Hopscotch

 When I was younger, one of the characteristics by which I defined my identity was that I was a genius. I understood maths much, much easier than anyone else I knew, and I could intuit things that other people couldn't comprehend.

When I grew up, I discovered that the very idea of a maths genius was a narrative that people constructed to describe characters like Ramanujan, Gauss, Euler, etc. It was an idea that a person might accept or reject about themself, not some implicit inextricable quality of that person, and there was certainly no moral imperative for a person skilled in maths to study it.

With that narrative disestablished in my mind, it became impossible for me not to question; is there any true narrative? Is there anything on which I can build my fragile identity on that won't crumble beneath me if analysed closely?

Sometimes I think that I'm cursed with great intelligence, to be forced to examine myself in detail until there's nothing left, but I'm honestly stupid to be so full of myself. The realisation I had is one that I think everyone experiences, and really, I'm just late to the party. The belief that you're the most important person in the world is sometimes called "main character syndrome", and almost everyone has to grapple at some  point with the realisation that they aren't the person they thought they would be.

A lot of people go through this as a teenagers, as they realise they don't have natural talents in anything, and from a particular perspective, they might think this means there's nothing special about them.

These people find their way though. I know I will too.

Sometimes I worry that I'll deconstruct every positive belief I have until all I have left is despair, but I think deconstructing my main character syndrome is a good thing. It can help me to turn my eyes to Jesus, and to people in the world around me.

Free Writing 3

 25/9/23

There was a sound, a low rumbling kind of thing. It weighed upwards through the bones, made you feel all heavy. Dripping, tinkling tings scattered over the top, making a cacophony of unerring unpleasantness. It seemed uncaring of the minds it carried, so delicate and easily snuffed out, in spite of its purpose; the salvation of intelligent life. A roaring, screaming void rushed by outside, shielded by gumption and hard work, mankind's last big "fuck you" to the encroaching unreality poised to destroy it. Their destination: anywhere that could harbour a stable enough reality to reestablish earth. And that was their cargo: the entire planet. Shrunk down with an ingenious usage of unreality held together with paper clips and gaffer tape. Anyone would have thought them insane, but anyone who was sane would have probably died with their dignity intact. This plan was a real embarrassing balls-to-the-wall kind of affair, an I-don't-care-if-I-look-stupid-as-long-as-I-live-long-enough-to-be-able-to-look-stupid kind of affair.

2/10/23

"Never mind that," he said, affecting an air of benevolence, and somehow managing to maintain his insufferableness. "Now, tell me about yourself."

I went to do exactly that, but I'd barely gotten half a sentence out when my new 'friend' managed to turn the conversation back to his favourite topic: himself.

"You know, I once went canoeing in Burma. Now I know what you're thinking," he said.

That I don't care.

"How's that possible? Burma's dry as a bone, there's nowhere to canoe. Well, the story starts with a toothpick, three thespian wastrels and a Burmese mountain lion..."

Burma's coastal, you tosser, I thought, maintaining an agreeable smile. Do you think we don't have schools out in the country?

"I'm sorry to cut you off and miss such an interesting story, but I was on my way somewhere when I bumped into you."

"Oh, not at all, let me escort you there!"

"No, no, I'm sure a man of your calibre has no shortage of things to be doing right now."

"Why, yes, yes, of course I do," he said, suddenly flustered. It seemed that flattery would get me everywhere with this man. "Very considerate of you. By the way, what's your name?"

"Trevor Siatskis."

"William Longfellow, at your service. And now I must bid you adieu."

Little did I know the role this strange man would play in my life over the next six months, how hard it would be to get rid of him now that I had imprinted on him, and how he would change me for the better.

4/10/23

Take it from me, you don't want to go down that road. Nothing good comes out of that place, and that includes people, too. Every good thing you bring in there will be taken from you, and when you leave, it will be as a husk of yourself. There is no relief, no recourse, and no recompense once you cross over into that world. I went into it thinking I would make it better, but you can see what happened to me... But I can see it in your eyes. You're not going to listen to me. You've gotten a taste of it, the freedom, the power, and you won't turn back until you realise it was the metallic taste of chains all along. Well, so be it. Just make me one promise. When you come back - if you come back - don't bring your woes to me.

