| /now: | |
|---|---|
| Book | Cosmicomics (Calvino) / A Night in the Lonesome October (Zelazny) |
| Audiobook | The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories |
| Game | Final Fantasy Tactics (Switch) |
| Project | Tinkering with Supercollider |
| State | Frequently frustrated, but feeling fulfilled |
I've been writing a few short stories for the #0ddPrompt inspirations that get posted weekly on 0dd.company, and this week's is "Caught in a shallow stream." I immediately thought of something this time, and wanted to get it down before I forgot.
With a fresh re-release of what I've long considered a favourite game, I found myself with an opportunity to revisit Final Fantasy Tactics via the Ivalice Chronicles Edition. The original title for the PS1 did something in my brain long ago which fooled me into thinking myself a die-hard fan of tactical RPGs for nearly my entire life. Equipped with recent memories of a wonderful time with Final Fantasy Tactics: A2, and a much worse recent experience with Tactics Ogre, I was interested to finally pinpoint exactly what it is about this particular series that tickles my brain so.
The game holds up extremely well, and held my attention firmly throughout. The remaster comes equipped with several quality of life improvements that reduce the sense of grind, but the overall experience feels true to form.
As that experience unfolded I began to discard my notions of what I thought made the game great. The story, especially once the zodiac stones come into play, was tepid. The music, while lovely, was repetitive. The tactical RPG combat, while formative to the genre, was frequently not really that engaging.
It turns out I just really love a goddamn job system.
At the end of the day the B-grade music and C-grade combat were simply seasoning for the main event: the job system and those god-damned cute sprites and character portraits. I can't even called what I did fun -- grinding out repetitive battles, forcing my characters to throw rocks at each other; none of it was fun, I was simply obsessed.
Seeing the sprites and character art of a new class (that black mage is to die for), trying out the new abilities, optimizing combinations of skills and armour and stats -- I couldn't get enough of it! I could have taken or left the rest of the game, there just needed to be some form of intentional task required to unlock new things. I marched my army across continents for in-game years to breed monsters for specific weapons, grinded endlessly for overpriced skills, developed the teams needed to pick apart certain battles and challenges with ease.
More than tinkering with the system, I revelled in breaking it. Building characters that entirely trivialized the gameplay brought me such joy, re-confirming that I was never here for the turn-based strategy. I cackled with glee as my carefully optimized arithmetician cast "Holy" on every character on the map, wiping out friend and foe alike but leaving a single soul in anti-holy armour left to claim victory. I would effortlessly eliminate a boss in a single bound as my ninja-dragoon flew across the map and exclaim to my partner how thrilled I was (they did not share my enthusiasm about dragoons.)
The playthrough re-enforced my love for this series, and while I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't the deep story and engaging grid-based combat I was in love with all ths time -- rather it was menu-diving and counting how many points left until I unlocked the "Teleport" ability -- I also feel freed, for I know now why so many exciting tactical RPG titles disappointed me for so long.
While I was not a fan of Roger Zelazny's Amber series, my distant memories of "Lord of Light" have kept me nudging me to explore his other works.
Of all the praise that's heaped on his various writings, A Night in the Lonesome October caught my eye the most -- I was particularly drawn to the book's design which is intended to be read one chapter per day in the month of October. Having recently purchased a small bed-side desk to pick up bed-time reading, this seemed the perfect way to ease myself back into the habit.
I very much enjoyed the book! It's a bit campy and silly, but a lot of good fun. It follows Snuff (a dog) and several other animal familiars preparing for a mystical "game" of sorts that their masters will undertake over the course of October. These masters take the forms of many classic Halloween characters ranging from Dracula to Frankenstein to Jack the Ripper -- but it's done in such a way that I didn't even realize this until several chapters in (though admittedly this may have been my own dense-ness rather than intentional cleverness on the writer's part).
While there wasn't much to the story that was particularly novel besides the one-chapter-per-night structure, it was well-written enough to keep me excited for my nightly chapter, and I was very attached to the main cast by the end.
I'm not sure if it was good enough to make it worth a yearly reading like many comments about the book suggest, but it was good fun and most definitely kept me in the October spirit throughout the month.
After last week's successful comic haul I found myself hungry for more and returned to the comic shop to rid myself of all my funds. This time I discovered several lovely art books, a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus, and a very well-received graphic novel: Tongues (vol 1) by Anders Nilson.
Tongues follows several characters and leaps back and forth in time, centering around ancient greek mythical figures (primarily Prometheus and Jupiter).
The story and artwork drew me in instantly, and before I knew it I had spent the better part of a day curled up, pouring over the simple-yet-intricate line work and unique panel layouts covering each page.
I enjoyed Nilson's visual and philosophical takes on these gods, their relationships with humanity, and the importance of language. I also thoroughly enjoyed nearly every scene featuring Nilson's Prometheus.
I will admit that I'm not entirely clear what happened at the end of the comic (there were some strange dreamlike scenes with some characters), but I eagerly await volume 2 to see what happens next.
I happened into a comic shop yesterday, and allowed serendipity to lead me to some new reading. A stand near the front of the shop sported a visually stunning book, Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte, and nearby an equally attractive butterfly-bound vibrant green book called A Frog in the Fall (And Later On) by the same author. While I didn't initially intend on purchasing multiple comics by a single author, flipping through both revealed a wonderfully distinct pair of works.
