Comic Thoughts: 20th Century Boys
I finished my read-through of 20th Century Boys (and 21st Century
Boys) yesterday and sat pondering about what I'd just read for a good while.
The story itself was very compelling, and the characters kept me coming back
to the comic any time I had a spare moment; it's a fantastic piece of manga
storytelling and character design... until the third act where everything
falls apart. Full-on spoilers ahead.
- Read the rest -
Game Thoughts: Omori
I completed the "good" ending of OMORI last night -- that game was a
ride. (spoilers ahead)
OMORI is a game about grief, both dealing with it and failing to deal with
it. Without revealing too much of the story, the game takes place
partially in the real world, and partially in "Headspace", a bubbly
imaginary world the protagonist has built to reside in and hide from their
suppressed memories and emotions. In Headspace you and your troupe of
friends explores and plays and has adventures with many cartoonish
characters, while the real world mostly progresses the story and character
development and is populated many of the same (less-idealized versions)
residents as Headspace.
While most of the "action" (read: rpg battles and puzzles and quests) take
place in Headspace, the events that happen there are for the most part
meaningless. While they occasionally mirror things in the real world, it's
mostly fluff. This is on purpose: the whole reason Headspace exists is to
escape from reality. At the start of the game I found myself impatient to
get back to Headspace where things were nice and my characters were leveled
up, but by the end I was impatient to get finished with Headspace stuff to
see what happened in the real world.
The transition between the two worlds, and the occasional incursion of one
into the other, is there OMORI gets dark. The truth that the
protagonist is desperately trying to bury surfaces, and he's forced to face
his past and his fears. This manifests in legitimately dread-inducing
visuals and audio that really elevates the game to the fame it's rightfully
gained.
The game makes use of a handful of jump-scares throughout, but they don't
feel cheap, usually leaving you uneasily thinking "what the fuck did I just
see?". Married with the slower and more deliberate horror sequences of the
protagonist literally fighting their fears, the game manages to frequently
drive a cold knife into your gut.
On the topic of gameplay, OMORI manages to bring both of its charm and dread
to its battle system. While it's a fairly simple turn-based combat system
with cute or silly enemies, the game adds in emotion manipulation to the
core battle strategy. You can make enemies and allies Happy, Angry, or Sad,
with each emotion having pros and cons and being able to stack (eg.
Angry->Furious). The emotions form a rock-paper-scissors triangle, meaning
it's to your benefit to manipulate enemy and party emotions to maximize
damage output.
While this mechanic is neat as a fighting strategy tool, it also adds a
really novel way for storytelling within the otherwise simple battles. Boss
fights often directly leverage this, swinging their moods in
story-appropriate ways. It also adds potential to surprise the player with
scripted or otherwise inaccessible emotions.
I don't have much to complain about with this one. Some of the quests in the
real world felt fairly pointless (not an achievement hunter), and the longer
side-quests seemed awkwardly placed at a point in the game where the story
was at a tipping point which threw off the pace. Besides that this was a
great experience with both bright and cheery highlights and gut-wrenching
depths. It really sets you up then knocks you down with surprises right
through to the end.
Comic Thoughts: Land of the Lustrous
While my intent was to read more scifi novels this year I keep getting drawn
into mangas before I can get attached to anything I'm reading. The latest of
these was The Land of the Lustrous which was a completely random
pick.
At 12 volumes the story feels mostly done, though I think there's some
wiggle room in there if the authors want to stretch stuff out, but it was a
very interesting read. What starts out at a cutesy almost sailor-moon-esq
story involving agender (though very feminine) human-looking characters made
of various gems quickly tuns into a story about forgetting one's self and
one's purpose in the pursuit of goals.
I really enjoyed the series. At first I enjoyed the silliness tinged with
dread when the "bad guys" showed up, but the otherwise simple characters got
fairly messy as the story progressed and the protagonist gets straight-up
ship-of-theseus'd and descends into questioning everything.
Super unique flavor in this one, and they even made an anime of it (albeit
3d anime), though I doubt a second season will be released.
Book Thoughts: Exhalation
I finished Exhalation by Ted Chiang the other day, and I was
extremely pleased with it! It's cover-to-cover grade-A sci-fi good-shit.
