- First, Hank points out that John is WRONG! (Also he makes up a song about Quarks and Amanda Bynes, which has stuck around). Warning: Puff levels are high.
- Next Watsky and Kate Nash give us a nice sonic kick in the ass.
- Finally Hank has managed to find the Google history of a certain someone who lived...
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 69)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, the Watsky - Vlogbrothers show continues!
Friday, December 05, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 68)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look at juvenile behaviour in both humans and birds.
- First, George Watsky talks at TEDxSFED about how he found a place he liked, that time he threw up on a plane and the ses in his speech.
- Next, Hank Green brings us a dose of drunk bird science on SciShow.
- Finally, Hank ruins all those songs he just danced to.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 67)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we return to the Internet of old and looks to the Internet ahead, make a box and eat a game.
- First, Hank Green refreshes your memory on all of the Internet dance crazes you may have forgotten. Also reflects on a few potential high points for the vlogbrothers project.
- Next, Adam Savage makes a box. Why is this a favourite? Because boxes are awesome, this box is particularly awesome and making things is cool.
- Finally, Rosanna Pansino makes a chess board cake and edible chess pieces.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 66)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we sing songs of work and of drug stores and also laugh with the vlogbrothers.
- First SuriOokami composed some lyrics for the Earthbound Drug Store Song and then sang them!
- Next we get the joy that is John and Hank together in the same room. Always a fun moment. (And hey, remember when video responses were a thing?)
- Finally, Watsky tells us the Moral of the Story of getting where you want to be.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 65)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we are strong like trees, get things done and rock out in the forrest!
- First off Laura Shigihara shows off why she's an awesome video game composer.
- Don't forget to check out the trailer for her new game Rakuen!
- Next from Weekend Confirmed, which feels way back in the day, Brendon Chung answers some questions about how (and why) to get things and discusses beginning at the end.
- Finally, Watsky is Strong as an O-A-K.
Friday, November 07, 2014
Project Update Post
I've managed to get behind on projects again, mostly due to having research and teach commitments that need to get done with a higher priority. Still I've managed to get a bit done and in this post I'm going to update my deadlines to give myself something to shoot for again.
- Project 5 - SNES Coasters and Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
- I've had to hold off a little on working on these due to house sitting and wanting to make sure that I'm using the same iron while testing.
- The SNES Coasters have been holding mostly steady, but I've decided that I want to build and test one of the bigger size before making others since that way I don't waste quite as much if I don't like the size.
- I'd like to finish and start testing the test SNES coaster by November 15, 2014.
- I spent a long time going through the Perler bead colours and discovered that I actually DIDN'T buy all the colours and I'm missing a few that might be helpful for the sprites. However I think I have enough on hand to make it through the small scale test.
- I've also done all the colour matching and think I have a plan for which colour of beads I'll use for each of the colours in the Chrono sprite.
- I'd like to finish a test block (just the colours) by November 15, 2014 and the small scale Chrono by November 30, 2014.
- Project 13 - Bubble Puzzle
- I haven't had time to start on this one at all yet, so I don't have much to report other than that I've decided to do a test with Unity that works well enough to shoot bubbles at other bubbles.
- I'd like to finish this Unity test by December 31, 2014
- Project 14 - Flash Fiction
- I also haven't made much progress on this one either so I think given that I'm still fairly early in November, I'm simply going to slide this back a month and hopefully put up my first piece by November 30, 2014.
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 64)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go back to my favourite dance / music / politician / mma fighter / thingy.
- One nice thing about working on my favourite YouTube videos is that it's a good reason to go an d check out the channels of people I don't favourite regularly and when I did my last volume on
WORLD ORDER オフィシャルサイト, I, ended up with some more favourites.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 63)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get music on a tea tin, posters made on three continents and the nerdfighteriest variety show.
- First, Laura Shigihara, gives us the Oolong cover of Schala's Theme from Chrono Trigger.
- Also check out the trailer for the game she's making! I'm excited!
- Next John Green takes a look at how the creation of a cool thing involved a lot of internet leg work and how copyright law's relation to that creation is complicated.
- Finally someone let John and Hank on the stage at Carnegie Hall. I guess there might be something interesting to watch in that (although I won't lie to you this video is 2 and a half hours long). Also the Mountain Goats show up and some guy named Neil something or other...
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Blog: Thoughts on Breath of Fire
Nostalgia is a funny thing. There are a lot of games I remember a specific fight or a cut scene or a character moment, but Breath of Fire, I remember mostly for a cup of coffee... getting the morning off school in Junior High or High School and getting a fresh cup of coffee and sitting down to play.
Lately I've been feeling a pull to play a lot of the old games I keep kicking around and for whatever reason Breath of Fire was at the top of that list. I've play every entry in the series and found them all to be generally likeable if not quite outstanding.
On replay, I thought to myself that while Breath of Fire had some pretty significant limitations but since it must have been such an early SNES RPG that it's easy to forgive. The problem came when I started doing some research:
From the Wikipedia list, Breath of Fire was released in North America on August 10, 1994, just over 2 months before Final Fantasy III/VI was released and years after much stronger RPGS such as Secret of Mana, E.V.O. or Final Fantasy II/IV. It's out of place historically, but given what I've been able to gather from the Internet, it was a project with very limited support within Capcom. This is only in North America as well, I can't imagine how it must have been viewed in Japan compared to some of the RPGs that weren't released internationally.
The other thing to say is that despite the general problems with the first entry in the series, the rest of the games get increasing better (at least up to a point) and the series really manages to differentiate it self.
Overall I can't recommend playing Breath of Fire (at least on the SNES, I've never tried the 2001 GBA port), the story is mediocre and much of the game's length is in the form of compound fetch quests (aHaHA, I won't give you the thing until you go get this other thing from the guy who will want you do do something else for HIM! aHaHaHaHa). The combat system drags and when coupled with the very long (though sometimes interesting) dungeons makes for hours of vaguely tortured boredom. At least without a good cup of coffee and a free morning, you should probably give this a miss.
There were a few things I generally liked about Breath of Fire. First, even though the story is not especially well crafted, I do like globe trotting RPGs and every location in the world is interesting enough that when you first get there you feel like it's worth exploring, even though most of the locals don't have anything useful to say.
I also liked that each of the characters in your party have a role outside of combat (on of the features they focused on to improve the rest of the series). Going into a dungeon? Better have your thief out so he can defuse the traps. Need to get though that wall? Get out the big guy. Running out of supplies? Bring out your hunter. Running out of money? Put the merchant to work. These all have plusses and minuses, but generally I like the way they add flavour to the game.
Beyond the main party, I also liked the once or twice when guest party members showed up. I like it particularly as an aspect of the story, having some extra people around who are not actually passive and incompetent around you and allowing you to do things with part of the party without having to change the difficulty. Mechanically (although less so in this game) it's also a nice chance to see more and different powers than your low level party might have.
The game also has an interesting tactic for dealing with your extra party members. One of your party can fuse several members together creating a character who is stronger than any of the separate members and has most of their abilities. In the late game this means that you can have seven of the eight characters in your party participating in big combat. The fusion system does produce one major question however: why do a monkey, a fox, an ox and a gold fish fused together form a floating green duck?
The dungeon design is also an interesting point for the game. When playing, it's awful, because the dungeons are long and the random encounter combat takes over every 4 steps on average. However, I do like that most of the dungeons make sense. When they're a ruined castle, they have rooms a castle might. When you're in a temple you have rooms a temple might. When you're in the great treasure store of the ancients there are traps and secrets hidden everywhere. I like this and I think that if the combat didn't drag the game down so far it would actually be a general boon to the game.
Another thing I liked about Breath of Fire was the "surprise" extra HP on the bosses. Especially early in the game fighting down the super powerful boss, getting their HP bar to drop to zero and then having them stand up and laugh at you is pretty cool. That it happens on every boss throughout the game is a little silly and loses the effect, but for a one-off it's not a bad idea.
