetitive and focused on the trancelike nature of staying in a groove. This is not to say there is a lack of progression or movement in these genres, only that this is a feature often associated with them which runs somewhat counter to the encouraged expression in games that evaluate based on variety. How to encourage the kind of play where going on for longer is desirable?

The player’s priority of how they respond is determined by their own ability and tastes in response to the changing context of the fight/ arena/ enemy composition.  As a way of expressing oneself within constraints, comparisons could be drawn to how musicians will respond based on their own tastes and experience to the changing context of the sound/performance. There is a certain rhythm, and call and response to playing these kinds of games. Even more so in iterations where the timing on certain moves is emphasized by allowing for a more effective execution. 

These games have players expressing themselves spacially, while most musical games (understandably) are focused on the temporal qualities, of when sound is played. Maybe there’s a way to visualise musical context in a way which is more spatial without just being a 1-dimensional note highway?

Another aspect of the scene that I feel warrants some thought is how to create the sense of community. Lots of music games have an audience responding to the player’s ranking and the setting of something like a generator party next to a kidney pool provides a good fit for this scene but I’m curious if they could be more involved. Having the crowd and how they respond being the really visual thing you are responding to in music? Different types of people and how they move making you decide to play differently ie speed up, slow down, change style? Furthermore when playing music does the player play one musician or the whole band? Different instruments and roles have different play styles? WHat about gamifying the other aspects of this scenes experience? Putting the poster together a la. the more freeform creative stuff like building a snowman in NITW demo game Longest Night, or colouring the butterflies in Florence. The experience of following a mad map in the pitch black of a desert to get to a show. Most of this is just gonna end up being scope creep nonsense but is at least worth considering. How much to represent all aspects of the scene vs a higher fidelity representation of one style of playing for one instrument.

Only other aesthetic considerations I have for the framework are that the wind, dust and sky are all ripe for implementation, and surreal, emotive, anthropomorphic fallacy-ising. Figures + shapes in the night sky being the thing the player responds to?

Main goal for now is to figure out the main mechanic of creating some musical expressive stuff.