Cookies and exclusives: my fall to the Dark Side (or, First Impressions On The Xbox One S)
My folks say I’m a traitor. Maybe they’re right, but I don’t regret it.
I come from a family of well-established PlayStation allegiance. We’ve owned some of the other platforms here and there, but on the whole, we’ve stuck with our status as a Sony household since before I was born.
My father, proud owner of a PlayStation 4 since its launch (albeit currently using our third PS4; our first went to my brother), was taken aback when I told him I was considering an Xbox for Christmas instead of getting my PS4 (our second) fixed. My reasoning was twofold: buying a One would be more economically reasonable than attempting to upgrade or replace my good-but-aging gaming computer, and it would allow us to play more games by including the stuff Microsoft published in addition to Sony’s.
We’ve done this going as far back as the original Xbox, so it wasn’t out of character, but I guess what made it weird was that I, once an occasional player of our first Xbox but never known for using our 360, was asking to own one this time around instead of just letting us get one down the road. It is a bit strange to think about, but I don’t mind the cognitive dissonance-- especially when the games are so damned good. I documented a few of my first thoughts on each of the games I got for it journal-style; here they are, mostly unedited.
(Just warning you now: I curse in these a decent amount. Never said I was a squeaky-clean boy. Also, please don’t take these as reviews-- I’ve been jumping between these, so they’re really only representative of the first little bits I’ve gotten to try since Christmas.)
Dec 25, 2016 at 05:01 pm
I looooooooooove Forza Horizon 3
Burnout Paradise it is not (for that I have Burnout Paradise, which I'm downloading again for the Xbox because I have zero chill), but there's a real purity to the feeling of playing it that I don't think I've felt with any other racing game. You can really tell that they made it out of a genuine love for automobiles and not simply for the sake of keeping a franchise afloat.
I can't remember if it was the Verge or Polygon that referred to it as "the Fast and the Furious of video games," but the comparison is apt-- like those movies, it eschews realism and narrative depth in favor of showing off its automotive stars in just-beyond-possible situations with style. In the absence of a true successor to Paradise, Horizon 3 has probably gotten the closest to filling those shoes (or tires, if you will).
Dec 26, 2016 at 12:29 am
Sunset Overdrive is batshit nuts and I am enjoying it a great deal.
I've always admired Insomniac's post-Spyro work from afar (one day I'll play the entire Ratchet series and it will be glorious), but being able to finally play this makes my heart flutter. I was never one for the post-WWII grimdark aesthetic the studio dabbled in with the Resistance series, but the color-drenched "awesomepocalypse" of Sunset lines up impressively with my sensibilities (or lack thereof) in the visuals of a game. It's pretty great.
I can see why some people aren't big on breaking the fourth wall due to overexposure in recent media, but I continue to be a fan of self-awareness in things I like because it's been one of my favorite tropes since my childhood. Sunset is a good example of how to do it right, I'd say-- the feel here is vulgar, weird fun, and it fits well with the sense of humor the game's got. It feels like a game built with my sailor-mouthed PoMo-loving punk side in mind and I'm digging it.
Dec 27, 2016 at 10:12 pm
I played a bit of [Watch_Dogs 2] last night in order to get a taste of the game's vibe and everything for myself. I was already in love with the characters having seen them in gameplay streams and stuff when it first released (Josh is my favorite of the group besides Marcus for obvious reasons, but I enjoy them all), and it feels like a game that knows what it wants to be, something that the first one (which I never played, but did watch a good amount of) struggled with.
I also very quickly found myself charmed by the game's sense of humor. I was a bit annoyed with one of the first missions that put Marcus behind the wheel of a stolen Knight Rider pastiche because the police AI is almost godlike in its ability to stay on your ass -- I only made it through by getting out of the car in a dark field and hoofing it as far away as I could -- but I found all of my troubles washed away during the following sequence, where you remotely drive the car through a death-defying stunt run through the heart of San Francisco, hearing incredulous news reports and the cheers of the DedSec crew all the way through.
It's good shit, and it bodes well for the future of the franchise. Fans of the first game's attempt to be a cyber film noir might be disappointed, but for people like me who would rather live out their Hackers (or, in my case, Little Brother) fantasies, it's a damn good way to do so.
Dec 28, 2016 at 11:27 pm
I wasn't expecting myself to like Battlefield 1. I'm not a Call of Duty kind of guy at all, and I usually just lumped the series in with its competitor because it is, for all intents and purposes, EA's answer to the phenomenon; beyond finding Battlefield more technically impressive I didn't have any intent of playing it. I figured it wouldn't be right to dismiss it given that it was the bundled game with my Xbox and it's $60-ish on its own at the moment.
After playing the first war story, I'm a believer. The opening of the game is especially effective in making the player feel like the war threw away lives without justification-- it outright tells you that you're not expected to survive, and you see name after name of the soldiers you're placed in the shoes of during their final moments. It's heartbreaking, and effective in establishing the tone of the game-- showing the human experiences lying under the wider narrative of the conflict without glamorizing it.
