Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 6)

Welcome to the sixth volume of my favorite YouTube videos. This is another grab-bag music week (this will eventually become less frequent, but it's the kind of thing I was focused on at the time, plus I didn't really use YouTube that heavily).

• First we have a nifty piece of music constructed out of the sounds of the Windows Operating System. I like the song and I think it's a cool idea. It's also good for making people wonder what the hell is wrong with their computer.
• The second video is ... faintly embarrassing. But I'll admit to having watched and enjoyed Kim Possible. I also enjoyed that after the first few seasons we started actually seeing the characters change clothes. You know, like people? Sorry about the music on this one.
• The third video is pretty much my favorite song of all time. I love Chrono Trigger. I love Robo's Theme and this song, by Star Salzman, is great. The video that goes along with it also great and has a few funny / awesome moments.
• The fourth video is another great video from CalebElijah. This time tackling the iconic "Shadow's Theme" from Final Fantasy VI.
• And the final video for this volume is the very exciting Yoshida Brothers, playing the Hockey Night in Canada Theme. Ok well not quite, but Rising certainly evokes that before transitioning into it's own version of awesome.

Blog: Thoughts on Mass Effect 3

This is another post of my thoughts on video games. As with the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I finished Mass Effect 3 quite a while ago. Interestingly unlike Skyward Sword, Mass Effect 3 left less of an impact on me and I find that it has largely faded from my mind (and it isn't, on it's own, a game I'm likely to return to).

Just a warning this post will contain major spoilers for all three Mass Effect games.

This is Calrin Shepard. Your only defense against the Reaper threat.

To go back a bit, I really enjoyed Mass Effect, more, I think, than a lot of other people. I enjoyed the RPG aspect of the character management and the combat (although not the inventory). I even enjoyed the Mako sections (that bouncy tank) that no one else liked. The thing I liked most about Mass Effect though was that it let me play a guy who was geuinely enthusiastic about going to space, meeting aliens and doing cool things.

Mass Effect 2 therefore was a mixed bag for me. It was easier to play, better organized and still a lot of fun. It felt a bit more closed in and I found it harder to play Shepard as the space enthusiast and as a realistic human being. Because of the way the game was structured it was necessary to get as many paragon or renegade points as possible to get powers and story points unlocked successfully. This meant that you weren't free to chose the dialogue option you wanted, but had to pick the choice that gave you the points you needed.

Enter Mass Effect 3, which felt on the one hand like an apology for how much Mass Effect 2 wandered off from the original idea of Mass Effect and on the other hand like a plea from EA for everyone on earth to start playing their games. This made the game quite mixed having some of the aspects that I really enjoyed from Mass Effect (such as the interplanetary diplomacy and your original crew), but still some of the streamlining from Mass Effect 2 that felt a bit as though the control of the game was not up to you.

Someone who sorta looked like me used to sorta work for you.

Things I Liked

As I mentioned the thing I liked best about Mass Effect was the feeling being able to run around and be excited about being in space and meeting new and crazy races (if you wanted to play that way). Mass Effect always seemed to be light hearted enough that meeting people and doing things always felt fun. Now I realize that the plot in Mass Effect 3 doesn't allow for so much light heartedness but it was nice to at least have a chance to go do some things that were more "spacey".

It's good to have the old gang back together.

I also liked the way the combat was designed. Mass Effect was clunky at best (even though I enjoyed it) and while Mass Effect 2 was much slicker it also limited the options available to you (playing as an engineer I felt like my hands were tied for much of the game). Mass Effect 3 seems to have found a balance point between the two, where you get to play the way you want to play but the game is still streamlined and organized. That being said though the very best part of the combat (at least as an engineer) is the joy of setting the bad guys on fire.

Surprisingly I also really enjoyed the multi-player. I hadn't expected to enjoy it, in fact I hadn't even really expected to play it. I don't usually go for multi-player games, I tend to play games for a break for interacting with people.  The fact that multi-player was somewhat necessary to get the best ending for the game (and we'll get to the ending in a bit) drew me in especially since I didn't want to spend too much time grinding on the single player elements to get my "readiness" up to the top level.

It turned out however that the multi-player was maybe the most fun part of the game (even if I was the weakest link on several occasions). Especially once I got used to the maps and the style of play (and it was kinda tough as an engineer) I had a lot of fun and I think if I were to fire up Mass Effect 3 again in the near future it would be to play multi-player (especially if I could do it with people I know.)

Things I Didn't Like

Unfortunately Mass Effect 3 has a number of aspects that I just didn't enjoy. The first of which the story. Actually it's not the story itself that was my problem so much as all the side-stories you needed to do to get on with the main story. This is one of the parts where my memory is fading a bit, but the number of times you had to do the traditional RPG thing of helping one person to get the thing to help another person to get the thing to help the first person to get the thing you needed to do the first part of your quest seems very high.

