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src/diary/entries/220908

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+<h1>gaming diary: Oblivion </h1>
+july 28, 2022<br>
+#gaming <br>
+<br>
+<p>One of my most-played games by far <br></p>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_broken.png" alt="(screenshot: a floorless inn with floating NPCs and giant yellow exclamation marks)"><br>
+<br>
+<h2>gaming diary </h2>
+<p>Some gamedev advice I've heard is to actively journal while playing games. The goal is to try to see from gamedev and player eyes simultaneously and learn from risks taken, get inspired, and generally increase your exposure to the medium. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>I haven't written about games outside of Steam reviews, so I'll start with a favorite: Oblivion. </p>
+<br>
+<h2>the best sandbox </h2>
+<p>I've spent thousands of hours easily in Oblivion, but I don't have a normal relationship with it. Despite all that time, I've only finished the main quest once. The bulk of those hours have been spent roleplaying in Anvil or editing mods. Judging from my backup folder, I've been making significant edits to the game every few months since high school. So it's hard to look at this game as a proper action/adventure game. It hasn't been much more than a sandbox with a lot of premade content for over ten years. This year, I've been playing normally and exploring parts of the game I've never tried before. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>So what are the issues keeping me from playing the game as a game? <br></p>
+<h2>problems with the game </h2>
+<p>Obviously, the combat and level scaling is bad, but every reviewer in the world has torn into those topics already. Honestly, The Elder Scrolls is strong in adventure, not combat, so I'm not miffed by it. Few modern games (post-2005) are compelling by that metric alone. Morrowind is propped up as so much better, but the RPG aspects are barebones and won't punish you much at all for neglecting to plan your class. The So long as you are willing to pour a few hours into missing with your weapon or lockpick or spell or whatever, you'll start hitting and hard. (well, Morrowind DOES has cool spells like levitation that tie into levitation dungeon puzzles..so it's an awesome RPG in some ways.) It's like offering high praise to Planescape Torment then extending that praise to Planescape Torment's combat. So long as the combat doesn't detract too much from the game's high points, that's okay with me. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>I sink into Daggerfall and Morrowind when I play, but I'm not sure I felt that way even when first started Oblivion. The art direction never looked good to me, unlike Morrowind's intriguing alienscape. The level design is overwhelmingly bland (overworld, dungeons, cities, houses). They haven't aged well, either. After seeing Witcher 3's massive and believable cities overflowing with workers and pedestrians, the Imperial City is a ghost town.
+Oblivion has a particularly pleasant soundtrack, so it's not bad to walk around town or the forest. Daggerfall has incredible dungeons that, combined with some random quest objective, are strong enough to stand on their own. Plenty of Morrowind's dungeons stand out to me, too, with their levitation and waterbreathing puzzles, strong aesthetic differences between caves and Dwemer underground cities. I'm not sure any really stand out to me in Oblivion. The puzzles in Ayleid dungeons are pretty basic and easy to just run through, heal up, and move on. There's nothing to really learn about the Ayleids, despite game taking place in their old capital. Very shallow inclusion. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>Part of the problem I mentioned is that I'm forcing myself 10 years later into trying a significant amount of the content. Especially back when I was in high school, I was the kind of person who 100%'ed every game I touched. Oblivion makes it very unrewarding, very tedious, and too obscure to dig into the game. I slept in an inn maybe once. I stopped walking on foot unless I forced myself, opting to map travel, missing out on the opportunity to find small quests in the wild. <br></p>
+<br>
+(screenshot of witcher 3 city vs imperial city)
+(screenshot of meme dialogue)
+(screenshot of cool morrowind dungeons and interiors)
+(screenshot of daggerfall dungeon)
+(screenshot of Planescape torment combat)
+<h2>so what carries the game? </h2>
