Jaw of Fenris

civilization V: comments on the december patch

2011-01-01T13:58:00.022-05:00

I've now completed a couple games with the new Civ V patch (v. 1.0.1.135) and feel like I can make some informed comments. Overall, I am very pleased. The game is significantly more challenging, and a number of balance tweaks were introduced that make the civilization-building process more rewarding. Obviously, there is still room to improve, but Civ V now ranks among my favorite strategy games of all time.

Some details: Prior to the patch, I had played three games to completion, two of which were on Emperor difficulty. I won all of them easily: one via culture, one via diplomacy, and one via space-race. The wartime tactical AI was atrocious and could be outmaneuvered by a single powerful horseman.

Since the new patch, I have played one game to near completion on Emperor difficulty as China. I went for a cultural victory but it became clear to me around 1900 that I was going to lose to Hiawatha, who had researched the Apollo program and was way ahead of me on tech and military.

I dialed things back a little to King difficulty and played as Russia. Definitely my most entertaining game of Civ V yet. The screenshots I include in this post come from that game. Standard map size, continents, 8 civilizations, standard game speed, no mods installed. I eventually won a space race victory but Napoleon was leading by points for the majority of the game.

Rather than bore you with an AAR, here are some of the positives I noted in these patched games:

1. AI is better at "bringing it" in warfare and stock-piling defensive troops, especially if it has a tech advantage.

In my 1st game, I mentioned that I realized in the early 20th century that I didn't have enough time to complete my 5 social policy trees before Hiawatha completed his space shuttle. So I decided to quickly research the Manhattan Project and try to disrupt his progress with an atomic attack. As soon as I declared war and lined his border with my troops, he responded swiftly and strongly. He had a large military advantage at that point in the game, and within 10 turns he had already conquered one of my cities and was marching towards my capital. Nuking him had little effect.

2. AI tactical military decisions have improved.

A couple things I noted here. First, when attacking AI cities, it knows to focus its bombardment and counterattacks vs. your siege units. Second, if it has researched Flight, expect to be air-bombarded constantly while in its territory. Third, it is making better decisions about whom to attack with what unit. For example, in my 2nd game as the Russians, I rushed to knights before attacking the Ottomans to my south. After I invaded, I noticed he had a number of pikemen defending his cities and he used them quite effectively against my knights. My longswordsmen and siege units were much more important in victory than my knights. The screenshot below shows him defending one of his cities with a pikemen poised to attack an incoming knight, and a knight ready to charge against a siege unit. Fairly clever.

3. Unit promotions don't occur until the turn after the unit earns the XP.

This is a welcome change, since previously you would almost always heal your units, making it very difficult for the AI to kill off your wounded.

4. Mounted units and tanks get penalties vs. cities.

I love this change, since it really forces you to research and produce infantry and siege units to support your cavalry and tanks. You can't simply horse-rush an opponent anymore - their cities will hold you off indefinitely (especially with the improved city-healing).

5. Diplomacy is improved, but still a little wonky.

I like how the AI's now reveal why they feel a certain way about you (see screenshot below). And it is possible, albeit challenging, to maintain positive relationships with your neighbors for long periods of time. Denouncements throw an interesting twist into the game. In my game playing as Russia, I was denounced by the Persians because I founded a city too close to their borders after promising them I wouldn't. This ruined my relations with the Ottomans, who previously held a neutral attitude towards me. This made it so that I couldn't effectively trade my luxury resources early in the game (since these were the only 2 civs I was in contact with), which made happiness and cash accumulation very difficult. I really enjoyed this challenge, right when my empire was poised to blossom.

There are times when the AI will denounce you for reasons you can't understand, and it can be quite difficult (and therefore frustrating) to repair relationships over the centuries. Given that there must be a rule "under the hood" that the AI is following to determine its denouncement, I suppose I'd appreciate even more feedback regarding their reasons. For example, India might denounce me not because of anything I specifically did to them, but because they've been bribed to do so by another civilization. From my standpoint, it appears random - but it would be useful if India said something like, "Some of my allies have convinced me that your foreign policies are threatening to world safety."

6. AI's seem better at managing their economies.

This allows them to engage in far more research agreements, which they will spam across the entire game. If you don't pay attention, you'll fall behind in the tech race quickly because of this. After taking over a number of enemy cities (and puppeting them), I noticed that most AI governors were set to maximize cash. If this is the case across the board, it's slightly problematic - since at least one or two cities should be specialized for production.

In both games, I encountered civilizations that had acquired massive fortunes. See Napoleon's screenshot below. I suspect this money is being accrued via conquest and then raping enemies in peace treaties - a game mechanic players have been known to abuse as well. This again suggests that the AI is "doing well" in some respects but it also indicates that the AI doesn't know how to spend its surplus. With this much money, it should be very easy to pay off every city-state in the world and win a diplomatic victory - or insta-purchase dozens of science buildings for an unstoppable tech advancement.

However, I didn't get the sense that Napoleon was going for that. He had conquered most of the world, and was far ahead of me in points. It was the 20th century and I had researched the Apollo program. I assumed he was going for a military victory, and he was within reach since only he and I had not yet lost our capitals (see screenshot below).

If he had sent his entire military strength against me, he could have crushed me in the late 19th century. However, I was across the ocean and the AI still seems very hesitant to engage in wars on different continents. Also, I believe he could have researched the United Nations, payed off every city-state, and won a diplomatic victory before I finished my 1st spaceship part. But he just sat there, threatening me, until I won the game. This was the most dissatisfying aspect of the game, and indicates that additional work needs to be done on intercontinental invasion AI.

7. Some random notes.

I like how science production is now more dependent on the size of your cities, making larger cities more valuable. Also, it's probably a good thing that libraries don't have a specialist slot anymore, since Great Scientists are very powerful in the early game.

I love the idea of a revolt happening when your happiness dips to -20, but I doubt that's ever going to happen to me or the AI's. I think this should be tweaked to something much more threatening, like -5.

I'm not sure how I feel about not being able to defer social policies. Previously, it was an interesting instant vs. delayed gratification choice. Do I take the bonus to happiness now, or stockpile and wait until the Renaissance to burst my way through the Rationalism tree? The biggest advantage I can see to the new system is that now we (the player) are forced to behave like the AI's, since they never seemed to weigh the advantages of stockpiling. Regardless, the option can be changed in the set-up menu if you prefer the older system.

The AI is engaging in a bit too much ICS, settling small cities in inappropriate locations.

Overall, as I said, I'm very pleased. I find it interesting to read the various forums, on 2K and Steam, and hear so many people complain about so many different "stupid" things the AI's are doing. You begin to realize that individuals are having greatly varying experiences: for some, the AI's are overly aggressive and don't leave you alone - for others, the AI's are too passive and allow cultural victories without nary an invasion. Such variety, I suspect, is suggestive of a deep, complex, and highly replayable game. I look forward to subsequent patches, some creative mods (Dune Wars for Civ V please!), and big expansions.

favorite PC games of 2010

2010-12-24T09:24:00.030-05:00

Blogging really took a hit this year, and it's quite likely that Aili and I will just let this thing die next year. We have a baby coming and neither of us is particularly motivated to write on here nowadays. I suspect the internet won't notice our absence.

Regardless, I did want to do an end-of-the-year round-up of the PC games I played and enjoyed in 2010. I should note off the bat that most of these were not actually released in 2010. Like most gamers, I tend to wait a while before purchasing and playing - save money, wait for patches, read player feedback, and play games that better match my system's aging specs.

So, here are the 5 PC games I enjoyed the most in 2010. I spent more hours playing these than I'd care to admit.

#5: King's Bounty: Armored Princess

The follow-up tactical RPG to the awesomely wacky 2008 hit. In some ways, AP was a bit of a let-down. It didn't feature the bizarro quests and side-stories that the original had in spades, and didn't advance the gaming system in any significant way. Basically, it was more of the same. Much, much more. Good thing I really like King's Bounty. The tactical battles never got old for me - every one was an enjoyable puzzle, and the variety of tactical options (via unit special abilities, spells, and pet dragon abilities) was spectacular. I still fondly remember the power-combo of Stone Skin & Target on my Ancient Ents. Deciding on which units to use in my army was possibly just as satisfying as spec'ing out my party in Baldur's Gate II. It's that kind of fun. Paladins, Trolls, Black Dragons, Inquisitors, and Demonologists. Fucking batshit insane. The RPG aspects are integrated well, requiring you to level up skills and abilities intelligently or else you'll get overwhelmed in later stages of the game. I played on the "Hard" (but not "Impossible") difficulty level as a Mage and was able to get through nearly everything. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the last couple boss battles, no matter how I shifted things around. But I definitely sunk over 60 hours into this beast earlier this year.

#4: Batman: Arkham Asylum

A fantastic, tight action-adventure game. This is one of those ports that almost starts you thinking that console game development is actually up-to-par with the PC. Visceral. Learning the punch/kick/throw/take-down combos, and then using them to go through a mob of 50 thugs was incredibly satisfying. As the critics have said, this game succeeds at making you feel like Batman. "I am a total bad-ass." I loved the grappling hook mechanic, which allowed you to escape out of sticky situations and observe your enemy from above. The plot was good enough, the variety of villains was fabulous (loved the freaky Scarecrow sequences), and I never felt too frustrated to quit. I didn't get obsessed with collecting all the Riddler's bullshit, but got a dopamine burst every time I found a question mark. Steam tells me this took 23 hours of my life. Probably 90% of that was from the actual campaign, but I also played through a significant number of the challenges. Whenever I needed to relax for a few minutes, I'd see how long I could keep a combo going versus a horde of hoodlums. There are few single-player games that I consider replaying when I finish (Bioshock is one), but Batman: AA is certainly worthy of a rerun.

#3: Team Fortress 2

What more can I say that hasn't already been said? Best current online shooter? Check. Best online shooter ever? Quite possibly. I got the Orange Box in 2008 and have been playing TF2 on-and-off ever since. I quit, I thought permanently, late last year when I saw the "hat" phenomenon starting to obfuscate what I loved about the game. I missed a number of the class updates - kept track of the changes via blogs and internet-drip - but didn't feel the pull back in until this Halloween. For whatever reason, I decided to re-install on Steam and see if I had been missing anything, and that's all it took. TF2's greatest strength is that you get near-immediate pleasure from the game. It's incredibly easy to find a game, jump in, and start contributing to your team. It's almost certainly the most noob-friendly online shooter, and that reduces the asshole factor significantly. Especially this late in its lifespan, most players are mellow, there to have a good time, and willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I also love TF2 since I'm now typically one of the better players on the servers I visit. Picking medic and turning a control-point game around for your team is absolutely thrilling. I also love TF2's balance system. If teams are uneven, some players will get switched around - but more importantly, it doesn't matter much since the teams can be randomized for the next map (which on fast rotations, isn't that far away). Just a great great game that's only gotten better with time. Over 200 hours played and I still don't fucking know how to play a Spy well.

#2: Demigod

It's almost embarrassing to admit it, but I suppose I'm over that. I just loved this game to death. Flaws? You bet. Probably the biggest being the small player base that made getting into a decent game an exercise in frustration. I'd literally spend 45 min waiting for every 30 minutes of playtime. And that's eventually what broke me. The release of Starcraft II took just enough players away to effectively kill Demigod, and around that same time it also became clear that GPG & Stardock were no longer interested in supporting the game. They did give us 2 more demigods to play with: the underpowered Demon Assassin and the overpowered Oculus (see above), but the community's continual call for a significant item overhaul went unanswered. After more than 500 games, it's no surprise that I got pretty good - and when I found myself in a 3v3 with five other solid players, the intensity was unmatched in my gaming life. Until someone would randomly disconnect. Ahh, Demigod. How I love and loath thee. I *hope* someone resurrects you one day, as Demigod 2: the Rebirthening, with dedicated servers and better item balance. You could have been so much more.

#1: Left 4 Dead 2

L4D2 has to win my personal game-of-the-year, since it so captured my heart. In a time when zombies are overplayed, it's a testament to Valve's design team that L4D2 so perfectly represents what I want out of a zombie-killing game. Co-op play, where a single panicked idiot can take the whole team down. An AI Director who changes up the experience each time you play and periodically throws the perfect storm at you to make your life a living hell. Losing never felt so good. A versus mode that's highly competitive (and attracts some douchebags) but intensely satisfying. I never quite got "good" at versus, but I stopped feeling like a total noob. Tip: you can aim your Booms up to get greater range and coverage. The free released content (especially the No Mercy campaign) was fantastic, and allowed us to play as the characters from L4D. Getting through the entire Dark Carnival campaign on Advanced difficulty (never even got close on Expert) with three other solid players who communicate and help each other throughout is one of the best experiences there is in gaming.

Honorable Mentions

Civilization 5: a poor AI kept this off my top-5, but the newest patch may have tightened things up a bit. See my last post for why I think this might end up being the best Civ yet.

Dawn of Discovery: the game I wish I had more time to play. A deep, satisfying city-building game with a complex economy. I hope to get back into this one soon.

Dirt 2: a hard-as-nails racer. Varied race-types, beautiful courses, tons of unlockables, and challenging events. Ultimately, however, I just couldn't handle the repetition-to-perfection cycle that's necessary to succeed in games of this ilk. Someone recently compared racing games to Super Meat Boy and I'd have to nod in agreement. This is both a good and bad thing.

Solium Infernum: a mind-boggling interesting game, I wrote about this one in early 2010. What kept this off my top 5? Well, I only ever really played 2 full games (against humans). It was just a bit too hard to organize a game and run it to completion. The play-by-email format was pleasant, in that you could take your time with plotting, but ultimately the slow pace did get a bit frustrating. Probably the most "intelligent" and interesting game I played this year.

Disappointments

Magic the Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers: no deck-building in an MtG game? I don't understand. Otherwise, a lovely interface and classic gameplay at a decent price.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: I tried hard to get into this (mostly so I could break my TF2 habit), but it just never clicked. It didn't help that I really really sucked. I would join a squad, spawn, and die within 15 seconds. I also hated how poorly balanced the teams often seemed to be. Finally, I don't think my PC is good enough to play this at a decent frame-rate.

Tropico 3: it pains me to put this on the list, since I do adored the 1st Tropico. But this version was really nothing different. Plus, the economy was too simple which took all the fun and challenge out of the game. I need to play through more of the campaign to see if it gets better, but I consider this one of my biggest gaming disappointments of 2010.

Civilization V: some thoughts

2010-10-03T09:49:00.022-04:00

Sid Meier's Civilization games are all about the enjoyment of making decisions. Yes, there's a narrative that emerges due to the outcome of your decisions interacting with the "decisions" of various AI entities, and that narrative can be quite fulfilling (especially in retrospect). But I'd argue that the majority of your minute-to-minute happiness while playing Civ is based upon the interesting decisions that are presented to you. Should I built the Hanging Gardens now? Should I settle to the north where there is a flood-plain and an abundance of food, or to the south where there is ivory and incense? The greatest strengths and weaknesses of the Civ franchise lie within these decisions. Some are compelling: they present difficult choices, carry meaningful outcomes, and allow you to "feel" like a world leader. Others are distracting: they are embedded within the intricacies of the game system and are only meaningful on that level. They annoy and frustrate you.

Personally, I've found that most Civilization games (I should note that I have experience with II-V) tend to ware me out after I've played a few full games. I *want* to love these games. And part of me does, since I have such a fondness for complex turn-based strategy. But as the game progresses, the number of fun & interesting decisions becomes heavily outweighed by the number of mundane decisions. Other Civ players have decried this as "excessive micromanagement," but that somewhat misses the point. Some micro can be fun - if the decisions are interesting, meaningful, and immersed in role-playing. Some macro can be distracting - if it feels too "gamey" and like pushing numbers on a spreadsheet around, instead of conquering the world.

One reason why I think the latest Civilization (V) might be the best of them all, is that it has gotten rid of a lot of mundane decision-making. That, inevitably, has led to a backlash among long-time Civ players that it has been "dumbed-down" to be made more "accessible" to "retarded console players." I'm not even sure what they're referring to when they say this, but the 2K forums are full of posts like this. Place me firmly on the side that thinks many of the changes made to Civ V are positive - but, of course, there's great room for improvement which I am optimistic will come.

Back to the point. Using Civ V as an example, here are some decisions that I would consider interesting and meaningful. I have attempted to rank these from most interesting to least:

What victory strategy will I pursue? Military domination, cultural, space-race, diplomatic, or score?
Should I go to war? And when? When turns out to be a very interesting decision in Civ. It is almost always a good idea to time your wars to coincide with the development of your "unique unit" for example. This is especially powerful early in the game, when the number of military units involved will be relatively small. In my last game as the Persians, I tried to time my wars to coincide with Golden Ages, since Persian military units receive a +10% bonus during these times.
Tactical decisions during wartime: how and where should I attack my opponent? Civ V has made some great improvements in making tactical combat decisions more interesting. An aspect of the game which was always compelling is now more so, due to a greater emphasis on unit diversity and use of surrounding terrain.
What social policy should I pursue? I, for one, like the new social policy system in Civ V - but if you prefer, think of the Civic system of Civ IV. Interesting decisions that carry weight and meaning in the game, and feed into the role-playing nature of civilization evolution.
Where should I build this city?
What should I do with this Great Leader?
What technology should I research next?
What kind of city is this one going to be? Production emphasis, gold income, high population with specialists, etc.
How should I spend my excess gold? To form a friendship with this city-state? To purchase a new tile for my city? In a trade agreement with another civ for a luxury resource I don't have?
What tiles should my citizens be working? Should some citizens be specialists?
What should I build next in this city? This decision should support my overarching strategy (#1).

I put city-decisions at the end of the list, because while I do find them to be interesting throughout much of a Civ game, there comes a time when I usually stop caring. Especially in previous incarnations of Civ. For example, if you can build every building in every city, then the decision becomes mundane. Civ V has made this decision more interesting because:

You do not have the time to construct every building.
There are high maintenance costs on buildings, so you shouldn't spam.
There is a greater emphasis on designing your cities to serve particular functions (for production, for population/research, etc.).

Here are a couple Civ decisions that I find less compelling:

Where should I adjust my tax slider? To tweak out a little extra research, or happiness, or culture?
What should my workers be doing right now? Building roads? Cutting down trees to speed along production in one of my cities? etc.

This is obviously a less than complete list but it is telling that these two issues (along with the last two from above) have typically ruined Civ games for me. Especially at the end of a game, in previous Civ incarnations it really felt like most of your game-time was spent tweaking the tax slider (every turn, to maximize efficiency), assigning and re-assigning workers, and visiting every city in your empire to decide what to build and how to assign your population. Ugggg.

If Civilization V has done something right (and I believe that it has), it has reduced the amount of time spent making dull decisions. Unfortunately, it has not adequately filled that time I now have with other, more interesting decisions - especially if I'm pursuing a non-military victory. As others have said, you will press "Next Turn" a lot in Civ V without having made a single decision that turn. I don't think that is a good thing.

Here are some changes/additions I would like to see instantiated in Civ V, which I think would enhance the fun-and-interesting decision space:

More intricate diplomacy. Diplomacy should be like a mini-game, and it should matter. Achieving a Diplomatic victory should be complex, difficult, and an exercise in juggling different personalities and demands. Every few turns, I should be making a "fun" diplomatic decision (e.g. send ambassador, boycott, increase tariffs, publicly denounce at the U.N., etc.). The current system, which emphasizes trade relationships and pre-war alliances is fairly mundane and shallow.
Espionage. I suspect they'll bring Espionage back into Civ V in a future expansion, and I hope they offer compelling decisions that don't bog down the system.
Science and research. I'd actually like to see additional complexity to science & research. Perhaps individual cities (or research labs) can focus on particular inventions or "breakthroughs" that are separate from the standard Tech-tree. Maybe there could be civilization-specific technologies to research.
Enhanced cultural options. Pursuing a cultural victory still feels quite "gamey" at this point. There is no real sense of a civilization's "culture" spreading across the world. In my first complete game, I played as Gandhi and achieved a cultural victory on "Prince" difficulty. Overall, I enjoyed the experience, especially in the mid-game where I had to step lightly in the diplomatic game to ensure that none of my overly aggressive neighbors attacked me. However, much of my late-game was spent pressing "Next Turn," waiting to unlock my next social policy. Maybe if the player was given choice of which direction you could focus your culture: great works of art and music, better consumer products (intersecting with scientific research, perhaps), athletes, movies and television, etc.
Disease. This could be my personal bias, but I believe that disease has had a major impact on civilizations since the beginning (consider Europe's Black Death). As such, I'd like to see disease instantiated in the system - with high population density increasing the probability of an outbreak and certain buildings (Hospital) and technologies (Medicine) ameliorating damage. I didn't much like the "Health" meter of Civ IV since it added more city micromanagement. Rather, I'd like to see Disease (like Happiness in Civ V) represented on a civilization-wide level. This would make decision-making simpler and also more impactful. And just a side-note: what if you could (purposely even) spread disease into adjacent civilizations?
Natural disasters. I can only assume these are coming, and I'd certainly like to see them make an appearance. And, of course, players should be able to turn them on-or-off at the Set Up screen. Disasters are interesting because they can throw a wrench into your long-term plans. What if an earthquake hits right when you're in the middle of a war against the Aztecs? Should you pull out and focus on rebuilding? If a tsunami hits your ally, Japan, will you send them some money to help rebuild their empire?

Oh, and beef up the A.I. Because it really really sucks.

demigod strategy: tower-slam rook build

2010-05-20T08:46:00.025-04:00

I thought I had my Demigod habit kicked but apparently not. No doubt, Demigod can be incredibly frustrating. On a slow night, it can take nearly an hour to get into a decent game. Connectivity issues have cleared up a little, but still plague players regularly: "mystery lag" can slow down a match in which everyone's ping seems to be fine, and your teammate might get disconnected unexpectedly halfway through. It's enough to make you want to poke your eyes out. But when it all gels, Demigod is still one of the best tactical, team-based games on the market.

After having played ~400 complete games, I feel relatively competent with most of the demigods. I'm probably weakest with Queen of Thorns and the Demon Assassin, but they're the weakest demigods for everyone. It look me a long time to get the hang of Rook, but I finally feel like I can help my team dominate a match with the Big Guy.

I'd argue there are two viable Rook builds:

Tower spam: max out Power of the Tower, load up on some mana items, and annoy the hell out of your opponents. This is probably the most common build and it certainly can be an effective one.
Hybrid tower-slam: some have argued that the problem with a 100% tower build is that Rook's towers decrease in value as a game goes on. Enemy demigods will start stacking health and armor, so that even the thickest tower farms aren't doing enough damage on their own. As such, it can help Rook significantly to have an additional Ace up his sleeve.

