Purumus.net

• E would be the central character of the english language.

I’m making a program to help my amada learn how to listen to and pronounce Spanish syllables. It’s fairly straight forward to put together the rules set for Spanish’s phonetic constructions; disregarding grammar and aesthetic academic pursuits, of course. I’m only basing it on the knowledge of the language I’m acquainted with, which is not a scholar’s - Yet, in contrast to her knowledge base, is comparatively infinite (larger than she would care to know or think possible at the moment). Fortunately for her, my vocabulary is that of a native speaker.

Based on a simple matching schematic, here are some of the rules, that excluding Proper Nouns, which span ALL languages (McCarthy for example) seem to apply to most of spanish

• Only 2 letters, ‘r’ and ‘l’ are ever repeated next to each other.
• The letters ‘r’ and ‘l’ also are the only letters used in a 3 letter syllable where 2 consonants are next to each other, e.g. “bra”, “bla”
• ‘H’ is always silent unless preceded by only two letters {’c', and ’s’}
• Most dual letter combinations in Spanish form phonemes.
  • There are some redundant graphenes (unique sounds from letter combinations that form a phoneme)
    • Anyone that starts with ‘w’, ‘x’, ‘q’ are found from other graphemes.
    • Anything with ‘h’ is just like the sound of the single vowel.
• There are special cases for syllable brakeup. 
• In words, there are no single consonant syllables. except for y = “and” and is phonetically equal to “i”
• Syllables are broken up in groups of 2 or 3 letters… any larger are extremely uncommon
• R has the most special consideration for placement within a word. sounding differently if starting a word than if in the middle of it
• etc.

I decided to make the program have a bottom up approach because I would like her to learn like a kid learns to read spanish. I cant afford Berlitz either… There are tricks that people should practice in order to acquire a more natural accent. Kids are taught to say the vowels over and over with a little limerick “a, e, i, o, u, mas sabe el burro que tu”. Additionally, rolling the tongue is actually done in english quite commonly. The common misconception is that every ‘r’ sounds like a woodpecker pecking away; machine gun like. the majority of the ‘r’s use can be summed up in the way the ‘t’ is pronounced in english when the following phrase is said quickly, “Cut away”. The machine gun?… I haven’t come up with an analogue for that one - YET!

Another observation:

Sequoia is a beautiful word in spanish and english. It sounds exactly the same in both languages, especially when pronounced carefully. The cool thing about that word, it has every vowel… and in case english speaking people forget how a vowel is supposed to sound ALWAYS in spanish, saying “sequoia” should point them in the right direction.

I’ll have a demo of the word “banana” pretty soon. Ba-ná-na using pitch shifting to create the correct enunciation of the middle “na” phoneme.

More later…

Posting once a month and plug software not games… pathetic human!

So getting on with it… I’ve found that MS One Note is amazing for keeping game designs more organized.

Benefits:

• Main organizing group: The notebook
  • great for keeping track of those scratch notes!
• OCR + Voice recognition search
  • keep notes, and SEARCH throughout even graphics with text pertaining to the topic
• Keeps perfect Word Formating
• Publishes to PDF, which is where many docs are kept anyway.
• Hyperlinks within itself
• Main hierarchy: Notebook -> Section Tabs -> pages
• Cheap ~$50~ bucks for student… part of Home/student office for $140… pretty good deal.
• MS will continue to support it
• Tablet PC and wacom tablet ready

Could need improvement:

• Does not publish self referencial hyperlinks
• No embedable content
  • It would be brilliant if it were to embed flash, even silverlight, making it able to access prototypes.
  • Video would be great!
• Does not publish multiple pages
  • I’m basically asking for a wysiwyg frontpage for dummies, but a man can dream!
• Not available on mac which does not allow it to be crossplatform

here’s a link for you to try it… it’s a very good option to using word, whose tools options are limited for all the Random Access game design docs should have:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/default.aspx

I’ll keep adding benefits/improvements as i find them…

Purum

Comeback after reading this here: http://kotaku.com/5127816/developers-respond-to-nintendos-hint-system-patent

It seems that people are reacting very poorly to just one of the myriad of possibilities this patent could mean to gaming. I may agree with the hardcore street cred reaction, since, in a way i avoid strategy guides for this very reason; TO KEEP MY CRED. Yet, i’ve got a feeling it is a small, knee-jerk reaction, that makes me feel ill against this type of functionality/” new paradigm”.