+<p>That would be the writing. It's not surprising in the slightest that every time a 'best quests ever' article or thread pops up online, the And Then There Were None quest, the painting quest, Glarthir's quest, and other Oblivion quests. It's creative and cool, but I think there's more to its lasting popularity. I think Oblivion was emulating a memetic quality before memes had the importance they do together. The dialogue is editted and tight. Each screenshot of text can stand on its own, and is often hilarious on its own. It's only boosted with the uncanny Bethesda freeze and zoom onto the ridiculously ugly potato faces that change tone and expression line by line. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>The part that kept the game running at all times for me was the music. The music is particularly pleasant. I've heard Jeremy Soule was inspired for at least some tracks by a car accident and his new appreciation for life, but I haven't verified that. Morrowind's doesn't have enough variety, so the big movie adventurer score plays when I'm just reorganizing my crates at home, so though nice, it can be inappropriate at times. Skyrim's has almost too much variety and seems more complicated, so it's more difficult for my untrained ear to pick out particular tracks to tie to memories in-game. Oblivion's is the sweet spot in the middle. Simple, pleasant, and always ties into what my character is currently doing. I spent so much time studying or doing homework, using the game as a 12 hour oblivion study and chill video running in the background. If I went a long time without playing then heard the soundtrack, it pulled on my heart. I don't feel this way about many games, but a huge portion of Oblivion is the soundtrack to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if others feel this level of connection between the two. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>I feel like it was their last artistic, vulnerable endeavor that was trying to be more than a commercial project. The radiant AI has some wild stories. Only Bethesda would surrender their control over the player's experience and hand it over to not only the player but the NPCs. Even if the radiant AI is shackled in its current state, I still can seldom visit Olaf's inn in Bruma without witnessing a town-wide brawl. It makes the game unplayable to a degree. There were plenty of interesting NPCs I only learned about on my second playthrough because so many died off-screen during my first. It gives the game the same unpredictability that old Sims games had, but the simulation was obviously the point of those games. There's something raw about putting that into an RPG. Despite being a quest marker game, it is also comfortable about filling the world with content on well-traveled paths. There are still quests I am discovering for the first time, albeit it small ones in remote inns. Most games these days try as hard as possible to put the player on rails. If they make a good quest, they force the start point into you hand. <br></p> 
+<br>
+<p>Most people wouldn't say it's the writing and music and certainly not the art, though. They'd say it's the modding community. They'd probably be right, but there's probably plenty of highly moddable games out there that never gain any traction. I don't think Fallout's is nearly as impressive, despite the games being very similar. Oblivion is just particularly inspiring to mess around with! The community surely would have never come without the name recognition and actual merits of the game. Oblivion has an awesome modding community, though, that still is active even today. I'm not sure if Bethesda manages it well, with all the attempts to monetize, control the platform on which mods can be published, and incompatible rereleases of theirs games, but once they put the construction kit out there, people are going to publish mods. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>I'm happy with the game as is, so I'm not motivated to do much more than disable cliff racers and make a few houses. Oblivion is so simple, though, (it's not too far from a walking in a fantasy forest emulator) that I don't feel as bad about drastic modding. The graphics are right on that line of modern 3D graphics but still within grasp for amateur modelers to create nonclashing models for, too. With localization mods making the game accessible to new communities at staggered times, there were several waves of new cultures making mods. Japan's in particular stand out, with all their Japanese-influenced Akavir mods and cute clothes and character models. <br></p>
+<br>
+<h2>gallery </h2>
+<p>I'll share some of my personal screenshots. <br></p>
+<div class="gallery">
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_akavir.png" alt="(screenshot: my dunmer girl wearing a kimono and the Madstone in Akavir)"><br>
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_cathedral.png" alt="(screenshot: cathedral lights at night)"><br>
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_inn.png" alt="(screenshot: Martin and my breton girl watching the rain from their room at the inn)"><br>
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_jeanne.png" alt="(screenshot: my breton girl and Jeanne in their favorite dresses)"><br>