Here's the Rook build I've been working with lately:

1. Power of the Tower I
2. Archer Tower
3. Structural Transfer I
4. Power of the Tower II
5. Boulder Roll I
6. Tower of Light
7. Hammer Slam I
8. Hammer Slam II
9. Hammer Slam III
10. Boulder Roll II
11. Hammer Slam IV
12. Power of the Tower III
13. Trebuchet
14. Power of the Tower IV
15. Dizzying Force

First, some comments on Rook's weaknesses.

Rook is slow. This is an understatement. As such, you are at serious risk of getting ganked at almost any point of a game. Different players utilize different strategies for dealing with this, but one thing is certain: you need to have a Teleport scroll on you (or the Amulet of Teleportation) at all times. If I'm flush with a little extra cash around level 7 or so, I'll also spring for the Wand of Speed (1750 gold) which can get you out of jam in a hurry.
Rook has low base armor. I'm not sure if a lot of players are aware of this, but Rook (at level 1) has the same Armor rating (240) as Torchbearer. Only Erebus (at 220) is lower, but Erebus has incredible speed and life-steal abilities to make up for this. Rook looks a lot tougher than he actually is. What this means is that Rook needs to be particular wary of an enemy Erebus, whose Bite (at level 1) reduces Armor by 250. This would put Rook in negative armor, which means he will take massive amounts of damage from auto-attacks. Rook also needs decent armor so that he can take out enemy towers, whose damage is mitigated by high armor. As such, Nimoth Chest Armor is one of the best items you can get for Rook - and I try to get it ASAP.

So what are Rook's strengths?

Rook can dominant a lane. Most teams like to send their Rook to the health flag on Cataract right away, so that he can set up camp and establish dominance over that +15% health bonus. Along with a couple towers, Rook can farm creeps, level up, and keep enemy demigods out of the lane.
Rook can take down enemy towers in a snap. Structural transfer helps quite a bit with this, but it's not even necessary.
Rook's towers serve as teleportation beacons for his teammates throughout the entire map. Thus, Rook makes ganking easier.
Rook can do a shit-ton of damage. He has tower farms, a good auto-attack that only gets better, and a Hammer Slam that can flatten any demigod.

Hybrid Rook works like this. Through level 7 or so, play like a normal tower-spammer. Try to have 2 or 4 towers up at all times (depending on what level you are), and use them to dominant lanes. Your goal in the early game is two-fold: 1) help your team get a significant lead in Warscore, and 2) take down some enemy towers. You are not out there to kill, and you must avoid dying. Get dirty when your teammates port in to your towers for opportunistic ganks, but don't take any crazy risks. Use Boulder Roll to stun enemy demigods trying to escape or chasing for kills. Use Hammer Slam conservatively to take out some creep waves (for faster leveling) and minion armies. If Oak's spirits are harassing you, a single Hammer Slam will usually do the trick.

Taking down enemy towers is a relatively simple affair. It's best to wait until the opposing team leaves you alone in a lane. Approach an enemy tower with a friendly creep wave just ahead of you. Build a tower immediately in front of the enemy tower - this will draw it's fire while you crush it. Start whacking away. If your health dips (to 2/3 max), use Structural Transfer on the opposing tower. Then whack away until it's gone. This entire process should not take more than 10 seconds. Good opposing teams will know not to leave a Rook alone in a lane, or if they do, they'll port in to protect their tower as soon as they hear the warning that it's under attack. Keep an eye out for port-swirls

Bolder Roll is such a great skill it deserves it's own paragraph and pic. The true power of Boulder Roll emerges when you get to level 10. As soon as you Roll an enemy demigod, start your Slam. The 2 sec stun is enough to ensure they'll get crushed by the full weight of 1700 damage.

I can't count the number of times that a Rook has caught me off-guard with this move. Level IV Hammer Slam is the single-most damaging skill in the game - and that includes Level IV Spit, which does 1650 damage over 10 seconds. The problem with Hammer Slam is it's 1.5 sec cast time and obvious wind-up. Any observant demigod with an interrupt is going to whack you as soon as they see it coming. But if you stun them first with Boulder Roll, they're doomed. No Heal or Shield is going to help them now.

The way I see it, Rook's biggest strength is that he's deceptive. Early game, your opponents will view Rook as an easy target. He's slow and he's big, so enemy demigods tend to target him by default and his low armor means that he really can't handle too much attention at once. Your tower farms can cause headaches, but woe to the Rook caught outside a farm.

But then something happens. Around level 8 (and certainly 10), Rook becomes a monster. His role transforms from lane-controller to offensive powerhouse. And it usually catches people off-guard. Maybe they haven't even seen you pull off a Hammer Slam until that point in the game. And BAM, they go from 2000 hp to 300. Maybe it's that pesky Regulus, who thinks he's got your number with Mines. Stun... SLAM! Dead. It's pretty satisfying, and honestly, a more fun way to play Rook that straight tower-spam.

What about items?

Favor: you have a few options here.

Personally, I like Dark Crimson Vial. Once they patched this guy up a bit, it became a viable alternative to the standard Blood of the Fallen. I prefer the Vial since it allows you to play dead and surprise your opponents. That's half the trick of Rook. Make your opponents think you're weak, lure them into your tower farm, and then pop the Vial. Now they're running away and you can Roll and Slam for the kill.
On bigger maps especially, the Amulet of Teleportation can be Rook's best friend. It basically guarantees that you'll always have that telie on you.
Pure tower-spammers will sometimes take Blade of the Serpent, which can completely solve your mana problems. This also means that you don't really have to buy any helms and can stack health and armor.

Items: in order of importance to my particular build

starting: Banded Armor & Scaled Helm. You could get Banded & Scalemail, but you'll run out of juice for your towers too quickly. And it's key that Rook be able to stay in the field for as long as possible in the early game. Remember: you want to dominant a lane, control a flag, and level up. If Rook falls behind on leveling, things can get ugly fast.
Nimoth Chest Armor: your best friend in the world, until you can afford Groffling.
Unbreakable Boots: your 2nd best friend in the world, and one of the best items for the money.
trade Scaled Helm for Vlemish Faceguard: you're going to need one helm throughout this build, and it's likely that Vlemish will be enough.
Wand of Speed: especially if you're facing fast opponents, like UB, Erebus, fire TB, etc.
Duelist's Cuirass: this is just a personal taste thing. The safe bet would be to go with Hauberk of Life, for standard health stacking and auto-healing, but I don't think you need it if you're carrying the Crimson Vial. Instead, I like the added offensive bonus that the Cuirass provides.

If the game lasts well past level 10, then you're going to need to make some final adjustments to all this:

trade Banded for Groffling Warplate.
trade Wand of Speed for Orb of Defiance.

A lot of Rook players love the Orb, since it can give your teammates time to port in (remember to always build a tower near you!) and reverse a losing situation. It also provides a great +500/500 health/armor boost to late-game Rook.

And there it is. It's funny: in the early days of Demigod, there was a lot of muted disappointment over Rook. Not surprisingly, he was GPG's poster-child for their new IP. Massive, towering over the battlefield, dominating all who approached. He was the assassin you couldn't wait to play. But then you played him and he was surprisingly fragile. Slow and methodical, in a game that favored speed and flexibility. Rook dropped to the bottom of the ranks (just above Queen of Thorns) in win %. Players called for buffs.

Fast forward to now. Rook is considered a "Tier 1" demigod, at least when paired with the right teammates (Oak and UB, for example). A good Rook can completely dominate a match, tear down enemy towers on Cataract before anyone even hits level 3, and establish a unassailable Warscore advantage for his team. What happened? Well, people learned how to play him. He's not an easy demigod to master. He takes patience and skill and careful micro-management. His item builds are vital to his success. But when it all comes together, the Big Boy is a beauty to behold.

the sorcerer's house: analysis, part 3

2010-05-16T17:06:00.012-04:00

In this 3rd installment of my (admittedly mediocre) analysis of Gene Wolfe's The Sorcerer's House, I'm going to take a close look at letter #31: "Get Out - And Got Out". I find this letter particularly interesting because it involves one of the more mysterious characters in the book: the malevolent dwarf, Quorn.

First, note that this is a letter addressed to Millie from Bax. As such, we should be suspicious of its content. Bax paints himself to be extraordinarily brave, powerful, and heroic (even referring to himself as such, via Doris), and may be doing so as part of his plan to seduce his brother's wife.

A brief synopsis (assuming truth): Bax returns to his house from his Chinese dinner with Jake and Dorris (described in letter #28), prompted in part by a phone call from Winkle. Winkle tells Bax that a fat blond girl had arrived, started exploring the house, and now was lost. This girl is the newspaper reporter, Cathy Ruth, whom Bax had agreed to meet that night for an exploration of the house's cellar. Doris and Bax enter the cellar and begin looking for Cathy. A rat "that looked larger than her head" attacks Doris (or, at least, is "clutching her hair") and Bax clubs it away with his flashlight. They attempt to back-track to leave the cellar but fail to discover the original staircase. They come across a different staircase and hear a dog yapping (Toby) and a woman scream (most likely Pogach). Bax busts down the door and they see Quorn grappling with Pogach. Bax commands Quorn to leave, and the dwarf complies. They find Cathy also in the room, who has been raped by Quorn. Winker appears and presents an ancient sword to Bax. Winker leads them back through the house. Doris decides to take Cathy to the hospital. George suddenly arrives, thrusts open the trunk on the back of Bax's limousine and releases the vampire, Nicholas. Nicholas, with George in pursuit, runs into the house and disappears. Bax ends the letter to Millie by saying that he searched for his brother for hours, could not find him, and eventually went to bed.

An action-packed letter to be sure. I assume the title of the letter refers to the following events:

"Get Out" - part of Bax's command to Quorn.
"And Got Out" - the escape of Nicholas from the trunk.
(however, it is possible that "got out" refers to George getting out of jail)

If we view Bax's house as a ley-line between our world and that of Faerie, than I think there is something to be gained from analyzing these events symbolically. A descent into a cellar, for example, might more broadly be viewed as a descent into the most dangerous and evil aspects of Faerie. What do Bax and Doris encounter in the depths of the house? Heaps of "objects veiled in dust," "hairy spiders as large as saucers," and a gigantic rat. Not particularly enlightening, and this aspect of the letter makes me believe that it is, at least in part, a Bax confabulation designed to scare and impress Millie using stereotypical horror-genre tropes.

The cellar may also serve as a crossing point between worlds, much like the window in Bax's bedroom. When Bax and Doris climb the 2nd staircase and confront Quorn, they could be within Faerie at that point. Could this be relevant? Perhaps. It might explain why Quorn reacts so strongly to Bax's command, after his initial disdain.

When Bax first confronts Quorn, the dwarf is unafraid of his gun.

"They call me Ironskin." He advanced, still grinning, and I pulled the trigger.

Perhaps Quorn knows that, in Faerie, he is invulnerable to the weapons of our world. Bax drops his useless gun...

... and pointed both index fingers at him as though I held modern revolvers. I intended to shout, but perhaps I screamed - I cannot be sure. "Get out of here, you devil! This is my house! Out! I don't want you here!" With much, much more in the same vein.

The blood drained from his face, leaving it a dirty gray. He backed away. "Sorry, sir! I meaned no harm! No harm at all!" He took a few more steps backward, knuckling his forehead, and fled. I ought to have been amazed, but I was raging and there was no room for it.

In Faerie, Bax's wizardly powers emerge, especially since he wields magic rings ("weapons of sorcery"). Recall that in letter #41 ("The Riverman"), Martha tells Bax, "Magic is diplomacy. It isn't just saying the words. It's who says them, how he says them, and when he says them." The voice of command that Bax adopts, in his rage towards Quorn, is imbued with mystical strength - Quorn instantly recognizes Bax as a legitimate sorcerer and a dangerous man.

Quorn's role in The Sorcerer's House is vague, at best. We first encounter him "chained to a staple in the door frame" of Ieuan's room in letter #17 ("A Tramp"). I suspect that Quorn may serve as Ieuan's familiar. At least two other characters within the narrative have familiars: Bax has Winkle, and Old Nick/Zwart has Toby. Interestingly, in both of these latter cases, the familiars are shapeshifters. Does this suggest that Quorn also is a shapeshifter? Does he make another appearance in the book, as an alternate character? I can't think of a reasonable possibility, off-hand.

Symbolically, this scene could simply serve as evidence that Bax's powers are evolving and that he has vast potential to become a powerful force in Faerie, like his father. I suspect it is his father, in fact, who sends Winker into the room soon after this confrontation with the magical samurai blade.

"This is a new reign. There's a new emperor now.... Once in each reign we present the Fox Sword to a hero friend."

Wolfe certainly has a fondness for magic swords in his novels. Severian had Terminus Est, Able quested for (and lost) a magic sword, Latro discovers a magic sword in a river within the first couple chapters of Soldier of the Mist, etc. In part, I believe, this is because Wolfe likes to utilize (and play with) genre tropes. Heroes in fantasy novels have magic swords. They're fun. Period. But also, these swords tend to serve symbolic purposes in the text. What is the narrative function of the Fox Sword? Bax wields it in the final battle (described in #41) on the Skotos strip against the werewolf, Lupine, and her pack. The strip, like Bax's house, falls on a ley-line and is another location where his magic powers can make themselves evident. If we assume his father granted him this sword, it is given to both aid in victory and help secure the continued dominance of the Black family line.

the sorcerer's house: analysis, part 2

2010-04-25T16:33:00.016-04:00

Broadly speaking, there are 2 possible interpretations to the events of The Sorcerer's House.

A. None of the supernatural events reported by Bax are true. Bax makes everything up in order to defraud and kill his brother and seduce Millie. I shall quote from a comment by gwern (from the Urth-list archives, an online discussion board of Wolfe's work), as a possible summary of this interpretation:

Bax moves into the mansion.
When he tries to regularize his squatting, he goes to Martha and using his smooth wiles on a lonely old woman, cons her into letting him stay under the perfectly normal custodial arrangement.
He thoroughly searches the house, and discovers the eccentric previous owners had had valuable collections. Bax didn't lie about the gold coins, but he found many more. Gold is very valuable, after all, especially collectibles. Bax has modest needs. Alternate scheme: he takes out a mortgage.
He embarks on his elaborate con/murder scheme of George.
Mischief managed.
He forges Murrey's will - she also had the Skotos Strip. (Why not? She seems to have tons of real estate in general.) Alternate scheme: he gets her to sign that over as well / forges her signature.
Murrey vanishes like George.

B. Many (but possibly not all) of the supernatural events within The Sorcerer's House take place. Bax actually is the son of a sorcerer and the Black House falls upon a so-called ley line which connects our reality with that of Faerie. Bax describes these events to his brother George in order to make him jealous and lure him into a trap. George's disappearance could mean that 1) Bax killed George, or 2) George became trapped in Faerie somehow, or 3) George decided to stay in Faerie (possibly to conquer it).

These interpretations are obviously directly contradictory to one another. I favor (B) but am not 100% convinced.

Evidence in favor of (A). (I shall add to these lists as necessary)

Bax is a liar and a con-artist. As such, it is quite possible that there are more "realistic" explanations for how he comes by the various properties and gets rids of George.
Bax's letters to Shell are devoid of explicit supernatural content. They do, however, speak to him possessing guns and wanting to prepare for the possible murder of his brother.
The supernatural phenomena in The Sorcerer's House do not fall within a consistent mythological tradition. There are vampires, werewolves, and zombies - but also Japanese kitsune. These inconsistencies may be the result of Bax's extensive education in European history and tradition, just as he draws upon his expertise in literature to periodically make parallels to stories and characters by Dickens (see "Quilp"="Quorn").

Evidence in favor of (B).

The text is far too complex and intricate to merely serve as a means of deceiving George and Millie. I suspect there are many many other ways that Bax could have lured George to Medicine Man, besides fabricating a multilayered plot involving sorcerers and fairies. Furthermore, such a fabrication suggests that George would be particularly susceptible to a fantastical story. Why? With Millie, there is a clearer explanation - she is gullible, naive, and believes in supernatural phenomena (hiring a psychic, for example). George, however, might be lured into the trap if he also possessed the genes of a sorcerer and so intuitively believed some aspects of Bax's letters. It is possible, in fact, that George has independently discovered some aspects of their family background and is incensed that Bax is attempting to claim the entirety of their inheritance.
A series of unexplained killings does take place in Medicine Man, and their nature is indicative of werewolves.
The compiler confirms the existence of the samurai sword, at least insofar as Millie was able to describe it in detail.
In letter #44, "George" (Bax) says he will be returning with the fox, Winkle.
Supernatural happenings could explain 1) why Bax is drawn to Medicine Man in the first place, after being released from prison and 2) how he comes to easily inherit both the Black House and the Skotos property.
Doris's letter #42 mentions the ghost of her dead husband, werewolves, the vampire Nicholas, and the malevolent dwarf. If we are to believe this letter is real, it is the strongest independent evidence for Bax's story.
In letter #21, Bax writes to Shell and says, "There are other things I could tell you about, but you would not believe a word of it." Not specific reference to anything supernatural, but suggestive. (Another interesting aspect to this letter: in it, Bax asks Shell if he's ever heard of Mary King - the ghostly hitchhiker who appears in letter #25, from Bax to Mrs. Pogach. It refers to events that took place after Bax had his meeting with the lawyer, George was arrested, and the dinner-date with Dorris - described in letters 22 and 23, possibly the most important letters in the book. Why would Bax ask Shell about Mary King?)

Furthermore, there are easy counter-arguments to most items in the (A) list. We need not concern ourselves with "realistic" explanations for how Bax comes into easy property, since this is Gene Wolfe and this is a piece of fantasy. We know that Wolfe "believes" in faerie, and so oughtn't we? Also, it is hard for me to understand how Bax comes to Medicine Man in the first place and easily acquires said properties (UNLESS he has some previous relationship with Alexander Skotos, hinted at in Shell's letters but which Bax himself seems unaware of).

The inconsistency in mythologies can be explained by acknowledging that that is how Faerie works. Faerie is a land generated by human imagination, desire, and fear. It is a product of our id and collective unconscious. Therefore, it will be populated by a mish-mash of archetypes and icons from various cultural traditions. It might also be argued that the Faerie world which Bax encounters is based upon his own personal imagination - one largely steeped in European tradition, but perhaps tinged with a slight interest in the Orient.

We saw a similar mish-mash occur in Wolfe's Castleview, which is a helpful reference point for understanding some aspects of The Sorcerer's House. Another novel in which a sleepy Midwestern town falls upon a ley-line between dimensions, into which faerie invade and cause havoc.

the sorcerer's house: analysis, part 1

2010-04-25T08:40:00.023-04:00

Gene Wolfe's newest book, The Sorcerer's House (2009), is not his best work but that's an unfair assessment. After all, Wolfe's tetralogy, The Book of the New Sun, might be the best science fiction ever written - of course everything he has published since seems faded in comparison. But like all his fiction, The Sorcerer's House is a puzzlebox that haunts you upon completion. It's a fun and vigorous read but so much is left unsaid and unwritten, that if you want to get the most out of it, you need to re-read and spend some time analyzing. I'm going to share my thoughts on this blog as I go through my second run-through, and perhaps by writing these ideas out I'll clarify some mysteries for myself.

First, some basic assumptions.

1. I am going to assume that the "compiler" is not Bax. If the compiler is Bax, then analysis of the story almost becomes meaningless, since everything is questionable. So...

2. The following people are, at the least, real: Bax and George (twins), Millie, Orizia Pogach (the psychic), Sheldon Hawes, Martha Murrey, Zwart Black (and Alexander Skotos - may or may not be the same person). This is based upon their mention in the final Compiler's Note. I also assume that Dorris Griffin and Kate Finn are real. Many other characters may or may not be real (for example, Thelma "Naber", whose last name sounds like "neighbor" could very well be a Bax fabrication, meaning that the whole Thelma & Martha twin story is a lie; similarly, "Jake Jacobs" could be another joke by Bax).

[There are 2 more complications which make identification of "actual" people difficult: 1) the compiler states that he/she has changed some names within the text "to protect innocent persons" and 2) there is a "Significant Names" chapter at the very end of the book. How are we, the reader, to take this final section? Was this put together by the compiler? Or was it put together by Wolfe (the Author, with a capital "A")? If the latter, should this be taken as a clue that these characters indeed exist?]

3. Bax was well-educated (claiming to have 2 PhD's: one in English literature, the other in ancient history) and had been convicted of fraud against his brother and some of his brother's friends/associates. The story presented in this narrative begins soon after his release from prison.

4. George is very wealthy. We know little else of his personality, background, and behavior. If we are to believe Millie's letters to Bax, he's arrogant, demeaning, and at least somewhat abusive. Most everything we see of George is filtered through Bax, who, presumably, hates him and is toying with him for some nefarious reason (the two most likely possibilities being money and revenge).

5. Letter 44 strongly suggests that Bax has somehow rid himself of his twin brother, George, and is impersonating him. The Compiler's Note indicates that Bax was successful at this identity theft for at least several years (although I suppose it's possible that Millie saw through his disguise right away but either didn't care, or was too afraid to do anything about it). It is quite possible that this was Bax's plan from the beginning, and indeed, something he was plotting while in prison.

6. Bax, following his release from prison, somehow came into possession of the "Black House," the Skotos property, and Martha Murrey's house.

7. Something or someone in Medicine Man killed a number of people in particularly gruesome and brutal ways. The "Hound of Horror" is not a Bax fabrication, insofar as the local newspaper did print several stories on a series of local killings that were blamed upon a large dog or wolf.

8. We may assume that the most, if not all, of the content of Bax's letters to his friend, Sheldon is truthful. It is notable that he never mentions any supernatural phenomena to Sheldon in these letters, although it is possible that he only avoid these topics because he suspects that would make him look like a "sucker" or someone who is mentally deranged. Therefore, on this 2nd reading, it will be important to pay attention to the exact content of his letters to Sheldon, as well as Sheldon's replies. As I recall, these letters confirm the existence of someone who is likely to be Alexander Skotos. And that someone was actively asking about Bax. I believe this is a major hint as to how Bax ended up with these properties in the first place.

