#david pittman

[yetisidelblog]

48 Hours to Stop Pittman’s Execution

In just 48 hours, Florida plans to carry out its 12th execution this year — the fastest and deadliest pace in recorded history. On Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. ET, David Pittman is scheduled to be killed.

At a time when violence is everywhere, Florida’s government has chosen to meet violence with more violence. The death penalty fuels cycles of hate and deepens our collective wounds.

Here’s how you can act now:

Sign the petition for David Pittman — we will deliver your signatures to the Governor’s office on Wednesday at 12 p.m.

Join us at Florida State Prison this Wednesday at 5 p.m. for a vigil to stand against David’s execution. If you cannot be there in person, attend a local vigil or join online.

Send a message to Governor DeSantis demanding he stop David’s execution.

After taking action for David, please also stand with:

Victor Jones — scheduled to be the 13th person executed in Florida this year on Sept. 30. Victor is an intellectually disabled Black man and a survivor of Florida’s infamous Okeechobee School for Boys, where he was brutally abused. Less than eight months after the State formally acknowledged him as a survivor of torture and paid him compensation, Governor DeSantis signed his death warrant. Take action for Victor now: bit.ly/SpareVictor.

Samuel Smithers — scheduled to be executed on Oct. 14. Take action for Samuel now: bit.ly/SpareSamuel.

@writerofweird @bogleech @one-time-i-dreamt @greenwingspino

@therealjacksepticeye @thetempurmental

[letterboxd-loggd]

Leave No Trace (2018) Debra Granik

March 9th 2024

[yetisidelblog]

Violence Won’t Heal Violence

Florida is on the brink of carrying out its 12th execution this year – the state’s deadliest pace in history. On Wednesday, September 17, David Pittman is scheduled to be killed.

At a time when violence is everywhere, Florida’s government has chosen to meet violence with more violence. The death penalty is punishment-as-spectacle, rooted in retribution and hatred. It does not make us safer. It does not deliver justice. It does not prevent future harm. Instead, it normalizes violence, fuels cycles of hate, and deepens our collective wounds.

David Pittman’s own life shows what those cycles look like. He grew up in extreme poverty, with a mother who gleefully admitted to whipping him with a belt from the time he was four years old – sometimes every day. His family could not afford to continue the psychiatric treatment he needed. Violence, neglect, and hardship shaped his childhood long before the state ever called him “defendant.” Killing David now cannot and will not undo that harm.

Sign the petition for David – we will deliver your signatures to the Governor’s office next week

Send Governor DeSantis a message. Tell him to stop David’s execution

Attend a vigil or protest, either with us across from Florida State Prison, online, or at one of the many events around the state

Once you have taken action for David, please sign this petition for Victor Jones, who is scheduled to be the 13th person executed in Florida this year. Victor survived brutal abuse at Florida’s infamous Okeechobee School for Boys. Victor’s jury never heard about the horrific abuse he suffered as a child, or that the State itself created the trauma that shaped his life. Less than eight months after the State formally acknowledged him as a survivor of torture at Okeechobee and issued him compensation, Governor DeSantis signed his death warrant and set his execution for September 30. Take action now.

Look around. Florida is feeding the rage. All around us, violence is spilling over. The fear and anger in our country are unmistakable. And instead of breaking that cycle, Florida is amplifying it. Executions are the government’s display of rage: a ritual of retribution that fuels hatred rather than healing.

Together, we can stand against Florida’s machinery of death – and for a future that prioritizes healing, not hate.

[procedural-generation]

Li'l Taffer by David Lindsey Pittman

A minimalist stealth game with procedurally generated levels.

Li'l Taffer

I have a taxonomy I use to determine which games made the biggest impression on me. The highest category is "games which I have incorporated into my dreams" and it is fairly rare that a game gets added to that list. One of the first games on that list is Thief: The Dark Project, and if you're going to tell me that you made a Thief-inspired stealth game with procedurally-generated levels that will of course catch my attention.

Thus when David Lindsey Pittman's 7DayFPS/ProcJam game crossed my path, Li'l Taffer caught my attention.

It definitely captures the vibe of Thief, though the procedurally-generated levels made me think about how much of the original game is about learning the layout of buildings and how architecture works. So while the levels do have the feel of some of the more surreal Thief maps, they lack the hand-placed coherency that the original game relied on.