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_martin.png" alt="(screenshot: Martin spending time with the Blades)"><br>
+    <img src="/static/img/ent/oblivion_unicorn.png" alt="(screenshot: my breton girl riding a unicorn through the woods)"><br>
+</div>
+<p>Don't ask me all the mods...<br></p>
+<br>
+<h2>what would I like to emulate from Oblivion? </h2>
+<p>I can't say anything 100%, only point out things I admire. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>Maybe it's a bad thing for a dev to say, but it's comforting that a game with such awkward graphics and objectively poor and unfun gameplay mechanics and systems (imo lol) can be held up so well by creative quests and NPC dialogue, music, willingness to try some unusual wacky mechanic. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>Definitely going to take notes from the writing. The memetic, screenshottable quality is a very smart guideline to shoot for while writing. Avoiding awkward breaks between screens is less shareable. Screenshots are more attractive when they have complete sentences or at least complete ideas on them. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>The cities have a lot of detail and environmental storytelling to appreciate, but they come across as so lifeless and dead to me today. After all the time I've spent redesigning Chorrol and the Imperial City to have more character and life. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>I love that they didn't give us a simple level editor - they gave us tools capable of creating most of the content in the game. If I could make the content with tools that I could release alongside the game, that would be really cool. I'm already designing skills with this mindset. I think most devs make tools to develop their game with, so I'm not really sure why most of those tools are never released. It'd take some effort to polish them and make them more usable by amateurs, but practically no one releases them. You'd think the Construction Set and GECK wouldn't be so special, but they really are. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>Then, the most important part, the aesthetic of a couple of Oblivion mods was the direct push that spurred me to start writing Blessfrey. I don't still have them, but it was like a motorcycle mod, some streetwear mods, etc. That idea of going to a relatively believable modern day relatable setting and going shopping and hanging out with your cute elf boyfriend and having a greatsword and cute clothes was extremely lore-breaking (though probably not to Kierkegaardists) but enthralling. I had a few more ideas for mods, like a Spider Daedra themed fast food joint in the Market District, but the level of modding I was looking at was so much that I halted and started making my own game instead with that aethetic instead. I'm not sure Blessfrey really resembles those original mods, but that was the impetus, the spark. So...honestly, all of Blessfrey is an attempt to emulate Oblivion at least in some small part. <br></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+Last updated July 28, 2022 <br>
+<br>

src/diary/entries/220922

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+<!--200917,201112-->
+<h1>inventory as a system diagram </h1>
+january 7, 2021<br>
+#design #systemdiagram #gamemechanics<br>
+<br>
+<b>System diagrams</b> illustrate how components interact within a system. It saves so much headache to step back and plan with a system diagram before jumping into code. <br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>stop + plan before coding </h2><br>
+I want to move blessfrey's inventory into an app on the player character's smartphone. Before, it was displayed in a random pop-up window. It was poorly planned, so the programmatic inventory and the UI were too tightly coupled to easily pop into the phone screen. Instead of wrestling, it's easier to start over and actually plan before I code this time. <br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>list out your nouns </h2><br>
+A simple way to start thinking about a system is to list out its nouns + verbs. Jot down the entities that interact with your system. <br>
+<br>
+<center><img src="/static/img/ent/systemdiagram_inventory.jpeg" alt="(image: system diagram for inventory)" width="500" height="250"></center> <br>
+<br>
+For blessfrey's inventory, that's the inventory (programmatic), the player character, the inventory app (UI), and base items. The inventory app is related to the smartphone and inventory items. Items are related to floor items, which are related to rooms. <br>
+<br>
+(blessfrey has three different kinds of items. <br>
+<br><ul>
+<li><b>Base Item</b>: holds all the data regardless of how the item is currently expressed </li>
+<li><b>Floor Item</b>: sits on the ground and gets picked up by characters. </li>
+<li><b>Inventory Item</b>: displayed in inventories, store windows, containers, etc </li>
