Feb to March Update

Thanks to my camera-phone for this washed-out picture of the Grand 'Ol Canyon.  It's much more colorful than this.

Hello One and All,  It's time for a random slice of life posting from my favorite blogger: Yours Truly.  I actually did a couple things this last month.  I went to Arizona, that was cool.  Saw the Grand Canyon, which was awesome.  Grand Canyon is big, and it begs to be explored.  But if you're not careful, it will kill you.  

They say that every year people die at the Grand Canyon.  They go too far, they don't bring enough water, they get lost, and they die of thirst.  I understand why this is.  There is a sense of beckoning which I could not shake.  Even having been warned, I was tempted at every turn to travel deeper, knowing that the road out would be uphill and in the sun, twice as challenging as the road in.

The Gravity of the Grand Canyon is twofold strong:  there is the attraction of the canyon's great beauty, deep and complex.  There is the enormity of the canyon, a mile deep, stretching far and wide as if to swallow the sky.  The Grand Canyon is like an inverted mountain.  You can see everything, but there is so much to see, and such immense detail, that you've just got to take a closer look.  And because it is inverted, every step is heading downward, with gravity;  it's so easy to take another step, and another.  

I was alone, and ill-prepared, my trip to the canyon part of a last-minute trip to Arizona.  For these reasons, I did not go more than a thousand feet down.  That's 1/5 the depth of the canyon, for those keeping score.  But I very much want to return, and when I do, I will go down to the Colorado River, which flows at the center of the Canyon.  But I know it as a scraping from a skyblue colored pencil against the Canyon's many-layered backdrop.

The most adorable book on desert living you're likely to find

Tucson:
Hell yeah. Grand Canyon.  After a six-hour bus ride, I ended up in Tucson, visiting a writer friend of mine.  Tucson is a cool town.  I liked it's vibe.  She described it as 'artful and populist.'  Tucson has a pub theater similar to Austin's Alamo Drafthouse.  The Tucson theater is called 'The Loft Cinema' and is totally cool.  Lots of special events, current movies, classic movies, campy movies.

Random Game Rant:  
Flora and Fauna of Arizona are very different because it is a desert.  I wonder about video games and different climate regions.  Are there any games that go into detail?  Because RPGs frequently have an entire globes worth of regions, I imagine theres an RPG or two that goes to a deeper level with it.  MMORPGS most likely.

The ways in which I know RPGs do things that respect regional flora and fauna:  Different monsters, material harvesting, sometimes the landscape will change your ability to move - poison swamps, hills in Dragon Warrior slowing movement.   In general, my experience has been that the settings and climates of RPGs are mostly window dressing.  I just know it can go deeper.

The Train:
Oh, did I mention I too the train back?  30 hours on the train, from Tucson to Sacramento.  It was pretty cool.  I took the Texas Eagle from Tucson at 8:30pm, and was able to sleep pretty well, given that I had two seats to myself, and was able to spread myself out effectively.  Then, the next day I took the Coast Starlight from LA to Sacramento.  The Coast Starlight is very famous for its views of the ocean and coastal hills.  It runs from LA to Seattle, and I've taken it most of that distance, though always heading north.  I'd like to ride the length of it south, and who knows, maybe I'll get my chance, because...

Amtrak has an awesome plan to give free rides to writers!  Granted, I'm not sure I qualify, but I do have a blog and an English Degree!  Whatever the case may be, I think this is totally awesome, and a dream come true for writers/train lovers.  


Okay, that's all the news that's fit to print.  Talk at you later!

-D'vid

Saguaro Cactus.  These cartoon cacti only grow in the Sonoran desert.

A tendancy toward the Mundane

Image courtesy of   http://www.improvisedlife.com/2009/09/17/cherish-the-mundane/   -  and definition of Mundane courtesy of google

This is a ramble I wrote probably more than a year ago, but follows a theme that I have been exploring since we started this blog, and am still exploring:  my own interest in the mundane when it comes to video games.

It must be a product of growing older - that's the only thing I can chalk it up to - but my interest in action and adventure has severely declined, and my interest in the mundane has increased.  On this blog I've talked about  Bike Riding, Flying like a Bird and Riding the Train. I notice a similar trend in my preferred comics;  American Splendor, Harvey Pekar's slice of life comic book;  Love and Rockets, Dykes to Watch Out For - even Larry Gonick's Cartoon Guide to History (of the universe).  These works aren't terribly exciting, but I really enjoy them.  

The non-game game is a big phenomenon right now, and it's my favorite.   Proteus, To the Moon, Gone Home, Dear Esther are all big standouts from the last two or three years.  Come to think of it, Animal Crossing is still huge, and it's a highly Mundane game.  And then there's Nintendogs, The Sims, Civilization; Mundane games are nothing new, yet are still making headlines.

Let's take a look at the definition of Mundane, shall we?

mun·dane
  [muhn-deyn, muhn-deyn]  Show IPA
adjective1.of or pertaining to this world or earth as contrasted with heaven; worldly; earthly: mundane affairs.2.common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.3.of or pertaining to the world, universe, or earth.
Origin: 
1425–75;  < Latin mundānus,  equivalent to mund ( us ) world + -ānus -ane; replacing late Middle Englishmondeyne  < Middle French mondain  < Latin,  as above

Word Origin & History
mundane 
late 15c., from M.Fr. mondain (12c.), from L. mundanus "belonging to the world" (as distinct from theChurch), from mundus "universe, world," lit. "clean, elegant"; used as a transl. of Gk. khosmos (seecosmos) in its Pythagorean sense of "the physical universe" 

[Isn't this interesting?  The second definition is the one with which I am more familiar.  However, the first is not one I'd heard before.  I rather like it.  Earthly, yeah, that works for me.  Heaven is a place on earth, after all.]