There's ways Li'l Taffer could have mitigated this. There's already some logic to the way that some rooms are constructed (libraries and bathrooms and the like) but I think a generative project needs to go harder on signaling to the player what is going on. We can't rely on the presence of a human sensibility in the level designer, so that sensibility needs to be encoded into the level generator in a very visible way. Or, it could have gone the other direction, and played up the surreal nature of the levels. They are, after all, designed by an alien intelligence intruding into our dimension (i.e. an AI level designer).

In the event, the rules of Li'l Taffer as a game make bad situations recoverable, using the Thief approach to dealing with partial failure margins and applying it to generated content, similar to the shovel in Crypt of the Necrodancer. Which is a good reminder that the fixes for weaknesses in your generator don't necessarily need to be in the generator itself. In this case, the gameplay is about recovering from the difficult situations the level generator throws at you.

But ultimately, I was just happy it gave me the occasion to revisit Thief.

[jmsebastian]

Visually Adapting Horror: The Art of Minor Key’s Eldritch

Thanks to the vivid imagery of the horror of H.P. Lovecraft, there is no shortage of games that try to adapt his particular brand of horror into a playable nightmare. Rarely do they succeed. The thing about adapting the written word into a visual medium is that anyone familiar with the original work is going to have their own interpretation of the imagery presented. Betray that sensibility too much and you risk alienating players from the very beginning. Lovecraftian horror is especially tricky since such a large portion of the mythos hinges on the idea that gaining knowledge of the cosmic horrors contained within the stories results in unavoidable madness. This is especially true of anyone who manages to see these horrors. It’s interesting, then, that the game Eldritch, developed by Minor Key Games and designer, David Pittman, chose to represent the unknowable with a simple, relatively low detail art style.

The title screen of the game, depicted above, is a wonderful work with a great amount of detail. The player is shown the canonical hero of the tale, an adventurer that heavily resembles Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft. Her safari hat and ascot provide hints of an English background, though her background is not really expanded upon too much. The fish man leaping at her has a pattern to his skin, his webbed hands and feet suggesting his natural habitat is a much more aquatic one than the stone temple shown in the background. What’s so great about this title screen is that it follows in the tradition of video games made for early video game systems, like the Atari 2600. For those games, the box art would show a highly detailed painting on the game box or cartridge label that was supposed to spark the player’s imagination after they booted the game and saw single colored, often unrecognizable pixelated characters. Eldritch shares this practically wholesale. Once the player gets past the title screen, the hand drawn style vanishes and what takes its place is something that would feel very natural to anyone familiar with Minecraft. Everything is very blocky, the textures have a low resolution look to them, animations are simple or nonexistent. The player character’s arms don’t even move while walking. They just stick out in front of them like a horror movie mummy, stiff and unflinching.

Perhaps the game’s most detailed component, the player character, goes unseen for most of the game due to the perspective being in first person. In the starting area of the Library, the player can walk up to a mirror to check themselves out and change a few attributes to suit their liking. The depiction of the character demonstrates some key detail like hair color and style, skin tone, facial hair or lack thereof, but the character’s body resembles a papier mache doll. The arms are very cylindrical, the head is too spherical with a few extra polygons to give facial definition. Most of the real detail comes in the form of the torn looking shirt front and the various lines on pants, boots, shirt cuffs and hair. These are simple ways to evoke a much more detailed image in a player’s mind. It’s very unlikely that the player will be spending much time looking in this mirror, if any at all, so these key details are a bit more than the standard enemy or wall texture will produce, but they aren’t so overemphasized that they distract from the rest of the world, which the player will be able to view from much closer up.

(Looking in the mirror)

As first established by the mirror, the art of the game is designed to facilitate the necessary information first and sell an atmosphere second. There is an obvious lack of realism to the objects. The player’s fists, for example, are constantly closed. They never open or adjust to the environment. Holding an item in one’s hands simply places the object’s model over the top or through the hand, which works well enough, but is hardly breathtaking.

(There isn’t even a finger near the trigger)

The thing about the simplicity of the style is that those more minute details don’t really matter. In an interview Pittman did with Dice Hard, he talks about how he wanted the art to let players know what they were looking at, but be abstract enough so that they didn’t become a point of criticism. The argument is that when a game tries to impress with its graphical fidelity, it risks being scrutinized to the point where the overall effect of the game is lost, or at least there is a big distraction away from what’s most important. To combat that, a good enough philosophy plays to the game’s strengths a lot more, relying on how the game feels and the quality of the play experience to convince the player of the world they occupy while playing.

