#what better way to incorporate everyone's ideas than to make a glob that can be anything

[mushtoons]

so the gang and i finally agreed to a persona

[heyhowyadoingpally]

it’s been forever since i’ve done one of these, huh?

i figured i’d bring this little series back from the dead (pun intended) for october, but i’m not gonna be looking at one pokemon at a time - i’m gonna do mass reviews.

that’s right, i’m going to do a bunch of super quick, rapid-fire reviews of pokemon. more specifically, different pokemon types. even more specifically, three pokemon types.

i’m gonna review all - yes, all, including half-types and secondaries - the posion, dark, and ghost types, in that order. i would have thrown in one more, like bug or psychic, but i think i have enough as it is to last until halloween. although, if there’s a good enough response and, for whatever reason, a demand for either of those two types, i might do one more.

just to clarify, if a pokemon is two of the types i’ll be reviewing, i’ll be placing them in the review of their first type. i.e. if there’s a ghost/dark type, i’ll be putting it in the ghost type review.

yes, these are going to be LONG fucking posts. so sue me.

with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Spooky Halloween Special Part 1: Pure Poison

#023 - Ekans

there really isn’t much for me to say about ekans. he’s really a product of the first-gen’s shtick, which was having the first chunk of the pokemon be more like mundane wildlife than anything else. and that’s something i’m more than okay with; you need mundane wildlife to balance out shit like fire-breathing anteaters and living, floating magnets.

that being said, i adore ekans’s design. there may be a good amount of pokemon out there that are based on real-world animals, but not many of them heavily resemble the animal they’re based on.

ekan’s look is so subtle yet it just works, from the reptilian eyes to the ring around his neck(?), and even the rattle at the end of his tail. hell, i never even noticed the thin lines going all the way down its body until now! maybe they could be segments that somehow help is slither around easier? who knows!

RATING:

i love ekans, but it’s not something that i would absolutely go crazy for. i gave it the extra half-point because, again, it’s one of the cooler “realistic” pokemon, imo.

#024 - Arbok

in the simplest of words, arbok is just plain awesome.

making ekan’s next stage be a cobra just seems fitting: a pokemon as “average” as ekans definitely would evlove into something weirder than a typical snake, but not too weird. cobras are pretty weird, but not too weird. it goes hand in hand.

it’s a little sad that arbok doesn’t retain some of the subtle qualities its predecessor had, like the eyes or the big ring, but it makes up for it with the kickass hood. i’m sure like everyone knows this, but in the first few games the little design on arbok’s hood differed slightly, because they’re arboks from other regions.

RATING:

again, i love its look, but it’s not an absolute favorite.

#029 + #032 - Nidoran

i vaguely remember how awesome i thought the idea of this one pokemon with genders was. of course, now pretty much every pokemon has some minor detail that differentiates their sex.

i love their cute little faces!!! they’re like adorable little rabbit-things with poisonous barbs!

oh, yeah! they’re poison types! so poison is incorporated into their design, right?

...kiiinda?

the pokedex states that nidorans have poisonous barbs sticking out of their backs, but they don’t really look like barbs. they seem more like really dull dorsal fins or something. like, if your tried to hug one of them the most pain you’d get is an uncomfortable poke more than anything.

RATING:

a neat concept for a pokemon, but the execution of the “poison” aspect didn’t really shine through.

#030 + #033 - Nidorina and Nidorino

these two changed, and for the fucking better.

i love the idea that when certain pokemon evolve, it’s really just them maturing, and the nidos did a fantastic job with their second evo. they look a lot more dangerous, but still not quite “barb-y”. i do love how the nidorino seems to naturally crawl on all fours while nidorina stand on her hind legs. it’s those subtle little things that i like.

RATING:

tbh i really don’t have much to say about these guys that i already said about their first forms. they’re more-or-less improved versions of both nidorans.

before we continue and before you say anything, yes, i’m one of those types of people who have a hard time hating any pokemon. the worst you’ll hear from me is that i’m not a fan of certain ones, but they’re nice efforts nonetheless. plus, i have a strong affinity towards the types of pokemon we’ll be looking at, anyway, so this is more of an excuse for me to gush about cute monsters.

#088 - Grimer

GOD where do i fucking begin???

this was the starting point for when pure poison (not quite yet for the half or secondary type!) pokemon really started to take advantage of the concept of...well, posion.

basically, from here on out, i’m going to be gushing a lot about the pure poison pokemon.

if you’ve been following/have known me long enough, you’ll know that i fucking adore any sort of outlandish, blobby monster. sure, most of those kinds of monsters out there are just the same thing over and over, but for some reason i never get enough of them. hell, my favorite animal is basically just a blob with a vague body shape!

everything about grimer is just so pleasing to me: the dopey expression, the little glob of goop dripping from its lip, the nubby hands...it’s even purple, my favorite color!

not to mention the fact that grimer is literally living sludge, one of my all-time favorite concepts for a monster. probably bc i associate any kind of goop monster with swamps, and you all know how much i fucking love those. i think we need more sludge/toxic monsters in our lives. i know i do.

