So Bloody Boring

Hi. I've got no particular topic I want to talk about right now, but it's almost Monday already, so I think I'll just mention what I've been up to these last few days.

I saw that non-comedy Jackie Chan movie, The Foreigner. It's filled with people who just don't know what love is. Action was okay, but felt somewhat incongruous for me since I've come to associate Jackie's fight scenes with humour and silliness. Story was meh. Seeing Pierce Brosnan speaking with Irish accent does funny things to my stomach.

I also saw Geostorm. I missed the first twenty minutes or so, but I could sort of extrapolate from the rest. Action/sci-fi? I'm not really a fan of action movies, and I like my science fiction grand and huge, so I didn't really enjoy the movie.

Seeing two action movies in a week brought this to my attention: one of the reasons I don't like action movies is they usually use some shorthand to convey character. "Typety-typety-type." Oh, she's a clever computer-y person. "Yo, I'm going to beat your high score!" Oh, he's a gamer (never mind the fact that "high scores" are nearly completely nonexistent in everyday gaming nowadays). They felt superficial and, for the most part, unnecessary! I don't know, I haven't really tried, but I suspect there are better ways to show details of someone's character.

What else? Oh! I finished reading the first Foundation novel, by Isaac Asimov. Liked it to bits. But the way the story's structured, you pretty much have to read all of the books. Or maybe it's just me? I felt that the first novel ended with no great climax (one of the characters even mentioned this). I see how it ties with the story, a great saga spanning hundreds of years. It's just . . . not what I expected when I took it off the shelf, and not entirely in a good way. It's still good, though.

Right now I'm reading Snuff, the 39th Discworld novel by the late Sir Terry Pratchett. It's another Sam Vimes story, whom I'm already very comfortable with. Pleasant and funny, which is par for the course for Sir Terry.

As for video games, nothing new. Oh, I just started Doki Doki Literature Club, which is intriguing, if you read some people's cryptic Steam reviews. Only thirty minutes in, nothing major's happened yet. I wonder what it's all about.

So yeah, that's pretty much my week. The rest is just daily stuff. Been doing Inktober, with varying seriousness day to day. And grinding for loot boxes in Overwatch (That Cultist Zenyatta skin! ARGH!), but it's still fun, since I go for just one box a day. I also had a couple of scary dreams, which is strange. I'm used to weird dreams, but scary ones are new. I wonder why they started coming.

All in all, it was a pretty boring week. Which, seeing from past experience, is potentially very dangerous. Let's see what next week brings.

Old Games Used to Have Boss Buttons, You Know

I got into a small debate (is this the right word? I'm not sure) yesterday. It was about whether or not games should include a "skip boss fight" option.

This was, I'm guessing, sparked by an article from Polygon about an ongoing (so the article didn't spark it? I might be stupid, folks) debate on Twitter about the "skip boss fight" thing, which in turn seemed to be incited by another article from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

So should games include an option to skip bosses? I am of the opinion of "Why the hell not?" which, I might have to clarify, sits comfortably in the "Yes, they should include a "skip boss" option" side.

**********

Now. Most of the argument have already been said by John Walker in that Rock, Paper, Shotgun article. Read it first, please. It's better-written than this post of mine, if I do say so myself. Didn't see the link? Click HERE to go there. And I recommend you also read the articles linked inside that article. For a more thorough background, you see. And also maybe this other one HERE, also from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Have you read the articles? If you find them to be sufficient argument (as I do), then I guess you don't need to read this wall of text after all? Feel free to scroll down to near the end, where you can find a picture.

**********

Why would anyone want to skip a boss fight? Are boss fights not the point of a game? It depends on the game. If we're talking about Shadow of the Colossus, sure, it would be silly, because boss fights ARE the game. Without them, we'd be left with a guy wandering around an empty landscape. It would be self-defeating if it lets you skip bosses. (Even then, Colossus lets you do as you like. Bosses are entirely optional. You don't have to fight them, you can just . . . don't go near them.)