In particular I feel like Tuchanka was both the best and worst part of the game. On the one hand you had incredible character moments and scenes that changed the shape of the galaxy, but at the same time you're dicking around on a planet doing things that had do nothing to stop the invading fleet of giant sentient space robot lobsters.

I think the solution to this would have been to make the game much more open (I recognize there are some options, but they're less even than in the previous two games). You have 7 days and all of space open to you. Go see who you can convince to save earth and the rest of the galaxy. You can keep most of the set pieces and scenes of the game the same, but you give the player a lot more flexibility to cut and run when the time invested is out weighing the benefit collected.

Another thing that bothered me about the game is the amount of time taken for Shepard to get anything done. Even if we exclude the length of time it takes for interstellar travel (which they don't really talk about in game, is it seconds or is it days) there's still the fact that the game takes a lot of time. Enough time that the onboard reporter to have several reports that it seems would take place days or even weeks apart and for that mater there's enough time for people to build a giant super weapon. It speaks to the weird construction of the threat in this game. Giant sentient space robot lobsters that are explicitly designed to absorb and destroy all life in the galaxy have to conduct month's long ground wars?

And I'm fighting you by hand ... why?

This is one of the more common problems in video games (and a lot of creative works), the relative power of the bad guys is set way to high for the good guys to ever combat. We want a strong enemy so we can feel great having over come them and been victorious, but if the creators have to invent reasons why the bad guys don't auto-win over the good guys the story telling is going to be slightly hollow.  It's difficult to take a defeatable video game enemy as a real threat to the entirety of life in the galaxy.

This feeds into my last major issue and it shouldn't be any surprise to hear that it's the ending. I'm less bothered than a lot of people because I'm in the camp of believers that most of the game was "the ending" and as such the results of the decisions you made and the actions you took are played out long before you start shambling around the citadel with a small child (the spoilers will really take effect now, also context is everything).

The thing I was most upset about with regards to this was the resolution between the Quarians and the Geth. Now I may in fact be wrong, but as far as I can tell, regardless of the actions you take in Mass Effect 3, if you took particular actions in Mass Effect 2 there is no way for you to get the "best result" and save both races. I suppose you can call this the natural outcome of the choices I made thoughout the first two games (although I'll counter by telling you that it would have forced me to make only the paragon choices through out the game regardless of how I wanted to play it and that in Mass Effect 2 this means siding against the optimism I was playing for with my Shepard), but it is extremely frustrating that there was no option in the game that let you do anything about this.

This may prove to be wrong, as I mentioned, but I did extensive research online at the time, knowing the outcome I wanted. I think this is another thing that game designers should strive to avoid. If someone wants something to happen in the game they shouldn't need to play with the walkthrough open on the side.

The second point where this becomes a problem is in the final ending. You're given a large ending-o-tron which can make one of three endings happen. You "win" by giving up, you "win" by annihilating the reapers and all other forms of artificial life (including the Geth you might have just saved and your teammate/ your own ship's AI) or you "win" by smushing everything together into a big circuty mess and all you have to do is kill yourself first.

The problem comes here though, if your "readiness" score is high enough and you choose to destroy all artificial life then you get a scene which suggests that either Shepard survived or, at least, Shepard's corpse was recovered. No mater how high your score is if you make the other two choices then this hint isn't given at all.

So for me, the choice came down this, kill my ship/shipmate EDI or kill myself. I had my score up high enough (thanks to all the multi-player I played) and arrived at the final choice with enough war resources to "win" the game. In and of itself this isn't a bad choice. You or your friend. Selfishness or Selflessness. Simple dramatic choice. My Shepard chose selflessness, of course, because that's the way he is.

My problem is that I could have made that choice without doing all the extra work. I could have skipped all the optional missions and all the multi-player. None of it mattered. I gave up all the work because of a plot related choice. So in effect the game didn't reward me for my work and actually punished me for trying to live up to an ideal.

I haven't played the "extended ending" so I don't know exactly how it affects what we know about the world at the end of the game. From what I've read it doesn't bring Shepard back to life, nor make clear if EDI survives if you chose to destroy the Reapers. It adds a do nothing option, but I don't know what the result of that is either.

I would have really liked to see a result that allowed you to explore the consequences of your decisions without relying solely on which button you chose at the end and what your "score" was thought the game. To stick within the framework they've chosen it the ending should reflect at a minimum how well you've played and what you've decided. So if you want endings for people over a line in the score and under it then make six endings, good merging, good surrendering and good destroying and then bad / mediocre merging, surrendering and destroying. Don't tie the quality of the outcome to the choices made by the player.

