I've been on a cooking video kick as of late. Cooking videos are positive and make me want to go do stuff. I have been looking at making my own cheese this week, since I found out that it's easier than I first anticipated. I started off by making paneer, and I think I will either make it again or progress to haloumi next time I make cheese. Haloumi is a pretty important cheese to me because it's how I figured out a replacement for bacon in a big cooked breakfast to feed vegetarians. Would be so cool to be able to do it from scratch.


Manjula's Kitchen paneer basics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gkor7dW6DU
Manjula's Kitchen is pretty great in general. She basically knows everything about indian vegetarian cooking so you better respect. I have used a few of her recipes in the past and they all went really well. Except the time I mistook custard powder for cornflour, haha.
more paneer infos from Bhavna http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlSxcEuANk
another decent veggie channel, she also has one on mascarpone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlSxcEuANk
mm mozzarella http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5odBodQ0pZM
a kiwi guy called ted explains his haloumi recipe and deals up some cat infos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAZ5tx_WeGI


these guys are raw vegans, idk if that's good for you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXo1C5qQEbk lots of coconut opening related talk in this show. in episode 2 he gives real good instructions for chopping one. the bit where he's messing with the butchers is pretty funny.


Ok that's me for now. Post up your cooking videos.

A lot of stuff I've looked at recently about games has emphasized production of space in the way games are constructed. I've found that it's a pretty useful lens for thinking about most of the software games I've played in the past. It's of course true that game space doesn't exist - it's a bunch of pixels and sounds and things organised by a program and interpreted by the player. To a certain extent, space seems to be about the way we interpret our interactions with the terminal in relation to the things we encounter in the rest of our lives that we call spaces. This stuff is, of course, also just a bunch of particle interactions. We interpret it too. I'm not saying anything particularly profound here. Heaps of people have said the same thing before. I'm just setting the scene for a question I want to raise for y'all. It is:


How do you make a software game that resists or evades spatial interpretation?


In other words, how do you make a game that's hard to see as taking place in a particular space, exploring the mechanics of a particular space, or a relationship to that space? I feel like it's easy to put spatial analogies onto most things, and to make interactions about some hypothetical space. Does this make software games fundamentally spatial? I feel like that shouldn't be the case, but I'm having trouble refuting myself.

Here's a thread for posting links on music and sound. I am starting it because the googling of information on music and sound constantly presents a challenge. People have their favourite resources and articles and kind of either hoard them or use them until done and then forget about them. I had some amazing stuff on compression a while back that was more detailed than I needed or understood, but now I lost it. So that's the other reason for this thread. I am terrible at keeping track of useful articles and things and I guess if we collectively keep track of them, it might be a good resource.


http://www.synth.tk/ this is an amazing resource on synthesis. i am not far into it but goddamn! look at the wealth of material in the left navigation bar. i mean there is a thing on how the hammond organ works. (this is hammond organ music ok boss http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh9KDzNkpSI  )


http://theproaudiofiles.com/mixing-rap-vocals/ is a handy guide on doing rap vocals. i don't know why it took me so long to find it. maybe I have seen it before but didn't understand filtering and EQ as well at that point? anyways I learned stuff from it yesterday. probably should have come across it before my troubs submission went in but oh well. on to the next song.

This is like Artistry Weekly but a bit more lax and freeflow.


Here are the rules.

1. Everything goes in a megathread. Volume is too low for multiple ones.
2. Archive doesn't happen every topic (see: volume) but when we reach a set number of contributions and the topic changes (see below.)
3. Topic changes either every fortnight or when submissions stagnate.
4. We keep a list of topics in a file somewhere and a there's a javascript program that randomly picks one. I can write it but it would be a while before I could arrange hosting. Anyone can change the topic. Ignore dumb topic changes. The reason for this (point 4) is that it avoids the problem of it always being one person's job to collate everything and invent new topics.
5. I propose ripping off all the words here http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/themes.do and then adding w/e people feel like. Trying to say something new in a well-travelled theme is always a good exercise.
6. Topics are guidelines. Submit whatever you want but it's good manners to do something on-topic if you can.

If they don't work we'll change them. I didn't write the js app yet so we're gonna go with the BIGGLES PICKS method this time around.