Finally I have to say that while it's frustrating that the game had to rely so heavily on them, I love all the extra maps and charts that Breath of Fire came with. I like that kind of stuff and actually needing to refer to the map or look up what an item will do. As I said the fact that you needed to within game was a bit of a draw back, but doing it was cool.
As I've mentioned by far and away the worst part of Breath of Fire is the combat. It's the worst of the old-style turn based combat. Swinging your sword causes a random amount of damage to the enemy, casting a spell causes a set of damage to the enemy. That's it.
For the whole game.
There's a hint of a damage type system, but it's either glitched or not properly implemented because nothing ever changes. The hero can turn into several types of dragons, but the only thing to turn into is the one that will deal the most damage. To everything.
On top of that healing spells are cheap and your healer deals awful damage so even there the only question is how much damage to heal from the rest of the party.
The random encounters have another problem, they don't scale. The random encounter rate is set and you fight whatever is in the area. So if you're in an area with easy enemies, you fight them. Over and over again. And if there are enough of them then you can spend turn after turn dealing hundreds of times the health of the enemy but you can only hit them one at a time. Any kind of system to recognize that you're about to curb stomp the bad guys would have been great relief, especially given how much back tracking the game expects of you.
Another problem with Breath of Fire, but also one many RPGs of the age, is that clues about what's going on with the story are few and far between. If you weren't paying attention while plot was happening, or didn't understand, or heaven help you, you haven't played for a week, you're often left with no idea as to where to go next and there's no way within the game to get anyone to tell you anything. While I don't love some of the hand holding that modern games provide, Ni No Kuni's ever present plot instruction comes to mind, I think it's important to have something to give the player a direction to go if they're not finding it on their own.
Finally, as I already mentioned, for a game released this far into the SNES life, it doesn't look very good. The overworld sprites are not very detailed an animation though out the game is very limited. The combat sprites are nice and big, but are also oddly coloured compared to their overworld versions.
Generally I think a lot of the problems with this game come down to the size of the cartridge. Breath of Fire was released on a 12Mbit cartridge which was significantly smaller than just about any other RPG released on the SNES before or after. I think generally this shows that Capcom was not willing to put much money into development or production.
One thing I thought was funny as I played Breath of Fire was how much I did and didn't remember about the game. There were a few dungeons that I remember the layout of perfectly having not played the game in at least a decade. Some of those were early but interestingly some were quite late in the game. At the same time there were parts of the game I had no recollection of at all (such as the fusion system) despite having used them before.
I think the big thing to take away from Breath of fire is that if you're going to have a large group in an RPG make sure that they all have things to do. There are some games where you have a bunch of people sitting around because they're not as good as others and you don't have a reason to use them. While I might not always implement it the way Breath of Fire has, making sure that every playable character has a unique and required characteristic in gameplay is important.
I also always like to make sure that dungeons are reasonable, if a place was a place make it look like that place rather than just like a random assortment of rooms. I think this probably untenable in some situations but it's still an ideal I find important.
Finally I do like the bosses not getting knocked down when the "run out" of HP. If used sparingly I think that can give a game a little memorable spark. If overused, like in Breath of Fire, it gets uninteresting really quickly.
As I said in my introduction, there's not a lot of inherent reason to play Breath of Fire. Other games in the series are better and other games of the era are also better. I enjoyed it for the nostalgia and for some of the touches of the world, but that's about it. I'm glad it exists and I'll leave it there.
 |
| Breath of Fire (yes that is a Fish to the left of the hero) - From Hardcore Gaming 101 |
Lately I've been feeling a pull to play a lot of the old games I keep kicking around and for whatever reason Breath of Fire was at the top of that list. I've play every entry in the series and found them all to be generally likeable if not quite outstanding.
On replay, I thought to myself that while Breath of Fire had some pretty significant limitations but since it must have been such an early SNES RPG that it's easy to forgive. The problem came when I started doing some research:
From the Wikipedia list, Breath of Fire was released in North America on August 10, 1994, just over 2 months before Final Fantasy III/VI was released and years after much stronger RPGS such as Secret of Mana, E.V.O. or Final Fantasy II/IV. It's out of place historically, but given what I've been able to gather from the Internet, it was a project with very limited support within Capcom. This is only in North America as well, I can't imagine how it must have been viewed in Japan compared to some of the RPGs that weren't released internationally.
The other thing to say is that despite the general problems with the first entry in the series, the rest of the games get increasing better (at least up to a point) and the series really manages to differentiate it self.
 |
| A dragon told me - From Hardcore Gaming 101 |
Overall I can't recommend playing Breath of Fire (at least on the SNES, I've never tried the 2001 GBA port), the story is mediocre and much of the game's length is in the form of compound fetch quests (aHaHA, I won't give you the thing until you go get this other thing from the guy who will want you do do something else for HIM! aHaHaHaHa). The combat system drags and when coupled with the very long (though sometimes interesting) dungeons makes for hours of vaguely tortured boredom. At least without a good cup of coffee and a free morning, you should probably give this a miss.
Things I Liked
There were a few things I generally liked about Breath of Fire. First, even though the story is not especially well crafted, I do like globe trotting RPGs and every location in the world is interesting enough that when you first get there you feel like it's worth exploring, even though most of the locals don't have anything useful to say.
 |
| Travel the world! Meet these people! They talk by flute. - From GameFaqs - Ofisil |
I also liked that each of the characters in your party have a role outside of combat (on of the features they focused on to improve the rest of the series). Going into a dungeon? Better have your thief out so he can defuse the traps. Need to get though that wall? Get out the big guy. Running out of supplies? Bring out your hunter. Running out of money? Put the merchant to work. These all have plusses and minuses, but generally I like the way they add flavour to the game.
Beyond the main party, I also liked the once or twice when guest party members showed up. I like it particularly as an aspect of the story, having some extra people around who are not actually passive and incompetent around you and allowing you to do things with part of the party without having to change the difficulty. Mechanically (although less so in this game) it's also a nice chance to see more and different powers than your low level party might have.
The game also has an interesting tactic for dealing with your extra party members. One of your party can fuse several members together creating a character who is stronger than any of the separate members and has most of their abilities. In the late game this means that you can have seven of the eight characters in your party participating in big combat. The fusion system does produce one major question however: why do a monkey, a fox, an ox and a gold fish fused together form a floating green duck?
The dungeon design is also an interesting point for the game. When playing, it's awful, because the dungeons are long and the random encounter combat takes over every 4 steps on average. However, I do like that most of the dungeons make sense. When they're a ruined castle, they have rooms a castle might. When you're in a temple you have rooms a temple might. When you're in the great treasure store of the ancients there are traps and secrets hidden everywhere. I like this and I think that if the combat didn't drag the game down so far it would actually be a general boon to the game.
Another thing I liked about Breath of Fire was the "surprise" extra HP on the bosses. Especially early in the game fighting down the super powerful boss, getting their HP bar to drop to zero and then having them stand up and laugh at you is pretty cool. That it happens on every boss throughout the game is a little silly and loses the effect, but for a one-off it's not a bad idea.
Finally I have to say that while it's frustrating that the game had to rely so heavily on them, I love all the extra maps and charts that Breath of Fire came with. I like that kind of stuff and actually needing to refer to the map or look up what an item will do. As I said the fact that you needed to within game was a bit of a draw back, but doing it was cool.
Things I Didn't Like
As I've mentioned by far and away the worst part of Breath of Fire is the combat. It's the worst of the old-style turn based combat. Swinging your sword causes a random amount of damage to the enemy, casting a spell causes a set of damage to the enemy. That's it.
For the whole game.
 |
| There is too much of this. Also she's not supposed to be blue ... I think. - From GameFaqs - Ofisil |
There's a hint of a damage type system, but it's either glitched or not properly implemented because nothing ever changes. The hero can turn into several types of dragons, but the only thing to turn into is the one that will deal the most damage. To everything.
On top of that healing spells are cheap and your healer deals awful damage so even there the only question is how much damage to heal from the rest of the party.