Two of the stories blew me away with their creativity: the titular
"Exhalation", and "Omphalos". Both of these went beyond sci-fi in their
"what-if" propositions, and were fantastic.
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" had me plucking at old ideas on the
tragedy of abandoning digital pets. How we could craft digital entities that
are designed to be loved and cared for, then have them inevitably be
abandoned to exist, forever awaiting a pixellated meat-on-bone that would
never come again until the death of their battery. While heartbreaking as a
child, it really was a mercy that the Tamagatchi creators had the creatures
eventually "die"; not for the creatures -- they were just few lines of code
and some pixels -- but for those who cared for them that inevitably needed
to move on.
I think I'll need to pick up the author's other collection, and perhaps just
delve more into Scifi short stories in general!
Project: Zig + Tic80 - Parallax Backgrounds
After maintaining this site for almost half a year I've got my first actual something-worth-posting project. I present to you: Aseprite-to-TIC80 Parallax Background.
This project got started after I saw some really cool pixel artwork on Mastodon back in november by an artist called PlusPixels:
Inspiration had struck: "I want to make an interactive parallax version of this on the TIC-80".
Side note: I got the original author's permission to use their work before continuing.
To achieve this, I'd need to try my hand at pixel art and re-draw the image layer-by-layer, keeping the following TIC-80 limitations in mind:
- resolution of 240 x 136
- 16-color palette
- maximum of 256 unique 8x8 tiles (technically 512, but let's stick with 256)
There's probably cleverer ways to go about this than re-drawing everything from scratch, but I am a simple person, and the pixel art part was actually pretty fun.
This was my first non-trivial pixel-related endeavor, and it took a lot longer than I'd expected. I used the lovely Aseprite software to do the pixel pushing, which is something I've been meaning to tinker with more for a long time. It has a very useful grid tool that let me line up my pixels and easily copy/paste 8x8 chunks.
Here's an example of a slice of one layer with all the re-used 8x8 blocks numbered:
While it's not nearly as good as the original, and missing some key details I couldn't really fit into the downsized version, I eventually had my 240 x 136 16-color 8-layer version of the artwork ready to port over to TIC-80.
That's step 1 complete!
- Read the rest -
Book Thoughts: Tress of the Emerald Sea
After the very melancholy "Never Let Me Go" I needed a pick-me-up, and
turned to the first of Brandon Sanderson's Kickstarter novels:
Tress of the Emerald Sea.
It was a great little standalone novel! A little Young-Adult for my usual
tastes, but for an audiobook I can't think of anything more comforting than
a Sanderson novel read by Michael Kramer (and / or Kate Reading). It's like
a big bowl of pho -- you know what you're going to get; there may be a
couple small surprises but you're guaranteed feel warm and full afterward.
I try to take something away from everything I read, and from this one I
glinted a hint of how to make characters lovable. The book's particularly
sassy / sarcastic narrator has a way of humanizing characters that you
didn't particularly care about extremely quickly via goofiness. In
one particular instance, a nameless character dies, and the narrator quickly
tells us that fallen character's name and some silly story about their
strange beliefs, and suddenly you're a little sad they're dead.
The tone of the book is very humorous so it's easy for these kinds of jokey
situations to come up, but I think back to the JRPGs of my youth and this
was similarly used, especially with super-serious characters, to make them
more likable. A trip or failure to communicate is a super quick way to
endear a character to readers / players.
Anyways, Tress was a nice fun light read with a neat little world and
lovable characters. Now I'm ready for some more heavy shit.
Comic Thoughts: Fire Punch
Just finished reading Fire Punch. I had actually put it down after
finding the first volume kinda stupid, but ended up hooked back in when I
was waiting in my car recently and my 20-minute app limits on Reddit and
YouTube had been used up.
It remained kinda stupid. Really stupid, actually, but it stayed interesting
enough. Watching the characters repeat the evils of those they sought
revenge on was well done, if a little shallow. A lot of it smelled of
how-fucked-up-can-we-get-away-with with the charred corpses and burning
children, but at the same time the whole thing felt weirdly nostalgic -- it
had that hyper-violent pseudo-philosophical-but-not-actually-saying-much
mouthfeel to it that reminded me of the old JRPG / manga auteurs that
crafted the messed up borderline-incoherent stories of my youth.