TOPIC ONE: DEATH

It was a good thing dicko started and I want it back. Seemed like it was a pain for him to keep running and compiling it with such low participation though. I personally want it back to keep my writing volume up, but there are several things from the old format that basically wouldn't work because our posting volume is so low. Here is my proposal:


1. Everything goes in a megathread. Volume is too low for multiple ones.
2. Archive doesn't happen every topic (see: volume) but when we reach a set number of contributions and the topic changes (see below.)
3. Topic changes either every fortnight or when submissions stagnate.
4. We keep a list of topics in a file somewhere and a there's a javascript program that randomly picks one. I can write it but it would be a while before I could arrange hosting. Anyone can change the topic. Ignore dumb topic changes. The reason for this (point 4) is that it avoids the problem of it always being one person's job to collate everything and invent new topics.
5. I propose ripping off all the words here http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/themes.do and then adding w/e people feel like. Trying to say something new in a well-travelled theme is always a good exercise.
6. Topics are guidelines. Submit whatever you want but it's good manners to do something on-topic if you can.


How does this sound? Would anyone be interested?


If not, I might end up having a writingdump thread called 'biggleswriting' for no reason other than that this is a place I'm comfortable posting work. Not that I'm a hugely serious writer, but sometimes all the text files get lonely on my HD and it provides motivation if I pretend people might read it or participate. I would much rather be doing it in a community thing though.

So, time for some real nerd shit. Over the past few years, my bros and I have been developing a system of pen & paper role-playing rules. We think it's pretty good and recently we wrote up a doc with the core rules in it. I think y'all might like it because it's got some interesting game design ideas and takes a critical approach to rpg design. You can use it to run a bunch of different sorts of games. We've done surreal alternate world war 1, traditional fantasy, modern-day horror, and not-steampunk (I forgot the steam). Other playtesting groups have done noir and lovecraft style horror. I'm pretty sure you could do attack of the killer jpeg compression time portal convincingly if you wanted. We provide a pack of starter settings called Kindling if you don't want to come up with your own premise.


Our site is http://www.locusrpg.com and you can get the rules from there for free. They're designed to be extended and are creative commons. It's beta at the moment because we're testing the text. The game as we play it certainly works. I could go into the theory of it but I'd rather that people give it a read and try it out. Hopefully it's quite accessible. It's very short. Not everyone likes a 300 page rulebook with the ridiculous dragon pictures. I did some quick drawings to brighten it up a bit and we also have a logo. It's been through a lot of rounds of edits and I'm sure that online release will result in more.


So, yeah. A lot of people here have really good opinions about game design and I'd be interested to see what SaltW has to say about it. http://www.locusrpg.com Check it out!

Pure data is a software synthethingy that works by you connecting devices (e.g. sine / saw wave / noise generators and filters) together in a flowcharty kind of thing. You can also synthesize video.

Algorithmic composition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD0Boaq-Zfk&feature=related (you know this person is cool because renoise icon in dock)
Audiovisual drone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoZm0bYsOs&feature=channel_video_title
Someone explores higher dimensions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu0x46tRBjw
a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2kQ8ETzdyw&feature=related

Getting started: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkmMzqohsDo
Free online book: http://www.pd-tutorial.com/ (explains a lot of synthesis theory, i'm not done with it yet but it learned me a lot of cool shit)

I haven't really applied any of this to my music yet but it's been a lot of fun in itself. From a practical standpoint, you can supposedly use it to make VSTs if you care about that sort of thing.

But yeah, since some of you like the BBC radiophonic workshop and other experimental business, figured it was worth posting.

FLAC in a 7z http://ifile.it/t9u4d2x (best) (about 200mb)
 
 mp3s in a zip http://www.mediafire.com/?sp1m6li9x9w7mxb (about 40mb, 320kbps)
 
 oggs in a gzipped tarfile http://www.mediafire.com/?gw5wrg2ng468ttd
 (about 40mb, also about 320kbps)
 
Eight tracks long. Mostly samples/electronic with a small amount of rap on two tracks (ain't really hiphop, though certainly inspired by my love for it.) It was fun to make, and I learned a lot of the things I used to make it from people around here. Cover art was made by cutting up a $1 gundam comic, gluing it back together, watercoloursing over it, pens, digital background, and then some digital after scanning. Would really appreciate comments, criticism, or even listening to it.

So in a month, I'm moving in with new flatmates. We've resolved to eat out of a flat food budget, and one is a vegetarian, so naturally wishing to respect his desire to take an economic vote against the way meat is produced, we'll be following suit. At dinner time, at least. I lived in the central city and mostly ate fast food last year, so eating more fresh veggies and less processed meats might make my stomach happier.