9. Any letter written by Bax to either his brother, George, or to George's wife, Millie, is suspect. As these letters contain the vast majority of the plot of The Sorcerer's House, the reader is left to determine what actually happened. Hence, this analysis. I will assume (although this could be dangerous) that the majority of letters written back to Bax are genuine and were not substantially altered by him (although he may have acquired a certain expertise in forgery). Millie's letters indicate her naivety but also suggest that George is not a paragon of humanity (as might be expected in the "good twin"). Pogach's indicate that she did visit the Black House and interact with Bax. Doris's indicate that she became emotionally involved with Bax and, later, quite confused. It is notable that both Pogach and Doris mention supernatural phenomena in their letters. Doris's letter "A Terrible Mistake" (#42) is particularly interesting and will require several close reads. George writes only one letter (I believe) to Bax, and that is "The Challenge" (#37). This letter is written in such a style that it may very well be a forgery by Bax, done so to implicate George. However, this interpretation is complicated by the fact that Bax assumes George's identity at the end. Why would Bax try to paint George as a possible murderer out for revenge just before taking on his identity?

[One additional issue that concerns me regarding the authenticity of these letters is the following: once Bax assumes George's identity, he theoretically comes into possession of all the letters that he previously sent his brother. He could, at this point, engage in a great deal of editing. However, what would be his motivation for doing so? He would only do so if he believed that someone would later discover these letters and read them. For example, he might edit if he was worried that the police could eventually come into possession of these letters. However, I don't find this line of reasoning plausible since there is a great deal of "unsavory" information in these letters. E.g., he squats in the Black House, he shoots a wolf-thing in the face and it later becomes a human man, etc.]

That's as far as I will go now, as you can see I'm already starting to drift away from my initial assumptions.

small world on ipad

2010-04-20T08:46:00.005-04:00

Been slowing increasing in envy for FP's iPad. To be perfectly honest, I probably won't get one for years (after they're gone through 3 generations and it's already being replaced by something cooler), but I'm starting to appreciate its versatility. Not surprisingly, much of the power of the iPad comes from the burgeoning family of available Apps.

I am especially enthusiastic about the possibility of playing boardgames on an iPad. The other night, FP and I played a couple games of Small World, for 2 player on his iPad. It was exquisite. I mean, I love boardgames - so I sort of missed the feel of the pieces, and the process of the set-up, but the fact of the matter is that the team of engineers who ported this game over to the iPad did a fantastic job. We scanned the Quick Rules, and decided to throw caution to the wind and just try a game. Because the iPad enforces the movement and attack rules, we were able to learn through trial-and-error - much faster than constantly referring to a rule book to make sure we didn't do something wrong.

We were able to whip through 2 games in under an hour. It played without a glitch. And they are still working on improving things - the current release is 0.91.

After just this brief stint, I started daydreaming about having an iPad with a vast boardgame collection on it. Neuroshima Hex. Memoir '44. Attika. Carcasonne. Drakon. Ghost Stories (for solitaire play). Nexus Ops. Not everything would work, of course. iPad boardgames should probably be solitaire or 2-player only and not require too much table space. As much as I'd like to be able to play Arkham Horror on an iPad, I just can't see how that could happen with all the components, cards, text, tokens, etc.

But the iPad is calling out for other relatively simple 2-player wargames. I'd love to be able to drop my iPad in front of my brother, while on vacation, and pull up a dozen or so solid boardgames for us to play. Days of Wonder has started the trend - here's hoping the rest of the gaming world gets on board (get it?).

plain sight

2010-04-17T09:15:00.008-04:00

As a fan of indie games (and online competition), I recently was tempted to purchase Plain Sight, a unique take on the multiplayer "shooter" genre. In Plain Sight, you are a suicidal robot ninja with a penchant for jumping and being slung by gravitational forces. Sounds interesting, no? Unfortunately, I can't strongly recommend Plain Sight - I've tried it for a solid week now and have become increasingly frustrated. There's definitely skill involved, but the combat becomes repetitive quickly and I also found myself suffering from motion sickness and vertigo.

As you can see, the art style is quite lovely and Plain Sight does possess an irreverent and welcome sense of humor. There are a number of maps and gameplay modes to try, although I've found that most multiplayer games online are straight "deathmatch" (everyone for themselves). The maps vary in quality and playability. Perhaps it's just personal preference, but I found some of the bigger, "flimsier" maps like "Unreeled Tournament" (see screenshot below) very frustrating. Your opponents can be quite distant and traversing the "tape" without getting killed is an exercise in annoyance.

Briefly, the gameplay consists of the following. You run around using the standard mouse & keyboard configuration, but jumping (via spacebar) is a near-constant necessity. You gain a great deal more ground and are a harder target to hit. Since all these maps take place in "space" with particular physics modeled, you can (and should) use solid objects to slingshot yourself around for better positioning. It's certainly a clever (and somewhat novel) gameplay addition, but one that can induce vertigo and nausea quickly. Nothing is really "up" or "down" and you'll have to constantly switch perspectives to successfully attack your opponents. Your goal is to destroy the other robots on the map by locking onto them with your targeting reticule. It takes a while to establish a lock, so you often have to chase a particular robot around for a while before you get the opportunity to nail them. If you time things right, you'll dash towards them and smash them into bits, garnering whatever energy they have.

Interestingly, this does not, by itself, gain you any points. To score, you actually need to self-destruct (see screenshot above) - and you gain more points for having a greater amount of energy stored up at that point. You also gain multipliers for catching other robots in your explosion. Furthermore, the more energy that you accumulate from destroying other robots, the larger and slower you are - i.e. you become an easier target for others to destroy. This mechanic creates a very interesting "risk vs. reward" decision: should you save up that energy you've been gaining for a "big score"? But you could lose it all in a flash if someone manages to destroy you before you self-destruct. This is truly a clever and interesting aspect to Plain Sight and the designers deserve kudos for it.

Another positive aspect to Plain Sight is the skill tree. As you destroy more robots, you gain points to spend on various upgrades. For example, you can buy a "warning" system that alerts you when other robots have a lock on you. You can pair this with a "shield," activated by right-clicking, that can block a charging enemy if timed just right. The double-jump, I've found, is great for chasing/avoiding enemies. Unfortunately, there is a slight "runaway leader" aspect to this - the more successful players will be opening up better and better skills, making them harder and harder to kill - so if you get stuck at the bottom of the scoreboard, be prepared to die a lot.

Plain Sight has a number of interest mechanics, as you can see, but ultimately these don't quite gel into a fully pleasurable experience. The action is perhaps too fast and chaotic, reducing the value of tactical decisions and proper use of the environment. It can be very satisfying to accumulate a lot of energy and get a big score before someone kills you, but all too often a multiplayer game ends up being dominated by a single player who is capable of taking anyone out who is starting to gain a little energy. And most damning (at least for me), I find myself actually getting physically sick playing this. The strategy of the game demands that you are constantly jumping and spinning and reorienting yourself, which combined with the speed and the need for you to focus on what the other robots are doing at all times, plays havoc with your brain's balance system. If you don't believe me, here's an extended gameplay video - and trust me, it's worse when you're controlling the robot yourself:

At only $10, Plain Sight isn't going to piss you off - and I certainly love supporting independent developers who come up with creative ideas - but there are better multiplayer experiences out there and after a few days with Plain Sight, I found myself loading up Team Fortress 2 and Left for Dead 2 to alleviate the nausea.

the silent woman

2010-04-04T08:28:00.015-04:00

While re-reading Gene Wolfe's excellent noir tale, An Evil Guest, I was particularly intrigued by a scene taking place at an otherworldly pub (where the waiter has sharp and hairy ears) called "The Silent Woman." Cassie remarks as they leave,

"I saw their sign as we left... It's a woman with no head, and it ought to scare me. Why doesn't it?"

"Because it assures you that women should talk as long as they're able to."

Curious, I looked up "The Silent Woman" in Google and came across this wiki entry. The Silent Woman is a name commonly given to pubs and taverns in the UK, and the pub-sign associated with these establishments often depicts a decapitated woman holding her own head and/or serving refreshment.

The meaning of the sign is unclear, although at first glance, seems distinctly misogynistic. "Come gather here, ye men, and avoid the incessant nagging of your wife!" Or perhaps, a place where men can safely objectify the bodies of women whilst ignoring the unfortunate presence of feminine mind and emotion. A sort of Bizarro-world Boxing Helena.

The legend on one sign says, "Since the woman is quiet, let no man breed a riot." Implying that male-male conflict typically results from the sinister influence of women - their capacity to breed jealousy and rage, perhaps, or their evil machinations.

The wiki piece mentions the possibility of the Silent Woman being a martyred saint, but I could find no further research on this topic. Please post a comment if you know anything about this.

social gaming

2010-03-21T09:04:00.024-04:00

Not surprisingly, for the past several months there has been a lot of buzz in the tech world over "social gaming." FarmVille, for example, potentially has over 80 million active users on Facebook. Zynga, the online gaming company that markets FarmVille, generated revenues of over $150 million this year. At the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, social gaming was a central topic of discussion - and more than a few independent game developers were offended by having their creative products compared to the FarmVilles and Mafia Wars of the world.

you're kidding me, right? this is popular?

Soren Johnson, the lead designer for Civilization IV and a highly intelligent and astute game designer, offers the following thoughts on social gaming: "Fear and Loathing in Farmville."

It's a good read, for a number of reasons. One of Johnson's biggest fears is that social gaming removes too much creative power from the designer, and places it either in the hands of a "suit" (more concerned with maximizing the bottom-line versus entertainment value) or the player-base. This latter point is interesting. Reiterative design, whereby the structure of a game is steadily and rapidly changed based on player feedback, has the potential to be a powerful force in shaping games to suit players' entertainment desires. But it also caters to the lowest common denominator, and it makes the concept of a "game designer" (someone with a special creative talent in game design) less meaningful.

To quote:

I have to admit my own reservations about this transformation; game design itself simply might be not as much fun as it used to be. I cannot easily sum up how enjoyable brainstorming a game is during the early, heady days of blue skies and distant deadlines. With a release-early-and-iterate mentality, these days are now over, for good. Games will no longer be a manifestation of an individual’s (or a team’s) pure imagination and, instead, will grow out of the murky grey area between developers and players. The designer-as-auteur ideal is perhaps incompatible with this model, but I believe the best game designers are the ones willing to “get dirty” – to engage fully with a community to discover which ideas actually work and which ones were simply wishful thinking. Loss of control is never fun, but as Sid is fond of saying, the player should be the one having the fun, after all, not the designer.

Most gamers' and designers' primary concern with social gaming, as it stands now, is how these products are built, from the ground up, to abuse and exploit the customer. Social games typically utilize a partial reinforcement schedule to keep players coming back, much like slot machines in casinos. The hope of the company is that their customer will become behaviorally addicted to the product and a regular subscriber. If they can cajole/convince their friends to sign up too, their experience will improve (for example, they might receive some bonus content). It is also common to sabotage the functionality of the product, requiring payment to improve performance, open up options which are usually standard, etc.

Now, there's a danger here of over-reaction. After all, these games are free to play. If you're careful, they are free to play forever. Ultimately, it is your choice whether you want to invest any money in furthering your gaming experience. The business model demands that there be some mechanism of generating revenue to cover the cost of development and distribution of a free-to-play model. Advertising is one possibility. Micro-transactions is another. In and of themselves, there are not necessarily evil things (well, maybe advertising is, but not micro-transactions).

Furthermore, there is definitely something to be gleaned from the popularity of these games. Johnson delineates 4 attributes of social games that "promise great things for both gamers and designers":

True friends list: Gaming can now happen exclusively within the context of one’s actual friends. Multiplayer games no longer suffer from the Catch-22 of requiring friends to be fun while new players always start the game without friends.
Free-to-play business model: New players need not shell out $60 to join the crowd. Consumers don’t like buying multiplayer games unless they know that their friends are all going to buy the game as well. Free-to-play removes that friction.
Persistent, asynchronous play: Finding time to play with one’s real friends is difficult, especially for working, adult gamers. Asynchronous mechanics, however, let gamers play at their own pace and with their own friends, not strangers who happen to be online at the same time.
Metrics-based iteration: Retail games are developed in a vacuum, with designers working by gut instinct. Further, games get only one launch, a single chance to succeed. Most developers would love, instead, to iterate quickly on genuine, live feedback.

And when viewed in this context, one can certainly begin to see why everyone's buzzing about the potential of social gaming - and not just as a money-generating cash-cow, which it surely is. In particular, #3 (persistent, asynchronous play) appeals to me. As one grows older and accumulates more life responsibilities, it becomes harder and harder to justify (although I remain capable of doing so) spending 3 hours straight in front of the computer playing with pixels and polygons. But what if those 3 hours were distributed across a week, in 10-15 minute bites, and you were still able to get a fulfilling strategic gaming experience? As a related model, consider how much time/energy/enjoyment people get from "playing" fantasy football and its ilk, which are based upon persistent, asynchronous, social interaction.

Personally, I've never been attracted to casual social games because stuff that appeals to the lowest common denominator is likely to be uninteresting to my refined and spoiled palate (snooty, I know). After all, I've been a gamer for near-on 30 years and I'm particularly drawn to niche markets that don't have mass appeal. Furthermore, I'm used to playing my games with complete strangers online - and in some ways, I prefer that. But I can read the tea leaves as well as anyone else, and the fact of the matter is that when it comes to the bottom line, I'm less relevant to the CEO's and business graduates of the world than the ~400 million Facebook users who aren't willing to slap down $50 for the latest and greatest in video-game technowizardry.

I'm not going to play Chicken Little here and say the sky is falling, but casual games, and especially social games, are going to have a major impact of what video games 10 years from now look like. And it might not necessarily be all bad.

Although if you want to scare yourself, watch this video from DICE 2010, where Carnegie Mellon University professor, Jesse Schell, tries to give us a glimpse into our awesome future. He's not a great speaker, but it gets very interesting (in a "holy shit, I need to kill myself now" way) around the 20 min mark.

http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/

internet university

2010-03-03T08:26:00.009-05:00

I've been meaning to post some of these links for a while... The internet is a fabulous, horrifying thing, alternatively disgusting, provocative, entertaining, and informative. For the moment, let's ignore all the other bollocks and focus on "informative."

Let's say it's been a while since college, or maybe you never went (or, like me, you're just curious to see how other professors "do it"), but you're self-motivated to do some learning/thinking on your own. You can now find free university course content from some of the top researchers and lecturers in the world on the internet. If audio is enough for you - perhaps you just want to listen to a Harvard professor pontificate about Shakespeare on your Ipod while you go for a morning stroll - they try out iTunesU.

Personally, I found it too distancing. I think it's overly optimistic of me to presume that I can clean the house or exercise while simultaneously paying attention to Robert Sapolsky.

Instead, I think that Academic Earth has more potential. Here, you'll get video feed of the lecture as well as audio. So, minimally, you'll be able to see the professor in question. Unfortunately, they still haven't solved the problem of how to nicely synch-up lecture slides with audio presentation (a certainly jump-able hurdle). Sometimes, the videographer completely ignores the slides which make science lectures, in particular, nearly incomprehensible.

If the stodginess of Academic Earth is too much for you, you can also try a couple of other websites that offer more intimate and, periodically, controversial snippets from so-called experts. Both Big Think and FORA.tv offer interviews and speeches from prominent members of the world community, on all number of topics.

Big Think features direct interviews conducted by Big Think staffers. For example, here's Helen Fisher, whose theories on romance, sexual attraction, love and lust play a role in some of the research I conduct:

FORA.tv, in contrast, typically posts speeches and interviews captured in other contexts. The pieces can be unsatisfyingly short, which I think is catering to the presumed short attention span of their internet audience. For example, a male beaver's lament:

Go forth and nerdify yourself!

solium infernum AAR

2010-02-03T20:44:00.032-05:00

It all started December 8th.

Game Parameters:
Map Size: Normal
Map Type: Great Rivers
Places of Power: Uncommon
Game Length: Normal

Players:
1. Severian (Host)
2. Meatball
3. Carnivean
4. Belshirash
5. Scratch

As host, I hoped to finish a game within one month, conducting 2-3 turns per day. Theoretically, this should have worked but was certainly overly optimistic. Turns sometimes ground to a slow pace (1/day or less), and several of us were forced to take a break over the holidays. We finished February 3rd - nearly a 2 month journey through hell.

I'll put the precis up front for those who just want the meat of the matter: after 12 conclave tokens had been drawn (around Turn 50), Meatball conquered Pandemonium with a range-heavy legion. The rest of us had 5 turns to destroy his Stronghold or re-take Pandemonium. We failed.

I don't plan to rehash the entire history of our game, since there were far too many machinations, plans, plans within plans, thrilling victories, abject failures, and catastrophic events to summarize in one blog entry. RPS recently published a wonderful diary of an entire game and I encourage you to read it as well, if you're interested in a more detailed turn-by-turn analysis from several players' perspectives. This blog will just summarize some of my thoughts on the game, as well as the major events from my personal viewpoint. Necessarily, this will be a very biased and self-centered view since so much information (regarding other players' builds, strategies, and orders) is unknown to me.

The Early Game ...when two sloths reveal themselves while three hares scurry for prestige...and Scratch falls victim to his own hubris...

I chose this build, which in 20/20 hindsight was relatively poor. I almost certainly should have started with Charisma 3; the difference between 2 and 3 is vast. I could have sacrificed either Paranoid or Bully, but my original plan was to try and push a Praetor strategy if possible. As such, I was worried (paranoid, if you will) about a high Deceit build eventually stealing away my strongest card. Bully was going to garner me prestige once people started capitulating to my demands, fearful of single-combat vendetta.

We started this game prior to the 1.5 patch, which meant that taking a high rank was vital. If I remember correctly, 3 of us chose Duke, 1 was a Marquis, and 1 was a Prince. As such, my starting legion was relatively strong (high ranged attack) - but so were the bodyguards of everyone else. In the early game, I spent a great deal of my resources on acquiring both a solid praetor (Zuul) and a useful artifact (Siege Engine).

The Siege Engine, in particular, allowed me to capture 2 early POP's which started garnering me +3 prestige/turn. Meatball and Scratch also rushed to conquer POP's and seemed poised to battle over the Garden of Infernal Delights for the remainder of the game.

Interestingly, neither Carnivean nor Belshirash were doing anything. It actually took me a couple turns to realize that the movement rate of their starting legions were 1, indicating that they had taken the "Slothful" perk. I had not encountered Turtlers like this in my AI games and I was worried at my ignorance. How powerful was this strategy? It certainly suggested that they were accumulating resources and increasing their attributes while the 3 of us were spending order slots on moves and attacks.

Scratch quickly took the prestige lead by acquiring some solid POP's. Unfortunately, this made him a target when players first began flinging demands and vendettas at one another. Scratch refused to capitulate to a demand from Belshirash relatively early in the game - I doubt any of us would have - and a turn later, Scatch's bodyguards were gone. Wiped clean from the slate of hell. And Belshirash's legion had not even moved.

This was probably the defining moment of the early game for us all, since Scratch had no other legions at this point and losing your bodyguard is a major blow. Both Belshirash and Carnivean revealed themselves to be clever and dangerous foes. Belshirash was packing heat: he was likely already a Destruction 3 or 4, possibly with 2 ritual slots, and was to be avoided. Carnivean immediately cast Infernal Negotiations, predicting a rash of diplomatic actions in the next few turns. Several players made demands of Scratch, I cast an insult, and Carnivean cleaned up some nice prestige from this timely ritual. He also revealed himself as a Prophecy build, which I found curious. I wasn't sure as to the power of Prophecy (few had spoken well of it on the Cryptic Comet forums) but perhaps he knew how to play it well.

In a sense, I feel for Scratch. He spent much of the remainder of the game dealing with demands, invasions, vendettas and insults. To his credit, he maintained his prestige lead into the middle game - and in the end, played a major role in how our game panned out.

The Middle Game ...when Severian feels the brief winds of victory and is just as quickly cast into mediocrity... Belshirash's fires burn... and Carnivean's general threatens all from afar

My greatest failing in this game was not building up my attributes high enough, quickly enough. It took me far too long to even get to Charisma 3. I originally had planned to achieve 3 move orders (via Destruction 4) by Turn 25, but I was spending too many resources on Praetors and Artifacts and I went through a long drought of Hellfire. I picked up the Throne of Skulls, which is truly excellent (multiplying a Praetor's effectiveness x3), but never had the chance to actually use it. It remained in my vault for the entirety of the game.

I was also keeping Zuul in my vault to protect her from rituals and had won a single-combat vendetta vs. Meatball, allowing her to level up. My luckiest moment came when I drew the "In Dreadful Deeds" event card, which granted my praetor an extraordinary promotion.

I was also able to declare a vendetta vs. Scratch and march through his territory to the City of Dis: the most powerful POP on the map, not yet conquered. With a praetor and the Siege Engine attached, I took it and completed my vendetta (capturing cantons) in the same turn. I felt confident and bold.

My plan was to sit next to the City of Dis for, possibly, the remainder of the game and fling demands at my opponents with Zuul as my ace-in-the-hole. Eventually, I lulled Carnivean into a single-combat vendetta. I played my event after our vendetta was declared, hoping that he would be unprepared for the upgraded power of Zuul.

Unfortunately, I underestimated his shrewdness. Carnivean had won an auction for a relic (Goblet of the Traitor) which allowed for the "Annointed of Ash" ritual, another means of upgrading your praetor for single combat. So his Praetor, Bune, was well matched for Zuul. We walked into battle near equals... except for his advantage in luck. Bune's upgrade had granted him a Luck of 4, which time and time again in our single combat gave Bune a powerful advantage over Zuul. It went two rounds and Zuul would have pulled it off except that her Infernal Attacks fizzled when they should have sizzled.

For me, this was the turning point of the game. I had briefly gained command of the lead - but my loss to Carnivean cost me not only prestige but also my strongest play. He vaulted into first place and from that point on used his praetor to make incessant demands, win periodic vendettas, and earn a great deal of prestige. In other words, do what I wanted to do. This was, of course, infuriating. The praetor strategy is very powerful if you can pull it off. Once you've developed a show-horse, you can throw out demands at anybody without concern for invasion of your own territory. The only consolation I, and my colleagues, received (and it was sweet) was when Bune was defeated by the Butcher in the tournament of champions. However, he simply annointed another Praetor and kept up the harassment. Overall, Carnivean played an excellent, well-thought out game and most likely would have won if Meatball hadn't gone for the jugular.

The Late Game ... when Carnivean distances himself from the slavering fiends... and Meatball positions himself for a shocking usurpation of the throne...

