Blog: Thoughts on Dishonored

I skipped over Dishonored when it first came out. However, enough people talked about how much they enjoyed it and how cool it was that I decided to catch it the next time it was on sale.

As it turns out I really enjoyed the game. I was a bit surprised since as I was playing through I felt like the game was too dark and the characters were too wooden and that there wasn't enough interesting to do. Once I was done playing I thought that I wouldn't pick it up again, however as it sat at the top of my Steam list it kept being easy to just click and slide into the world for a few hours. The game actually offers quite a wide range of choices in how to approach it and there's enough variety to make doing things over again remain interesting.

Below I discuss several of the things I liked, disliked and noticed about the game and look at a few of the things I'd include in a game I was making. As will all my Thoughts On posts there will be SPOILERS so if you haven't finished the game and care, beware.

Things I Liked

The thing I most liked about Dishonored is the feeling of power the game gives you. Once you get good at the game (which took me a little while), you feel like you can move anywhere and remove any enemy, in any way you want to. This is where the fun of the game lay for me because it always felt good to do whatever it was you wanted to do. It's also nice that this power isn't based on on upgrade, you're powerful from the very start, the upgrades just make things a little bit easier.

Need a giant pile of soliders? Good news, Corvo is up to the task.

The game also has a lot of breadth in how it allows you to handle problems. Unlike some games which punish you if you don't finish enough of the optional content (I'm looking at you Mass Effect) you can plough straight through or be as thorough as you like. They leave enough power ups available on the main track of the game that you're never exactly underpowered (even if you do have to make some choices) and even at very limited amounts of powere there's still a lot you can do. The breadth, and being able to

I also felt that the world building they did for this game was extremely well done. While you aren't able to move freely whereever you like in the city, the levels are laid out in such a way that it feels reasonable that people once lived there. At the same time the roles of the people you meet (both the higher ups and the rank and file guards) all feel reasonable and real (for example you'll see guards at different posts that actually make sense if they were trying to hold access points in the city, rather than just being video game obstacles).

If it weren't for the plague and the rats, I could see living here.

The story telling in the game was very well done. Between the books left around (which also contributed to the world building) and a lot of the subtle information you can pick up by listening carefully to the people around you (at least when they're not trying to gather for cigars tonight). Overall, Dunwall has a strong sense of history and culture.

Things I Didn't Like

Dishonored is  short and ends rather abruptly, but that may actually be a strength of the game given how dark it is. It's really dark, but at least it's short. There isn't enough evolution to the powers, but at the same time you can do everything you need to with the powers you already have. The game is quite tightly balanced and the more I've played it and the more I've thought about it the better it's seemed.

The biggest thing that truly held the game back was the shortage of personality in the enemies in the game. One of the reasons I picked the game up is because of a description of how you could use the heart to listen in on the thoughts of the guards in the city. Unfortunately I've found the heart doesn't actually do that and further the guards all have the same 5 pieces of dialogue (unless they actually have something plot relevant to say); which they will repeat one a minute, forever if you don't do any thing.

It would be nice to see the world populated with more believable characters. It would give the world more texture and give you more options in how and why you play the game. The way I preferred to play Corvo (especially once I got a handle on how to control him) he left the guards alone as much as possible since they were being loyal to their institution, (which presumably he would have had some control over in his role as Lord Protector), but being able to play an avenging spectre would also have been interesting.

The other thing I didn't like about the game was that the plot was a bit straight forward, even though the world and general story was quite good. I knew, from the first or second mission that I'd be betrayed by my "allies" at the end of the game. This might have been a good chance to let the ending emerge from the game play (we can't leave the empress with that freak he's murdered hundreds of people so far and he keeps materializing out of thin air or I thought this Corvo guy was going to be a monster, but he's actually really upright so I won't betray him). Alternatively it would simply have been a good point to show better writing in video games.

You shouldn't be too shocked about this one.

Things I Noticed

One thing I thought was interesting in the game was the way people (your allies especially) reacted if you used your powers around them. I like that in-universe it's weird that this guy appears and disappears suddenly and shows up in strange places doing strange things.  The surprise is always mild through which I think is a bit sad. I understand that Samuel, who's a man of action and works on the edges of society isn't shocked that you can do these occult things, but it should affect the your other alies more. It would be nice to see as you get more and more powerful your allies getting more and more afraid of you if you keep using your powers in front of them. This would have expanded the opportunities for the ending of the game, where it goes beyond whether or not you where chaotic, but into how people felt about you directly.

If you see the world like this long enough, it changes your brain.

Another thing I thought was interesting as a result of my first play through was that my Corvo became less and less violent as the game went on, because I was getting better and better at using his abilities and playing the game. The story this creates, of disoriented, angry Corvo regaining his bearings and being influenced by his daughter and dead lover to be better to the people of Dunwall. This was definitely something that

Things I'd Include in a Game

The biggest thing from Dishonored that I would include in a future game is the feeling of power and control. The developers did good work on this aspect of the game and at every point in your play through you're in control and a threat to those around you.

The other thing I'd like to include is, as I mentioned in the things I noticed, having people react to the way you play the game and the things you choose to do in general, not just at set decision points. You can expand this with word-of-mouth style interactions between the NPCs and this would let the city have a feeling about you without you necessarily just proliferating "badness" into the environment.

Things not to include in a game, chair on a platform hundres of feet in the air.

Final Thoughts

I've now played a really surprising amount of Dishonored, and I have to say it's going to be a game I come back to on a regular basis. The flexibility of the design and breadth of interesting things to do, make up for the wooden AI and make the game more compelling that it might have a right to be. At the end of the day Dishonored is going to be one of those games I look to when trying to make a quality title.

