Those skeptical of afrofuturism and magic realism for their striving to invent a new cultural history to replace a colonially destroyed one
should observe the west's cultural history is pretty much equally invented – consider neoclassicism and mythologising of antiquity.
So for one such trapping – Art Deco – to be re-imagined by our present media as futuristic, to be made young again, is quite remarkable.
In period stories with trappings we regard as the past – jazz, flappers – I try to envision a world where they are the new, the cutting-edge
Which is interesting – and more than a note fortuitous – for an art style that was originally meant to be futuristic.
Thinking about Art Deco… how my exposure to it by works like Bioshock and (alas) Dresden Codak have made me associate it with fantasy-future
Tales of Schareherazone
There isn't even a robust way to express new types of data, such as JS objects or even C structs – just pump more numbers into functions.
Its problem is, for a language that deals with 2D game geometry, you can't compute geometric data - points, lines - directly – just numbers.
Then, after permuting the polar coord, I need two more functions to convert it back to a Cartesian coord!! lengthdir_x() and lengthdir_y().
But in GML, I need to take X and Y values separately, then pass both to two separate functions - point_distance() and point_direction().
In JS and Flash libs like Flixel, I can take one "point" value from the sprite – an {x,y} object – and pass that to a "make polar" function.
Polar coordinates can be easily permuted to, say, make one sprite orbit another, or rotate a sprite to always face the other, and so on.
One example: you often need to convert the second of a line's coordinates into polar coordinates (angle + direction from point 1).
The bad part about me delving deeper into Javascript is that it made me realise how horrifically outdated Game Maker Language's design is.
http://www.lackadaisycats.com/ –Revisiting this comic. I like this page even though it's mainly nothing… The last panel is strong as just a visual.
Me: Oh no
Everyone: What
Me (wearing the completely unique and instantly recognisable "just started reading Her Pet" expression): Nothing
*think's* Ahhh… the ol' cognitions.
Not gonna lie, I'm nostalgic for raytraced embossed serif title text with single vanishing-point, and solar reflection in one letter
http://wreckhallabbey.com/post/33458568264 – Like this comic, which didn't survive past page 13. What were these OCs going to do? Who knows.
Sometimes I think sadly about old webcomics which abruptly halted with lots of promise still in them…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQsIN-MN7A – Umihara Kawase levels in 0 jump inputs (also check out the rest of the channel)
(BotW ending tweet) I didn't get this reference until the second view, but when I did I bellow-groaned inwardly so hard.
Current dismay: that the Wayback Machine @InternetArchive rewrites <img> src URLs… but NOT srcset!!!
I suspect this dream was inspired by a long-enchanting architectural feature: transitions between warmly lit interiors and enclosed carparks
I dreamt a BotW shrine entrance was closed, so Link entered via the basement of a public library, and got kicked out once the library shut.
If Twitter serves you a tweet I faved that's just the words "her boobs breasted tittily", I wish to sincerely say you'll never take me alive
The best way to read joke bingo cards is to spiral in from the top-left, round and round until you reach the Free Space, the climax… IMO.
Triple A games still have 2000s-era "worst models and no actual draw distance" sliders hidden six menus deep, right
Me staring with anxiety at Steam wishlist: Surely I can "just" play NieR:A's PC port on a laptop made in 2011 if I turn down all the sliders
http://www.kiwiblitz.com/index.php – I'm not too keen on this comic but I like this one page… a.k.a "when your RP pal finds your main"
This resembles a Sluggy Freelance comic… this one, featuring K'z'k. This sudden style shift was what first drew me into webcomics, long ago.
A few hundred pages in, though, I'm rewarded with pages like this portraying telepathy. Ah… I live for this.
I love that the ship is not a rocket shape, but a nautilus… though with its early chapters' pacing, a different animal comes to mind!!!! B-)
http://galaxioncomics.com/ – Trying again to read this hard-sf comic… lured back by its distinctive "what if space, but Mucha" interior design…
I forgot that it's one of THOSE videogames.
Me: "I wonder how glitchless SotN speedrunners beat the game without OP equipment"
*they naturally find equally OP equipment*
Me: "Oh…………"
Beelzebark, Lord of the Fleas
This resource pressure, however, makes point 4 especially biting – only by noticing it can you fully alleviate the pressure.
Most of its complexity is in 1: the beam's pushing daunts the most obvious solution, requiring an unintuitive amount of extra resources.