The game, at its core, is a roguelike, where the combat mechanics closely mirror Bioshock. The first person perspective offers high tension action that doesn’t really allow the player to focus too heavily on the art. Since the goal is to find the exit of each level and each new step could take the player into grave danger, the player has little time to worry about whether or not a mage’s cloak has properly rendered cloth physics. The art as presented, in its low polygon format, offers immediate conveyance of what each weapon and object are and what each enemy type is. There’s little need to worry beyond that. The art, paired with some simple particle effects to indicate a magic ability equipped or a heavy white fog to decrease draw distance and obscure threats goes a very long way in ratcheting up the tension, which is what gives the its convincing setting. Not dissimilar to how Wolfenstein 3D can still cause panic in players despite its now cartoonish Nazi sprites, Eldritch’s focus on immersing players in the mechanics of the game bear most of the weight when it comes to keeping players anxious and alert.

(The now classic indie horror title IMSCARED uses an absurdly pixelated art style, but White Face can still cause you to need a change of underwear)

The game’s main worlds are able to vary a great deal with fairly little effort based on some simple texture differences and color palette swaps. The first level players will likely go after opening the Purple Book is full of rocky textured purples and blues. It feels underground and the red brick and steel beams are reminiscent of a deep mine of some type.

(The Purple Book level)

Contrast that with the light browns and oranges of the world of the Red Book, which feels like a desert palace. The numerous red and purple drapes suggest this was special place, but the high number of traps and lizard guardian statues that come to life when gotten too close also give the impression that the uninitiated were certainly unwelcome and would meet a grisly end for their transgressions.

(The lizards of stone mean only death)

The levels of Eldritch are randomly generated, meaning that each new play session offers a new take on each level. The world of the Purple Book will always contain the same elements, but they will be arranged in new ways. Pittman has stated that part of the reason for having procedurally generated levels was because he could offer players more game for less work, using the written algorithms to create variety and novelty, rather than hand designing them himself. The levels are usually three floors in height, with each floor occupying a 4x4 grid. Getting to the exit requires the player to drop deeper into each level, but the actual distance to the exit might be pretty short, depending on how the level gets generated. Because textures can look a little samey, and the most direct ways through are often blocked, the player must make their way up and down ladders, use tools to break through walls to create more direct paths, and do their best to memorize the layout against architecture and design that seems purposefully arranged to obfuscate the goal.

The artistic benefits of randomly generated levels are that they subtly reflect Lovecraft’s concept of the lost city of R’lyeh. In the Cthulhu mythos, R’lyeh is a city that lacks any kind of understandable architecture. It exists in a way that cannot accurately be described nor recreated using any methods known to humans. In a small way, the randomness of the levels, and the fact that they change with every play session upon death means that Eldritch can harness a bit of this madness as being somewhat consistent to Lovecraft’s ideas. There are doors that lead to nowhere, pathways that dead end suddenly or turn back on themselves for no reason. It is a wonderful side effect of practical game design that just happens to coincide with the themes of Lovecraft’s work.

Even with art that might not instantly evoke fear out of players (the Cthulhu inspired monsters have an almost cute look to them if you can spot one without it chasing after you), Eldritch plays up the psychological element of Lovecraft’s horror to great effect. The stone lizard men of the Red Book area stand motionless at all times. Getting too close to them triggers a shake of dust and the sound of cracking rock. Turn away from them and they will instantly warp behind you to inflict damage. These are probably the most difficult enemies in the game, and seeing them can turn a nice sweep through an unexplored area into a tension addled and frantic attempt at escape. The Shoggoths cannot be killed at all, serving as constant, terrifying obstacles that must be outrun. Maybe strangest of all, in the Green Book area, the player is exposed to a level of horror that goes beyond anything that’s come before it. Here, the fish men that litter the Purple Book area have lost their minds, knocking their heads against walls in a stupor. To see these creatures reduced to mindless husks after displaying inquisitiveness at the player’s activity earlier in the game sets a very eerie tone. The player is left to worry for their own sanity if such unearthly creatures can succumb to madness themselves.

(What hope have we?)

To its credit and benefit, Eldritch avoids the comparisons to bigger budgeted, and for lack of a better word, more realistic interpretations of horror by going completely in the other direction. It simply makes no sense for a single designer to try to put out the most visually impressive art when it can get by a lot less. After all, there is no real comparison between this:

And this:

And yet, the game finds a way to frighten and excite because it is engaging, mysterious, and makes no apologies for what it is. The level of commitment to its design philosophies and the execution of those ideas makes for a fantastic entry into the ever expanding lore of eldritch horror.