RATING:

let’s face it: you all saw that coming.

#089 - Muk

you know, i didn’t think there was any way that you could improve a living pile of toxic waste, but game freak proved me wrong.

muk took everything i love about grimer and somehow made it significantly better. it genuinely feels like a grimer that grew larger and nastier through years of absorbing more waste and refuse. the strand of slime connecting the “lips” is a really neat touch!

 the more serious expression on its face makes me think that it hates its own existence, like it somehow just knows that it should not be alive. it’s a sad idea, and surprisingly not the darkest ideas that the pokemon franchise has ever delved into. but we’ll probably get more into that with later entries in this series.

RATING:

grimer and muk were, for the longest time, my favorite pokemon, period. that was, of course, until a certain gen 5 creature was introduced and immediately stole my heart. but, again, that’s one of those things we’ll get to soon.

#109 - Koffing

if i had never gotten into pokemon, or even monsters in general and you tried to describe certain creatures to me, i’d think these were some of the dumbest, most batshit ideas ever put on paper. koffing sounds like a weird or dumb idea, but the way a floating orb that spews toxic gasses is presented here is so fucking original.

i’ve always found it fascinating that we associate the color purple with anything poisonous. i suppose it stems (no pun intended) back from certain toxic plants having purple coloration? idk, i’m not an expert on these things.

as a little kid, i loved koffing, which i guess goes to show that i haven’t changed since then lmao. but what’s not to like about it? that’s a face that you can never say no to. koffing wants some cash so it can go out with its friends? go ahead! it wants to have pizza for dinner tonight instead of a casserole? sure thing!!! it wants to start an underground meth lab to rake in the dough to support its family? right on!!!

i especially adore the little skull-and-crossbones on its belly(?). it’s a really neat, subtle touch that didn’t even need to be on there but works so well. i especially love that it’s not just a standard jolly roger kind of crossbones that you’ll often find on monster/creatures that’re poisonous; it’s just the vague shape that makes it really feel like an animal might be able to evolve such a strange pattern on its body, which fits the semi-grounded-in-reality feel gen 1 was trying to go for.

fun fact: some real-life animals, especially insects and arachnids, have skull-shaped patterns on their backs!

RATING:

a perfect example of a pokemon that exemplifies its type.

#110 - Weezing

weezing is either a really ingenious - yet dark - metaphor, or just a really, really cool concept. or both.

i’m probably not the first person to think of this outlandish idea, but i think weezing might be some sort of weird, “hidden message” behind koffing and, more specifically, weezing.

lets take a look at this round, adorable, little cutie: 

it’s associated with toxicity and poison

it produces a gas that’s unpleasant to inhale

it has a second “head” growing on its side (with a cute little “starting crossbone”!)

both faces look quite glum

now, what in real life relates to to these aspects? what thing or things in real life are associated with being harmful or toxic; produce a gas or gaslike substance that, when inhaled, is unpleasant; can cause those exposed to it to develop large, potentially lethal lumps inside their body; and makes people quite glum?

hmmm....i just can’t think of any real-world items that could cause such dangerous, life-altering side-effects.

jokes aside, i’m more than certain i could just be pulling this connection with tobacco out of my ass. it sounds more like one of those edgy creepypastas from back in the day than anything else.

RATING:

this is the closest i think we’ll ever get to a pokemon with a fucking tumor, and whether or not it was intentional weezing’s design reminds me of real-world issues.

(m)

(f)

#316 - Gulpin

after koffing and weezing, pure poison type pokemon were few and far between. it’s a shame, since a lot of the pokemon that are solely poison are just so damn cool, even when they don’t quite show off the “poison” aspects you’d come to expect.

at the same time, i’m glad we currently only have a few amount of pure poison types out there; it makes them feel more special, like a nice treat you’d get every-so-often.

the first pure poison pokemon (how’s that for alliteration!) to appear since gen 1 was gen 3. there was an entire generation that skipped out on having really cute babies. those were surely dark time. at least they up for that with an abundance of other cute pokemon.

that being said, the first pure poison we get after a long, dark and empty era is an absolute cutie! again, i’m a sucker for round, blobby creatures. they always just look so soft and huggable! i think if i lived in the pokemon world, gulpin would definitely be one of those critters i’d snuggle up with.

you know, i really don’t know much about gulpin other than its adorable appearance. i’d really like to find out why its a pure poison! maybe i should see what the pokedex entries from the games have to say about this little cutiepie:

o h .

RATING:

gulpin’s a really neat concept, but the idea of something small and cute that also has an insatiable appetite isn’t something entirely original, and nor is it the first time a character in nintendo followed that same idea.