3. There is a way to block a beam with a crate, /even though/ beams push crates.
4. Passing a blocked beam gives you a spare crate.
2. Crates can be pushed, and (instantly obvious due to their initial placement) don't block each other.
This will spoil the solution. The puzzle teaches you:
1. Beams disable the exit (requiring a return to the entrance), AND push objects away.
http://www.increpare.com/2012/06/puzzles/ - Thinking again about how economical the tutorial puzzle in @increpare's game "Puzzles" is.
The powerup designs are key: the gravitron is very easy to misuse and get owned, and the rockyspike can increase the danger to both players.
in that the players knock each other around wildly in hopes of damaging them with the other hazards.
Spikes (which don't exert gravity and can be pushed) are the only way to deal damage, so it's like the Super Mario All-Stars battle game,
Hey, yo, hold it, wait, this Spacewar-esque game ruled actually
I really like the idea (not actually present here) of /the ability to edit the game/ being offered in exchange for losing the game.
*use's my Powerful Adult Brain to study this screenshot* Wait a minute… binary encoding?!
*suddenl'y remembers the phrase "Nutscrape Navigator"* They tried, they really tried
I figured it out… the new Patreon logo looks like a coin going into a slot.
Which is OK if you're making an action game, but not much else.
I am the Keeper of the Jewel of MASTERMAZE
which lies waiting safe inside me, for You, or 12/31/89
If you didn't grow up with any of the many HyperCard haunted house stacks… you missed out on something.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/153257501 – The last hour of this one proves that randomised The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past is a true esport.
"When the MVC framework detects the user and the server updating a model at the same time, a massive fireball animation fills the screen."
"RFC six zillion clearly specified that all VR avatars must bleed realistic blood when shot… it's as fundamental as TCP/IP."
Jogging home from school to run to your room to pull this awful tie out of your magical amulet equip slot
"Three garter-belts on one leg… a trail-blazer of the "can't afford new ones with better elastic" aesthetic…"
I'd like a game especially focused on exploitation of systems or machines, rather than just the machines or their interfaces themselves.
Most hacking games are either themed around coding – manipulating certain machines directly – or use an abstract metaphor far above code.
and puzzles are solved by internalising these "alterior features", and stitching them together into bizarre machines and economies.
It makes me envision a hacking game where every tool and obstacle has a "bug" of some sort, some case where it flat-out doesn't work right,
Such as, what happens when two enemies are on the same square, or what happens when you polymorph an enemy that has taken damage, and such.
One thing I like about 868-HACK's hacking motif is that it explores the idea of hacking being mostly about exploitable edge cases.
This is interspersed with vague wishes that Cryonis blocks, easily the least flexible rune power, were also magnetic, or at least detachable
Me, every moment I'm playing BotW: Why doesn't gravity accumulate in Stasis objects, causing stuff to smash against the ground once released
Contra III. I suspect everyone who knows about this pose does it in this spot like so – almost like a designed affordance.
Like previous experiments, there's inspiration from the character animations Cosmic Osmo used (albeit with slightly more human features).
I'm prototyping a knowingly kitsch, low-fidelity 2D character animation style…
I find it hilarious that window.alert() et al are bad practice, yet there isn't a proper alternative to the window.onbeforeunload pop-up.
Counterbureaucracy
http://crossedwires.irisjay.net/ – I'm heavily sold on the pairing of this hairstyle with classic plaid flannel.
https://twitter.com/search?vertical=default&src=sprv&f=tweets&q=%22modest%20test%22%20%22major%20test%22 – I like how I can infer most of these BotW tweets were made while traveling east from Hateno Village… "the combo".
https://twitter.com/search?vertical=default&src=sprv&f=tweets&q=%22more%20like%20chode.js%22 – Hovers over this link as I pause to lower needle onto slow jazz record
The assurance that every poke your awful wet fingers did to the code is not just reversible, but /instantly/ reversible, is very relieving.
but just being able to diff all the horrible edits you've done for the past hour, and reload an actually working version with one "shelve".
I feel like the major boon of version control for personal projects isn't the big features like backups, archiving or cloud-storage access,
Thanks, DuckDuckGo. Thanks.
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=62030412 – Me while looking at this: God, candles are disgusting. Thank goodness they were invented.
"They say wild food that grows in the badlands is worthless. But can a synthesiser do THIS?" *pulls out hollow apple filled with live wasps*
"What's this shrine for? "Elessa with the Endless Hand". Ah… I bit off her hand. Long ago. So, keep praying… 'cos all she can do is listen."
The biobuildings rotted away, their bones mistaken for vast beings– the corpses of their mineraloid occupants mistaken for jewels and tools.
Hunting for lost solitaire card game whose only extant rules are in the accessories folder of ancient OS used only by hydraulic excavators.