The random encounters have another problem, they don't scale. The random encounter rate is set and you fight whatever is in the area. So if you're in an area with easy enemies, you fight them. Over and over again. And if there are enough of them then you can spend turn after turn dealing hundreds of times the health of the enemy but you can only hit them one at a time. Any kind of system to recognize that you're about to curb stomp the bad guys would have been great relief, especially given how much back tracking the game expects of you.
Another problem with Breath of Fire, but also one many RPGs of the age, is that clues about what's going on with the story are few and far between. If you weren't paying attention while plot was happening, or didn't understand, or heaven help you, you haven't played for a week, you're often left with no idea as to where to go next and there's no way within the game to get anyone to tell you anything. While I don't love some of the hand holding that modern games provide, Ni No Kuni's ever present plot instruction comes to mind, I think it's important to have something to give the player a direction to go if they're not finding it on their own.
Finally, as I already mentioned, for a game released this far into the SNES life, it doesn't look very good. The overworld sprites are not very detailed an animation though out the game is very limited. The combat sprites are nice and big, but are also oddly coloured compared to their overworld versions.
Generally I think a lot of the problems with this game come down to the size of the cartridge. Breath of Fire was released on a 12Mbit cartridge which was significantly smaller than just about any other RPG released on the SNES before or after. I think generally this shows that Capcom was not willing to put much money into development or production.
Things I Noticed
One thing I thought was funny as I played Breath of Fire was how much I did and didn't remember about the game. There were a few dungeons that I remember the layout of perfectly having not played the game in at least a decade. Some of those were early but interestingly some were quite late in the game. At the same time there were parts of the game I had no recollection of at all (such as the fusion system) despite having used them before.
 |
| He's the first. Others will follow. Ryu - From Hardcore Gaming 101 |
Things I'd Include in a Game
I think the big thing to take away from Breath of fire is that if you're going to have a large group in an RPG make sure that they all have things to do. There are some games where you have a bunch of people sitting around because they're not as good as others and you don't have a reason to use them. While I might not always implement it the way Breath of Fire has, making sure that every playable character has a unique and required characteristic in gameplay is important.
I also always like to make sure that dungeons are reasonable, if a place was a place make it look like that place rather than just like a random assortment of rooms. I think this probably untenable in some situations but it's still an ideal I find important.
Finally I do like the bosses not getting knocked down when the "run out" of HP. If used sparingly I think that can give a game a little memorable spark. If overused, like in Breath of Fire, it gets uninteresting really quickly.
Final Thoughts
As I said in my introduction, there's not a lot of inherent reason to play Breath of Fire. Other games in the series are better and other games of the era are also better. I enjoyed it for the nostalgia and for some of the touches of the world, but that's about it. I'm glad it exists and I'll leave it there.
 |
| The End. Also that's a hell of a font. |
Friday, October 03, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 62)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we take a look at some cool and creative covers of video game music (surprise!).
- First we have Brentalfloss's Ballad of the Mages. The song is great, and the muppetry is awesome. One of my all time favourites (hence how it got in this list... I'm feeling super obvious today).
- Next Brentalfloss sings of the love that a dinosaur who eats everything can have for a baby who fell out of the sky.
- Funny side note: I'm actually watching ProtonJon play Yoshi's Island right now.
- Finally Jimmy Wong puts together a great group of people to cover a medley of Legend of Zelda Music.
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
Project 14: Flash Fiction
A little while ago I had the please of listening to Neil Gaiman speak and read at my university. Unsurprisingly, this was really good and it was also inspiring.
I want to write and I don't write, which tends to be an impediment to getting anything written. So given this inspiration (months and months ago, remember we're fighting the procrastination here), I decided that I wanted to write a handful quick things to get myself going.
So Project 14 is a handful of Flash Fiction things. Basically, short 500-100 word pieces from some of the worlds that float around in my head. I'd like to do six of them and I'd like to do one a month for the next six months.
The first one is set on a space station and I plan to put it up here by October 31, 2014. (Sorry, it's not spooky).
I want to write and I don't write, which tends to be an impediment to getting anything written. So given this inspiration (months and months ago, remember we're fighting the procrastination here), I decided that I wanted to write a handful quick things to get myself going.
So Project 14 is a handful of Flash Fiction things. Basically, short 500-100 word pieces from some of the worlds that float around in my head. I'd like to do six of them and I'd like to do one a month for the next six months.
The first one is set on a space station and I plan to put it up here by October 31, 2014. (Sorry, it's not spooky).
Friday, September 19, 2014
Project 13: Bubble Puzzle
One of my favourite genres of video games is the "bubble puzzle," with games like Snood, Puzzle Bobble, Supermagical or even Zuma.
I like that these games can either be very contemplative or very active. It's also easy to scale these games to be easier or harder based on speed and the potential number of combinations of bubbles. It's also possible to create interesting combination situations based on the kind of rules you apply to the game field.
I've definitely been feeling like I want to put more of my time into making a game again and I would also like the chance to explore some environments and tool sets for making games. So I've decided that Project 13, will be a Bubble Puzzle game that gives me a reason to get organized and make something fun.
 |
| Puzzle Bobble - Taito 1994 - Image from the Games Database |
I like that these games can either be very contemplative or very active. It's also easy to scale these games to be easier or harder based on speed and the potential number of combinations of bubbles. It's also possible to create interesting combination situations based on the kind of rules you apply to the game field.
I've definitely been feeling like I want to put more of my time into making a game again and I would also like the chance to explore some environments and tool sets for making games. So I've decided that Project 13, will be a Bubble Puzzle game that gives me a reason to get organized and make something fun.
 |
| Supermagical is the same but sideways - Image From Supermagical Blog |
The Game
Basically the game will follow the simplest bubble puzzle format (such as Snood), where rows of bubbles will be pushed down from the top. You will have a dial and will have to shoot bubbles at the defending lines to push them back and defend yourself.
Stylistically I've decided (and I'm no artist so we'll see how this *actually* goes) that you will play a team of squirrels fighting against a bunch of robots.
Basically at each turn robots will produce a number of bubbles which will be pushed onto a line above the play field, once that line is full it will push onto the field. Meanwhile squirrels will dig up bubbles for you to shoot at the descending rows. Bubbles will stick together and will explode when more than 3 of the same type touch. If a bubble isn't attached to the top anymore then it falls to the bottom.
When bubbles fall to the bottom their power will be collected and you will use that power to turn off the robots. Once the robots are turned off, they'll stop producing bubbles of specific colours. Once the robots aren't making any new bubbles you win the round.
 |
| Snood - Image from Snood World |
The Plan
I'm interested in making this game either in Unity or using an HTML 5, so before making too many further plans my first goal is to investigate these platforms (particularly finding an HTML 5 engine I like).
My goal is to have played around enough to know what platform I'll develop the bubble puzzle game in by mid October 2014 (which we'll call the 16th).
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Project 12: Chrono Trigger Sprites: Update
The Chrono Trigger Sprites are another project I stalled on.
One of the big concerns I ran into was figuring out what colours of perler I wanted to use. I had a sampler set of beads (which I made the test patch in the picture above from), which was a good starting point. I was able to create the original SNES Coasters out of that set, and I might have been able to start on the sprites, but there was one particularly large problem ... I can't figure out what colour (by name) each of these colours is.
So that slowed me down some, along with all the other usual distractions that lead to me not finishing a project. However I have now solved this problem, I went out (to the Internet) and bought myself ALL of the beads:
Anyway, now that I have all the beads and I'm super organized, I'm out of good excuses not to work on the Chrono Trigger Sprites. So I'll bring the project back up and try to finish a Chrono in 20cm scale by September 30, 2014.
One of the big concerns I ran into was figuring out what colours of perler I wanted to use. I had a sampler set of beads (which I made the test patch in the picture above from), which was a good starting point. I was able to create the original SNES Coasters out of that set, and I might have been able to start on the sprites, but there was one particularly large problem ... I can't figure out what colour (by name) each of these colours is.