Save the Lady, save the world...

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 32)

This volume of my favourite YouTube Videos we get everything we could need about video game history, dance and world history all in one awkward bundle.

• In the first video in this volume we learn everything we need to know about Dead Space. In less than a minute. What more could you need?
• Next up John Green teaches us everything we needed to know about Chinese history. In more than a minute. What more could you need?
• Next Rosanna Pansino does some chair dancing to the closing credits of Plants vs Zombies (written by perennial favourite Laura Shigihara). What more could you need?
• Finally, Husky and Kurt Hugo Schneider (and a lot of nerdy people) bring us their ... cover ... of "Sexy and I Know It". It's a little weird, but it's on this list for one very good reason: the zerging dance. First we have the video itself and then the behind the scenes. What more could you need?

Project 12: Chrono Trigger Sprites

A quick note, I've updated this project!

I don't usually go for having a lot of stuff on your desk, but my recent success making SNES coasters has inspired me to try my hand at making something cool that I can put over my desk at work. Given that Chrono Trigger is one of my favourite games, I figured doing sprites of all the playable characters in the game would be a pretty cool addition to my office.

If you look at the sprite sheets for Chrono Trigger each of the PCs has a lot of positions. I think the best poses though will be the action poses the characters strike at the beginning of each battle. Chrono's sprites look like this:

I'd like to make them about 20cm tall, which will require some reworking since the sprites themselves are only about 30 - 40 pixels tall, which will probably be about half the hight I'd like to reach. Given the need to expand the sprites, I'm not sure if the right answer will be simply to scale them or if I'll have to make a "higher res" version.

The other main problem I've discovered I'll have is is matching colours, since Perler doesn't give you quite the full palette the SNES does. Other people, such as devient artists ~SerenaAzureth and ~MaliceOhgr242, have tackled this before so I'm going take my cue's from them in terms of matching colours.

The next little while is not great for the number of things I need to get done (and the number of unfinished projects I have hanging around) so I'm hoping to be done with these by July 1, 2013.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 31)

This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is pretty wide ranging including some video game music, some intelligent thinking about movies and some thoughts on YouTube itself.

• First in this volume we have a video of an original song "Guild Ho" from Dodger. The video feels a bit rough to me, but I especially love the enthusiasm in this.
• The second is a cover of "Terra's Theme" from Final Fantasy VI by Laura Shigihara and GBritaney. This is haunting and beautiful and really worth a listen.
• Next is an incredible video from Belated Media, in which he breaks down and rebuilds Star Wars Episode 1. I think his analysis is right on and that the movie he describes would have been significantly better (and not in the way that two hours of staring at a star field might also have been better, I mean significantly).
• Next Mr. Charlie McDonnall does a very cool real-life time attack of the landmarks of London. Cool video and good memories.
• Finally SMPFilms does his best to figure out what a YouTuber actually does.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 30)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos returns to the good old days of video games, music and the truth (as provided by John Green ... the truth that is, he promised not to provide us with any more music).

• First up, we return to my favorite all time video game cover artist, CalebElijah. It turns out he wasn't eaten by snakes in Africa, so we get to listen to his cover of Magus's Battle Theme from Chrono Trigger. If this doesn't make the hair on your arms stand up your arm hairs are not wired correctly.
• Next is CalebElijah's cover of Windy City Winlan from Breath of Fire. A little less intense, but for me no less nostalgic. We might not hear from him quite so often as we used to, but I'm always glad to see he's made something cool.
• The next video is the finale to Chuggaaconroy's let's play of Mother 3. If you want to watch it,  you should start from the beginning, but I favorited this one for a couple of reasons. First the let's play is pretty well done, it's a bit rough being from Chuggaconroy's early work, but it's a good journey through a very intense game. Secondly, the game itself is worth seeing and given that it's not easily accessed outside of Japan this is a good way. Finally this episode is very well executed and really stands out in terms of voice acting and presentation.
• Next we have a vlog from Husky about various thing. He still hasn't really picked up vlogging, but he tells some interesting stories when he does.
• Finally John Green sets us straight on some misconceptions, plus tells an Inception joke, because he's cool like that.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 29)

In this volume of my favorite YouTube videos, we take in some music, sit in all the chairs and help someone move.

• The first video is a cover of the song, Rouge Message, from Kiki's Delivery Service, by Laura Shigihara and LonLonJP. I was going to say that Kiki's was one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies, but honestly all Studio Ghibli movies are my favourites. Either way Laura and LonLon put together a very nice song here.
• The second video is another from George Watsky (surprised ain't cha). I don't even need to tell you that the rap is great and the video for this one is a  completely engrossing time lapsed drawing.
• Next up is another Watsky,  just throwin' down.
• Now John Green takes us on a visit to the nicest hotel room in the world on the vlogbrothers. It's armoisome.
• Finally we help Charlie move house, because we're nice like that.

Project 5: SNES Coasters: Update (and Wrap Up?)

I may have missed the deadline by a few (many) months, but I have finally finished making my first batch of SNES Coasters.

The Pattern

After taking a look at a sprite sheet from Super Mario World. I opted for the exclamation point blocks. I did this for a few reasons. One, they were probably my favorite block in the game (if you can have favorite blocks), secondly they come in 4 colours (green, yellow, blue and red) so they have a little diversity in their appearance.

The Beading

They were also quiet easy to build, since they only require you to build the exclamation point and then fill in a field of colour before putting on a coloured border and a black outer border. After a little bit of work I figured out that the easiest way to create the exclamation mark is to put in the black beads for the upper left hand side of the border, then fill in the top rows of white beads. After that I add the bottom square of four white beads with the surrounding black boarder and finish the right hand side of black beads. Then I fill in the right hand side of field beads and rom top to bottom, then rotate the board and fill in the other side of the field. Finally I add the border of darker beads and the outer border of black beads.

