Things are goin alright, I think...?

Work on Rhythm Quest continues -- last week I did a major rehaul of the menu system, and this week is going to be even more work on that, this time getting into options and settings.

Another goodbye at the end of the week.  I'm not sure yet how exactly I feel about this one.  I'll find out when I get there.  Perhaps I'll have some various things on my mind...

Arguably against my better judgment, I decided to start playing through Baldur's Gate 1.  I say "play" rather than "replay" because honestly I never played through all that much of BG1 to begin with.  For those not in the know, Baldur's Gate is a 1998 RPG game based on the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset and world mechanics.  You create a character, go through the main storyline (and bunches of optional content), all while meeting party companions, leveling up, finding equipment, fighting various villains and monsters, you get the deal.

I was somewhat prompted to go back to BG due to the latest Magic: the Gathering set being D&D focused (of course, I haven't actually played with that set at all, but still...), which reminded me back to BG.  I actually bought BG2 on steam a while ago thinking that it might make for a fun co-op game, but found that that wasn't really the case.  I also read some strong opinions by die-hards that the design in BG1 was stronger than in BG2, so I dug out the ol CD-rom discs and took a bit of effort to get them installed on my computer.

Unfortunately there's a bit of a weird divide on what the best way to actually enjoy BG these days is.  I'm going with the original since there have been some criticisms of the "Enhanced Edition".  I would have liked to play with some quality-of-life-improvements (higher resolution....) but unfortunately I don't even have the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion so those patches don't seem to apply.  Actually.....now that I think about it, BG1 is on sale for only $3 on GOG and comes with the original games, so I may as well just get that and see if I can install the expansion and then modernize the game just a tad bit.

Anyways that has been surprisingly fun so far!  BG is one of many games from an era which I encountered in my youth while lacking both the understanding to fully appreciate it, as well as the consistency to continue playing through it.  I've previously written about other games in this vein (Caesar 3...), and I'm finding great joy as always in revisiting these games from the past, now through a much different lens than I had back then.  Of course, not all of these games age very well, but a lot of them do.

Now that I have Space Alert basically permanently setup on a table in my office, I've been regularly doing solo runs here and there -- most recently doing some double-action white threat missions, to practice my double-action planning skills.  Space Alert is unfortunately a game where the setup and reset/teardown process really drags on compared to the (rather fast-paced) action, so anything at all to reduce the amount of effort required to reset the board and all is paramount to being able to enjoy the game, I've found.  I've gotten it to a pretty good system, though shuffling threat/action cards manually and such still takes more time than I'd like sometimes.  But it's been fun!

Anyways, I guess it's not a bad thing to have more things to look forward to.

I feel like I've written before, "in the end, we are all alone".  But maybe that isn't quite right.  I've no business presuming what life is to others.  It contradicts the very premise of the statement.

So in the end, I am all alone.

Life update, Mega Man X2 (vs X)

Life

Well, the past ~2 weeks have seen my project productivity at a low, first due to just various real-life commitments, and then due to a fiasco with the new chicky, who we bought a week ago and unfortunately seems to have come with a slew of health problems which necessitated a bunch of care.

Somehow I managed to pick up the pieces and do a good amount of work on Friday, which pleasantly surprised me.  We'll see if I can get things back on track next week, but at the same time, I'm reminding myself that there shouldn't be a ton of pressure to do so.  Yeah, I feel a bit bad for missing two weekly devlog posts (in no small part due to not really having much to show), but at the same time, I don't really owe anyone anything.

I'm currently working on redesigning the title/menu screens.  This is a redesign which has been brewing for quite some time, so it's nice to see it finally coming into fruition.  Every so often I'll end up working on creating things for this game that remind me of why I'm doing this in the first place, and this new menu ended up being one of them, which is great.

There's still a long road ahead though, even for just the menu screen alone, so there's certainly no shortage of work left in my future.

 

Mega Man X2

I played through Mega Man X2 in its entirety and I gotta say, I don't think I was really missing out on a ton.  I believe we rented X2 once upon a time, and at some point may have either finished it myself or (more likely) watched it be finished, but I guess I didn't remember all that much of it, and I guess I see why now.

