Ayush Raj

My little journal. Feel free to hang out here. [Computer Programmer] Likes Anime, Literature and Video Games. Develops VNs too.

[ayushraj1024]

[ayushraj1024]

I had a wordpress blog on wordpress.com and I used to pay yearly for it. But then I felt like running out of funds. I really did. And I am suddenly becoming aware of my own limitations and my limited life. If I try to maintain my own blog and try to pay for it, it will only last for as long as I live or as long as I am capable to pay for it. I want my writings to ride on Google's energy and stay as immortal as Google Blogger platform. And so I created a simple blog on Blogger with no domain attachment or anything. It gives me a certain peace of mind knowing that even when I am gone Google's infrastructure will keep my blog alive for as long as Google exists. Which I believe is going to be pretty long.

[ayushraj1024]

Dried grass scene outside Whiterun

[ayushraj1024]

I am visiting Tumblr after a long time and I feel like I can be myself on this website because people I know IRL do not use Tumblr. And its not crowded like Twitter and its not toxic like Reddit. Its the perfect socializing website for people like me. I hope nobody I know IRL finds out about Tumblr. Lmao.

Although I can use a 'pen name' and go on other more popular websites but that will feel like erasing/effacing myself. And I don't want to do that. I will be dead one day anyway.

[ayushraj1024]

I have never been to the Fallout universe IRL but I don't know why whenever I see old brown wood it makes me feel nostalgic and at peace. I can almost smell the moisture in the woods in these places. These days all I see is concrete and concrete's strong and reliable and I am not against it but it feels dead and I feel dead staring at it.

[ayushraj1024]

generated this anime mommy on stable diffusion today

[ayushraj1024]

I started Oblivion the third time today and made a female monk build with no weapons.

[ayushraj1024]

[ayushraj1024]

Found this afternoon scene from the Prydwen really soothing so took a picture to share with you guys.

[ayushraj1024]

peaceful lamps

[ayushraj1024]

A Thought Experiment On Creativity

You should always bring out the creative impulses inside you. Now, these creative impulses can be of two types. One, you want to throw out all the garbage that you have accumulated over the years and two, you want to express something into this world that wants to be expressed through you. And doing both the things is important. No matter what kind of creative urge you have you must express both of them. If you don’t express the first kind it will make you and keep you psychologically sick. And if you don’t express the second kind then it will destroy your soul, your very identity. It becomes easy to imagine the regrets that you will have when you imagine yourself lying on your deathbed. If you are not totally unfortunate, you will know which bed is your deathbed.

So, imagine you are lying on your deathbed and now you feel the urge to create something (a piece of art). But now, your hands don’t move. Your legs don’t move and neither does your mouth. You know, it’s because you are dying. Now, you are going to feel great regret on your deathbed. And that is not a good place to be. I feel the heavy remorse just by imagining this situation. And, the worst thing is that you gave up on your own soul because of some Italian asshole who made a few albums a thousand years ago which are still selling and because of them your creative works are not able to sell even a single piece. Its harsh and its stupid but that’s the reality we live in.

But then, will it be any good to not give up on your soul? Like, does your creative work even has any significance at all? Now if you are making creative products because you are driven by the market and because you have heard that Picasso made millions just by painting and you want to do the same then get the fuck out of here. This is not the article you should be reading. I am not saying that markets are bad. I am just saying that’s not what we are discussing here. Markets run on the concept of supply and demand and also on the concept of limitation of resources and it has nothing to do with the inner depths of your soul and the relation of that soul with your creative urges. Markets are good. We need to generate money but creative products are a really bad way to go about it. Better make raw materials for railway lines and generate that sweet money, or just grow some food and sell it. It’s hard to sell Shakespeare to a starving population.