Note:

Not really my best offering, as far as free writing is concerned. I kinda liked the insanity of the first one, the willingness to mess around with grammar. The third came out as some kind of miserable video game dialogue.

Free Writing 2

 Some more free writing from my masters. These are from my other computer, so the dates are spread out weirdly.

No date:

In those times, it was common for the first born child of every family to be given to the state, to become public servants. The child was taken away from its parents almost immediately after birth, and was raised with the notion that the king was their father. Those familiar with the government of Kadukano will understand just how strange this is; The King of Kadukano is not an individual, but a collective. "The King" is a "person" made up of the entire governing body of the nation. Hence, these firstborns are dubbed "The Prince", and they grow up to be members of "The King"

25/8/23:

There was nothing to be said or done. Each soul watched in disbelief as the immense mass slid down the hill, sweeping trees, houses, and cars with unrelenting, unstoppable force. They watched it slide directly towards them. Many ran. Some knelt down in prayer. The rest just watched in awe. Some were frozen to the spot even as the mud and snow enveloped them.

30/8/23:

There was ever an air of uncertainty around that place. A yawning, unyielding whorl of mystery hanging over every rocky precipice and tangy pine. A place where fruits grew out of season and deer would watch passersby, unblinking and unfazed. It was like a place that had forgotten it was supposed to be part of the rest of the world, and relished in its differences. It was a place where men would go to die, and be given breakfast instead.

Note:

The one which I didn't note the date of is based on an idea I had a while ago, about a kingdom for a fantasy story where they overthrew their King or something in the past, but still liked having a monarchy, so they created a government, called the "King", and each branch of government was named for a different part of the king's body.

As for the one dated for the 30th, I have no idea what that word vomit is. Don't ask me what a tangy pine is; I don't know.

Free Writing

 To try and overcome the mental block preventing me from writing my thesis, I've been trying to start my days by doing some free writing. I think it's helped a little, and I've been surprised by the direction these have gone. Here are some from the last few days:

20-8-23

There is something to be said about a place with no end. It captures your eye, even when you know you should be focussing on something else. Others insist that it’s disturbing, that it serves as an uncomfortable reminder of mortality, or eternity, or what-have-you, but I’ve always found it comforting to work within sight of the singularity. Perhaps it’s the fact that our city’s continued existence is predicated on it; anchoring reality by echoing its memory in the endless fractalline depths. Perhaps it’s because it’s like a dazzling light show, always reflecting the city spires and roads in a seemingly impossible lattice.

Perhaps it comforts me because people look at it the same way they look at me. Discomfort, confusion, maybe even fear. And if the anchor holding our city together gets some disdainful looks now and then, maybe I can help people too, even if they don’t accept me.

22-8-23

The glossy film over the surface of his skin. It never occurred to me that he would look different to us in death, but of course he did. He wasn’t human. I never truly believed it, even knowing him all these years, being his closest friend, but at that moment I felt it for the first time in truth. When I saw the glossy film over the surface of his skin. Excreted like some kind of developing cocoon, shining multicoloured like oil on the road after rain. That was the cruellest thing about it, that it stole away some part of his humanity, in my mind. But maybe that’s true about everyone; before, that was a person. Now, it’s just a thing.

23-8-23

High above the ground, neverwhere presided. They said the really was ground down there, If you went far enough down. Tallis didn’t know why you would though; neverwhere was everything he’d ever known or wanted to know, and the same went for his parents and their parents before them. But now and then, he’d catch a glimpse of void peeking through the clouds below, and for some reason—he didn’t know why—he’d feel a kind of sad longing. But, knowing that these sourceless emotions were unproductive, he would set them aside and continue with his business. He had no time for such nonsense, none at all.

Depression

 I've been coming to grips the last couple of days that I've been experiencing depression since about halfway through last year. I'm not sure why I didn't realise it until now, but I can see all the signs looking back. I've been unable to motivate myself to do anything, I've lost my ability to care about the things that matter to me, I've stopped taking care of myself (hygiene, exercise). I stopped seeing problems as something to be fixed and started seeing them as something to be ashamed of.

