I finished the East of Eden audiobook today after several months of listening. It is officially the audiobook that has taken me the longest to get through ever -- I've been listening since around May. The book wasn't even that long, it just took a lot of time!
Usually with audiobooks I'll listen to them in the car or while doing household chores, but I found that despite East of Eden's slow pace I needed to pay my full attention or I'd miss the good stuff. That's because the good stuff in the book wasn't the plot, but the words themselves.
As an avid fantasy/scifi reader this is quite the opposite to my frequent experience of somewhat-mediocre-writing with grandiose plots and or world-building.
The words were wonderful. I found myself writing down and reflecting on several quotes and ideas the book examined, especially from the two primary philosophers in the book: Lee and Samuel Hamilton.
These two characters carried the book for me. They were cultivators of the other characters with their love and words. They were deep and complex and just so easy to love. The other characters all rich in detail and life in ways I've seldom seen in other stories. Every character, even minor ones, had love and pain and depth to them in ways that made them feel very human.
And that's what East of Eden is about: what it means to be human. It tells a story of the weaving lives of 3 generations and how their actions propagate through their children. How they're tested and punished and driven. Their joys, their suffering. It plays off of biblical themes unabashedly, and even though you can see each upcoming tragedy from miles away, you feel them when they hit.
I really loved this book. It re-phrased or re-examined many ideas I've seen before, but in new ways and with more empathy. I felt feelings, chuckled, shed tears, and got reminded that it can be good to take things slowly sometimes. Let them sink in and simmer and bask in the tiny unimportant details that make things real.
It was a treat that I hope to re-read at a much older age, when I'm sure I'll have many more sorrows and joys under my belt to resonate with.
Next up, lesbian necromancers in space!
Reflecting upon a couple of recent games I've played, I need to start paying more attention to how game designers manage to use battles as a mechanic for character- and world-building.
Undertale and Everhood both use battle themes and battle mechanics to help build character for their small casts. A memorable battle theme makes for a memorable battle after all, and because these games have interactive battles they're able to add unique or thematic components to battles that are in-line with their characters.
After the baseline mechanics are established, the designers can make interactions feel unique by tossing in changes to the formula. A character can be made to seem intense or goofy or strong or mysterious by having non-standard moves or gimmicks in-line with this personality trait.
I also saw in Live A Live how battle systems could be used to tell stories and world-build. By changing the formula just a bit, like giving your opponent the experience points when they're your disciple, the game subverts expectations in noticeable ways that build upon the game world.
This obviously comes at a cost -- per-enemy soundtracks or coding in completely different ways for a battle to behave are costly compared to just adding more dialogue, but I feel like a short game filled with unique content that uses it's own mechanics to tell stories is always going to be more interesting than a long game that just re-uses mechanics.
I'm sure everything in this post has been said a thousand times before. However, I'm really enjoying finding these things out for myself and learning new things as I play through my library.
Just finished Everhood, which I initially thought was
some kind of bootleg Undertale. And it totally was, but not in
a bad way.
Similar graphics, tone, themes, and gameplay -- but honestly
I had a great time with Everhood. It may have leaned a little
hard on its inspiration, but it pulls it off very well.
The game manages to capture the same goofy charms, and present
you with fun, hilarious, lovable characters in a world that,
while small, feels put-together. It isn't by any means
a cheap knockoff.
The battle system is fantastic. Here the game takes the idea
of boss-specific theme songs and runs with it. every
fight (or at least each character) has its own song, and the
battles themselves are super-fun rhythm-based affairs.
This made each battle special, and since lots of character only have a couple lines
it's a kind of way to add more depth to their tiny personalities.
Many of the battles even had special gimmicks that kept things
fresh, and at some points they added new mechanics to make
replaying fights worthwhile (and part of the story).
It didn't have quite the same impact as Undertale, and while
it did make me feel things, those things weren't nearly as
intense nor as well-defined as what Undertale delivered.
If you enjoyed one you'll likely enjoy the other, and it's well
worth the low price and time-investment.
I unboxed my new Steamdeck over the weekend. It's a very cool device, though it is host to several rough edges.
That's part of the charm, however. It isn't a polished walled-garden console, but a fully functioning Linux PC in a hand-held form factor -- for that I am willing to make many concessions!
With my newfound ability to play shiny AAA super-graphics games on a handheld device I dove into... The Excavation of Hobb's Barrow, an indie pixel-art point-and-click adventure (akin to the Monkey Island games).
The game was good! It's certainly not the deepest game or the best ending, but the whole game is voiced, the puzzles were reasonable, the pacing wasn't horrible, and I was rarely lost for long. It scratched an itch I didn't realize I had!
Back to the deck -- besides playing steam games it has the ability to drop into a full-blown KDE desktop and mess around. I understand that there's some default limitations and a read-only root filesystem but that's not impeding anything I'd want to do on this kind of device, and unlocking it is only a single command.
Besides doing the expected "play the games in my library", I've managed to:
- SSH into my dev box (bluetooth keyboard had zero issues)
- Install Chiaki to use the steamdeck for PS4 remote play (works better than the Vita!)