It's not really that it's a bad game or anything, it just feels like Mega Man X was such a stronger package overall despite X2 providing more varied features.  Perhaps part of that is just personal bias from being more familiar with Mega Man X, but....maybe not.

Mega Man X (and X2) has a very different sort of "gameplay thesis" when compared to the classic Mega Man series.  The classic Mega Man series puts you interesting yet difficult platforming challenges, frequently involving dealing with multiple types of obstacles simultaneously.  Jumping across moving  or disappearing platforms while shooting at enemies, for example, is a classic one.  In the classic Mega Man games, you slide backwards a bit when you're hit by an enemy (you can't control this), which can and will lead to you falling to your doom.  This is very important to the platforming gameplay, as it ties together the two systems of jumping across platforms and shooting/dodging enemies.  This is probably an overgeneralization, but Mega Man probably often fails with newer gaming audiences because of the brutal nature of these platforming challenges.  It demands precision, quick thinking and good execution, and can be very unforgiving otherwise.  In other words, it's a good challenge.

Mega Man X doesn't really subscribe to that philosophy.  That doesn't necessarily mean that Mega Man X is an =easy= game, but it certainly reigns in the "unforgiving" and "brutal" part.  No longer are there insta-death spikes everywhere, and if you mistime a jump slightly -- no matter!  You can walljump upwards, no big deal.

The level design of Mega Man X is probably the biggest difference overall.  In Mega Man, you've got levels that are much more compact and usually consist of small set pieces to setup platforming challenges.  In Mega Man X you've got much wider open spaces, so everything feels much bigger in scale.  Dashing (and dash-jumping) is a key mechanic in Mega Man X/X2 and you can really tell that the levels were designed with this in mind.  In addition, they added collectible upgrades scattered throughout the levels, so there is sort of a metroidvania vibe going on.

Because of the increased visual fidelity, larger spaces, and collectibles, the enjoyment for a Mega Man X level focuses more on "exploring" what the level has to offer rather than in Mega Man Classic where the enjoyment came out of "being challenged".  This of course is also a general trend among games throughout the ages -- which is why you so often see older games labeled as the "Nintendo hard" games.

Unfortunately the level design in Mega Man X2 is probably also its biggest weakness when compared with Mega Man X in my eyes.  This really makes me appreciate the levels in Mega Man X a little more.  The best way I can sum it up is that Mega Man X2 has levels that feel extremely linear, where Mega Man X is a little better about varying things up.

 

Here's a segment of a stage from Mega Man X2 to illustrate what I'm talking about:

You literally just go left through a long straight hallway, climb down a ladder, then go right.  Booooooring.  Now of course, not all stages in Mega Man X2 are quite this bad, but take a look at Mega Man X, where you've got this instead:

Now that's an open space to explore!  To proceed through the area you need to go to the right, but you're rewarded with an extra life if you take the path up and to the left.  And if you dash-jump off of there, you get access to a hidden sub-tank!

It's not just limited to these wide open areas though -- later in the same stage, you have this section:

Here you're just going to the right, but there's two separate paths here which adds another layer of interest.  Again, it makes you feel like you have choice in where you want to go and where you want to explore, even though ultimately you're just going to the right.

Even when Mega Man X wants to just stick to a single linear path, it still does well:

There's no branching or anything here, but the level keeps things reasonably fresh by switching up between vertical and horizontal sections.

I think there's not really enough of this sort of constrast in Mega Man X2.  In Magna Centipede's stage, for example, you get this:

 

Go right...dodge search beams.  Go right some more...deal with big blocks.  Go right again....deal with more big blocks....go right some more....deal with an extremely generic "spinning blade" mini-boss...

There's just the sense that the overall level structure is kinda just more...dialed in.  Even when they tried to take a risk on something new, it didn't really pan out as well.  In Overdrive Ostrich's stage, there's some sections where you get to essentially ride a hoverbike, and zip along the ground while shooting.  There's even a heart tank that requires you to ride the bike to get it (it's on a spiked floor).  ...Except the boosting mechanics on the hoverbike are a little finicky, and getting the heart tank in this stage thus required me to abuse savestates.  And even then, there's a wall of spikes right after the heart tank, so you need to turn around to avoid dying, and even just this part alone required me to savestate many times due to the weird inertia / slow turnaround of the bike.  I think basically you should expect to just grab the heart tank and take a death here.