That being said, today I made a commitment to try and do things, and it went relatively well.

I really struggled to get myself to go to my new life group this evening, but I'm glad I did. I was finally able to convince myself to go when I thought about the possibility of good fellowship and opportunities to build others up. It troubled me that I didn't at all feel a desire to read the Bible with others.

In it, we discussed what we wanted to get out of the life group, and it was a good opportunity to think about how my previous life group was failing in that regard. I could see that the previous life groups were functioning on a technicality. We were reading the Bible and studying it, but we weren't really living out our faith or discussing how to do that. What I want is to feel excited to go and encourage and comfort and be encouraged and comforted towards works of the faith, and as it stood previously, I didn't feel that that was happening, and I didn't feel excited at the prospect.

I also started to see a little bit how that depression expressed itself in my spiritual life. Old doubts and worries from last year haven't been considered and addressed, they've mostly been covered over, and when I start to uncover them, the pain and confusion starts to show itself. While my earlier coping mechanism was to cover them up and distract myself, uncovering them now encouraged me. It made me see that the hazy peace that I've been living in is false; there is pain hiding beneath the surface, and the depression was there to protect me from it. Now I feel encouraged to sort through it and work it out, difficult though it may be, because I know that the depressive calm I feel is a lie I tell myself.

This has affected me in other ways too. When I'm in a mental health crisis, I use distractions as a coping mechanism (usually copious amounts of Youtube videos), but often I allow those distractions to become habits and outlive their usefulness.

For a little levity, I played Return of the Obra Dinn, a game in which you have to determine the name and cause of grisly death for sixty (give or take a few) passengers of an old sailing boat.

It's a great game. I shouldn't be surprised, given it's made by the Papers, Please guy, Lucas Pope. His use of unconventional game mechanics and goals is amazing. He's not dethroning Daniel Mullins as my favourite indie dev, but he's definitely getting a high spot in the rankings.

Importantly, It's finally a mystery game that has a challenging and satisfying process of inference that you are actually game-mechanically required to go through. Of course, I'd still like to play some of the games from my previous post.

Murder Mystery Games

 Why is it that immediately after writing my previous blog post, I discover that a bunch of games have come out recently based on exactly the premises I laid out there? The games in question are:

• Pentiment: You have to solve a string of murders and scandals that occur in medieval Bavaria.
  
• The Case of  the Golden Idol: A murder mystery game in which you have to investigate for yourself, find your own clues, and determine your own suspect.
• Loretta: You're a 1940s housewife who committed murder, and in a series of flashbacks, you have to decide how you did it and how you're going to cover it up. (coming out this February)
• Paradise Killer: A murder mystery game where you can accuse anyone, but you'll have to prove your case in a trial. Reminds me of Danganronpa.

Before I saw all these games, I was thinking about how I would make a game on the same premise. The big challenge, in my eyes, is giving the player the freedom to make robust accusations without limiting them to a very small set of options (like Danganronpa) or swamping out the correct options in a sea of useless ones (Portopia). I'm interested to see if or how these games solve these issues, although I don't really have enough time or money to try them all at the moment.

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Danganronpa

 I quite liked Danganronpa, and so I was eager to try something else similar. 'Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors' (referred to hereafter as '999') was an earlier game from the same studio, Spike Chunsoft, which I'd heard I should try next.

Both of these games feel like they hold the promise of a masterpiece, and both of them fall short. 999 feels like it has the more promising premise, but I think that Danganronpa is the better game.

At the core of my disappointment is the vast gap between the fantasy of each game and the gameplay.

999

In 999, you are trapped on a sinking boat, and you must solve puzzles to get through a sequence of numbered doors in order to escape. When I see this premise, I want to personally engage with the questions in the story:

-Who is doing this? Why?

-Who is responsible for the murder of a certain character?

-Why have each of these characters been kidnapped?

I want to address these questions in gameplay. In a way, you can, but it's so indirect that you don't really have any agency to do so.

At a number of points in the game, you are given the choice to go through one of a set of doors. Which choices you make determines what ending you get, and the endings contain the answers to these questions. The issue with this system is that there's really no way of knowing how your choice will change the ending. There are only 6 endings (really only 5), and so 90% of the paths you can take lead to a bad ending where the main character dies and you get basically no new information. There's really no way of logicking out the path to the best ending, you're best off looking it up.

