A Non-Boring Day in the Life of the Person Who I Am
On occasion, I find myself privy to an event so utterly horrendous that it actually lowers my opinion of humanity. Today (or yesterday, in regular person time) was one such day.
Austin College, as part of a week celebrating, well, I’m not really sure, but anyway, Austin College put on an auction — one that had deep-pocketed students bidding on people instead of things. Now, before you get ahead of yourself, Austin College strongly discourages slavery and human trafficking; the merchandise in question was set to experience more of an “a day in the life of” type of thing. These ephemeral servants, then, were auctioned off to other students for cash, which the charitable staff at Austin College will presumably use to feed future Resident Evil 5 enemies*.
I was set to aid a friend in properly marketing himself (“Back in my day, the prospect of slavery practically sold itself!”) — which amounted to getting kicked while holding a pad in front of an slavering mob of fellow Austonians.
There was a catch, however; before I could receive my bruising and go home, I was forced to watch others’ performances — eight others, to be precise. But you know what? They weren’t so bad. Ok, well, they were kind of bad, but only the two girls whose talent was hula-hooping to rap music, and the one girl who jumped and pointed in what was initially described as a “dance,” and the guy who caught, like, one or two gummy bears in his mouth and, well, most everyone was really bad, actually. But they don’t matter.
No, the “bickering” hosts absolutely eclipsed all other performances, throwing them into such indistinct blackness as to redefine the term “abysmal.” Oh yes, “bickering” deserves every quotation mark it receives, because the hosts were, I kid you not, reading each and every randomly-placed “shot” they took at one another from plainly visible cue cards. Eventually, their performance devolved into one host accusing the other of going to high school prom with his mother, and the accused host, apparently blessed with the improv skills of a pack of migrating salmon, owned up to it. No witty retort, or even a comically-bereaved, “My mother died in childbirth!” Actually, the funniest part of that whole fiasco came from a random, possibly disembodied voice floating amongst the audience; “Oh, I took your mom to prom,” he blurted, and the crowd burst out into laughter. Congrats, anonymous guy, you saved the hosts from an increasingly dissatisfied crowd, or at least delayed the lynching a little.
Really though, these hosts were downright offensive. At an auction that allegedly turned the neon-orange spotlights on the soon-to-be auctioned, the hosts tried to steal the show. What they did, however, was akin to a the episode of Pokemon wherein Team Rocket, instead of merely falling into their own pit trap, pulls everyone else in with them. The show’s single redeeming factor (aside from my brief stint in the spotlight) consisted of me watching the male host stand precariously close to a small fire which decorated the side of the stage. If only. If only.
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*This joke was in bad taste, wasn’t it? Why don’t you comment on it? Confirm or deny my beliefs; affect me in ways most profound.
Sorry
Yeah, the blog’s been a bit sparse in terms of content lately, and I’m sorry. Exciting things are happening, but I’m not quite ready to talk about them. Put simply, you’ll be reading a lot more from me soon. For now, though, I imagine I’ll have something new for you to read tomorrow or Sunday, so rejoice and stuff. In the meantime, this:
News Bites: Snack-Pack Edition
As you may have noticed, this is my second News Bite today. With any luck, I’ll be writing these fairly frequently. Anyway, onto the topic at hand.
It’s no stretch to say that this is the most excited I’ve been after simply reading about a game concept since first I lifted a gamepad. I mean, just look at this:
(All pictures taken from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I hope they don’t hate me.)
That’s not some exquisite painting — or at least, not of the typical, static variety. It’s a screenshot from the game! Love looks as though it could finally fulfill the secret dream of all cel-shaded games — to actually be a painting in motion.
But what is Love, exactly?
Well, in the most basic of terms, it’s a mini-MMO. But beyond that, it’s a living, breathing, procedural world. See, the development staff is chock-full of talent, but all of that talent is packed tightly into a single guy — art, gameplay, programming, everything! That’s right, there’s still room for “indie” development in today’s crowded, sequelitis-infested marketplace.
As a result of the development team’s slight lack in quantity, much of the game world will be procedural; algorithms will serve as God’s right hand in Love’s picture-esque setting. And here’s the cool part: We’ll serve as the left hand.
Players will create villages, deform terrain, and discover methods of item creation that — in a community-oriented twist — will be for the benefit of not just the intrepid players who discover them, but for all other colorful adventurers as well. With any luck, griefers will think twice before killing those who are putting bread on their figurative tables.
(Rock, Paper, Shotgun, have I mentioned how nice you look today?)
It seems that Games 2.0 (or 3.0, or whatever we’re calling it) has finally arrived. In a Worthplaying article, I predicted that LittleBigPlanet would be the harbinger of gaming’s next earth-shaking step, but with XNA (more on that little occurrence later), Love, and so many others stepping up to the plate, the preemptive champion might just find itself dethroned and relegated to mere groupie status. But hey, at least it’ll have comrades-in-arms.