- Have my brother share his very large steam library with me, allowing access to his games if he's not online
- Install and configure a GBA emulator
All this is stuff I could just do on a Linux laptop, but besides the SSH bit I usually wouldn't since I'm not a fan of laptop / desk gaming. I can certainly say I'm a fan of this device, however!
Beat Live A Live on the weekend and I'm still processing whether
or not I enjoyed it.
On one hand most of the 7 (8) scenarios you play through -- each of which
is essentially an intro chapter or side-mission from a traditional JRPG --
aren't very good. The "near future" was a notable dud with lots of
needless backtracking and awful pacing. Some use fun gimmicks, but
none really lasts long enough or is good enough to stand out from a
gameplay or story perspective.
On the other hand somehow the game pulled through in the final chapter,
wherein (spoilers) you get to pick your favorite protagonist and lead
a party of other protagonists to defeat the final boss.
Where I frequently found myself annoyed or rushing through the individual
character chapters, I thoroughly enjoyed the grinding and character-specific
dungeons and secret bosses of the final chapter. I had a tonne of fun
finding the other characters and trying different ones out as a party member.
Despite none of the characters having much depth, and generally having
at most lukewarm feelings toward any of them, I found myself super
invested in them during this last chapter. There was barely any dialogue
between characters but it was almost as if there was implicit dialogue through
the silly dungeons and stupid bosses and the skills and items unlocked
through the process. They felt like a team, and playing as my
chosen protagonist they began to feel like a real protagonist.
After the credits finished rolling I found myself smiling, having truly
enjoyed the final battle and epilogue sequence. I still can't tell for sure,
however, if that one awesome last chapter was worth trudging through 8
chapters of mostly-bland trope-filled JRPG-ness.
I am curious, however, about the secret sauce. Why did that last
chapter work so well? I feel like there's a valuable nugget in there I've
not yet puzzled out!
I also want to identify a really cool thing the game did which was to tell
stories through the RPG mechanics. In one chapter you gain skills by
letting enemies use them on you. In another chapter you fight your disciples
and they get the experience at the end of the battles. Some battles
were presented more like puzzles than battles! They definitely explored
their battle system thoroughly in this one, which I can appreciate!
Finally got through Picturing the Mind: Consciousness through the Lens of Evolution!
It was a really light and fun read, and is full of interesting facts and opinions and info on past research about things like:
- Consciousness in animals (and plants [and sponges]))
- What separates humans from other animals [and sponges]
- How human symbolic language may have evolved
- Autism and savant-ism
- There's a chapter titled "Blushing Homo-Erectus"
- Robot sentience and cyborgs
I had originally picked it up because I was working on a storyline involving robot sentience after being inspired
by the novel Blindsight (which explores the concept of the "philosophical zombie"). I thought it might
be good to do at least a little research on the philosophies and sciences of consciousness before starting, but didn't really
know where to begin as consciousness a bit of a broad field. I happened to see this book listed on hacknernews with zero comments and
knee-jerk purchased it.
This was an excellent place to begin! It's extremely accessible, with each topic taking only a single page, ending with open-ended
questions about the things we might not know yet, and being accompanied by a wacky abstract illustration and/or poem. It was like a picture book
for grown-ups.
Having each topic only a page long means you only get high-level overviews of each topic with a couple of "this person said X" or "it is believed that Y",
but they're all accompanied by references in the appendix, allowing the reader to quickly get through less interesting topics while deep diving
the things they're interested in. Everything moved at a quick and jolly pace kept up-beat by the accompanying artwork.
I don't think I could honestly say I know terribly much more about consciousness than when I started the book, but I'm now much more
confident in what I'm looking for and where to look, and I thank the authors for that.
I wish there were more beginner books for complex topics designed in this format. The ability to read a light-hearted high-level
overview of something before diving into technical details or papers, or just decide "this topic isn't interesting to me" and move
on to a different topic would be great for self-learners exploring complex math, science, or philosophical topics.
I've realized over the last year that I've had a significant decline in mental sharpness compared to my highschool/university days.
My job provides me with ample challenging problems to solve, but often these problems are in similar domains and solvable
using what I want to intuitively call "linear problem solving". (I've not looked this up yet, there's likely a proper term for it.)
As an example, imagine knowing numbers and learning for the first time how to add 1+1 and 1+2. Thinking linearly, you could expand that to
figure out chains of addition, the commutative properties of addition, adding large numbers, etc.
What I feel I've lost is the ability to go beyond linear thinking and understanding the rules and implications of addition enough to
intuitively make the leap to subtraction or multiplication.
This was a power I definitely had in undergrad when I was frequently learning and working with mathematical concepts.
I was by no means a mathematical genius (or even terribly proficient at my studies) but there were frequent "aha" moments
where concepts would just "click" and the bigger picture would reveal itself.
Now, even when I try to pick up mathematical (or other highly technical) concepts my brain just doesn't spin up fast
enough to keep up.
The best way I can think to describe it is switching gears on a bike -- I know what second gear feels like, but when
I try to shift up the chain just won't catch and simply rattles around stuck in first gear.