I felt castrated. In addition to losing Zuul in single combat, Belshirash had successfully banished my two other praetors in a single turn. I had very little going for me: the City of Dis, the Chosen of Severian, and my two artifacts. I had not yet achieved 3 move orders and I was still struggling with resources. To add insult to injury, Scratch surprised me by hiring the Sons of Typhon and using his Dimensional Cube to teleport them into the City of Dis. So now, I had nothing.

I decided to position myself to attack Meatball, since he was in last place and seemed vulnerable to a well-timed attack on his POP's. It was desperate but I felt I needed to be aggressive with my legion. I successfully positioned myself, made a demand, and... we all received word that Meatball had taken Pandemonium.

His legion was indeed powerful, with a ranged stat of over 22 and the artifact which granted "sulfurous burns" (double damage from ranged attacks). Most importantly, his stronghold was only 2 cantons away; in other words, he could defend both Pandemonium and his homebase at the same time. Carnivean and I immediately began to position ourselves closer to his stronghold. I was somewhat pleased by this turn of events for 2 reasons:

I did not believe that Meatball would succeed. I felt (incorrectly, it turns out) that he was relatively weak and this was a desperate attempt at a win by someone who was in last place and didn't know what else to do.
I was in the best position to take advantage of the situation. I could immediately invade his territory and conquer 2 of his POP's. I also had a strong enough legion to potentially take down his stronghold. This would have the added benefit of fulfilling my Public Objective, Wrath.

The Beast was in the bazaar. He was probably our best chance at taking out Meatball's legion, since he forced Ranged attacks to occur last in combat. Scratch, surprisingly, was the player to pick him up. This was somewhat fortuitous since Scratch's stronghold (where the Beast would emerge) was close to Pandemonium and Meatball's stronghold. I still believe that Scratch could have prevented Meatball from winning if he had directly attacked Meatball's stronghold when he had the chance. Instead, he chose to wait because he hoped to create a situation where all of us would weaken ourselves against Meatball and he would come out ahead. I cannot blame him for thinking along these lines, as he had served as the communal kicking boy for well over a month of play.

Unfortunately, Meatball was more powerful than perhaps any of us had anticipated. His Destruction skill was formidable. He lost his legion but successfully banished the Beast via three successive Infernal Affliction rituals (I only know this because he told us after the game). His stronghold was exposed but Carnivean's Darkwing legion was blocking my path. I attempted to maneuver around him, setting myself up for an attack in 2 turns. I still felt, at this point, that we had a good chance to stop Meatball. I thought Carnivean had a praetor or artifact up his sleeve that would allow his Darkwing legion to take out the stronghold. If that failed, I would be in position with my Siege Engine to attack in a couple more turns. We still had time.

That's when a chasm opened under my feet and cast the Chosen of Severian into the abyss.

I assumed Meatball had held onto this Event ("A Great Fissure"), just in case, and realized my legion was a threat to his stronghold. As it turns out, he did not play this event - Scratch did. And I can only imagine his spiteful self-satisfaction as this played out. Regardless, I have since been informed by Meatball that he had several powerful Destruction rituals lined up against me if necessary, so I suspect that I would not have been able to take his stronghold as readily as I imagined. Carnivean's Darkwings also succumbed to the fiery power of Meatball.

Meatball was also cranking out Demonic Premonitions every turn after taking Pandemonium to protect against ritual attacks. Carnivean was a ritual powerhouse at this point in the game, but his multitude of spells bounced off Meatball like "water off his back". Meatball's conquest of Pandemonium was not a desperate act by a drowning man but a calculated, strategic powerplay that succeeded because his enemies failed in coordination and communication.

This is perhaps an appropriate time to comment on the nature of communication within Solium Infernum. Our play group decided to use the "in-game" mechanism for communicating with each other, which had a built in delay (identical to that used for diplomatic actions). You send a message - the next turn, it is read - the next turn, you might receive a response. We did not allow for emails/communications outside of this designed format. And I think it is to the benefit of the game. If the four of us had emailed each other immediately after Meatball took Pandemonium, I suspect we could have generated a full-proof plan to take him down. But because we did not coordinate well, Meatball was able to pick us off one at a time.

Final Thoughts

Even though I'm bitter I lost (since I still think I had a chance), I'm glad that Meatball was able to pull off a victory from being in last place. It says a lot about the design quality of Solium Infernum, that a player is never truly out of a game and that there really are multiple paths to victory.

Furthermore, while I consider my starting build to be relatively weak and flawed, I also believe that Soilum is won in the game, not at the Edit Avatar screen. There's perhaps too much worry on the Cryptic Comet forums over imbalanced builds, the value of Charisma vs. other attributes, and the usefulness/cost of certain perks. In the end, I think a player can win with most builds (maybe not Charisma 0 or 1) if they play smart and adapt to changing circumstances. At the end of the game, I was still using only 2 orders and I had a single legion. My Bully perk had maybe garnered me 15 prestige throughout the entire game, and I don't think Paranoid ever came into play. But I think I played well, overall, had been careful and calculated with my attacks and feints, and was within 60 prestige of Carnivean. In another couple turns, I was planning on asking Belshirash if he wanted to be my Blood Vassal. If he had agreed, it is possible that I could have pulled off a victory with our combined power and prestige.

Enough said. Congrats to Meatball. It took two months and pushed my cortisol levels to their limit but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

gustave baumann

2010-01-30T17:12:00.000-05:00

I was already rather in love with the woodblock prints of Gustave Baumann. Then I took a printmaking class and realized just how time consuming and exacting multi-colored block printing can be. He spent years on some of his prints.

He lived much of his adult life in Santa Fe, NM, and his prints from the southwest make me homesick. He captures the light and spaciousness just right.

Here are some examples of his work:

The book Gustave Baumann: Nearer to Art showcases nearly all of his work, including his era in Indiana:

He also carved marionettes for family and community puppet shows:

know your meme

2010-01-30T09:17:00.008-05:00

The only thing I maybe like more than internet memes is the "scientification" of them, such that they are transformed into post-hip objects of analysis. For example: explain Advice Dog to your mother and you have participated in the un-cooling of an internet meme. Fun! Web-nerds are very possessive about their memes, so if they suspect them of being "exploited" in some fashion, they'll typically respond with hilariously absurd and inappropriate outrage.

As such, I love this site: Know Your Meme. If you're just not spending enough time on the internet to know about Ninjas vs. Pirates (and RealUltimatePower), then visit here and absorb the data kindly collected by the fine folks at the Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies. Or if you prefer the sublime laziness of video...

If the topic intrigues you, you might also want to check out this article from the latest Wired, on Ben Huh, the founder of LolCats, FAIL Blog, GraphJam, and more. Perhaps more than anyone else, he has exploited internet memes for his own profit and selfishness, making "FAIL" usage so widespread that it makes you want to stab yourself with a pencil. But, of course, I love it. "Fashionable" memes spread until they become so popular that they're unpopular. "Oh, you know about that too? Well, I guess that Keyboard Cat is lame now." How awesomely pretentious. The internet has sparked a unique (and yet so played out) manifestation of the cool contest, perhaps best exemplified by the music nerds of yesteryear ("Oh, you know about King Missile? Well, I guess they suck now."). There's nothing more satisfying, perhaps, than watching the hipsters squirm as their fashion sense and musical taste, and now internet knowledge, are co-opted by the Oprah Winfreys of the world.

the value of an idiot

2009-12-29T12:02:00.031-05:00

One of my favorite cinematic "moments" of Left 4 Dead 2 occurs when some dumbass on your team decides that they're going to go scout ahead by themselves and clear the path for everyone else. They might have other reasons, but they're largely irrelevant. Because we all know what happens to the lone hero in zombie movies.

fucked

Left 4 Dead really punishes loners because if a special infected gets a hold of you, you cannot escape or fight your way out of the situation by yourself. You need a teammate to come and rescue your ass before that Hunter tears all your guts out.

On the one hand, it can be pretty gratifying to watch dumbfuck "PsychoKilla69" get eaten alive because he simply refused to listen to everyone else saying, "stick with the group", "don't wander off by yourself", "cover me", etc. Similarly, there's a sick satisfaction from watching the airheaded cheerleader bite the dust in any zombie flick. Zombies provide a uniquely rapid form of natural selection. You've got to follow some basic rules or you don't deserve to make it to that mystical "safe-house". Who wants your dumbass genes polluting the oh-so-delicate future of the human race?

On the other hand, sadly, you sort of need Dipshit. In L4D2, 3 good players can take on a zombie horde but there's significantly less room for error. Inevitably, you'll find yourself running into dangerous situations to rescue said dumbass, and five minutes later, you're wallowing in a pool of your own bile, blood, and internal organs. Where should we draw the line on self-sacrifice for our fellow human beings versus letting the Horde punish the Retarded?

Normally, I think we'd all be comfortable saying, "Fuck 'em". But there's nothing "normal" about a Zombie Apocalypse. In particular, the value of an individual non-infected human being is dramatically increased. Therefore, when calculating whether you should put your own vulnerable ass in danger to save the life of an idiot, your brain needs to take into account the rarity of humanity. This heavily skews our trusty cost-benefit analysis.

Another example of this is Battlestar Galactica. After the Cylon attack on the colonies, less than 50,000 humans survive, instantly making us an endangered species. The value of an individual human life skyrockets, which means that you have to learn to put up with idiots, pricks, and sadists. I mean, in any sane galaxy (with billions/trillions of humans), no one in their right mind would let Saul Tigh near a car much less XO a battlestar. But beggars can't be choosers.

So go ahead and jump in that sewer to save yon big-breasted bimbo. After all, you need her for breeding.

borderlands

2009-12-15T21:04:00.033-05:00

This semester has taken a heavy toll on the energy and motivation I usually have to blog or write about anything. Which is unfortunate, since life continually offers up absurdities that are worthy of celebration on the internets. In my free time, however, I have been indulging in the holiday gaming season (which is exceptional, this year) and wanted to share some of my thoughts on one of the current blockbusters: Borderlands.

Borderlands is a bad-ass game. And I don't want to sound like a fanboy here, since I think it suffers from some real issues as well - but playing this game is absurdly fun. Borderlands is a hybrid mix of a first-person shooter (FPS) and action role-playing game (RPG). I have a soft spot for action RPG's, even though I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I jumped on the bandwagon rather late. I barely touched Diablo and Diablo 2, and my first real introduction to the genre was Gas Powered Games' Dungeon Siege (2002). I bought Dungeon Siege on a whim and expected to tire of it quickly. The basic principle of an action RPG is constant motion, combat, looting, and leveling. It's an RPG for people with ADD. There is only the merest whiff of any storyline, plot, or character development. It's almost heresy to call it an RPG at all (especially for those trained on Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur's Gate, etc.), since the "role-playing" elements are minimal. But every time you gib a troll and get a shiny new magic bow +200, you get this little dopamine burst in your midbrain that makes you want to keep playing.

Borderlands is all that and more. What makes it unique in the genre is the setting, its focus on guns instead of swords, and its first-person perspective. You're basically a bounty-hunter on an alien planet that feels very post-apocalyptic, and is inhabited by thousands of psychotic raiders, warlords, and mutant beasts. You job is to kill. Constantly. And periodically get stuff from those you kill. But mostly kill.

This maniac is coming right for me, with an axe no less, and I've got a sub-machine gun that sets you on fire. That's fucking insane, all right. The problem is that right behind him are 10 of his buddies, including at least 3 midgets with shotguns. This guy is just meant to distract me while lil' Mojo gets a beam on my head. Fortunately, I have several aces up my sleeve.

Borderlands is fundamentally about developing into a one-man (or one-woman) wrecking machine. As you progress through the game, completing quests and killing enemies, you gain experience and level up. Leveling brings new skills. Nothing new here. You also discover better and better loot, which is mostly composed of different guns. Borderlands has a clever random drop system that can generate a near infinite number of weapon combinations. For example, you might find a revolver that electrocutes your enemies but possesses a slow reload time. Or a rocket launcher than does corrosive (acid) damage to anyone caught in its blast radius. A central joy of Borderlands is collecting a wide array of weapons that you can draw upon for different tactical situations.

You'll note some serious color-coding going on. As with most action RPG's, the color indicates rarity. Blue is rarer than green, purple is rarer than blue, etc. In Borderlands, you're hoping for orange and yellow items and you'll be lucky to see one after a dozen hours of play.

There are 4 characters to choose from: a brawler, a soldier, a sniper, and... Lilith. I love Lilith. She laughs gleefully when she crits some asshole in the head, and can enter an alternate dimension when shit starts getting out of control. Here's her skill tree:

If you're at all familiar with this kind of game, you basically already know what Borderlands is all about. It's solid, mindless fun. But here's a list of things that I especially like and dislike about this particular game.

1. Leveling pace. The pace of leveling can make or break a game like this. Players don't enjoy dying all of the time, but they also want a challenge. The threat of death needs to be real, and it should happen if you play poorly and just rush into a battle without any kind of plan. If the game lets you level too quickly, you might find yourself out-matching every enemy you encounter. Borderlands suffers from this problem to a certain extent. I made the mistake, on my first playthrough, of tackling lots of side-quests. It's that whole OCD thing, cleaning up your quest log and all. Unfortunately, by level 15 I was rolling over anything that came my way and the thrill of victory was reduced. I had to force myself to ignore side-quests from that point on and focus on the main storyline in order to give myself any challenge at all. Borderlands does allow a 2nd playthrough at a higher difficulty level (it'll take you from ~ level 30 to ~ level 50) and the enemies are significantly more intimidating. Nothing like going up against a "Badass" alpha Skag who spits balls of lightning.

2. Loot pace. Borderlands nails this one down. There are a shit-ton of loot drops, but you can quickly scan the ground for information on the weapons there and the color-coding system makes the good stuff really stand out. You'll find a really exciting weapon every 4-5 levels, which translates into several hours of play. This is a nice pace, since it allows you to become emotionally attached to certain weapons. I remember this lovely shotgun I found on my first playthrough that caused enemies to explode, and I just walked around for the next 20 minutes laughing as I one-shot killed everything in sight. I almost cried when I sold that gun to make more room in my inventory.

3. Skill-tree depth. Borderlands is very focused on weaponry & equipment (think, grenades and shields) and less on skills. Or, I should say, active skills. Most of the character skills are passive which provide bonuses to certain kinds of attacks (melee, for example), accelerate healing, regenerate shields, etc. There is one active skill that each character can use - Lilith has her phase-walk, for example - but that's it. This is somewhat disconcerting at first, since you'll want access to a broader range of special attacks. But you'll get over it, because the gunplay is so entertaining and Borderlands wants you to focus on that.

4. Presentation. A heavily touted feature of Borderlands is its artistic style, which is "cel-shaded." It gives the game a lovely comic book presentation that is relatively unique in the PC gaming world (the closest comparison is 2003's XIII).

5. Console-ness. It is clear that Borderlands was first and foremost designed for the Xbox360 and PS3. This isn't exactly a "port" but it sometimes feels like one. My two biggest quips are the following. There's no storage system for loot beyond your personal inventory. I would like to be able to easily transfer loot between my characters, for example, by having access to a shared storage area. This is a common feature in most action RPG's and it's needed here as well. I also would like to ability to cancel quests from my quest log. As is, it gets cluttered in a hurry, making it more difficult to focus on those that are most important.

6. Vehicular combat. I was excited to hear rumors that Borderlands also featured some vehicular combat, but the fact of the matter is that it is a relatively minor aspect of gameplay. Your character will use a car, often, for quick travel around the map - and you can even run over enemies for easy XP. There are a few quests that feature vehicle-vs-vehicle combat, but it feels silly and unsatisfying, especially when compared to the visceral and challenging gunplay.

7. Humor. Borderlands definitely has a sense of humor and you can see it in the environment and in some of the characters you'll meet. Scooter has some lines that will make you grin. It should be noted that this is not a G-rated game; in addition to the massive, constant bloody violence, there is a fair amount of cursing as well.

8. Death penalty & checkpoints. The above screenshot shows you what happens immediately after death. Your body is reconstructed at the nearest checkpoint and you're charged a fee. The system works decently well, since checkpoints in Borderlands are spaced regularly. However, if you quit the game and reload later, you won't start at a mid-level checkpoint - the game will force you to start at the entry-point for that particular area. This is a tad frustrating and there were a couple times that I cursed Borderlands for this. It's another symptom of its console-ness.

9. Second wind. Borderlands includes several clever features that kick in when your character loses all their health. For one, if you're playing cooperatively with friends, one of your buddies can come over and revive you. They have only a few seconds to do this before you die, but it creates some great tension and teamwork that otherwise might not exist. If you're playing solo, you can also recover on your own by killing an enemy before your vision goes totally black. At this point, you'll get a "second wind" and recover your shield and a little health. Often, this is enough for you to run away, recover, come back and clean up. I've had some amazing second winds playing Borderlands, and they really are brilliantly fun gaming moments.

10. Tactical depth. When Borderlands is challenging, it presents a surprising amount of tactical depth, especially if you're going solo. Rushing into a situation without a plan will likely get you killed, and a slow, deliberate approach is rewarded. For example, I like to pick off sentries with my sniper-rifle before I jump into a nasty raider-camp. I'll then toss a couple grenades that rain electricity to strip my opponents of their shields, and follow that up with a corrosive rocket so they're already taking significant acid damage when I finally show myself. At this point, my primary attacks are SMG and shotgun, both highly effective when in close-combat. If my shield dips too low, I'll immediately phase-shift and either sneak attack their toughest mofo or find a quiet place to regenerate. Cover plays a central role in Borderlands and if you use it to your advantage, you can win any fight. Your enemies will often use it effectively as well, requiring that you come up with a flanking strategy on-the-fly. All of this back-and-forth is very rewarding and makes Borderlands much more satisfying, I think, than a straight-up hack & slash dungeon crawler.

On a final note, Borderlands can be played solo or cooperatively with up to 3 other players online. I have had a stellar time playing by myself, and appreciate being able to go at my own pace, read all the quest info without feeling pressured by other players, and hoarding all the loot drops for myself. I have also dipped into cooperative play online and it's got some perks: the enemies are tougher, the loot is better, and you get to see the other characters in action. But playing with a random PUG (pick-up group) is always a hit-or-miss situation. My assessment of the fun-rating of this game is that it is best when played coop with friends, 2nd best played solo, and 3rd best played with strangers. Recommended to satisfy your holiday season lust for (virtual) blood.

How to not buy crap for Christmas

2009-11-17T00:45:00.051-05:00

I'm not much a a shopper, unless it is a thrift store. So talk about Black Friday and Christmas gifts kind of freaks me out. But many people love the gift giving aspect of the upcoming holidays, so let me make some suggestions that won't add more plastic crap to a household and might boost the economy of enterprising individuals rather than major corporations.

First suggestion is of course, make things yourself. I personally think that the idea of a home-made Christmas is the best. No one has to buy anything at all! Getting a gift you know was made just for you is truly heartwarming, as anyone who has ever hung kid's art on the refrigerator knows. Cards, cookies, homemade books about some event you enjoyed together, pictures in decorated frames, whatever. The list is endless. And they will like it because they like you, and you made it just for them.

Second best is to buy local. Not local as in your nearest shopping mall, but local as in the one-of-a-kind shop owned by someone who lives near you. You'll have to walk around your own neighborhood to figure out what remarkable items are hiding inside...

Third, buy stuff that is handmade and sold by the maker themselves. Going to craft shows is always fun, but you can shop handmade from bed, via the internet. The most well known handmade shopping site is etsy.com. You can find anything, and I can guarantee that you will find the perfect gift for even the most difficult to shop for person. They also make it easy to search by location, so you can buy homemade and local. Chances are, someone you know uses etsy to sell things they make. Many people I know do. Here's a sampling of creative folk I personally know and love:

My brother Orien sells handmade tools, kitchen utensils, and archery. Link to his shop here.

Tracey makes amazing jewelry here and here:

Or check out lovely Megan's wonderful bags here and here:

The samples above are grown up presents, but Etsy has tons of amazing and unique toys and kids items, too. For example:

Aside from Etsy, try the websites of some of these amazing craftspeople:

The pottery of Kate Brown can be seen here:

The metal work of Ginger Meek Allen (she made our wedding rings!)

The Handmade Toy Alliance has a long list of links to independent toy makers here.

Kid's music by original artists (that is pleasant for adults too) can be found here.

Magazines make great gifts too. Try these:
Cricket Magazine (award winning, no advertising!) and their other magazines for kids from toddlers to teens:

For ladies, Bust Magazine is way fun. And everyone loves National Geographic, including kids.

See? There are lots of fun ways to shop that let you avoid long lines at chain stores on Black Friday! Enjoy!

monster anatomy

2009-10-24T08:50:00.000-04:00

Aili and I found this while putzing around Drawn!

Yōkai Daizukai, an illustrated guide to yōkai authored by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, features a collection of cutaway diagrams showing the anatomy of 85 traditional monsters from Japanese folklore (which also appear in Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitarō anime/manga).

The Makura-gaeshi (”pillow-mover”) is a soul-stealing prankster known for moving pillows around while people sleep. The creature is invisible to adults and can only be seen by children. Anatomical features include an organ for storing souls stolen from children, another for converting the souls to energy and supplying it to the rest of the body, and a pouch containing magical sand that puts people to sleep when it gets in the eyes. In addition, the monster has two brains — one for devising pranks, and one for creating rainbow-colored light that it emits through its eyes.

More to be found at Pink Tentacle.

bullet bill destroys earth

2009-10-12T08:00:00.002-04:00

YES. Animated gifs rule.

zombie driver

2009-10-09T19:48:00.002-04:00

Aili and I are legitimately pumped about Zombieland, although we're not sure when we're going to get a chance to see it. Hopefully, soon. The pure absurd mayhem of it is certainly appealing.

Whether by coincidence or not, I've also been encountering a fair number of indie zombie games lately, both recently released and on the horizon. Here's one I'll be keeping my eye on, again, just for the absurd mayhem of it.

Meet Zombie Driver.

Very old-school GTA meets zombie apocalypse. Seems like a classic combination already. If this is priced right (~$10), it could be an instant underground hit.

clockwords

2009-10-03T08:19:00.003-04:00

Steampunk Scrabble. That's the best description I can give you of the internet game, Clockwords. You're an inventor who's discovered a machine that runs on the power of language. Your evil nemesis sends mechanical spiders to take away your best secrets. Nonsense, really, and largely irrelevant. The game is all about generating words from a small set of letters as quickly as possible. There's a typing aspect too, since if you can't type them quickly, you're going to lose.