+</ul><br>
+Floor + Inventory Items hold a base item inside them that gets popped out and traded around as the item gets expressed in different forms.) </br>
+<br>
+<h2>connect your nouns with verbs </h2><br>
+I wrote the entities in pink and moved them around until the placement was decently readable. Then I connected the concepts with arrows. These arrows represent the verbs, which I explicitly labeled in yellow.  <br>
+<br>
+The flow of these arrows can be very important. If you are modeling AI, for instance, no matter what path the program takes, there shouldn't be dead-ends. Seeing mistakes like that is easier with a diagram than lines of code. Otherwise, the flow is always generally useful for figuring out which methods are needed for each class and how they connect. <br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>write the code </h2><br>
+At this point, coding is a bit easier now that it's in some ways a transcription of the diagram. The entities are data (classes or objects), and the arrows are logic (methods). <br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>conclusion </h2><br>
+Your diagram doesn't have to be fancy or formal to get the point across to yourself, and it just takes a minute to save all the headache later. Don't skip this step or you'll have to rewrite the inventory system just to display it in a different window. <br>
+<br>

src/diary/entries/221006

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+<!--220825,220728-->
+<h1>no-legs the cat </h1>
+august 11, 2022<br>
+#game #no-legs-the-cat #godotengine #release<br>
+<br>
+<p><b>No-Legs the Cat</b> is a 2D maze game featuring Poltics Cat! Help him find his legs! He can't move by himself, so scoot him around with the arrow keys. Don't forget to feed him all three breakfasts or he'll starve!! Go play it <a href="http://127.0.0.1:9001/demo">here</a> or on <a href="https://chimchooree.itch.io/legless-the-cat">itch.io</a>. <br></p>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/everythingscomingtogether_no-legsthecat.png" alt="(No-Legs the Cat screenshot: Poltics Cat finds a bowl of breakfast in the maze)"><br>
+<br>
+<p>It's not much - just a demonstration to myself that I can export a game and embed HTML5 applications here. It runs pretty well locally, so we'll see how well it runs on the live server in my playtesters' browsers. I'm getting close to releasing the first minor demo for Blessfrey, so I'd really rather iron out all the kinks with a short and simple project first, you know? Dreading the day I have to handle serialization in the browser. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>Have fun! More games coming soon. <br></p>
+<br>
+<h2>faq</h2>
+<h3>who is poltics cat? </h3>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/nolegsthecat_polticscat.png" alt="(photo: My pet orange kitty with an empty look on his face and legs tucked entirely under his body. He looks like a loaf of bread.)"><br>
+<p>My kitty! <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>It's just an inside joke. There was a guy who kept interrupting the political discussion channel by posting his pet, so I tried to imitate him with my own politics cat. Only I made a typo, and it stuck. <br></p>
+<br>
+<h3>where'd his legs go? </h3>
+<p>Aren't cats cute when they sit like that? It's called "loafing." Kitty's so fluffy that his legs become totally hidden when he does that, and he just stares helplessly at us when we start heckling him. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>It looks like his legs are missing for real this time, though. He couldn't have gotten far without them, so they have to be somewhere in the maze. <br></p>
+<br>
+<h3>isn't one breakfast enough? </h3>
+<p>I dunno, my cat is weird. He wants us to give him breakfast first thing in the morning, then again when we eat our own breakfast. It's still so early, it's like he eats two breakfasts. He doesn't care about food for the rest of the day. It's like the concept of lunch and dinner are completely foreign to him. He's a dishonest little guy, though, so he'll come to both my husband and me separately to beg for "second" breakfast. We're usually too smart for him, but I'd be lying if he hasn't bamboozled us into <i>three</i> whole breakfasts before. <br></p>
+<br>
+<h3>when are godot devs going to stop making everything out of the godot head? </h3>
+<p>Probably never. <br></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+Last updated July 21, 2022 <br>
+<br>

src/diary/entries/221020

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+<!--220728,220811-->
+<h1>artfight 2022: team bloom </h1>
+august 25, 2022<br>
+#personal #artfight #art <br>
+<br>
+<h2>what's artfight? </h2>