So it's like...yeah, they introduced something new, but....in the end it wasn't super satisfying.  Compare back to Mega Man X in Armored Armadillo's stage where you get to ride on top of this minecart that hurtles forward.  You can walk back and forth and shoot things, even jump while you're on it.  And that shit was COOL!

And in general I feel the same sort of "meh" with everything new that X2 added.  Yes, they added the ability to airdash, but I feel like dash-jumping sort of already fulfilled the same movement need.  Yes, the ability to fire two charged buster shots one after another was pretty dang cool, but the "pink" charge blast from Mega Man X was pretty dang cool too!

They added the whole "X-Hunter" system in X2 but it seemed very tacked on and you were given zero backstory or exposition on these three villains so again, they are very unmemorable.  It's not like Mega Man X explained a ton either, but the explaining that it DOES do sets it up very nicely and the character arc in Mega Man X is very strong as a result.  At the end of the very first stage in Mega Man X, you fight against Vile in an "unwinnable" fight -- you then lose, and then are saved by Zero, who blasts Vile while looking like a cool badass.  You don't get to fight Vile again until the Sigma stages, but when you do it's a nice payoff for this character arc as by that time you've gotten much stronger and finally are able to defeat him, etc etc.

Mega Man X2 doesn't have any of that at all.  It's hard for me to even remember what the story was in the first place besides "Sigma is back.  Zero's dead so I guess you need to restore him? (optionally?)  And then you.....go and just fight Sigma again.  Yay?"

They also seemed to really go nuts trying to use the additional SNES processing chip in X2 (the one that allows for the fancy rotational/shader/polygonal effects.  Ok, I get it, rendering a 3D wireframe head was neat and cool tech at the time, but Sigma's final form just being.....a wireframe head?  That is way less impressive than the giant hulking robot from Mega Man X.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the music.  Mega Man X has some greeeeeeaaaattt and memorable themes, and Mega Man X2 really just didn't follow up on that too well.  Again, the songs aren't =bad=, but they really aren't as memorable or strong.  Again, really makes you appreciate the soundtrack of Mega Man X more.  Heck, even the stage select theme in Mega Man X is memorable.  They really pulled that soundtrack off well...

So yeah.  Honestly I was a little disappointed because I was hoping for more, but I guess X2 just isn't as good in my opinion.  Looking around, it seems that some people do appreciate X2 more than X (mostly just citing the dual-buster shot being badass.......), generally it seems that X is regarded as the superior game.

Maybe better to just show the horse where the water is rather than drown it in the lake.

Various random updates, plus Sky tutorial/terms rant

It's been a mix, I guess!  I'll try to recap quickly.

I seemed to sort of just zombie through a good chunk of this weekend.  Not that I didn't get anything done or didn't have any play, but probably just felt that way due to having large periods of time just to myself in my room.

Dance is hard, but I found some minor success trying to work on isolations.  I guess I will just continue doing that.

Been trying to get my brain more accustomed to the Space Alert thinking.  I scraped by and managed to clear a yellow-threats-only mission (after failing once), though not everything went as planned.  More practice and then perhaps I'll try my hand at some double-actions stuff.  At some point I want to rate all of the specialization abilities, but that will come later I guess.

Been a little lost in my past lately, as of course I am apt to do.  Kiki has been showing up in my dreams lately.  Why?  I'm not sure.

Got a new fountain pen, the TWSBI Eco.  It writes great!  Decided also to pull the trigger on a new whetstone since I'm not super happy with the 6k grit stone I have at the moment.  We'll see how I feel about this new one, maybe it'll help me finish my edges better.

Started up on Mega Man X2.  It's got a bit of a different feel than X1, for sure.  I'm not sure if I like it as much yet, but perhaps I'm just biased.  But we'll have to see as we get into more of the game, really.  X1 is a very good game, but I personally wasn't super enthralled by it; probably because I'm just such a sucker for the mainline series.

