2021
The year is ending, and I share the common sentiment of feeling like my mind is still on 2020. It's true that feelings like that exist since adulthood but this year I'm feeling it more deeply than any other (mostly due to known circumstances). I wanted to say that this place is probably one of the few things that were different from last year, as it didn't exist yet, so happy birthday, yay.
I wondered if I wasted the whole year, but I was deceiving myself again, I forgot I released a short game this year. I really want to break from this loop of deceiving myself all the time. It all boils down to "I am stupid -> No, you're stupid for thinking you're stupid. -> Yeah, I'm double stupid."
I also get stuck in another similar loop: at one point while learning things, working on something or wasting my time, I start deceiving myself into thinking that I'm going nowhere or I am doing it wrong somehow.
Every year I learn more on how to be creative, or rather, on how to be creative properly.
Everyday I try to absorb any type of cultural expression, at least once, and make it meaningful to me.
And my wish is to transform that into something others can incorporate that into their own processes too.
I don't know if I'm doing it the right way, but it is important that I never stop trying. It is my objective in life.
Thank you anon, I worked hard on it ;_;.
Too late for november, you'll have to wait another 12 months...
I had maybe two weeks of motivation where I managed to make a lot of progress, but the miracle wore off and I'm back to being lazy again. Smashing my face at full speed against the wall of my limitations has that effect on me, but I gotta move on. I guess I'll make better background transitions and lamps later on. At least this time around I advanced a lot more than previous iterations.
No More Heroes 3 is a good switch game, it's not a masterpiece, but it's good. It's fun. The presentation is great, honestly is one of the best UI work I've seen in years, it's full of personality. I don't talk about graphics, talking about graphics is cringe. But I need to admit that the performance issues on switch definitely influenced how the main loop changed from NMH1 to this one. I think Grasshopper did an okay work at embracing these limitations, but it could have been better. It's not better than NMH1 and TSA, but I still like it. Despite not falling into hype I'm still a half-full-glass type of person, probably...
IMO the right approach would've been having the characters only work on their level mini-games. This would've allowed the characters to have more specific abilities and the micro-games could've been more creative without the universality on mind. Each level should've been like Penny's level, the game really picked up on that last segment.
Hello Anon, you're the first person to send me a message through the site embed, thanks ♥.
This month has been weird, I had like one week of inspiration where I worked on a lot of things and the creativity just flowed, but now I'm back into the drought.
I played Cruelty Squad and I liked it a lot, I'll talk about it below but what's important is that it encouraged me to give Godot another try. I've been working on moving the features of my last project to the engine and so far things that are stupidly complex to get done in Unity are a lot easier here, it gives me the feeling that Godot knows from the get go that you want to make a game on it and not anything else. I hope that doesn't change once I dive deeper.
Another thing I did during my creative week, during the few free hours I had at work, I wrote a short story of sorts, it needs some tweaks and a proper conclusion but I want to post it here when it's done.
You probably noticed that my site changed a little bit. I finally decided on what direction I want for it. It's a work in progress, my streak of creative energy ended just as I decided it so I couldn't work on it much, I don't know what is it. Maybe working on the site actually killed the streak...
I wanted to write this after I finished the site updates but I really wanted to stop postponing things.
I'm gonna state first just to get it out of the way that I dislike when the game industry uses hollywood actors to play as characters so I take away some points for that... I gotta admit though, I'm not a movie person but from my ignorant perspective, some of the cutscenes are really really good (with minor exceptions where I feel the mood and script was all over the place).
As for the gameplay I think it's excellent for the most part, I completely fell in love with how the player controller (in PS4), I love how the trigger buttons represent both hands and you need to hold em to grab a box from the ground (and if you want to throw them far away you need to let them go in the middle of an attack!), I love how the game knows that your controller is most likely in the same relative place as BB is on Sam's outfit and when he cries he does it from the controller's speakers or if you want to calm him down you need to rock your controller and the lights change colors depending on his mood. Those small things do more for immersion than any beautiful graphics ever will (at least for me).
One thing I'd change in regard to the narrative design is something that Kojima should've kept from MGSV and that is the ability to listen to those long interviews and the music you unlock during while Sam is traveling, I think it would fit this game a lot more than Metal Gear even, as I played half of the game listening audios from youtube myself.
The narrative is alright, I like how every symbol is thematically connected, like when they bring up that our fish ancestors grew up legs so they can go back to water asap when the tide leaves them on the shore, I was mind blown, and there a lot of small things like that. I won't say much more but overall I liked it, it has hiccups sometimes but it's fine, and if you follow Kojima there's a particular part the will play with your expectations of a Kojima-game. Me likey.
Even without that, the game is brilliant, the gameplay is really creative and it goes well with the themes of trusting your partner. It's representation of Shibuya is miles better than whatever P5 was trying to do, I love how each part of it is a small ecosystem with its own brands and urban tribes that's constantly changing (by the hands of the player but w/e) and in this fast moving setting is where the protagonist Neku has to develop human connection and trust his partners, something that he has given up on at the start of the game.