Each level starts simply, with a single letter. If you use all the letters available to you to spell a word, a new letter will enter into your "chamber." So now there are 2 letters for you - and then 3 - and so on. You don't have to form words using all the letters in your chamber, but it's the best strategy to pass a level. Once you get to 6 and 7 letters, things obviously become difficult - esp. when you see those damn spiders approaching your machine and you realize that every second you spend thinking about the answer is bringing you closer to defeat.

So, what's a word with E, G, D, F, and Y in it? Quick!

If that sounds fun to you, try it out. The basic version is free, although I believe the developers have plans to charge small amounts of money if you want to buy certain letters. I doubt it'll ever come to that for me - but then again, I'm absolutely stuck at level 11 of the prologue and wonder if I'm capable of getting past it without some help. Surprisingly, Clockwords has a certain amount of strategic depth to it. After each level, you can visit your "boiler" to see all the letters that you've collected. These are the letters that will appear in your chamber during the course of a level. As in Scrabble, letters that are harder to use in words (X, Z) do more damage against the spiders. So you want to collect those letters but not too many of them. You can combine letters that you've collected in the "transmute chamber" to form new letters. For example, if you put an "I" and "S" together, you might get a "G".

If you try it, let me know how far you get. Level 11 is a bitch.

sleep dealer

2009-09-18T09:10:00.012-04:00

Aili and I watched an interesting foreign sci-fi flick the other night: Sleep Dealer. Certainly
worth renting, especially if you have an interest in Mexican-US sociopolitics. The best science fiction is speculative but realistic and tends to confront people's anxieties about the near future. It can also approach difficult philosophical problems with a unique eye, given the enormous latitude it has in narrative. Philip K. Dick, for instance, was particularly good at tackling tough issues, like the nature of human consciousness and "soul" (see "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and Blade Runner).

Sleep Dealer is very much an expression of Mexican anxiety about the current and future state of migrants. It takes place in a near future where the wall between Mexico and the US is fully established, rivers have been dammed and water reserves controlled by militaristic corporations, and migrant workers no longer actually physically enter into our country. Instead, the desperately poor have "nodes" surgically inserted into the bodies, serving as an interface between computers/virtual reality and the human nervous system. These people often end up working in factories where workers "plug into" jobs located across the border, and find themselves remotely controlling machinery.

For example, the protagonist, Memo, finds himself "inhabiting" a small robot that is helping build a giant skyscraper in Los Angeles. Workers endure long shifts, often falling asleep while still interfaced, and periodically suffer dangerous surges of electrical feedback that can leave them blind or dead. So even though the "migrant" is no longer required to travel into the US to work, their condition in life has not improved. Memo lives at the edge of Tijuana, in a desolate shanty-town inhabited by old, blind men, former victims of the sleep factories.

Memo's story is an interesting one - full of more depth and emotion than you'd expect from a science fiction film with TV-quality CGI. And both Aili and I found it refreshing that while the movie is infused with anxiety and threat, there is no explicit "villain." There is a Mexican-American military pilot, Rudy, whose narrative purpose is left vague for much of the movie, who but plays a central role in the metaphorically uplifting ending.

Provocative and recommended.

puzzlebloom

2009-09-05T19:25:00.007-04:00

Another fun, free interweb game worth playing on a lazy Saturday afternoon...

PuzzleBloom is a relatively simple and straightforward browser-based puzzle game, where you control a green nature-fairy-imp-thing (I think) who wants to transform an industrial wasteland into a giant tree. Yeah, that's right.

You do so by taking control of depressed looking drones, slaving under miniature robotic overlords. The puzzles are quick and easy, involving obstacles, floor plates, and lasers.

Good times. I think you need to install "Utility" to play it, but don't be afraid, it's just like Flash and not harmful at all. I wish more games had such goals of environmental transformation and beautification.

PuzzleBloom has received comparisons to Okami, a typically odd Japanese adventure game whereby you play a spirit-wolf who leaves flowers in his wake (or something). Don't have experience with it, but the advantage of PuzzleBloom is that it's free, quick, and easy to play. Give it some time to load - it's all about patience and zen, man...

3D animated gifs

2009-08-30T09:13:00.008-04:00

Found these neato pics while researching animated gifs...

Must ask FP how this works before my head ah-splodes.

More to be found at: three frames.

david lynch interview project

2009-08-28T10:27:00.009-04:00

Have been watching a few of these every morning...

Lynch recently traveled X-country (twice) in a van with a small film crew to conduct interviews with random Americans in random towns. The interviews are nicely edited, often with music and backdrops of the local scenery. They are all quite short, less than 5 min each, which really isn't enough time for someone to tell their whole life story - but you do get a sense of what these people are like. Lynch asks them questions on their life-goals and regrets, how they'd like to be remembered when they're dead, what they're most proud of, etc. Many are fascinating. Here's the first:

"I ain't proud of anything except just bein' alive."

You can find all the interviews at Lynch's website.

demigod strategy: oak minion build

2009-08-18T13:02:00.030-04:00

In my last post, I chatted a bit about Demigod, an action-oriented, arena combat PC game featuring a compendium of fantastical beings. Of the 8 demigods currently playable, I've spent the most time with Oak. He's a "general" demigod, which means that he can summon and control minions. You can play Oak in a support style, since one of his powers is a potent shield that protects a demigod from all damage for a short period of time. However, I have favored a more aggressive style of play with him, in which I try to maximize my damage/second by creating an unstoppable army of undead minions. For, you see, Oak is a necromancer.

Here's my typical skill progression, by level:

1. Raise Dead I
2. Penitence I
3. Divine Justice I
4. Raise Dead II
5. Surge of Faith I
6. Soul Power I
7. Raise Dead III
8. Divine Justice II
9. Penitence II
10. Surge of Faith II
11. Raise Dead IV
12. Morale I (or Shield I)
13. Morale II (or Shield II)
14. Morale III (or Shield III)
15. Surge of Faith III

Your killing power with this build comes from the combo of 1) having as many minions around you as possible, 2) Penitence, and 3) Surge of Faith. As a demigod approaches, hit him with Penitence, then autoattack for a bit. Wait for them to use their interrupt if they have one (Sedna's Pounce, for example). If they stick close in melee, it's time for Surge of Faith. The dramatic increase in damage from your minions will hopefully lead to a rapid drop in your opponent's health. They will likely panic and try to run, at which point you should have enough mana for a final Penitence. This may or may not finish him off. This Oak build does not excel at killing demigods, but when I have used him, I often end up being the assist leader in my games.

Raise Dead is a fun skill to use. When cast, Oak plants a black flag into the ground - if any unit dies within a certain radium of that flag, it has a chance of being converted into an undead spirit which will henceforth be controlled by Oak. Try to place your flags in "kill zones," which will evolve and move over the course of a game. Remember: you don't have to be physically present to generate spirits. Once created within the flag radius, they'll seek you out wherever you are. Here's a pic of Oak with a couple of his spirit guardians floating about:

As a general, Oak can also summon minotaurs, ranged-units, and healers to his side. Here's a pic of Oak at 4th level, already with an army of 11 units (5 spirits, 2 minotaurs, 2 archers, 2 priests):

If he faces off against Unclean Beast now, Oak's got a nice advantage. As stated above, the key to making the most out of this army is proper timing of Surge of Faith, an activated power that drastically increases the effectiveness of Oak's minions:

It's worth noting that Surge of Faith also has excellent synergy with Divine Justice. Wait until you're surrounded by creeps and let loose with SoF. Oak will gain health and mana from killing the horde, nearly paying for the entire cost of the surge. This will allow you to speed up your leveling between 5-10. Optimally, you want to be the 1st demigod to hit level 10 - Oak can really start causing damage at that point, and his devastation can lead to a relatively early win.

Penitence serves to slow an enemy demigod so that it's harder for them to escape, and it also increases the amount of damage they take per hit. A great combo with Surge of Faith. But without minions, this build suffers. Oak needs to constantly check that he has a full army of spirits at his command, and at least a couple healers. If he goes toe-to-toe with an assassin demigod and doesn't have a minion army behind him, he's going to get wasted.

When it comes to shopping and item choices, I typically try to get items that help both me and my minions. Here are two of the best, I think, for the early to mid-game.

Hauberk of Life not only increases you max health and health regeneration, but also your minions'.

I also love the Gloves of Fell-Darkur. Along with one or two levels in Soul Power, they make Oak's auto-attacks much more damaging. But the gloves also increase minion attack speed and damage, making these gloves priceless.

Other items I like to get: Nimoth Chest Armor (to make Oak more durable) and Unbreakable Boots (for a health and mana boost). Trade in your Nimoth for Platemail of the Crusader (which gives a huge boost of health and armor to both you and your minions) when you can afford it. This probably won't be until after you hit level 10.

With regards to Favor items, it really depends on your skill level. If you're relatively new to the game, or are generally interested in increasing your survivability, go with the standard Blood of the Fallen (+800 health, +5 health/sec). It's every player's fail-safe. However, if you really want to focus on minion damage, try the General's Favor item, Ring of Divine Might.

This build of Oak can periodically suffer from mana-deficits, especially if you forego any helms which provide boosts to mana regeneration. The solution to this is to maximize use of Divine Justice; this skill grants you and all nearby allies an increase in health and mana every time you kill a grunt. So if you're low on mana, go farm some creeps and pretty soon you'll be ready to jump in the fray again. If you find yourself spamming Penitence and need more mana, you may need to save up and buy Vlemish Faceguard - the best helm for your money.

A couple final points. One nice thing about this build is that once you get Divine Justice, you shouldn't have to return to the health crystal very much (at least not until you want to shop). Most of your time in the early-mid game should be spent holding lanes, farming creeps, and helping your fellow demigods when they get into a bit of trouble. Because you have staying power, you should level up a bit faster than other Demigods. Second, you should send out your spirits for various hit-and-run missions whenever possible. By default, pressing "i" selects just your spirits, allowing you to give them specific movement and attack orders. Proper use of this hot-key is fairly important in maximizing Oak's effectiveness as a general. Attack squishy enemy heroes (Regulus, Torchbearer, etc.), attack enemy towers, attack the enemy Citadel after you hit level 10. Just be sure to replenish your spirits, as they're likely to die fairly quickly once they're on their own. But don't worry about feeding your opponents more XP and gold: minions don't provide these!

Once I have a descent minion army, I mostly focus on pushing - especially attacking enemy towers. Extra gold I have is spent on citadel upgrades and idol upgrades (siege engines are particularly useful mid-late game - set them to attack various towers along with your spirits, and you don't even need to be there). I don't typically have enough cash to buy expensive artifacts, but if you find yourself with lots of gold and want to be selfish, go ahead and buy some Godplate or the legendary Ashkandor. And, of course, don't forget to have fun.

demigod

2009-08-17T19:29:00.021-04:00

Sorry for the hiatus. What with summer heat, Lolla & Lyme and all that jazz, blogging has been far from my mind. But it's time to jump back in, and what better way than with a nerdalicious game review.

My latest obsession is Gas Powered Games' Demigod. It's a lovely thing, all action and special effects and big noises. Perhaps its greatest strength is that it is not easily definable. It surely falls into the real-time strategy category, since time does not stop and you need to make quick decisions on the fly. But it's not like the typical RTS wargame where you collect resources, build a base, create multitudes of units, and attempt to overwhelm your opponent. Rather, you control one uber-powerful unit: the Demigod. Every game is team-based, and you can choose to play anything from 2 vs. 2 to 5 vs. 5. You and your teammates must coordinate your actions in an attempt to capture and hold strategic locations on a map, assassinate enemy demigods, and eventually destroy the opposing citadel. While playing with and against AI opponents is moderately amusing, the real meat of Demigod is online. This has its pros and cons.

There are currently 8 demigods to choose from, with 2 more planned for an upcoming (free) expansion. Here's the absurd Queen of Thorns, who is great fun to play but is sadly among the weakest of demigods:

Each demigod plays quite differently, with varied strengths, weaknesses, and special powers. To the game designers' credit, the demigods are also fairly well-balanced. The Unclean Beast seems to win more times than it should, and as stated, the poor Queen of Thorns probably needs some kind of boost in a future update.

After you choose you demigod, you can pick one of several maps, which vary in size and structure. From an artistic standpoint, these arenas are stunning:

(the astounding Exile map)

(Cataract: the most popular map)

These birds-eye views are available to you at any time during the match. With a turn of your mouse-wheel, you can also zoom in to watch your demigods in action. Here's one of the gigantic Rook facing off against the Unclean Beast:

On each map are a number of flags that serve as valuable strategic locations. By standing next to a flag for a few seconds, you can capture it, granting your team a nice statistical bonus (like increased mana).

(my Rook is capturing the flag in the background,
while a battle occurs in the foreground)

As you capture and hold flags on the map, your team's "War Score" will increase. Higher War Scores allow you to upgrade your citadel, enhance your defensive structures, and call in stronger reinforcements. This latter feature, in particular, is crucial to eventually overwhelming your opponent. Thus, map control is a central aspect of success in Demigod.

Besides capturing flags and facing off against opposing demigods, you also need to level up and acquire new powers. This is done by "farming creeps." On each map are a number of portals that release reinforcements at periodic intervals. These "creeps" march towards the enemy base in a predetermined path. If left alone, they'll likely run into enemy towers which will easily destroy them. In this sense, Demigod has borrowed quite blatantly from the Tower Defense genre of games. As a demigod, you can interrupt the path of the enemy creeps and easily slaughter them, gaining experience in the process. Eventually, you'll level up and be able to choose a new skill or power.

(skill tree for the Oak demigod)

Each demigod has several skills they can focus upon - indeed, too many to maximize all of them - so players should have a particular "build" in mind as their demigod grows in strength. For example, the Rook can be molded into a pure damage machine by focusing on his powerful Hammer Slam and the amusing Boulder Roll. Or you can create a more subtle Rook that excels in lane control - one in which he grows tower farms that slowly advance towards the enemy's base.

A great joy of Demigod is planning these builds offline and then testing them out in real games (this site has been incredibly useful for this purpose). Besides choosing your powers as you level up, you also need to go shopping periodically. Literally. Each side has a shop where demigods can purchase armor, helms, magic items, and potions. You can choose items that ameliorate some of your demigod's weaknesses (like Boots of Speed for the Rook), or you can try to maximize a particular strength by stacking a number of items that all provide similar bonuses (like choosing a number of items that all increase health regeneration). Your choice of items during the game should be informed by the "build" you are developing. If you want your Torch Bearer to spam Fireballs all day long, you probably need to invest in a couple magic hats than increase your mana and mana regeneration.

So you maneuver your demigod on the map, farm creeps, gain levels, try to team up on enemy demigods ("gank" them), buy items, and eventually force yourself into opposing territory. You'll need to knock down those pesky towers mentioned previously and eventually upgrade your reinforcements from simple grunts to powerful giants. You need to pay attention to what your teammates are doing, and whether they need your help, as well as where your opponents are at all times. The worst thing that can happen to you is you overextend yourself into enemy territory and suddenly 2 enemy demigods appear right behind you, cutting off escape. The strategic use of teleport scrolls is especially useful, for both ambush and escape.

There's a lot to like here. I typically hate online RTS games but I love playing Demigod, even against idiots. Games are the perfect length (~30-45 min usually). You get a real sense of seeing your demigod evolve into a powerhouse without having to suffer through hours of mundane back-and-forth play. Coordinating attacks and feints with your teammates is great fun, although if you have a weak player on your 3-man team, you're likely doomed.

However, if you've heard anything about Demigod since its release, you probably know that it didn't receive the best reviews right off the bat. The primary reason for this was internet connectivity issues. It was very difficult for players to form online games, and when they did get started, oftentimes the game would crash or players would get dropped. Not surprisingly, this did not enthrall reviewers. Since its initial release, Demigod has gone through a number of updates and patches and, for the most part, those issues have been resolved. I've played numerous online games and have never been dropped. Devastating lag can happen, if one or more players' pings are particularly high. In those situations, there's not much you can do but quit.

Rage-quitting is also an issue, as with most online RTS games. By this I mean the more general phenomenon of a player quitting a game part way through. This player's demigod will get taken over by the AI, which nearly always results in a loss for that team. There are rumors that in a future update, players will be able to adjust some of the features of the AI substitute (making it a bit more challenging, having it provide less gold to the opposing team, etc.) which may help alleviate this problem. Another feature I'd like to see instituted is better match-making. All too often, teams are unequal because of a particularly strong or weak player on one team. Demigod tracks all your stats (including win/loss ratio), so it should be fairly easy to group players of similar experience and ability.

Possibly a bigger issue at this point is the lack of a vibrant online community. Here's a screenshot I recently took of the available online games in the lobby:

Only 3 games open! Now, I should say that this is somewhat abnormal and I rarely have problems finding an open game when I want to play. But I suspect the early bad press for Demigod really hurt the potential playerbase. Part of the reason I'm writing this blog is that I hope some random people read it and decide to give the game a chance. It truly is a blast to play. Furthermore, the support this game has received, and will receive, from its distributor, Stardock, is strong. Updates and fixes occur regularly, often in response to consumer feedback, and the playing experience is improving all the time.

In my next post, I'll outline my favorite demigod build right now: minion Oak. Stay tuned.

tv tropes

2009-07-15T08:22:00.026-04:00

Spent a good hour or so this morning thoroughly enjoying TV Tropes. A web-wiki written in a (dare I say) refreshingly casual style, on all manner of narrative conventions that tend to define our modern age entertainment products. While at first glance, you might think that a perusal of TV Tropes will only fill you with a deeper sense of cynicism and repugnance at the industry status quo - further reading may allow you to appreciate the archetypal aspects of tropes, and how they serve as brutally efficient but necessary mirrors of our own absurd nature.

Hot Librarian is a fun place to start, and be aware that the joy is in the examples, especially esoteric ones from the late '80's that few (but you) remember. "Theora in Max Headroom." Ha! I remember.

Hot Scientist (not to be confused with Horny Scientist) is also amusing:

"Incidentally, the character that caused a few things to gel in this troper's head and inspire me to put this trope in the wiki in the first place was "Dr." Cataline Stone in the film Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, a film of such constant, royal stupidity that "the day would quake to look on."

I do not know this "Megalodon"... yet.

Just going through the list of Plot tropes may dizzy you.

Anticlimactic Parent
Badass in Distress
Captured Super Entity
Doorstop Baby
Faustian Rebellion
Inadequate Inheritor
Macho Disaster Expedition

And so on. I suspect we all could place at least one TV episode/film into every one of these categories with just a little thought.

"Science is Useless" caught my eye:

"In a competition of science and technology versus simple hard work, science and technology will almost invariably lose. See, science finds an easier, faster way to achieve something and is therefore cheating and far less honorable than honest sweat and effort. Thus, no matter how much a scientist researches, experiments and innovates, he will never achieve what someone else can with good old practice and hard work.

This trope works because 1) hardly anyone in the audience knows much about science, and 2) people are always eager to believe that anything they don't understand couldn't possibly be important....

...Very much related to Dumb Is Good and Rock Beats Laser. Might somehow be related to Reed Richards Is Useless. See also the physical equivalents Technician Versus Performer (where The Gift overcomes intense training) and Good Old Fisticuffs (where simple fists beats flashy kicks).

Further, there are two different flavors of this trope. If the point is to stress the importance of hard work, then the technological/scientific opponent is presented as an intimidating Goliath that the plucky underdog must struggle to overcome... But if the point is, instead, to deride technology or science as unworthy of human effort and manly men, the opponent is presented as a total joke and the hard worker wins easily. A Straw Man propaganda story. Also, what this trope consistently forgets is that science is hard work, requiring considerable intelligence, as well as lengthy and difficult procedures to create anything useful. Yet rarely or never the hard work of the science-user is shown or screen in relation to the plain old guts."

(BTW - The Reed Richards is Useless entry is amazing.)

I also enjoy the amusing connections between tropes that the contributors have attempted to integrate whenever possible.

From Attack of the Killer Whatevers: "A caveat: if it's a killer animal, there's about a 70% chance that it'll also be giant. If it grows too large, it becomes Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever."

Worth browsing.

crush the castle

2009-07-09T09:04:00.013-04:00

Some silly fun. If in need of a brief time-waster today, visit Armor Games and play their satisfying little flash game, Crush the Castle. You fire a trebuchet to knock down a "castle" wall and kill the foolish mannequins within.

Firing your ammunition is as simple as 2 mouse-clicks - one to get the trebuchet swinging, a second to release. Click too early and your shot will go straight up, doing nothing. Too late and it crashes harmlessly into the ground. But time things right and you'll see those castle walls crumble and hear the delicious screams of the kings and ladies-in-waiting within. Some oddly gratifying physics occur. There are 24 castles to conquer and most are a simple matter - but a few are quite vexing and will require repeated attempts. This bugger (#24) still has my number:

You wouldn't think to look at it, but it's a damn pain to kill that maiden on the 1st floor.

Playing this has reminded me of the classic children's "boardgame" (circa 1983), Crossbows and Catapults. Remember this one?

It certainly was an appealing package - a game where you were supposed to play rough with your toys and knock down your sibling's castle. But, as I recall, there just weren't enough pieces in a single box to make it truly satisfying - and what parent was willing to invest in 2 of these things just so their kid could build taller walls to tumble?

mcnamara

2009-07-08T18:38:00.004-04:00

“Who is man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort. All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand: his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.”

"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."

the ecstatic & rising down

2009-07-06T15:04:00.003-04:00

For me, discovering a real high-quality hip hop album feels like finding a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. It doesn't happen nearly often enough as I wish it would, but when it does I want to throw a party. So I've been living it up lately, thoroughly enjoying both Mos Def's recent release The Ecstatic and The Roots' 2008 release Rising Down. Both are jammed with creative samples, thoughtful lyrics, and addictive beats. Ultimately, what I respect most about these guys is that they're consistently trying to convince their audience to face up to reality and initiate positive change. Of course, the origins of hip hop are themselves rooted in self-analysis of one's position and neighborhood, but since the late 80's far too much hip hop has chosen to instead promote fantasy and materialism, exploiting their audience instead of inspiring them. Sadly, hearing Mos Def or Black Thought rap about blacks killing themselves periodically sounds like a broken record - the very fact that this continues to be such a central issue in the hop hop community suggests that the problem is depressingly intractable. But at least these guys are reaching out to the youth with some kind of knowledge. If you consider the messages that young, disenfranchised black (and brown) men and women receive on a daily basis, you'd be hard pressed to hear the positive ones in the drowning miasma of advertising, debasement, and hate.