"Just ask for it back… These woodland creatures don't know what phones are–" *a nerdy one barges in and jabs at the photo roll app* "Uh oh."
You're not sure what's worse: that you humiliated yourself in front of your angelic mentors, or hearing that the Prophecy foresaw this, too.
(The other absent items are Plasma Beam (below Wide Beam), Power Bombs (after Bombs), and presumably Gravity Suit (after Varia).)
The consequence of this – the absence of shinespark puzzles – is one of the few complimentary things I can say about this game right now.
I've studied this MSR screenshot… and confidently report that the absent mobility item in the corner is Screw Attack, and NOT Speed Booster.
"Human-built robots always look lumpy, askew – each screw bearing the wobble of their feeble hands, the flutter of their wavering hearts."
A thick scarf with a collar underneath
Disintegrating each obnoxious billboard you pass in your mind, until your mind is choked with dust
You have to hold up the head of your recently shed shell so that your friends can recognise you.
Thanks, Pinball Construction Set
Bless this game (Midnight Snack by Andy Backer)
This is the only class in The Dungeon Revealed with charisma 18… cc @jnwiedle??
"Shouldn't it be spelled Grey Lancer" Look, no one has ever batted an eye at "Gradius", and no one ever will
(This sojourn brought to you by the discovery that ImageMagick's colour dithering options really, really aren't good.)
Me trying to figure out which colour dithering algorithm classic Mac OS uses for low-depth monitors, and comparing with Photoshop's options.
Man! I forgot how many early-90s colour Mac games had to include black-and-white dithered graphics too… I'm riding high.
Speedrunning's real purpose is to goad thousands of gamers into meticulously researching and documenting picturesque glitches for posterity.
I just learned that in Half-Life 2 you can tap walking NPCs on the head with a book to teleport them… Bless this Peter Pan-esque nonsense.
Hmm… U.N.Owen Was Her is a pretty neat song *listens to it for like twenty Flandre spell cards* Well, that's enough of that for one lifetime
I gotta 1CC Touhou 6 to see the ending with all my might *only 1CC's stage 4 after fifty tries* I gotta download Cheat Engine with all my mi
Anyway…… it's a shmup I love quite a bit.
I always assumed that melancholy was informed by, and in concert with, the game's uncommonly character-driven plot, simple though it is.
https://youtu.be/7bJhDufrYoA?t=1701 – Even more energetic tracks, like this one from stage 10, have that slight emotional edge to them.
https://youtu.be/7bJhDufrYoA?t=955 – Gley Lancer's music is unusual for a shmup… lots of vibraphones and squarewaves that lend it a melancholic tone.
Ahh…! I love the "extremely slow draw operations" art style / technical limitation many 80s Mac games had… Seeing the computer's brush move…
Meaning, there isn't any notion of "completing" the overworld by finding exits, instead emphasising getting to the end, forward progress.
instead having Hammers that you can spend to open marked shortcuts, or Clouds and Wings to skip or trivialise specific levels.
Incidentally, I also like how SMB3 doesn't have any specific "alternate level exits" that create new overworld paths when discovered,
That it isn't a rare, or even particularly good item at the end is also something that makes it special, a curiousity more than a goal.
The fact of this secret's concealment, how little the game goads you to find it, impresses me more than any of Super Mario World's secrets.
*think's about this music box in Super Mario Bros. 3 that I literally never found http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/SuperMarioBros3-World5-1.png* Incredible
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=34242993 – Mainly I like this because the circular frame and balance of light and shadow makes the image seem raised, bulging
http://chromefetus.webcomic.ws/ (R-18) – These panels are from this guro porn webcomic, which has some interesting surreal imagery and architecture.
Source: http://ozawalalaland.tumblr.com/ (R-18).
One of this artist's porn OC's model page says that she "always has shadows under her eyes"… the relatability to look for.
Are there gases which, were they the majority element in a planet's atmosphere, would cause all sword swings to make honking noises
Mettaton upstaging Toriel at school after he realises classrooms are the most impressionable and most captive audience of all
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=8344616 - I like the interplay of ionic pillars in the front and torii in the back.
Me while eating mushroom couscous: "Wait a second… wheat… fungus… this is just a Vegemite sandwich."
I mean… are these gods inherent to this colonial America setting in place of native theology? Are they specific to the characters' heritage?
