On a tangentially related subject, I continue to be delighted by the two most recent They Might Be Giants albums.

Blindside is the working title for the game I'm designing/building. The Angels 50 view is "a multi-user action RPG played entirely in text." Yes, reading & typing speed will play a factor. It's an extended revisitation of a simple game I made two decades ago. It's probably far too ambitious in scope, though when I look at it from an architecture point of view it's really just a lot of components that interact fairly simply, so should be doable. Whether or not it will ever be done is another question. I am having fun working on it so far.

On the technology side it'll be playable in a web browser. That's all you'll need. Well, and an internet connection. Because it's multi-user. Of course. I have a proof of concept up and running already, but it's nothing to be impressed about.

I wanted to write about the character design that I'm working on. I'm familiar with lots of computer game RPGs and a few tabletop RPGs so I have a pretty solid base of where things have been and where I want to take them.

The game's characters are broadly described by gender, race and alignment. These characteristics affect the finer statistics that define the abilities of the character.

Gender can be male, female or aescetic. Race can be human, elf or dwarf (these are placeholder names for something more interesting). Alignment can be lawful, beatific, chaotic or nefarious (pick one).

Thus, there are 36 combinations of gender, race and alignment. These combinations affect character statistics in reasonably predictable ways, though for game balance reasons I'm reaching a little bit here and there. 

Each unique combination of race and alignment produces a class, which is more or less the character's profession. At this point there's no restriction on what you can do as the member of a class, except that your stats may make certain playstyle choices superior to others. My gross simplification here is that you'll choose a class which provides a starting "dice roll" for your stats so that you can start playing the way you want to play right away.

There are twelve statistics, grouped into four sets of three as attack, defense, active and passive. The attack & defense stats are physical, magical and empathic power and resistance. Active stats are accuracy, speed and stealth. Passive stas are awareness, constitution and charisma.

Physical power and defense are basically bashing things with swords or whatever, and not being hurt by being bashed. Magic in the game will probably be based on physics effects like light, fire and electricity. Empathy is a spiritual realm that will emphasise non-physical effects like fear, healing, and buffs/debuffs.

If you are a human, you get bonuses to physicality, and a lawful human is a heavy-footed Justice and with boosts to accuracy and physical power; think of them as a traditional soldier. Beatific humans are the somewhat clumsy Chaplains who get more awareness and constitution; these are also fairly powerful fighters but emphasising defense with healing abilities. Chaotic humans are the fragile and light-footed Tinkers with high resistance to debuffing. The cautious Assassins are nefarious humans with their devastating stealth and accuracy.

In the cerebral and magic emphasising elven realm: if you're lawful, you are a physically weak Scholar with high accuracy and charisma; your reputation preceeds you everywhere. Beatific elves are your 'glass cannon' Mystics with little defense but tremendous magical output. If you suffer from ADD you are probably a chaotic elf Pixie with the highest speed stats in the game, though you do have a hard time paying attention with a tragically low awareness. Nefarious elves are the half-dead Necromancers with their very high physical defense; their slow stealth makes them exceedingly dangerous in the dark.

Our dwarves are part of the earth and all living things and accordingly their stats reflect high empathy. Lawful dwarves are Mechanists whose accuracy and defenses are quite high, though the clanking of their armour does hinder any stealthy activities. Beatific dwaves are the aetherial Earthborn with dramatically powerful empathic abilities, though they are somewhat weak to magic. The chaotic Hermit with its quick reflexes and the highest awareness in the game is not one you'll sneak up on. Lastly, the nefarious Thief uses its natural abilities to blend into the environment mostly for selfish purposes. 

From a game balance point of view I have everything worked out on the spreadsheets, though that isn't what worries me. What worries me is the need to ensure that when these characters encounter each other in battle that the fights are more or less evenly matched, not necessarily between individuals, but broadly across classes. For example, I can't imagine a specific hermit winning a battle against a justice, but hermits in general should be able to defeat 4 other classes, be evenly matched against 4 others, and regularly lose to the others. 

What I want is for each particular class to find a different natural "groove" through the game, so that there are 12 different playstyles to be explored. Which will be a good thing as there are intended to be 12 major stories to be told (about which more much later).

To the end of game balancing, I'll be running probably millions of simulated battles as I simultaneously adjust what the stats mean, what battle tactics are included, how powerful the AI should be, and how all this stuff interacts. And I'll probably keep running it over, and over, and over, as the engine evolves. Balance is going to be the hardest part of the project, and I know it.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning, it's an ambitious project, but as far as I'm concerned right now, the journey is the interesting part. If a great game comes out the other end, that's great. 

wow that sucks from this end.

what i want isn't what i see. give me the option to select a specific preview or remove any preview altogether, please.

This morning's market visit quickly moved from, "gosh, plums in November?" to discussion of lamb sodomy with banana dildos.

As one does.

Why do I try to do stuff when the TV is on? 