While nothing Mos Def produces from this point on will likely compare to his 1999 solo debut, Black on Both Sides, with The Ecstatic he at least shrugs off the disheartening mediocrity of The New Danger (2004) and True Magic (2006). It is a return to form. His rhyming and rapping are superlative. The album is characterized by a number of tracks that contain Middle Eastern themes and musical styles. On "Auditorium," the infamous Slick Rick joins him in a rap about life & times in the modern age, including our ongoing war in Iraq:

quiet storm vital form pen pushed it right across
mind is a vital force, high level right across
shoulders the lions raw voice is the siren
i swing round ring out and bring down the tyrant
shocked a small act could knock a giant lopsided
the world is so dangerous there's no need for fightin
suttins tryna hide like the struggle wont find em
and the sun bust through the clouds to clearly remind him
everywhere penthouse pavement and curb
cradle to the grave talk'll lead you on a shell
universal ghetto life holla black you know it well

As always, Mos Def is 100% positivity and I love him for it. The opening line of "Priority" might as well be his creed: "Top priority: peace before everything, God before anything, love before anything, real before everything, home before anyplace, shoot before anything, style and state radiate love power slay the hate."

"Quiet Dog Bite Hard" has such a slamming beat it deserves a YouTube link and a listen:

"Revelations" feels like it could have come right from Black on Both Sides, Mos Def quietly preaching black pride and humility to God on a thoroughly old-school track. And the producers and guest artists involved make an impressive list:

1. Supermagic (prod. by Oh No)
2. Twilight Speedball (prod. by Chad Hugo)
3. Auditorium (feat. Slick Rick) (prod. by Madlib)
4. Wahid (prod. by Madlib)
5. Priority (prod. by Preservation)
6. Quiet Dog (prod. by Preservation)
7. Life In Marvelous Times (prod. by Mr. Flash)
8. The Embassy (prod. by Mr. Flash)
9. No Hay Nada Mas (prod. by Preservation)
10. Pistola (prod. by Oh No)
11. Pretty Dancer (prod. by Madlib)
12. Workers Camp (prod. by Mr. Flash)
13. Revelations (prod. by Madlib)
14. Roses (feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow) (prod. by Georgia Anne Muldrow )
15. History (feat. Talib Kweli) (prod. by J Dilla)
16. Casa Bey (Arranged by Mos Def and Preservation)

Like Mos Def, The Roots have thankfully focused their prodigious talent on producing socially-conscious hip hop layered onto danceable beats. For whatever reason (most likely not enough listening), I didn't take to their 2006 release Game Theory, but look no further than Things Fall Apart (1999) and Phrenology (2002) for solid gateway albums into The Roots' universe. Rising Down is equal to the task. Feel free to ignore the somewhat disturbing, largely ironic "Birthday Girl" and indulge in the social criticism that defines the remainder of the album.

Just a sample, from "I will not apologize"

Yo, a revolution's what it's smelling like, it ain't going be televised
Governments is hellified, taking cake and selling pies
I ain't got a crust or crumb, to get some I'd be well obliged
Murder is comodified, felon for the second time
Never was I into chasing trouble I was followed by
Facing trouble with no alibi, had to swallow pride
Vilified, victimized, penalized, criticized
Ran into some people that's surprised I was still alive
Look into my daughter's eyes, wonder how can I provide
Got to get from A to B but how can I afford to drive?
Messed around, tried to get a job and wasn't qualified
Had to see a pal of mine, got to get the lightning rod
Now I'm in the black Impala looking for the dollar sign
Palms get the itching man I got to get the calamine
Before I fall behind, guess the grind will be my 9 to 5
I will not be conquered by, I will not apologize

Mos Def joins on the title track to help introduce the album, just so you know what kind of journey this thing will take you on. Not every track is a killer but The Roots are always worth a close listen.

1. The Pow Wow (Intro)
2. Rising Down
3. Get Busy
4. @ 15
5. 75 Bars (Reconstruction)
6. (Up Theme) Becoming Unwritten
7. Criminal
8. I Will Not Apologize
9. I Can’t Help It
10. Singing Man
11. (Up Theme) Unwritten
12. Lost Desire
13. The Show
14. Rising Up
15. Birthday Girl

the transformers: the movie (1986)

2009-06-28T08:27:00.052-04:00

A story on NPR the other day irked me with its suggestion (apparently endorsed by the current CEO of Hasbro) that the early Transformers and GI Joe cartoons were simply toy commercials, and apparently lame ones at that. Given the profound influence these cartoons had on my cultural development as a child, I took some offense. The contemporary Transformers schlock-films by Bay et al. are more product and advertising than the original 'toons ever dreamed of being. And it truly pains me to have my beloved Autobots & Decepticons treated so poorly by our modern special-effect princes and big-screen storytellers.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. Watch the animated epic, The Transformers: the Movie (1986) and be cured of your Hollywood-induced cynicism. I saw this movie in the theaters with my brother when I was an aging 12-year old and I still consider it my most fond farewell to these legendary icons. The plot is satisfyingly absurd, some of the characters actually die (which never happened in the episodic cartoons), and the majority of the film takes place off Earth, providing a novel backdrop for the storyline.

Broadly speaking, the film was meant to bridge the gap between the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the cartoon - and yes, to introduce some new characters (i.e. "toys") for us to latch onto. The new generation of toys were more futuristic in design, and from my standpoint, less appealing. So, Optimus Prime was replaced by Rodimus Prime (voiced by Judd Nelson) as Autobot commander; Megatron was replaced by Galvatron (voiced spectacularly by Leonard Nimoy).

(Galvatron)

It is worth pointing out how "cool" the original Megatron toy was to boys of my age-group. Here's a photo:

Pretty hardcore, really. I'm not sure how many parents nowadays would be comfortable with how "realistic" looking this thing is - but that, of course, was the whole point of the Transformers. Megatron was relatively unique in that the object he was imitating was small enough that the toy itself was a replica. You don't run into that problem with Optimus Prime - he's just a rad toy truck. Now that I think about it, this may ultimately explain why they made the move from Megatron to Galvatron, even though the latter's "laser-gun" form was much less interesting to me. Cops mistakenly killing kids touting toy guns is always bad press.

So probably the strongest selling point of the movie for me was the heralded death of Optimus. I always fucking hated that guy. Just a big boyscout, teaching his "lessons" about world peace and being generous and listening to your parents and shit. Watching him eat it in the spectacular battle-scene between him and Megatron confirmed my belief (always confounded by the episodic cartoons) that Megatron was simply tougher and better. A gun beats a truck. It seemed simple to me.

And if that wasn't enough, both Ironhide and Starscream - two of the most obnoxious characters in the series - bite it as well. Ironhide with his disingenuous southern drawl and frank idiocy, Starscream with his weaseling and whining and constant backstabbing. Good riddance.

The larger threat at play in the movie is Unicron: a robotic planet that wanders the galaxy consuming worlds (voiced by Orson Welles, in the last role before his death). So, yeah, he's got a Galactus thing going on and that makes him one bad-ass ripoff.

As a final selling point, we should consider the bizarre Quintessons, the divine watchmakers, the gods of this universe. Imagine that your most profound existential quest leads to the discovery that your creators are psychopathic, multiple-personality disorder freaks with 5 faces who spend their time feeding robot slaves to mechanical sharks. Yeah.

Really, the dweebs who write wikipedia can do a much better job explaining this stuff that I can:

"Twelve million years ago, the alien race known as the Quintessons used the planet of Cybertron as a factory to produce cybernetic lifeforms. Their early experiments in fusing organic and technological components into one being resulted in the creation of the "Trans-Organics," which proved too primitive and unstable, particularly a living energy siphon named "The Dweller", and they were all sealed away in the lowest levels of Cybertron.

Subsequently, the Quintessons turned to pure robotics for their creations, and produced lines of consumer goods and military hardware robots—which would eventually become the lineal ancestors of the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively.[1] Forging their bodies in the Plasma Energy Chamber,[2] the Quintessons programmed their robots with intelligence using Vector Sigma, to allow them to carry out their tasks on their own, thereby leaving the Quintessons to do nothing other than live in leisure. However, what they failed to realize was that their robots had developed true sentience and real feelings — after a million years of slavery, they could now feel and know the difference between it and freedom, and they struck back against their masters. The Quintessons fought back against the rebellion with their Dark Guardian robots, unconcerned and thinking themselves untouchable, but when the Coda-Remote, a device created by the rebel leader, A-3, was used to shut down the Guardians, the robots got the upper hand, eventually forcing the Quintessons to flee Cybertron.[3] They scattered through the galaxy until they became largely forgotten by the Transformers."

With a creation mythology like this, how can someone suggest that the Transformers cartoon was merely a commercial vehicle? Clearly, there is love and depth of process here that belies an actual narrative. Compare, for a moment, to Pokemon, the "media franchise" in which the cartoons, I would argue, primarily served as a means of driving product sales and secondarily served as entertainment.

The Transformers Movie has so much going for it, I can even overlook the lameness of our one human protagonist, Daniel (son of Spike, who's homoerotic relationship with Bumblebee in the cartoon series still gives me the willies). In general, the lack of human involvement in the plot is a refreshing release from the hominid-centrism that is characteristic of so much sci-fi fantasy. It also suggests that the Transformers of old had enough character that they didn't need Megan Fox to bring in an audience.

Finally: you must watch this YouTube parody featuring my favorite Transformers character, Soundwave. It summarily encapsulates all that I feel about this whole modern-day Transformers debacle...

"Beth: eject. Operation: shut the fuck up." Fucking brilliant.

The reference to "The Touch" is from The Movie's original anachronistic, butt-rock soundtrack which, I should mention, also contained Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid":

1. "The Touch" (Performed by Stan Bush)
2. "Instruments of Destruction" (Performed by N.R.G.)
3. "The Death of Optimus Prime" (Performed by Vince DiCola)
4. "Dare" (Performed by Stan Bush)
5. "Nothin’s Gonna Stand in Our Way" (Performed by Spectre General)
6. "The Transformers (Theme)" (Performed by Lion)
7. "Escape" (Performed by Vince DiCola)
8. "Hunger" (Performed By Spectre General)
9. "Autobot/Decepticon Battle" (Performed by Vince DiCola)
10. "Dare To Be Stupid" (Performed by "Weird Al" Yankovic)

castleview

2009-06-21T16:33:00.043-04:00

As I do every summer, I am working my way deeper into the Gene Wolfe oeuvre and having just finished Castleview (1990), I felt motivated to offer some thoughts. Like his other works, Castleview offers both a thoroughly compelling and frustrating first read. Mysterious events abound, and many are left unexplained but for random clues, vague connections, and hunches. Mixed mythologies are front and center; this time, as in The Wizard Knight, the story is infused with icons and characters from both Arthurian romance and Norse legend. Vampires, trolls, and a werewolf make appearances, and under some readers' interpretation, an alien as well.

Unlike The Wizard Knight which is set predominantly in a fantasy world, Castleview is seated firmly on our own terra, within a small upstate Illinois town so named because many of the residents have seen (or hallucinated) towers of a ghostly Medieval castle on the distant horizon. Within a few chapters, it becomes clear that Castleview is a ley line, a place where the boundary between human imagination and postmodern reality is relatively weak. Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than in the character G. Gordon Kitty, a walking, talking Puss 'n Boots who has been made real, at least in part, through the imagination of small child, Judy (who apparently has decided that her cat is both an FBI and CIA agent). In general, Wolfe uses Castleview to play around with the relationships that we humans have with our cultural mythologies in an era when ritual and myth and symbol are judged to be as fundamentally meaningless as dreams or childhood fairytales. I should also say that this was the most frightening of Wolfe's novels I have read (with, perhaps, In Green's Jungles exempted), and at times it read like the very best of bump-in-the-night horror mysteries.

Ultimately, two mythological threads weave through the text. First, there is seasonal cycle of rebirth. This crystallizes only in the final chapters. The Green Man, who also appears as Odin upon Sleipnir, is ritually beheaded by the aged King Geimhreadh and soon, snow falls in upstate Illinois. Just prior to his sacrifice, the "green-cloaked giant" says, "Strike me, as in time I shall smite you." This heralds the slaying of the frost giant Ymir by Odin, symbolically representing the the death of winter and the eventual return of spring.

(Odin upon 8-legged Sleipnir)

But this ritual of seasonal renewal forms only a superficial layer of mythology upon which Castleview rests. Just prior to his sacrifice, Odin rides the Wild Hunt through Castleview, perhaps in an attempt to drive the undead inhabitants of the town into Hel. More importantly, the Wild Hunt foretells apocryphal events, like war or plague. We know that something larger and more meaningful is brewing.

(the Wild Hunt)

More important is the battle between the forces of Viviane Morgan/Dr. Rex von Madadh/et al. and the good midwesterners of Castleview. Viviane Morgan, who primarily seems to channel Morgan le Fay leads the fey in malicious pursuit of King Arthur's descendants. Something hangs in the balance. They focus their villainous efforts, at first, upon "Wrangler" Arthur Dunstan who they believe carries the blood of the king and may be his modern reincarnation (recall that Arthur is borne away to Avalon where he may heal and possibly rise again when needed, as many mythological heroes and kings tend to do). Lucie, one of the young women at Meadow Grass camp (and a pseudo-vampire), drinks a great deal of his blood, and Morgan enchants Hwan Lee to attempt an assassination while Wrangler recovers at the hospital.

Wolfe, in discussing Castleview, has joked that all of us are Arthur's descendants - and so perhaps the fey are embarking upon a futile endeavor:

"Okay, if there really was an Arthur and there was because he is mentioned in ancient chronicles and he left a number of descendants, which is at least plausible, then we are probably all descended from Arthur. And what Morgan LaFay is looking for is a descendant who is a satisfactory Arthur figure for her. But not only is Wrangler descended from Arthur, and Will Shield is descended from Arthur but Bob Roberts is descended from Arthur and Ann Findler is descended from Arthur because we all are we all derive from this." (GW)

Perhaps Morgan is seeking an Arthur figure for the same reason that Green Man must be sacrificed to Winter: Arthur is part of a mythological cycle that maintains a heavenly order and, to some degree, prevents Armageddon from occurring. Without a ritual sacrifice of Arthur every few generations, perhaps the land of fairy itself (and its Queen, Morgan) will disappear forever into the mists of fantasy.

Regardless, in the climatic final battle between "good" and "evil," William Shields steps forth (instead of the injured Wrangler) to battle the fey champion and possible werewolf, Rex von Madadh. Like Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, Shields falls. Von Madadh's voice rings out: "The king is dead! The king is dead - and the world lives! The end is not yet!" At first, I imagined him a Fenris, howling in despair that the Ragnarok had not come. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that Arthur's/Shield's death is ritual, necessary, cyclical, and Von Madadh's voice echoes with victory and joy.

In the closing epilogue, we see Shields being taken away to Avalon under the watchful eye of his sister. It is a surprisingly satisfying ending, given the rapidity of the climax and the aura of failure that hovers over the final battle.

(Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, by Burne-Jones)

Yet, because this is Wolfe, so many questions and loose ends remain:

Who or what is Liam Fee, and why is he so fixated on buying the Howard home? He only enters the house following an invitation, has a tendency to break mirrors, can dissipate into smoke, and at one point seems to be drunk on blood. Ergo, vampire. However, when he confronts Lee in his prison cell and Lee kicks his ass, he appears as a 3-eyed monster or alien. Various mentions in the text of Excalibur being formed of meteoritic stone from another world suggest a sci-fi intrusion to the plot. Wolfe does have a fancy for alien technology and influence, as can be seen in his other works. Indeed, alien vampires (the inhumi) figure prominently in his Book of the Short Sun series.
What is the small brown leather book that rests under Excalibur when Judy pulls it from the cabinet? Merc picks it up and Wolfe never mentions it again.
Who is the group of troublemakers that lurk in the background of the text (and kidnap Bob Roberts) but never make a formal appearance? Are they simply trolls and fairies, followers of Morgan? Are they aliens from Minnesota?
What exactly is Jim Long (Long Jim)? A zombie?

And so on. If previous experience with Wolfe proves a useful guide, much will be gained from a second reading. As always, highly recommended if you have the patience and diligence to ponder and research while reading. Many thanks to various contributors of the Wolfe reader archives for providing ideas, clarifications, and explanations for many plot points.

teri's pollock

2009-06-18T08:19:00.011-04:00

Aili and I watched the documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? (2006) last night and were intrigued enough to seek follow-up information. Briefly: 73-year old eccentric & former long-haul trucker Teri Horton buys a painting for $5 at a local thrift store. It is, ostensibly, ugly and she buys it primarily as a joke to cheer a friend up. Later, when trying to re-sell it in a garage sale, an art teacher informs her that it might well be a Jackson Pollock. She embarks on a mission to authenticate and sell the piece for what she believes is its true worth (something around 50 million dollars). Given that there is no signature on the painting and no provenance, the art-world is decidedly unimpressed. Here is the piece:

For general comparison sake, here is a genuine Pollack:

Side note: in my younger years, I used to find Pollocks as ugly as Teri Horton does, and as pretentious as Mondrian. I think that I now actually like these things. At least for museum walls - nothing I'd want hanging over my bed.

I won't relate the entirety of the docu-drama but will say that the saga continues to this day. Horton has apparently turned down offers of 2 and 9 million dollars, feeling insulted by them. Last winter, her piece was, for the first time, exhibited at a Toronto gallery which accepted its unusual authenticity:

They also placed it on sale for $50 million. Thomas Hoving, a self-declared "effete, nose-in-the-air art expert" (who makes an unforgettable appearance in the documentary) has argued repeatedly that the painting is not genuine for the following reasons:

"* It is too neat and too sweet, using soigné colors that Pollock never used.
* Some lines are perfectly straight. It’s hard to drip straight lines.
* The canvas is commercially sized, which means that paint does not come through the back of the canvas. All real Pollocks are unsized and his paint patterns can easily be seen from the back.
* The thing is painted with acrylics. Pollock never used acrylics."

You can read more of his response to the painting being exhibited here. Overall, I have to admit to being less than convinced myself, mostly due to the clear scientific bias that has gone into "proving" the piece is a Pollock. The individuals involved, in particular the forensic expert Paul Biro, seem determined to find evidence that establishes the authenticity of the painting. It certainly seems possible that the painting is a masterly "look-alike," perhaps even generated by this man, Francis Brown:

Ultimately, of course, the painting is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. And in this case, if you're a fan of wealth-redistribution, you can certainly root for Ms. Horton.

newlyweds

2009-06-17T08:50:00.007-04:00

pixel city

2009-05-14T14:33:00.012-04:00

This is quite lovely. Simon Parker (whose blog, Chewing Pixels, is fun reading if you're into games and such) has created a procedural city-generator. Here's a video, coming soon to a screensaver near you...

If the math/programming of this intrigues you, here's an extensive developer-diary to quench your curiosity.

world war z

2009-05-10T07:45:00.041-04:00

Not so long ago, I decided to join GoodReads, a pseudo-social networking site for book lovers. Mostly, a repository of reviews and recommendations, a place for friends to share their thoughts on what they've been reading. About the best thing I can say for GoodReads is that it's not ubiquitously "in-your-face" like MySpace and Facebook. I have also benefited greatly by receiving graphic novel recs from my friend, DP.

GoodReads, predictably, has an unhealthy obsession with lists. As in, the "Best Books Ever," etc. These are generated by users' votes and ratings, so as long as one views them for what they are (heavily biased popularity contests), one can avoid being offended or distractingly bemused (e.g. The Book of Mormon is currently ranked as the 2nd best book of all time, behind To Kill a Mockingbird). Indeed, lists like these can even be viewed as windows into the diseased collective unconscious of American society.

Regardless, the point of this exposition is that I stumbled upon a ranking of the Best Zombie books and was intrigued by #1: World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. Like others, I suspect, I was initially turned off by the fact that it was written by Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks), who generated the mostly fluff Zombie Survival Guide. I wasn't in the market for a coffee-table novelty. But solid and surprising reviews convinced me to take a chance - and now having finished World War Z, I can say in 100% seriousness that this may very well be the best book I've read this year.

World War Z recounts a fictional war against a zombie horde, set in our time and the near future. It is told in Studs Terke l style, via transcripts of oral interviews with key personages involved in the conflict. Perhaps its greatest strength is that World War Z takes its topic very seriously. Nothing in this book is done "tongue-in-cheek" and there's a consistent effort throughout to convince you of the reality and horror of this fictional war. Furthermore, Brooks takes the opportunity to fire off some well-aimed critiques on various facets of contemporary society, including Pharm industry greed, the conservative nature of our military, and our collapse into consumerism-malaise. It's a surprisingly eloquent and engaging piece of work - and it's about the Zombie Apocalypse.

The outbreak begins in the interior of China for reasons that are never quite explained. But zombie-ism spreads with alarming rapidity, crossing international borders as more and more people attempt to escape from remote villages and areas that have become over-run with the walking dead. South Africa gets hit early as well, leading to initial, misguided theories that the disease is a new form of African rabies. Of course, no one takes the possibility of Undead seriously until the situation is out of control. Israel is the first nation to set up an official quarantine, which sparks a brief but bloody internal civil war. This particular section of the book highlights Brook's commendable ability to successfully weave modern issues of international policy and conflict (Arab-Israeli tension, political factions within Israel, etc.) into his narrative. At its best, World War Z reads like a thoroughly convincing alternative history.

The plot progresses as the plague spreads around the world, nations finally recognize the threat they're faced with, a "Great Panic" ensues, and zombies nearly push the human race to extinction. There are sections which are very horror genre, except that they're relayed via interviews, which infuses them with a greater sense of objectivity and weight. From "The Great Panic":

"It stretched to the horizon: sedans, trucks, buses, RV's, anything that could drive... People were flashing their lights, bumping the cars in front of them, getting out and throwing down. I saw a few people lying by the side of the road, barely moving or not at all. People were running past them, carrying stuff, carrying children, or just running, all in the same direction of the traffic. A few miles later, I saw why. Those creatures were swarming among the cars... People couldn't open their doors. The cars were too tightly packed. I saw those things reach in open windows, pulling people out or pulling themselves in. A lot of drivers were trapped inside. Their doors were shut and, I'm assuming, locked. Their windows were rolled up, it was safety tempered glass. The dead couldn't get in, but the living couldn't get out. I saw a few people panic, try to shoot through their windshields, destroying the only protection they had..."

The United States responds too slowly to the threat and is nearly consumed. This is largely because Americans were exhausted from recently extracting themselves from a bloody "brush war" (never explicitly identified). But clearly, these references are meant to link the apocryphal zombie narrative to our own universe and time-frame.

