"This videogame is a bad perfume"
Howdy!
In this newsletter: a screed (“This videogame is a bad perfume”), a shout-out to Shing Yin Khor’s terrific solo journaling keepsake game The Bird Oracle, discussion of Ninefox Gambit Visual Novel Nonsense code choices (preliminary), and the obligatory catten pic.
In other news, I’m still at “do fun comfort activities to recuperate/distract from pain and Life, write when health permits.” We have a forecast of a high at freezing and six inches (15 cm) of snow for Baton Rouge tomorrow, which is wildly unusual for our climate. The city will be shut down; power and/or internet outages are likely.
NOTE: If you’re wondering why this newsletter does not otherwise (outside this paragraph) address or include )((INSERT POLITICAL/CURRENT EVENTS COMMENTARY FLAVOR DU JOUR lol)), my pragmatic answer is that I’m still sick and dealing with Life Stuff, and my other pragmatic answer is…I was in an M.A. teacher education program at Stanford during 9/11, and in practicum someone asked if we should set aside the one period of class we taught (as student teachers/apprentices) to processing the event. The experienced teachers were unanimously at NO for two reasons: (a) We might only be teaching for that one class during a given day, but imagine a day of (say) seven classes for a student and every single class is devoted to emotional processing. I don’t know about you but I’m a middle-aged adult, not a teenager anymore, and I’m at NO. (b) Sometimes the continuation of mundane normalcy, even if the mundane normalcy is the quadratic equation, is soothing and gives people nourishing structure in the face of terrible events. I invite you to complete the analogy.
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“This videogame is a bad perfume”
You’re probably looking at that header and going, “But who would do that?”
I see it all the time, although it’s (usually?) not specifically about videogames, and it’s (usually?) not specifically about perfumes.
Most of us wouldn’t expect a videogame to function satisfactorily as a perfume. (If you know a way, don’t tell me, I actively don’t want to know.) I don’t know about you, but I am routinely glad I can’t smell fictional worlds (or real ones…) in gameplay or fiction. Imagine your typical dungeon crawl’s odor palette, for instance.
On the other hand, I regularly see comments of the following forms (exaggerated for humor, but not always by much if at all):
“This book is a murder mystery but ugh, someone dies in the first chapter. UGH, ONE STAR!!!”
“This book is for nine-year-olds but ugh, it doesn’t have enough graphic torture and rape in it in a way that feels realistically grimdark for colonialism. UGH, ONE STAR!!!”
“This album is a recording of a musical but ugh, I hate music with lyrics and all these tracks are songs, I only like instrumentals. UGH, ONE STAR!!!”
“This GM-less, cozy, cooperative, consenus-based tabletop roleplaying game about camping trip buddies and slice-of-life happiness feels doesn’t have critical hit tables detailing damage dice and squidgy noise sound effects made by smooshed brains when you crush someone’s skull with a bec de corbin, ugh, how can you not include detailed combat rules?! UGH, ONE STAR!!!”
At some point, I’m left with the conclusion that the problem in this specific domain does not inhere with the creative work, it inheres with people who suck at reading/viewing/??? comprehension.
There are certainly times when (say) a work or adaptation is poorly implemented (according to some standard), or makes artistic decisions that one disagrees with (according to some standard), or the marketing/cover art/word-of-mouth/prologue is actively misleading as to the promised experience.
I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about “This videogame is a bad perfume.” At some point, I look at “bad perfume” audience reactions and laugh my head off because, sorry, no, some interpretations and some critiques aren’t even wrong.
(Unless you’re critiquing my works! Shinjo knows I do, constantly. Then of course you are always correct, and I salute your formal axiomatic systems!)\
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Meanwhile, one thing I am enjoying tremendously is Shing Yin Khor’s solo keepsake game The Bird Oracle, as backers got the PDF recently! “A keepsake journalling game about fortune telling, multi-level marketing schemes, and becoming a bird.”
I think you need to be familiar with Legend of the Five Rings CCG (Alderac Entertainment Group) for some of these card choices to make a lick of sense but:
nest - Hida O-Ushi inexperienced
egg - Egg of P’an Ku (alternately: The False Hoturi, Matsu Nimuro, Akasha)
feather - Shinsei’s Riddle (alternately: Doji Yasuyo, A Murder of Crows from Wheel of Time CCG)
eye - Lelouch Lamperouge (Code Geass; alternately: Shinjo Shono, Shiba Tsukimi, Far-Seeing Rice Grains from Shadowfist CCG)
seed - Jeon Somi, photocard from her K-pop album Game Plan (alternately: Chaos Charm from Magic: The Gathering CCG, Really Big Gun from Shadowfist CCG)
worm - The 12th Black Scroll (alternately: Mirumoto Hitomi, Dragon of the Void a.k.a. “the party favor”)
talon - Bayushi Kachiko experienced (alternately: Iuchi Karasu, specifically the Doomseeker a.k.a. “the staple-gun”)
bone - The Porcelain Mask of Fu Leng (alternately: Kuni Yori, Hida Sukune in the Shadow Samurai version)
NINEFOX GAMBIT VISUAL NOVEL NONSENSE
I’m still entertaining myself with Ninefox Gambit Visual Novel nonsense. Nothing useful to show yet but I am having fun with Unity and the visual novel extension/package Naninovel.
You may ask why I didn’t go with Ren’Py, Inform 7, Ink, Narrat, Twine, Godot, or other options for a visual novel. I’ve played with all of these except Godot (and I may poke at that too; this code base for a demo looks intriguing). There’s a twofold answer.
First, I want something “mainstream” enough for this specific project that I can look up questions on something like Stack Overflow and have a chance of finding helpful answers! Second, I want something that has audio integration with WWISE (it’s relevant-ish to my media composition degree, although I’m on intermission). Third, I want integrating visual novel or narrative UX not to be a complete pain. Fourth, I want enough flexibility to code minigames that aren’t strictly narrative. I ended up with Unity + Naninovel, although there are certainly other viable choices. (Ren’Py extended with Python would also work for my use case.)
But the other big reason is that I want to do the random hopping around R&D at the beginning, when I’m still early in the process and figuring out what works for me. I do not want to do it when 73% of the game is coded (lol) and suddenly I realize I need (or “need”) to refactor the entire freaking project for a completely different system. I went through that once with the Inform 6 to Inform 7 changeover and guess what! That IF is still half-written and has not been completed even though I would love to yeet it out of my life!
Meanwhile, in sussing out the mechanics for this unhinged Personal Project of My Heart, I blame my friend V for getting me into Hobonichi Techo. ;) I’ll leave it there.
And meanwhile, in penitence: a catten pic.
Questions, comments, or L5R anecdotes? You can reach me at: deuceofgearsart@gmail.com
Yours in calendrical heresy,
YHL