+<b>Artfight</b> is an online art game every July. You post profiles for your original characters then go off browsing to find someone else's character to draw. Everyone's sorted into teams and each "attack" or drawing is valued for a certain number of points, so one side wins at the end of the event. You don't get anything for winning, and people game the system so bad that it's hard to even care about the competitive side of the site. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>It's more fun to approach the game with your own personal challenge. I know a lot of people try a new style or technique during this month, like my friend trying single-layer digital paintings. My personal approach this year is thematic. I'm drawing cute couples! I don't usually draw boys, so it's a good compromise if his girlfriend will be in the frame, too. Also, more characters per attack = more points! <br></p>
+<br>
+It's a huge community, so at least a few people are bound to draw your characters, which is such a fun surprise when it happens. Some people like to make art in return for people who attack them, too, as thanks. Their discord is probably the best place to get attention, but it's intimidatingly fast for me. <br>
+<br>
+<h2>my attacks </h2>
+<p>These are the characters I drew. <br></p>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_Lune_Arcon_SanoAmaterasu_goddess.png" alt="(pixelart: Sano Amaterasu in a lupine field, playing her harp.)"><br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_Lune_Arcon_SanoAmaterasu_goddess_big.png" alt="(pixelart: same but larger size)"><br>
+My pixelart of Lune_Archon's Sano Amaterasu, a horned goddess with her harp. (75x75px, 45 colors) <br>
+<br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_Skye_0723_Aisu+LunaStarleaf.png" alt="(pixelart: Aisu, a blue winged man in a sweater standing behind his seated blonde wife with a pink shirt.)"><br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_Skye_0723_Aisu+LunaStarleaf_big.png" alt="(pixelart: same but larger size.)"><br>
+My pixelart of Skye_0723's Aisu and Luna Starleaf, a winged warrior and his druid wife who can turn into a pink unicorn. (163x157px, 79 colors) <br>
+<br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_EmmArrGus_Brody+Char.png" alt="(pixelart: Brody, a scruffy fisherman sitting on a bench with his anthro shark girlfriend Char.)"><br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_EmmArrGus_Brody+Char_big.png" alt="(pixelart: same but larger size.)"><br>
+My pixelart of EmmArrGus's fisherman Brody and his shark girlfriend Char. (150x123px, 54 colors) <br>
+<br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_BlackReshiram_Lilac_dragongirl.png" alt="(pixelart: a fluffy pink dragon girl named Lilac.)"><br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Abbey_BlackReshiram_Lilac_dragongirl_big.png" alt="(pixelart: same but larger size.)"><br>
+My pixelart of BlackReshiram's Lilac, a fluffy pink dragon girl. (51 colors) <br>
+<br>
+<h2>my defenses </h2>
+<p>These are my characters, drawn by other people. <br></p>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_CawfeeCakes_Abbey_Rune_sadlittleguy.png" alt="(image: a bust of a sad Rune in a dark hoodie)"><br>
+CawfeeCakes's bust of Rune. He's so sad, he's droopy! <br>
+<br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_Lune_Archon_Abbey_TessaSkyeStMartin.jpeg" alt="(image: Tessa with a vampy lip!)"><br>
+Lune_Archon's bust of Tessa with a vampy lip! <br>
+<br>
+<img src="/static/img/ent/AF22_BlackReshiram_Abbey_floofdrago.png" alt="(image: Abbey in an adorable style!)"><br>
+BlackReshiram's illustration of Abbey in an adorable style! <br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>do you recommend this game? </h2>
+<p>It's one of the more fun art communities these days. A lot of communities have turned completely business-minded or are littered with off-topic content. Artfight, however, is necessarily interactive and collaborative, more like how art communities felt in the 10s. I try to play every year to motivate myself to draw more, especially things outside my comfort zone of cute girls. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>This community has a lot of overlap with Toyhouse and Tumblr, though, so don't be surprised if you keep running into massive text walls of character permissions and "original character donut steal" warnings. There's also a wide range of ability. I see everything from grainy photos of lined paper to Tearzah copycat artists to university illustration students. It feels like old DeviantART in that respect. <br></p>
+<br>
+<p>You should know that the servers reliably crash during the first week of July every year, so if you do want to play, prepare during June. Upload a few characters and their reference pictures, find targets you'd like to draw, and save their usernames and reference pictures. Even if the servers crash, you've got everything you need for a few days. <br></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+Last updated June 4, 2022 <br>
+<br>