James Portnow, writer for Extra Credits, is fond of saying:  'when you're making a game, you're crafting experiences'  This comes to mind for me whenever a game idea pops into my head.  A common feeling I have is that I would like to 'reverse engineer' an experience and see what happens.  Like I had a goofy idea that it would be fun to remake mario bros 1 but give him a cell phone and have the player get calls and texts while playing the game.  Just to play with the feeling of interruption I usually have when I get those calls and text.  It would be like a social media simulator mashup with a platformer.

I've noticed lately I have a tendency toward the Mundane when I come up with game ideas.  Like, for example,  I ride the Amtrak between Sacramento and Davis every work day.  And I spend most of these days staring out the window and watching the scenery go by.  I love it.  It's relaxing.  It's beautiful.  And it occurs to me that I want to simulate this experience with a game.  How boring eh?  And yet...

When the weather was better, I rode my bike to the train station on the American River Bike Trail.  And I had similar feelings.  I love the scenery I love the way the foliage surrounds me and I sometimes feel like I'm going through a tunnel of greenery.  And I want to make this into a game setting.  I don't really care.  Probably an RPG.  I just want to simulate the experience in game format.  I guess I'm just oriented toward games, mostly 8 and 16-bit RPGs.  Probably FF VI more than any other.

There's a theme with these two ideas:  they're both travel-based.  What I enjoy is the relaxed pace of moving forward, and the great scenery.  Essentially my idea is for an 'on-rails' kind of a game.
As an aside:  I've heard people say  more than once that the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are essentially travel novels.  That works for me.  Makes sense.  I like it.  While the LOTR movies had hours and hours of extended action sequences, the feedback I tend to notice regarding the books was 'Tolkien sure likes to spend a lot of time describing things.'  The man appreciated the little details, and lately I find that mundane details are what I'm looking for in games, rather than roller-coaster excitement.


-D


PS:  I never played Pokemon Snap, but I wonder if it fits in with this idea.  Originally, when I heard about that game, I remember thinking "what a stupid game.  I'll never play that"  "bo-ring" and other, admittedly, immature thoughts.  Granted, I hadn't played any Pokemon games at the time, so I didn't really have interest. I didn't even know how badass squirtle was yet.  Perhaps I will have to watch out for it to pop up on  half.com.

Yep, there it is, five bucks.  Once called 'the best game ever' by my friend Orangeleecy.  One of these days, I'm going to check it out.

Tetris Dreams part II

This is an old post I started a few months back when I was playing the first Final Fantasy.  I decided to return to the post, and I think I found something worth fleshing out.  I often use this phrase:  'as I'm riding the American River Bike Trail', which is where I often come up with video game ideas.  I like to imagine dynamic systems of life in terms of video games, and riding that bike trail tends to bring them to mind.  I enjoy doing this.  It's sort of like Tetris Dreams.  

The Iconic Fighter Guy

"Tetris Dreams" is a phrase I have heard a bunch.  Lately I've noticed that I get daydreams about different games.  Especially those with a simple interface.  For example:  I'm playing FF1 right now, and I'm sort of dreaming about it.  Stray thoughts at work, zoning out doing data entry, and I see the battle screen.  And the iconic fighter guy.  The others are there too, but he's the easiest to pick out.  It's sort of floating in the distance.   

Bagging groceries is like Tetris, kind of.  More complex, actually.  Because there is shape, weight and surface tension.  In Tetris, it's just shape.  I mention this because I've been bagging groceries at the local food co-op as means to keep me occupied and earn a discount on groceries. 

I think that some video game day dreams come from staring at the same screen for long enough.  Thats' why Tetris lends itself so easily, because of the simple patterns and repetition.  However, it may be more than that.  The images from Tetris or Final Fantasy may come easily because of their simplicity, but there are other video game daydreams that I have, which are based on mechanics instead of graphics.

Tony Hawk is the prime example.  After dumping countless hours Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, I couldn't ride in a car without imagining myself grinding on every available edge, doing kickflips as I hop from edge to edge.  It's tons of fun, and oftentimes I imagined the car itself doing these tricks.  Come to think of it, when really bored riding in a car, I used to imagine Mario (from the first game) running alongside the car, jumping over the fences, buildings and other obstacles along the side of the road.  It seems that there is something triggering about moving along the road at an even pace, watching the scenery go by.  

In further support of the connection between motion and video game dreams, a lot of my little video game ideas come when I am riding my bicycle, or riding the train.  In fact, when I used to commute by train, I would stare out the window at the Yolo causeway and imagine wandering around exploring.  Watching the seasons change and the effect it had on the plant life made me want to develop a game that had this sort of dynamic scenery.  It was very peaceful.  Around that time I discovered Proteus, which did a very similar thing to what I was imagining. Of course, I wanted to stick the environment into an RPG, because that is probably my favorite video game genre.

When it comes to RPGs, I often day dream about player statistics.  Levels, experience, strength, durability, attack damage and so on and so forth.  I imagine my experiences playing RPGs in my youth have become such a part of me, that the process of balancing equations in order to achieve in-game actions is just a part of me.  I enjoy pondering human systems in terms of RPG status sheets, hunger, thirst, tiredness, allergies, illness.  In the end, it's just tossing dice and applying meaning to the results.  Which is a great deal of fun.

-D