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?