Category Archives: WIT

Elfen Lied – A Study of Episode 1

This short piece details a brief study on the emotional makeup of the anime Elfen Lied’s first episode. To aid this endeavor I will be employing some lite statistical techniques and scientific methodology.

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Please note that this is very much a subjective piece, being simply a personal study for the purposes of furthering my own understanding of how this experience was crafted.

Methodology

Emotion Model

Shave et al described the following list of Primary and Secondary Emotions in 1987:

  • Love
    • Longing
    • Lust
    • Affection
  • Joy
    • Cheerfulness
    • Zest
    • Contentment
    • Pride
    • Optimism
  • Surprise
    • Surprise
  • Anger
    • Irritation
    • Exasperation
    • Rage
    • Disgust
    • Envy
    • Torment
  • Sadness
    • Suffering
    • Sadness
    • Disappointment
    • Shame
    • Neglect
    • Sympathy
  • Fear
    • Horror
    • Nervousness

I grouped the Primary Emotions, and their respective Secondary Emotions into High and Low categories. Where High connotes happy like feelings and Low connotes sad like feelings as follows:

High = Love, Joy and Surprise.
Low = Anger, Sadness, Fear.

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Emotion Hierarchy

Continue reading Elfen Lied – A Study of Episode 1

Rock and Revy Argue, Black Lagoon – Musing’s on Anime Imagery

Lately I’ve been watching Black Lagoon, and during the second half of Episode 7 there’s a great scene where Rock and Revy argue. What transpires is in my opinion a turning point in Rock and Revy’s relationship that is worth a deeper look.

(Caution! Spoilers Be Ahead! Before going any further I recommend watching up until the end of Black Lagoon Episode 7)

Since a hobby of mine is analyzing scenes (though I rarely transcribe my musings), I thought to myself, heck I have a blog and a great scene. Lets write something down.

The focus of this short piece will be on my major observations of the imagery employed by the creators of this scene. Why imagery over dialogue? Simple. Because I’ve found gleaning meaning from the imagery of this scene more enjoyable (a big props to the English dub by Brad SwaileMaryke Hendrikse, their amazing work makes this one of the best anime scenes that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing).

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Continue reading Rock and Revy Argue, Black Lagoon – Musing’s on Anime Imagery

Black Lagoon – Anime Watch

If there is no Robin Hood why don’t you become Robin Hood!Rock, Black Lagoon.

This anime has been worth my time, and here are some reasons why it might be worth yours too.

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Black Lagoons characters are complex, none being plain Black or White. Considering Rock, one of shows main protagonists, not only does he serve function as a gateway into the world of Black Lagoon, he is designed so that our impressions of him to change over time as he evolves throughout the series. Rock is not alone, he’s accompanied by a fascinating cast of characters, and relationships between them (namely between Rock and Revy).

As well as awesome characters the series employs:

  • Great use of imagery, particularly the use of shadows, their masterful use of facial expressions which can be particularly seen with their Omake episodes, and Roanapur as the land of the dead?
  • A fantastic job with the English dub.
  • A rich story lines giving you plenty to think about, namely the Vampire Twins story arc.

If you enjoy food for thought mixed with action, drama and dark comedy in a realistic setting, you should definitely give this a watch.

Check out its page on Wikipedia and its own Wiki for extra information.

Here’s a trailer to wet your appetite.

Overlord – Anime Watch

Visiting the world of Overlord we are introduced to Momonga, our skeletal protagonist, master of the empty halls of Nazarik within a game called Yggdrasil. The story begins on the day the Yggdrasil servers are to be shut down. Instead of being ejected back into the real world, our protagonist finds himself trapped, transported into a living game world with his domain and subjects.

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Continue reading Overlord – Anime Watch

The Force Awakens – Impressions

Star Wars The Force Awakens has been a long awaited installment in the series, and I certainly have looked forward to it. The day before its release I booked myself a ticket for a viewing at 12:00am on the 16th of December 2015, to be among the first to see it in Bahrain.

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Armed with popcorn, a ticket and a pack of Maltesers I made my way to the cinema hall.

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Continue reading The Force Awakens – Impressions

FEAR’s NPC A.I.

FEAR has been cited as one of the most influential A.I. games. FEAR’s claim to fame was its implementation of NPC A.I. using a system called Goal Oriented Action Planning.

Since I have some experience with planning in games, I wanted to have a look at the techniques used. After some digging I thought I’d put together a brief summary of what I learnt.

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Continue reading FEAR’s NPC A.I.

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy – An Overview

Recently Humble Bundle had on offer a Star Wars Bundle which included an awesome entry from the Star Wars’s Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.

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I’d bought a physical copy of Jedi Academy years ago, and the memory of it was so endearing I thought I’d give it another play. This time with the difficulty set to max, and an eye open on elements of its design.

Continue reading Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy – An Overview

Attack on Titan – Anime Watch

Attack on Titan is a series I’ve been watching a load of recently so I thought I’d summarize my impressions of it.

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  • Attack on Titan boasts an amazing sense of scale.
  • Top notch music, (for the sake of staying spoiler free) my personal favorite track being in an awesome scene of Captain Levi in the forest.
  • Great collection of characters.
  • Questions proposed by the story leaves you wondering.
  • Like the art style with its cannons and ‘Tudor-esque’ housing styles.

Attack on Titan is an anime well worth your time, so check out the anime’s first season. Season 2 is in the works, and rumor has it, has unfortunately been delayed to 2016. Meanwhile check out the live action movie instead! For additional information check out the wiki page, and its own wiki.