Not quite sure what to make of its main character, tho… she's a woman of colour, but her fictional patron gods seem Indo-European in design…
http://gothwestern.bonyfish.net/ – Had a look at this supernatural gunslinger comic… it's still in early days, but looks like it has legs…
http://www.junglestudio.com/roza – This comic's abandoned, too… I always liked the way this revealed the main character's secret.
http://www.opplopolis.com/ – Just revisited this four-page sequence from the now-abandoned webcomic Opplopolis… excellent.
So how soon until the departed Half Life 2 writers launch the Kickstarter for Halfka-Lifelee
despite being greatly emotionally distinct… I'm actually surprised at how one soundtrack now invokes the specter of the other so easily.
I never thought about it before, but melodies like Stone Tower, Clock Town etc. are clearly in the same family as those in Super Mario World
Realising how the soundtrack to Majora's Mask, the last game solo-composed by Koji Kondo, is structurally very close to all his other work.
*loads up all the users who ever tweeted "Nintendo Entertainment Switch"* Bless you, bless you, bless you, ble
Some webcomics with great names: Monster Pulse, O Human Star, What Birds Know, Neokosmos, Decrypting Rita, Goodbye To Halos
Sadly, there's a lot of great webcomics out there with bad or bland names… Witchy, Dead Winter, A Ghost Story, friggin' The Last Cowboy…
http://howtobeawerewolf.com/ – Had a read of this comic… its name is bad but its antagonists are nice, and it gets good colouring later.
I hope you all appreciated that Samus falls so fast that the bottom pillars and some of the floor aren't being drawn correctly.
Sorry, Smash Bros. pros…… Samus is a fastfaller now 😎😎😎.
It was discovered this week that if you hold R, moonwalk back, then somersault, then release R, Samus's terminal velocity greatly increases.
This perspective, of the ruins being your own heritage, is not oft seen in the West, where ruins are usually those of some colonised nation.
I was thinking recently about the shrines in BotW, and how the strange ancient civilisation that made them was Hyrulean – Hyrule's ancestry.
End boss of AA3: Doesn't the fact that I killed someone as a ghost prove conclusively that the death penalty doesn't work
Phoenix Wright: Wh
In which I try to figure out how border-image and repeating-linear-gradient() interact.
Cheap, powerful symbolic vocabulary is something I admire a lot… ascribing deep meaning to a basic shape, or a geometric transformation…
This is actually great to internalise because it makes every room in that castle suffused with the presence of evil, basically for free.
One thing I like about Symphony Of The Night's inverted castle is the notion that inverting anything – not just crosses – signifies evil.
(Compare with, say, Undertale's Hotland chapter, which has three long minigames but involves the chapter's antagonist in each one.)
So their negative affect on the pacing isn't because they exist, but because the plot isn't moving at all while they happen.
Of course, the main problem with adventure game minigames is, as always, their being only diffusely connected to the plot.
I'm watching a glitchless speedrun and I don't remember half of these minigames, let alone their apparently being mandatory.
Mario & Luigi has a lot to like in it… however, its pacing really isn't one of those things.
Where's the Indiana Jones takeoff stories where the explorer is a descendant of the ancient civilisation, rediscovering it post-colonialism
The game (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga) is full of dreadfully contrived devices requiring a duo, but places like this honour the core idea.
I like how elegantly these pipes are designed such that you can't climb them without both Kongs.
Since they're played so often, it gives the game a rather theatrical, pantomime mood that isn't too common in games, let alone the series.
I've never actually played Symphony Of The Night but I like how much of the magic sound effects are high glockenspiel scales.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alphonse_mucha,_boutique_fouquet,_1899,_vetrata_02.JPG – My brief mention of Mucha some days ago reminded me to look up some actual Mucha works.
Every size kink videogame, in order:
1) Osmos
2) slither.io
That's it. Any others you see are just your imagination.
Checking out the bottommost entries in speedrun dot com leaderboards…
You may not like it, but this is what peak performance et cetera.
http://widdershinscomic.com/ – Reading this magic spirit mystery comic. I like these parlays with imposing yet predictable sin-themed creatures.
*sits down behind "Will Get Hyped About Things Your Ex Was Always Hyped About, To Help You Emotionally Separate Them From It - 5¢" stand*
"Ah." *draws sword from scabbard* "You're finally…" *draws smaller, deadlier sword from the other sword* "…getting serious." *draws even sma
Frog is the most common curse, and second is having your testes moved back between your legs so you must walk bow-legged and can't sit down.
You thought kissing a slime would leave the taste of their body in your mouth, but, strangely, all you tasted was ordinary saliva.
"Look, I know I left to stop the alien invasion and told you to replace me in the band, but long story short, they won and new guy's out."
"I think I discovered a glitch in reality. I can bring as many ball-bearing maze pens as I want into work, and nobody's stopping me."