However the other way to do it would be to remove the score and make the result of the game much more dependent on the choices the player has made throughout the game (and in fact all three games, as long as there's a chance for the player to try to get the result they want for the major decisions). This allows for players to see the ending that's tailored to the way they played the game (and saves you from needing to incorporate a weird ghost-space-child to give you a sudden victory at the end of the game).

The final thing I'd like to gripe about, is the Citadel. In the first game it was a wide open space (if not as large as you might like) where you could chose several different ways to get around. In the second game it was a 3 story office building with nothing interesting in it at all. Mass Effect 3 does a better job of making it an interesting place to visit, but it still feels small and chopped up. I wish there had been more space, more options and more things to do even if it meant spending more time in elevators.

Things I Noticed

When I wrote up my thoughts on Skyward Sword, I found there were a bunch things which I didn't feel that strongly about, one way or the other. For Mass Effect 3 I don't have anything I feel that neutral about. If this continues in future thoughts on games, I may remove this section all together, but for now I'll leave it at my unneutral feelings.

Things I'd Include in a Game

By far the best part of Mass Effect 3, and the whole Mass Effect series is the relationships between you and your team mates. Characterization is important to making you feel connected and making you care about what's going on in the game. If you had never spoken to Mordan would you care when he sacrifices himself? You might, because some of the characterization is done through the main plot, but there's so much more when you've had those long weird chats with him every time you've run past.

Sometimes you just want to hang out with your buddy. 

When developing my own game, I want to make sure that the way you interact with your team mates and the choices you make and the actions you take are well reflected. I want to make sure that you feel like you're working with real people who care and are interested in what's going on around them. This can be complex, but it's also as simple as Shepard's relationship with Wrex: "Wrex." "Shepard."

I'd also keep the number of team mates down. By the end of Mass Effect 3 you have two and a half crews whom you've adventured with and whom you care for. When wrapping up the story a lot of these angles are going to have to be cut short or else the game will last forever. To combat this keeping a small handful of people to really care about is important and helps make the game feel more meaningful.

Final Thoughts

Despite what EA would like you to believe, there's no real reason to play Mass Effect 3 if you aren't a long term player of the series. I really enjoyed a lot of my time playing the game and if I'd stopped halfway through I'd have had a much more positive outlook on the game. I know that endings aren't easy, but unfortunately Mass Effect 3's really hurts it. Not so much for its content alone but for highlighting all the weakness of the series all at one time.

At some point, I may play these all again. I've partially played through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to see what the renegade side is like but never to completion. I'd like to revisit them, but I'm still disappointed that to get some of the outcomes I want I have to auto play the paragon route.

I really liked Mass Effect and I liked Mass Effect 2 even though I disagree with a lot of the decisions BioWare made about that game. For Mass Effect 3, I enjoyed the gameplay, but feel left short by it. I enjoyed the story, but felt it didn't fill in all the gaps I wanted to know about. At the end of the day, I was left liking Mass Effect 3, but not loving it.

Yeah, I had a few graphical problems. It may be time for a new PC.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 5)

Welcome to the fifth volume of my favorite YouTube videos. This week is a bit of a grab bag. Still mostly musical but also a little bit of brain melting thrown in for good measure.

• The first video is the video for Dana Lyons song "Cows With Guns". It's ... punny and you should consider yourself warned. The song is also a fond reminder of the old days of CBC radio and "Richardson's Roundup" which was always the highlight of my day. Quick note, really long intro so you might want to skip about 20 seconds in and turn your volume down until after the singing starts.
• The second video is a few minutes with renowned physic professor Walter Lewin. This is part of his Electricity and Magnetism Lecture (I think from 2002). It comes in a bit late if its been a while since you covered electro-magnetism, but is still a fascinating video and a view of an amazing lecturer (also he's a man who is very good at drawing lines). 
• The next video is a return to our friend Brentalfloss and his interpretation of the original Zelda Theme. (And it's a good thing he got those 400 views of his Mario medley.)
• The fourth video for this volume is of comedian / musician Rob Paravonian and his famous Pachebel Rant. (I'm not sure about famous exactly but looking on the internet this seems to be the thing he's known for best). 
• And the final video for this volume is Stephen Malinowski's Music Animation Machine video of a harpsichord recording of Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in G Major. This video is favorited for two reasons, the first of which is that I like the harpsichord rendition of the song (midi though it may be) and the second is that the style of animation of music inspired the visualizations I used for a project of mind called Agent Jam (which I haven't mentioned here yet, but I  may in the not too distant future.)