Darwinia – An Overview

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I recently finished the single player mode of Darwinia, and here’s a brief impression of it.

Good

  • Interesting game design. In particular I enjoyed the design of the Dawinians and how their management was handled well through the user of officers units.
  • Smart choice of aesthetics. The chosen look is simple and suited to both the environment and story. If there was a lacking the artistic department in terms of time/money/ability their choice covered it all nicely.
  • Enjoyable game play. The overall goal, and game play matched up nicely as it felt that you were cleaning up Darwinia due to the self-replicating nature of the virus.
  • Good use of sound. Behaviors and actions are clearly accented such as the sound of fear/fleeing of Darwinas, and the satisfying explosions of rockets.
  • Impressive file size. Clocking at a fantastically low 30MB makes this game very download friendly. In countries with fast internet this is a non-issue but with my slow internet, it makes a great difference.

Bad

  • UI was fiddly at times. I became frustrated with the gesture based interface, and fortunately a tab based interface was available as an alternative, but even there I faced some issues selecting what I wanted.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this game very much, it has great game play, and just enough story to go with it. Sad though that Multiwinia was just a ‘multiplayer’ expansion. I was hoping it would include another single player story that focused on Darwinian on Darwinian action with some additional complexity, as by far my favorite part of the game was the fighting between good and bad Darwinians on some of the final levels.

Overall an awesome little gem. Definitely worth checking out.

Supreme Commander 2 – An Overview

I recently completed the single player mode of Supreme Commander 2, and here are some brief notes on it.

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Good

  • Good in-game visuals. Top notch in-game animations in particular unit explosions.
  • Improved micro-management. Appreciated the removal of engineer and factory tiers from the first Supreme Commander, as well as being able to repeat build orders on factories allows one to focus on the fun part; commanding armies.
  • Game ran smoothly on my dated computer. I played the game on my fairly old laptop on the Medium graphics setting and it ran smoothly as well as looked good.

Bad

  • Pre-rendered cut scenes didn’t look good. To be fair though the game was released half a decade ago.
  • Single player mode was short. Supreme Commander one feature three seperate campaigns Supreme Commander 2 felt like it hacked together three half campaigns.
  • A weak story. The primary flaws with story are its underdeveloped characters, and a loosely strung together plot. It tries to have its ‘moments’ but unfortunately they fall flat given the lack of story depth.

Both

  • Smaller scale. Though the maps are smaller in scale, in some ways this is a benefit as you don’t have units travelling for ages to get to a battle, thus there is less time between ‘action’. Yet the point still stands that the overall scale of the battles have been shrunk, and with it the feeling of being the Supreme Commander.

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed the experience. Supreme Commander 2 definitely has some improvements from the first game, though I get this feeling that the game is less that perhaps it intended to be. Perhaps due to time/budget constraints?

Nevertheless if  you enjoyed the first Supreme Commander the second is certainly worth checking out.

Sacrifice on Steam – A suggested fix for Windows 8.1

Setup steps (ensure you have admin privileges):

  1. Download the game from your Steam library.
  2. Go to the location of Sacrifice.exe in your system, the path is something like – C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacrifice

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  1. Right click on Sacrifice.exe and go into Properties.

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  1. Choose the Compatibility tab from the Sacrifice.exe Properties menu that pops up, then press the Change settings for all users button.

sacrifice_compatability_tab Continue reading Sacrifice on Steam – A suggested fix for Windows 8.1

Shogun 2 Total War – A Recommendation

I remember nearly not buying the first Shogun Total War since it required four CD’s, which meant three other games I couldn’t have.

I remember sitting infront of my desktop impatiently. Expectantly flicking through the manual while the game installed, CD to CD.

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I remember a journey. Fighting alongside the Shimazu, rising from Kyushu, besting the great clans of Japan to ultimately ascend as Shogun.

I remember years of waiting for a worthy successor to one of my life’s best games.

In 2011. I found Shogun 2.

I’ve been looking at Shogun 2s Campaign Map UI. Check it out here!

Jim Sterling’s Jimquisition

Are you looking for an insightful perspective into issues regarding the game industry?

Are your capable of listening to someone who probably does not share your opinion?

Are you capable of assimilating potentially provocative thoughts in-order to further your own understanding?

The Jimquisition
The Jimquisition

Then the entertaining, often outspoken non-journalist Jim Sterling is the man to see. Here’s the latest episode of The Jimquisition from his channel:

Video Editor Hunting

When starting her YouTube channel my sister needed editing software in-order to make her video content. Being a Windows user new to creating videos, she naturally picked up Windows Movie Maker.

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She found Movie Maker to be a straight to the point, easy to use software which allowed her to add basic features such as text, transitions and colors. One negative she found was difficulty in adding voice overs as she was unable to find a built in feature for adding them.

Ultimately Movie Maker proved too simple in its offered features so being an iPhone owner iMovie was her next choice. It provided themes, background music and the ability to upload her videos directly from her phone to YouTube which helped her create and upload content faster.

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Continue reading Video Editor Hunting

Extra Credits – A Resource for Game Designers

I was talking to a friend the other day on the topic of personal game design interview experiences. I mentioned mine could have gone better if I’d have had a deeper understanding of game design. To this he recommended that I start watching videos from a YouTube channel called Extra Credits.

So far I’ve watched about 26 of their videos in about a day, and I fully intend to watch every last one. They’re that good!

If you believe games matter, then check them out too. You wont be disappointed.

Android – Notification Based Popup System

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