So that slowed me down some, along with all the other usual distractions that lead to me not finishing a project. However I have now solved this problem, I went out (to the Internet) and bought myself ALL of the beads:
On the EK Sucess Perler site, they sell 1000 bead bags of every colour. I started to try to figure out what matched what I had already through the website, but then ended up just picking up one bag of everything they sold. Fortunately perler beads are relatively affordable and the promise of free shipping on large enough orders convinced me to just go ahead and do it. Sadly it turns out that that offer wasn't available to Canadians, but still at the end of the day a big box of perler beads appeared at my door, for not that much out of pocket. And now I know name of every colour of bead I have.
As a side note, I wanted to find a nice way to sort the beads that I had. Conveniently I found a screw sorter that happens to perfectly hold 1000 beads in each drawer and probably 3000 in the bigger drawers, which seems like a really nice way to be organized for a project.
Anyway, now that I have all the beads and I'm super organized, I'm out of good excuses not to work on the Chrono Trigger Sprites. So I'll bring the project back up and try to finish a Chrono in 20cm scale by September 30, 2014.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Projects 8, 9, 10 and 11: The Future Pack: Updates
The set of future projects that I wanted to write down but not start yet, also gets updating although I'm still not actually going to put a deadline on any of them yet.
- Project 8 - Space Station Simulation Game
- This is still on the back burner, although I have given it some more thought. I'm also thankful that SpaceBase DF-9 while similar is not exactly what I was thinking (although it may prove to be that it is what it is since it's hard to make a space station simulator the way I've imagined it.
- I'm not going to start on this project until I've taught myself Unity as an environment to work in and made a simpler game first.
- Project 9 - An Action RPG
- The Action RPG is still the game I would most like to make, but as with the Space Station Game I want to get a little more experience so that I can make something I'm happy with.
- Project 10 - A Sci-Fi Novel
- This is the future project that I'm least ready to start. Given that it's something I've been thinking about for years it's a difficult project to work on.
- Project 11 - A Fantasy Novel
- This is probably the project I'm closest to really attempting to start. At the moment I'm not sure how much time I have to dedicate to it, since there are some other things I'd like to do and there's still that pesky PhD to work on.
Project 7: A Hockey Card Game: Wrap-Up
I messed around with the mechanics for the hockey card game for a while but basically hit a point where I realized that designing a balanced and interesting card game is pretty hard. So until I get inspired to do the work to finish this, it's an abandoned project for the time being.
Project 6: 100 (days of) Sketches: Wrap-Up
Well, this is another project that's fallen off the face of the earth. It's been more than a year since I was supposed to update it and I haven't done that. I also didn't at the end of the day actually sketch on anything like a hundred days for those six months.
For now I'm going to let this project lapse, but I may revisit it when I feel like that's the direction I'd like to push my creative actions!
For now I'm going to let this project lapse, but I may revisit it when I feel like that's the direction I'd like to push my creative actions!
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Project 5: SNES Coasters: Bigger, Better, Slightly Less Tippy, and Going on the Road
In my last update I finished making a set of 8 coasters using the exclamation blocks from Super Mario World.
I've now taken them out and used them in the real world and come to the conclusion that they're too small, as I suspected this in the last post. They've also suffered from a certain amount of cupping, all of which makes them a touch unstable. There has only been one major incident with spillage due to the coasters, but it still bugs me.
I've decided I want to try a couple of things, that will result in basically 3 mini-projects.
- The first is that I want to make larger coasters, the current ones are 16 beads wide/tall and if I add an extra ring of beads they will end up being 18 beads wide/tall and that should improve the stability and make them a little more useable.
- The second is that I want to test mailing these. I'm tempted to start an Etsy shop and sell a few sets of these, although I'm not convinced that's something I really want to do. Either way a better understanding of how to mail these things around would be nice, so I'll make a second set of the larger coasters (assuming that the first batch come out right) and send them to a friend who thought they were cool.
- The third is to try a different pattern. There are some gifts I'd like give and I feel like taking a pattern from Illusion of Gaia, might be a good fit for the decor of the people to whom I'd like to give the gifts. Hopefully, I can end up with video game decor that doesn't look to video gamey.
So I'd like to finish the first batch of bigger coasters by August 31, 2014. I'll update about the other parts when I've done that.
Friday, August 01, 2014
Project 1: Fourth Season of the Blog
Happy Blog Start and End Day!
Yup, it's August 1st again and that means that the Third Season of the Blog draws to an end. It also means (as you might have guessed from the title) that it's the kick off to the Fourth Season of the Blog.
As a quick reminder this project is the Blog as a Blog part of the Blog. The Blog as a discussion of Projects part of the Blog is a separate thing, which I will post an update about shortly.
For the Blog as a Blog project, I didn't make my goal of a post every two weeks, although I've managed at least five posts a month since May, which I'm fairly happy with. I've also managed to refine my process for producing my favourite YouTube videos posts so that I can make them relatively quickly and painlessly.
I haven't done as well at other posts. I have a backlog of thoughts on video games posts that I'd like to put out there, but this season I only manage to produce two. I also haven't wanted to blog about too many other things since, I'm fairly busy and there's no shortage of opinions about things on the Internet.
Overall I'm happy to keep doing what I'm doing on the blog. For the time being (for the next year) my goal is still to put up two posts a week. Once I feel like I've worked out a system where by I can regularly put up content, then I'll think about expanding what I do.
Yup, it's August 1st again and that means that the Third Season of the Blog draws to an end. It also means (as you might have guessed from the title) that it's the kick off to the Fourth Season of the Blog.
As a quick reminder this project is the Blog as a Blog part of the Blog. The Blog as a discussion of Projects part of the Blog is a separate thing, which I will post an update about shortly.
For the Blog as a Blog project, I didn't make my goal of a post every two weeks, although I've managed at least five posts a month since May, which I'm fairly happy with. I've also managed to refine my process for producing my favourite YouTube videos posts so that I can make them relatively quickly and painlessly.
I haven't done as well at other posts. I have a backlog of thoughts on video games posts that I'd like to put out there, but this season I only manage to produce two. I also haven't wanted to blog about too many other things since, I'm fairly busy and there's no shortage of opinions about things on the Internet.
Overall I'm happy to keep doing what I'm doing on the blog. For the time being (for the next year) my goal is still to put up two posts a week. Once I feel like I've worked out a system where by I can regularly put up content, then I'll think about expanding what I do.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 61)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get back around to Christmas, chill out and celebrate the end of the rad!
- The first video is the Chemistry Christmas Tree from Periodic Videos. I love the community vibe of the University of Nottingham, School of Chemistry, and how you see students and researchers gathering together for a moment to show off what they love. (Also nice instrumental Christmas music)
- I love how the two halves of Pomplamoose make music thats just as awesome on their own as they are together even though they're in totally different genres. Here Nataly Dawn chills out and Dances.
- Finally, four rad dudes got together and made us the very final episode of the Totally Rad Show. (Warning, this is over an hour long!)
Friday, July 25, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 60)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get to enjoy music in boxes and music about boxes and learn together.
- First we have a guy making music in boxes. No not that guy. This guy! Even if the song doesn't grab you the video magic will!
- Next Brentalfloss and DemonTomatoDave wax (on and off) reminiscent about the first ever Gameboy Mario game.
- Finally, John Green goes to TEDxIndiianapolis at how we learn together and how communities such as YouTube can help draw people together to learn.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 59)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we borrow a theme song, escape a labrynth using graphs and ride on a (no longer) new rail line.
- The first video in this set is Pomplamoose's theme song for "Hey It's Pomplamoose" (Their live streaming show). Also, they talk about a live stream that we can't go to without a time machine. Also also, I think Jack might be hard to live with, "How did you even get drums UP there?"
- Next, Numberphile and James Clewett unravel some Choose your Own Adventure books.