(m)

(f)

#317 - Swalot

listen: i LOVE swalot. but it’s the kind of love where if i sort of bring that up in a conversation people immediately assume i love swalot because of the same reason that a good two handfuls of people do.

i’m sure you can guess why some people love swalot more than others based on both its name and its rather...erm....interesting eating habit:

i told you that pokemon can get pretty morbid.

i’m really not the sort of person who "points out” something made for kids but with some sort of “underlying fetish material”, but swalot here is one of those few things that make me raise an eyebrow just a little.

but, uh, let’s look at this big cutie in a different, more wholesome light, huh?

designwise, swalot looks fantastic. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: i love evolutions that look like a genuine life cycle. i can see gulpin being this sort of nymph that grows over time into this huge, squishy, toxic thing with an insatiable appetite. it almost sounds like the premise of a 1950s b-movie.

even though it’s not a major change, i love the coloring. again, it gives me the impression that young gulpin’s flesh darkens with maturity into a swalot. it’s great.

a detail that i never noticed until getting the pictures for this review is that if you look verrrrry closely, both gulpin and swalot have a faint pattern all over their bodies. it reminds me of how light looks reflecting in the ocean, all broken up like that.

RATING:

potential vorebait aside, i really love swalot’s design, even moreso than gulpit.

#336 - Seviper

there aren’t as many real snake pokemon as i’d like to think, but the ones we do get are pretty rad.

while ekans and arbok have great designs and are always gonna be near and dear to my heart, they never quite felt pokemon-y to me. yes, they were in the first gen and are revered as classics, they seem just too normal to me, you know? like they were literally just purple snakes.

i’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but when you compare them to the outlandish creatures from later generations, they aren’t all that unique. i still love them to death, of course.

seviper, to me at least, looks like what you would mentally picture if someone told you that there was a snake pokemon: it retains the basic idea of a serpent, but takes some creative liberties.

idk why but i really love the eyes it has. they sort of compliment its almost-smile, like its just about to pull a harmless prank on someone and is anticipating the gag. what a smug bastard.

according to the every pokedex, seviper’s best quality is that the entire species has had an ancient rivalry zangoose, another pokemon, for years. from what i can tell, zangoose is supposed to be based off the real-life mongoose, so what we have here is the age-old battle between snakes and mongooses (mongeese?) in the pokemon universe. that’s pretty awesome. i wish they could find more ways to tie in real wildlife habits and instincts like that.

RATING:

overall a good bean with a good design.

#568 - Trubbish

ohhhhh man. ohhhhh boy oh man. we’re at my favorite evolutionary line ever. i’ll try to keep this as contained and condensed as possible.

i’m not sure what it is exactly about garbage monsters, but i adore them a lot. maybe it’s because you can get really creative with how you design the? idk.

i’m surprised it took until gen 5 to get a real trash pokemon. grimer and muk may have been associated with filth, but trubbish and garbodor are the living embodiment of garbage. like, you look at them, and you know exactly what their shtick is. 

i’ve seen a few garbage bag monster before, but trubbish is probably the absolute cutest one i’ve ever seen! look at those big, curious eyes!!!! look at that cute overbite!!!!! look at the little feet made from the bottom corners of the bag!!! it’s such a cute little baby!!!!

unfortunately, not a lot of people share that opinion. and that’s okay. because you’re allowed to have your own fucking opinions on the internet. there’s some pokemon a lot a ppl like that i’m not too crazy for, so sue me. i’ve got my little compost child and that’s okay.

RATING:

is this cheating? i don’t think it’s cheating.

#569 - Garbodor

here it is! the best fucking pokemon to have ever existed!

you might be thinking i saved garbodor till the end on purpose, but i’ve just been reviewing these by the order they appear on the pokedex. besides, there’s just one more after this, so you don’t have to suffer much longer.

GOD i love garbodor so much. everything about it is so creative and fun and cute. i’m so glad it kept the face from when it was just a trubbish. what a cutie!!!!

i love how the garbage bag is sorta draped over its body, like the bag somehow filled up with so much trash that it burst open. i also really love how both of its arms are doing their own different things. it really gives the idea that garbodor wasn’t trying form a perfect body, just a body that works. but the greatest part of this huge baby bean are those cute little pigtails!!! god bless it for looking so cute!!!!!!!

i wanna hug garbodor so badly!!! even if it smells like garbage!!!!

RATING:

i love that funky little compost

#803 - Poipole (aka UB Adhesive)

i haven’t played ultra sun or moon, so the new pokemon in that game are still...well...new to me.

one of the new ultra beasts introduced in the games, poipole has already stolen my heart and i don’t even know it that well. it’s got all of my favorite color combinations rolled into one - blues and purples and pinks!

being an ultra beast, poipole hails from ultra space, and, apparently, from a city in ultra space called ultra megalopolis. jeez, game freak sure loves using the word “ultra”.

i really can’t say much since, again, i’ve never played either of the ultra games, but i like what i do see.

i would have wrapped up this review here, but looking at the pokedex entries for it turned out to be a fucking road trip:

poipole goes from adorably-loved to a fucking sociopath.

alright, i like this cutie even more.