Neku's growth is excellent by the way, it is one of the best character developments I've seen on games, I absolutely love how he keeps sharing new traits and beliefs with each partner, even small superficial things like speech patterns, yo.
Definitely one of my favorites this year.
I feel like neither part of the game (dungeons and dating) ends up justifying the other in the final product. Narratively it makes the world feel too awkward (the awkwardness in the writing feels worse by the fact that every character acts like you're their partner even when you're on the friends route) and gameplay-wise it feels... lacking. The combat is fun enough but there's barely any content on the game, there's only two dungeons on the game with a very small monster repertoire. In my opinion they should've put more effort/time/money on the combat instead of animated cutscenes.
As for the controversy thing, I'm not here to say what should trigger people and what shouldn't, but there was a trigger warning on the game and I think the part people complain about wasn't handled poorly... Every character in the game acknowledges that the person in question is shitty, he even feels like a rocket team style of villain at some point. This situation comes off as a bummer to me because it's the type of shit that discourages people to explore dark subjects in art, I hate it.
Hmm... These game thoughts are getting pretty long, should I move them to a different page in this diary section?
It's been a while, huh? I think I skipped a month.
I've been feeling detached and uninspired lately, I went to a coastal town for like one and a half weeks (even though it's winter here) and it did help a little but not enough. I guess it's the season... It's been really shitty but what hurts the most is not being able to transform the pain into something artistically meaningful. It's heart shattering.
I also like, I have a lot of free time (I'm only going physically to work on fridays) but I do my anki reps, it shouldn't take that long now but for some reason or the other I end up putting more time into that and when it comes to playing a game or doing something productive it already nighttime... I also should spend time doing language immersion but I'm at a point where it is not engaging enough for me to actively want to do it. I'm fucked, lol.
Maybe I'm feeling like shit ‘cause it's my birthday month? I dislike my birthday, I don't like getting older, I don't like being the center of attention and quite frankly I don't think I deserve a day about myself.
On a different note, I've been thinking a lot about the fate of this site. I won't delete it and I still plan to update it, but I think I should change its focus. We'll see.
(I'm struggling to write this so sorry if it sounds half assed).
Sorry for taking too long. I don't have much to say this month that isn't confidential.
I've been doing game development related stuff, not on my main project. The experience gained might make me rethink certain aspects of it though.
I've been trying to get into learning japanese on the last few days too.
That's pretty much it. I'm thinking about a lot of shit lately but I can't really put it into words.
I feel like a lot of shit happened on this month yet I don't have much to say about it (not surprised).
I worked on my unity project early on the month and I was doing great but I unfortunately needed to interrupt my streak... and I had to do it in the middle of coding a system and it will be a pain in the ass when I pick it up again (should check everything and put it on paper when I do, that'll make things easier).
I interrupted my work because I had a moment of enlightment where I decided to stop having some bad habits that make me feel like garbage (and failing to do so but it's still an improvement) and also wanted to organize/categorize the download folders on my PC and my phone, which took an entire week to do and I'm not even done with it :)) if it feels like a bad excuse it's because it is one.
A week ago I tested positive for c0v1d and that shit sucks omfg. I mean, I don't really care what happens to me but I'm afraid of the fact of passing the virus to a high risk person and it gave me a lot of anxiety having to tell everyone I was in contact with that I have it and I hate the administrative procedures I'm gonna need to do at work because of it and I hate being an inconvenience to others . . .
Also, updated the puzzle bobble thing, probably the last update to that unless I find anything else I guess.
‹Progress...?›
The visuals are good, sometimes it can look uncanny but it's a risk that comes with choosing this art-style. The combat is cool but it could use a few improvements. Those two are a few things I can overlook but certain aspects of the plot really ruined it for me, I think they bit more than they could chew.
Like for example, and I will enter SPOILER territory here so skip for the next game if you don't want to read this: You have a lot of shit that's going on in the real world like wars and climate change and the such, and you decide that for your game, the world ended because a rogue scientist leaked some nanomachines on the black market? What the fuck? and then the reason because the Kaiju exist and attack the world is because a character wanted to cut corners and used a videogame's code for the simulation? That sounds so lame. And speaking of the simulation, I kinda hated that plot twist? Like, I really loved it when I figured out that the game was telling me that each sector existed physically next to each other and time travelling didn't exist, and that went down the drain when they made it all a simulation, like it just didn't matter, it doesn't matter if sectors are next to each other or they are the same place but a different time. I dunno, it just killed my excitement. Tamao's monologue at the end is pretty rad though and piecing the plot together was fun after all.
That's all for now, I have a lot of things to think for the next month and my legs hurt and I have no taste (literally), buh bye.
