JetFable’s Gamer Writer’s Block

Monkey Island 3, it turns out I have a copy of this piratey game from way back, and I just recently played it and savored my enjoyment of this classic adventure game. I remember playing the first Monkey Island when I was barely a teenager, and well, I was impressed by the humor, especially the combat fencing system, which was roughly called Insult Sword Fighting, this is where the skill of the sword matters naught and what matters is insult. In Monkey Island 3, the piratey combat when to new heights, they have to rhyme, and since it was the first installment with voice acting, it greatly enhanced the humor:

Enemy Pirate: You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee!

GuyBrush: I look that much like your fiancée?

Basicaly you start off the combat as a newbee with no knowledge of the insults and comebacks, once an enemy insults you, you learn it, and you can use it, and if they cannot produce a comeback, you advances upon them in the swordplay. I think I didnt appreciate it as much when I was a teenager, but now I really adore the writers of the series, to put that much humor and wit and puzzles into such a game. It seems that nobody nowdays can write like this anymore, and there’s not even much of a market for these kind of game is sad indeed. Its takes skills to write good humor, I know that, because I think writing a dark story is much easier than one that will lighten your mood. In any case, I hope to see more of Guybrush Threepwood, the mighty pirate.

Lately been doing a lot of research on self publishing, which I actually did 6 years back, but never went through with it, and since later I found an agent and then publisher for my newer book, but then all the deals fell through and I am back to square one. I found this company, lulu.com (who came up with this stupid name?), which helps author self publish with no charge. Unlike other vanity/subsidary press (for example, Iuniverse), lulu.com doesn’t charge anything, I guess it is more considered a technology company other than a publisher (heard its started by the founder of Red Hat). Books are printed on demand, which means only after when someone orders your book, and Lulu takes a 20% of your profit. The bad thing is of course anyone can publish their work, including the 8 year old kid next door, or his grandma’s dog. Lulu doesn’t do any proofing or marketing for you so traditional bookstores won’t carry it because its printed on demand, and good luck someone finding your book on Amazon. But well, what can you do, if you can’t do it the traditonal way this is the only other way to do it. I guess some self publish books made it big, like Eragon, the odds are astronomical. But the same can be said even if Random House picked up your book, your chances to make enough money to support yourself as a full-time writer are still astronomical. Why do people want to write at all? But on the contrary, it seems, everyone, and their grandma, wants to write a book, and most of them suck, so how does an authority like me distinquish myself from the rest of the crop? Well I have to market, but how am I going to do that, I don’t even know. Well I’m lost, but still, its better to do it than not, because, to be the authority, I have to accomplish things.

The title of today’s article, well totally doesnt reflect the content, I am not writing about Prison Break, or breaking up, just simply about my favorite online Magazine, Escapist. I guess its been out for a year now, and every tuesday I look forward to reading it, it seems that nothing is better than reading Escapist while sipping on Ice coffee and munching on potato chips, it’s even better than [insert favorite activity here], well actually, maybe not. Its a magazine about gaming culture, yes its about the culture. Warren spector, one of the greatest storytellers in games, wrote a 4-part article about Next Generation Storytelling. Its interesting that he seperated digital storytelling technique into 5 categories:

Rollercoaster
Retold Stories
Sandbox
Shared Authorship
Procedural Story Generation

I wont go into depth on each of them, you can read the article, this guy should teach a class. In any case, after reading that it reminded me of the 30 greatest game list I wrote about, and a good friend of mine after reading it critized me for not including Pacman, Contra, having only one shooter, having a whole bunch of RPGs. I guess being a gamer and a storyteller, I appreciate great story told in games, I would assume if Spector saw my list, he would more or less agree with me, to a certain extent. I remember a scene in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Rebulic 2, a beggar asked you to spare him change, and then you were given a choice to either accept or refuse (I think you can kill him too, afterwards or before? But I don’t remember), and then your mentor advises you. Well the mentor is an old ex-jedi wise woman who’s allegiance is shady at best, and she says that if you spare change to the poor then you are encouraging people to not work for themselves, and that is evil. You see, she is trying to covert you to the darkside, but she does have a point. This is a great moment in the history of storytelling of games, I believe, well I am trying to make a point, thats the way storytelling should be done in games, that can’t be done anywhere else. Given that well, neither of the Knights of Old Republic games are even remotely on my best games list, putting contra or pacman there would seriously be unfair. There’s another article on Escapist which talks about playing a game is superior to reading a book, and the author draws a comparison from KOTOR to another star war book that collects dust on the shelf. He made his point but he’s comparing the best of games to an medicore book, of course its superior, which I don’t agree with his assessment, I think reading and playing is too entirely different medium and they can’t really replace each other, and that being said, most books still tell better stories than games. Well, in order to critize my best games of all time list, you really have to at least qualify 3 out of 4 of the following, you:

1) Are an authority, in other words, you have to be me (which means u have total control over this universe)

2) Are over 25 years old (means u grew up with games) and at least have played/finished 25 out of 30 of that list

3) Have pirated games in your life

4) Have bought games even while you can pirate it because you want to support your favorite developers

Another article in Escapist, Playground Piracy inspired me to put point 3 and 4 up there. It made a very valid point, if you have never pirated games in your life, you don’t care enough about games, either that or you are filthy rich. Because as a kid, there’s no way you can afford to buy all the games you need to play, and you will need to pirate most of them, and if you never pirate, that means you don’t have enough exposure to gaming at all. Point 4 is important too, but its actually not as important as 3. If you love games, you are going to pay for them, even if you can get it for free, that’s true morality.