But not all bosses are Colossi. There are definitely games that would be improved if they removed a boss fight or two. The Batman: Arkham Asylum final boss comes to mind. They were boring and added no new challenges. You don't even *really* defeat them anyway. They're only defeated in the subsequent cinematic.

Then maybe we should not be clamoring for "skip boss fight" buttons, and instead demand people to "make better bosses"? (And in the game.) And we do that, every time we face a sucky boss fight. I do wish that Arkham Asylum had a better final boss. But the fact is that boss fights can always be just arbitrary difficulty spikes which feel like - nay, are - exams about things not on the syllabus. You might call us lazy to not want to take that exam, but if we don't find it relevant, why should we be unable to skip it?

So why would people want to skip boss fights? Well, for whatever reason they might conjure. They might not have the required dexterity to beat the boss. They might have missed a certain item, making the boss unbeatable without a lot of backtracking or replaying. They might even feel that boss fights are ugly interruptions between sessions of exploration. But whatever reason people might have, even if it IS silly, or stupid, or lazy, why should they be kept from playing games the way they want to? They've paid for the whole thing, is it wrong for them to enjoy just part of it?

Can people enjoy the song "Still Alive", from Portal, without having fought and defeated GLaDOS? I think so. Does people enjoying the song without fighting GLaDOS - without playing the game at all, even - take away the enjoyment and sense of achievement from the people who do? No. They might not have as full an experience as the ones who defeated her, but if they are willing to accept that compromise, why should anyone else prevent them?

It's like if I were to buy a pack of playing cards and use them as bookmarks. I'm choosing to skip the "playing" aspect of the thing and instead to focus on the physical, maybe artsy, "card" aspect. What would be so bad about that? The manufacturers are not cheated, I paid the same amount for the cards just like everyone else. Other people can still play poker or bridge or whatever with their own cards their way, nobody's stopping them. I'm happy, since I get to use the cards the way I want and need. Is that bad?

Chip's Challenge lets you skip levels! Did you know that? If you failed enough times, after what the game judges to be a fair amount of effort, you'd be given the option to skip the level (which you can always try again later). This is Chip's Challenge! In 1989, they already knew how to make compromises between challenge and accessibility. And the joy of starting a new level, getting to see more of the game, is only improved with that breath of relief. You want to know what game doesn't let you skip unbeatable bosses? SkiFree, that's what. And even if you pressed F and managed to evade that abomination in the end, that's it. What's left is just more snow and more repetition of the same assets as before. Sure, it's an achievement, more power to you if you've done it, but you can't complain if people call it boring and prefer to skip it.

The goal is to increase the net enjoyment people get from games. The suggestion was simply for developers to implement an entirely optional capability for players to get to parts of the games they would enjoy. Entirely optional. If you don't want to use it, then don't. It's a bit like gay marriage legalization: if you're not gay, you're not affected by it. At all. So why the outrage?

Remember Skyrim? Back when it was released, there were people decrying the developers' choice to include carriages, which can take you to a city not yet visited. "It takes away from the challenge! No one would make the effort to walk between points and explore!" Which was just silly. You can still just leg it the old way up mountains, if you want to. No one was forcing anyone to use the fast travel option; if anything, the game even put an obstacle, if a small one: you have to pay a small fee to use the carriages. (And while we're at it, I can't be the only person who wished, from the bottom of their soul, that we had the option to skip that tedious cart ride in the beginning, right? But if we can feel that way about the beginning, then there might plausibly be people out there who feel that exact same way about the ending. Why should we be allowed to wish for a skip button, but they not?)

Most games already let you skip cutscenes. And credit rolls, for that matter. I am of the opinion that neither of them are less of a game's component than the boss fights. Otherwise, why include them at all? Padding? "Bonus"? We should be grateful that we get to see cutscenes at all? Aren't they selling themselves short, as if they've put a great deal more trust in the action part of the game than the narrative? Believe in yourselves more, developers. Put value in all parts of your work. Otherwise, the fact that you let players skip cutscenes and credits might be seen as pandering to players who are too lazy to watch them.