Now, you may ask, if I am starving but I still have the urge to create…should I create? Yes. Absolutely. But feed yourself first, of course, get that energy and then grab the canvas (or instrument) and create. It may be that none of your creations sell in the market. It may be that nobody gives a shit about your creations and maybe you create garbage. But, if the urge to create comes from deep inside you (if it is not associated with any other goal and you want to create just for the sake of creating and you don’t give a shit what happens after you have created) then go ahead and create. That is going to be absolutely significant.

I have a little thought experiment here. Maybe its not really an experiment, it can also be a way of life for some people and it can reveal the significance that each and every creative piece of work has (if it has come from the bottom of your being). Here it is: Consider that your sudden creative urges to be sentient objects that want to get a permission to exist on this planet. And only you can give them that permission because they exist inside you. They are yours but if they are urging you to create them, then they are telling you that they want to come out and exist. And…and this is the important part. They want to exist only as long as you do. After your death, they will perish too because they will lose the permission to exist on the planet because the soul which they belong to is no longer there. And they will happily stop existing in this world because they always want to be with the soul to which they belong. They got not business being in a world which no longer harbors their mother soul. You can call yourself a mother soul if you have really got those strong creative urges.

So, practically you can create, let’s say, pieces of art and you can hang them around your room/your corner of the room/your laptop/your phone anywhere. Just make them exist in this world. And after you die someone else will take your room/laptop/phone whatever and they will take all your creative work down and throw it in the trash, burn it, sell it yada yada. It does not matter. Those works of art have already departed with you. They are thankful that you made them exist in this world and now they have gone with you to your next journey and they will nag you to exist again in another realm.

So, does that not make you feel a deep significance for your own creative works? I maybe a moron and I got no business talking about philosophy but many thinkers in the past have compared the urge to create with pregnancy. Like, I don’t remember names but I will let you know when I do remember them. So, if those great thinkers have compared it to pregnancy, then I believe that my ‘thought experiment’ might be damn close to reality. And even if it is not, can we not just consider this to be true because it radically increases the significance of our creative works to ourselves?

So, my brothers and sisters, don’t look at the market, don’t look at the revenue. Make your creative works exist because they love you and want to be here with you as long as you exist.

Ciao!

[ayushraj1024]

I looked for this game for 14 years and found it today – Sukeban Deka III

First time I played this game on a pirated NES cartridge which I bought from one of the gift shops in my city. Back then, I only used to get money from my parents to buy NES cartridges on festival occasions (I didn’t know they were pirated back then. I didn’t know what piracy was). Well, we were not poor but we couldn’t afford to spend money on entertainment too often. So, yeah, after I got it, plugged it into my pirated SNES and I started it and found it had 3 other games; Jackal (quite famous), Saint Seiya Knights Of The Zodiac (which I have covered in another article here: https://ayushraj.cc/2020/01/22/end-of-an-era-and-saint-seiya-knights-of-the-zodiac/), there was a space game? and then there was this Sukeban Deka III but in the cartridge it was named ‘Pretty Girl Fighters’ and that was the reason I was not able to find it on the internet when I searched ‘Pretty Girl Fighters’ lol.

But today (7 March 2021) I searched for ‘Detective NES game’ because I was searching for another game I am not able to find for maybe 16 years but I will write about it when I finally find it. I scrolled down the Google images list and found the title screen of Sukeban Deka III.

When I saw the title I felt a strange set of emotions. First one was like, ‘Wait what? Really? After all these years and especially when I am not looking for it?’. Really, this game showed up out of the blue. But when I saw the title screen I knew I had to grab all the details about it. The most important one was of course, the name of the game. These guys have the details hosted and indexed in Google, thanks to them I was able to find it: https://www.gogofreegames.com/sukeban-deka-iii-nes-english-patch-download/ and then followed their link to get the translation of the game and came across these guys:https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2756/

Again thanks to them both that I was able to find this game. Finding this game was like revisiting my a part of my childhood which I really really wanted to revisit. Because back then I was never able to relax and enjoy my games, there was always the tension of schools and homework. I hated school. It made my entire childhood hell (But hey, it gave me ‘DEGREE’ and now I am able to make money and buy games so I guess its a poison you have to drink). But that is for another article lol.