I know I said I was going to start working on my projects, and I really did... but not as much as I wanted to.
The thing is pretty organized with its kanban board and documents but I still suck at respecting a schedule.
I did progress anyways, and I'm happy with it and learned a lot but it barely looks any different from "the-thing-I-do-everytime-I-start-a-project".
Here's a small gif of it:
‹Skipping some hours as you can see.›The cool thing I did this time is designing and programming an in-game clock, similar to Digimon World or Moon: Remix RPG Adventure.
When I tried to design it I was stuck for a few days... I was doing it all wrong.
I wanted to start by designing the small behaviours of the NPCs like walking around randomly and the such, but I found out it's much better to start big and then go after the smaller details, so I scratched everything and designed the in-game clock first and went down from there.
So yeah, lesson learned, I was stupid.
This is what's documented so far: In-game clock -> Days of the Week -> NPC Scheduling -> NPC Behaviour.
For now only the first two concepts are implemented in the prototype, I'll see if I can add the rest now or if I need to finish some other project task first.
I bought a PS4, so that library of games is available to me now, I'm playing 13 sentinels right now and it's pretty nice, it's giving me some really good uchikoshi vibes, and since I started exercising, I can do bike and play that at the same time, heh.
Also I started to work again. Only once a week though so it's cool and it gives me some time alone (sometimes that is), also I can really focus on designing when I have some free time in the office.
Uhm, another thing is that I started another MMO... I'll try not to become obssesed with it. For now I think it's barely above average, they say it gets better but the only thing I want from it is to make some frends (˘-ω-˘͈).
Last thing before the reviews is that I opened a new page on this site, it's an additional page dedicated to Puzzle Bobble 4 backgrounds, so be sure to check it out, even if you don't know the game, it's interesting... or at least... I think... it is... . . . . . .
Mini reviews time.
Gameplaywise, it's an open world. It fills the checkboxes of the modern open world template: enemy camps, towers to unlock points of interest, experience points and level ups, branching skill trees, stealth, etc...
The combat is similar to the Arkham games but what sets it apart is the navigation around the world, it's awesome, I won't say "you really feel like spiderman" but it's pretty entertaining. Plus I have a thing for rooftops and tall buildings with a lot of windows, and New York has a lot of those.
Stealth as Spider-man is also as fun as fighting. I would say the flow is pretty good if it wasn't ruined by the obligatory MJ/Miles stealth missions. They're just boring, it's like the Ashley section of RE4 but several times (It appeared only once in that game for a reason). I'm all up for giving MJ a bigger role but those missions are just boring and serve no purpose but exposition, just give her spidergirl powers or something. (At least Miles gets an entire sequel).
And about the plot, I ended up sympathizing with the villains and at this point I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing. You see, in Spiderman you're basically a cop that protects a billionaire from the people he ruined the life of. That's all pretty much, whatever twists it has were either too obvious or were spoiled by knowledge of the universe.
Also not sure if I'm the only one that noticed it but it has this normie-tv tendency were its constantly trying to be touching more than it should? Like it feels out of place in some dialogues at times.
For now, I won't give it the benefit of the doubt since it's a triple-A, but most of the bad stuff here can be subverted by the sequel, I doubt they will though.
Got tired, it's 7 AM and this is a mess but idc see you next month.
I finally finished the about page yesterday, so I can finally show this page to the public soon, hope it doesn't look cringy. I took my time but the 'base' page is done and hopefully it'll evolve with time.
In other news, I finished the game design course so I no longer have excuses to not work on personal projects anymore, hehe, so I should start working or learning something else soon.
And as promised, I'll talk a little about the games I played on the last month, note that I don't intend these to be serious reviews or whatever, just throwing a few words out there about how I felt about them.
To end this entry, I'd like say that I have one 'shrine' prepared, a compilation of sorts, of something only yours truly cares about, you'll see.
It's 5 AM and the power has been cut for more than 24 hours now. It's summer so the temperature is around 30°C right now. At moments like this, there's nothing better than a good VN in the middle of the dark and silent night.
I finished Umineko a few days ago so I'm still very hyped about it, and my body's been asking for more 07th Expansion content, so I started Higurashi, even though I promised to wait a little before starting another VN.
Umineko has been a long and wonderful journey and I feel like it's going to leave a long lasting impact on me, I wonder if I'll able to write something longer about how I feel about it once I finish digesting it.
I'll talk about the games I played on this year so far on the next entry, I just don't feel like it right now.
Also, I haven't worked on the about page yet, I dunno if I'll work on it tonight but I'll try to work on after I'm done with my class project (tomorrow).
Yeah, it's going to be troublesome if the power doesn't come back until then, since it's online classes...
First entry here, I don't have much to say. It's been 3 weeks since I registered here but I can finally say that the home page and this one are finally usable. I gotta work on the 'about' one now.
Other than that I don't have much to say, anxiety has kept me from progressing on other things.