The one argument for not including the option I can maaaaybe almost agree with is of spoilers. People might just skip the fights, see the ending, and blab about it all over the internets. But this is only almost a problem, or if it is, it's not a new one. People already spoil endings to movies, books, and, yes, games every day. The ones who don't mind won't mind, and the ones who do will have already developed habits that, barring unexpected circumstances, protect them from unwanted reveals. So, no, still not good enough a case.

(Now, I feel I should give you a warning: personal rant imminent. As before, feel free to scroll down to the end if you want to.)

**********

Some people might not like where this is going, but yes, in the end, it is about inclusiveness. In my "debate", I suggested that not all games are about beating the game, and do you know what I got in response?

"Well maybe you should just play those games then, and not complain about these ones."

It might have been a knee-jerk response. But that reflex to shoo people, to exclude them, however nicely it might have been said, was there. You have your games, I have mine. Which is technically true, and in a perfect world would be perfectly fine. But it becomes a problem if "my" games happen to be ones "you" turned away from because "you" were not skilled enough, or not able or willing to put enough hours in to, as they say, GIT GUD. Soon enough, "you" might be seen as just a crummy or lazy gamer, as opposed to the real, better ones. Gods forbid that happens in real life!

And guess what? We did play those games which are not about beating them. Or, more often, we played games without trying to beat them. When I was little, I was belittled by my cousin for not being good at football games. "You can't even play!" he said. So I stopped playing football games. Played many other things instead. Age of Empires? Hell yeah. Never did beat any of the campaigns, though. Had too much fun spawning COBRA cars and gunning down castles. It carried on to Age of Mythology. (I wuv woo, Flying Purple Hippo.) And The Sims. Oh, The Sims. Didn't even use cheat codes. Just roleplayed generation after generation, with only an occasional dash of Sim-drowning. There's a whole wide world of games out there, and only very few of them require us beating them in order to enjoy them.

Some years after that, after I'd seen more games and more types of games, I had a casual chat with a friend about games. Somehow, I got out the question, "Hey do you play The Sims?" Just like that. You want to know the response?

"Heck no, I'm not gay!"

I have no problem with people calling me gay. I do, however, have a problem with people belittling me and seeing me as something less, just because I play certain games or not play certain others. And, in my experience, this "you have your games and I have mine" mentality somehow have led to exactly that. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who has seen this.

(Personal rant ends here.)

**********

Games are many things to many people. They are no longer just crude physics simulators. If there are people who wish to see them for more than what they were in the '90s, what's wrong with that? If there are people who can enjoy a game in a different way from us, why shouldn't we let them? We can't understand their reasons? Okay, that's fine. Maybe we don't have to. Understanding is not requisite for kindness; acceptance is. I am of the opinion that if we ever find ourselves on the side against inclusiveness, maybe we should check our privileges.

Ultimately, the "skip boss fight" button is, in fact, a courtesy. Not everyone needs it, you can't (and shouldn't) make it compulsory, but it's still the kind thing to do. After all this arguing, it's all still in the developers' hands. And just like every artist and creator, they have the right to make whatever they want to convey whatever point they wish. But the consumers, all consumers, retain the right to say whether a thing has value, and whether its values happen to be good or not.

**********

Hello. Did you skip to this part? That's perfectly fine. Welcome. Now, while we're talking about games here, I'm going to share something I'm reading right now: Million Rooms Labyrinth (Hyakumanjo Labyrinth). It follows Reika and Yoko, a pair of playtesters somehow trapped in a seemingly empty game world. I find it fascinating, because it made me think of ways to approach video games I never really considered before.

When playing games, I usually try to drown. With the exception of abstract games, I try to fully immerse myself in the game world, in order to see it from inside, essentially making every game a role-playing game to some extent. And role-playing games, when done right, can reveal things about yourself you might not previously know. So this is the subjective approach to games, and I love it, for it has enriched my understanding about many things, not least of all myself.