Initially, I found myself uncomfortable with the gameplay in the first few levels proper, stumbling through the early tank sequences and getting shot to oblivion, but by the last level I was invested, balancing my roles as the driver/repairman and a scout for my crew like an intricate dance. (The plot wasn't too shabby either, and I'm digging the episodic structure of the campaign-- good for little, self-contained sessions.)
Dec 29, 2016, whenever this post goes up
I said a few weeks back that I was giving up fanboyism, and being able to appreciate the world beyond Sony’s platforms is a key part of that for me. I was unrepentant in my criticisms of the Xbox One before it launched because I felt like the console that Microsoft announced in May 2013 would be too user-hostile for its own good; three years later, I’m finding the opposite to be true, recognizing it as a capable and competitive contemporary of the PS4 with some standout experiences that give it its own unique charm.
Before one accuses me of blindly switching sides without recognizing flaws, I will make it clear that I don’t think the One is perfect. I can’t say that I’d ever want to subscribe to Groove Music when Spotify is available on so many more platforms, has a larger library of tunes and is cheaper; for background music while playing games though, Groove is your only option that doesn’t require setting up a DLNA server or attaching an external device (like a Chromecast or a Fire TV Stick) to your Xbox. Granted, this is more of an exclusivity issue than anything else (Spotify’s deal with Sony prevents it from arriving on the Xbox, and even then, it’d be a hard sell for Microsoft to allow a competitor to Groove on its platform), but it’s still a pain in the ass for a religious Spotify user like me.
The Windows 10 user interface is another thing that I’d probably take steps to try to simplify given the chance. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but coming from the PS4′s iteration of the XMB, MS’s Dashboard is comparatively unintuitive. (The internal consistency of the applications themselves also leaves something to be desired; while the Metro look keeps everything visually tied together, some apps make heavy use of the Menu button while others ignore it completely.)
Also, it’s 2016. Rechargeable batteries for wireless controllers shouldn’t be an accessory for a console controller, they should be a requirement.
Beyond those few gripes, though? I’m enjoying my time with the Xbox One. Time will tell if I end up permanently subscribing to Live, and I’ve only scratched the surface of the games I’ve played and can play on this thing, so it’ll be fun to spend time with it through the rest of this generation. (I’m not really that worried about Project Scorpio-- if it’s anything like the PS4 Pro, it won’t be earth-shattering enough to warrant upgrading, and I didn’t feel like waiting.)
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an installation of Ori and the Blind Forest to check on.
I’ve been thinking about the Nintendo Switch’s branding decisions since the reveal. (Certainly not the only one!)
What strikes me as so different about how they’re marketing this one isn’t so much the focus on older audiences in the reveal trailer itself; I think that’s just a focus now because that audience is the one that was excited to see what the NX was going to be in the first place, and as we get closer to the March launch we’ll see more in the vein of the usual mix of kid and adult focused ads.
Nah, it’s actually the branding, and particularly the color scheme, that strikes me as distinctive here.
Think about it; the Wii’s almost ten years old, and both it and the Wii U largely eschewed the traditional bold Nintendo red in favor of a more neutral gray. (The original version of the logo was still used, albeit not nearly as much as it was up until the GameCube.) In addition to that, the ads only drew attention to the Nintendo brand when it was an absolute necessity; otherwise it was simply the “Wii,” nothing more, nothing less. We can attribute this change to Nintendo’s effort with the Wii to appeal to a broader audience; by leaving the old brand behind, it let the Wii name take center stage.
This decision was a massive success in the case of the Wii itself (the console is the third highest selling home console ever, only bested by the Sony PlayStation 2 and its predecessor), but sticking with it and the Wii brand in general for a second generation proved disastrous. The very same audience Nintendo courted with the Wii wasn’t sure if the Wii U was a new console entirely or just an accessory, and the company went from leading its generation to the dreaded third place role.
With the Switch, the company’s gone back to the red that defined them before the Wii; it’s part of a strategy that, for the time being, clarifies that this is a machine meant for the fans, and hopes to court them by bringing back memories of the days when they played with power. (The company doesn’t seem to be leaving more casual fans in the dark, though; just look at Pokémon Go.)
In addition, the logo and the device itself bear the name “Nintendo” not simply as an identifier, but as part of the identity, unlike the Wii and the Wii U. After ten years of de-emphasizing the manufacturer on the home consoles, it’s a refreshing change of pace.
Only time will tell if the branding decision pays off, but for now, I think we can just appreciate the change and await further development on it. (Also, did you guys see that lime green 3DS? Holy shit I want one.)
Not quite a review but not quite a ramble either, Tremulous Thoughts is a section on Tremulous One where your resident nerdy one-eyed triangle talks about stuff that’s interesting. Right now he’s thinking about a game he actually can play so as to take his mind off of a game that he can’t. The salt is real.
Everyone's got a set of genres they stick to in gaming. It's only human to stick with familiar things, right? There isn't anything wrong with curling up and enjoying a game in a style you're comfortable with.