As I'm moving through the previously mentioned 10-minute physics
tutorials this lack of a second gear has been very
noticeable. The content in each video is simple enough, but the logical leaps between videos evade me. After each
video I try (and fail) to complete the next video's goal without the next tutorial. I can easily extend the lessons in each video within
the framework that video provides, but fail to escape the bounds of basic understanding until I watch the next tutorial
and slap my forehead at how obvious the next step I missed was.
A specific case was trying to move from "ball on a hoop (05)" to "triple pendulum (06)". After learning the ball on a hoop constraint "hack"
the tutorials implement, I simply tried building a pendulum by coding 3 balls constricted to hoops, with each hoop being centered
around the previous ball. Linear thinking.
The actual way to extend the concepts was to change the constraint method from "constrain ball to hoop" to "constrain length of string" which properly
accounts for velocities of sub-pendulums acting on parents, which my solution stupidly did not cover.
What's worse is when the author gets into equations. These aren't terribly hard equations, this is stuff I know how to do,
yet my eyes glaze over as soon as they land on anything typeset in LaTeX and it all stays undigested.
As I very much want to make games and shaders and digital art, I believe it is imperative that I regain my ability to
"shift up", fully understand concepts, and solve problems non-linearly once again. I just need to solve the problem of "how"...
Finished a campaign of King's Dilemma, and what a great legacy board game it was!
The game is fairly basic on the surface: your group plays a council of nobles advising the King, and each round
you deliberate over an event and vote. Each outcome will move some resources up or down on a track (with each
player aiming to finish the game with resources in specific locations), and may add short-term or permanent
changes to the gameplay mechanics.
What started innocently enough -- free the chained lady, investigate some clues, join forces with another nation --
quickly devolved into making horribly corrupt and morally reprehensible decisions to further our houses.
The council has voted AYE to sacrificing several prisoners to be melted alive in experiments to alchemically create gold.
It was remarkable how truly awful we became to move a couple resources up or down while vying for
first place each game.
There's definitely weak points, but they're not big enough to ruin the experience:
- some entire games had nothing interesting happen in the story
- some players didn't always pay enough attention to the story to know what was going on (it's very wordy!)
- setup got a little complicated / annoying by the end with so many things to remember to do. A checklist would have been useful in hindsignt
- I wasn't a fan of the ending sequence process. It was novel, but didn't have as much punch as it could have
I really enjoyed playing it through to the end. While I don't think I'd ever play a second campaign, the game will definitely sit in my top boardgames list for a long time.
My whole life I've loved the first day back to school. The slightly cool September breeze, the electric energy of excitement and nervousness,
the fresh school supplies and just an overall feeling of high potential.
I've long since passed my epiphanic "I never have to go to school again" moment, but working at a university I still get to experience the nervous
anticipation vicariously through students during their "frosh days" as they galavant around a campus that still seems a labyrinth on scavanger hunts
and nerf-gun wars.
In two weeks' time they'll be struggling through workloads and drama and life in general, but today the world is new.
I work mostly remote these days, but I'd never miss the first day of the fall term just to soak in the excitement.
I've just finished with Digimon Survive after completing the Moral and True endings.
Despite a lackluster battle system and some points where the story got too repetitive or awkward or slow, I really
enjoyed my time with the first playthrough -- Enough to watch 2 more endings online (in ultra-fast-forward) and play
through the true ending myself.
The true ending featured some additional party members I ended up really liking, but dragged on far too long.
While I'm glad I played the extra ending for closure and for the warm fuzzies in the final scene, the true route
really lacked any additional character development in chapters 10-13 -- in a story about the characters developing.
Since the whole visual-novel half of the game is built around talking to people and raising affinities, this results in
several additional hours of repeatedly telling Kaito he's a good brother and telling Aoi she "has really grown" while being force-fed
a bunch of not-really-canon digimon lore.
The 3 non-true endings are definitely the more interesting routes, though they have a lot of overlap (and don't feature my
favorite character!).
But enough about the story, I came here for the Digimon!
There's quite a few Digimon to collect via recruitment in random battles and via your party 'mons evolving.
Those attached to humans evolve with the story or once your affinity with that human is high enough, while
recruited digimon are evolved with items
The recruiting mechanic is absolutely stupid, but once I started using a guide it was fun collecting
and evolving lots of 'mons. I used another guide to minimize overlap, as many of your party's
fixed final forms can be obtained through random recruits.
I did find it odd that many party and story digimon could be obtained through random encounters (+ evolving).
It's a bit awkward when the story has a powerful digimon appear and threaten the fabric of reality... and
you've already got the same 'mon in your party.
Likewise, it's a bit weird to have WarGreymon show up in a random battle and be recruitable by responding
correctly to a query about nap preferences... There's lots of questionable decisions on the recruit mechanic.
Complaining aside, if you grew up loving digimon and enjoy the occasional visual novel, this is one of the best-looking
visual novels I've played. While the story is about as deep as a kids-show about digital monsters, it's worth
at least one playthough for nostalgia's sake.
