ihavefivehat

Those look really great, Blambo!

Interesting, I'm very introverted and anxious in real life but I've always found online games liberating in that regard. Specifically random match making in games like Halo, where there is no pressure to develop a relationship or impress anyone. I find that they let me relax and 'be myself' in a way that I never can in face-to-face situations.

Yeah, I especially like the landscape. Are those giant figures part of a world/narrative that you have going?

Those are both great, and surprisingly vegan!

Looking back on what I wrote, insincere might have been the wrong word to use. What I meant was that in another context (like say Skyrim), a 3D model of a mountain might be intended as a simple reproduction of natural beauty. This game also uses a relatively naturalistic visual style, but it doesn't seem intended to provide only aesthetic pleasure; I find that the game makes me conscious of the mountain's artificiality more than anything. Anyway, I didn't mean to use 'insincere' as a negative value judgment and I like your thoughts on cynical optimism.

I think you're right that minimalism should be a flexible term which refers more to a way of working than to a specific visual effect. I think it's Mountain's post-modern sense of cynicism and insincerity which makes the minimalist label feel inappropriate. For me, minimalism seems to be born out of a sincere, almost faith-like belief that a given art form can be reduced to it's most basic essence, and that this reduction will result in a more pure form of beauty.

Maybe this is all still part of your dream!

I was playing Mega Man 2 this morning and for some reason I was finding the beginning of Bubbleman's stage to be strangely moving. Something about the combination of the color palette and the slightly psychedelic waterfall effect with the beautiful music. It reminded me that video games can be profound even in their most traditional state. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHjoXFAZlgw (the poor frame rate of this video doesn't really do the waterfall justice but it's the best one I could find)

Interestingly, he was also a passionate advocate for Swiss Kriss herbal laxative. He even volunteered to be in their advertisements, without asking to be paid. Apparently he would hand it out at concerts and to friends (who would be confused and disappointed when they realized it wasn't weed).

I started playing Dragon Age: Origins last night and as soon as I got out of the tutorial area I just started dying constantly. I can normally get through a fight after loading my game a few times but it's still frustrating. Any tips for someone who has no idea what they're doing? My dude's a mage.

I had an unusually poignant dream last night... I was in an old house. I didn’t recognize it, but I knew that it was the house of a childhood friend where I’d spent a lot of time as a kid. There were other people there, and they were acting strangely but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. They were being strangely nice, strangely supportive, and they were giving each other knowing looks as I walked by. I went down to the basement to get some boxes. It was an old basement with low ceilings and cobwebs. The walls were rough stonework and small windows let in just enough sunlight to see. In the center of the room was the foundation of an old chimney. I saw a crude chalk drawing on the chimney and recognized it as my own. It was something I had made as a child. There was unintelligible text and a badly drawn face. Around the drawing were stuck several post-it notes of different sizes and colors. As I went closer I realized that there were also older, half decayed bits of wadded up paper stuck into the stonework. I pulled one out and found that someone had written “fade away slowly” on it in pencil. All of the notes seemed to have vaguely poetic handwritten messages. Not knowing what meaning to take from all this, I took the boxes and went upstairs. As I came upstairs I began to feel a little bit light headed, almost as if I was floating. The lights in the house seemed warmer than usual and my vision seemed fuzzy. Gold flecks danced in my peripheral vision. I noticed that everyone was looking at me and smiling. I started to feel warm and content. Someone next to me looked into my eyes smiling and told me to fade away slowly. The golden flecks became more prominent in my vision and the yellow light started to blur away everything else. I felt like my body was becoming lighter and began to feel numb. It dawned on me that I was dead. I wondered if I had died as a child, shortly after drawing the face on the chimney. The people around me had known that I was a ghost and had waited patiently for me to let myself go. They seemed to know that it was time. I felt comforted and totally peaceful and I was happy to drift off. At this point I drifted in and out of sleep, wondering if I was dying in real life. The morning sun was filling my bedroom with the same warm yellow light in my dream, and I didn’t know if I was awake or still asleep. At the end of the dream I had a more intense feeling of peacefulness than I think I've ever felt in waking life. It's weird how dreams can do that.

I don't know if I like the way that Mountain is being described as minimalist. Visually, it's very lush and the text prompts which show up are sarcastic in a way that doesn't gel with my understanding of the minimalist aesthetic. The possibilities of interaction may be few and breadth of content may be small, but it still feels maximalist in the way it presents that content. In many ways, it provides a similar experience to looking at a snow globe, and I wouldn't consider a snow globe to be a minimalist work of art. I suppose if you're comparing it with video games then it does feel minimalist, but compared to art in general (and I guess I'm thinking mainly of Minimalist visual art from the 60s and 70s), it gives the viewer quite a lot to work with. Personally, I don't think it's useful to judge Mountain based on comparisons to video games just because it uses real-time 3D.

A projector sounds awesome! Would it work it a room that's gets pretty sunny during the day though? I don't really want to buy heavy curtains.

So I'm thinking of buying a TV for the first time. I don't really watch actual live TV ever, but I just want a larger screen to watch streaming video on when I have friends over. All I have right now is a laptop. I plan on just getting an HDMI adapter and plugging my laptop into the screen. Any buying advice?

Guitar Wolf is great! They starred in their own zombie b-movie called Wild Zero: I recommend it if you like dumb and stupid fun!

I just came across Bosca Ceoil. It's a loop-based music composition program made by Terry Cavanagh, the maker of VVVVVVVVVVV and other games. It's a small program that's very upfront about it's limitations, but it's extremely good at what it does. I found it to be a joy to use, and made this little tune for a game I'm working on in about half an hour. Out of the several music composition programs that I've tried, this one has come closest to being as fun and intuitive to use as an actual instrument. There are a few aspects of the program that you might not pick up on your own, so give the web page a scan after messing around with it for a bit.

I've been using RPG Maker for a long time just for fun. I haven't used the newer ones too much but I got deep into RM2K back in the days of yore. They're great for quickly mocking up 2D tile-based games. The interface for designing maps is particularly intuitive and fast. Once you know the systems you can pretty much make games as soon as an idea pops into your head (as long as it can fit into the JRPG mold of course). I believe with the newer versions you can finagle it to do pretty much anything you want, but at a certain point it might make more sense to use something like Game Maker.

I see it more as a metaphor for addiction what with the look of desperation in his eyes. He tells himself that eating dots will help him escape from the ghosts, but really they just bring the ghosts closer and closer.

I was listening to the first track you posted and my room mate yelled from the other room 'Are you watching that stupid show again?' meaning Game of Thrones! So I think you might have accomplished the epic blockbuster motif.

So this looks pretty fantastic! They're saying all the right things. I ache for more Zelda. Give me all the Links. I can feel my inner Nintendo fan-boy beginning to stir from his long sleep. Remember when Zelda was the most amazing thing, guys? What if that happened again? Oh yeah, and this exists: Let's pretend it doesn't!

'Open world' sounds interesting, but what excites me most are the comparisons to the original Legend of Zelda. That has always been one of my favorite games and it's really not too much like any of it's sequels. It's much more about survival, tenacity, and a sense of mystery than item collection and puzzle solving. I wonder how much of that they're going to incorporate into the new game.

Metroid has always been far more popular in the west than in Japan, but I've also heard that Zero Mission was a surprise hit over there. I would be cool with getting another 2D Metroid game by that team.

It's a bit messy but I bet it looks at least somewhat better in motion.

While learning how to use Processing's Minim audio library for another thing I'm working on, I got sidetracked and made this: It's playing clips that I cut from a Charles Mingus song in a random order.

Thanks for posting that, it was exactly what I needed to read.