[kagemorou-blog]

Review: Eldritch

Finally! A new review! My latest foray into the wonderful world of survival horror is the pixilated, first person perspective Lovecraftian adventure, Eldritch. Eldritch by Minor Key Games is an odd duck. It looks like Minecraft, plays like a stealth action shooter and feels like a lot of fun. It has rogue-like tendencies, feeling very much like Fancy Skulls, a game that will likely get more than a mention here in the future. Just like any rogue-like, there are procedurally generated levels, and just like any rogue-like, there is permadeath, though it doesn't quite feel that way which I will get into later in the review. Eldritch starts us off in a vast and mysterious library where our intrepid explorer has gotten trapped. There are a tonne of objects with which to interact in the library proper, but the one you will likely deal with first is this mirror which allows you to adjust your appearance: There are not a great deal of choices, something that bothers me a bit, but given that outside of checking the mirror you never really see yourself, it's mostly just a personal aesthetic choice. There are several books within the library that give the story and nature of the place and investigating leads one to discover a set of mystical books with the power to transport you to other realms. two of these books are closed at the outset of your adventure, and you must journey through each world to find the soul of an Elder God. (Dagon, Nyarlathotep, and, of course, Cthulhu.) The last of which allows you to escape the library. The worlds are short and with a little finesse you can zip through each one in a few minutes. can Being that they are procedurally generated, unless you really luck out on the items you scavenge, odds are that at some point you are going to die.... A lot. As mentioned earlier, this game features permadeath of a sort. So any weapons, items, or powers you have gained are lost, along with any artifacts you are carrying. The latter being a combination of currency and a power source for the mystical abilities you acquire as the game progresses. It also resets the worlds you travel to, creating entirely new realms to explore. What it does not reset are any artifacts squirreled away in a chest and the books you have unlocked previously remain unlocked. Entering a book plants you in a randomized world themed after the Elder God whose soul is housed there. There is a book where you spawn in which allows you to return to the library, and in the case of the Book of Dagon, there is a compass nearby. It's handy and shows the location of the exit. Scattered around are also various weapons including a revolver, dagger, rocks, dynamite, empty bottles... and plenty of other bits and bobs. Each item varies in its usefulness and you may find yourself switching between them as situations warrant. You can only carry two of them at a a time, so some strategy is required in which tools to hang onto and witch to drop. Speaking of dropping, if you swap a weapon for another the discarded item will make noise depending on what it is. This can attract the attention of the monsters in the area. Monsters come in a variety of flavors. Flavours including Deepones, Cultists, Floating eyes, Lizardmen and manymore... And shoggoths. Screw shoggoths. Each enemy presents its own set of challenges be it projectile attacks, flying, resurrection.. Being lizard version of a Weeping Angel... Seriously... don't blink. The enemies are interesting and fun to deal with, with decent enough AI. They also respawn with fair regularity, which can make in-depth exploration tricky. Certain enemies appear unkillable and may need to be dealt with via methods other than fighting. To aid with that, there are several Statues throughout the game which will bestow a special ability when prayed to. Oh Bob-Sothoth... Bless us with your bounty.. The powers are fairly innovative and range from invisibility to vertical lift to teleportation, hypnosis and even one that allows you to place blocks like this was Minecraft. Seriously.... screw shoggoths... These allow one to really vary the way they play the game and can help even the score when faced with very difficult odds. But it is important to note that these powers come at a cost. Each power uses up artifacts, more or less depending on what the power is. Some powers are cheap, like the materialization power. Each block costs a paltry 1 artifact to place, as opposed to invisibility, which costs 10 per use. So again, one must be strategic with how they use their powers or they will run out of artifacts quickly. Another reason to use your magical gifts sparingly is that artifacts also pay for items in the shops. Shops are done similarly to how they are in Nethack or Spelunky, where the shop keep has its wares out and you can choose to try out the five finger discount at the risk of angering the shopkeeper. The difference here is that the shopkeepers in Eldritch are all monsters. Like this Snakeman in his fine, fine hat. Shops carry items that are either rare or not normally available, such as boots, talismans and kits. The prices are usually reasonable, and you can usually afford whatever you need, but if you can't, you may be able to overpower or outrun the shop keeper. That's all up to you. Also of note are the many and varied types of healing items, including Meats and fruit trees, important as you only have 3 health to start. You can, however, boost your maximum health by drinking at special fountains