I found it easiest to scoop a large number of beads into my one hand and then simply put them into the board one at a time with the other. You can use tweezers (including the ones that perler sells, which have a great scoop attached to them) or toothpicks to set the beads into the board, but I found that to be relatively unhelpful.

I also found from time to time that it was necessary to remove the cat from the pegboard before continuing...

The Ironing (is delicious)

Once the beads were in place and ready (and maybe had sat on my shelf for a few months?), it was time for fusing the beads. I set up an old chopping board on the ironing board as a surface to work on.

My setup

My iron is slightly difficult to calibrate since it measures in fabric quality, but I eventually found that the "wool" setting worked best for me. This gave me slightly more time than I had on the "cotton" setting. I  find that the beads can go from unmelted to melted quite quickly. Some people aim to totally melt the beads to get a more pixelly effect, but I actually like having the holes visible a little still, so it's a bit of an art to get the balance correct and will be a thing I need to learn with more practice.

I find I still tend to get more melting done on the right hand side of the sprite than on the left. I need to remember to rotate the sprites more frequently as I iron them. Some kind of lazy Susan would be useful. For me the beads melted in about 3 minutes, once I had pretty good fusion, I flipped them off of the board and switched the paper to the other side and continued ironing them for about 2 more minutes.

I started using the parchment paper that came packed in with the multi-pack of beads I purchased, but it was folded into about 4cm squares which left creases in the sprites. They recommend ironing the paper before beginning to remove that crease, but I wasn't able to. In the end I just picked a larger piece of paper to protect the beads and the iron.

The sprites tend to cup when they're finished, so I pressed them under a stack of books to help them stay straight. We can thank Alton Brown for keeping my coasters flat as well as all the things he's taught us about food. I kept the coasters in the bookpress for several days (but some of that also included time after they'd had the backing put on). I also put the coasters between sheets of parchment, just to make sure nothing transfered to the books, but I assume this was largely unnecessary.

The Backing

In order to both help the coasters stay together and to help keep them from scratching I added a felt backing. I opted for a thin stiffened felt with an adhesive back. I cut the backing into squares just smaller than the coasters and then trimmed the corners to ensure that the backing didn't stick out and ruin the look. I cut the squares using a hemming ruler for measurement and then trimmed the corners with the guide of a template.

It's important not to cut the backs too small or they'll cause the coasters to be tippy, and also provide less support to the beads.

The Finished Product

The final coasters.

So far they seem to have worked quite well. After they were pressed for several days they seemed to stay flat (the backing may have also helped with this). They are be a bit smaller than I'd like, they're great for bear bottles, but a little small for some mugs. It's possible on a later run that I'd add an extra ring of the darker coloured beads, but I haven't really seen what that's like yet. I've used them for one D & D session so far and they lived up to expectations.

I'm quite pleased with these and am now looking forward to tackling a few more projects. I'm feeling tempted to see if I can make sets of coasters on Etsy, but I haven't really started to look at whether that would really be a good idea or not. Beyond that I'm going to keep working on the coasters, both using Mario blocks and some other SNES Sprites that will make good coasters too.

And the coasters in use.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 28)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is a mix of heartfeltness and Zelda. Apparently this is how  new years 2012 went.

• The first video in this volume is from Hank Green reflecting on the death of his grandfather. Heartfelt. (Also QI is great.)
• The next video is from Red Ash Mason and he is slowly recreating all of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Minecraft, and it's pretty impressive. He's a bit quiet at the beginning  but if you want to take a look at a crazy project, this might be an interesting one.
• The third video is from Katers17, introducing a new class in Maple Story. (Well sort of).
• Next up is a vlog from Katers, where she and Corey finally admit that they've fallen in love. It's also pretty heartfelt, in the midst of a lot of stress (as life has).
• The last video in this volume is from Rawm, and I'm pretty sure that I watched it because Dodger plays Navi in it (I'm surprised I've been watching Dodger's videos this long). It's not exactly a favorite, but it certainly grows on you, and the visuals are also pretty amazing. 

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 27)

This volume of my Favorite YouTube Videos is a grab bag, but one that seems to have some pretty deep thoughts attached to it.

• The first video in this volume is Laura Shigihara's Cube Land. I like the song, but while re-watching it before posting, I was also struck by how much the video tells a story about dealing with depression. That's in my mind at least, Laura's description goes a different direction and you might see something different, but it's worth watching the video as well as listening to the song.
• Next up, you know you pets do this. You know it, the Mean Kitties are just worse at hiding it.
• The next video requires you to remember that time when Honey Badgers were the meme du jour on the Internet. If you're not sure why, John Green will help you to understand in this vlogbrother's video.
• If you think I post a lot of George Watsky, that might be because I do. The guy is prolific and honestly I like a lot of what he does. Here we see him do a one-taker of another of his tracks.
• Finally I have Hank Green's response to Frezned's response to his graphic* about how insignificant we are on the astronomic scale.

* Sadly I'm having a hard time finding the graphic, Google is assuming things and Hank accidentally blew his tumblr up one day.

4 Future Projects

There are a few things that I've been holding on to, in the hopes that I'll be able to get to them even though I don't have the skills or experience or time to tackle them right now. I don't know that these totally count as brain crack, but they're close enough. So I'm going to put them up here and make them projects so that I can stop thinking about them and maybe get some stuff done as well.