It’s no surprise that very few people react negatively to the fact that Nintendo is going to patent something that might be as unnecesary to patent as Amazon’s one-click. It looks to be one of those patents that more than anything, seek to restrict others from a simple implementation; nesting on patents to sue the first person that does the idea. I strongly disagree with patents being used litigiously. Given how many patents Nintendo has violated (1, 2, 3), and how many other companies’ ideas from which they’ve benefited (atari, sony, SGI), it seems contradictory that a patent would be awarded to those who violate other’s patents. It’s like Apple accusing Microsoft of stealing from them, when they stole everything from Xerox, makes their case easily disregarded by people other than mac zealots - though i love macs

Outside of the legal ramifications of patents, people do not remember under which legacy concepts or other historical trends they part from or follow when growing their industry. And boy, is it apparent when talking with younger people; not because of a youthfull arrogance on their part (I should note), but actually because of a lack of recorded history on our side. Videogame history is going to suffer from the same blunders that plagues film history; bad archiving due to bad vaults, recreating wheels all over the place and just being plain forgetful.

You may remember - back in the day - Nintendo had their hint line, which if you wanted to, you could have a nintendo game assistant help you through the game… for a PRICE (something like 25c per minute). This was also before the days of tutorials and the net. And as a matter of fact, it still exists. Today, I’m willing to bet a paycheck that the majority (over 80%) of players have looked up a walkthrough or a gamefaq at one point of their lives. It’s ok if people wont admit it… i can hear their Machismo yell, “NOOOO, I have never, EVER, bought a strategy guide or read through a walkthrough, or used a game genie, etc., that’s for sissies!”

Right!

I’LL ADMIT IT! I called Nintendo’s Powerline for a rented Super Metroid cartridge without instructions just to find out where to place that damn megabomb; i’m SO ashamed… really 8-|

I didnt do the "for dummies version"; it has less guilt.

Now, I’m not saying that cheating is ok. In competitive leagues, where people look to set standards and raise the performance bar year after year, cheating is always and should be always frowned upon. This is mostly because cheating seeks an to gain an advantage that wasn’t appropriated through simple self improvement AKA PRACTICE. It could be said that steroids and drugs form a part of this lack of standard ideals in the sports world. Tying the two together, for example, it would  be considered cheating to use Ritalin or Adderall when playing a game such as an FPS or RTS against someone or against a group. So in that case, having a player that plays better than you beat the game FOR you, when your score (achievements, Trophies, or the like) ranks you higher against others in terms of ability; cheating, guides, etc. sets up an unfair and untruthful environment for the years that record may govern. It also artificially raises the competition level and makes people distrust the medium, thus neutralizing the scoring body of officials.

HOWEVER, i dont opine that, when used for personal recreation, these aids are bad for anyone, nor that they hinder the medium in any way; especially when implemented as equalizers such as assistants for the handicapped, elderly or casual players, etc. People tend to forget all the advantages they have today compared to the arcade heyday. Back then, the pressure to get good at a machine was both a social showcase and financial limitation. Today we have: guides, the net, in-game hints, easy-med-hard modes, in-game tutorials, practice mode, AUTOAIM, etc. which should remind people to be careful when using any of these for emasculating accusations (cause it seems that mostly males complain about other males, gaming hasnt matured out of this primitive behavior).

Lots of these behaviors come from school. Kids in highschool (and many adults) still think that even after graduating highschool cliff’s notes are a bad thing; that audiobooks deduct IQ points from your license IQ stats as if someone were keeping track.