Interestingly one of the videos that would have been in this volume got axed by copyright request in the last few days. It's interesting in this case because the video was of Rostropovich playing the prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 and had been up on youtube for at least 5 years by this point. Copyright is always a thorny issue and I'm not making any statements about that here other than that its frustrating when things disappear out of my favorites list.

Project 4 : Snake

As I have mentioned here before, one of the goals I have is to design and make video games. I don't know that I mean to do it as a career (said the perpetual student) but  it would be a fun hobby.

I don't have experience in games programming (baring some assignments during my bachelor's degree) so I need to start actually doing something to start getting some experience (you have to start your 10 000 hours somewhere).

I figured to give myself an achievable start I'd though I'd tackle something with not too many moving parts. As such, I thought I'd implement Snake. For the uninitiated, in basic snake you play a snake, made up of squares and you eat dots which make you longer and you try not to crash into things (either the wall or yourself.)

Emulation of the Snake I remember best on the TI-83.

I like snake for a number of reasons. The first as I mentioned is that it's relatively easy to program and a simple implementation can be put together in a day or an afternoon (even if you don't really know what you're doing). It is also easily extendible (it's not too much extra work to get to tron bikes or to caterpillar) and still has enough game play aspects to introduce interesting ideas.

This is not a terribly novel thing to do. There is a site at snakegame.net which has an archive of some of the more interesting implementations which come in a variety of flavors. There's also a cool version Snakes on a Cartesian Plane which plays with a lot of different game play concepts and ideas.

It's punny and an exciting experiment.

A friend of mine, who happens to be experienced in the way of game design, mentioned a developer who always implements snake as a way to get familiar with a new platform. I feel like this is a good idea and I'm planning to follow that as well as I start teaching myself how to make games.

The first stage I'd like to finish is to implement a vary basic, limited graphics version of snake using Processing.org. I actually did most of this a while ago but somehow lost the project on my computer so need to start again. This should be fairly quick (as I said maybe an afternoon of work) but I'm going to give myself a deadline of September 1, 2012 to finish.

Project 1 : A Blog - Wrap Up / Update

A year ago I started the "Blog as a Project" project (not to be confused with the "Blog as a Blog") and today is the day I'm supposed to wrap it up.

Let me say first that I'm planning to start a "second season" of the blog, but that I'm still not sure exactly what form it will take.

When I first started out to blog more I had a list of things I thought would be interesting to blog about. I even have a nicely organized file that lists them all. I'll include that below so you can see what I had been thinking about before I started.

Idea	Date Added	Date Published
Intro	06/08/10	01/08/11
Windows Shutdown	06/08/10	-
Thesis	06/08/10	-
We are all going to live in public	06/08/10	-
Thesis Wordle	06/08/10	-
Ad incentives (omgpop vs tetrisfriends)	06/08/10	-
Why everyone should be a polymath	12/08/10	-
Not all collections are created equal	12/08/10	-
Clean Desktop	13/08/10	-
Nerd Fighting / Proactive Nerds	14/08/10	-
My Pockets	14/08/10	-
Black book ToDo List	14/08/10	-
Enjoying Wear	14/08/10	-
Pomplamoose Videos expertise in sound crafting	15/08/10	-
Closet	28/08/10	-
Water Bottle Spigot	28/08/10	-
Garfield / Adding more to the given story	18/11/10	-
I don't really like Harry Potter	18/11/10	-
I don't really like Robots	17/12/10	-
Fan Chants at Hitmen	31/01/11	-
Peanut butter pizza tutorial (Video)	03/06/11	-
"Future" - (Corning Glass) (via Terry O'Riley)	03/06/11	-
Derek K. Miller	31/07/11	13/09/11

So what can we see? Mostly that I only managed to get two posts done from the original list, the Introduction (which I split into two parts, the intro to the "The Blog the Blog" and the intro to "The Blog the Project") and my memorial post to Derek K. Miller. The others haven't been done for a variety of reasons.

By far the biggest reason is that the me of 2010 just doesn't have the same concerns that me of today does. So, while I could write most of these posts still, I'm not sure I'd feel the same push I would have had I not been procrastinating back in 2010. A few of these I have no idea what I was supposed to talk about (Closet? - mine should be be cleaner but what was my point, Garfield? - I don't even know) and some I don't really have anything to say on the topic (Harry Potter, Robots and Hitmen Chants). A few actually require me to learn new skills (how hard should it be to mock up Windows Shutdown Screens? damn hard if you aren't trained in it, it turns out).

Some of them may still be interesting, but I don't know that they match as well with the things I'm thinking about now, nor the things I'd like to focus on. Over all, at the moment, I feel that this blog should support all the other projects that I'm working on (and yes I know I'm not doing much right now, that'll be followed up on in another post). That's why I've been writing (a bit) about video games since at the moment I would like to focus more on learning to be a good developer of video games.