"After this last war, no amount of incentives could fill our depleted ranks, no payment bonuses or term reductions, or online recruitment tools disguised as civilian video games. This generation had had enough, and that's why when the undead began to devour our country, we were almost too weak and vulnerable to stop them."

The plan to eventually counter the zombie-tide is brilliant and chilling. Originally devised by a white South African, Redeker, various manifestations of it are adopted by nearly all the world's nations.

"First of all, there was no way to save everyone... Our forces had to be consolidated, withdrawn to a special 'safe zone,' which hopefully, would be aided by some natural obstacles such as mountains, rivers, or even an offshore island. Once concentrated in this zone, the armed forces could eradicate the infestation within its borders, then use what resources were available to defend it against further onslaughts of the living dead... The second part of the plan dealt with the evacuation of civilians... In his mind, only a small fraction of the civilian population could be evacuated to the safe zone. These people would be saved not only to provide a labor pool for the eventual wartime economic restoration, but also to preserve the legitimacy and stability of the government, to prove to those already within the zone that their leaders were 'looking out for them...' Those who were left behind were to be herded into special isolated zones. They were to be 'human bait,' distracting the undead from following the retreating army to their safe zone."

Without wanting to give away too many spoilers, it's interesting to see how Brooks uses various zombie survival guide factoids to envision how humans might be able to successfully combat a horde of unthinking, unfeeling corpses. Some things to consider:

Zombies can walk through water, indefinitely. Thus, they can cross oceans given enough time.
Zombies feel no fear and cannot be routed.
To kill a zombie requires destruction of the brain: head-shots, incineration, etc. Collateral injuries (including amputations) are ineffective.
Zombies freeze in the winter and thaw in the spring.

World War Z is absolutely great fun. Every chapter introduces a new element to the drama, showcases a different facet of the war. We learn about Cuba's wartime economy fueling the industrial-military response that eventually succeeds in pushing the zombies back. We see the importance of propaganda (with a discussion of the war film, "Victory at Avalon: The Battle at the Five Colleges" about a famous siege in Claremont), especially against an enemy that inspires such fear and revulsion in human soldiers. We see the Russian government respond with strict totalitarian cruelty as they struggle to prevent mass defection among their troops. And we eventually see how humans figure out a way to stop the zombie horde and restart their civilization - maybe even having learned a few important lessons along the way.

One of my favorite chapters describes the post-Panic struggle in America to establish a war economy, once a safe zone is set up behind the Rocky Mountains. Getting a workforce up-and-running, building weapons, growing food to support the war effort.

"To be perfectly candid, our supply of talent was at a critical low. Ours was a postindustrial or service-based economy, so complex and highly specialized that each individual could only function within the confines of its narrow, compartmentalized structure. You should have seen some of the 'careers' listed on our first employment census; everyone was some version of an 'executive,' a 'representative,' an 'analyst,' or a 'consultant,' all perfectly suited to the prewar world, but all totally inadequate for the present crisis. We needed carpenters, masons, machinists, gunsmiths... The first labor survey stated clearly that over 65 percent of the present civilian workforce were classified F-6, possessing no valued vocation. We required a massive job re-trained program. In short, we needed to get a lot of white collars dirty."

And who do we turn to for help? The immigrants, of course.

"A great many of our instructors were first-generation immigrants. These were the people who knew how to take care of themselves, how to survive on very little and work with what they had. These were the people who tended small gardens in their backyards, who repaired their own homes, who kept their appliances running for as long as mechanically possible. It was crucial that these people teach the rest of us to break from our comfortable, disposable consumer lifestyle even though their labor had allowed us to maintain that lifestyle in the first place."

Brooks periodically lapses into sophomoric dialogue, and doesn't entirely succeed at capturing the individual voices of people who are supposed to be culturally very different from one another. But overall, the amount of research and thought that clearly went into this book is impressive. Needless to say, great summer reading. And not surprisingly, soon to be transformed into a feature-length film which has the potential - dare I say - to be quite good.

kudos 2

2009-04-26T20:04:00.011-04:00

I love me some indie games. If there's one thing that can combat the stifling lack of creativity that dogs the larger game developers, it's independence. Small-time operations working on limited budgets and resources can periodically produce ground-breaking games because they have less to lose and can experiment more. See Armageddon Empires. Also, World of Goo. Also, Dwarf Fortress.

For this reason, I keep a close eye on indie games and try to support them when I can. If you're interested in seeing what's out there right now, check out the winners of the annual Independent Games Festival. This NPR story on how graduate programs in video game design are feeding into the indie-game scene is also good listening.

So I've had my eye on Kudos 2 for a while now. It's creator, Cliffski, has released a number of positively received simulation-type games through his company, Positech Games. Kudos 2 is a blatant and unapologetic homage to Will Wright's disturbingly successful franchise, the Sims. In Kudos, you create an avatar and live their life for 10 years. Imagine the Sims model, but pared down - both in terms of play and interface. While there are some intriguing and creative elements to Kudos 2, I can't strongly recommend it unless you have a deep love of this particular genre.

(learning Kung Fu, to protect myself from muggers)

Here's my boy. I was pretty pleased to find that, as in the Sims, I could pursue a career in "science." I immediately started taking evening classes in science and biology, eventually applied for a teaching position at the local academy, and quit my crap job as a waiter. Pursuing a career is one of the main foci of Kudos 2, but unfortunately it doesn't quite provide you enough gameplay "rewards" to make your actions truly meaningful. Yes, you will earn more money as you become more educated and get better jobs. But nothing much happens at work - each day passes like the one before it, even after you get promotions or a job at a better company. You just click to commute, click to see how your day goes, click to commute home, and that's it. It's significantly more boring that going to my real job. It would have helped to give players a choice of "projects" that they can pursue at work, which are completed over time. Different projects could have different payoffs or long-term effects on gameplay.

(interesting, unique events like this don't happen often enough)

Kudos 2 focuses most of its efforts on your social life. And admittedly, this is where the strengths of the game lie. It can be challenging and fun to juggle a healthy social life, along with the demands of work, school, and general "upkeep" (cleaning the house, getting exercise, etc.). Every weekday night, after getting home from work, you can choose to engage in a single activity. On weekends, you choose two activities per day. These activities can be "social" or "solo."

Solo activities include jogging, walking in the park (with your dog, if you buy one), taking a bath, watching TV, reading a book, etc. Each of these activities affects a number of your "attributes." You've got a bunch of these to keep track of: happiness, energy, excitement, cleanliness, fitness, weight, confidence, charisma, IQ, etc., etc. ad infinitum. So for example, reading the newspaper will increase your IQ but also reduce your optimism.

(really? this is fun?)

Social activities involve your network of friends. You can go out for drinks, see a movie, eat at various restaurants, play soccer, or attend the ballet. Again, engaging in each of these activities will have an effect on your attributes, and part of the "game" is choosing certain activities that will alleviate your current deficits. Feeling uncultured and uncouth? Go to the opera. Overweight? Organize a weekly soccer match. Lacking charisma? Have fun at the comedy show and learn a few tricks of the trade. Furthermore, each of your friends has a set of interests that determine how likely they'll be to join you in a particular social activity, and how much they'll enjoy it if they come along. You might convince your friend Susan to go bowling, but if she'd rather be eating Chinese food, she's going to have a pissy time. Play your cards right, choose the right activities with the right friends, and you can end up with a healthy, extensive network of friends who adore and admire you.

(Hassan is a Confident, Cool Biologist)

Note that I got to be quite the lady's man, here. And you might also see a small heart above the top-most female in my network - that indicates I was able to achieve a romantic relationship with Helen. If your relationship with someone gets very close, and there's a chemistry between you, they'll call and ask you out. Relationships are tricky to navigate: your loneliness is significantly reduced, but you need to include this person in nearly all your social engagements or risk incurring their wrath.

There are some nice subtleties to gameplay in the social sphere. For instance, there are always 3 different movies playing at the theater. One is a hit, one mediocre, one terrible. If you go to the hit with your friends, you'll get large boosts to your happiness, excitement, relaxation, friendship, etc. Take them to the dud, however, and you might become ostracized. How do you know? In other social engagements, like going out to dinner, your friends will talk about that "really great movie...", or mention that there's an awesome rock band in town, or tell you to avoid the museum this week because the exhibition is boring. If you pay attention to these snippets of conversation, you can use them to your advantage.

I also like how your friends' traits rub off on you. In the game I'm playing right now, I have a friend who's very charismatic and honest. I make sure to always invite him to social gatherings, since all my other friends like him and he tends to improve the quality of the event. Also, he makes me more honest and charismatic. In contrast, if you hang out with dishonest or pessimistic people, you'll become more dishonest and pessimistic. An interesting and realistic feature.

But in the end, Kudos 2 is just too repetitive and dull, as well as a bit vague. There are far too many traits to track; they don't all fit on one screen, which is a frustrating design decision. And some are clearly redundant. Why include both "weight" and "fitness"? Why both "happiness" and "stress"? I also dislike how for some traits, a high % is good (90% happiness) whereas for others, it is very bad (90% weight). This means that I can't just glance at my attribute lines and quickly focus on which need to be addressed.

Most importantly, Kudos should have learned from the Sims that "life-simulators" can suffer from a feeling of "what's the point?" If you don't offer concrete goals and objectives, your player will eventually lose interest with the process. In one sense, this mimics real life - whatever goals we have are those we set before ourselves. But the fact is that real life also offers some pretty spectacular goals: like getting married, having children, creating great works of art & science. Kudos doesn't incorporate "existential" goals like these into its design and it suffers for it. You can form a relationship but it doesn't get any more serious (it can only degrade, leading to a break-up). You can't spend your extra time writing a book or working on a painting.

Kudos 2 is a decent simulation but, oddly, it focuses on the most tedious and mundane aspects of existence - like what dish to order at the Mexican restaurant. The biggest "goals" that I've found in the game are purchasing really expensive objects, like designer sunglasses. This hurts me to my anti-materialist core. It's successful insofar as it periodically makes me wonder why in the hell I'd play a game about my real life. I think lots of people had that reaction to the Sims and later, Second Life: is it fun to have a virtual self brush his/her teeth and take a piss? And then there were those truly absurdist moments in the Sims when you'd tell your avatar to sit down at the computer and play a video game. If you haven't yet seen this brilliant Onion piece, now's the time:

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

On a final note, there is one redeeming aspect to Kudos 2: it's modable. Not infinitely so, but you can easily add your own content if you feel that something's missing from the game. Very quickly, I was able to mod in "going out to coffee" and "getting ice cream" (these were ideas posted in the forums), as well as "playing boardgames" at home. But it still felt too empty and meaningless. So I decided to add in Sex.

This actually made playing MUCH more enjoyable, which says something about how much meaning sex gives our lives. I designed it so that your charisma, confidence, cleanliness, and energy had to be high enough - and the person you asked had to have some interest in sex (analogous to an interest in "food," for example). This led to some amusing situations:

I was in a relationship with my girlfriend, Helen, and decided to throw caution to the wind and have sex with my friend, Nancy. She was always inviting me to rock shows, you know? So she agreed, but... well, you can read the text: "It really wasn't something I enjoy." Ha! Thanks a lot.

Later that night, I got the call from Helen:

But she put up with it - especially after I took her to the Opera.

I wish Kudos 2 had more depth to it, and I wish I wasn't looking at the same screen and interface all the time. It really cuts down on the longevity. But it's an interesting little diversion, and I certainly appreciate how quick it is to pick up and play, even when I only have 15 minutes or so. I was able to get it on sale for $6, so I don't feel ripped off in the least - but I'm not sure if it's worth the normal $15 tag. You'd be better off playing Defense Grid. But then again, if you're curious and want to help out an indie developer, you could certainly waste your money on much worse things. Like designer sunglasses.

the witcher

2009-04-18T07:41:00.039-04:00

Neither Aili nor I have had much time for blogging lately, what with the end of the academic semester and the wedding plans. It's a hectic time. I've been spending too much/not enough time writing a lengthy review paper on endogenous cannabinoids and steroid hormones and I've just about had it. Fortunately, I recently finished a draft and to reward myself, installed a copy of The Witcher that has been sitting on my desk since Christmas. While it has its flaws, it's a unique, entertaining experience well-worth exploring if you're into RPG's.

The primary reason why The Witcher contains an immersive world is that it's based upon a series of novels and short stories written by Polish fantasy writer, Andrzej Sapkowski. Thus, the world of The Witcher is fully fleshed and, more importantly, it breaks from standard Tolkein-esque fantasy tropes. There's no character generation to begin the game: you always take on the role of Geralt, the witcher.

Witchers are monter-hunters. They undergo extensive combat training, experiment with genetic modification and enhancement, and master alchemy and magic. The common folk respect, fear, and despise them. When the undead begin rising from your local graveyard, you hire a witcher to take care of the problem.

Rather than take you on an extensive tour through the plot or details of gameplay, I'll highlight some of the features that really make The Witcher stand out among its peers.

1. A dark & gritty world.

This is not a G-rated game. In fact, it's very clearly intended for "mature" audiences. There's adult content beyond mere violence towards fantasy creatures: drug use, explicit sexuality, and crude language. Overall, the effect of this is to create a more "realistic" fantasy experience, although at times, the juvenile writing does interfere (for example, when Geralt says something like, "Un-fucking-believable"). There are also adult themes that you typically don't see in games of this ilk.

For example, one sub-plot that runs through the game is the presence of the "Scoia'tael": a radical organization of elves & dwarves who engage in guerrilla terrorist activities, such as attacking human trade caravans and kidnapping. In this post-war world, humans and non-humans live in tenuous co-habitation. Famine, disease, and monster outbreaks have made life very difficult for the common people - and in their fear and desperation, they have decided to blame the non-humans for their problems. As you wander the world of Temeria, you'll encounter a great deal of racism towards non-humans and witchers that is often stoked by those in positions of authority, such as the church. Among non-humans, the Scoia-tael are a controversial organization: some support them (secretly), some find their tactics despicable. It's nice to see a game tackle a mature theme like this, and it makes the world seem more dynamic and politically interesting.

There are slums, mention of pogroms, and disposed corpses in the sewer. All this contributes to a feeling of danger and tension that helps make The Witcher an engaging experience.

(the sewers beneath Vizima)

2. Sexuality.

It's perhaps not surprising that most RPG's have eschewed sexuality. When aiming for a general audience that will likely include children, it's best to avoid anything morally delicate. And yet, violence is always a part of these games. Hmmm... Regardless, the lack of sexuality in RPG's gives them a Disney feel that detracts from your immersion and suspension of disbelief. The Witcher explicitly incorporates sexuality into gameplay, albeit in a highly juvenile way. As you progress through the game, you'll encounter a number of female characters that you can attempt to have sex with. Almost always, you'll have to satisfy some quest requirement to get them into bed. For example, in the city of Vizima, I was hired by the brothel madame, Carmen, to protect her prostitutes from some rapists and assassins who were attacking them by night. After completing this task, I was allowed to sleep with the prositutes "for free" if I simply brought them a bouquet of flowers. Every time you have sex with a character, you'll receive a collectible, virtual "sex card":

Hilarious, no? Well, there are two ways to view this. One: it's juvenile, sexist objectification of women in its purest form. It sends precisely the wrong kind of message to pre-adolescent and adolescent boys who are playing this game. Two: it's amusing and fun. I mean, RPG's always incorpoate these silly, non-vital side quests as part of the game. In Oblivion, for instance, you can spend hours and hours trolling the landscape for fucking roots. In The Witcher, you collect girls. Which is more entertaining, motivating, and to be perfectly honest, realistic? When I was single and in my 20's, I was looking for mating opportunities everywhere. That's how Geralt functions. The game even suggests at certain points that witchers are known for their sexual proclivities. You're a hired monster killer - it's been a long day in the crypt - you barely survived that cockatrice attack - so now you wander over to Shani's house to see if you can get some play. What's the harm in that?

3. Lore.

Other RPG's, most famously the Elder Scrolls series, have incorporated alchemy and lore into gameplay. But I really appreciate how The Witcher does this. Every monster you encounter has certain weaknesses that must be exploited if you wish to survive. For example, this delightful fellow is a Graveir. If you waltz into battle against one (or god forbid, several) of these without any knowledge of how to defeat them, you'll probably receive a beating. But through the course of the game, you'll find books and scrolls, and talk to NPC's with relevant wisdom, that teach you about particular monsters and their weaknesses. When you gather this information, it's added to your Journal's Bestiary. The Graveir, it turns out, it sensitive to silver. You're also told to use the "strong" fighting style against it, and if things are still difficult, you can coat your blade with Necrophage Oil. To make this oil, you need to learn the formula from someone and then gather/buy the correct ingredients. It's all very fun and logical. I was really struggling defeating a Hellhound until I used some Necrophage Oil and drank a potion which enhanced my reflexes (by slowing time down). In this way, I really felt that using Lore to my advantage was an essential component to progressing further in the game. Your character (and you) must be intelligent enough to use gathered knowledge to your advantage.

(the alchemy interface)

Overall, The Witcher is a damn good game. The fighting is enjoyable, although I suspect that it will eventually become repetitive. I especially like how the designers didn't shy away from group combat. If Geralt gets attacked by five zombies, he can switch to a "Group" style of combat that attacks everything within a close vicinity. The combat animations are universally impressive.

The greatest criticism of the game is that it suffers from some frustrating technical issues. It will crash-to-desktop every now and then. Loading screens occur with frustrating regularity (fortunately, the conceptual art displayed during these transitions is quite good and keeps you "in the mood" - see below). Apparently, this was a much more serious problem before they released the "Enhanced" version, which I'm playing. And I'm disappointed to see how much the same face-models are used over and over again. It was disconcerting to see the priest from Act I (whom I killed, for justifiable reasons) "reappear" in Act II - until I realized that it was just the same face model on a different character. Given that there are hundreds of characters in the game, I understand the problem - but other RPG's have solved this issue.

But nothing spoils the soup (just yet) and it's a testament to the game that I look forward to sitting down and spending a couple hours in Temeria whenever I get a chance.

(the hospital, where plague victims are treated)

it's blitz

2009-04-17T19:46:00.009-04:00

I'm listening to the month-old Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs' release, It's Blitz! right now and I can't get over the transformation. This definitely isn't Fever to Tell - where's my dirgy "Rich," grungy "Date with a Night," and wailing, "I gotta man who makes me wanna kill"? Where's my New York garage rock reinvention, part XXIII?

Oh yeah, that was 2003. Like all bands with a spark of brilliance, the YYY's clearly seek to reinvent themselves on each album, delve into sounds that they enjoy without a concern for fan-boy expectations. It's Blitz! is bass guitar, rock overtones and Karen O's lovely voice, but it's also heavily synthesized, artificial, studio magic. I love it. "Heads Will Roll" really does make me want to dance. "Dragon Queen" is disco-shit, but damn it, it's good. I don't even mind the soft, oddly placed reflections like "Skeletons" and "Runaway" although they're the weakest points of the album (perhaps my opinion will change with time and further listens - one thing I've learned about the YYY's is that their albums just sound better the more I listen to them). Every song is bursting with sound, and infused with the unique YYY energy that makes me want to head-butt a dingo. Or something.

How are you not going to show your scar?
How are you not going to get high, high?

Track list:

1 Zero 4:25
2 Heads Will Roll 3:42
3 Soft Shock 3:53
4 Skeletons 5:02
5 Dull Life 4:08
6 Shame and Fortune 3:31
7 Runaway 5:13
8 Dragon Queen 4:02
9 Hysteric 3:52
10 Little Shadow 3:57

trippy-bizarro dancing animations

2009-04-03T08:47:00.003-04:00

An oldie but a goodie...

Will stick in your head...

lolcat

2009-03-28T08:10:00.044-04:00

I don't know why I find them funny but I do. Really, it's beyond whether lolcats are humorous - it's the principle. Lolcat is but one aspect of this wacky, crazy interweb I love so very much. I like pondering why certain internet memes take off, what they say about the American collective unconscious. What is it about lolcat that made it such a phenomenon? Why did this particular absurdity catch on? If you have the answers, I need to know.

In case you're clueless about such virtual nonsense (and that's perfectly reasonable, mind you), I suggest a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for lolcat. Here's a brief excerpt with the relevant info:

"A lolcat is an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak,” ”kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin” and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation "LOL" and the word "cat." A synonym for "lolcat" is cat macro, since the images are a type of image macro. Lolcats are designed for photo sharing imageboards and other internet forums."

Apparently, it all started on on image-board, 4chan.org, where users started posting "cat macros" sometimes involving immoral and disturbing acts. Very nerd-core, if you will. But lolcat first hit the public eye with this G-rated guy, circa 2007:

I know. It's not funny. Maybe it's cute, if you're a cat kinda person, but it's definitely not funny.

Then there was this one, which is a bit funnier and certainly more uncomfortable:

Now note that "Ceiling cat" doesn't make use of the kitty pidgin which I love so dearly.

If you google search, you'll find 1000's, possibly millions, of these images. They used to pop up in the most annoying places, like message boards and comment lists, but nowadays seem to cluster on web-sites dedicated to the phenomenon: like the appropriately named icanhascheezburger.com and lolcats.com. However, picking through lolcats on these sites really demeans the experience - I find lolcat much more powerful and affecting when I encounter one randomly, in a place I otherwise wouldn't expect. Like when I was doing a google search the other day for "Force Field" and got this image:

I copy and collect ones I encounter that amuse me. They don't do much for anyone else, I suspect, but I'm bored today and decided it might lessen my boredom by boring whomever visits this blog.

Here's one that our friend LS found a little while ago and has been making the virtual rounds:

This is pretty brilliant. I mean, it's offensive, cute, horrific, and modern all in one. Well done.

Some are self-referential and angry, which is cool in a post-modern, cynical kind of way:

Here's one that I would call "uber-nerdy": it combines lolcat, esoteric video game knowledge, and The Settlers of Catan boardgame. Holy fuck, I'm embarrassed.

Then there's this one, which was inevitable...

And just so you get a taste of the range of possibilities, some people really break from the whole "cat" thing and have taken this meme in other directions.

Again, I don't know why but the very idea of combining lolcat with Cthulhu is just funny to me.

Finally, you should probably check out the Lolcat Bible Translation Project, where community users are attempting to translate every book, chapter and verse of the bible into lol-speak. Here's how it begins - Genesis 1:

"1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1
6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.
7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.
8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day."