- Finally, The City of Calgary (my hometown) put up a video of the trip in to downtown on the new leg of the CTrain which opened late in 2012. I still haven't actually made the trip all the way out myself, but this video makes me happy.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 58)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, Hank tells us 151 jokes. Not sure how I never favourited these before now. Possibly BECAUSE I'M DEAD. (But no.)
- I regularly tell the elephant jokes.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 57)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, Ze Frank tackles us with a trio of videos.
- First, Ze ask questions about questions about sex.
- Next, Ze reminds us of that time...
- Finally, Ze makes some sounds for us to listen to
Tuesday, July 08, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 56)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go smart and old-school, celebrate a kilovid of vlogbrothers and guess Doctor Who.
- In the first video in this volume, composer / YouTuber Bulbamike renders the QI theme in 8-bits. Also he renders Mr. Stephen Fry in a slightly odd aspect ratio, but never mind that.
- Next, we wish John good morning for the 500th time. A lot has changed and a lot will change, but I'm always thankful that I have all of the things that Hank and Jon produce in my life. Also I can't figure out when I started watching vlogbrothers, but I'm happy to postdate myself to that very first "Good Morning".
- Finally, Karen Kavett remixes a Guess Who board into a Doctor Who Guess Who board. I can't say that I've felt I needed one of these, but the process of taking something and making it definitively yours is really cool.
Thursday, July 03, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 55)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, things are adorable, things are triumphant and things are sad. Also we've wrapped around back to that point I was doing Cool Things. (I gave that up, but still kinda keep the tradition going on twitter.)
- This volume starts with the introduction of Mr. Charlie McDonnell's Blippid Book. What's a Blippid Book? Well you'll just have to watch to find out, won't you! But you can rest assured Charlie was just as adorable when he was one as he is now.
- Next, Dodger tackles "They Bleed Pixels" which is a super unforgiving, but awesome looking platform. She never finished the game, but I really liked watching all the videos in this series since there's a lot of triumph when she beats the super hard parts. I also really like the way the wall jumps work in this game.
- Finally we have a memorial Coffee Time vlog by Dodger for her Papa, who sounds like a pretty amazing guy.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 54)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos sings us a song, then doodles us some math and some art.
- First, Nataly Dawn (the less bearded half of Pomplamoose) sings to us about Areceli.
- Next, ViHeart tackles the boredom of parabolas and doodles her way to ... well, I won't spoil it...
- Finally TEKSTArtist draws the Holstee manifesto. This is your LIFE...
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 53)
This musical volume of my favourite YouTube videos will be with you in a minute, but it has some questions about your philosophy (and also your building codes).
- Brentalfloss opens this volume up with the BioShock song. I find it hard to believe that I started following him because he seemed like a smart guy who could play video game music. Now look at him. Interestingly he also just released the BioShock Infinite song, if you enjoy this one.
- Next, Hank Green has his annual wizard rock song from 2012 with some questions for the wizards. Given that these feel a lot like the questions I run across when I'm looking at video games, I feel a bit like this song is an anthem for questions.
- Finally, Pomplamoose will be there in a minute. (Minute, minute). Out of their original songs, I think this one is my favourite. I also like the dance for busy people who might have to pee.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 52)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we deal dealing with with death, how raspy throats lead to the labour movement and how everything seems to be linked to everything and that's pretty ok.
- First, Dan Misener (CBC producer and guy who reads stuff he wrote as a kid), ukuleles the joint up a bit covering "She's Dead" by Jim's Big Ego.
- Next, Hank Green got sick enough that he could sing on of my favourite songs, "Sixteen Tons" so he did.
- Then John Green reflects on a Leaky Con, is forced to read something he wrote as a kid (it's all circles) and discovers more circles and reflections in being.
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 51)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get a look at public relationships, cosplay in action and acting, and the children of gods who are themselves gods (or something).
- First in this volume, Charlie McDonnell talks about entering into a public relationship. I debated a little, whether or not I should include this video since the relationship didn't last the time between then and now, but I think that the problems Charlie faces are still important to talk about.
- Next Adam Savage sits down with Norm from Tested to talk about his No Face costume. I thought their remarks on the theatre that comes out of cosplaying interesting. I always like seeing characters who have an established relationship meet at a con.
- Finally we have the first episode in Chuggaconroy's Okamiden Let's Play. As with all Let's Plays I'm including the first episode as the placeholder for the whole series. If you're looking for a long format play through of a fun, charming game, with a fun and terribly punny commentator this would be your target.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Blog: Thoughts on Ni No Kuni
This is a post I've been sitting on for a very long time. It's been most of a year since I finished playing Ni No Kuni, but I haven't felt like finishing and getting this out the door. Aside from normal procrastination, I think the problem is that, while Ni No Kuni is a great game, I had far too many hopes for the future of good JRPGs riding on it. I loved it and enjoyed pretty much every minute I spent playing it, but I always wanted it to be a little more than it was. It's a game that's easy to recommend to anyone willing to put a little time into a game, but it's also an illustration that it's the little things that separate very good games from the very best games.
As always with my Thoughts on posts, there will be spoilers for the whole of Ni No Kuni.
I loved the visual style of Ni No Kuni. Animated by Studio Ghibli, everything is beautiful, charming, exotic and fun. Characters are easy to identify. Environments are beautifully rendered. Places are easy to see and navigate and remember. Animations are complex and realistic.
One of the small things, that speaks to the attention to detail the developers put into the game, is how well the main character Oliver transitions between different animations. You see him hop as he crosses a stream or jump from one mushroom to the next in the forrest and it's all simple and fluid with no weird grabbing of the character or stopping to load the animation (I'm looking at you Tales of Graces). When Oliver goes up stairs he steps on each step.
You can also see this in Oliver's main companion in the story, Mr. Drippy Lord High Lord of the Fairies. He's very animated as he follows Oliver wherever he goes. At first I thought the he was just doing idle animations, but eventually I realized that he was subtly reacting to many of the actions I was taking in the game. In particular you can see him react when you cast magic, which given the story of the game makes sense.
The story is also very strong. Ni No Kuni might be dismissed as "kiddy," but there is a lot of depth and complexity to the story. In the early game Oliver's mother dies after rescuing him from the river, which he fell in due to a certain amount of irresponsibility. For a significant part of the game Oliver is trying to either resurrect his mother or find the instance of his mother in the other world. However, when it eventually becomes apparent that this isn't possible, he accepts it and stays strong under the other responsibilities he's been given. There's none of the general weak wishy-washyness that tends to accompany RPG (and particularly JRPG) protagonists and that makes the game much more enjoyable.
The end of the game caries through on this as well. There are no punches pulled at the end, no deus ex and no sudden then they all lived happily ever after. It's also heart-wrenching when Oliver dies in game and says "I'm sorry Mom".
Another thing I liked about the game was the Wizard's Companion. As a student wizard it makes sense that Oliver would need a text book and this makes having a manual for the game seamless. I regret not preordering the Wizard's edition of the game which came with a printed version, but having access to the manual as part of the game was very useful, although it would have been nice if the book reader was a little more usable. As a book lover having a book as a central pillar of the game both in universe and out was very enjoyable.
The biggest problem I had with with Ni No Kuni is the combat system. They've opted for a real-time, Pokemon-style approach, where in you switch out a series of monsters to fight along side your heroes. They've included a lot of factors in the combat system including the monster's affinity for different aspects of the heroes' personalities, different elemental rock-paper-scissors dynamics and different types of moves.
There are three big problems with the combat. The first is that during combat everything is extremely hectic and complicated. You and each of your two active allies (and you can eventually switch to a 3rd ally as well) can either fight yourselves or switch out with any of your three monsters. Everyone on your side has a large number of different powers they can use, all of which are very flashy. Meanwhile you are fighting several enemies all of whom have their own set of powers all of which also create a lot of visual noise. When viewed all at once can make it very complicated to see what's actually going on, beyond the complication of figuring out which tactics you should be using at any point in time.