July is really the first month in which I've gotten any traction at all blogging, and that mostly through my Favorite YouTube Videos series. While the YouTube series is not exactly an amazingly deep set of posts, they are fun to write (and hopefully fun to read) and they give me some practice in getting things written and sent out. Given that my career requires (for the next 3 years at least) that I get better at writing and and presenting my work, any practice I can get doing this seems like a good thing.

With a "year" of blogging in hand, I feel excited to keep going (and actually more excited having written this post). As I mentioned, I would like to focus more on blogging about things that support the other projects I'm doing. This means in the short term I'm going to keep posting thoughts about different video games as a primary topic, but I'll keep posting about anything that I think is interesting and slowly flooding everyone with the videos I've favorited on YouTube (incidentally that should take about a year to get caught up on).

As I've said before I think that there should be a pre-determined end date for any project. I'm calling this the second season of the blog and it will run from now until August 1, 2013.

Blog: Favorite Youtube Videos (Volume 4)

Welcome to the fourth volume of my favorite youtube videos series. This volume is a musical grab bag and another visit to internet history.

• The first video is one of the versions of the Pi song. There are several songs composed so that the digits of Pi inform the music. In this case it dictates the pitch of the note, there are others where the digits control other things, you can see a bit more at Numberphile's video on making a Mathmetal song about Phi. This version is pretty up beat and kinda fun to listen to.
• The next three videos are that visit to internet history. Brentalfloss has become pretty well known for his video game music "with lyrics" series, but did you know that he started out doing simple covers of old video game songs? (You did? Oh for heaven's sake, why do I keep using this device?) Here we see three renditions of Mario Bros. music two on keyboard and one a cappella and you can see a little bit of where Brent is going to go, but I have to say at the time I didn't expect just how cool he was going to become.
• The final video is a funky rendition of Fur Elise by a guy called GovernorWatts. I also found him through some of his video game music videos, but he wandered off into other fields. It's interesting that at the time Brentalfloss and GovenorWatts seemed about the same (both doing "in bedroom music covers" and political rants) and to see now how differently they came out. (And no I'm still not sure about the"son of Stephen Colbert" bit, but I do know that this was going long before the Report came out.)

Yet Another Update

I've decided, given that this is about the first anniversary of the "Blog as Project" part of the blog, to make a couple of simple changes around here. Over all, I'm happy, I feel like I'm getting better and that things are moving along.

However I haven't posted as much as I'd like to and at least some of that is due to the way I have the projects structured. They feel a bit too big to me and like I should have something substantial before I do anything (which is why there are so few). I've also been busy, as you may notice up at the top this is the "productivity" journal of  PhD and that means that I actually need to get some of my school work done as well.

In order to manage the projects better I'm going to add two other categories. The first is "Mini Projects" in which I will include things that are quick to do and will be one or two posts (and I think a lot of "after action reports"). The second category is "Academic Projects" in which I may detail more of the things I do in relation to my degree, these may be quite vague, since most of my work is not yet published and there are quite a few things that I'd rather not spoil on myself. Still I hope that I can keep track of that part of my life on here, all be it in a fairly vague manner.

I've also changed the font for the site, since I discovered that I apparently don't like san-serif body text any more. Hopefully the site will easier to read.

Blog: Favorite Youtube Videos (Volume 3)

This is the third volume of my favorite youtube video series. In this volume we take a break from the video game music for some exciting time lapse videos and take a look at the earliest days of an internet phenomenon.

• The first video is a time lapse of various night scenes accompanied by very beautiful music. Keep an eye out for the LAX landing sequence.
• The second  and third videos are both photo-a-day projects of two guys who recorded a picture of themselves every day for several years. The first at least is pretty well known and parodied but it's still a fascinating thing to watch. The second I think is less well known but interesting in its own right as the man goes through a lot of maturing over the course of the video.
• The next two videos are little pieces of internet history. Yahtzee Croshaw is known for his long running, snarky, fast talking video game reviews on the escapist. But did you know he got that job on the basis of two videos he posted to youtube? (You did? Well ok then I'll just go feel not special over here.) Please to enjoy the slowest talking you will ever hear from Yahtzee.

Blog: Favorite Youtube Videos (Volume 2)

This is the second of my (going to be quite long) series of posts sharing my favorite videos from Youtube.

This volume, much line the first, is focused on some cool video game music.