If you read further, you'll eventually encounter "Basement Cat." Yes, annoying and pointless. But also awesome. Really, if we can't celebrate this kind of human endeavor, aren't we missing out on a whole aspect of artistic creation and time-wasting that begs for analysis?

psycho-tetris

2009-03-19T08:51:00.047-04:00

My last post referencing the synergy between Russian metal and upcoming RTS, Stalin vs. Martians, got me thinking about the role that music has played in my personal game history. I'm sure we all have that experience of particular albums becoming attached to certain periods in our lives. Whenever I think of my 2 year stint in Hawai'i, I can't help but hear Goodie Mob and Outkast playing in my head. While sound might not get encoded as deeply in our engrams as smell, it still has the capacity to evoke strong emotional memories.

In particular, I started thinking about how certain albums in my past got linked with particular video game experiences. There is no doubt that the right music can lift a mundane game experience into the stratosphere of the sublime - and there are few greater joys that having the visceral rush of a true "gaming moment" enhanced by the soundtrack of our lives. Here are a few of the pairings that I still recall with deepest joy and respect:

1991: Tetris and Psychocandy

Like hordes of other college freshmen, I got pretty addicted to Tetris. I mean, look at that awesome level back-drop! Back in '91, not everyone had a computer (weird, I know), so I used to steal time on my friend Pat's Mac whenever he was in class or napping. Pat's roommate, Moses, unknowingly exposed me to a brand new world of music. Moses had no particular interest in Tetris, as I recall, but he'd often blast obnoxious alt-rock and industrial while the rest of us gathered around Pat's computer, taking turns and competing for high scores. I'd never heard The Jesus and Mary Chain before, and at first, I hated the sound. But eventually, I discovered a profound ecstasy in matching oddly shaped blocks while listening to the droning vocals and guitar of the Reid brothers.

1998: Commando & The Stooges

I don't know exactly how this got started, but AF downloaded some emulators so that the house on Del Oro could play shit-tons of arcade classics. I know that IS got pretty obsessed with Time Pilot (hell, we all did) and BD showed amazing prowess with Donkey Kong. But nothing got us more pumped than playing Commando and listening to "1969." I mean, it felt like the two were designed for each other. Thinking about this gives me shivers.

1999: Half Life and Vegas

It's hard to talk about Half Life without getting all nostalgic. Let's just say: those were good days. It was Santa Barbara, living 2 blocks away from Leadbetter beach, and weekends were often spent moving back and forth between the ocean and AF's computer. Half Life was my first online gaming experience; it was all about Deathmatch, memorizing maps, right-clicking grenades, crowbar sneak attacks, gleeful laughter. Pop on a pair of headphones, crank up Crystal Method's Vegas, and run & kill. It sounds so juvenile, but I'd be grinning from ear to ear for hours at a time.

2000: Vigilante 8 and The Cult of Ray

This is a tough one, only because we played V8 so god damn much, listening to everything in our collection while doing so. Exile on Main Street, Los Angeles, New York Dolls, White Light/White Heat were on the hit parade. But there's a subtle synergy between shooting red missiles up Dave's ass and hearing "The Marsist" just get cranking. I won't lie to you: V8 was (is) a great game, on its own without support. But V8 + good tunes + friends = Heaven.

Well, you get the idea. Sad to say, I don't have these synergistic, orgasmic experiences much anymore. In part, I think, it's because I play a lot more PC games vs. consoles nowadays and the modern PC memory-sink makes it a bit difficult to play Itunes in the background. But that's not to say it doesn't happen still. Just recently, I started getting in deep with Dawn of War II, which is a pretty visceral experience on its own. Serendipitously, I discovered that DOWII supported by Queens of the Stone Age provides one hell of a rush. Zooming in close to watch your Dreadnaught wreak havoc on some Eldar while listening to "Better Living Through Chemistry" is pretty f'ing thrilling.

2009: Dawn of War II and Rated R

stalin vs. martians

2009-03-13T16:21:00.007-04:00

Please watch me and bask in the glory of Russian metal band ANJ:

Thanks again to the blokes at RPS for alerting us peons to such awesomeness. Somehow, in a way that I do not fully comprehend as of yet, this video will be featured in upcoming absurdist real-time strategy game, Stalin vs. Martians. A quote (poorly translated to boot) from the "ideology" of the designers:

"Obviously, the main concept behind the game is pretty much clear if you can see its name. It just speaks for itself. The fact that such game exists is quite an event. It doesn't really matter what's behind the name or if the game is playable at all. The concept is enough. Simply makes your brain explode.

Meanwhile, we decided to move a little bit further than making up a bizarre concept and product's weird name. Stalin vs. Martians is also a good real-time strategy game. Probably one of the best in years and years. You can quote us on that."

And from the FAQ:

"Vopros: Can we play as Stalin himself?
Otvet: Yes, but not from the start. Stalin is our commander and he gives us orders. Closer to the grand finale he will appear on the battlefield as a playable unit - a huge colossus, five times higher than any other creature. Just like it was in the real life."

I desperately hope this is true.

steampunk star wars

2009-03-08T08:21:00.017-04:00

For some reason, steampunk and Star Wars sound like they'd go together like peanut butter and chocolate. I suppose it's because both genres mix old world themes and ideals with new world technology. In the case of Star Wars, the throwback is further than Victorian era England - more like 12th century France. From a child's perspective, the overwhelming coolness of the Star Wars universe was based upon its success in melding Medieval fantasy (sword fights, princesses, magic) with futuristic sci-fi (lasers, spaceships, robots). Darth Vader was black knight, sorcerer, shaman, and mad scientist all in one. How can a 7 year old boy possibly resist?

Steampunk similarly melds 19th century style (petticoats and parsols) with alternate history mechanistic invention (clockwork robots). And thus perhaps it doesn't stretch the imagination much to re-paint the Star Wars universe in a steampunk veneer:

(by Eric Poulton)

I absolutely love this vision of Obi-wan Kenobi by Marcel Mercado...

Everyone's favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett, as imagined by Bjorn Hurris:
Another by the same artist - this time, Yoda:

And finally, a series of Darth Vader reinventions:

(Eric Poulton; a clockwork Vader - love it!)

(Marcel Mercado)

(Alister Lockhart)

(Daniel Helzer; truly, more machine than man)

defense grid: the awakening

2009-02-28T07:41:00.025-05:00

Ages ago, I blogged about the sublime and somewhat embarrassing joy of tower defense games. They are designed for casual distraction - quick, easy to pick-up & play, and cheap. There are dozens of free tower defense games you can find on the interweb, but I'll admit I haven't played any of them extensively except for that timeless classic, Desktop Tower Defense.

Tower defense games are all based on the same principles. You have a map with an entry point and an exit. Enemies, or "creeps," appear at the entry and make their way unintelligently (using simple deterministic rules) towards the exit point. As player, your job is to build defense towers that will destroy the creeps as they pass by. The more creeps that escape, the more "life" you lose, until the game ends. The strategy of tower defense comes in 1) placement of towers and 2) types of towers. You can place towers in such a way as to create a maze for the creeps, thus making their journey longer and giving you more opportunity to destroy them:

In addition, there are different tower types to build. Some may have a high rate-of-fire but only target one creep at a time, whereas others can damage large clusters of creeps but only occasionally. You get the idea.

Tower defense games are an amusing distraction but as a general rule, I typically require more meat in my gaming diet. Plus I'll admit to being somewhat of a graphics whore - I mean, I invested in this fucking Windoze PC and whammy-dine graphic card, I want to see some benefits.

Enter Defense Grid: the Awakening.

If we ignore the absurd colon-ized title, Defense Grid is the best thing to happen to tower defense games since... well, Desktop Tower Defense. Furthermore, I'd argue it's the penultimate tower defense experience. It's got 20 different maps to play on, each presenting different strategic challenges. It's got 15 different creeps to deal with, ranging from the simple test-drone...

... to devastating Juggernaut...

It's got 10 different tower types to play with and each can be upgraded twice:

Gun: Versatile machine gun turret. Especially effective against shielded and flying enemies.
Cannon: Long-range projectile weapon. Low rate of fire but heavy damage. Effective against strong and shielded enemies.
Inferno: Flamethrower-based tower, with continuous rate-of-fire. Effective against large groups.
Laser: Laser that inflicts damage over time. Effective against fast enemies and certain bosses.
Tesla: Fires lightning bolts. Deals more damage the longer it is charged. Effective as a last line of defense at exits.
Missile: Anti-air missile tower.
Command: A tower that increases revenue per enemy killed and reveals stealth units within its radius.
Temporal: A tower that emits energy pulses and dramatically slows enemies within its radius.
Concussion: An area of effect weapon that fires explosive grenades. Effective against large groups.
Meteor: A long-range tower that launches a superheated fireball at the enemy. Effective against large groups. 3rd-level upgrades of this baby are a thing to behold.

And it's got pizazz:

(crossfire!)

Defense Grid is a thoroughly visceral experience. The creeps come in waves and you'll typically need to defeat ~15 or so to progress to the next map. By the time you get to wave 15, you'll be in tower defense heaven: juggling tower builds & upgrades, shoring up weak spots in your defense, suddenly realizing you have nothing to defend against fliers, and basking in the multicolored glory of your impenetrable defense network.

The creeps in Defense Grid have a goal. They want your power cores. So their first stop on the map will be the power core station, they'll pick up as many as they can carry, and then they'll head for the exit. In order to build towers to prevent them from escaping, you'll need resources. You typically start each map with enough resources to build half-a-dozen simple towers, and you acquire more resources every time you destroy a creep. The fundamental challenge of the game is to make sure you keep building and upgrading towers as you collect resources to match the increasing difficulty of the waves. Pause too long to enjoy the scenery and things can get ugly fast.

Since screenshots don't really give you a feel for what this game is like, here's a brief trailer:

Defense Grid does so many things right, I have to give props to the designers. The maps are aesthetically pleasing and varied enough that you're always looking forward to what's next. Some maps tightly restrict your tower placement points, which challenges you to make every decision count. Some maps give you enormous freedom of where you can build towers and in these, the goal is always to create some sort of twisting maze-o'-doom for the creeps. For example, here's the map "Waste Disposal" - one of the most difficult in the game:

The creeps will take the shortest path to the power cores, so you need to cut off their movement with towers. But maps like Waste Disposal give the creeps more than one path to take, so the pressure will mount as they sneak by your defenses. You also have to worry about line-of-sight (towers placed in front of other towers will reduce their effectiveness), timing of upgrades (while upgrading, a tower doesn't fire), and creep decoys who draw your tower-fire while their more armored comrades rumble past and steal your cores. For such deterministic little bastards, the behavior of an entire wave can begin to appear strategic.

For the obsessive out there (and that's pretty much anyone who likes tower defense games), each map also comes with a number of "challenge modes." For example, you can try to earn silver and gold medals on each map by getting higher scores and ensuring that none of your power cores leaves the map. Some challenge modes limit you to only 10 towers total - some give you a set amount of resources at the beginning but that's it. I can't emphasize how much more depth and gameplay these modes give Defense Grid. It is thoroughly addictive trying to achieve a Gold Medal on every map at the hardest difficulty level. Fortunately, the designers included both a speed-up function and autosaved check-points which facilitate rapid trial-and-error in the pursuit of perfection.

I've poured dozens of hours into this game and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. For a measly $20 on Steam, it's a bargain waiting to suck every last free moment of your time. Indulge.

don't divorce us

2009-02-24T14:35:00.003-05:00

I'm really excited about getting married. For so many reasons.

With that in mind, please take the time to watch this very lovely little movie:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

time travel as plot device

2009-02-19T07:41:00.014-05:00

If you're a fan of science-fiction, at some point you have to confront your own personal feelings about the use of time travel in narrative. My father, for instance, absolutely detests time travel. It nearly always creates a series of paradoxes which, for him, destroy the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy the story. And certainly, there are numerous examples of movies and books that prominently feature time travel as a plot device to their own detriment. I'd have to put the whole Terminator series in this category. Given how easy it has become in the future to create and send back homicidal robots, I just don't see how/why anything in these movies actually matters.

Then there are stories that feature time travel but the plot is kept constrained so that we don't care about potential paradoxes. In particular, these stories avoid discussion of the so-called Butterfly Effect (as it applies to time travel) wherein a minor alteration to past events can lead to an entirely new future. This idea was first penned in a sci-fi context by Ray Bradbury, in his short story "A Sound of Thunder" (parodied amusingly in the Simpsons episode, Treehouse of Horror V).

For example, consider Planet of the Apes, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and 12 Monkeys. Time travel exists but we need'nt worry about our protagonists fucking things up.

Then there are movies that focus quite specifically on this paradox, but do it with so much style and thought, we are moved to forgive them. The excellent and perplexing Donnie Darko is a good example of this.

We might very well place the indie movie, Primer (2004), in this category as well. I watched it a fortnight ago, with my DVD remote close at hand, and indulged in its time looping depravity. Briefly, the film takes a very modern, engineering approach to time travel. What if two young technical entrepreneurs successfully created a time travel device? One that could only take you back in time, mind you, but worked nevertheless. And what if they not only used this time machine to make money (in the predictable stock market way) but also to affect their personal lives and relationships?

I'm not sure how much more I want to tell you about it, except that it's probably worth seeing. Many, I'm sure, detested it. My god, this movie is probably the worst possible thing I could have my father watch. But I appreciated how seriously the writers took the topic of time travel - the paradoxes form the basis of the entire narrative structure.

The only way to resolve time travel paradoxes (and it's not entirely satisfying, of course) is to create alternative time-lines (universes) every time someone activates a machine. This is necessary because the mere presence of an individual in the past creates a different future. Furthermore, it prevents infinite loops that would halt all of reality (travel back to the past, live, eventually travel back to the past, live, etc. - the so-called, predestination paradox).

Here's a simple schematic of the time travel in Primer, which could very well apply to every story featuring temporal movement.

But that doesn't cover the details at all. Just for kicks, take a look at this:

It's the complete breakdown, created by some committed fan of the work. After watching the movie, you might want to at least glance at it to see if some of your suspicions are confirmed. Regardless, my tiny human brain could not process all of these possibilities at once - and so, ultimately, Primer must be judged on whether it is a satisfying artistic experience. I'm not sure if it is. It really is all about the time travel - there's nothing else that matters - and if that frustrates the hell out of you, the film-makers say, "too bad, you probably shouldn't have rented this."

If you want something quite different and ultimately more satisfying, I might suggest another book by my favorite author, Gene Wolfe. Pirate Freedom looks cheesy as hell, but like everything Wolfe, it's deeper and more challenging than you initially expect. Overtly, it's a tale of a boy who somehow (never explained fully) travels back in time to the golden age of piracy in the 17th century. The narrative is revealed as a first-person account, typical of Wolfe, in which you as the reader must constantly wonder at how much information the narrator is failing to reveal or simply lying about.

Fortunately, you can enjoy the book as historical fiction about what it may have been like to be a pirate in those days. Wolfe is obsessive about his research, and if you know anything about the history of piracy, you'll be able to identify important events and patterns in the text. For example, at one point early in the story, our protagonist, Chris, is left on the island of Hispaniola by the English privateer, Capt. Burt. On Hispaniola, Chris falls in with Frenchmen surviving by hunting wild cattle - the historical origins of the buccaneer. It's an action-oriented plot, and it's about pirates god damn it, so there's killing and torture and raids and booty and even hidden treasure. Wolfe never forgets the essential trappings of whatever genre he is writing within.

But of course, there's a time travel element involved, and only towards the end of the book do we get a sense of its implications. Depending on how you feel about Wolfe's writing in general, you may find this intriguing or incredibly frustrating.

I'm curious to know how other people feel about time travel as a narrative device. Leave a comment if you're so inclined.

twist

2009-02-13T07:08:00.012-05:00

It remains to be seen whether Twitter is simply another passing tech-fad, the ultimate voyeuristic experiment, or a herald of something far more disturbing to come. Clearly, it's the height of obsessive narcissism and a cry out for social comfort in the deafening loneliness of our time - oh wait, that's blogging. Regardless, I'm not one to care much about people's micro-updates ("I'm taking a crap!" "I'm eating a burrito!" "I'm having sex with your girlfriend!") on an individual level, but once you start letting me compile data from thousands of cyberhipsters (did I just coin that term?) I might start thinking Twitter is a scientific tool.

Twist (or Twitter Trends) allows you to see the % of twitters that mention particular words over the course of a week or month. So, for example, if you type in "Darwin," you'll see a peak (nearly 1% of twitters) yesterday around 10:00am. Boring.

I'm more curious about cursing frequency. So, for kicks, I put in "fuck," "shit," and "cat" (my control group). These are the data:

(click for larger image)

So there's clearly a circadian pattern in use of both fuck and shit. The vertical gray lines represent midnight, so the daily peaks for these two words occur around midnight or soon thereafter (I am assuming that these times are "local" to the person tweeting). Also, the weekly peak for "fuck" and "shit" occurs right around midnight between Sunday and Monday. Why don't I find that surprising.

Twist also lets you see some of the Tweets it's sampling. Here are some examples from my experiment for you to ponder and contemplate:

"my roommates show up with groceries and start cooking lunch as soon as i start recording. fuck the kitchen. i wish i still lived alone"

"So angry, gonna punch a cat inna mouf. Fuck yeah."
(this one contributed to 2 of my trends - amazing!)

"When one of these rap niggas finally kills another rap nigga, I'm going to be RIGHT THERE to say, 'I AINT SEE SHIT.'" (Damn!)

"When you install an Adobe product, they really put so much shit on your computer you don't want."

True that.

a few nice portraits

2009-02-11T21:02:00.011-05:00

let the right one in

2009-01-31T16:56:00.012-05:00

Let the Right One In is like no other vampire movie I've seen. It's a Swedish flick, based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Our protagonist is Oskar, a 12-year old boy living in a suburban community near Stockholm with his mother. He is blonder-than-blonde, slight and frail, and the target of incessant bullying at school. We also quickly learn that he's a bit obssessed with "true crime" and keeps a somewhat disturbing scrap-book of murders tucked under his mattress.

One day, a sickly looking girl, Eli, moves into the apartment next door. The two become friends, much as one might expect. And yet there's something not quite right about Eli: she's never out in the daylight, she seems far more mature than her years belie, and she alternatively appears to be on the brink of death or brimming with health.

She's a vampire, of course, and the filmakers don't attempt to hide this fact from the audience for long. Instead of feeding on random victims herself, she sends out her "father" (more a caretaker) to murder young men in the community, drain their blood into a jug, and bring it back to the apartment. Things get complicated when her caretaker gets caught in the act and Eli is forced to fend for herself.

Throughout, Let the Right One In is a poignant love story between awkward pre-adolescents, much as we've seen before. But Eli and Oskar's relationship develops in a fascinating direction, and their evolving co-dependency is at once heart-warming and absolutely horrific. I love how carefully the movie progressed, and how it fully embraced the classic horror dictum (all but forgotten in modern America) that "less-is-more." With approximately 15 minutes left to go in the film, I had decided that it was good but not great. However, those last minutes, and especially the final scene on the train, push Let the Right One In into the realm of truly exceptional.

Be warned: an American remake is planned for release in 2010 and is likely to be far bloodier, extreme, and mundane.

kingdom of loathing

2009-01-24T08:43:00.018-05:00

Although my sabbatical is fast becoming a distant memory and the school semester has begun, I have been lucky enough to stumble upon a couple "casual gaming" gems as of late. Casual games allow you to blow off some steam after a long day without taxing your brain too much, and take a break from writing without wasting hours of your time. You should be able to get in and get out quickly and safely. Ya know?

Today I'll tell you about Kingdom of Loathing, which just might be a unique experience in the gaming world. First off, it's completely free (although the hosts do accept donations to keep the site up and running). You can visit here now and get started immediately. Ostensibly, KoL (shorthand) is a browser-based role-playing game with loads of content, pop-culture references, and absurd humor. It borrows (and mocks) heavily from classic RPG-systems, like Dungeons & Dragons, allowing for character creation, development (levelling), questing, and item collection. But trust me, you'll never take it too seriously - and if you do, it just means you're probably having one hell of a good time.

So, you're an advtenurer ("An Adventurer is You!") in the Kingdom of Loathing. You can choose one of six classes: Seal Clubber, Turtle Tamer, Pastamancer, Sauceror, Disco Bandit, or Accordion Thief. These sound meaningless, but it turns out that the first two are melee-oriented, the next two magic-oriented, and the last two, roguish. Your interface looks like this:

This is all browser-based, so you'll be playing in Firefox or Safari or whatever you use. To visit a location, or check your inventory, you simply click on the corresponding icon. Pretty intuitive. Once you start playing, you'll soon find yourself on a quest, fighting monsters, looting items. Everything in this game is tongue-in-cheek, and the humor is obscure and witty. I often find myself looking up pop-culture references that I don't recognize. For example...

Can you place the "I'm comin', Elizabeth!" reference?

You'll also note that the artwork is predominantly of the stick-figure variety, which suits the experience perfectly. Remember, this is a casual game - not a multi-million dollar effort like Fallout 3. Here's another example of a recent scenario I encountered, in a location called "South of the Border"...

So, who are the two roosters fighting in this cock-fight? And who would you bet on? I decided to opt out, walking away in disgust and this is what you get...

Great. This is what I mean by clever writing that keeps you smirking all the way through. There is so much of this, you almost can't believe it - but then you realize that the creators have been adding content to this since 2003 and the process is still going on. It's the ultimate in expandable, modifiable content.

Even the descriptions of items and your equipment are amusing:

Warning: KoL does possess some serious "adventure-game" obscurity. If you don't know what that means, think back to Zork - or Myst - and remember some of the wacky things you needed to do to move the game forward. As in "climb the tree to find the key in the bird's nest which you then use to open the fireplace to find the zombie finger which you use to poke the dragon...etc..." KoL isn't quite that bad, but you will have to think outside-the-box on occasion and engage in some trusty trial-and-error.

But I still haven't mentioned the best part of KoL. To do anything meaningful in the game (like fight a monster, or craft an item, or make some food), you need to spend an "adventure" point. You only get 40 of these adventure points per day. And that's a real day, like our own 24 hour cycle. This puts a brilliant, creative limit on how much time you can actually waste playing KoL on a daily basis. You can usually breeze through your allotted 40 adventures in under an hour. Of course, you can drink cocktails and eat meals to gain adventures, but ultimately you'll have to put it all aside and wait until tomorrow (or the next day). I actually wish more games had some kind of built-in time limit like this. It extends the experience, and forces you to appreciate every moment the game offers you - much like slowly chewing every morsel of a delicious meal.

Overall, I give it a hearty recommendation, even if you decide to give up on it after a few sessions. And thanks to RPS and FP for pointing me in the direction of KoL.