These are all pretty long term projects that don't fit in right now, which is why I'm putting them up here together. Until I'm really ready to do things with them I'm not going to give them deadlines through.

Project 8 - A Space Station Simulation Game

So I like management games. I may or may not have spent the petter part of 2 months last year planning transit routes across various cities. I've certainly manage the living daylights out of all the historical railroads and a fair number of amusement parks. I've commanded revolutionary Chinese armies and built them into thriving kingdoms. I've also built quite a few successful airlines. All that, not to mention the booming megalopolises I've guided along the way. (And dwarves ... there was some time with the dwarves.)

Most of these games have a pretty low level when it comes to AI. And I've thought it would be interesting not only to do the planning, but also to manage a staff/crew that has to help get the work done and administrate themselves.

I've been thinking of various games of this sort for years. I've wanted a  version of Tie-Fighter, where you still pilot all the missions, but as you advance in rank (which is a skill based system as I recall, not just based on the number of missions flown) you take a larger and larger role in planning the missions. But that's another story ... or game.

In the game I'm thinking of for this project, you take on the roll of a recently appointed station master assigned to a newly opened sector. Each sector will have a primary theme, mining, settlement or military which will steer how your station develops. 

Ships will arrive and you'll have to provide services to them, including cargo services, fuel and supplies and shore leave. You'll have to cater to your onboard population, who will have jobs on the station, or work near the station or just visit coming back from the frontier. You'll need to keep your station running and expand it to meet growing needs of the station and the sector. You'll have to police the station and work with the military to make sure the station is safe from pirates and other unsavoury folks with space ships.

You won't do this alone however, you'll have a staff. You'll have senior administration which will take care of the operations of various parts of the station, but you'll have to make sure that you've given the right jobs to the right people. If you get things right over time you'll all get better at running the station.

Now I'm not 100% sure that this will actually be fun. I have a passion for games that tend to play themselves. I like the management genre, so I feel like there's a seed that might actually be able to blossom into something cool. It probably won't be for everyone even if it works, but hopefully it will be fun for someone.

It's also worth pointing out that Spacebase DF9, developed during the Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight, seems pretty similar to this. The flavour's a bit different and it's developed by people who know what they're doing, so it may turn out to be way better and way more fun. I have honestly been thinking about this game since before the Fortnight (and I'm not apt to be on the level of Double Fine to begin with).

Project 9 - An Action RPG

I've loved Secret of Mana for more than fifteen years now and one of the things I'd like to do is see it revisited as a grown up game. Basically I'd like to make a 2d 16bit-esque, controller based action RPG that's as fun as Secret of Mana, but addresses some of my pet peeves about the genre.

The feeling of playing Secret of Mana was always one of it's biggest draws for me. Particularly as you get more powerful, charging up an attack and landing it just right feels like you're really accomplishing things. This is reinforced by having the nice colourful numbers pop out and then bounce on the ground before disappearing and of course as you do bigger damage the numbers get bigger (as in they show up in a fatter font with larger sprites).

Traveling in Secret of Mana was also very nice. You start out kicked out of your village with the whole world to explore and as you go you get destinations that are farther and farther away. At the beginning you might hear about a place but later you get the chance to travel there. At the end of the game when you get to fly then there's a whole other set of explorations where you get to find all these tiny and surprising locations (which sometimes become much larger).

I love Secret of Mana for more than just those two reasons but they're the primary ones I'd like to recreate in my own game. There are also some things I'd like to include.

The first of those is that the size of the world is always weird in computer games. If you look at Secret of Mana the largest city in the world has maybe 50 people in it. You come from a town with maybe 8 people. This of course makes sense for the limitations of the technology at the time, but it still makes the world feel a bit strange.

My proposed solution to this is to not use the whole world, but only a little bit of it. You can't walk across the whole of the world in Secret of Mana, but it only takes 10-15 minutes to walk between most major metropolitan areas and less if you're not intent on murdering everything along that path. When you can fly you can make it around the globe in a minute or less. My thought it to limit the world to an island. It will still be smaller than the real world (I'm not Rockstar) but at least the scale will make more sense. This should sooth some of the over thinking that I for one tend to do about the world and it will also help focus the story.

The second thing I'd like to address is the amount of combat and killing in rpgs. This one I'm a little less sure about since for most games this makes up the majority of the game play, but I'd like to put a little more weight and consequence into the game. You will still be a person with a weapon, who has to fight to survive and to right wrongs in the world, but I want it to count if you kill something. Given a recent article on Gamasutra about RPG genres I think this will also help focus the game, and keep it about the story rather than about being the right level all the time.

As far as the story goes, I'm still working it out. I know that there will be a fight between the forces of the wild and the forces of civilization. This isn't a fight between good and evil (in itself), but a fight between the wild island and the invading forces of an imperial civilization from the mainland.

There's a few ways I want this to manifest, one of which is in the architecture of the buildings. You will see in very wild areas very green colours and wood and somewhat organic shapes to things. In very civilized areas you'll see much more regular shapes and stone and golden yellow colours.

I'm also interested in having more mature characters in the game, rather than the jrpg standard of teenagers with spiky hair. I see the story of the game being told from two different perspectives one of a retired soldier who is working as a shepherd in the very north of the island and the other is a young merchant in the south. At the beginning of the game I see the soldier having to react to a sudden attack on his flock by dire wolves and the merchant will have to react to an attack on her caravan by bandits.

Over the course of the game the player will switch back and forth between the two characters until eventually they meet in the middle of the game and the middle of the island. Towards the end of the game they will have to work together to resolve the tensions on the island in which ever way the player chooses.

