Uncle Ofay's Good-Times Story Corner: November 2008

Podcast Archive

Ansshotus [11.11.09 Link]
Or NYU Game Center Lecture of November 5th;  featuring Dessgeega, Messhof, and Cactus.
Holy shit! Epic failure. I erroneously assumed the the Game Center People would take weeks if not months to edit and upload the presentation from the Indie Games Panel, and that I would make up for low sound quality by just beating everyone out of the gate. (The Sega strategy.) But dammit; those geeks are fast [link].
Double talk-only episode. [10.28.09 Link.] Lots of stories, topics, ramblings, demands at future Gagoogling, flash games, television, alarm clocks, music nerdery, mohels, complaining about the usual generational nonsense, and completely uninformed pretension, snobbery, misuse and mispronunciation of simplistic words and phrases. We're culture, here, people! Also, I use the refrain, "It's weird," at least ten thousand times. Catch phrase! Print the shirts; we're a go, here. (My girlfriend's half-asleep commentary is that I don't know what I'm talking about, and am weird. Aww. My retort in the form of a question is that if I can't speak authoritatively on the penis, and videogames, what topics are open to me?)

Finally, tonight while attempting to procrastinate on some InDesign stuff that I really didn't want to be working on I spent a while making my show's archives actually browse-able. [Link.] If you haven't taken the plunge yet, it's now possible to differentiate episodes, something that may seem rudimentary, but took me a surprising amount of time to view as essential. I'm really excited about it, and plan to continue to add little comments and addenda over time, so check it out. (Those little red MP3 icons are direct download links, if you want to download and take it on the road. It should be all pre-formatted for iTunes. And streaming Flash players, for those un-mobiles like myself.)

The official Washington Heights Free Radio website. Direct downloads and live net broadcasts every Wednesday by an impressively diverse roster of very enthusiastic and dedicated independent radio supporters.
[Alert: The backlog of uploading and association for other DJ's shows is pretty daunting. In my opinion, the only real solution is for each DJ to take personal responsibility for it. I'm not predicting this to be a popular suggestion, but I can't think of any other method that is manageable and maintainable in the long term.]

Note on reading, for readers.

This blog is basically broken. The prevailing internet content delivery model seems, almost universally, to favor the complete negation of the visitor's attention span. Which I understand. The internet is an unfathomable time sink, and no one's getting younger. No one suddenly has all day to spend sifting through a single blog. Watching videos. Playing games. Looking at pictures. Listening to albums. I get it. I can't keep up on my e-mails either, and often I'm exhausted at even the thought of trying. I'm sorry. Really I am. I don't know what we're going to do, but I know things aren't going the way I wish they would.

This is a curatorial space. It's all I know how to do online. So that's what I do.

Exactly what is on display has no artificial (or at least intentional) restriction, assumption, or restraint. It's content. You can skim if you like. I can't stop you, and I understand.

But if you're here, I ask that you be here. Not that I'm setting down the sacrosanct by any stretch of the imagination. But don't do me any favors.

Finally, a clarification.
You know what you like better than I do, and if you see something here that you're comfortable in saying, "that's not my thing," seriously, that's fine, and completely appropriate.

Who knows? It's all ill-advised. I'm just saying; I'm not Twitter. If you're into that, you're in the wrong place.

Hall of Fame:

Essays so good that I can't seem to get sick of re-reading them. Passing, essentially, into the realm of "beliefs."
"Why I Copyfight" by Cory Doctorow [my doppelgänger!]
"Death to the Games Industry" by Greg Costikyan.
-A passage by Edmund Burke which makes gorgeous my limited understanding of gender, chivalry, and the idea of modern "decency."
-I know I shouldn't find this inspiring. Still. "Your Business Card is Crap." This two minute video will change your life. I'm going to steal this guy's slogan, and start putting "crowds guaranteed" on the back of my card.
-Subtitled episodes of "Game Center CX," the greatest television show on games and gaming ever produced, bar none.
"Emergency Message for Google." My most successful web-comic, and perhaps best piece of fiction. Although it's based on factual events.

Games writing.

The gaming internet is in a very strange state. The fragmentation predicted is near completely enacted, and the amount of interaction seems minimal. Maybe the mainstream console gamers are trying Flash games, but 1. it doesn't (and can't) go the other way, and 2. I don't know what impulses and experiences they're bringing to my side of it. (I have my doubts that they're bringing a very complete tool-bag of skills in analysis, but this is true of dedicated Flash gamers as well.) But even if lines have been drawn, gaming is still a hobby that is available to those on a restricted budget (meaning none), and a small investment of time, with a wealth of interesting titles, of gigantic or microscopic length, available on the most widely available and pervasive electronic platform of all time; the personal computer.

My writings on games, and experiments with appropriated game imagery. (For someone who has always thought they haven't written much on games; apparently that is untrue.)

Game coverage and recommendations, if interested, has migrated to the pod-cast. Check it out in there!