But of course, there is another way to look at games, which is to see them from outside, as puzzle boxes. It tries to look through the art of the game to see the craft of the game, which the developers usually try to disguise and hide in the background. This takes effort. It takes experience for a player to be able to spot subtle mechanics and holes, and there is no substitute to that, barring brute force. But I don't really want to have to poke at every inch of walls to find a bug, or to make odd combinations of actions in a specific spot to gain an edge against an enemy. It is this approach that is taken in the comic, and as such, I am grateful that it let me have a taste of it.

I have only read the first part (I checked around, it's a two-parter), but so far I like it. The characters are all quite funny and likable, the world is interesting (slightly eerie), and the pacing is relaxed, punctuated with instances of suspense. The last part is, to my knowledge, not out yet in Indonesian, but I gladly recommend this comic.


Thank you for reading, everybody.

A Lunch Box for the Soul

Aku baru selesai membaca Takasugi's Lunch Box (Takasugi-San Chi no Obentou) sampai tamat.

Dari judulnya, mungkin akan banyak yang menyangka bahwa Takasugi's Lunch Box (selanjutnya kusebut Lunch Box saja ya) adalah komik kuliner, seperti A Chef of Nobunaga (Nobunaga no Chef) atau Yakitate!! Japan. Tidak salah, sih, memang ia sedikit banyak bercerita tentang masakan. Namun fokus Lunch Box agak berbeda dengan komik-komik lainnya di atas.

Komik kuliner lainnya yang aku tahu (ya, dua komik tadi) biasanya bergantung pada adegan memasak yang digambarkan sangat realistis dan dinamis. Gambarnya selalu membuat kita merasa berada tepat di dapur bersama koki, di hadapan api yang membara. Apalagi jika ada adegan flambé atau menumis yang heboh. Panasnya terasa, baunya tercium. Tidak demikian dengan Lunch Box. Di sini, ketimbang memasak, lebih pas jika kita sebut fokusnya sebagai "mempersiapkan makanan." Alih-alih adegan masak yang heboh, yang ada malah daftar bahan dasar beserta panduan rinci memasak, menyajikan, dan juga menyimpan makanan, yang biasanya dimuat dalam satu panel setengah halaman dengan tulisan kecil. Tidak wah, tidak glamor, bahkan kadang tidak menarik . . . tetapi substansial.

Pantas. Karena komik ini bercerita tentang kehidupan dua orang sepupu yatim piatu yang, karena satu dan lain hal, hidup bersama. Mereka pada awalnya mengalami kesulitan berkomunikasi dan memahami satu sama lain, namun satu hal yang ternyata dapat membantu menjembatani ruang ini adalah . . . bekal makan siang yang dibawa setiap hari. Karena meskipun kadang terlihat tidak mengundang, tidak keren, bekal bukan hanya sekadar "makanan yang dibawa dari rumah," namun banyak hal yang dapat disampaikan lewat bekal. Di sini Lunch Box mirip dengan komik kuliner lain, yang salah satu pesan utamanya adalah "masakan itu bukan sekadar makanan." Lihat lebih dekat, kecap lebih dalam. Untuk mendapatkan ini tidak hanya memetik di semak, tetapi ada usaha di dalamnya. Nilainya lebih dari jumlah komponen-komponennya.

Namun yang membuatku merasa Lunch Box berbeda dari komik kuliner lainnya adalah bahwa makanan, dalam bentuk bekal, walaupun menjadi unsur yang menyatukan dan mengikat, bergeser ke latar belakang selama sebagian besar cerita dan memberi ruang bagi unsur-unsur lain. Memang setengah dari judul komiknya adalah Lunch Box, namun separuh lainnya adalah Takasugi's. Dan Takasugi adalah seorang pemuda berusia 31 tahun yang memiliki gelar doktor dalam bidang geografi. Aku tak tahu banyak perihal disiplin ilmu geografi selain yang kudapat di sekolah (ya ampun, berapa tahun yang lalu itu!), namun dalam komik ini geografi digambarkan sebagai bidang yang melibatkan manusia dan lingkungan secara menyeluruh. Antropologi, sosiologi, meteorologi, ekonomi, linguistik, dan mungkin masih banyak lagi unsur yang terlibat di dalamnya. Ini memungkinkan Takasugi - dan pengarang - untuk melihat hampir semua aspek kehidupan, tidak hanya hubungan antarpribadi, dari sudut pandang keilmuan . . . dan menyampaikan kesimpulan dan harapan mereka dalam kotak-kotak bekal.