Project 10 - A Sci-Fi Novel

I started writing this novel in junior high school, which was a very long time ago now. But it's sat in my head and been mulling and melting around in there ever since. This is the story of John Onoray and Jorris Boss and The Third Imperial Commando Group as they fight to defend and then reclaim the Terran Empire.

If that sounds a bit tropey, well it's because I started writing it when I was in junior high school as I mentioned. It's better now than it was then, originally it was mostly about space warriors with incredible powered armour that was loaded down with missiles. (For the record, I didn't actually base this on Starship Troopers ... I actually tried to make Robotech more reasonable...) Eventually I realized that books need things like antagonists so created some super clones that were designed specifically to fight them.

The characters are still with me and I still have the skeleton of a story that isn't quite as terrible as what I started out with. I'm also interested in the idea of a character saving the world despite being unsaveable themselves, and this is a story that explores that. So I'm going to write it, even if it sucks and do my best to see it through to the end. If it's really terrible (and it'll be my first novel, so it will be) it can sit in my desk and at least I can finally think about other things.

Project 11 - A Fantasy Novel

This book is motivated a little bit by the movie Hero. Not anything to do with plot mind you, but I love the purity of colour in that movie and wanted to try to do something that evoked that same feeling. The problem is that while I have a feeling I want to evoke and a setting I've derived from that feeling, I don't really know what the story is yet.

So far, I know that the story starts in the city of Rooves, which is a city that grew up out of the coalition of five tribes that came together from the planes and coast to build a strong city.  Each of these tribes is represented by a different colour that is shown in the way they dress and their building (hence the rooves). Each of the tribes has a particular area of strength, but all economic and social activities are common across all the Rooves. The White Rooves are mostly focused on mining and metal smithing, the Blue Rooves are focused on land-based agriculture, the Yellow Rooves are focused on sea-based agriculture, the Green Rooves are focused on on sea trade and the Red Rooves are focused on military.

Within each of the Rooves people have a personal name, but also an animal that is representative of the work they do. So a general might be Eran the Red Tiger or a smith might be Marik the White Bull. Each house is lead by the Colour Dragon. Exactly how I'm going to make all that fit together without being weird is something I'm not sure about. I want the society to be egalitarian and merit based, but I also like having a certain amount of hereditary nature to the families.

The city is ruled by the Council of Dragons, which is made up of the Dragons of each of the Rooves. For each of the matters of the city which needs organization there is a council with representatives from each of the Rooves.

Finally there's a somewhat secret 6th tribe, the Black Rooves. They're extremely reclusive and seem to function as fortune tellers, but I haven't nailed down exactly how that's going to work either.

The main character is Cassimi the Blue Falcon, a young lady just starting her career in the Messenger Guild. She's the niece of the Blue Dragon and the Daughter of the Blue Tiger (who is the general of the cavalry in the city). She's intelligent, energetic, but young and inexperienced. I want her to be tough, but I'm not sure if that's something she'll have to develop over the course of the book. Beyond that I'm still working on how to give her a good arc that makes her interesting.

The story starts with her on her first day as a messenger,  then continues as she has to unravel a mysterious attack, eventually needing to travel to find out that dragons have returned to the world. Then ... something, possibly she has to rush back to save the city from something, but that seems really boring.

So there's still a lot to do, but if I write it I can edit it and maybe get something good out at the end, like the Sci-Fi Novel. And, if there's not too much good to get then I can enjoy the experience, let it lay in my desk too and go on to do other things.

Blog: Thoughts on XCOM

I recently finished my play through of Firaxis's new XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I didn't play the original X-COM when I was younger but picked it up a few years ago and fell in love with the sci-fi, grid and turn based tactical   game.

The new game is a nice reimagining of the original idea. The new concepts introduced change the mechanics, but the style and flavour of the game remains very similar. I've also backed the recreation of the original Xenonauts, so I'm totally happy to see a different take on the X-COM knowing that I have access to the straight modernization as well.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown ... actually the enemy is that thing over there!

Things I Liked

The number one thing I like about the game was the game itself (he said somewhat redundantly). It's a lot of fun and it's easy enough to play (although I haven't tackled the higher difficulty levels yet, nor tried the ironman mode). There are moments of great satisfaction when you kill a bad guy cleanly and exactly the way you meant to.

Fast-lane ready to damage an xray.

The class system is nice, not a new concept in gaming, but new to me in X-COM (I haven't played the original sequels). In the original game, especially at high equipment levels late in the game, you tended not to have any real difference between any of your team. One giant armoured turret was basically the same as any other. With the classes in XCOM it makes the game a little easier in the early running and a lot more fun.

The armour types were also fun, especially the ones available later in the game (although some of them I could have picked up a little earlier if I was smarter going through the research tree). In particular the armours that let you grapple around the map are a huge amount of fun. There's nothing like jumping across a giant gap to put your rifle up to the final boss's head and blowing him (it?) away.

Look, dude ... I like it too, but could you take it off to shower at least?

Things I Didn't Like

The number one thing I didn't like about XCOM was the voice acting. XCOM is based on the concept of a military created from volunteers from all over the world. My final team included an Israeli, an Argentinean, a Japanese, a Nigerian, an Italian and an American. All of these sounded like they were recorded by the same person, who lived in LA. There were no accents, there was no local flair. In the character creator there are only 5 voice choices per character and they're all completely interchangeable. Given a game that has a strong international flavour, this is really disappointing.

It's also worth noting that most of the credits are localization teams, meaning that there are tons and tons of INTERNATIONAL VOICE ACTORS voicing the same game. It makes the lack of diversity all the more annoying knowing that if the internationalization teams had just switched up some of their work it would have made the game so much stronger.

We're ready to go. From all around the world, just don't listen to us.