Even if it's just dinner, this is a huge diet change for me. Most meals I know how to cook revolve around a meat portion. I don't particularly want to eat fake meats because then it just feels like an inferior substitute for something I'd rather be eating. I want to find some staple meals I genuinely like that happen to not contain any tasty dead animals. I'm also concerned about what I need to change about what I eat to meet protein and iron requirements. This would probably involve finding out a bit more about what kinds of vitamins and minerals and other matter is supposed to go in my mouth and down my throat in general.

This boils down to two questions:

• What are some tasty vegan/vegetarian meals that you have cooked? Where did you learn them from?
• What is a reliable source of information about ingredients and their nutritional value? How do I avoid scurvy and/or going mad?

Also, which of you are vegetarians? Is it just dok? Do any non-vegetarians here regularly eat vegetarian food?

I was looking for it and it doesn't seem to be on any of the rom sites. I think it was for super nintendo. Apparently it didn't sell well so it's pretty rare. The company went bust right after they put it out. Have any of you played it?



It's a JRPG about this mystical kind of artefact thing called the Goldstorm and the people who come into contact with it. It has a really kooky sense of humour, and I remember some of the combat bits being neat. I'd really like to play it again.

I can't, though. None of us have played it. Legend of Goldstorm doesn't exist. I made it up. I'm proposing that we sort of imagine it (or some other non-existent game) into being without actually programming the game. The idea is to sort of investigate what kinds of things outside of the game program itself make a game real to us. By making concept art or screenshots or videos or music or walkthroughs or fanart or the instruction booklet or the packaging or transcripts or reviews, can we make a game that feels like it exists, bit by bit, just by imagining it and creating a gap in our social worlds where the game isn't.

I'm hardly the best pixel artist (it's supposed to be a mountain but my flatmate said it's a slime heap) so I realise that my title screenshot isn't hugely convincing (I even cheated a little bit for the text) but I want to gauge interest in doing this as a kind of forum game. I'm having fun thinking about what it would be like to do something like this. I don't think that we'd be able to fool anyone who would check game serials with manufacturers but it might just be fun to fool ourselves first. Any takers?

I've seen a few pretty interesting game reviews (mostly concept wise) that I'd like to share with you.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html
In this one, Jake Adelstein gets three yakuza to play the video game Yakuza 3. They have a lot of really good shit to say but mostly it's about yakuza in Japan and not about the game. I'm not interested in the game so this is a plus.

http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml
In this one, Destructoid's Jim Sterling pretends to try to write a completely objective review of Final Fantasy XIII because people complained about the one where he said it was awful. Makes a great gift for deserving youngpersons who believe that reviewing can be done without bias and other interesting things.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/07/limbo-review-xbox-360.html
In this one, Kirk Hamilton really liked Limbo and isn't afraid to say it. He makes a nice contrast to Sterling's 'completely objective' review.

In conclusion, some people have reviewed games in a way that doesn't entirely suck. Discuss how videogames writings can suck less or post other decent reviews.

Typically I have no patience for video game journalism. Especially podcasts. I don't like that the 'journalists' don't have much knowledge about either games or journalism and primarily serve to proliferate images of the glorious victories won by the video games industry. I got into an internet argument with some guy about whether there is even a possibility for decent journalism about video games. He told me to listen to Robert Ashley's internet radio show, 'A Life Well Wasted.' Fine. He wins. I liked it. It's well researched, well produced and manages to hold my attention the whole way through each episode. There is even a bit of music from Robert's band, I Come to Shanghai. Each episode also comes with a poster that you can buy designed by Olly Moss who I have never heard of before but apparently designed some popular-ish tshirts and things.

http://www.alifewellwasted.com

After listening to a few of these, I felt renewed interest in video games. Maybe it will do the same for some of you.

Or maybe it won't.

I want to read a book by an author I haven't read before. This shouldn't exactly be hard since I mostly read non-fiction. I don't really have a good abstract description of the kinds of books I like so instead I will list some specific books I liked over the last year or so and try to explain why I liked them.

Post Office by Charles Bukowski. He said a lot in 100 or so pages. I like the whole style and the stream of consciousness kind of way it was presented. The guy is both frank and poetic and I guess that's appealing to me.

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. Probably the book I have liked most ever. Murakami switches up styles really fluidly and does surreal sci-fi/fantasy type stuff without it feeling corny or like genre fiction.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. Mostly liked this one for the way it was written. This book gave me some of the best mental images. I guess some of the artificial intelligence / identity stuff it explored was kind of cool too.