Biasanya aku membutuhkan waktu sekitar dua puluh hingga tiga puluh menit untuk membaca satu tankoubon (sekitar 200 halaman komik, mungkin?). Namun untuk Lunch Box, aku menghabiskan empat puluh menit hingga satu jam, bahkan kadang lebih. Komiknya terasa padat, dalam arti yang bagus. Banyak tulisan, namun bagiku ini justru membuatku lebih bisa menikmati gambar yang walaupun tidak bergaya realis, namun penuh detail. Rasanya seperti melihat album foto yang disusun secara kronologis dan dinarasikan rinci oleh pengarangnya. Hampir tidak ada adegan aksi maupun peralihan antarpanel yang dinamis. Kita justru diajak untuk lebih santai dalam mencernanya. Tenang saja. Tak perlu terburu-buru membalik halaman. Tinggallah di sini sebentar lagi. Nikmati saja dulu. Bel belum berbunyi. Masih ada waktu.

Banyak sekali komik yang, saat mendekati akhir, bermasalah dalam mengatur tempo. Lunch Box tidak. Sepanjang serialisasinya, langkah yang perlahan, tanpa tergesa-gesa ini tetap dapat dipertahankan. Kurasa ini artinya rating-nya stabil dan penerbit aslinya tidak merasa perlu menghentikan serial ini di tengah jalan? Apapun artinya, aku sangat gembira dapat membaca komik seperti ini. Ceritanya tidak menjadi dipaksakan. Selalu realistis, dan karena itu selalu mengena di hati.

Kurasa Takasugi's Lunch Box sudah menjadi salah satu komik dewasa favoritku. Dewasa, bukan dalam arti penuh adegan seksi atau bahasa vulgar atau kekerasan, melainkan dalam arti sebaliknya: rumit dan penuh pertimbangan. Diriset dengan baik dan penuh pemikiran, menyentuh topik-topik yang relatif jarang dibicarakan, terasa luas dan dalam. Kurasa ia dapat disebut setingkat dengan Tomo'o (Danchi Tomoo) dan Chibi Maruko-Chan, sebagai komik esai mengenai kehidupan. (Ya, menurutku Maruko pantas disebut sebagai komik dewasa. Atau, paling tidak, ia komik yang dapat dibaca oleh segala usia, namun, seperti film Inside Out, akan dapat lebih sepenuhnya dinikmati oleh orang dewasa.)

Aku sangat bersyukur telah mendapat kesempatan membaca Takasugi's Lunch Box. Komik ini ditulis dengan baik, dan aku berterima kasih pada Nozomi Yanahara yang telah menulisnya. Aku yang tak mampu berbahasa Jepang dapat membacanya, dan aku bersyukur atas Level Comics dan Elex Media Komputindo yang telah menerbitkannya. Khususnya Yenny Thie (penerjemah), Ellen (editor, jilid 1), Adisti (editor, jilid 2 - 10), dan Aji Y. (desain sampul). Semuanya, terima kasih sudah memungkinkanku membaca Takasugi's Lunch Box.

Bacalah Takasugi's Lunch Box. Kalau mau pinjam punyaku, dengan senang hati aku akan pinjamkan.

Therefore Go

I have been feeling down for the last couple of days. More than the usual gloom, I mean. The reason is simple: I lost my bag. And all its contents with it.

The contents themselves can in fact be quite easily replaced; a couple of novels and comics, a copy of The Resistance: Avalon (the excellent hidden roles game!), and some stationery. In terms of material loss, it's not very much, I know.

But the immaterial still mattered to me.