The next thing that I didn't like was the memorial wall. It's a nice concept, your soldiers put up a memorial for all their fallen comrades. You, however, are not allowed to see it. It's always behind the UI where you can see how many kills the soldier got before they died. You can't even sort the UI to see when they died, only the number of kills mattered. Again for a game where you're encouraged to care about your soliders this is disappointing.

Just let me see the wall too.

The rank system the game uses to give soldiers new powers is good (although I'd love a few more options for customizing the team, but I'll always have Xenonauts), however linking it with military rank is slightly annoying. I took 4 Colonels and 2 Majors on my final mission. This is weird, but only in terms of the story that I make in my head as I play, not in terms of the game's systems. I would have much rather be able to organize my command structure separately from my skill selection. The way the original X-COM organized rank (where you had 1 sergent per 10 soldier and 1 lieutenant per 3 or 4 sergents) felt much more appropriate, but that wouldn't suit the style of this game that well.

I also found that in this game they didn't make as good a use of the interceptors which shoot down UFOs as the original game did. In particular you used to be able to team up into squadrons to take down bigger ships as an interm measure before you got stronger interceptors and they left that out. It doesn't detract from the game, but was an element that felt missing.

The last thing I didn't like is much less important than the others, but probably bugged me more actively during the game. In order to help you know where to look for the alien scum, they developers included an indicator which shows where "noise" is coming from. The problem however is that every time the indicator goes off the solider nearest the noise asks some version of "What's that noise?" It was aliens, it's always aliens.

Things I Noticed

I haven't played another tactical game with cover implemented this way. On the whole I really liked the way it makes things easier to manage, I know soldier X is pretty safe because she's standing in the right position. I know I'm taking a huge risk with solider Y because he's out in the middle, but hopefully he can take a reaction shot and keep himself out of trouble.

I know where they are, and my guns are loaded!

Things I'd Include in a Game

The number one thing I'd take from XCOM is the feeling of the combat. You always feel powerful and in control, but never invulnerable. Even with your normal weapons you can fight any alien, although it may be harder, you're never out classed so badly that the game becomes impossible. On the other hand then you're never so secure in your position in the late game, no matter how good your armour or your arms that a lucky shot from even the weakest enemy can give you trouble. You always have to play smart, but playing smart is always rewarded.

Final Thoughts

XCOM is really good. I'm certain I'm going to play it on and off for years to come. Fraxis took X-COM and made it modern, easy to play and fun without losing the fundamental aspects of the original games. I always felt like I knew what was going on.

We will be watching you.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 26)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is a bit of a testament to the cool things people can make.

• So have I mentioned that George Watsky is a pretty boss poet?
• Have you ever considered building an economy based on things you can cut with a sword? It's worth thinking about. Also Jayne!Hank and Kaylee!Katherine is pretty damn adorable. 
• The next video is another from Fruity Ukuladies, furthering my belief that is possible to make anything better through the power of covers. 
• Sometimes an inside joke just has to go to it's logical conclusion. Here we see Corey and Katers finishing this one off.
• Finally we see the ways in which certain video games could have been significantly faster. If you're interested you can see some of the filming in Kater's blog.

Project 7: A Hockey Card Game

I vaguely remember from my childhood playing a card game based on a game of hockey. Luckily thanks to the Internet, I've managed to find some record that it existed.

Still I've been kind of inspired to try to create a game out of this. I've had some discussions with some friends over the years and I feel like I want to try to make my own card based hockey game for two players.

Right now I'm not sure how all the pieces will fit together, but my plan is to have a rink between the two players with a puck that can be either in the neutral zone the defensive zone or the offensive zone. One player will play cards to try to move the puck down the ice and get it into the net. The other player will then try to play cards to stop the first player and get hold of the puck on their own. When they do then they switch and play goes the other way. Each card will have a situation in which it can be played,  and will indicate the situation that results after the card has been played.

I'm not sure if I want to create this as a physical artifact or a computer game, but I think for the first testing stages I'm going to create the cards in real life. For my first outing I'm going to do a smaller set of cards and then expand them over time if things are actually working. This will also let me know if this is actually any fun at all.

Given that Table Top Day (March 30) is coming up soon, I'm going to try to see if I can round up some friends who were going to play board games anyway on that day and trick them into doing a little play testing of this first round for me.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 25)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is musical, adventurous, strange and sciencey.

• The first video in this volume is from the FruityUkuladies and is there cover of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". 
• The next video in this volume is KT Tunstall covering the Jackson 5's "I want you Back".
• Next is a video from Katers17, going adventuring in a hole in England. Watching this video I was reminded of the story of how Shigeru Miyamoto conceived "The Legend of Zelda" based on exploring the woods near his house as a child. 
• Then we see Corey "Mr. Safety" and Katers demonstrating a reversal of an important life lesson.
• Finally, we end on Mr. Charlie McDonnell talking stars.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 24)

This volume of my favorite youtube videos is a musical one with a little bit of vlog mixed in in the middle. So here we have some inspiration, some angler fish football, some exploding green fellows and some animated felt... (plus the Muppets).

• George Watsky is an incredible voice, poet, rapper and human being. You've probably seen him rapping to a goat. Here, like he often is, he's talking about seizing your dreams and being true to yourself.
• So have I mentioned that the best bits of vlogbrothers is when they're together. Also this is the birth of the Swindon Town Swoodlypoopers (even if they never did manage to play together again).
• The next video is a Minecraft song by CaptainSparklez. It's a parody of Usher's "DJ Got us Fallin' in Love" but way better because it's about creepers.
• I like The Muppets, I like OK Go. Is there any reason not to love the combination? Also, please to enjoy the ending Catapult Nightmares.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 23)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is a little different. This time it's all videos from one source and weirder than that three of the videos have the same song. But I'll tell you that these videos were the ones that inspired me to start posting about my favorite YouTube videos and I've been waiting for this post for a long time.