This leads to another problem with the combat system, which is that the AI is not very helpful. You're unable to directly control all three heroes at once, so you are required to rely on the AI for two-thirds of the actions your group is performing at any point in time. In some games with this real time system, it's possible at least to define some rules that the AIs can follow to be more useful, but in Ni No Kuni you only have a few options available. You can attack using all your magic powers (which means you never have magic points when you need them), you can attack using none of your magic powers, or you can heal (which means that they heal you all the time, again running out of magic points, but then also never attacking).
Beyond having poor control at the macro-level they also make poor choices at the micro level. Your partners will cast fire spells on fire monsters for no damage, heal you for conditions you don't have or put out the monster that is most vulnerable to the attack that's coming next. They tend to have very little beneficial impact on the game play. I can understand not wanting to have a game that wins itself without the player, but having useless partners is not a good either.
The third combat system problem is much larger overall. There is a huge range of choice available in monsters, monster training and equipment, however there's no real reason to make any of these choices. Now, I freely admit to having not wanted to invest too much time into the combat system, so I was happy to have a team that was "good enough" most of the time. That being said, switching between different monsters was mostly an aesthetic decision (aside from ensuring that I had coverage of the three elements), and powering up the different stats of the monsters was something that I did when I had too much stuff in my inventory (as determined when I was going through too many things, not a hard limit). Even managing weapons and armour was largely useless. With sixteen heroes and monsters, I really have no idea what anyone was equipped with at any point in time. Money was tight enough in the game that you had to limit what you bought, which tended to mean that I'd buy a couple of things for the most "interesting" team members and then let everyone else use hand-me-downs.
I'm sure that, for the interested, there's enough meat there for anyone to spend a significant amount of time maximizing their party's effectiveness, but I never had trouble that simply grinding for a half an hour (perhaps another issue with the game, but an aspect of the genre I'm willing to overlook) didn't solve.
Aside from the combat, another problem that the game really suffered from is an excess of potential solutions for problem solving. You spend a lot of time building or rebuilding bridges in Ni No Kuni, but there are at least 4 different spells that you can use to build or rebuild a bridge and the game not clear on why one would work while another wouldn't in a given situation. This results in your arbitrarily standing in the marked "use magic here" spot and casting every spell you know until you find the one that works.
This tends to be true every time magic is the solution to a situation, and considering the excessive hand holding that the game tends towards, it's very frustrating when the game suddenly abandons you to your magic list with no guide and no clue.
Better still would be to let all those different possibilities work. Oh, you figure out to rewind time until the bridge was there again, cool. Oh, you made a new bridge out of ice, cool. There's no reason in this game to not give the player points for trying something. It would also let the game be more interactive and immersive with it's help, "oh hey, I can see you're trying to freeze the lava with the ice spell and that's not working, but did you know that there used to be a stone bridge here? Maybe that would be helpful".
The over abundance of solutions caries over to the alchemy system as well. In Dragon Quest VIII (also made by Level-5), the alchemy system was frustrating because of the long delays in creating items, but you had a fairly clear idea what you were trying to do. In Ni No Kuni creating new items doesn't have long delays but it's often not easy to determine what you needed. Additionally, finding ingredients was frustrating (they're mostly released at certain points on the map at random moments). The items you end with can be useful and powerful, but for me at least it was almost never worth the time to make them and faster to go with the buyable alternatives.
Considering that I've already praised the game for the attention to detail put into it, there are some points where very simple details are missed out on. For example, you spend the whole of the game helping an NPC couple travel the world, learning all the things they need to know and getting all the supplies they need to start the worlds best store. In the very last stage of the game you're given access to a kick ass store with all the greatest items and weapons ... who runs this store? Totally different characters.
If I had to sum up the things I didn't like about the game it would be that the game is over built. It has more in party NPCs than it needs, it has more fighters than it needs, it has more mechanics than it needs and it has more solutions than it needs. I think the thing that would have taken Ni No Kuni from a very good game to an ageless great game is a serious round of editing.
I found the companions in this game a strange addition. On the one hand I think they helped form a lot of the story, but on the other hand I think the story of a lonely boy with his only friend the lamp-nosed fairy dude might also have been very compelling. As I already mentioned the AI in combat was at best unhelpful, so mechanically I don't think they were necessary. I also know that the story in Ni No Kuni is dark enough as it stands and having Oliver's friends travel with him gives the game and the story some brighter points to hold on to.
Another thing that would have been nice to see would to have seen how the concept of one of the greatest wizards / sages in a very long time effected the game world. I think this would have been interesting in two ways.
Firstly it would have been nice to see Oliver's magic getting stronger over time. For example, in the beginning your fast travel spell might just be able to pop you out in a few locations, but as you get stronger you can jump to each city and then eventually to anywhere you want in the world. This does a few things, first it cuts down a lot on the late game running back and forth where you need to meet someone who's a very long way away from a touch down point.
Secondly it allows the game to show you as becoming increasingly powerful outside of the combat system and outside of being told what a strong wizard you're becoming. It gives you the chance for a more subtle interaction with the people in the world, if you use your strong magic around them all the time it stands to unnerve them, so it becomes a choice on your part as to whether you frighten people both in Motorville and the other world or whether you avoid them.
There are four things I would take, directly or indirectly, from Ni No Kuni to include in a game of my own. The first is that your power as it is represented and needed for the plot should both be effected by the game play and effect the game play. This could be implemented simply in better stats when you fight something, but it would be much better to feel the game mechanics change through the application for your power. A strong wizard should be able to do more with a spell, a diplomat should be able to suggest more radical solutions or a general should be able to implement more dynamic actions. The scale varies with the game, but allowing the mechanics to grow with the players power allows the player to feel more invested.
The second thing I would take is that there need to be several solutions to a given problem. Especially in an RPG where the player is investing their time and personality into the player it does nothing to punish them for not guessing the right answer from a list. Letting different possibilities exist can be difficult, since you either need to predict them ahead of time or develop dynamic systems to manage them at the time they happen. However it gives the player more feeling of power (and cleverness) if they're able to proceed without being hindered by the "game" mechanic of the game. At a minimum the lesson to take from Ni No Kuni is that it's necessary to give clear hints when a particular mechanic should be applied.
The third thing is perhaps a given, but all of the elements of the game should build together in the same direction. In Ni No Kuni the story is supported by the style and the theme. These are supported by the game play (which is maybe not as thorough as it could be but still leads in the same directions). It makes the storytelling much more coherent than many games. Could Ni No Kuni have handled this better? Yes, there are times where they break the other elements for a game mechanic and there are times where a few extra mechanics would have made it easier to believe in the game. Overall however the polish they put on the game in this way is important and should be emulated.
Finally, I think including an in/out universe manual like the Wizard's companion is a must, at least for my own edification. Old books are cool and having a great thing to read about the video game I just got was one of the highlights of my childhood. I'd like to pass that feeling on.
Ni No Kuni is a great game. It doesn't, as I'd hoped, have quite enough strength to be one of the greatest games. Perhaps for me it's simply an aspect that nostalgia makes some of those greatest games (such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy VI) seem better than they were at the time. Perhaps some of Ni No Kuni's rough edges will wear off over time and I'll feel more strongly for it. Even if it never does, it's a highly polished quality game that everyone should play.
If you like JRPGs or you like Studio Ghibli films and you haven't played Ni No Kuni then there's no question that you should. It's worth the time investment, for the story as much as for the game play experience. It is linear so if you only somewhat interested I'm sure a good Let's play would give you nearly as good a feeling of the game. If you have the time to commit though I fully recommend playing it.
As always with my Thoughts on posts, there will be spoilers for the whole of Ni No Kuni.
Things I Liked
I loved the visual style of Ni No Kuni. Animated by Studio Ghibli, everything is beautiful, charming, exotic and fun. Characters are easy to identify. Environments are beautifully rendered. Places are easy to see and navigate and remember. Animations are complex and realistic.
 |
| Running through the forrest. |
One of the small things, that speaks to the attention to detail the developers put into the game, is how well the main character Oliver transitions between different animations. You see him hop as he crosses a stream or jump from one mushroom to the next in the forrest and it's all simple and fluid with no weird grabbing of the character or stopping to load the animation (I'm looking at you Tales of Graces). When Oliver goes up stairs he steps on each step.
