Braggin'

Hi! Conklederp here, just stopping by to do a little bragging on behalf of Jaconian, because I know he won't do it himself. Jaconian has a not-so-secret hobby aside from video games, and that is cross stitching. I think he has posted about it before. Well, in addition to stitching awesome things, he also CREATES patterns, which you can check out at his new Etsy store, ExorStitch.  The patterns he makes are sometimes snarky, sometimes geeky, and always super rad. Right now he's got a Stephen King tribute, a classic horror poster, a video game reference, and a threat from Norse Gods to clean your kitchen. It's refreshing to see some truly unconventional cross stitch patterns out there.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/209163138/the-code-cross-stitch-pattern?ref=shop_home_active_4

Super proud wife-thing signing out!
-Conklederp

Gone Home ... .. .

Jaconian has already written about Gone Home, and I suggest you go read his article now.  I'm writing with his article in mind, he does a great job of not revealing too much, but highlighting the emotional content in a striking and appropriate manner.  He also provides all the background necessary to approach this (non)game.  Suffice it to say, we had similar experiences, so I will try not to be too repetitive, though I'm sure some things will bear repeating.  For example, the following line:

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

This game is really sweet.  Not as in Totally Sweet! but a gentle kind of sweet.  The voice acting is excellent, and listening to Samantha's diaries is very affecting.  I love what a teenager she is, alienated, but excited by all these new things.  Also, I feel like the mixed-media approach to character building is special to video games.  In addition to her diaries, we pick up what kind of a person Samantha is through looking at her stuff, her room, her work assignments.

In particular the 'Menstrual Cycle: A Novella" is about the funniest damn thing I've read in a long time.  Simply fantastic.  A really neat detail is that later in the game: I found Katie's version of that assignment, and realized that Sam copied it entirely into her assignment, but wrote the story around it.  The tipoff was the last line "isn't it amazing what a womans body can do?" or something like that.  It was the only line that was not relevant to the assignment that Katie included, but Sam copied it verbatum.

One thing I want to note about the Journal entries is that the game is very lonely.  Both in play and as the character of Katie, there is a removal from the action that comes from being alone in a new place, after having been gone for a long time.  When the journal entries read, it's really nice to hear someone's voice.  Especially with how warm and happy Sam feels a lot of the time. I came to feel affection for Sam, both in my role play as Katie, and just as a player/viewer/reader/listener.

There's also a strange sort of voyeuristic intimacy that was mildly disturbing.  As an adult male, I questioned my right to this fictional teenage girl's private diaries.  

I wasn't a big fan of the setting as a dark and stormy night, it makes the whole process spooky, and I'm not sure I needed that.  I didn't understand this choice until I read Jaconian's review and he mentioned that it used a modified Amnesia game engine.    I suppose the spookiness was in homage to that.  Or maybe it was just in Homage to Portland.    Adding to the spookiness is the crappiness of my computer preventing smooth animation.  Can't blame the game for that.

One final *spoiler* - something I picked up from reading an article from clockworkworlds blog about Gone Home.  It reveals a darker story about Sam and Katie's father, and Uncle Vernon.  This is interesting, because of the content, and also interesting because a lot more detective work is required to piece this story together, as opposed to Sam's story, which is the central plot.  

Overall,  Gone Home really does all the things I hoped it would.  The emotional content and the attention to detail are fantastic. I dub this the Non-game-game of the year, 2013, retroactive!

-D

P.S.  just some odds, ends and ideas:

Another awesome detail was the note that said "Sam, don't leave all the lights on, you're as bad as your sister" - and of course, at that point I had left all the lights on.  Mostly because this place was flippin' scary! I love that the designers anticipated this.

I realize that Gone Home is very much like Dear Esther, though instead of a landscape, we have objects to examine, and in that way it is more complex than Dear Esther.  Dear Esther is more abstract.  But still, I am very hopeful for the future of games with Gone Home.  I hope that its success will tip off other developers for the future.  Also - must play Dear Esther again.

Imagine this kind of detective work in a supernatural game.  Like, imagine that the house is a stage in a game, that is actually a representation of a persons mind.  Like, professor X psychic style.  Gone Home is a short game, independently produced, but it could very easily be a chapter in a larger story.  This is definitely not the last I've said about Gone Home.  

Monthly Update: December

http://motherfuckingwebsite.com

Here is a funny link all about simple web design.  The last time I designed a website, it was in HTML 5, it was a Ryouga Hibiki Shrine on angelfire and was WAY too image intensive.  Granted, I was accessing with a 14.4k modem, but this taught me to design to my access speed.  I learned the basic lessons so hilariously described in the above link, and have occasionally remarked with incredulity at the super complicated websites of today.  Even though my access speed is now, something like 1000 times faster, website designers have managed to make things load almost as slow as the giant pile of P-chans that was my first website.  

Anyhow, that background helped make this silly link a lot funnier.  That and all the swearing.  Man, I'm surprised it took me this long to talk about Ranma 1/2 on this blog.

I just found out that Hiroo Isono, visual artist for the Seiken Densetsu series passed away this year.  Just about one year ago, I found out who he was, when I did cursory research for the Secret of Mana box art (possibly my favorite box art of all time).  His name has been very nearly the most popular search term bringing people to this blog.  And his art was really cool!

Links:
http://www.art-licensing.com/artists/Hiroo-Isono-Forests-and-Landscapes/biography.html
Official-seeming-site

http://www.realmofgaming.com/news/Hiroo-Isono-1945-2013/1811.html
brief eulogy

http://shinigamilist.com/2013/06/13/illustrator-hiroo-isono-passed-away/
another brief eulogy

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/hiroo-isono
lots and lots of art

I recently read an article arguing that the Mario Bros movie 'wasn't that bad.'  Well, I decided to finally watch it.  It's pretty bad, but it's a kids movie, afterall.  And they do a great job of putting in a bunch of game references in a movie that is, visually, radically different from the games.  Look out for snifits, fireballs, and an allusion to the last fight in Super Mario World.  And frankly, the acting is fantastic, Dennis Hopper, in particular. The sum total is a mediocre movie, not a terrible one. 

http://www.destructoid.com/why-the-super-mario-movie-is-an-underappreciated-masterpiece-29694.phtml

destructoid does a pretty good job of laying it out.

http://bottomlesswit.com/in-defense-of-the-super-mario-bros-movie/

this one's pretty good too, though I still don't think it's the one I read.

I'm between games, so nothing to talk about there.  I'm reading Haruki Murikami's book 'Wild Sheep Chase.'  I really like it.  The flow can be very strange, moving quick at times, slow at times, but I really like the lead character/narrator, and when this book is good, it's really good!  

The job search isn't going all that great, but it might help if I had any idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.  Except write for this blog.  Masters Degree?  Teach?  Desk Job?  Who knows.  Eventually I'm going to be tired of staying on couches, that's for sure.  Which reminds me, hey Jaconian and Conklederp...

Alright well, I hope I've wasted enough of your time.  Have a wonderful December!

-D

P.S.  Secret of Mana and the Mario Bros movie both came out in 1993.  But I wasn't making websites until '95, I think.

P.P.S. I almost forgot!  The Humble Story Bundle!  13 days left! Yeah, I bought it.  8 bucks.  I sometimes think I might like to talk about video games more than play them.  And this collection is just perfect for that tendency.  I'm pretty excited about it, but I wish they were physical copies, and not digital downloads.  Maybe if I owned a kindle I could split the difference, but alas, I do not.