RATING:

for some reason, i still get surprised whenever a new pokemon game has creative and original monster. you’d think they would have blown their wad in the first few gens, but so far they haven’t done so.

that wraps up the first part of this little “review series” next time we’ll be looking at both half-poison AND secondary poison, all in the same post. how terrifying.

...i’m sincerely sorry if you had to read through all of this

PREVIOUS POKEFART: Weedle Line

NEXT POKEFART: (it’s not out yet you dip)

[yeswesaythings]

Australia, and Some Stops Along the Way

I: Pretend that I haven’t been here for the past seven weeks already and I know nothing about Tasmania. Tell me about it.

S: You probably still don’t know much about Tasmania.

I: True.

S: There’s a lot to say.

I: Okay, explain to me about it.

S: That was sarcastic. Um, what exactly do you want explaining?

I: I guess that’s a hard question for someone that has lived here their entire life.

S: Yes, very much.

I: I mean, I guess the usual notion when people think about Australia, they think, “Oh, it’s a dangerous place that is full of animals that want to kill you.” How true is that?

S: That is half true.

I: Half true? Okay, so-

S: It’s not to the extent that everyone would think. It’s not like everything is trying to kill you. Only half the things are trying to kill you. But the fact that they’re trying to kill you is there.

I: Okay, so you have to go out of your way, though, to find the animals that are trying to kill you?

S: Depends where you are, really. If you’re in a populated area like this, then yeah, you have to go out of your way, but if you’re out in rural areas, it’s going to be much easier.

I: Okay. I guess I’ll tackle a lot of Australian stereotypes because I think that’s the main thing to tackle. I mean, people think of Australia, they think of the accent. First of all, you were telling me that it’s not just one accent throughout the entire continent.

S: No, it’s very different, like, somewhere down here in Tasmania compared to the mainland. I’m assuming because of the separation. But I think the mainland have a more posh sort of style to it.

I: I mean, is there- In America, for example, the southern accent is kind of seen as less sophisticated and “These people are simpler and not as intelligent.” Is there sort of that-

S: That’s sort of what it’s like here.

I: So people look down at Tasmania?

S: All the time.

I: Really?

S: Yeah.

I: Okay, so that’s kind of the go-to punching bag.

S: Yes, very much.

I: Why?

S: I don’t know. Maybe because we’re the nicest state ever?

I: Does that have anything to do with- I mean, the entirety of Australia was a penal colony. But Port Arthur was located in Tasmania, and that’s where basically the prisoners of the penal colony went.

S: Sure, but so was Sydney.

I: Oh, so Sydney also had that, too? But Sydney doesn’t have that-

S: No, Sydney was the first settled place in Australia, then Hobart was second.

I: Okay, I guess it’s still odd. Sydney is usually seen as one of the typified Australian cities, while no one knows who Hobart is at all. Do you have any speculation of why Tasmania is not well known outside of Australia?

S: See, that’s another thing. I’m not sure why not. I guess it’s just, again, it’s not directly part of Australia and maybe the culture is very different.

I: True. Well, this is always a fun question to ask: The food. What’s the epitome of Australian, or at least Tasmanian, cuisine?

S: Well, Tasmania has superior seafood. Definitely.

I: I would guess being an island would help.

S: Most of the food in Australia, though, in general, is a mix of every other culture around the world. We don’t really have our own thing.

I: Sounds like America. I wonder if that’s just a product of Western cultures as a whole, that they just don’t have their own and it’s just an accumulation of all the others. I know vegemite is primarily Australian. It was one of the main foods I was told about before coming here.

S: Have you tried it?

I: I have, and it is- It’s not bad. But it’s not necessarily good either.

S: It’s a very stereotypical thing when people think of Australia, but how much did you eat exactly?

I: I took a piece of bread and then, basically, spread it on there.

S: The key is to spread it thin.

I: Okay, I mean, I didn’t just glob it on there-

S: Whenever I see reaction videos to people outside of Australia eating vegemite, they put really thick amounts on the thing. It’s like pure salt.

I: Yeah, that was the thing, it was like someone made a jelly out of soy sauce. That’s the best way I know how to describe it.

S: That’s a good way of explaining it.

I: And it’s not a flavor that I just tasted and was, like, vomiting everywhere as a result. But it was- Yeah, salty is the main thing, but to such an extreme that is becomes less of a flavor enhancer and becomes the flavor itself.

S: Ultimate question for you: Is Promite a big thing over in America?

I: Promite? I don’t think so. What is that?

S: Promite is, as far as I know, the American version of marmite, which is the original.