I've been sitting here now for the past 2 hours thinking about the stuff I really need to do but Jaws 2 is on. I don't even like the Jaws movies. But here I sit, with a 12 year old in my lap because I am terribly sappy like that. A little boy, adrift in the ocean near a massive killer shark and of course I have to cuddle my boy. 

It's one of those movies that makes me frustratingly mad. Yelling at the screen at the stupid people. Damn movie. Ruined my evening. Now I'm off to bed. If I dream about Sharks, channel 7 and I will have issues. 

It's soup season.

In a comment on my last post, Stacey asked what video games I liked.

In general, I like video games with strong stories and stronger gameplay. I like games that challenge me physically and games that require me to learn new skills. I like to fail before I succeed, as long as the failure is fair and due to my own incompetence. I like the freedom to explore, especially in varied environments. I like the freedom to make my own choices, and to have those choices affect things in the world. 

These general rules generally shove me in the direction of action-oriented role-playing games. Unfortunately, most of the mainstream games made for a Western audience do not hold my interest. With these titles I will quickly acquire the dexterity needed for basic gameplay, and then find that my in-game progression is gated by the skills my character has rather than my own skills. At this point the game's essence has become an Excel spreadsheet. 

It's not a hard and fast rule; I'm willing to juggle numbers for a while if a game has a great story or an intriguing setting. But it isn't really why I'm holding a controller. Great stories can be found in movies, books, and on stage. Great video games to me, on the other hand, are great games first, with everything else supporting that.

And yeah, I get that not everyone wants to be doing precisely timed button mashing on their day off. It's cool, really. The question is "what do I like" and so I'm saying that when I choose to play, I usually choose to play something that will challenge me in ways that no other form of entertainment can.

So here's my top three. 

Dark Souls, Fromsoftware; PS3, 360, PC. I have played this game more than any other game, because it not only challenges me physically, but because it brilliantly tells a compelling story in an intriguing world where actions matter -- almost without telling the player anything at all. There are almost no cutscenes. Just a few hundred lines of dialogue scattered among dozens of NPCs. Everything you learn, you'll learn by picking up little tidbits of information here and there on weapons and other items you find, and by thinking about the structure of the world and why it's arranged the way it is. Dark Souls has some faults, but if you can muster the skill and determination to get through it -- because it is hard as hell -- it is immensely rewarding physically, intellectually and emotionally. If you want to imagine the storytelling in most games as someone sitting you down to read you a biography, then in maybe in Dark Souls you've walked into the house of someone's who's died and over the course of looking into every corner and reading every scrap of paper you come to an understanding of who they were.  

Demon's Souls, Fromsoftware; PS3 only. The predecessor to Dark Souls. The combat isn't quite as tight, the story isn't quite as compelling, some of the bosses are kind of cheesy, but the level design is the best I've seen bar nothing. And there's one boss fight in particular that will probably make you scream or cry that it's it's just so fucking unfair that good people nevertheless come to bad ends. It's just as hard as Dark Souls, in some ways even harder. If you play one of these games, probably play Demon's Souls first because it's a little more accessible from a storytelling point of view -- there's a definite arc and progression. Where Dark Souls almost propels you forward due to curiosity and level design, Demon's Souls is a more contemplative game, encouraging you to explore each area thoroughly so you don't miss anything.

And then there's a fairly wide gap in preference and we come to...

Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, Capcom; PS3, 360. A wide-open-world RPG with intriguing quests, enormously varied foes and some really brilliant battle and gameplay mechanics. It does have the flaw of being a little "spreadsheety" in that equipment configuration matters more that I'd like; it's too easy to get to the "press X to win" level of power; but that didn't stop me from playing through it half a dozen times at many hours each in a particular mode of play called "Bitterblack Challenge" where you eschew the main storyline at level 1 and go right to the DLC, which is suggested for players level 20 and up. I must also say the music for Dragon's Dogma is among the best video game music I've ever heard, easily on a par with the best movie soundtracks, and the enemy AI is at times startlingly realistic. The main storyline is pretty good, and your decisions do matter somewhat in the course of the world's unfolding.

I have several thousand hours in these three games.

After these three another wide gap where we find all other games I've played through to the end at least once, like the various Final Fantasy epics, Mass Effect(s), Journey, Dragon Quest(s), and so on. Bard's Tale on the iPad was fairly enjoyable, but still too equipment-centric. I'm currently playing Bayonetta which is much more like a combo-centric arcade fighting game than an action RPG, but I'm still enjoying it.

There are also a lot of action/rpg games which probably fit the style of play I like but that I flat-out refuse to engage with beacuse of overt misogyny. That's why I haven't mentioned titles like Red Dead Redemption or GTA or Saint's Row or God of War or Hitman or ... whatever, the list goes on. There are many, many games that I might like but will never play. I also prefer RPGs where I can customise my avatar, and haven't much tolerance for games which force me to one face or one gender.​

The current discussion of street harrassment has me somewhat interested.

You see, I talk to strangers. 

I do it a lot.

I did it in Boston, when I was an undergrad, mostly at coffee shops.  (God, I miss talking to strangers in coffee shops.  I miss it so much.)