Complainers should understand that the benefit of reading through the entirety of the experience is still palpable even to those who have already “skimped” through some pages. In other words, seeing the Romeo & Juliet before reading the play should not impair the experience of learning to read Shakespeare, and moreover, reading it would allow the reader an extended understanding, not a reduced one. I believe that if they made a Cliff’s note that was better than the book, then teachers would assign those too, just as if they made a movie that was better than a book. As a matter of fact, books that sumarize Don Quijote as interpreted by a character reading the book have gained fame and are even accepted as their own literature. Moreover, some movies serve as good enticers or companions to the books they’re based on… these opportunities add to the subject matter, why couldnt the Autopilot Patent add as well? why do people think it automatically subtracts? I understand that mediums have certain requisites, like vision for movies; hearing for music, but seeing a game vs playing a game isn’t so extreeme as the previously mentioned.

The self oppressed are indeed a loud bunch. And by self-oppressed i mean those who use other’s standards too close when forming an opinion of themselves. Shortcuts (such as Cliff’s notes, autopilot, etc) that harm no one might actually indicate the player’s intent on being selective of what you want to enjoy. One of my colleagues insists on playing games with cheats for this reason, “i want to play the game how IIII want to play the game, without restrictions or limitations by the designers”. It’s usually kids that think that they can see all the movies that exist, play all the games that come out… then, when they reach adulthood, they learn to become selective and picky about their choices, so they can have time to enjoy other things like dating, etc. This pickiness is a part of what shapes their personality; what they’re into. When being too picky, pickiness leads to snobbery. But aren’t all enthusiasts battling this? the choice between being a snob or not? In truth, people eventually realize they don’t have the time to read all the books in the world. They have to form generalized opinions about what it is they KNOW they like; you wish you could, but you dont have enought time to stop and smell all the flowers…

my suggestions about welcoming this patent whenever someone implements it:

• It can be monetized, just as guides are bought: you could buy and download the autopilot. After all, it will cost development time to craft the autopilot system. It would be like buying a Cliff’s Notes plugin.
• This could be used to help the handicapped; it will be a gameplay equalizer. I dont buy a game for the challenge, i buy it for the entertainment; otherwise, people would buy I wanna be the guy for $50. If you dont believe me, go here and beat this game. The difficulty in some games makes people of VARYING abilities
• This could make a rental of a bad game a bit better.
• This feature could be unlocked after an achievement is attained, making the autopilot initially unavailable; perhaps available only after the game is finished.
• This could increase value to a game that has multiple characters, where it would take lots of time to play the game as every single character.
• Consumer demand will make or brake this feature. Not all games in the PS3, which has waggle, utilize this because of the Wii’s popularity. XBOX refuses to allow mouse support in their console, which would arguably make lots of the simultaneously developed PC-XBOX games easier to produce, more unified, and easier to play. I Disagree with M$’s insistance, but their success isn’t dictated by this peculiarity.

The talking heads freak out first. I’m not initially an optimist on most days, but this really made me look into it with a bit more study. I hope you can see benefits where there are some and potentially avoid the pitfalls wherever they are; on this patent too.

Purum

Pay attention:

Wow, this link is important to you, follow the rabbit.

I love the use of particles in BRAID… it is amazing, and the art is certainly unique. Its main asset is not its visual execution, but its selection of animation. The character is looking a bit up, not just forward, as if he’s introspective. Tim looks constantly concerned with something, loosening his tie, slightly frowning; as if he’s thinking about arriving somewhere on-time. Also, every time he gets hurt, it looks as if he took the punch that killed Houdini poorly… It looks painful!

Anyways, follow that link

I was surprised to find out that Chakotay is vegetarian… interesting! Most of the food they use is replicated, which i guess it makes it like a soy based unturkey pork chop, or vegan cheese. Would the knowledge of eating replicated food prevent him from indulging in replicated “meats”? Or would it only be an issue when cooking with raw materials? What if the raw materials were replicated and then cooked?

Not being vegetarian, I think that there would be no issue. It’s reprocessed matter that comes from recycled matter. For arguments sake, maybe I wouldn’t as it would prevent me from being tempted or dubious about its preparation. One thing is for sure though, there wouldn’t be many that would complain about the treatment of the animals, since there wouldn’t be any poor treatment, and it would also not be about the food taste… I’m guessing it all tastes bland anyhow.

Purum

I wonder: why don’t people, when playing game characters, walk around the game’s city and ponder about that person eating an endless bowl of soup in the corner cafe with the same depth as they do about the man and the couple found in Edward Hopper’s masterpiece?