Tried making a "quick" shoyu ramen -- using the shoyu tare that I have, but just water and chicken stock powder instead of an actual proper paitan/chintan stock.  It's not half bad!  Since Nijiya has finally started carrying plain sun ramen noodles ("kaedama packs"), I'll have to think about starting to do this style of "simpler" ramen more often.  Of course you still have to have topping and all that.  I think that's one of the tough parts about ramen, it doesn't really feel complete to me even if it has noodles/green onions/chashu/soup/aroma oil, because there are no veggies or anything.  Granted, ramen isn't exactly a healthy meal to begin with, but at least some corn or menma or bean sprouts or kikurage are nice to have so the dish feels more balanced.

Tried making some saag paneer too, that was interesting.  I sort of quickie'd it, and it turned out decent but not fantastic.  I'm sure saag paneer can probably be better than this, but at the same time maybe I'm just not a huge fan of the dish.

Been trying to see if I can get more use out of carbon steel cookware, as it always feels bad to go through nonstick skillets as their coating wears away.  Carbon steel is a finicky beast though, and a bit heavy (despite being lighter than cast iron), so we'll have to see.

May be getting another stinky chicky soon.  More updates on that later.

Rhythm Quest progress was eh....ok, this past week.  I wasn't super feeling it so I just worked on UI, localization, and accessibility stuff, which wasn't super "exciting" but wasn't boring nor time wasted at all.  We'll see what happens with this week, I guess.

Sky terms rant

Started playing Sky!  I have still felt the same loss of "tranquility" as before when compared to playing Journey -- it really just is a much different game (probably intentionally so), but at least I'm finding it easier to get into on Switch.  All of the levels seem much more expansive and easy to get lost in, but....that's also my bias because I've been around the Journey levels more often.  Some of those levels, in fact, are expansive and easy to get lost in too (I don't really know my way around the Pink desert, for instance).  But in general it does seem like there's a little more to explore, which I guess makes sense.

I was talking to a friend about Sky and I was a bit surprised by how awkward the tutorial-handholding felt in Sky (not to be confused with actual holding of hands as a game mechanic).  It's a difficult thing to describe, but I feel like the in-game help text often speaks in cryptic ways or makes references to things that you don't really have the context to understand yet, and this leads to a slight feeling of confusion or being overwhelmed.  In some cases I even feel like if there was simply =no= explanation I would actually feel like I understood the mechanic more.  I think that ultimately both methods lead to the player reaching understanding in the same way -- by seeing the thing in action multiple times, having some context for it, and putting the pieces together -- but having the foreign, not-yet-contextualized-words first makes it feel like there's more that you don't really understand.

The comparison to Journey isn't super fair here because Journey just doesn't have as many gameplay systems it needs to explain.  But I really feel this "issue" (maybe others don't consider it a problem) very acutely when I play Sky.  I'm sure in time I will understand everything and it'll just be a non-issue, but just going through the very first level in the game, for example, you reach a mystical barrier with the text "0/1" and at the bottom of the screen it tells you "Save more spirits in this Constellation to proceed!"  Which is all fine, except at that point I have no idea what a "spirit" is, nor do I know what a "constellation" is.  Immediately after that, you are pointed towards a blue figure, which you follow and interact with, and then the barrier lowers and you can proceed.  It's at this point that you can piece together "Oh, okay, these blue things are spirits, and I need to collect them to open the door."

But this sort of illustrates the cognitive disconnect that I feel here, because the order of understanding is all wrong here.  When you have a question, the game provides you an answer, but you can't actually understand the answer yet, which just raises more questions.

Imagine the same scenario, but instead of saying "Save more spirits in this Constellation to proceed!" the text simply said "A magical barrier blocks the way...perhaps something in the area will unlock this?"  After interacting with the spirit, there can be a brief explanatory note saying something to the effect of "(hey, this is a spirit.  you just 'saved a spirit'.)"  And this changed order of understanding sits more naturally to me, I think.  It's more intuitive to me to see a blue thing, ask myself "what is this blue thing?"  then be given the answer "this is a spirit".  That helps me tie the association in my mind "oh okay, blue thing = spirit".  Then when the door opens, I make another association "oh, okay, so when I come across these doors, I should probably look around for the blue things.  Got it."

As it is, however, I start with the question "how do I get past this barrier?"  But then the explanatory text poses more questions, "What is a spirit and what is a constellation?"  Then I encounter the blue thing and I go "What is this blue thing??"  So I have all of these questions in my head and I'm really confused.  It's only at the end when I finally have all of the pieces together that I can finally form an understanding.