I think I really started doing it when I lived in Ithaca, as a grad student.  One of the (many!) things I liked about leaving cold, miserable Boston for cold, welcoming Ithaca (you can't have everything) was the experience that I would walk down the street in Fall Creek (my neighbourhood) and people said hi to me, and I to them.

Over time, I suppose, I acquired a passing connection to these people, but for many of them, I didn't know their first names.  But nonetheless, for a really lonely 21-year-old who'd just moved in from afar, it actually helped me feel like I was part of humanity.

There are lots and lots of ways that I talk to strangers.  I say hello to people in cafes.  When people next to me in line are asking questions to their friends that their friends obviously don't know the answers to, I semi-bashfully say, "um, actually, it's not Rangoon any more, they built a capital in the middle of the country."  (Or whatever.  I don't do this often.  Which is to say I probably drive Daniel nuts with how often I do it.)  I pet their dogs.  (Really, that's probably half of it.)  I admire their scarves.  I laugh with them when I nearly decapitate them by talking with my hands and having them walk up behind me without me knowing they were there.  I say hello when I stand in line for transit with them.

I've stopped doing some of the talking to strangers I once did, and to be honest, I miss some of it.  I don't talk to strangers in coffee shops anymore, because everyone's staring at a screen and half of the people are listening to headphones.  I don't compliment black women on their hair anymore.  (Maybe I very rarely do?)  But I saw a movie a few years ago ("Good Hair", by Chris Rock), where it was made really clear to me that black women largely don't give a shit what white guys think of their hair, and that some feel it's dehumanizing or whatever-the-black-equivalent-to-orientalism is, to focus on the art on people's head.  [Oh, right: I compliment strangers on their tattoos, too.  Gah.] 

And, in general, I've tried to train myself not to compliment women on their appearance.  I honestly struggle with this.  (Example: two paragraphs ago, I noted that I admire people's scarves.  Probably mostly women's scarves.) No, I never did, "hey babe, you and me, how 'bout it", or the like.  [I do confess that I look at attractive people, under my sunglasses, at the beach.  You do, too.  Please don't judge me.]  But I have, over time, decided that complimenting most strangers on their appearance doesn't make the world any happier than just, "Gorgeous day, eh?" [Did you see that?  I have become Canadian enough that I can use "eh" successfully...] 

Again, I kind of regret this, and it feels complicated.  I do still compliment men on their clothes, sometimes, as, "those socks are so cool" or, "what a great hat!"  (In general, I guess I never really compliment men on any aspect of their bodies, while I might have sometimes complimented women on their outfits.  I can't imagine ever complimenting strangers on, say, their figures.)

I talk to strangers about music.  I talk to strangers about Muzak.  I give directions to strangers.  (Favourite single example: in Lille, "SEE VOOO PLAY?  EST KAY SAY..." "I speak English natively, and I don't speak French.  Are you lost?")

I guess I still probably do talk to strangers about how they look, sometimes.  And I probably still will.  I don't think I'm making an assumption about women's sexual availability by doing so; in general, I more feel like we're all in drag and I'm acknowledging other people have done especially fierce drag that day.

But this space is hard for me, and I feel I should acknowledge that fact.

Have you ever watched a boat in a storm? Lifting up on the waves, rolling to the side, slamming back down into the surf?  When the storm is too much, the boat takes on water, sometimes it even begins to sink.  Most of the time, no matter how harsh the weather, the ship will right itself.  The storm will pass. The sun will shine again and things will move on until the next storm strikes.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  Clinging to the mental image of the ship that survives the storm.

For the past few years, my life has felt like a series of storms.  I'm constantly bailing out the boat and waiting for the weather to change.  See, the problem with becoming more self aware is that you can no longer ignore the painful or unhealthy things in your life.  This is a real catch 22.  You press for growth and change in the hopes of finding peace and a better life on the other side. No one tells you about the middle part.  If they did, we would all stay put in our place. 

Well, I'm here to tell you about the middle and that everything is awful sometimes.   Sometimes, it all catches up with you.  You've spent so much time trying to survive (and even thrive) in the storm that you've totally lost your way.

You know that you are strong.  Others see your strength too.  They continue to count on and even drain you of that precious gift.  You begin to view your strength as a blessing and a curse.  It all starts to unravel.

 That's pretty much where I find myself today. Unraveled.  In the middle, where everything is awful sometimes.

I got an invite to use Google's new Inbox thingy the other day.  If you haven't seen it, it's a layer over Gmail that bundles messages into thematic groups and lets you deal with them in large batches.

It's an interesting notion, though it doesn't exactly match the way I've been using Gmail (which is to use the Priority Inbox, and strive to keep "Important and Unread" clear while letting stuff accumulate in the rest of the Inbox).  Still, that's something that could be managed over time.

The showstopper I encountered was when actually composing a message.  It doesn't include the per-sender-address signatures defined in Gmail.  I waited literally years​ for Google to add that feature, I'm not going to give it up now.