Stages of Rot was a lush visual spectacle, sporting colour-coded chapters grouped by the phases of a giant mythical sky whale rotting -- a play on the very real biological phenomenon of a "whalefall". While sparse on coherent story and fairly short, I enjoyed every page of this bio-mystical feast.
A Frog in Fall on the other hand is a much more humble, almost childlike story of a young frog traveling with some vagrant toads seeking a path to "The Tropics," where they will be free from the winter. The book is in monotone, simple drawings that elicit calmness. The trio meet many creatures from mice to dogs to persimmon nymphs. It is a relaxing twist on a cautionary tale -- nothing bad actually happens to the frog despite his lack of caution, and while the world around him is filled with the natural death that accompanies winter, it all feels peaceful rather than ominous.
While perusing the shop I also accidentally stumbled into the Ghibli section, which was filled with various art books and tie-ins. Shuna's Journey caught my eye -- a manga by Hayao Miyazaki himself which sports the famous elk from Princess Mononoke on the cover. I hadn't heard of the work before, and bought it without much hesitation.
This was a lovely little manga, fully coloured and with very minimal dialogue, that has in it so much of Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke. It feels like a seed from which the other stories grew out of -- much simpler and less refined, but equally magical and poignant. It reminded me how much I enjoyed the Nausicaa manga back in 2023, and prompted me to immediately order a physical copy of that larger work to accompany this one on the shelf.
I need to go comic shopping more frequently.
Near the beginning of 2025 I saw the name "Borges" somewhere online, and everyone gushing about his short stories seemed to be very well-read and smart. I want to be well-read and smart, so I picked up the Penguin Classics Collected Fictions version of Borges's entire body of work (both the audiobook and a physical copy).
There's this problem I have where I always want to read these smart books. The ones that people then say "My gosh, did you really get through all of X?" and then I can give a perfunctory review to show that I have, indeed, made it through all of X and get that small dopamine hit from the mental exhibitionism. It started very early in my childhood, and I distinctly recall trying to get through Ulysses at 14 to prove I could (spoiler: I still have not made it through Ulysses.)
Now, don't get me wrong, this desire is not purely for bragging rights and optics -- I also genuinely want to know the content of these books. I want to experience something in the process. I want to grow and have new thoughts and understand the things that make these books so impactful.
Even as an adult this desire conflicts with the reality of my fairly short attention span. I crave engagement to distract from the various difficulties of life, and more often than not I'll flee into fantasy worlds and scifi stories. For every Seneca, ten George R.R. Martins.
When I find myself a book that is both naturally engaging and intellectually interesting -- well that's a no-brainer.
After struggling to find something to catch my attention for some time, I got a copy of Virtue's Last Reward for the 3DS. I vaguely remembered the wild storyline from its predecessor, and this title pulled me in almost immediately.
I am admittedly embarrassed and slightly ashamed. Of late I have been so keen to find ways to expand my mind and looking for classic literature that suits my taste to almost no avail -- yet here is a borderline nonsensical, anime-trope-laden game consisting almost entirely of watching avatars talk for hours and I lose myself. I am very certainly not more well-read for having completed this title, but I did have a great time.
As with books, I've had trouble recently igniting my passion for videogames. Expedition 33 was phenomenal, and nothing I've touched since has felt "worthy" of the time investment.
The fact that I'm currently in this game-funk is in itself making me wary of booting up any "big" games I'd really like to finish, as I worry whatever current mindset is limiting my game enjoyment will hobble a potentially great experience.
And so I find myself in videogame limbo of late, seeking "hidden gems" on older consoles that can be cheaply obtained, emulated, or found in my decades long backlog of impulse purchases.
While this blog is normally littered with my surface-deep analysis of books and games, I've been finding it difficult to sink attention into entertainment of late. I've spent more and more time stuck in my own mind or obsessed with the myriad destination-less side-quests I frequently fall into, and I've had little patience for anything that doesn't grab me or feel worthwhile.
To maintain the sanctity of this little corner of the internet, the very least I can do is report on my failed readings!
A short solarpunk story using some elements and ideas I've been chewing on for a while.
The city had been abandoned so long ago that the green had come back. Grasses and trees had slowly, tentatively crawled out of parks and fields to reclaim this hard place of concrete and plastic. Birds now flew through the vine-entangled bones of dead towers; windows, walls, wires and plumbing had long been stripped away to be redigested by humanity.
Tendal sat atop one such forgotten skeleton and looked over the strange hybrid forest. People still lived here, of course, but they numbered maybe in the hundreds where the city must have once been home to hundreds of thousands. He wondered why the people had completely abandoned the old places; they had new capitals now, but none had been built on the bones of the old. Instead, they had killed these old cities, dismantling them and leaving nature to reclaim them.
From his perch he could see forgotten symbols and signs made of plastics nobody wanted, barren plazas of brick or asphalt too wide to rewild, and the vague shapes of long abandoned suburbs. Some of those old houses might be occupied now -- by wanderers like him looking for a temporary shelter or banished folk that couldn't get along in the communities, or by hermits that just wanted to be left alone. He breathed in clean air as the breeze ruffled his loose clothing. A bird cried out somewhere below, but nobody called back.
To his left he had propped up a para-sol to soak up the sun's rays, jamming them through a thin silver thread and into the small sunbox he wore at his hip. He didn't care what anybody said, it was obvious that things charged faster this much closer to the sun. It was a hill he was willing to die on -- and he was confident he'd die at the top of that hill with a fully charged sunbox.