So, I fired the game up this time on fceux and with a pirated ROM. And honestly, its difficult to describe how I felt. Those are some very precious pieces of emotions and I never want to let them fade. I cannot really describe them because putting them in words will make them seem less precious and significant than they are so I will leave it up to you to imagine how that felt. I believe our imagination is more powerful than words. So, right, I got into the first stage, didn’t apply the translation yet, and boy…it was the same game I had played back then. The game was buggy but still I enjoyed playing it again. ❤

There are three girls you can choose in this game. One fires a yoyo, another one fires origami cranes and the third one fires sticks I think? I was not able to comprehend what she was firing because of the pixel graphics. I believe pixel graphics give us more room to interpret the game in our own way (like a poem). But that is for another article again, lol.

I have reasons to say that it is a very early type of isometric game. You can’t really see the depth because the tiles look really flat and it looks like the characters are simply paper cutouts put on top of an isometric map. When you jump it feels weird and the hostile projectiles still hit you even if you try to jump out of their way. When you fire projectiles it doesn’t feel so weird. When I roamed about the stage I felt I was in Japan myself, lol. A little more pixelated and flatter Japan. The music is repetitive electronic music but it gives the game a really weird atmosphere which feels serene and gives the game a class of its own and hence the obscurity. Well, the obscurity might be because of the way the game plays. Its not for everyone honestly. You have to be really sensitive to feel what the game is actually about or what the game was actually meant to make you feel. If you are also really sensitive to emotions I suggest you try this game. Use fceux emulator on PC: https://fceux.com/web/home.html and get the ROM from here: https://wowroms.com/en/roms/nintendo-entertainment-system/sukeban-deka-iii-japan/23729.html and don’t forget the translation: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2756/ it may be a pain to install though. And hey, I think you will feel the real game by playing it in Japanese itself. Part of the reason why I am learning Japanese these days. The other part of the reason why I am learning Japanese is…( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)…well, you know it.

Anyway, I was not able to find what to do in the game and just kept roaming around and having a look at the surroundings until my health went down to zero with all the three girls. And then it was game over. I am thinking of applying the translation and playing it again and I will try to clear the game a little further this time. I will keep you posted if I come across something really interesting in this game in the later stages.

Oh, and before I forget, when I got to know the name of the game I searched for the anime and manga and found them both! Names are important guys. The manga and anime are both available in English too (subbed anime). You can find them here if you want; anime: https://kissanimex.com/anime/5838-sukeban-deka and manga: http://kissmanga.cc/sukeban-deka-chapter-1#1

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thank you for your time! 😊

[ayushraj1024]

[ayushraj1024]

Whenever I used to play games on full screen I used to feel a sense of dread and loneliness for not being able to see my icons and be distracted by them.

Now I play in windowed mode and don't feel the loneliness anymore. Today I understood the importance of windowed mode.

[ayushraj1024]

Sometimes I start Skyrim and listen to some Zen stories while wandering around in the game. It actually feels like you are back in the olden times.

[ayushraj1024]

Posting after such a long time. Did I post this screenshot before? Work on Kori's Fable is still going on please look forward to it. One of my good friends suggested turning the game into a 3d action game and that will make it more attractive to the market. I looked into that possibility for quite a long time but in the end I really couldn't muster up the courage to throw away all the work already done on the visual novel and start afresh on the Unreal Engine and honestly I don't give jack shit about the market.

The first screenshot shows Kori talking to her witch granny Sheetala. She will get more clothes as the game progresses. The second screenshot shows Kori's currently unlocked sorcery power. You will be able to select options in battle and you will have to choose proper options according to your current powers or your are gonna get the pretty girl hurt! °~°

It will still take some time for the game to come out even as a demo. But I will keep you posted on its progress. Thanks for reading! ;)

[ayushraj1024]

My hair is so big now that I have to wear a girl's hair band to keep it from coming to my eyes.