You can also see this in Oliver's main companion in the story, Mr. Drippy Lord High Lord of the Fairies. He's very animated as he follows Oliver wherever he goes. At first I thought the he was just doing idle animations, but eventually I realized that he was subtly reacting to many of the actions I was taking in the game. In particular you can see him react when you cast magic, which given the story of the game makes sense.
The story is also very strong. Ni No Kuni might be dismissed as "kiddy," but there is a lot of depth and complexity to the story. In the early game Oliver's mother dies after rescuing him from the river, which he fell in due to a certain amount of irresponsibility. For a significant part of the game Oliver is trying to either resurrect his mother or find the instance of his mother in the other world. However, when it eventually becomes apparent that this isn't possible, he accepts it and stays strong under the other responsibilities he's been given. There's none of the general weak wishy-washyness that tends to accompany RPG (and particularly JRPG) protagonists and that makes the game much more enjoyable.
 |
| Walking to town is a little like walking into a Ghibli film. |
The end of the game caries through on this as well. There are no punches pulled at the end, no deus ex and no sudden then they all lived happily ever after. It's also heart-wrenching when Oliver dies in game and says "I'm sorry Mom".
Another thing I liked about the game was the Wizard's Companion. As a student wizard it makes sense that Oliver would need a text book and this makes having a manual for the game seamless. I regret not preordering the Wizard's edition of the game which came with a printed version, but having access to the manual as part of the game was very useful, although it would have been nice if the book reader was a little more usable. As a book lover having a book as a central pillar of the game both in universe and out was very enjoyable.
Things I Didn't Like
The biggest problem I had with with Ni No Kuni is the combat system. They've opted for a real-time, Pokemon-style approach, where in you switch out a series of monsters to fight along side your heroes. They've included a lot of factors in the combat system including the monster's affinity for different aspects of the heroes' personalities, different elemental rock-paper-scissors dynamics and different types of moves.
There are three big problems with the combat. The first is that during combat everything is extremely hectic and complicated. You and each of your two active allies (and you can eventually switch to a 3rd ally as well) can either fight yourselves or switch out with any of your three monsters. Everyone on your side has a large number of different powers they can use, all of which are very flashy. Meanwhile you are fighting several enemies all of whom have their own set of powers all of which also create a lot of visual noise. When viewed all at once can make it very complicated to see what's actually going on, beyond the complication of figuring out which tactics you should be using at any point in time.
 |
| It's easy to see what's going on here ... right? |
This leads to another problem with the combat system, which is that the AI is not very helpful. You're unable to directly control all three heroes at once, so you are required to rely on the AI for two-thirds of the actions your group is performing at any point in time. In some games with this real time system, it's possible at least to define some rules that the AIs can follow to be more useful, but in Ni No Kuni you only have a few options available. You can attack using all your magic powers (which means you never have magic points when you need them), you can attack using none of your magic powers, or you can heal (which means that they heal you all the time, again running out of magic points, but then also never attacking).
Beyond having poor control at the macro-level they also make poor choices at the micro level. Your partners will cast fire spells on fire monsters for no damage, heal you for conditions you don't have or put out the monster that is most vulnerable to the attack that's coming next. They tend to have very little beneficial impact on the game play. I can understand not wanting to have a game that wins itself without the player, but having useless partners is not a good either.
The third combat system problem is much larger overall. There is a huge range of choice available in monsters, monster training and equipment, however there's no real reason to make any of these choices. Now, I freely admit to having not wanted to invest too much time into the combat system, so I was happy to have a team that was "good enough" most of the time. That being said, switching between different monsters was mostly an aesthetic decision (aside from ensuring that I had coverage of the three elements), and powering up the different stats of the monsters was something that I did when I had too much stuff in my inventory (as determined when I was going through too many things, not a hard limit). Even managing weapons and armour was largely useless. With sixteen heroes and monsters, I really have no idea what anyone was equipped with at any point in time. Money was tight enough in the game that you had to limit what you bought, which tended to mean that I'd buy a couple of things for the most "interesting" team members and then let everyone else use hand-me-downs.
I'm sure that, for the interested, there's enough meat there for anyone to spend a significant amount of time maximizing their party's effectiveness, but I never had trouble that simply grinding for a half an hour (perhaps another issue with the game, but an aspect of the genre I'm willing to overlook) didn't solve.
Aside from the combat, another problem that the game really suffered from is an excess of potential solutions for problem solving. You spend a lot of time building or rebuilding bridges in Ni No Kuni, but there are at least 4 different spells that you can use to build or rebuild a bridge and the game not clear on why one would work while another wouldn't in a given situation. This results in your arbitrarily standing in the marked "use magic here" spot and casting every spell you know until you find the one that works.
This tends to be true every time magic is the solution to a situation, and considering the excessive hand holding that the game tends towards, it's very frustrating when the game suddenly abandons you to your magic list with no guide and no clue.
Better still would be to let all those different possibilities work. Oh, you figure out to rewind time until the bridge was there again, cool. Oh, you made a new bridge out of ice, cool. There's no reason in this game to not give the player points for trying something. It would also let the game be more interactive and immersive with it's help, "oh hey, I can see you're trying to freeze the lava with the ice spell and that's not working, but did you know that there used to be a stone bridge here? Maybe that would be helpful".
The over abundance of solutions caries over to the alchemy system as well. In Dragon Quest VIII (also made by Level-5), the alchemy system was frustrating because of the long delays in creating items, but you had a fairly clear idea what you were trying to do. In Ni No Kuni creating new items doesn't have long delays but it's often not easy to determine what you needed. Additionally, finding ingredients was frustrating (they're mostly released at certain points on the map at random moments). The items you end with can be useful and powerful, but for me at least it was almost never worth the time to make them and faster to go with the buyable alternatives.
Considering that I've already praised the game for the attention to detail put into it, there are some points where very simple details are missed out on. For example, you spend the whole of the game helping an NPC couple travel the world, learning all the things they need to know and getting all the supplies they need to start the worlds best store. In the very last stage of the game you're given access to a kick ass store with all the greatest items and weapons ... who runs this store? Totally different characters.
If I had to sum up the things I didn't like about the game it would be that the game is over built. It has more in party NPCs than it needs, it has more fighters than it needs, it has more mechanics than it needs and it has more solutions than it needs. I think the thing that would have taken Ni No Kuni from a very good game to an ageless great game is a serious round of editing.
Things I Noticed
I found the companions in this game a strange addition. On the one hand I think they helped form a lot of the story, but on the other hand I think the story of a lonely boy with his only friend the lamp-nosed fairy dude might also have been very compelling. As I already mentioned the AI in combat was at best unhelpful, so mechanically I don't think they were necessary. I also know that the story in Ni No Kuni is dark enough as it stands and having Oliver's friends travel with him gives the game and the story some brighter points to hold on to.
Another thing that would have been nice to see would to have seen how the concept of one of the greatest wizards / sages in a very long time effected the game world. I think this would have been interesting in two ways.
Firstly it would have been nice to see Oliver's magic getting stronger over time. For example, in the beginning your fast travel spell might just be able to pop you out in a few locations, but as you get stronger you can jump to each city and then eventually to anywhere you want in the world. This does a few things, first it cuts down a lot on the late game running back and forth where you need to meet someone who's a very long way away from a touch down point.
Secondly it allows the game to show you as becoming increasingly powerful outside of the combat system and outside of being told what a strong wizard you're becoming. It gives you the chance for a more subtle interaction with the people in the world, if you use your strong magic around them all the time it stands to unnerve them, so it becomes a choice on your part as to whether you frighten people both in Motorville and the other world or whether you avoid them.