• The first entry is a little shaky as far as video and sound quality goes, but is a good and exciting rendition of the best boss music in Final Fantasy. If this doesn't make the hair stand up on your arms then there is clearly something wrong with the hair on your arms (or possibly this wasn't a staple of your childhood, which is fair too, I guess).
• The second favorite is another from CalebElijah, playing music to be banished from your village to.
• The third is medley of all the ocarina songs from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I favorited this one at least in part to teach myself how to play these on the piano, but I never got around to it (maybe that's another project from the future).
• And finally we have a Mario Paint version of Robo's Theme from Chrono Trigger (which we will here again in other forms, have no fear). This is made using the actual composer found in Mario Paint (as opposed to Mario Paint Composer, which is a tool based on the SNES game, but with a lot more functionality). Robo's Theme is my favorite from Chrono Trigger, and I loved the composer in Mario Paint (way more than actually painting) so this video was an easy thing to favorite.

Blog: Favorite Youtube Videos (Volume 1)

Youtube is one of the primary ... anti-productivity things in my life and for the most part has replaced television at least for when I actually care what it is that I'm watching. In order to convert it to something at least more circum-productive (like work but not quite actually work) I thought I'd do some blog posts on the videos that actually prompted me to save them to my favorites list. The list is pretty long so I'm going to group a few videos together for each post and start at the begining of my favorite so expect these first few editions to be blasts from the past.

• Flute Beatboxing
• These first two videos from Greg Patillo / Project Trio were pretty much my introduction to the fact that other people might like video game music (and other nostalgic music) as well. I'm not 100% certain that these are the first I watched (it's been a while) but they definetly were part of my introduction to the great video game / nostalgia genre.
• The next three videos are from (the thankfully not eaten by snakes) CalebElijah who is possibly my favorite video game music cover artist. His stuff is richly scattered through the most listened to lists on my iPod. I'm exceptionally pleased that he has returned from his long hiatus and Peace Corps mission and is now back making awesome music again. These first three are all from one of my favorite video games Secret of Mana and there will definitely be more for CalebElijah in future volumes.

Blog: Thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Since some of my long term project goals involve making video games, I thought I'd spend a few posts talking about games I've played lately. In these posts I want to focus on the things I liked, the things I didn't like, the things I thought were interesting and any lessons/ideas/concepts I'd take away for my own games in the future.

The first in this series is going to be one of the best games I played last year, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

For the purposes of this discussion I want to mention things from all through the game, so I'm not going to protect anything as spoilers. Please be warned that this will spoil the game right through to the end.

It's now been a while since I finished playing Skyward Sword. I have a habit of being very slow when approaching games and often don't play them anywhere near the window where they come out. As such I'm fairly proud of myself for jumping on the Skyward Sword bandwagon and playing through the game as fast as time allowed.

I really liked Skyward Sword. I know some people have dismissed it as having been too much of another Zelda game, but I think it struck a good balance between introducing new concepts into the game, restructuring the experience and keeping the core Zelda feeling. I had a lot of fun playing it and thought that it felt great while playing it.

Things I Liked

One of the aspects I liked the best about the game is how active it is. The inclusion of sprinting and the stamina meter makes the game feel a lot more alive and makes it more fun and exciting to go free running across the landscape. "Oh, I just need to hop up on to that ledge. I don't need to go through the climbing animation, with a little sprint, it's just a step right up." It is an easy way to make you feel like you have more control over Link and more abilities in the game. It is also nice that without using the sprint button Link still moves at a good pace so you don't feel like the sprint is the mandatory way of moving.

When in doubt a nice sprint through pub is enjoyable. (via GameFaqs)

With Link's improved ability to move around it's nice that the landscapes are as interesting and varied as they are. While the environment has always been a strength of the Zelda series I think that Skyward Sword shows particular attention to detail and interactivity.

The other strength of the landscapes is the way you become familiar with them. While people have complained that the small number of environments is a sign of laziness on the part of Nintendo (or a sign of them running out of time), I think returning repeatedly to the same places breeds a familiarity that really enhances the world. Particularly the Trials of the Goddess forced you to learn the details of the areas and to become intimately familiar with them. That being said I remember fairly well the landscapes of most of the Zelda series so this may not be something that is a special feature of Skyward Sword.

The style of the game is also very good. While with Twilight Princess I found myself frequently irritated by the lower quality graphics and the textures, in Skyward Sword I never noticed these flaws, much in the same way Wind Waker looks far better and more timeless than the other 3D Zelda games. In particular making the world bright, colourful and slightly cartoony kept me from looking at the edges and thinking about why things looked the way they did. I also suspect that Nintendo did do a better job of graphics programming for Skyward Sword, but I didn't care either way.