After all, they repeat almost the same amount of times…

The three stooges, laurel and hardy, some cartoons, Cantinflas, old movies, I was one of the last generations to see these types of shows on network TV on Sunday mornings… TV land may show it today in cable, but that’s not the point… I watched them because my dad showed them to me, and because there just wasn’t anything else on Sunday mid-mornings; that or church shows, and that just really wasn’t an option.

I remember asking dad if those shows were old, and he’d say “Si”. And i remember asking him why they didn’t have color? he’d say because those were old cameras. but that wasn’t sufficiently explicit for my infant mind. It made more sense to think that color was new, since i knew I wasn’t old, so therefore in those first attempts at a logical argument, the conclusion was obvious: color wasn’t available in the olden days; in the grandpa days. I thought that only recently the world invented color. During the time, Kodak also had tv ads that talked about how they had “blue” and “yellow” and the remaining cast of the rainbow, in their cameras (though they didn’t specify film) as if it were a modern accomplishment.

Since, I’ve come to the conclusion that black and white cameras were a bit better “Cadillacs”… they looked more like what i remember from a film. Now, film makers use black and white as an artistic style; employing it when necessary to enhance a movies storytelling needs. Think about the great films that didn’t NEED color to be great. Why are they so amazing? Is it because we cut em some slack because they’re technically “challenged”? Is Nostalgia assisting the subject matter? I can see how the acting has gotten more real, but the magic of those movies diminishes when anything is “fixed”; it seems. I remember when i thought pan and scan was better because i lacked information about what gets projected (more like what what didn’t get cut) onto my TV pixels… I used to think that the whole screen was MORE. Come to think about it… old movies weren’t wide-screen aspect ratio… another topic i guess.

I remember being a kid and learning to want black and white movies to get colorized. But then i learned about the process, about how directors think ahead about what they’re getting from their cameras; about how the “mastering” process touches up the film grain, how the film itself decays, and how the awareness of that finalization process is involved in the choices and decision directors and the rest of the crew make… colorizing never took into consideration those things. The crew were aware how a blue dress would translate into black and white, maybe that deterred them from using a blue dress… just so that the coloring process paints a characters dress blue without the film makers blessing. Touching up movies like that seems like a sin against most art. Art needs to ship, and artists (even though they’re “never done”) build respect into their artistry by showing the world how they learn to let go of their creations or let IT go on how it will, always moving on to the next project. So, coloring? no, i can take the original vision and i can try to understand it; yet, if i somehow “miss the point”, that’s OK… always more stuff to understand.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have proven to be the ultimate control freaks by showing others how they need to manipulated everything and even change things from their movies because “newer audiences”, blah, blah… ET was fine with shotguns, Han Shot first.

Megaman9 just came out, brand new game done in an old, 8bit style… used to enhance a games style and im sure, to help the new and “modern” audience understand the style of gameplay, while also “justifying” the “hardcoreness” difficulty the old games had… all that only through a visual art style… amazing.

but im not here to talk about that really. After all, that’s not what the title of this post hints at. I wondered, what would my kids think is “new” to their world from looking at the movies from my generation. Here are a couple of things, some societal, some topical, some technological, and then onto the one about this post:

• the lack of cellphones seen as a plot device to insert conflict into the story.
  • The plot of “reservoir Dogs” is destroyed if it were though about it occurring today. as it stands, the movie is dated to that era (before the ubiquity of cellphones) and therefore could not be remade or updated in the future.
• Characters ignorant of a broader sense of world history and world culture.
  • Since our society is up for globalization, everyone will have some details about all corners of the world; unless the writers want to risk portraying their characters as “ignorant Americans”. Therefore, even the ignorant American in the future will know where Estonia is located… Ignorant American will be antiquated and a new laundry list of ignorant things to think and say will need to be issued, one for a people that is more aware of itself… mind you, im not saying everyone will be intelligent, just less self centered about their ignorance, just a bit more global
• Availability of personal Transportation continues to fluctuate, and with it change through out the decades the viewers understanding of the people’s social class.
  • 50’s everyone had their muscle car… then people live in new york (big city that implies richness) and they dont need cars… I think more cities are going in the way of the big metro city and therefore, kids wont see having personal transportation promoted as luxurious (depends where they’re from, of course) from movies
• Movie projection unavailable in 3D or + interactivity or + sense enhancement
  • “you mean, you have to use your hands?” Elijah Wood in Back to the Future II. Displays will continue to get bigger, but megaplexes, in order to entice dwindling audiences, will make the movie experience more life like, and impossible (for a little while) to reproduce at home
• Actors being used instead of Computer Manipulated actors (for example, though it’s not a good movie “SimOne”)
  • Final Fantasy spirits within, The polar Express, Beowulf, it will continue to get better, that’s almost guaranteed. Video Games will influence this (see the next bullet) and the Uncanny Valley will be crossed within the next 10 years… I’m not hoping, I’m just sure.
• Inability to customize the actors to the viewers liking.
  • Kids will be able to say, i want to watch blues clues with me as one of the protagonists. Sesame Street will teach you the numbers with you IN the show, inserting a “dummy” 3d model of yourself with some basic AI for kids to see themselves learning the numbers in front of the count in what im coining as “4th person self juxtaposition”<- i don’t know if that makes any sense, but i have personal memories of being a kid, seeing myself in 3rd person, no mirrors around.

and the main suggestion of the post… Lots of old/aging people

I think that’s the one that might shock people/kids some years from now. Not that elders wont be around, but that they wont be so “wrinkly” (think Paris Hilton saying wrinkly). I think kids will wonder why people look old some day, and perhaps think that being and looking old is “old”. I don’t think we’re all going to mix into one race… that’s maybe tooooo many years from what this post “postulates” (couldn’t resist the alliteration, sorry). But I’ve always wondered why movies from the 30’s have women that look from the 30s, and no matter how much they try to make “modern” women look like older generations in contemporary movies, they fail miserably.

Even the accents are crucial. Everything actors did has changed; mannerisms, accents, syntax, expletives, empathy, crying, etc. Go to an elderly home of people from a particular generation, it’s like a museum… kids will see that even more. no wonder they say 30 is the new 20. We’re lasting longer, it will be documented in movies and kids will wonder and ask you, why do those people look like that, what’s with their skin and hair and posture? They were old human models, kid

Yes, I’m a rockband drummer. I’m 2 songs away from finishing all rockband 1 songs in hard, many still on Rockband 2. And although i know i can play some songs on expert mode, i kinda refuse to play at that level until i can beat “run through the hills”; Para-diddles FTW someday soon. Thanks to Taylor Popkins, Awesome Drummer!

I’ve always brown nosed drummers, much to my chagrin. The theory goes that since they hold so much of the rockness of a band, my rockness is perpetually paused until I can say, “HE/SHE’s MY Drummer!!!”  in a jealous fit of rage, warning all around to throw down a glove and prepare to duel. It’s admirable how some band members have that comradery; they show they belong to one another. Lennon said nasty things about McCartney, but he didn’t let anyone else dump on him, or anyone else in his band.

However, Drummers are a bit “aware” of their volume (spatially). Think about it, they have the largest instrument, the loudest instrument, the instrument that rarely fails on them: how many drummers play (on purpose) with broken cymbals, shitty sticks, jerry-rigged/squeaky kick pedals. Electricity is also unneeded, where as anything but a percussive instrument (pianos included), requires juice. They’re the least portable, but drummers who mind carrying their own instruments are few… AND I’VE OFFERED TO HELP THEM CARRY THEIR STUFF! have i tried! They require the best neighbors and the least micro managing parents. Yeah, there are a whole bunch of drummer jokes, but everyone knows too, no beats, no show.

Also, it seems that lots of drummers are the heads of their group. They seem to be the most entrepreneurial. maybe they need to make sure money’s coming in so they can afford the sticks

I cant wait for the legion of drummers the rock band game will unleash upon the world. This will make, indubitably, drummers easier to find and cheaper to maintain.

Anyways, I’m much better playing the drums now. The way that I’ve proven it is to record with the rockband drum kit onto MIDI for my own music. The example is on the downloads page, here’s the quick download link… oh BTW, all songs are demos until they make me money or get us a gig.

Now i need rockband guitarists.