I: I mean, we probably have it in grocery stores in our- I don’t know if we’d put it in our “ethnic foods” section or something, but it’s not common.

S: Well, you know how there’s marmite for England, and then vegemite sprouted from that for Australia. Promite was the thing for America, what I thought.

I: It might be, but it’s not something that you’re going to find too often. You’re going to have to search for that.

S: Because we can get that in our supermarkets.

I: You can get the American version in- Huh, not to bash America too heavily, but anything that is too weird looking, we have a tendency to automatically assume it tastes bad. And so you have this thick, black sludge, and it says, “You spread it on toast and it has a salty flavor.” Well, they’re going to turn their nose up at it and say, “Eh, I’d rather not,” and stick with things they’re more familiar with. Deep conversation on vegemite. So, that came from England-

S: Marmite came from England.

I: So, what’s the difference between marmite and vegemite then?

S: There’s not much difference, really. But marmite’s better, in my opinion.

I: No bias, because you’re Australian, of course. So, you’ve lived in Tasmania your entire life?

S: Yes.

I: I guess that answers the question of why you came to the University of Tasmania. So, is it the only university in Tasmania?

S: It is. I guess it’s the only public one. There’s private ones, but they go through UTas anyway.

I: Okay, so UTas sort of has a monopoly on the education of the island. So, is it common- What do you call- What’s the demonym for people who come from Tasmania? Tasmanians?

S: Yeah, Tasmanians.

I: So, do Tasmanians usually go to the mainland for education, or do they stay in Tasmania?

S: Some do. I don’t think most do, though. Most stay here.

I: It’s a nice place. I don’t blame them. Okay, so what are you majoring in?

S: I’ve actually got three majors. So, there’s maths, games and creative technology, and ICT professionalism.

I: So, the big question: What do you plan to do?

S: That’s a difficult question at the time.

I: No one I have ever asked has any clue.

S: I know what I want to do, but I don’t know what I’m going to do to get there.

I: Okay, so what do you want to do?

S: Well, I want my own game development studio.

I: On par with things like Valve and Steam?

S: Not that big. Well, that’s a good angle. But before that, baby steps.

I: What kind of games are you looking to develop? Cerebral ones or more shooter style?

S: Cerebral. Well, a mixture, I guess? You need to reach a more general audience, but I like making things go a little bit different.

I: So, you’ve told me a bit about this research class that you’ve been doing throughout the year. Tell me about that. What exactly are you doing in that class?

S: Well, that’s called Serious Gaming. A serious game is pretty much a game with meaning. So, a game that isn’t for entertainment, or not primarily for entertainment.

I: What’s an example of that?

S: Most education games would be a serious game if their primary goal isn’t entertainment.

I: Okay, so for example, an anatomy type game? I mean, what’s the definition of game?

S: I got a bit of a shaky definition. It’s usually defined as a form of media that provides fun.

I: So, as long as you’re having fun, it’s considered a game?

S: Yes, and then you go further into asking, “What is fun?”

I: I think people have a better grasp on what fun is than what a game is. So, this game that you’re developing right now, what’s its goal?

S: So, that one’s for stroke rehabilitation. So, the idea for that- Stroke patients have to repeat movements over and over again through their rehabilitation, and it gets kind of boring for them. But if you can incorporate something fun, something that means something to them or something that gives it meaning, then they’re going to be repeating the tasks over and over again, willingly.

I: And they don’t have to think about it too much.

S: Yeah.

I: When I was at the cross country team at my university, before school started, we had to do a concussion test. Essentially, we gave it a baseline for how our cognitive abilities were, you know, without a concussion. And so if we ever did get one, we would basically have to take that test over and over again until we were back at our base level. But that was awful to do because, first of all, that was staring at a screen for twenty minutes and these weren’t high tech computers that they were using and it was basically a bunch of, “Here’s a bunch of words. Try to memorize as many as you can. And then tell us the ones that were there. Here are some shapes. Now we’re going to take them away. Now which of these shapes were the ones that you just saw?” You know, things like that. They were looking at memory, how well you could reason and think and memorize things without any damage to them. And the thing I remember walking away from that thinking is, “I hope I never get a concussion because I don’t ever want to do that again.” So I can definitely see the use of what you’re developing. What tasks are you having them do in order to release the monotony?

S: Physical tasks or in-game tasks?

I: Both.

S: Well, physical tasks are usually arm movement, so using a robotic arm that will move them around a big table screen, depending on where they look.

I: So, it’s based on motion sensing with the eyes? Do you know how that works, exactly?

S: I’m not entirely sure. That’s not my field.

I: And then, the in-game activities, what are you having them do?

S: Well, we’ve just come up with the concept. Essentially, we’re trying to go down the mobile games route. Mobile games are generally the thing you can repeat over and over. So, we’ve got a demolition game.

I: Something similar to Angry Birds?