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| You'd better be afraid of me! |
Things I'd Include in a Game
There are four things I would take, directly or indirectly, from Ni No Kuni to include in a game of my own. The first is that your power as it is represented and needed for the plot should both be effected by the game play and effect the game play. This could be implemented simply in better stats when you fight something, but it would be much better to feel the game mechanics change through the application for your power. A strong wizard should be able to do more with a spell, a diplomat should be able to suggest more radical solutions or a general should be able to implement more dynamic actions. The scale varies with the game, but allowing the mechanics to grow with the players power allows the player to feel more invested.
The second thing I would take is that there need to be several solutions to a given problem. Especially in an RPG where the player is investing their time and personality into the player it does nothing to punish them for not guessing the right answer from a list. Letting different possibilities exist can be difficult, since you either need to predict them ahead of time or develop dynamic systems to manage them at the time they happen. However it gives the player more feeling of power (and cleverness) if they're able to proceed without being hindered by the "game" mechanic of the game. At a minimum the lesson to take from Ni No Kuni is that it's necessary to give clear hints when a particular mechanic should be applied.
The third thing is perhaps a given, but all of the elements of the game should build together in the same direction. In Ni No Kuni the story is supported by the style and the theme. These are supported by the game play (which is maybe not as thorough as it could be but still leads in the same directions). It makes the storytelling much more coherent than many games. Could Ni No Kuni have handled this better? Yes, there are times where they break the other elements for a game mechanic and there are times where a few extra mechanics would have made it easier to believe in the game. Overall however the polish they put on the game in this way is important and should be emulated.
Finally, I think including an in/out universe manual like the Wizard's companion is a must, at least for my own edification. Old books are cool and having a great thing to read about the video game I just got was one of the highlights of my childhood. I'd like to pass that feeling on.
Final Thoughts
Ni No Kuni is a great game. It doesn't, as I'd hoped, have quite enough strength to be one of the greatest games. Perhaps for me it's simply an aspect that nostalgia makes some of those greatest games (such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy VI) seem better than they were at the time. Perhaps some of Ni No Kuni's rough edges will wear off over time and I'll feel more strongly for it. Even if it never does, it's a highly polished quality game that everyone should play.
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| Ni No Kuni is a magical journey? |
If you like JRPGs or you like Studio Ghibli films and you haven't played Ni No Kuni then there's no question that you should. It's worth the time investment, for the story as much as for the game play experience. It is linear so if you only somewhat interested I'm sure a good Let's play would give you nearly as good a feeling of the game. If you have the time to commit though I fully recommend playing it.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 50)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is a little rough. Ze Frank helps us with public speaking, but doesn't escape the evil cholesterol. Then we have a memorial video to a musician and YouTuber.
- First, Ze Frank talks about the public speaking and also the wearing of pants, which is crucial to the public speaking.
- Then, he has to face the evil cholesterol and the tomorrow monster that lives in our heads.
- Finally, we have a memorial to Nathan Wills. A very cool musician and YouTuber who's vlogs were always interesting because of his focus on mindfullness and being centred.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 49)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is a chance to stop and reflect on the things you want to hold onto and the things you want to let go. Also the things you're going to pack for your next con...
- First, Hank Green, talks about Esther Day and how the value we bring to the world isn't measured in what we create nearly so much as it is in who we're with.
- Second, Ze Frank talks about the Finishing Book and the things that we're ready to let go.
- Finally, Karen Kavett, talks about the things you should take to Leakycon...
Friday, May 16, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 48)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go back to our vlogbrother roots. Also, John sings in this one...
- First off, John addresses Hank's new found buffness and his plan for reciprocation, a treadmill desk.
- Then John (and John and John) play in the Carling Cup with the Swindon Town Swoodlillypoopers. There's no topic to this one, but you have to enjoy the nail-biter ending (if you're into imaginary games of football (as played with the feet)).
- Finally we see that Hank can't possibly be that buff. He's been tumbling down tumblr!
Monday, May 12, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 47)
In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos we get a little frisky, hurt our brains with physics and resolve our cliff hanger from the last volume.
- First in this volume. Ninja Porn. Didn't expect that did you? Also that seems like better music than most porn gets ... I'm just saying. (From SMPFilms)
- It also turns out that the Universe is Weird. As you might have noticed if you've ever spent any time listening to Hank Green.
- And finally: Did Nathalie rescue Jack? Did Jack learn his lesson? Is Batman AWESOME? Pomplamoose resolves your tension! At this Bat Time in this Bat Volume!
Friday, May 09, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 46)
In this very musical volume of my favourite YouTube videos we get some nostalgia, some laughs and some tension!
- Firstly, LeVar Burton and the crowd at w00tstock 4.0 sing the theme to reading rainbow. Included at no extra cost, squees from Mr. Wil Wheaton.
- Next, Husky and his friends sing his overlord song. I could maybe explain what's going on here, but really why would I ruin your fun.
- And finally we see a seminal moment in the life of Pomplamoose, while they mash up Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know and Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe. What will happen to Jack? What will Nathalie do with unlimited power over the creative direction of Pomplamoose? Will another meme from the sumer of 2012 be able to save our heroes? DON'T. PUSH. THAT. BUTTON.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 45)
Sometimes my favourite YouTube videos feel timeless, but this particular set feel very tied to the summer of 2012. They still seem interesting so here they are:
- First off Ze Frank pushes himself out to the edges:
- Next Ze handles business. All of these missions and projects are long since wrapped up, but still it's cool to see that point of action on so many cool things. Also Hank Green dreams strange dreams (just like the rest of us).
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 44)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos takes a look a two very important constants in the universe, mass, and love.
- First ZeFrank and Hank Green talk about the discovery of the Higgs Boson (and also spiral hotdogs).
- Next John Green talks about how John Green and John Green met and fell in love while playing for the Swindontown Swoodilypoopers. While this might seem confusing, just trust that John Green (one of them) knows how to tell a story.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 43)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is a grab bag of thinking.
- The first video in this volume is "A Letter from God to Man" from Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. This is one of my favourites in its own right, but I also really like the "Planet Telex" sample.
- Next Hank Green talks about online video, why he created VidCon and he speaks a lot for me about why I'm making these posts.
- Finally, Charlie McDonnell plays the Mario theme on his face. Oh and I guess talks about some stuff. That's kinda cool too.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 42)
There's speculation that this volume of my favourite YouTube videos will hold the answer to life the universe and everything. I'm not saying that's true, but I'm not saying it's not.
- First off George Watsky would like you to know that "[He] Does Not Give a Fuck".
- Next, Tessa Violet, Meekakitty, lipdubs several songs, including and most importantly "Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf" by Rob Cantor. Also, these always entertain me for no particularly good reason.
- Finally, Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip lay down some commandments.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 41)
This volume of my favourite YouTube videos lets us think a little bit about how math, and society works and how to solve the problems that face us.
- I don't think there's much selling that needs to be done to tell you that a ViHart video is awesome, but I'll give it a try anyway! MATH! HISTORY! PYTHAGORAS! PROOF BY MURDER! BEANS! ... Did that work?
- ZeFrank puts together some very good thoughts on how the culture of the Internet works and how much energy is required to act. Also, if I ever figure out how to bottle that post movie viewing energy I'll be well set for life.
- And if you have some problems that need to be solved, John Green is the person to help you solve them.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 40)
Organizational Note: I'm reducing the number of videos per Favourite YouTube Videos post to three to reduce the strain on browsers (primarily chrome). I have also reduced the number of posts displayed on the main page from 5 to 4, which I hope will also help. Unfortunately, I'm not able to reduce the number of posts shown at a time using categories/tags or searches.
It's the start of a new year and it's that time when people starting thinking about improvement. Fortunately my next three favourite YouTube videos all help with a little self improvement.
It's the start of a new year and it's that time when people starting thinking about improvement. Fortunately my next three favourite YouTube videos all help with a little self improvement.
- First off, Hank has some productivity tips:
- Next, Ze Frank talks about what we leave out:
- Finally Pomplamoose, will help you learn how to communicate through dance:
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