Week is starting off okay, I think.  Had a nice massage, gamed a bunch, and I've setup my new monitor.  As reported by others online, there are some gray banding issues, particularly visible on flat monochrome dark gray backgrounds, but nothing I can't look past I think.  The bigger issue is the aspect ratio, but eh, I had to go for a 16:9 at some point anyways, I've held out as long as I could.

Doing things in general at 240/280hz is definitely an experience, but the real question was whether it would make my 60hz content feel any different and the answer is a resounding yes!  Not only is the response time much better (supports VRR too...) but I've managed to get all the settings working to have CRT "beam racing" simulation shaders which, through some optical magick, simulate the visual response of a CRT using the extra "subframes".  It's quite an interesting thing to see in motion, playing LTTP or even SM with the uncanny CRT smoothness.  "Smoother than 60FPS" is certainly a weird idea, but vision persistence and motion tracking is more complicated than "meets the eye", so to speak.

I've got some Rhythm Quest and drawing work to do this week, plus one or two errands, but the rest of the week should ideally just be focused on time for me.  Lord knows I need it after how I was feeling last week.

I've got plenty of games to go at, if and when I feel inclined.  Actually been enjoying Overwatch a fair bit, but besides that, there's Echoes of Morroc, which I may or may not continue to try and narrate my play through, and then trying more crosskeys seeds in ALTTPR.

God willing, maybe I'll try to start feeling more optimistic about life in a more general sense, but let's start one step at a time... 

KUROMIfy the world

The past—and the past before that—that you’ve overcome
That is *Who you are, who you are*
The hand you reach out, the glint at your fingertips
That, too, is *Who you are, who you are*

 

"KUROMIfy the world"

So many times have I discovered that people's preconceptions of how life -- sometimes, my life in particular -- ought to be lived are blatantly off the mark; it feels as if though I could make a living out of it.  What exactly is it like to have a path laid out for you?  People may look at me and think that my gender identity is the main thing that separates me from the crowd, makes me "unusual", but I go to every space, every hobby, every discipline and I find myself at odds in some way.  Maybe I am simply underestimating just how unique every single person's experience is.  We are all living on our own little islands after all.  Still, even though I can never truly understand what it feels to be neurodivergent, I have to imagine there is a similar feeling -- of the road being laid out in front of you, only you find that for you it is the worst possible road imaginable, full of potholes, speed bumps, and construction.  To have to find your own way, because nothing you are "supposed" to be doing works.

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I sometimes forget, with all the time and energy I've spent on Rhythm Quest over the years, that no matter how successful it will be, it has no possibility of being my most important game.  Yes, perhaps Rhythm Quest in particular is a game that only I can make, but in the end it is simply another game in a genre.  Like all of the other rhythm games, it has a certain design direction that espouses specific tenets.  Every rhythm game has different strengths and goals -- I've talked about this before, I'm sure.  Even within an individual game series, you have games, charts, even individual players, that clearly focus on different aspects of enjoyment.  You've got the stamina ddr players, the tech players, and the freestyle players.  Bar and no-bar players.

Rhythm Quest sits in an "interesting yet not even that remarkable" middle ground.  It's hard to describe succinctly what my design goals are, but I think you probably know it when you feel it.  It's certainly closer to DDR than it is Rhythm Dr or Rhythm Heaven, but there's a twist in that I think people will actually get more of that "novelty" feeling from the mechanics and the presentation compared to one of your traditional games.  Maybe it's only me that =really= believes in this very exact set of virtues, but if a bunch of other people can end up enjoying it through their own tastes, then all the better.

But the game that is more important than Rhythm Quest has already been released -- it's been 8 years since then.  I may never make a game more important, which is honestly a strange thing to think about.  I don't really think about deriving meaning in life from "what people (in general) will remember me for after I am gone", but if I did, it would be a tossup between that game and the music I've made.  Are those the "most important" things that I've done in life?  That is a matter of perspective and I'm tempted to say no, but that wouldn't change the fact that that's what made the impact as far as plain numbers go.

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That stuff that I mentioned about always feeling like I was pushed toward the wrong direction, is why I felt sometimes that this world was not right for me.  That something was mismatched.  There was even a time when I thought that I was "better" than the world, but really the truth was simply that the goals were simply different; one using a measuring stick and the other using a barometer.

Thankfully, lately I don't often seem to be contemplating death and the existential quandary of non-existence, but during those times when I did, it was perhaps often a matter of thinking about whether ultimately life "sucked".  Not in those words of course, but more like "well, that was it huh".  Which is weird because I'm often not one to really wish for more than I have or strive for more.  You'd think that if I wanted some sort of deeper meaning, achievement, or enjoyment out of life that I would be taking an initiative to chase after it.  But it is not so simple.  There is I guess a sense of "nihilism" in the feeling, one that suggests perhaps a sort of spiritual unfulfillment, but at the same time I fear that spiritual enlightenment will only make me realize an even "harsher" sort of truth.

Sometimes it is a saving grace that, in the face of thoughts about non-existence, I am reminded of the burden that it is to exist in the first place.  Buddhism teaches us that (in a simplified way of speaking) attachment and desire lead us to suffering, but perhaps that suffering is inherent to existence itself -- or at least a form of existence.  To not suffer is to not exist; this is why even when we reflect upon how painful and "worthless" Kaguya-sama's life has been, we still lament at the idea that we escape it through a form of nonexistence.

To break the cycle.  Perhaps we are all just nothing more than echoes that still linger in this world, wondering if it is a better or a worse fate than to have been crossed out.

Human Condition

I mean, what there left to say, really?

There is always something beautiful -- or at the very least, resonant -- in the humanity of it all...hopeless dreams, imperfections, emotions, all of them vivid colors washing together in our simultaneously grand yet mundane existence.  But would you not say that there is something depressing, distressing, disturbing, even, about it too?  The "human condition" is something that at the same time unites us but also plagues us.  Who is not to say that it is not some disease, the sort that you would quarantine in fear of allowing it to spread and continue?  Maybe, it would not be so bad after all, to return to the seemingly repulsive sterility of an existence without all of these things.  For every dream reached there is one that is crushed, or perhaps worse, forgotten.  For every noble cause there may be an ignoble price to be paid.

Twisted desires warp our existences like so many thorny vines encircling what we once thought to be simple.  It is no longer a matter of right and wrong, good or bad, but of which disguise you choose to wear, which banner you use as a shield for your own chosen agendas.  The pure-hearted wishes drawing us closer to the surface scatter as we are jostled by the teeming swarms that have nowhere left to grow.  We are washed aside, the tides still frothing, reminding us that nothing can be held onto, not while our lungs still burn with addiction, not while our hearts still churn their ceaseless rhythms.

Sometimes you see the bright, clear line that traces from motive to means.  From beginning to end.  What, then?  Will you follow the march of inevitability?  Will you turn your back on the future?  Will you shut your eyes as you choose to live only in a moment?  There is no escape, only forwards, backwards, and perchance, the illusion of staying still.  Each choice bringing you closer and closer to the inevitable truth of it all.