S: Not quite. Yes, but no. The aim is to knock over the building. So, you get a building or structure, but you have to put bombs in, and sticks of dynamite. And then when you detonate that, the building falls like it was on a construction site of something.

I: But I’m guessing that the strategy and the movements are going to be something that takes a bit of thought to them?

S: Yes and no. They look at a spot where they want to plant a bomb, for example. They can go and plant it there. But it’s that layer there of having them playing a game that will enable to move without realizing that it’s still rehabilitation.

I: For something like this, why don’t you just use Angry Birds or something along those lines?

S: Something like that would need a bit more reconstructing.

I: So, where do its deficiencies lay?

S: In its physical capabilities.

I: So, you’re not doing enough movement?

S: Well, if you have to move the slingshot in Angry Birds and pull back on it, that’s kind of not a very effective movement for the rehabilitation. They need to be able to do more. Bigger movements.

I: Something that’s not just a straight line?

S: Yeah, the machinery should be able to do all that.

I: For what you’re trying to improve, what is, at the moment, the time is takes a stroke victim to be rehabilitated?

S: It depends on the severity. There are a few different grades of stroke. I think, actually, in most cases, you’ll probably be in the hospital for a week and you’ll be fine afterwards. I think it’s only a 30% chance that you need rehabilitation after that week.

I: So, if you are in that 30% who need rehabilitation, do you have any idea how long that will take?

S: I think it can take people anywhere between three weeks to eight weeks to months to years.

I: It’s going to be a case by case situation. Has there been lots of research that shows that rehabilitation becomes less effective as time goes on because the people get bored in doing the movements?

S: Yes, definitely. That’s where a lot of the idea of bringing entertainment into it came from. You should be able to, theoretically, last a bit longer.

I: Are you hoping to reduce the time that it takes or are you basically just trying to boost morale or retain people?

S: Morale is a huge part.

I: Because the people getting bored in rehabilitation, is it because it just stretches on forever because they get bored, or do people just leave and they just don’t come back?

S: It’s mainly because they get bored, but also if they’re doing it for a long time, and not seeing any results, they get discouraged, “Oh, this isn’t effective.” But that’s another way a game can come in, a game can show progress. So if you can show them that they’ve made progress, then they’re not going to have the discouragement.

I: It’s like things with little medals and ribbons and whatnot. They have them on the pedometer on my phone, it’ll buzz and say, “You’ve walked 6,000 steps today! Here’s a little medal for you.” And even though I can do nothing with that medal, and it has no monetary value at all, it at least tells me something: “Hey, I did something.” And it keeps track of steps per day, so I can take a quick glance and see, oh this was a day that was good, this way a day that was bad, so I can see what you’re doing there. Is that a Fitbit?

S: It’s a Garmin vivofit.

I: Okay. Yeah, exercise. Do you see this- How far into development is this?

S: Well, our specific project or games for stroke rehabilitation in general?

I: Oh, so is this part of a larger project?

S: It’s the start of something that will hopefully get somewhere.

I: How far along is the general notion of using games to help people for rehabilitation?

S: How do you mean?

I: How new is that?

S: It’s not really a thing. Well, I guess it’s been a thing for a couple years, but it’s not been in play. So, the idea of this project is to research. Well, not so much our part, but the CSIRO team is seeing how effective games are for that. And if that’s successful, it could very well lead on to everyone doing it.

I: Your personal part, how far along is that, so far?

S: Right now, up to this stage, it’s all been about targeting the behavior of a stroke patient, which is like, where the boredom and stuff like that comes from. So that’s how we determine all that. And then working out what kind of counter we could use.

I: Have you met and talked with a lot of stroke patients?

S: We haven’t talked to any of the patients. We’ve only spoken to rehabilitation staff and researchers.

I: What have they pointed out as the major points to consider?

S: They pretty much pointed out the same stuff that we’ve already discussed.

I: So, basically the big problem is the boredom from the repetition and the monotony, so there needs to be something to entertain people. I guess it would be hard to find people that have suffered from strokes in the area. I don’t know where you would- Unless you go to a hospital.

S: Well, I’m not quite sure on the details yet on when they’ll be tested. So, I’m not sure if they’re going to be tested before or after we’ve finished the projects.

I: Do you see this going past not just stroke victims but people that have-

S: Oh yeah.

I: Like, any kind of physical rehabilitation, people in car accidents, just any physical injury?

S: I think it could be applied to most physical rehabilitation.

I: Do you see any- What’s the word I’m looking for- restrictions to it? It can help, but there’s going to be a point when it can’t do any good anymore?

S: That’s very possible. But I think the point of stroke rehabilitation is to reconnect the things in your brain, let it (?) into your movement so you can get your movement back, so you can think about how you’re going to move and to get your motor- Is it motor-neuron movement?

I: You’re the one doing the project.

