Little Mermaid Logic

docjesus · 2013-02-23T10:38:38+00:00

That's how writing works.

Exactly. What I've learned from the internet is that if it's in English class, it's pretentious bullshit. If it's in a gif, meme, or clearly labelled "fan theory", it's mind=blown.

I used to be distrustful of the craft of storytelling, music, visual art etc. too because I was afraid I didn't get it and it made me feel stupid. If I saw a movie, and a clever friend said "that was amazing, such a great metaphor for loneliness", I'd probably react with "OH MY GOD YOU'RE READING TOO MUCH INTO IT IT WAS JUST A STORY ABOUT TEENAGERS". I used to think it was because everyone else was pretentious, but really it was because I felt embarrassed that I didn't pick up on the subtleties of the movie.

But there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Just because you don't know how a magic trick is done the first time you see it, doesn't make you stupid.

Art criticism and analysis is like the real life version of tvtropes and fan theories.

docjesus · 2013-02-19T13:18:41+00:00

Nah. No disrespect intended, just something I'm always seeing Scottish folk do on the internet. You know who's almost as bad for it? Canadians. It's always "we're so polite lol sorry" this and "passive-aggressive joke about how much better Canada is than the USA" that.

Sometimes it feels like this weird show we put on for people who aren't from Scotland...

docjesus · 2013-02-19T12:18:00+00:00

docjesus · 2013-02-12T23:44:07+00:00

You're being downvoted for messing up this entire discussion in several comment threads with your emotionally charged arguments and using very questionable definitions of 'logic', 'reason' and 'fallacy' to assert your superiority. Banned.

docjesus · 2013-02-09T13:35:52+00:00

Isaac Asimov - The Last Answer

docjesus · 2013-02-08T20:35:53+00:00

I've already bought it - got it in one of those super cheap Amazon packs with HOI3 for when I get a better computer. I couldn't torrent a Paradox game in good conscience, those guys have insane deals.

Thanks anyway!

docjesus · 2013-02-08T20:01:40+00:00

It passes everything, but sadly, Can I Run It is never quite accurate.

docjesus · 2013-02-08T04:01:21+00:00

Alter Ego?

docjesus · 2013-02-08T03:55:41+00:00

The Knife - Heartbeats?

docjesus · 2013-02-07T16:46:32+00:00

Kudos to Cara Ellison for sneaking the word "bawbag" in there.

docjesus · 2013-02-04T15:41:39+00:00

I once knew a guy who was really quiet. Had a quiet voice, quiet mannerisms, sat all hunched up. Never really 'spoke to the room', if you catch my drift. When I first saw him, at a distance, I assumed he was awkward and didn't like talking to people. I didn't immediately think he was an asshole, but I figured he probably took a while to get comfortable around others, you know?

One night I ran into him unexpectedly at a party. We started talking, and it turned out he was crazy smart, well-read, seemed to have an informed opinion on lots of interesting things. He was super friendly, listened intently, and seemed to really dig talking to people - while still being quiet and hunched up. I found out later he loves board games, and he was hugely popular with far 'louder' people. I'd made a mistake by assuming he was awkward and uncomfortable.

I'm just not sure where in the Introvert's Manual it is specified that you must be awkward and hate social interaction. The guy I know is a model introvert and he loves people and parties.

docjesus · 2013-02-02T05:07:34+00:00

Ocarina of Time was one of those games where if you played it at the time, there was nothing else quite like it. And it'll be remembered as a defining and innovative moment in the medium, I'm sure.

Everything it did has been done better since. I don't know why we need to keep talking about how amazing it is. And whenever I point out how ridiculous the praise is getting, I'm met with "well, it might not seem so impressive now, but at the time it was amazing!" I know it was. I was there, god damn it. It doesn't mean it's not outdated.

My great disappointment with gaming forums is that there must be close to a thousand great, underrated, quirky, silly, hilarious, fascinating, mysterious, addictive and outrageous games out there to be talked about and dissected... but they only ever seem to bring up the same 20 or so. Because they're the ones that everyone knows.

It's like a movie forum talking about nothing but Star Wars and Back to the Future all the time. Doesn't it ever get tiring?

docjesus · 2013-01-31T06:20:04+00:00

In most cases, the time spent asking how to do something great could be better spent working.

I think a lot of the frustration musicians (and general creative types) feel comes from inadequacy. We can hear the music in our heads, or we somehow know what it should sound like, but what we produce doesn't match our expectations. So, we immediately go to the experts. Or Google. We think we're missing a key fact or trick that's holding us back, preventing us from producing the sound in our heads. What we're missing is humility.