***

I always hated losing things. But mostly, I hate getting caught off guard and getting things taken from me without my knowledge. That's what happened, you see: I was watching some friends play music and I left my bag in my seat, along with my friends' bags. When we got back, my bag was gone, presumably taken by someone. I let my guard down. I wasn't being pessimistic enough. I lost things, because I lost control of the situation.

Of course I blamed myself. "I am the one thing in life I can control!" Hence, I am the one thing in life I can truly blame for not performing up to my standards. Doesn't mean that they who took the bag wasn't in the wrong, doesn't mean I wouldn't try to break their arm or smash their nose into a table had I caught them at it, but it's simply no use blaming them NOW when it's happened and they've scarpered off with the bag.

I blamed myself. Which would, if I am being consistent, lead to me modifying my behaviour during live shows or any public events. The simplest way is to be paranoid, and not trust anyone, including myself, and keep my possessions at or as close to my person as I can manage.

But. I've tried that, you know. It's tiring. It's a lot of work. It's way too much work for the meager reward of "getting to keep having the non-perishable things I have now." 

***

This may seem weird, but it was only after I fully felt the pain of the loss of trust (for myself and other people alike) that I noticed the pain of the loss of the things themselves. Or maybe not. They are just things, after all. Replaceable, and rather easily at that. I should just replace them all, and the problem would be solved. Yes?

No. They are - were - NOT "just things." They were MY things. And the moment I recognised them as my things, I created a bond between myself and them. If you were so inclined, you can say that they were my Horcruxes. As are all my possessions. I put fragments of my soul (whatever that is) into each and every one of them. As such, each time a thing of mine stops being mine, whether by going missing or getting broken or destroyed . . . I die a little.

This is also tiring.

***

I'm lazy. I don't like getting tired. And right now, I am tired. Tired from all the self-hate, all the poisonous possessiveness, all the mistrust.

So I'm changing tack.

I'm not becoming paranoid. I'm not going to look at everyone with distrust. But neither will I kill my feelings for my things.

Rather, I'm going to try to stop looking at my things as my things, and start looking at them as my children. They already have part of my soul (whatever that is), after all.

I will try to be a good parent. I will be happy when my children are around, but I will realise that they might not reach their full potential by staying beside me. I will feel bad when they're hurt, but I will recognise that they are not weak, and they might have to get hurt to be useful.

I will learn how to say goodbye.

I hope that, wherever all my lost things, over the years, have gone, and whomever they end up with, they bring more even good now than they have already done for me.

By the by, if anyone was expecting me to comment on Tooth and Tail . . . My laptop was not strong enough to run it, so I had to get a refund. I just bought Niche, though. It's a genetic survival game. I played the demo a few months back, and it's just as engrossing as it was when it was a demo. Three hours just blinked past during my first playthrough.

After Malachi

Hello.

As you might notice, it has been quite a while since I last wrote something in here. The previous log was from the very last day of 2015, which makes it nearly two years (two years!) without anything published.

It is sad. And the past two years or so have been, in many ways, sad for me. In fact, I want to say "depressing," but since I haven't taken myself to a professional, I feel it would be inappropriate for me to say. I'll just say "paralysing," since it is definitely true, practically if not literally.

Looking back, I feel, right now, that my past posts do not satisfy the present me. I suppose that's a good sign? That I've improved, or at least undergone some change, since then? A lot of the stuff I wrote back then now seems embarrassingly half- or even barely-baked.

Which could have been okay, you know! If I had posted more addenda and/or refutations to those part-ideas. Or at least if I had written more frequently, with more visible updates to my state of mind. That way those ideas would have been more processed and polished and not so gorram raw.

And that's what I'm planning to do. I'm planning to, as people usually tell themselves on January 1st, "write more." Only this time, I'm going to make a promise, with all the risk it carries. I'm promising you (yes, you) I will post here at the very least once a week. You (yes, again, you) are welcome to remind me of the promise, of course! In fact, I hope you do, just so I know you're there. . . .

Right! That's one post done! I promised myself no video game until I've done at least one, so now, let's be having a go at that new Tooth and Tail!