I don't think I can describe World Order or Genki Sudo. I don't think I can describe their videos, so I suggest you watch them. I can say that I think that they're mind blowing and that their videos are go so far beyond simple dance that they are expressions of human physiology and kinetics.

Please remember to enjoy World Order responsibly and avoid operating heavy machinery for at least an hour after watching.

• The first two videos are both of the same song, the eponymous "World Order", the first in Tokyo and the second in New York. Beyond the group themselves the videos are fascinating for the reaction of the people around them.
• The next video is for the song "Machine Civilization" and here the group's dance is outstanding, mesmerizing and almost incomprehensible. Again it's fascinating to see the reactions they draw from the people around them.
• The third video is for "Boy Meets Girl" and we see what happens when World Order tries to relax for the evening and celebrate their success. 
• The next two videos are a tribute to World Order from a group in Florida. The first is the video they made and the second is the making of which shows just how much work it is for people to perfect the choreography. Again, when you watch it a second time (and I'm sure you will) watch for the reactions of all the people and the kids trying to figure out the moves. I think it's fitting that the tribute gets the same reaction as the original.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 22)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos includes some cool music, some cool writing and some cool costumes.

• The first video this volume is Bill Withers singing "Ain't No Sunshine". This is an incredible performance with so much passion. I'm not sure where it's from, but it's worth taking the time to enjoy.
• The next video is Alex Day and Bryarly Bishop, singing "Under the Sea" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid".
• The next video another vlogbrother video, this one with John and Hank together (which is the best kind of vlogbrother video). Beyond that I'm not sure why I favorited it, other than the generally entertaining insanity and possibly The Katherine hiding in the bathroom (spoilers). Plus Ellen Hardcastle is my favorite album by Hank so far.
• The next video, again from the vlogbrothers is the first part of the nerdfighter book club on "The Great Gatsby". Whenever John talks books it's interesting, but now I'm especially interested in this one because he has returned to it on their Crash Course channel. The concepts are the same but the presentation has changed.
• Finally we have a lipdub of cosplayers from the London Film & Comic Con in July 2011 by Cosplay Fever.

Blog: Thoughts on Tales of Graces f

I recently finished playing Tales of Graces f. Which is a PS3 expanded port of a Wii game (Tales of Graces). It's a jrpg that is part of the long running Tales series. Quite a while ago I played through the GameCube Tales of Symphonia, but other than that I haven't played other games in the series.

Tales of Graces f (via GameFaqs)

This game is an action rpg, in which you run around on the world map and then when you run into enemies (which are visible in the world) you enter a combat environment where you can move around the enemies and use different combat commands which are bound to the different controller buttons. The rest of the time you run around the world and talk with people and try to avoid TOTAL ANNIHILATION OF THE PLANET (as I said, it's a jrpg). Interestingly the game is also set over 3 (well 2 and a half) different time periods where you play first as a child and then later as a young adult. The last section of game takes place about six months after than the main story line and gives you an extra adventure and a bit of a "where are they now" section.

I'm very charmed by this game. Objectively, it would be hard to rate it as especially good since it has some design and technical problems that hold it back from being excellent, equally it would be hard to consider it bad since none of its problems are game-breaking. Overall it's average, however I enjoyed playing it and as I said I was really charmed by our encounter (which lasted 50 or so hours).

Some of the visuals are pretty cool. (via GameFaqs)

I'll talk below about the things I liked, didn't like, thought about and would include in a game of my own. As always please be warned since there will be spoilers.

Things I Liked

Many of the things I liked I only came to like after a lot of time spent playing the game. By the end of the game, I came to really like the characters, but in the earlier parts of the story they felt flat and a little unpleasant. As you spend more time with them and as the story lets them develop they become a lot more lovable and entertaining.

While the characters got better overtime I think I may have enjoyed the story a little less at its end than I did at its beginning. In the earliest phases we play a local lord caught in a greater conflict between three greater kingdoms who are all suffering a shortage of the magical go-powder that makes all the magic and technology work. Later the game shifts to more of standard, chase down the giant evil and kill them (although it is actually more nuanced than that). Overall the story was still a good part of the game.

Another thing I liked, although I don't know that it's the kind of thing I want included in every game, is the aging up structure of the narrative. Playing the first few chapters as kids lets you be bad at the game while your character is still young (which makes more sense than why a 20 something year old soldier is not quite sure which end of the gun/sword/gunsword should be pointed at the rats). It also offers more narrative options than keeping the time in the game continuous, so you're able to be a kid, have a tramatic event happen and then runaway to clown school (by which I mean the knight academy). I don't know that they implemented it quite as well as they might have, there are things that might have been done better and worked into the story (you lived two blocks away from your friend for 7 years and never talked to him?), but overall I think it made the story work in this game.

Hey we're just kids right now! (via GameFaqs)

I also liked getting an extra mini-adventure at the end of the game. This was added on for the PS3 version and lets you return to your main characters six months after the end of the main quest. It's nice to get a calm way to transition out of the game at the end. The story was less intense, but still interesting and lets you see the characters returning to their real world jobs and sorting out their real world relationships. As with the rest of the story it could be slightly better and less melodramatic but it was a really nice way to finish the game.