There’s one thing I more or less agree with Spector, the industry seems to be heading towards the wrong direction, more realistic graphic doesnt provide better games, instead people should be focusing on harnessing that cell processors to try some innovative ways to tell a story. The game facade, actually tried to do something new, stuck you into a room with a couple in a failing relationship, and you simply talk to them, trying to patch them up, or not. The game failed at being fun, but it was trying something new, and that’s what people should try. I would try to make an innovative game too, if I have the idea, and the resources, and the time. But first, I still have books to write.

Well, in conclusion, Escapist is awesome, good games are bad ass, bad games are, well, flat ass, and I am the authority.

This is another one of my gaming article, so those who don’t like games should move on (or die, or both). On second thought, well its probably not all about gaming. Anyway, recently just went through all of the Sam & Max episodes from Telltell games and even the original one made in 1993. Sam & Max is awesome, so awesome that I cannot use words to describe the awesomity (Yes, this is a word I created just to describe how awesome it is, its so awesome it is BAD ASS). It successfully turn me into a demented lagomorph, if I wasn’t born one already. Anyway, it’s my first time paying for a digital download (shame on me), but well I think it does work, it should be the distribution method of the future. I think people who download things from the internet, well, its not mainly because of money, its because of convenience. Its like, why should I go out to blockbuster to look for a movie to rent while I can download it in 2 hours, without the hassle of looking for it, going through the risk of it being all out, saves on gas, your car’s wear and tears, it decreases the risk of you running over old ladies, the risk of you being run over by old ladies and their dogs, anyway, the benefit is countless, I think paying or not paying is the least of your problem. In any case, I digress, I paid for something I downloaded, and I really think that we all should stop going to the store. Back to the story…

Sam & Max reminded me of everything I loved about my childhood, and everything i hated also (but let’s not go there). Too bad adventure games are dead but hopefully Telltale games can revive people’s interest in the good old point and click adventures. Sam & Max episode 5 is the highlight of the series, while episode 4 is really very very good, co-written by the guy who did the Monkey Island script, it still paled in comparison to Episode 5, which manages to poke fun of everything you know about the internet and 30 years of gaming. Here is a screenshot of Sam & Max epsidoe 5, which utterly spoils the pleasant surprise, YEAH ! Hay the IGN review did it first

The screenshot should speak for itself. I did play the original Sam & Max in between episode 2 and 3, yes, shame on me for not having a chance to play it back in 93. The game is still great by today’s standard. The point and click interface leaves a little to bit to be desired because you need to keep scrolling through different actions, and I actually like the current Max’s voice better, because it sounds so much more cutseyly demented. The old Sam was superior though. Puzzles were also way harder in the old Sam and Max, and I really think the current one needs more items and a mix command for the sake of just to confuse you. But in any case…

Video games are like women (Okay originally I wanted to put wine in place of women, but well you cant exactly play with a bottle of wine, well you can, but lets not go there). Some look and play better with age, and some just don’t. I recently did play a bunch of old games (thanks to psx emulation on the PSP), some less old than others. Chrono Trigger (10+ years old) aged well, Xenogears (9 years old) played like a game that was from the future, Parasite Eve was playable and fun while Resident Evil 2 (one of my all time favorites) were not playable at all, it seriously aged with its dated control schemes. Vagrant Story (another of my favorites) also aged terribly, and no longer playable in my book. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is better than the finest wine and woman, it just gets better and better as time goes by. Same can be said about Eternal Darkness, although not that old, its just become more classical and brilliant as time goes by and creativiy goes out the window. I guess how a game is played 10 years from now, well it takes visionaries to make a game that don’t age at all. Now I am itching to replay the Monkey Island Trilogy. Until then, I will be forever raving about Sam & Max like a lunatic Bunny.

I’ve recently decided to probably self-publish one of my manuscript, which I have completed 6 years ago, but probably started 8 years ago, still in the process of reading through it, and editing errors. It’s amazing that I think I must have gone through it at least 5 times a few years back, and I even have a couple of editors correct my mistakes. I still find loads of mistakes today, and I bet after the revew is done, I am going to go through it and find more, the cycle never ends. 5 years had past since I last touched it, gosh, time flies. I really didn’t remember the details of my story, though none of the plot would surprise me (I’d really have to bang my head hard for that, and I rather bang other things — insert another joke here), I am surprised at different parts of the story, like did I write this crappy sentence with this crappy grammar? Or…, where did this brilliant phrase come from? What does this word even mean. On a whole, well, I am satisfied with my work. I feel like I put the manuscript into a time capsule, and have the me 6 years into the future edit and review myself. Looking back at the story it reminded me a lot of things, the state of mind while I wrote it, I don’t think the me now can write the same story, perhaps a better story, perhaps a worse story, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Sigh, there’s still a lot of work to be done. And there’s the matter of the cover art….