And this has happened to me multiple times in Sky, which is why there has been such a feeling of "there's so many things that I don't understand".  A couple minutes after the above interaction you reach an area where you can purchase emotes/cosmetics/etc.  While going through the menu you see that some of the upgrades have a special red candle symbol next to them.  If you tap on them, you get the text, "Not enough [red candle symbol].  Earn more by venturing into Eye of Eden."  And of course I have no idea what the heck "Eye of Eden" is.  Why is it necessary for me to get a callout to this end-game location name?  For me it would be sufficient to learn "Oh, I need a special [red candle] currency to buy this.  Hm, I wonder where I can get those?"  Then later on in the game whenever I get to this "eye of eden" place, I'll finally get my first red candle and I'll have an "ahh, so this is where I can get the red candles from!"  Similarly, whenever you finish interacting with a spirit, you get the text "This spirit waits with an offering of gratitude at the Elder's Temple". (what is that??  never been to one of those before...)

So I really think the issue here is something I'd describe as "unveiling the curtain" or "introduction of complexity".  There's a sort of natural process of understanding that I'm used to when I go through video games, board games, or any other type of complex system.  A design which handholds me well through this understanding process only provides me with a few questions at any given time, and hides the rest of the complexity from me until later when I have the correct context to understand the complexities.  It also only speaks to me in terms that I can already understand.

I kind of get where the design sensibility of Sky is coming from, though.  I feel like it wants to make these sorts of callouts to unfamiliar terms because it wants to try to teach them to you without treating you like a 5-year old and explaining everything in direct terms.  If this was an older game (but not too much older) I'd expect the first blue spirit to come up with an obnoxious dialogue box , "Hey!  (look!  listen!)  I'm a spirit.  You need to collect all of the spirits to unlock that door over there.  Do you understand? (Y/N)"  I don't think Sky wants to handhold you and directly teach you all of these terms like an overly-obnoxious tutorial-helper, which is certainly valid.  And I do think there is a time and place for introducing new concept in a more off-handed way.

But I really do get the sense that there's too much foreign terminology that gets thrown around without the context for understanding it, and I wish more of that was hidden away from me until I was ready.  Let's compare this to Hades, for example.  In Hades there's a metacurrency called Ambrosia you can gift to NPCs for furthering your relationships with them.  The primary way of getting Ambrosia is by getting to Elysium (the third area) and beating the boss fight there.

Imagine if the first time you met with an NPC that could accept Ambrosia, the game told you, "Gift Ambrosia to unlock more hearts.  Earn it by defeating Asterius and Theseus in Elysium".  That's too much unnecessary information that you probably won't even understand.  What if it went even further?  "You can gain additional Ambrosia by increasing your Heat Level via the Pact of Punishment."  At this point your head is spinning.  Wha???

So of course it doesn't tell you all that.  In fact, it doesn't even SHOW you an option to gift ambrosia, because you don't have any.  It simply shows the fact that you can't advance the heart meter any further without doing something different.  "Hm, I wonder how I progress here?" you ask yourself.  Then later you get the ambrosia from the boss fight.  "Ah, I guess this boss fight gives me this Ambrosia thing.  What can I use it for?"  Then you get an opportunity to use it, the option appears, and your understanding is complete.  The complexity here is hidden until you have the necessary context to understand it.

If I wanted to understand all of this stuff from the beginning, then sure, I can just go and read a wiki page or strategy guide that explains everything.  But to me I feel like I prefer if the in-game tutorials don't read like wiki pages (especially because in the game you can't click on links to other highlighted terms!).

I dunno, that's just how I personally felt though, maybe your mileage may vary?

Stats Update (July 2021)

Blog posts: 3,780 (Xanga archive) + 813 (Blogger) = 4,593 over 16.80 years (273.402 per year)
Letters written: 1,352 over 14.01 years (96.524 per year) (1 per 3.784 days)
Letters received: 472 (2.86:1 ratio)
Music: 886 songs released over 16.93 years (52.347 per year)
One Hour Compo: 211 top 3s out of 393 Compos entered (53.69%)
Ludum Dare: 25 entries, 25 medals (across all categories)