The encounters outside of the temples were another high point in the game. While again these are not exactly novel to the Zelda series, they are given more time and effort than these types of areas have been in previous games and they broke up the learning the tool puzzles from the main dungeon/temple parts of the game. In particular the forrest area encounters were interesting and fun, while the ones for both the fire and sand areas tended to be a bit more tedious, but still not bad at all.

I liked the personality of Zelda in this game, and I liked that in this game Zelda did not spend the majority of the time kidnapped, even if she did have to spend a significant amount of time asleep. Having an active pre-existing relationship between Link and Zelda was also a nice touch rather than hunting for a mysterious princess.That being said however I also feel that there may have been a just as interesting (if not more so) version of this game where you follow Zelda instead of following Link. I think ideally in this case it would have been great to be able to play as both.

Having more fun than Link? (via GameFaqs)

Upgrading your potions and equipment was a nice addition to the Zelda series and I like that the selection different equipment (especially shields) was important to surviving the different challenges of the game.

Things I Didn't Like

One of the things I felt quite strongly about is that the world, especially Skyloft is too small, especially if this is supposed to be the entire "human" population of the world. The town of Skyloft is great, but it's the only town in the over world and there are only a handful of people scattered over the rest of the space and most of them run mini-games. There's no explanation about where the knights live and there's no places where any of the characters come from. It's even mentioned how jealous some of the other knight cadets are of Zelda and Link growing up together in the "big city" near the academy, but there are no other towns where these people could possibly have come from. Did Groose live on an isolated rock until he was invited to the come to the academy? No wonder he's so unpleasant to link. "I didn't even have DIRT man!"

On a smaller scale I did not like the underground digging minigames where you had to crawl through a grid avoiding giant centipedes and pushing switches. These areas made you move too slowly, weren't interesting and really didn't measure up to the creativity expressed in the remainder of the game.

The flying aspect of the game was also a bit of a disappointment. In Wind Waker the sailing portions felt active and like you were always working towards a goal. In Skyward sword the flying is largely uninteresting and there aren't many points were you get to practice your skills or get any benefit other than getting where you were going. The different control systems for falling (tilt) and flying (control stick) was also difficult to navigate and annoying. It would have been really nice to have some jump-off-the-bird-do-something-awesome-then-hop-back-on-the-bird moments (see the Saints Row III airplane bit, but with Zelda).

Groose says "Hi!" (via GameFaqs)

For a Zelda game I also thought that the music was weaker than it might have been. That's not to say that it doesn't fit or isn't good, but I don't remember it. Unlike Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time the melodies aren't that memorable. The strength of symphonic recording shouldn't overpower the music memory of the game.

Finally I was disappointed with the Hero Mode, although possibly not fairly. I only played it for about 45 minutes. I found that there was very little from the game to admit that you had already played, knew how things worked and knew where the plot was going. Getting the option to skip cut scenes doesn't really make you feel like you're being rewarded for having made it through the game once already. In addition you got very little extra from the game, extra challenge alone is fine, but having some extra experiences would be nice as well. I guess I was hoping for something more like a New Game+ mode rather than a Challenge Mode, but I really would have like something more from Hero Mode.

Things I Noticed

One aspect of the game which could have been made better was the collection of materials needed to upgrade the gear and the potions. There were points later in the game where I spent quite a bit of time wandering around certain areas of the game waiting for bugs or other materials to respawn so I could collect them. Having a scarce resourse is great and can make the game much more exciting, but for most video gamers there's no way they'll go into the final fight without all the advantages they might need (like powered up potions) if they can get them.

Another aspect that might have made the game more interesting is focus more on the gear load out aspect. It has a minor effect in carrying potions medals, and consumables for your ranged weapons, and in choosing the right shield for the right environment but you still cary all the tools at the same time regardless of the kind of thing you're doing. It might be interesting to have different kinds of load outs for underwater missions or dangerous climate missions (more than just extra earrings).

Better bring my vacuum. (via GameFaqs)

Things I'd Include in A Game

As I mentioned earlier, one of the things I like most about this game was how familiar it made you with the land. This is definitely one the things I'd try to focus on especially in a story driven game. Making the landscape as much as a character as the people you meet in your journey is important  seems to be one of the ways to really make the game memorable and visceral.

I also really enjoyed the different types of equipment and think that it would be another good concept to include in a game. While one of the things I want to avoid in an ARPG style of game is the 'bring the right tool to solve the puzzle' sections, allowing players to set their own equipment and style is an important way to allow them to invest in the game and feel attached to their character and their decisions.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed Skyward Sword and played nearly 60 hours of it. While it may lag a bit in spots I found that the game was pretty compelling and I was sad when it ended.