Things I Didn't Like

For some reason the developers created an artificial intelligent for the camera and made it terrified of the main characters. It was difficult to see things in many areas of the game because the camera was so far away from the action. Some of this might be in the nature of PS3 games (and my having a not-quite-actually-hd television, it was also somethings difficult to read the type) and it did make it easier to see the enemies around you, however at first at least I found it really disconnecting. I understand that the models and textures might not be at the top of the line for the PS3 but it would have been nice to actually see some of what was going on.

I also found that the difficulty on the bosses was way harder than any of the mooks in the area. I guess the intention was that I should grind more, but I (for some crazy reason) didn't want to grind. It's especially frustrating since the difficulty shows up at strange times in the game (you might get five boss fights in a row that are easy and then one that's nearly impossible). Other than an attempt to boost the hours that the game takes, I suspect that some of the difficulty imbalance is due to the fact that single enemies are at a great disadvantage of groups of enemies (since they are easy to stun-lock and simply can't move as fast as your party of four fighters), however for story reasons some bosses need to fight alone and so they ramp up the difficulty to keep things "balanced".

The combat system was also quite complicated (or I was fairly dumb). After 40 hours of play time I was still learning how the game worked. While I certainly take some of the blame, having not played a "modern" jrpg (the last I think I played was Final Fantasy 12, which isn't modern or at all the same) and having not played a tales game in a very long time. On the other hand the game was still giving introductory tutorial messages during a boss fight more than 30 hours into the game. At the end (especially in the future section) I felt good with the combat system and got better at winning fights, but it certainly took me a long time.

The combat system ... of course we know what's going on here. (via GameFaqs)

The crafting systems was frustratingly complex for very little pay off. Craftable things seem to come in three types, food (and items), gear and valuables. The valuables system was fairly straight forward, but required you to go through the list of every item you have available and see what it can be crafted with, then you can sell the outcome (or save them to see what you can combine them with). The actual utility of this never became clear to me other than to have a bank of spare cash and it took more time than I'd really have liked.

The food system basically works the same way. When you have food as an item you can use it to heal the whole party for some percentage of their HP. More interestingly if you use the crazy inexplicable object creator thingy to make food, it can produce effects in the battle environment (like reviving dead characters, yay cheeseburgers). While this is cool, the fact that no food items are not actually usable to produce effects makes the whole system less helpful.

The gear system is where the problems really stood out to me. As far as I can tell there were at least four different mechanics that affected the creation of gear. Some of them augmented gear and others gave you new types of gear and then somehow you could get things back from gear without losing the augments and then ... you could do something with them. Unfortunately this is not at all intuitive or explained well in the tutorial text and I was never able to understand it. (And I'm willing to admit that it might be me as much as it's the game).

Things I Noticed

Back in the days of the Super Nintendo, on the the things I enjoyed about many RPGs was the sudden access to flight, freeing you up to travel around the world anywhere you want to go and to do anything you want to do. In particular the mode-7 airship from Final Fantasy VI (3) and Flammie the Mana Dragon from Secret of Mana hold a special place in my heart.

Now however, most games don't allow you to fly around the world. In Tales of Graces f you can't even pick your destination from the map, you have to pick it from a list beside the map. Given that it's tough to remember where you want to go by name some times this isn't an ideal solution to the going places problem. It's also much less immersive and fun than getting to fly yourself

Things I'd Include in a Game

One of the interesting things about this game is that I don't feel like there are any components I'd really chose to integrate into a game. Basically, while I enjoyed the game, I didn't feel that any of the novel parts of the game were actually things I'd choose to play.

Final Thoughts

Overall it's a little difficult to talk about  this game. I definitely enjoyed it and will probably play bits of it again at some point in the future, but overall it didn't stay with me the way some games do. I also think that while it's a fun game it's not a great starting point either for the series or the genre. Tales of Graces f is a solid game but nothing to really shake up your world.

He has crazy eyes, but it's only because someone crazy got in one of his eyes ... (via GameFaqs)

Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 21)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos contains some thoughtfulness, some music, some video games and some laughs.

• The first video in this volume is from Corning, and (this might shock you) it's about glass. On the one hand it's a pretty standard corporate puff piece about how awesome they'll make your future, but I was mostly interested in it because it's a pretty good illustration (in my opinion) of how our technology should work for us over the next 20 years. I favorited this one because I thought the concepts were really interesting.
• The next video is by vlogger/designer Karen Kavett. These are her reflections on her time at RISD as she graduates. It's a cool, well produced video with a lot of heart and interesting reflections on her time as a student. It's nice to see someone who's education went so well and was so in line with where they wanted their life to go. 
• The third video in this volume is composer/pianist Laura Shigihara playing an improvised arraignment of music from Secret of Mana. It's a very restful piece and Secret of Mana's music always makes the hair on my arms stand up.
• The next video is a recording of a panel from the Calgary Comic Expo 2011, featuring the voices of the childhood of anyone of my generation, Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche and Jess Harnell. I was lucky enough to attend this panel and I thoroughly enjoyed it and am glad the chance exists to relive it through YouTube.
• The final video for this volume is another video song from Pomplamoose, their original song River Shiver. 

Project 6 : 100 Sketches

Over the years I've taken a few drawing classes and other kinds of art class. I've reached the point of being not terrible, but I'm never going to get better without practicing regularly which I haven't found the time and motivation to do. To give myself a kick to practicing more I'm starting a new project. My goal for this project is to practice sketching for at lest 15 minutes a day for 100 days in the next six months.

A sketching of things, using Paper on the iPad.

I'm not going to share all my sketches, since most of them probably won't be that good and I don't want to stress myself out about quality. If there are some I feel like showing off then you might see them in an update here.

The deadline for this project will be July 1, 2013 and I'm going to try to have 100 days of sketching between then and now.