Send your dreams where nobody hides them

Never quite understood the japanese
letters mania but they do look pretty

I've written this piece of text over and over, trying to behave as objective as I can. Trying all the while to grasp more of the situation than the heat of the moment offers me to. I preferred to step back from my computer screen. Stepping down the attic, I unlocked the door, looked up and gazed the night sky for a while. Perhaps longer than I want to acknowledge - I do tend to daydream. Anyhow, backsliding to my desk after each break, the conclusion was always the same.  

So let's talk about iceygames. Or Isiah Sweeting if you will. Somehow the idea to join an adventure game related forum persevered long enough in his mind to bother registering. Iceygames craved to transport his never-ending obsession and devotion for the japanese style rpg Final Fantasy via an adventure game engine (AGS duh!). In retrospect, I consider he'd be better off in a different engine, but that's highly irrelevant now. It's not the reasoning behind this article. So, with hopes and immaturity in his heart, he unsealed the gates of the AGS community and internet forums altogether. Today, he stands there, still heading towards to his initial target, plowing through barriers and chatters , concentrating on his art which has improved drastically. And that's phenomenal.  

  

Does one have the right to judge and put down the methods in which a person pursues his wildest dreams no matter how unorthodox, even if the outcome is unforeseeable. Stomping over ambitions as if they were a sandwich, in ways that are hurtful, abusively exclaiming suggestions should allow noone the privilege to boast that they were right all along. Drifting on the same hype train for a extensive while, it's vital to perceive the error of your ways. It's always refreshing to see someone bloom from the ashes of loathing and alienation, exhibiting proudness albeit never vocalizing it.

So here it is, the reason why this is been written.

Take it like a man or perhaps ...?

With recent reactions over an article over at Rock Paper Shotgun concerning Moebius, I've fallen into my thoughts again, wondering where does criticism and personal views on the matter stop being useful and instead form or affect a general view that's inaccurate, subjective and hurtful to a product and the people affiliated in any way with it?

There's more to videogames than just playing

Sometimes we find ourselves enjoying the way we construct a sentence or reference our personal interests in subtle ways, and we convert people's reactions to our particular way of writing to a graphical/comical idea of it. Slowly, gradually moving towards that direction, hoping subconsciously to re-trigger the same reactions, we've grown addicted to. At the same time, we fail to grasp the concept of a joke being overused, and we see the newcomers reaction as acceptance. In the end, a failure to realize the importance of providing your opinion/thoughts in such ways that it's helpful to others is ever-present.

Of course someone should not butcher his thoughts censoring them in such way that they reflect political correctness, but he should definitely understand the importance of his work. And let's take what I did into account as an example.



Some days ago I stated that I found PISS lacking a hook, and that very issue, had been troubling me from finishing the game. The fact that I was deemed unable to run a complete playthrough of that game, also made me decide to avoid writing a review about it - I just felt the need to explain the reasons behind my slacking. Haven't we all tried something and found it hard to get into, then actually do a proper effort to grasp the concept, ultimately wondering how we felt unable to see the genius at first?Personally I strive to give everything a proper chance to win me, and my thoughts on PISS are ONLY focusing on what was troubling me to get there.

Videogames as a form of entertainment, also occasionally attributed artistic values, is haunted by the subjective rule. What is that you ask? Well, simply put, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's imperative therefore to allow everyone to appreciate what we cannot, overcoming the obstacles that we faced - obstacles that rendered the product unpleasant for us, and ideal for those who appreciate differently.

Cyberpunk: Replicating the ambient perfection of neon lights and corruption.

To me, the genre always meant exciting, new, exhilarating horizons being broadened, applying both mentally and perspective-wise a mesmerizing effect on my personal being. That is when the cyberpunk-ill medium transcends from the focus on one aspect and instead triumphantly establishes domination in every way.

Portraying flawed characters and an ironic seemingly idyllic view to the future whether it's dominated by a certain political view or a technological discovery/revolution, there is a thin line between breathtaking and thought provocative to just lasers and neon lights. Though I love those things a whole lot. They may be part of a niche, narrow view of the genre, but I still hold them dear, they are elements of a greater whole, even if they appear as shallow members solely created to wow introductees.

Aren't they pretty?

I believe that taking any story and transforming to a Cyberpunk impression is the easier way, and the most common one. Always have I felt that to be the wrong way. While it's nice to see a plot under different glasses, perhaps adjusting its parameters differently. It works in the same way that for example a live action movie is remaked as an anime. Not a huge fan, but it's interesting enough to give it a fair chance.

However creating a reality based on estimated projection values on combining factors, plowing through plot holes and physical rules to narrate a story arc that would only be done justice under those calculated, specific list of circumstances and variables, is where the genre shines. It should always be visible to us, that it's not about telling conventional stories within unconventional surroundings, but rather -  mystify the audience with the setting, engulfing the reader, in ways that he feels the primal instincts and fears in different unconventional ways, purging reality of all the veils, like...

Like tears in the rain..

By the rivers of (Techno)babylon

So, why is this AGS game keep appearing on your rss feed lately? Why is it referenced so much lately?

Because, besides missing the 4th part of the series for quite a while now, it appears, according to a gamasutra interview of Dave Gilbert, the game is still being worked on. I'm quite unfamiliar with the factors affecting its current production and the goal in terms of game design and polish value currently set by the developer and the parties affiliated (which I'm also mostly unaware of).

But Ben Chandler is providing artwork, yet not sure if he's drawing over or completely re-designing materials for the game. Perhaps both. I find myself accepting Dearden's choice (the developer) to enrich and re-introduce the saga. Technobabylon  is getting remaked, but I'm not sure in what way. However, since it's going commercial under Wadjet Eye Games, I'm definitely quite certain, the game will combine part one and two, perhaps even three, though the trilogy's end, wasn't really well received. 

Can you say pretty labs?

Technobabylon revolves around the premise that people choose to accept the false sense of achievement presented in multiplayer videogames, over their actual control on their lives, slowly deteriorating physically and mentally, getting addicted equally to the phenom of drug use. Such is the protagonist of the game, but as life problems pop up, it will be impossible to get a last dose of the virtual world. The second game of the series, creates one of the most wonderfully revealed ties between two games seemingly so different in almost every aspect, that literally the rembrance of it, still takes my breath away.

I do hope, the great content will be kept if not intact, at least in the same or better spirit, maintaining the consistency and surprise factor present in the freeware release of the three episodes so far. Even though, I feel this should have been out faster, I still got overly excited over the release of Technobabylon. Count one pre-order from me.