It was a very different quick read, and stupid isn't necessarily a bad thing
every now and then. Stupid can be fun.
Game Thoughts: Pentiment
I also finished Pentiment [Spoilers] over the weekend!
The game's 16th Century European art style was thoroughly enjoyable and
surprisingly expressive when animated. Even more enjoyable was the game's
use of fonts. I never thought I'd be praising fonts but holy hell.
Every character uses a font corresponding to their spoken language or
background -- Peasants and priests have completely different lettering which
added so much unexpected character to a game with no voice acting.
The printing press guy had printing press text boxes!
I also want to praise the game's ambiguity in finding the murderers in the
first 2 acts. There's just so many little threads for the player to follow
to open up potential culprits, and I was completely engaged in the murder
mystery segments in act 1 and 2. You legitimately can't know whether you got
the right person, and just need to trust in your not-so-professional
deductive abilities.
The story in the first two acts is fantastic, and the game is full of so
many memorable characters. I wanted to spend my meals with many of them just
to read the dialogue -- the fact that many would reveal hints and clues
about potential motives or give character backgrounds was just a bonus. You
get to know the characters and the town and the abbey so well by the end of
the second act that when (if) you follow a specific thead and find
additional locations it's thrill. Finding little interactions between
characters and the little stories peppered around town and over the time
period of the three acts is a joy.
For the record, the game also manages to stick in some
absolute asshole characters which keeps the cast colorful and makes
the good ones all the better.
I loved the way your skill choices in the game could also give you a free
pass or completely mess up a potential route in some cases. I will admit,
however, that the skill selection process is vague as hell, and I was pretty
apprehensive to chose skills right out of the gate with no idea how they'd
impact the game.
With all the praise out of the way I want to address Act 3, which I
really didn't like. Act 3, while full of many of the same people and places
really outstayed its welcome for me. I found myself annoyed with the
protagonist, with the townsfolk, and with the task assigned when compared
with the first 2 acts. While you do get to see the impact of your choices
from the first 2 acts, the story isn't as impactful, interactions were more
flat, most of the new characters are bland, and the primary task didn't draw
me in much.
I was also disappointed with some of the reveals that happened in Act 3. The
big reveal was kinda meh, and while the overall mystery was solved and there
was some excitement in the final couple hours of the game, I wish we got
more time to sort though the protagonists' internalized problems and face
more consequences for being wrong.
While I can't read minds I feel like the developers wanted to have
the story branch more -- to have more direct repercussions and vary the
final act more depending on your character and choices in acts 1 and 2, but
it may not have been possible without making the game way more complicated.
I could be wrong, and perhaps there's a lesson intended here in how one
person can only impact the world so much.
All in all, I loved the game. I love the idea of the player / protagonist
being wrong in a detective game and that not being an endgame
state, but rather something that has repercussions in the game world. I love
how the game had something to say through its gameplay and
narrative, even if I didn't necessarily like how it ended. It was time well
spent.
Book Thoughts: Never Let Me Go
I finished Never Let me Go [Full Plot Spoilers Ahead] over the weekend, and holy shit what a melancholy novel.
The story covers the life of Kathy H, a student at a fancy school for clones who are harvested for organs as young adults. You start suspecting this early on, so it doesn't come as a surprise when it's confirmed -- neither to the students nor to the reader.
That seems to be one of the running themes in the book -- inevitability. Much of the story's structure follows the pattern of:
- Narrator says or implies some conclusion or plot element
- Story backtracks to fill in the details that lead up to said conclusion
- Conclusion happens and leads to next thing
This same pattern underlies the story as a whole -- we're told in the very start of the novel that Kathy's cared for (past tense) her two friends as they donated organs, and that she, too, will soon start donating. Then we fill the details that lead up to that point at the very end of the novel.
Considering the author got a nobel prize in literature we can assume there's a lot more going on here -- the story touches on many topics: the dangers of science unchecked, memory, regret, caste systems -- lots of stuff to chew on. I'm not a proper literary analyst so I'm going to just focus on the bits that resonated with me and the interesting writing style.
