clyde

I'm struck by this idea again today. I woke up and decided to research whatever civilization Columbus conquered. I was motivated by spite. I wanted to find a youtube-video that expressed my frustration with the celebration of genocide. I had a hard time finding documentatiom of what the Taino had to offer, what it is that Columbus took from us. I expected to find some dances and maybe some exotic system of math or a orgin-story that would put something in my own experience into a new perspective. But most of what I found was a discussion about the clash between the New-World and the Old-World (even those terms become suspect). I wanted to celebrate the Taino today, but only discovered what they meant in the context of Columbus's arrival. This is where we get to the game-relevant stuff: As I watched a few 10-minute segments of hour-long documentaries on Youtube about Columbus's arrival, I was struck by how much my perspective has changed in the last five years. I can't be sure that it is exposure to games that has caused the change, but I am curious. In 2008, I watched this type of stuff and just thought of Columbus as a racist, evangelical dick with weapons and a desire to maim for the fun of it. I blamed him. Now as I watch it, I think of Columbus as an object with behaviors within a game-system. I think that his identity and his circumstances determined the outcome (along with that of everyone else involved). Now, I blame the system, the way the elements interacted, the behaviors and rule-sets. I wonder if this type of thinking comes from gaming. I wonder if it will become more common. I think it may be more affective in forwarding my agendas. The subject fascinates me.

I wonder if blue frogs become red when they jump into flame. If not, they should.

There is zero chance that the Daily Challenge for 10-14-2013 was randomly generated. There were level-design jokes in it. There was a very strong smell of someone fucking with me all the way through the caves. And then the Damsel in World 2-1 (I think it was 2-1), you try to tell me that a level-designer wasn't fucking with us. I loved it.

The thing I really got out of the article is that creativity is often judged based on the resulting product's perceived usefulness. Making the biggest mud-pie in the world isn't really considered creative unless it's baked by Banksy. The author seems to be proposing that this narrow perspective on creativity is intended for a class of people who deal in financial markets and who qualify effort by how much it money it might make. I would be willing to suggest that because we have largely become a market-society, this method of valuing things is just as common with people outside the financial sector of expertise. The author could have gone to a little more effort by explaining to us what creativity is good for, if not for money made.

This is the difficulty I was having. I was playing a game a day on the xbox, not using any tunnels. I didn't know if the having the Steam version would be worthwhile. Here is what I have been enjoying about the Daily Challenge: -You get one shot at the Daily Challenge and it feels like the run is worth more. -Watching Chris and Nick play the same map is novel. The first time I watched them play a map I had played, I was surprised by how Nick went a different way and had a significantly different run because of it. I didn't realize how much variety there could be based on how you approach a map. -If you play soon after 8pm EST, you get to be high on the leaderboards for a little while and feel awesome. I don't know if it is worth it to you, but I'm happy with my purchase. I already have a ton of games I don't play, might as well spend more on one I do play.

I'm signalflow.

There's only one [Edit:] two ways to find out.

I was just waiting for one of them to panic with the shotgun in hand and shoot the other. Death was far more subtle.

They are doing a stream of Spelunky now.

Chris and Nick are about to stream their Daily-Challenges on Twitch.

I think of phone-games (oh shit, I wonder if the young'ns are going to supplant the default title "video-games" with "phone-games". I'm going to test the auto-correct: phonegames.) I got distracted; what I was going to say is that I think of PhoneGames as arcade-games. 99cents is the new quarter.

If me and Irish John count as a secret club, then "yes". You'll get an invite from Signalflow today. My run last night was really good, so it'll be a nice chance to brag

I still have no understanding of how the sceptre works. Last night, I killed myself trying to take out an angry shopkeeper with it. It picked up a barbarian and came at me.

I started working on a cyberpunk twine story today. Coming up with slang that is rad in a corny kind of way without making it sound like complete bull-shit is more challenging than I thought. I ended up calling orphaned street-husslers "minnows" to give you an idea of how bad I am at this. It's fun. Thanks for pointing this out, it looks like it might have something to it.

Last night I dreamt that I figured out a way to play Spelunky in first-person. It basically looked like Minecraft with slightly more detail. On the tip of the arrow-traps there was a barely raised area in the stone for bridge of the snout. The snakes were still round and smooth looking. One thing I thought was very noticeable was that there was water running down below in a ravine. The ravine seemed to be the thing that encouraged two-dimensional play.

Looks like something I'd rather play as a visual-novel than as a third-person slicer. I don't know much about making games, but I'm constantly baffled by the prioritization of technical parity over unique stories or systems. Personally, I'm more interested in playing a cyberpunk game where I'm trying to figure out who to trust, than playing one that focuses on combat. The cyberpunk universe has so much potential for new ways to feel vulnerable.

The lack of a triangular cursor is problematic.

Oh that sucks. Does that mean you can't watch it? Dude, the Mega-corps got some serious ICE. You should get a deck that doesn't belong in a museum and some decent ICE-breakers to access cyberspace. Also: The section of the video that explains what cyberspace is has "Fiction" blinking in big red letters for the duration of the segment so you don't get confused and think that you can jack-in to a landscape of geometric shapes that exists only in the mind of the console-cowboy. That is the best. Plus there is a part where they are talking about how in virtual-reality, you could be in the same place as a person in another part of the world and it looks like the Tuscany-demo for the Oculus.

This is fantastic. I had to share. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wbp6G8do2_E "Armed with their free super-computer and pixel-machine from AT&T, the group Process Animation produced their bizarre punk-graphics."

Man that felt fresh. The Daily-challenge feels like betting money. Oh wow, Nick's run today was a hilarious mixture of error and innovation. Skip to 4:50 if you want to hurry to the good stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mqQmSvCULtY

So Mario games have fewer variables that they permutate thoroughly, while Rayman games add more variables before they have demonstrated all possible mixtures?

I've been convincing myself everyday, that I don't need to buy Spelunky on an additional platform. I wonder if I'm missing out though. On the Xbox, I typically only do one run a day, but it isn't generated from a shared seed. I have no plans to upload videos of me playing, and I wonder how much I would watch of others after I attempt the deal myself. Fuck it. The potential that we may discuss the same anonamolous world-states on this forum is worth the gamble. I'm in. Should I spoiler-tag how I die? If anyone wants to add me, I'm signalflow.

I had such a great game today. I usually don't kill the shop-keeper, but my circumstances necessitated it in the Black-Market. I had 2 hearts and the bottom floor of the Black-Market had a particular combination of boomerang- guy and tiki-statue that would have been death. Later in the jungle I was doing some great stuff, like putting my damsel in a pocket in order to open up the area above the vengeful shop-keeper waiting for me at the door. I just waited for him to jump around enough that he hit the tiki or the spikes. Stuff like that. I felt like a boss.

What is a "very clean Mario experience"? How does Rayman not provide it?

Is George Burns in it?