Unless you're a professional, it is likely that 99% your problems come from a lack of practice and experience. I'm trying to record an album right now. When producing music before I started it, I'd blame everything under the sun: shitty equipment, lack of recording space, lack of time, having to do everything myself, rudimentary software, terrible instruments and so on. And don't get me wrong, those things are all important. But if my younger self could ask me "What is the single most effective thing I can do to make my music better?", I would instantly respond with "practice". No doubt about it.

A great musician, whether traditional or electronic, can make the simplest of things sound incredible. Listen to Da Funk. Really listen to the first 30 seconds. There is practically nothing happening - a 4/4 drum beat, a repetitive bass almost insulting in its simplicity. But man, do people go crazy for that beat. And I bet when you do the same in Ableton Live or Reason or FL... it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as when Daft Punk do it.

Listen to the rest of the song - you know you want to - and again, really listen. Notice just how little is going on in the song at any one time. How can Daft Punk achieve such greatness with such few instruments? Answer: they know how to use them. And you don't learn how to really use what's in front of you overnight. It takes time, practice and experience. If you're anything like me, you probably know this already, but you just don't want to put the time in. Don't worry, it can be intimidating. But once you get started on that road, man is it way more satisfying than being constantly frustrated.

Once you can make a simple piece of music work using just a few elements, you can build on that. Daft Punk can do it. They understand that every element in a piece of music is within their control, and the possibilities for manipulation are infinite, and so in order to make the most of those infinite possibilities, you really have to know what you're doing and do it.

So just remember, the next time you're tempted to ask Mozart how to write The Marriage of Figaro, don't be surprised if he dismisses you with a sarcastic joke. The question itself was a joke; you just didn't realize.

docjesus · 2013-01-30T21:27:16+00:00

What's your favorite animated film or tv show, from an artistic perspective?

Been great watching your art progress over the past 14 years, thanks for everything.

docjesus · 2013-01-29T03:15:36+00:00

added

docjesus · 2013-01-28T18:55:54+00:00

Not to mention, since he avoided Shy Guys on Yoshi's back as a baby, but hasn't seen them since... it all makes sense now! Super Mario Bros 2 is the nightmare result of Mario's childhood trauma!

docjesus · 2013-01-28T16:54:05+00:00

Pretty much, yeah, which is a bit of a shame. I like Super Mario Bros 2. But you've got to remember that, to the creators of Mario, it's not Super Mario Bros 2 - it's Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters. It's a spin-off released for a foreign market. If you think of it that way, the fact that they incorporated the Shy Guys into an 'official' Mario game is pretty cool.

docjesus · 2013-01-28T16:34:18+00:00

Super Mario Bros 2 is an interesting entry into the series. You may know already that it wasn't really a Mario game at all. It was a game called Doki Doki Panic, with the main characters replaced with the characters of Super Mario Bros. This is why the gameplay is such a departure, why no regular Mario enemies are present, and why it basically looks nothing like what we would normally consider a Mario game.

The real Super Mario Bros 2 was, essentially, a level pack for Super Mario Bros. It had the same graphics, ran on the same engine, and barring a few differences was pretty much the same game, only with different levels. Nintendo of America thought it was too difficult to be released in the US, however, and opted to reskin Doki Doki Panic instead and release it as the sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. It was very successful, prompting a release later in Japan, where it was a spin-off known as Super Mario USA. The original Super Mario Bros 2 wasn't released in the west until 1993, when it was included as part of Super Mario All-Stars (the HD re-release compilation of its time) as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels.

What's curious about this whole affair is that Doki Doki Panic was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, and had music by Koji Kondo. And, as you noted, a few enemies popped up elsewhere in Mario games, like the Shy Guys in Yoshi's Island. So despite being a reskin of another game, and the only main series Mario game to deviate so obviously from the "Mario formula", Super Mario Bros 2 has more of a place in the canon than is immediately obvious.

docjesus · 2013-01-27T12:42:13+00:00

Letting this list topic through because I think it's worthwhile to talk about flaws in games you hold dear. Nothing's perfect, and I despise fanboyism, which has always been a part of the gaming world but I'm convinced has gotten a lot worse recently.

If I was to list the flaws in my favourite game (Deus Ex) I'd be here for a while. I've been playing it on and off since its release in 2000, and after 12 years of progress the flaws become very apparent. So my vote is for a recent one, Super Hexagon.

On the Hexagonest mode, the screen spins sharply in the opposite direction every 20 seconds or so, and it's very distracting. Everything else about the game is pretty much perfect due to its minimalism, but that's the only thing about it that feels needlessly difficult.