The story is masterfully written, with the author spinning lots of offshoot threads -- as one would when narrating a deep-dive into childhood memories -- but always managing to loop back around and tie off those threads later. Every little tangent has a resolution. For example:
- Telling a story from young childhood, bring up forest by the school that they found intimidating
- Emphasize how intimidating the forest was on a tangent, how they once punished a girl by forcing her to look out the window at the forest for a long time
- Later on in the story, tell of how a girl in class made everybody mad by asking the wrong kinds of questions pertaining to the donor program
- Reveal that this was the girl that they forced to look at the forest, and that this was why
The book is full of this kind of setup, and it works really well for the tone and the "memory recall" narration style. When the tie-in comes around, it almost feels like the memory is your own -- you're in on the secret, you get the inside reference. At the same time it solves the tiny mystery of "who was the girl they did this to and why?"
The pattern pushes the story through Kathy's memories as she jumps backs and forth between periods in her life, explaining the big events by building up to them with the small. The big events are rarely that big in the grand scheme of things, but for these second-class organ donors they feel big. A trip to Norfolk with friends, a later trip with those friends are dead to a rotting beached boat. A big falling out between friends. These are the events that define Kathy and her friends' lives.
That's where the melancholy settles in. A story about a short and quiet life, filled with small events that feel big. Kathy and her peers simply accepted their places -- they loved, and argued over petty things and made memories both good and bad. They had small collections and simple dreams. They are entirely unable to touch the world outside of their bubbles, though they are not physically constrained in any way, and all their biggest milestones end so quietly. The end of their childhoods, the ends of their trip(s), the ends of their relationships, the ends of their lives. All of these things happen with very little fanfare and are remembered with a muted sadness, but not sorrow.
I think that's the part that killed me. Kathy remembers all of this so fondly, while she was afforded so few opportunities. It's easy to imagine the kind of life she could have had and cherished in other circumstances, yet she doesn't, or can't, even consider the possibility. All she ever fights for is a chance for a few more years, and even that is extinguished without a fuss.
I personally took away an underlying message to cherish the time you have, and appreciate the freedoms afforded you. Death is inevitable to everyone, and no matter how fondly the characters recalled their lives, they all had regrets. They all took too long to do the things they should have done and lost their chances. You don't get a deferral in life, and while we can cling to our memories, we should make sure to take the time to make new ones. Do the important things we are able to do while we're able to them.
Anyways, good book. Gave me lots to think about, and new perspectives on writing techniques. I think I'm going to go with something a little lighter next -- the first of Sanderson's KickStarter books is out and sounds very much like a pallette cleanser.
Thoughts: On Lack of Output
While I was intending to "blast into the new year", things have been going
even slower than usual so far, and today for the first time in a long time I
seriously considered the fact that I may never produce anything of
significance in my lifetime.
Perhaps it was pulling my back making me feel my youth sliding away, or the
realization that I've only spent an hour per week on my side projects
lately. Maybe it's even been the really good books and games I've been
reading and playing that are putting real talent into perspective.
At 33 I can't remember the last time I thought this -- it's always been my
assumption that eventually something good would fall out of my interests and
efforts. Being a semi-creative-type my whole life with so many projects and
skills, it was a foregone conclusion that one day all these things would
come together on their own and I'd produce something; a game or a
book or a song or an idea that was at least one other person's
favorite thing.
But that may not happen. I'm not exactly shocked or appalled by the idea --
the vast majority of people never produce anything at all, let alone
something memorable. It is, however, a new and alien thought that is only a
shade or two shy of self-pity, and I need to make sure I keep
that in check.
I'm far from a starving artist, so my creative endeavors have never been
more than a hobby. I lead a life of leisure and general comfort. I put a lot
of effort into my job, and spend most of my evenings with my family or
reading or playing games that inspire me or make me think.
The reality is that I'm still pretty far from good enough to accomplish the
things I'd like to accomplish. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a
skill -- at an hour a week that's almost 200 years! While I intend to
"master" any skills, the reality is I'm definitely much more than a couple
of side project away from being a decent writer or character designer or
programmer or game developer.
But that's OK. I'll keep working on my small projects and achieving my tiny
goals. I'll keep exploring new skills and ideas. Maybe something one of
these days will light that fire in me that makes for creative greatness.
And if not? So be it. I'm still enjoying the ride.