"We live in a garbage dump below another garbage dump because the Empire fears our power to look cute sometimes. You have that power, too."
"I'll explain. It represents…" *slowly realises that no, you can't verbally explain what emotion is represented by cat mouth in comics* "uh,
"Sorry, the blankets beat me. They want me to be in bed all day." *half the blankets slide off onto the floor* "I'm helpless to their will."
The falling boulders, the falling spikes, even the collapsing mountain blown up by The Zonker are just the same thing in different contexts.
One of my favourites is The Pit… ostensibly Boulder Dash's inspiration, it has simple objects but feels like a whole world, a whole story.
I find late-70s, early-80s games good inspiration… only a few objects, but with iconic movement and interactions to riff off of.
Some of these aren't really possible using just Klik'n'Play… Construct or Game Maker Lite may be more fitting, but aim for the stars anyway…
* RTS-like: guide exactly 3 units that constantly follow your mouse, and split them up using only their differing speeds.
* Asteroids-like: instead of shooting, blow them up by ramming them from a specific side (but avoid the other sides).
* Snake/Qix mix: instead of eating apples, create solid blocks by making rectangles with your long body.
* Missile Command-like: shots that miss will fall back down onto your cities, so blow them up with more shots.
I probably won't be able to make this, so here's some ideas for YOU, yes YOU, to try coding… https://twitter.com/increpare/status/870752495039119360
What I actually find more frustrating is that this Steamchievement name pops up for getting it EVEN IF you're playing Curly Brace mode.
Thanks, The Nicalis Translation Of Cave Story.
The screens near that GIF are "Far Off We Sail On" and "To Back O' The Moon", plus "The Road Has Gone" and "And I Must Follow" (from LotR)
References like Little Nemo… Oz books I'd never read… Prufrock… The title screen is a Mucha takeoff, and its title font is Arnold Böcklin…
The game itself had rather conservative graphics, but also had lots of references that gave it a romantic mystique…
It's a game with a very powerful level editor that came at the exact point in my childhood I needed a game with a very powerful level editor
I still love Glider PRO so much ;_; My childhood friend…
http://www.weavecomic.com/ – I'm enjoying this comic called The Weave… a sumptuously spooky elf murder mystery.
(Alas, it comes to an unseemly halt right when it gets good, so enjoy what you can while you can.)
http://helvetica.jnwiedle.com/ – Caught up on some webcomic history… the Undertale inspirer and Grim Fandango inspiree, Helvetica
You can do this in Symphony Of The Night and Metroid Prime 2, and it's glorious.
It's such a lovely exploit - these scenes of loss potently beckon you to imagine swindling them, and to actually do so is a dream come true.
I really love speedrun glitches that skip scenes that remove super-strong prologue items/powers your character has for plot reasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucgPcyLaoNY One of my favourites on this game's soundtrack… for a celebratory "princess" theme it's unusually subdued and regal.
I love the human characters' realistic style contrasting with the mimigas and cartoony robots… This really is the Bone of videogames.
There's a certain hostility old limited-tileset RPGs tried to convey with these maps… the plot demands a thicket even if the scene doesn't.
I'm glad… that the GBA remake didn't shy away from the original's distinctly abstract 8-bit environment design.
*remember"s that if you leap in the pit after Prof. Booster, he dies from the fall, but if you never find the body he somehow survives* Wow
Am convinced Nicalis has some Watchmen-type clause where they get to keep the rights to Cave Story if they keep porting it to newer consoles
*puts on Here Comes A Special Boy shoes that whisper "messed up" when you take a step and "…but interesting" when you finally stop*
"FUFUFUFU" *the camera zooms out to reveal another U and F, thus showing they really said "UFUFUFUFUF"* "God, these stairs always kill me!"
Entering the hot spring cooks the eggs in your inventory.
>INV
boiled sword
boiled map
boiled cuirass
boiled egg x 2
exfoliated greathelm
Wondering why your animators never seem to draw you off-model in the ways you'd like to look
Unable to get the rain cycle working on their project planet, the team pulled an all-nighter hacking a convoluted source of "water meteors".
Your lover's shoulder tattoo waves at you as she's revealed, only to spy her ex on your shoulder. She silently creeps down into the armpit.
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=55157433 – I can't read this but I like the character designs.
I decided it wasn't, but in case I'm wrong, here it is anyway in a link that shouldn't create a tweet card https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=61728809
I've been staring at this Kemono Friends two things fanart for over five minutes, pondering whether its central pun is good enough to link.
B(ADD)EST ENDING