I've heard that the remake makes some changes that makes it much easier to enjoy the story (and allows you to skip playing through the same rooms over and over and over...), but the original is painfully lacking these. The ability to make these choices and have them affect the outcome feels like it promises the ability to engage with the story and 'solve' it, but at the end of the day, the story is just something the game delivers to you, much as a film or book would, and attempts at interactivity simply make it a frustrating experience.

The gameplay in 999 is fun, but not complicated. It's basically like a series of simple escape rooms. They involve simple maths, pattern matching, sokoban, and 'figure out where this thing you found goes'. None of them ask you to consider the wider story of the game. Each room is completely self-contained. A lot of the puzzles make really good use of the DS, although some of them have needlessly clunky design.

The gameplay is pretty much air-gapped from the interesting puzzles of the story, which is what was so disappointing to me.

Danganronpa

In Danganronpa, you are trapped in a High School with a number of other students. Everyone is told that in order to leave the school, all you need to do is commit murder and get away with it. The questions that I'm interested in here are:

-Who committed this murder? Why? How?

-Who is controlling Monokuma?

-Who is responsible for this whole situation? Why are they doing it?

The interesting thing about Danganronpa is that while it doesn't actually address these questions in the gameplay, the structure of the game causes you to think about these questions and encourages you to put together all the evidence you've found. While the courtroom gameplay does spoonfeed you the solution, you'll already have spent plenty of time coming up with ideas before you get there. For me, most of my engagement with these questions took place outside of the game. I remember going for a walk one afternoon and simply turning over all the evidence for the case in my head, hoping that I could figure everything out before the game told me anything.

In this way, the game is leaps and bounds ahead of 999 as far as fulfilling the fantasy is concerned.

That said, the gameplay is still extremely minimal. Where 999 is a visual novel puzzle game, Danganronpa is pretty much just a visual novel. Strictly speaking, you don't have to think about anything. The game will prompt you with the right thing to do at the right time. I don't think that there's anything about the courtroom gameplay which is fun or interesting in itself. It seems as though it's there simply to maintain the façade that it's a game. The gameplay outside of that is very simple and unchallenging, but I quite enjoy it. The process of exploring the spaces of the school and finding clues is actually very rewarding, basic as it may be.

I would have liked it if the player had some degree of agency in the process of solving mysteries.

Imagine if the player actually had to synthesize, somehow, the solution to each of the murders. Imagine if failure to do so would result in the wrong person being accused. Imagine if befriending different characters could result in different sequences of events, e.g. befriending a character could make them reconsider committing murder. Imagine if you could plan out and execute a murder of your own.

For the non-murder mysteries, I would have liked some more thought and action to be required to piece things together. The game already has a good setting for adventure-style gameplay. I would have enjoyed finding secrets around the school in my free time to gradually put together what's going on. Perhaps even some puzzles in similar style to 999, but spread out over the course of the game.

Many of the previous suggestions would have been implausible to implement without overhauling the entire game's structure, but some of them, I think, would be relatively reasonable additions which would elevate the experience.

Story

The broad structure of the story of 999 is excellent. It's a great concept, and provided you actually get through all the endings without trouble, it's well presented. Most importantly, the premise of the game arises naturally from the core concept, and the questions that arise from the premise point back to this core concept.

The broad structure of the story of Danganronpa just exists to support its premise. There isn't a glimmering idea at the heart of the story from which everything else arises. The story is really about the murders, and trying to guess at what's going on in the world is pretty much pointless.

It should also be mentioned that while 999 has good characters, Danganronpa's are much better, and the fact that Danganronpa could make me feel for characters like Ogami more than 999 could make me feel about Akane or Clover and Snake speaks volumes.

Conclusion

It's odd for me to say this, but even though 999 is far more substantial both in gameplay and story, Danganronpa is a better game. Despite the minimal interaction, Danganronpa got me more involved in everything that happened. I was barely able to put it down.

I'm very eager to try more games like these, but I'm also craving something that has a more robust branching story, and more dynamic interaction with the world.