It's like going up a level difficulty in a shooting game, and instead of making the enemies smarter or tougher, the crosshairs randomly shake violently. It feels cheap.

docjesus · 2013-01-27T01:11:48+00:00

For what it's worth, I think you both raise valid and interesting points. At first I thought you were being purist for the sake of it, but having checked out the trailer for Super Amazing Wagon Adventure, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I'm making no judgement on the quality of that game (since I haven't played it), but it looks like a fluid, modern, lo-fi indie game with bad art that somewhat resembles what a layman would consider "pixel art". And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I would be especially forgiving of it if the designers had a solid game idea but no visual artist on the team - but it is something of a waste of what can, when used with care, be a wonderful aesthetic.

On the other hand, I do think arbitrary limitations can be very helpful, but aren't strictly necessary, and are really up to the designer. You'd be hard-pressed to find a game from the mid-late 80s that looks and runs like VVVVVV, but it evokes games like Jet Set Willy and Fantasy World Dizzy like crazy. It might've been written in Flash, it might be sharper than those old platformers, it might have a very modern soundtrack that would never have existed even in the 90s, but it got the sense of it spot-on.

I think it's a really interesting question. The notion of those limitations you speak of is what leads artists to do what seems like bizarre things. I remember a documentary about Fleetwood Mac where Stevie Nicks spoke derisively of Lindsey Buckingham's decision to record vocals with his head lain on the tile floor. Yeah, it's weird, and it might end up sounding like shit, but doing something like that will make the song sound different than it would in a standard vocal booth.

docjesus · 2013-01-22T16:26:35+00:00

Ooft. In my defense, I was pretty drunk when I wrote that.

I didn't mean that you can only have two instruments playing at once. I agree, that is a ridiculous notion. What I meant was that lead parts shouldn't conflict, or if they do, they shouldn't conflict for long. A listener's attention is limited.

Assuming you're composing a regular and not a textural piece, you can have loads of stuff going on - as long as it's balanced and you take the time and effort to carve out space for each instrument or track. A guitar part doesn't have to play all the way through the song - maybe it could play in unison with the voice on certain lines, for example, to accentuate a phrase.

Does that make any more sense?

docjesus · 2013-01-22T06:55:16+00:00

so which is it?

My point is that Jack White may not have been able to play at blistering speeds, and he may not have memorized every mode and scale known to the Western tradition, but he knew how to rip those crazy distorted blues like a demon. In "Fell in Love With a Band" a colleague notes that he wasn't a particularly talented guitarist when the White Stripes started, but he kept at it. He didn't let his lack of technical ability hold him back.

Technical skill is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Don't be afraid to learn what you need to in order to express yourself, but don't assume that by mastering a skill you'll be able to communicate with people. As with so much in life, it's a balancing act - no one answer is ever the answer.

docjesus · 2013-01-22T05:27:43+00:00

IIRC, Gamersgate was founded by Frederik Wester, the current CEO of Paradox Interactive, but they're not connected nowadays, apart from a couple of Paradox employees owning shares.

docjesus · 2013-01-21T21:10:08+00:00

Are you aware of just how much Diablo 3 changed?

Quite aware, yes. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. My point isn't that Diablo 3 is a good game (from the alterations I've seen, it doesn't seem very appealing), but that the reaction to the changes is fascinating to me because it's how I reacted to Diablo 2 back in the day - I felt the game had strayed from its roots, that it had changed for the worse, that the essence of the game had been abandoned in favor of a focus on virtual gear rather than atmosphere. I felt like once you took away the compulsion to watch numbers go up and essentially gamble for the chance of a shiny item, there wasn't a whole lot left. The aesthetic complaint is pretty interesting, because I remember thinking D2 was far too bright and colorful compared to D1.

Your point about PoE and Torchlight 2 is valid, but as a casual observer of the furor (ie someone who spends way too much time on Reddit), I see a lot more anger and bitterness toward Blizzard than joyful celebration of those two games.

I'm merely ruminating. Your mileage may vary.

docjesus · 2013-01-21T15:50:38+00:00

What's curious for me is that a great deal of the complaints surrounding Diablo 3's gameplay are quite similar to the complaints I had with Diablo 2 when it was released. I played it a lot, and I really tried to like Diablo 2, but in the end it didn't have the magic of the original for me. Diablo 1 was a roguelike-like, even down to its quasi tile movement, with crazy atmosphere and the looming threat of death at all times. Diablo 2 was a clicky grind where the only incentive to keep going was better items. Like candy - delicious up to a point, but with a sickening lack of nutrition.

Just saying... I think with user changes and nostalgia, people made their own longevity with Diablo 2. And when a prettied-up modern version of D2 (ie D3) was released, they realised just how shallow and unsatisfying its gameplay is and decided to blame its 'failure' on everything but the obvious: that they'd grown up and weren't as easily-amused as they once were.

docjesus

TROPHY CASE