S: Yeah, so I guess it really depends if they reach a point where- It’s all up to the patient- if they reach a point where they think that it’s not going to go any further, then it’s not going to go any further. But, once again, that’s where an alternative rehabilitation, like games, comes in. Because if you keep offering them even newer games, changing it up every now and again, then they’re not going to have that thought as often.

I: Have you, yourself, gone through the motions of trying to do something similar to what they would do and how quickly you become bored with it.

S: Not really.

I: Okay, that might be something to try out, just- I don’t know how long a rehabilitation session would go, but every night, fifteen minutes, half an hour, you do those motions.

S: That also varies from patient to patient, though. Some people could be there for fifteen minutes, some people could be there for an hour, some people could be there for six hours.

I: You’re keeping that in mind with the game, though, because even a game, after six hours, can get really boring as well.

S: That’s the part that we really need to tackle.

I: Let’s keep going with the idea of boredom. That, as a topic, is interesting because, well, why do we get bored with things?

S: Hm, that’s true. I hadn’t really thought about that.

I: Because something can hold our attention for hours on end, even if it’s not necessarily changing wildly, but then something can change too rapidly, and after a few minutes we become bored with it.

S: I think it might be something to do with how the mind prefers taking in new stuff all the time. So, if you’re seeing the same stuff over and over again, you’re seeing the same result from the same actions, it’s not realty stimulating.

I: But then why do people find comfort in things that are familiar? Is there a sort of familiarity in boredom?

S: Well, I guess if you know something’s safe, then you’re going to keep doing it that way. You won’t deviate into a way that’s going to be not safe.

I: Okay, but it still seems-

S: But, boredom I think is sort of the balance between safety and boredom in that instance.

I: That’s the “ideal”- Well, maybe not the ideal, because there’s always a bit of risk that might be ideal. Maybe at one end, you have risk and excitement and there is sort of the ideal in between and on the other hand, you have boredom and familiarity, and there’s something in the middle there.

S: People who get bored and wingsuit, that’s pretty dangerous. But I guess it’s not boring because it’s something completely new.

I: You can look at boredom almost as- If you considered that you had a set of everything that you could be doing, that boredom becomes a larger and larger subset of that to a point. And so hypothetically, it would be a bad thing if you were able to everything possible because it would get to a point where everything would be familiar, everything would be boring. But at the same time, if enough time has passed- Maybe you haven’t done something for a while, you got bored from it. But then you let time pass and you go back to it again, you can find new interest in it.

S: And that quite often happens.

I: So, boredom isn’t a permanent state of mind. It’s temporary, provided enough time.

S: Perhaps it links to short term memory.

I: So, we become bored with things, but only in the short term, because we forget how boring they were to begin with?

S: I think you’d remember key aspects of whatever the activity was, you’d forget the details. If it was meaningless, and you were just there for the sale of being there, then you’re not going to remember it very well.

I: We remember the high, interesting points and anything that’s boring or uninteresting just gets thrown away because what’s the point of remembering anything about it? In the way of teaching and boredom, this is something I’ve noticed. I’m taking four classes, two of them are math classes and two of them are more on the arts side of classes. And in both categories, I have one of the classes that I find really interesting. And on the other hand, I have one that’s really dull. Now, you could chalk it up to, well, I’m a math major and therefore, I should find the math classes, the arts classes sort of a bit on the boring side. But in both cases, there’s an arts class that I find interesting and there’s a math class that I find interesting. There’s a math class that I find boring, there’s an arts class that I find boring. And I think that that’s one of the things that teachers or professors or anyone that’s going to be in a teaching position has to keep in mind, that it doesn’t matter how well they may know the material, if the student is bored, that they have a hard time of remembering the material, understanding the material, and so it doesn’t do any good. They’re basically there, but there’s no actual learning, just lecturing. I don’t know, what are your thoughts on that are?

S: Oh, I’m going to agree 100%. I’ve been in classes before where I’ve sat there, thinking, “I already know this, or I have no interest in it. So, just forget the whole thing happened.”

I: There have been some classrooms that have gone to games to make things interesting, and have a done a similar thing as the stroke rehabilitation project, where it may be something that’s a bit repetitive or boring, but they’ve gone and circumvented that by introducing a game to make it more interesting. I think there have been classes that have used Minecraft to teach various subjects, ones that you might not necessarily think: Economics, or history, or something. But you put it in the field of game and suddenly it has that idea of- Or that feeling of being entertaining.

S: I think when you play a game, you sort of forget what you’re doing, in a sense. So you sort of draw a separation between the fact that you were doing something not very interesting.

I: So, it’s a distraction, almost?

S: Yes, well, that’s what games are. They’re distractive. They can obviously distract you from-

I: Is being unaware of your learning-

S: I think that’s one of the best ways to learn.

I: Is to be unaware that you’re actually learning? Interesting. Of course, as soon as people then catch on to it, it ruins it.