Looking at the future of the series, with either an HD Zelda or a new Link to the Past style game, I think there are a couple of things that would be good to see (or not see). The first is a really live world, where you find towns throughout the world with interesting active residents who don't even necessarily need you to solve their problems. The second is an active Zelda, the series has been moving this way, but it would be nice to see them stretch and put Zelda in a position of power and authority. The third is that it doesn't need voice acting especially for Link. There may be a way to do it without it being weird, but in it isn't necessary for a Zelda game.

When in doubt fall on things. (via GameFaqs)

Project 3 : 25 books in 52 weeks : Update 1

So as with everything associated with this blog, I'm behind on my reading for the 25 books in 52 weeks project. I started the project on September 3, 2012 and will wrap it up on September 3, 2012. As it's June 29, 2012 at the time of writing, 43 weeks have elapsed and I've only made it through 7 books. Ideally at this point I should have read about 23 books, but the point of this project is to push myself back into reading so I'll take having made any progress at all as a good thing and will see where I've made it to by the time September 3 rolls around.

New Books this Update 

• The Atrocity Archives - Charles Stross
• I love John Le Carré's George Smiley books especially the focus on the infrastructure built by the espionage organizations. The Laundry books do an amazing job of invoking that feeling and mixing it with some Lovecraftian world mangling and a healthy dose of Dilbert.
• The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross
• As with the George Smiley element in The Atrocity Archives, the James Bond elements in the Jennifer Morgue work very well as well. 
• The Fuller Memorandum - Charles Stross
• Unlike the other two Laundry books, I felt like the Fuller Memorandum was more "in it's own style" although that may be because I haven't read the books wikipedia mentions as influence. All of the Laundry books are a lot of fun to read and I'm very excited that the next major novel is coming out in the next few days.
• Mort - Terry Pratchett
• I'm working my way through the Terry Pratchett books in publication order and I have to say that I found Mort much harder going than the first three (Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic and Equal Rights). With the first three it was fairly easy to slip into the world as odd as it was, but Mort feels like such a festival of anachronism that the world is hard to accept. 
• The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson
• I loved all of the first Mistborn trilogy, but especially the first volume. I enjoyed the action and adventure and heistyness and especially how alive and active Vin felt. The other two were good as well but I found that they didn't move as quickly as the first (which I think is something of a standard problem for Brandon Sanderson). The Alloy of Law felt like a return to that first books energy and I finished reading it and wanted to pick up the next one immediately. (Which is sad because I think the wait might be a while).
• The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks
• I read this book at least partly due to having never finished the project I undertook in junior high school where I promised that I would read it. I found this, especially for the first two thirds to be an incredible drag with uninteresting characters. As I eventually began to accept it as a Tolkien based D&D campaign rather than "people run back and forth in a small park" (seriously the longest march they undertakes is about 4 days, how close are all the major cities). The end had enough charm and momentum and I don't regret reading it, but I'm glad to have relieved myself from that particular guilt of my youth and don't think I'll pick up any of the other books from the series without some serious motivation.
• I should also point out that I seriously expected Menion Leah to have no idea what a woman was when he first meets Shirl. The entire first three quarters of the novel is devoid of the mention of women, so it seems to me that Menion should have been totally baffled. Serious missed opportunity for an Ethan of Athos kind of world. 
• Great by Choice - Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen
• I liked the ideas put forth in Built to Last and Good to Great. I think that Great by Choice is better than either in that the findings of the book are much more applicable to the daily life of a graduate student. It's certainly worth a read and is an especially good jumping of point for trying to be more productive.

Status

• Project Completeness: 7/25 - 28%
• Time Remaining 9 weeks.

Blog: That post about why there are no posts

So it seems inevitable that anybody writing a blog ends up missing a long stretch and then posting about why they were missing and how they're going to do better now.
This is that post.

It's been two semesters since the last time I managed to post and as far as getting excited and making things goes, I've managed to get enough things done to continue on in grad school. I've also made it through a period of low energy and stress, but I seem to be doing pretty well now.

The plan when I started this project was to use it to encourage me to stop sitting around and actually get the things I want done in life done. This has not been a huge success for the big projects (like the ones I've started here) but it has started to work for the smaller things that need to be done.

Now I would like to get myself organized to be more productive, even though there are several things related to my PhD that I will still need to focus on. Over the sumer my time can flex a little more, so for the next few months I will try to post at least one post a week here, either a blog post or a project update.

In the next few weeks I want to post some thoughts on a few of the video games I've played in the last while, particularly which parts are interesting when thinking about how to design the games I would like to design. I will also be writing a few other posts about things that interest me on the web, as well as some other software design things that have interested/bothered me over the years.

Hopefully this blog will keep being a useful tool for organizing myself and continuing to push myself forward.

Time to get excited and make something!