like this one. Oooh Bubbly! Which I highly recommend doing as the worlds of the elder things are dark, and full of terrors. And there are a lot of worlds to explore. In addition to the 3 book worlds of the main quest, there is also a book that leads to The Mountains of Madness, a 10-level optional dungeon that was released as a free expansion This drops you on a cold mountain side above a cavern containing treasures, untold secrets, and unspeakable horrors... Also ice. Lots and lots of ice. Also, sitting on a table in the library is a Jack o' Lantern Which transports you into a shaddowy Halloween realm filled with very difficult monsters: And finally, if you die, you can opt to resurrect not in the library, but a place called “The Asylum.” Which uses the same tiling service that Silent Hill's Other World uses. This area is filled with monsters and exists purely as a challenge to players with a look unique unto itself. And the level of horrible death we have come to know and love. I've fallen and I can't get up! So how does it play? Well, I'll admit that the first time I played it, I didn't get a lot out of it. But when I sat down to play it for the purposes of writing this review I found myself drawn in. Eldritch plays smoothly. Default key-binds make sense, there is controller support as well. The gameplay is challenging, becoming even more-so if one opts to play the new game plus mode after completing the game once. It is a short game, but this is made up for by the expansions and general replayability of the game. And it definitely feels polished for an indie game. Perhaps because it was developed by former Bioshock Dev, David Pittman. Along with solid gameplay, Eldritch features brilliant sound design, the music cues are subtle, and enemies fill the air with an ambient menace. Even the Deepones, who make a sort of adorable “glub glub” noise as they go about their business, can sound menacing when you are down to one heart and there is no food in sight. Each creature has relatively unique sounds it makes as the do their thing, and change gears when they notice you. Also, as mentioned, simply dropping an item makes noise and you may find yourself nervously pondering if you should really throw or drop that rock in favour of the TNT, lest the pair of snakemen around the corner hear and come bursting in on you. Design is also top notch. You wouldn't think it, looking at the pixcelated graphics and simple models, but there is a lot of subtlety at play. As I described it to my fiancé yesterday, it feels like Minecraft, but the angles are ALL WRONG. As they should be. There are very few surfaces that feel flat and it throws you because you honestly expect them to be. It's a little thing, but it's enough to make one feel a little uneasy about what they are staring at. The monsters too are neat to look at (though you shouldn't stare for too long lest they eat you) and the game simply feels wrong... in all the right ways. The atmosphere also feels that way and I find it fascinating. Here we have a stealth action horror game and nary a pitch-black room to be found. With very few exceptions, the environments are fairly well lit. And yet, the tension is there, the stealth feeling is there, and the horror elements are all there. And make no mistake, this game may not rely on jump scares (though again, Weeping Angel Lizard Men..), but things will occasionally jump out at you when you least expect them. Similar to the jolts you might get playing the classic Doom games where you are minding your own business, haven't encountered an enemy in a while, turn a corner and BAM. There it is. Coupled with the tense atmosphere and the great sound design, most people should get a few thrills and chills out of this. About the only thing I found lacking was the story. There's plenty of lore to discern, but precious little is actually about the protagonist. Instead, we merely look at the source material; the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and fill in the blanks as we go. It's not the worst thing to do story-wise, but it could have used more oomf. In conclusion, Eldritch is a decent game with a lot of fun surprises and decent replay value. It's not long, so don't expect a six-hour epic. (You actually get an achievement on Steam if you can beat it in under 10 minutes.) It's even decently priced for what it is at $14.99 on Steam. If it weren't for the expansions and optional stages I'd say it was a bit pricey, but with everything there, that seems about right. If you're in the mood for something challenging and a bit different, and have the coin to spare, you can do a lot worse than Eldritch. Here's the breakdown: Atmosphere: 8 Design: 8 Gameplay: 7 Sound: 8 Story: 7 TOTAL: 38/50 VERDICT: Solid like the twisted, blocky surface it was built on. Eldritch is $14.99 over on Steam. “I'm a Fansssssy lad.”

[lazydogfilms]

Neon Struct: Die Augen der Welt

Neon Struct: Die Augen der Welt

Neon Struct: Die Augen der Welt

Neon Struct (Retrieved from Website)

Fans of stealth games rejoice, Neon Struct was recently released and is available on both steam and DRM free on their website. Neon Struct takes us on the thrilling story of  Jillian Cleary, an ex-spy who has been framed for treason and is now on the run. You will have to use your wits, skills, and gear to avoid being caught by…

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[datanewoil]

IBM’s Big Data podcast from David Pittman. Great guests and high level conversations about the data world.