Those are the ones I liked the most. I'm open to reading whatever but prefer books that are short and a bit surreal. I'm really stuck as to where to go next. I was thinking of reading Franz Kafka's The Castle but while I liked The Metamorphosis, it also made me really depressed and I don't feel like being that down because of a book for a little while. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

One of the things I am most interested in mucking around with in terms of game programming is music that changes interactively rather than just loops over and over until an abrupt finish as the map/level/location changes. There are already pretty good examples of it in commercial games such as Meteos where each planet has its own set of sounds that fit together to make a song that matches what's going on in your puzzle screen. Most of the 3D Zeldas also have a little bit of dynamically changing music, especially Wind Waker which played along a sequence of notes as you got closer to finishing off enemies so you could tell about how many hits they needed by the sounds. There are also non-game examples of composers writing music to progress in sync with things other than time. The torch carrying music in the Athens Olympics opening ceremony for example was arranged (it is Shostakovich's "Pirogov") to be flexible so that it progressed as the carriers approached the torch to compensate for unpredictable running speeds.


As I see it, the problem with the state of dynamic music in games isn't a lack of interest but rather a lack of development. Most of the dynamic game music I've come across has been more like a programming/design experiment or an extra feature than a mature component. That is, music in recent games is so static compared to their visuals. Everything on screen is always flashy and animated and responding to player input, but I don't feel that the music always follows it to the extent it could.

Part of the problem is that (to my knowledge) software tools haven't really been put together that capture the different dimensions along which game's score that could be interactive and expose them to composers. Most programmers can't compose or have very limited music theory knowledge. At any rate, I certainly can't create music very well. So there's this kind of rift - only people who are both skilled programmers and composers could create a game with dynamically changing music as a serious component. To make interactive music as popular as interactive graphics, it's therefore necessary for the rest of us to talk about the problems involved and do experiments - programmers putting together the tools and then composers playing with them and seeing what works.

To start off with a more concrete example, I've been thinking about implementing a musical map editor for games with tile-based maps like RPGs and platformers. (I will never get time to do this but believe my lies for a moment.) The theory is that you start off with a map editor like in RPG maker or Game Maker whatever and then kind of paint sound loops over different parts of the map. The score would be divided into different layers like a photoshop image such that you could have one for percussion, one for strings etc. The game would then change which music was playing on each layer as the player moved through different tiles (but only at appropriate times such as at the end of loops/patterns). This would allow songs to finish properly as players near the exit of maps. It would also allow composers to give different areas musical scents so that players could kind of navigate by sound. Additionally, interactive objects in the game could change different layers of the score. For example as an enemy approaches the strings could die out but the percussion remains the same until it's in view. The tempo of music could rise as players approach death, and so on. Interactivity on this level could make a game feel more alive.

The problem with me thinking these things on my own is that I don't have the composition knowledge to tell if my ideas are shit. I suspect that there are also problems that need solving in audio programming which is something I'm very inexperienced at. Since GW has a lot of generally knowledgeable and intelligent members, many of whom design games, program, write, draw and compose music I was hoping that some of you might be able to contribute your own ideas about using music interactively in games or at least point me in the right direction.

Summary: Japan Tengu Party is awesome and you should read it.

This is a four volume long manga created by Iou Kuroda. It's currently unlicensed. I picked this up on a whim a bit over a week ago after seeing that mangascreener had finished their scanlation of it - they tend to do pretty well on translations and I think that their translator works professionally as well (or something like that). At four volumes long, it's hardly anywhere near as drawn out as most shonen type stuff you hear people talking about these days. A lot of stuff happens in those four volumes, though, so it ends up feeling like a fairly expansive story. The art style is also quite different to what you'd usually expect from manga as it's kind of blocky and looks like it was made via woodcut or a very thick pen as you can see here:


This picture explains JTPI's art style much more correctly and elegantly than I can. I picked like page two to avoid any spoilers.

The whole thing comes together as a fairly surreal tale about the place of tengu, a kind of mythical Japanese creature known for their vanity, in modern society living undetected amongst humans. It begins as being about the tengu themselves and their interactions with people, and then develops into something about the political party they form out of said vanity (as you can probably guess from the title). On it's way to the satisfying conclusion, it also makes a number of interesting and cleverly phrased points about things which I won't mention here to avoid ruining anything.

After finishing, I'd definitely look for this author's works again in my future reading adventures! You should too, especially if you haven't read this one.

Anyone else read this previously? Opinions? Anyone planning on doing so now?