-Game art showcase post [link], covering more Famicase translations and 9000 gallery.
-"Monuments of Mars" screen-grabs, which I've always wanted to do something with. [Link.] The web-comic has failed to make a resurgence, although I find myself becoming newly interested in machinima environments again.
-Analysis of "Adventure Quest," a piece of game theater [link], with more indie love.
-Gaming article best-of [link]. With porn. An absurdly popular search engine post, for a while.
-More short form indie reviewing. [Link 1, 2, and 3.]
-First N (Metanet) level analysis [link].
-My "Too Many Ninjas" screen-grab web-comics. [Link 1, 2, and 3.] Low-fi non-animated machinima, sort of.
-Early screen-grab experiments and collections, as well as Famicase. [Link 1, 2, and 3.]
-Still more indies [link], as well as my first games related photographic output. It's nerdly.
-More indies [link]. (Also Star Trek, and the early success of Japanese erotic imagery, which became pervasive for a while.)
-My theatrical performance of a Hadouken [link].
-My first full indie-gaming rundown [link]. Lots of recommendations and micro-reviews. These have held up not too badly.
-Repost of James Wallis's amazing powerpoint on the theoretical "history" of what we consider rules-based games, or perhaps better described as "word" based games? Anyway, the lecture is called "A Thing of Beauty is a Stout Green Toy," [link] and it is absolutely seminal. (Actually, this whole month [link] I had the YouTube loa working for me.)
-Bootleg repost of an excellent article on Dwarf Fortress [link], which for a few months was a consuming obsession. [Again, all Rapidshare links are long dead, and for all podcast inquiries see the top of the sidebar.]
-Best of 08 post [link]. We can see NES emulation elation, and the first fruits of my love affair with excellent indies.
-First indie game write-up [link]. It's a start!
-End of an era. [link] Essentially, me complaining about PS2 games for the last time, before I entirely abandoned them.
-Shenmue write-up [link]. Too nostalgic. I'm sure this game is really as awful as some people insist. What do they say about hindsight?
-My post on Harvest Moon [link], in which I should have savaged it, but gave it way too much slack.
-My write-up regarding River City Ransom [link]. Probably the best piece of writing on a game I've done.
-Earliest attempts [link], Gamer's Quarter stuff, and best-of background list stuff that we all have. [Also, most links from this period are dead or outdated.]

Actual Computer games:

A roster of titles worth looking into. Download links to follow. Or you could Alt-C Alt-V, and find them yourself.
[General note: I am completely out of the loop as to what PC downloadable games may have been made unplayable by Windows 7, but imagine it's unlikely that a majority of users have upgraded.]
-N (Flash download, PC & Mac.)
Nearly impossible by the standards of regular human beings. Twitch gamers and intense masochists have a shot, but by-no-means certain chance at absolute victory of this odyssean undertaking. Ultimately, it only ever comes down to a healthy mix of pride and refusal to give in to despair. I take breaks of months if not years, and when I return I still find one of the finest games I've ever seen, and I've seen a few.
-Glum Buster (Windows download.)
A diamond. Medium length; roughly ten hours? Startlingly thoughtful and evocative. Absolutely pristinely designed. An unequivocal triumph.
-Gamma Bros. (Flash download, PC & Mac.)
-Dwarf Fortress (PC & Mac download-able alpha.)
-Spelunky (Windows download.)
-Maverick (Browser game.)
-Warning Forever (Windows download.)
-Underworld Trip (Browser game.)
-Fathom (Browser game.)
-Barkley; Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden (Windows download.)
-Everybody Dies (PC & Mac download.)
-You Found the Grappling Hook (Windows download.)
-Too Many Ninjas (Browser game.)
A game of only dying. Or of life, but only in 30 second increments. But, with patience, you can have a moment of dignity before you're struck down.
-Don't Look Back (Browser game.)
-The Space Game (Browser game.)
-Yumi Nikki (Windows download.)
-Star Guard (Flash download, PC & Mac.) Run and jump shooter, with creative, innovative enemies and very nuanced design.
-Small Worlds (Browser game.)
-Hell is Other People (Browser game.)
-Dino Run (Browser game.)
-Knytt Stories (Windows download.)
-Cave Story (PC & Mac download.)
-La-Mulana (Windows download.)

Music:

[I'm lucky in that the music blog roll-call doesn't tend to fluctuate much. These can all, each and every, consume your life and leave you tremendously rewarded simultaneously. Don't say I didn't warn you. My podcast covers about one-one thousandth of what's worth checking out.]
Mutant Sounds [Underground Music Blog]
The alpha. You could stop here and not need to think about where to find bizarre, interesting, challenging music for the rest of your days, or as long as the site continues to be maintained, whichever is longer. This, to me, is the internet actually fulfilling its potential. Which I view as hugely important, to an extent that I can't even articulate satisfactorily.
No Longer Forgotten Music [Blog]
Cocaine Blunts
Awesome Tapes From Africa
EVR [East Village Radio]
Japan Underground [Music Blog]
WFMU Proper
WHFR [Online Radio Station]

A decree on etiquette:

Try your best, and I'll do the same. If I don't get this impression, and your tone is suspect, I reserve the right to not publish your comment, or publish it, respond, and delete it later to protect the integrity of the "atmosphere" here.
What, you don't feel the atmosphere? Thick.
"My website must dominate other websites! Gragh." [smash]

Sorry if I sound like a jerk. Please, just try not to be so "net-speak" truncated & thoughtlessly combative on me, okay? It makes me want to kill. Just pretend we're speaking in person, and write the whole sentence out. It calms down my old-codger curmudgeonly reflexes.

If the situation continues to deteriorate, collectively and culturally, I might consider migrating to the so-called "dirty web," [link] where the Russian teenage bootleggers and literal pornography criminals will eat my soul and ruin my already-poor credit.

Uncle Ofay's Good-Times Story Corner

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Educate, Agitate, Organize

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