S: But think of when you’re learning everyday things when you’re younger. You just learn it from observing it and it’s not like hard learning. But you would have retained all of that to now.

I: True, yeah, I guess that’s one thing with the modern education system. Because it’s so structured, and you’re supposed to go to elementary school and you’re supposed to go to middle school and you’re supposed to go to high school and it’s all very structured.

S: Here it works differently.

I: Oh, okay. But there’s still that- You go to school at a certain time and you sit in a classroom and you’re there because you realize you’re expected to learn. And it’s that structure, by itself, that gets rid of any notion of unawareness. You are extremely aware because you are in that setting of, “I’m here to learn things.” And so, in a way, the school setting might not be conducive to learning for that reason.

S: There’s a pretty high rate of people as well, who’d be leaving education like that, not really retaining anything they’ve learned or retaining the things that they didn’t think they needed to learn.

I: There’s this usual complaint in classes, especially math classes, but honestly, the complaint could go for any class depending on what the major of the person is: “When am I going to need this? When am I ever going to use this?” Especially in mathematics. Oh, the Pythagorean Theorem, the quadratic equation. I’m learning this, but I don’t see where it’s being used.

S: I pay the most attention, probably, in games and programming and that sort of thing because I know that I’m going to use them and they have a direct practical application.

I: Yeah, application helps in the progress of learning. If you can see how this is being applied in a sense, then it’s easier to learn it. But at the same time, for example, people hate word problems. So, if you gave them: Solve 3x + 5 = 7, but then you told them some word problem that, in the end, basically involved solving that same thing, people have an easy time solving the algebra equation, but the word problem completely loses them.

S: True. That’s because it’s not, I guess- They learned how to do it non-practically, and then they have to apply that.

I: So, it makes sense that you would teach math in a very theoretical side because then it doesn’t limit you in a single way of thinking about something. But at the same time, it limits you on the scope at which you’re seeing things. You see numbers as just things that you move around and they’re just symbols, whereas you lose all grasp of what it is, why it came into being in the first place. So people can think, “Why do we have negative numbers at all? There’s no negative anything. I can’t have a negative book. I can’t have a negative table.” But then you get into the idea of finance and into debt and things like that. But if you don’t know anything about finance, you don’t know where that would be applied, it just becomes a thing that you have to keep in your head, but without any context.

S: Back on that elementary school, middle school, high school thing.

I: Oh yeah, how is it different here?

S: Well, it’s even more different in Tasmania than in the rest of the country. So, in Tasmania, we have primary school, secondary school, which is high school, and then college, then uni. So, primary is from kinder, which I guess is preschool?

I: What age is that?

S: That’s like four or five.

I: Okay, that would be kindergarten.

S: Well, primary’s from then to year 6.

I: It varies in the States. Sometimes it can go from kindergarten through fifth grade, is considered elementary school. Sometimes kindergarten through fourth grade can be considered elementary school. It sometimes also just depends on the year. I mean, my parents went to a high school that was tenth grade through twelfth grade, that was the high school. And then sixth through ninth was the middle school. There’s no real set setup, honestly.

S: There’s this thing that I think people think is strange about this one is year 11 and 12 is college.

I: Is college university or completely interchangeable?

S: Yeah.

I: Interesting, do you know why that is?

S: I’ve never actually looked into why that is. Because we’re probably the only people in Australia that do it.

I: Yeah, because that was something I was hearing people say, coming out of college. And it was like, are these people that are coming from community college or something? Are these people transferring from elsewhere?

S: See, that’s just from high school, or your equivalent of high school. See, I always get confused the other way around. When people outside of here say college, and I’m thinking, “Oh yes, that’s year 11 and 12.” But they’re actually meaning university.

I: Yeah, I think all of the slang is also what people really know about Australia. All the shortened nicknames: Aussie, Tassie.

S: Slang is huge in Australia.

I: Not that it isn’t huge in other places, too, but it always seems other people’s slang is just that much more interesting.

S: I think if you talked to the average young Australian, you’re going to hear slang in at least every sentence

I: Well, children learn from their parents, so I guess that means that the parents are speaking it.

S: True. But like you said, Tassie and Aussie and all these things, have you ever heard what we call McDonald’s a lot?

I: Oh, Macca’s. I don’t think anyone actually says it, but at one point, Mickey D’s was the McDonald’s nickname.

S: I’ve heard that used before. Not in Australia, but I’ve heard it used.

I: We’re the country that made “fleek” and “bae” and the words “on point” and all those kind of words.

S: I, sadly, use those.

I: I don’t judge. But it’s always interesting to see, because we can look at a culture and say, “Oh, they have such an interesting and weird slang,” but then you completely ignore how many words you use that aren’t in the dictionary.

S: Oh, probably half of what I say isn’t in the dictionary.

I: Alright, I think that’s a good note to stop on. Thank you!