My personal favorites are the platformer and the FPS. Of the 64 games currently living in my Steam library (according to my Mac, anyway-- I think it's missing some things, but whatever), half of them fit in one or both of those categories. That isn't to say I exclusively play those kinds of game, though, far from it-- some of my favorite experiences in gaming have been with rhythm, fighting, RPG, racing, action-adventure and even sports games. (SSX counts, snowboarding's a sport!) Those are my go-to genres, though-- when I'm looking for something to just occupy my mind, those are usually the ones I'll go for.
I think I ended up boxing myself in a bit by sticking with those, however, and in turn I've been quick to judge experiences falling outside of my wheelhouse a bit too quickly for my own good.
My first experience with the roguelike (or roguelikelike, whatever the hell) was The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, a game that I recognized the merits of and admired for its smart design choices, but found myself not really wanting to play very much of. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere because I'd always have to start over at the beginning after every death (let it be known that I am a pansy), and it was that believed pointlessness that basically made me keep it untouched between the first few times I played and when my Vita's screen broke (dearly departed, we will be reunited one day).
I would probably give it another shot now, though. Maybe on a different platform, but certainly when I get the chance.
Your question might be, 'well, if you weren't a fan what changed your mind?' and I would probably respond with an airhorn noise and yell "Nuclear Throne, sucka!"
On second thought, I would not do that. But truth is, NT served as a far better introduction to the genre for me than Isaac did, despite having an extremely similar gameplay loop.
(In case there was any doubt that the character that was made for Tre was Tre’s favorite, let me put those thoughts to rest. Pop pop.)
Like Isaac, NT is about as far from my standard gaming wheelhouse as you can get without being something like a strategy title. (Maybe I'll give one of those a shot someday!) The difficulty is absurd, death is permanent, it's a top-down shooter (#weird), and your time with a run is both A) almost certainly going to be short and B) most likely to result in failure.
And yet, it's hooked me. I fired it up for the first time on a Sunday night in early September and I spent a good hour dying, retrying, leveling up and losing it all, one broken journey to the eponymous Throne after another.
It's a strange loop to get used to if, like me, you grew up in an age of video gaming where respawns get handed out like candy on Halloween, but it turns out to be so much better in practice than in theory. Sure, nobody likes having to start over after a run goes south, but it's through that process that Vlambeer gets you to understand the mechanics, the ins and outs of every encounter-- so that when RNGesus smiles upon you with your best run, you'll be ready for whatever it is you face next.
Well, maybe not "ready," but. Surely a bit more likely to Not Suck.
(The eternal struggle. Screenshot by Steam’s MFA in Anime, from their guide to the game.)
It helps that Vlambeer peppered in a few side goals to give meaning to runs that you might not be able to go all the way with as well. There's no way to make dying not suck in a game where it's permanent, but unlocking new characters after reaching new areas in the game is a great way to soften the sting.
So. Two weeks and seven in-game hours have passed and the Throne is still about as distant as it was when I first started, but I haven't given up on getting to it just yet. I'm thinking I'm in this for the long haul.
Maybe I'll report back once I finally get around to parking my shiny butt on that chair where it belongs, but until then, I guess I'll be spending at least some of my time in the Wasteland, dying and retrying, dying and retrying.
Hello everyone. It's been a while! The last post I wrote specifically for this blog was almost two years ago, back when I was still in high school. I'm still the same person, but I feel like I've done a fair amount of growing up in the time since I last posted around these parts.
So with that, a name change was in order, I suppose. Much as my old blog name amused, I think "American Style Buffoonery" has unintentionally started to send the wrong message. Hell, when you Google the phrase these days you get photos of Donald Trump before I show up at all-- not to get political, but that isn't exactly the vibe you want to give off when you're starting (or, in my case, coming back to) a blog.
But what options did I have? Well, the option I went with, just like the previous name, ended up being an obscure reference to a bit of media I love. (This one's a little more relevant to the current me than Kim Possible was, though.)
In the fourth level of Tiny and Big in Grandpa's Leftovers, Tiny calls the Radio a "tremulous slowpoke" when his AI companion expresses concern for the player going in the wrong direction. The word ended up sticking with me after I found the quote, not only because it contained my name, but also for its distinctive sound.
Try saying it out loud. Tremulous. Fun, right? It means "shaking or quivering slightly," or "timid [and] nervous," if the definition Google produces has any weight. You might read that and think, "wow, that's not a very good image to portray either."
And you know what? You'd be completely right! No one wants to seem timid or nervous. We think any expression of fear or insecurity is demeaning, an affront to the self-made images we work so hard to try to show to the world.
But really, where's the fun in never showing weakness? To be timid is to be human. Is there anyone out there who truly isn't afraid of anything at all? Maybe there is someone out there who's decoupled themselves from everything they've ever remotely been afraid of or nervous about, but I haven't met anyone like that.
I think we should own up to our insecurities. A lot of things make me nervous-- the state of my country, the way other people see me, being a young black guy, the future, etc. etc.-- but the way I handle those insecurities is what makes me the person I am, and I will never be demotivated by those things.
And with that, I guess I'm The Tremulous One.
In addition to the new theme and name, you may have also noticed that I'm not calling myself Lyle Terry anymore over here. I still love the name and I will continue to use it for my endeavors in writing fiction if they ever resume in earnest, but I think when it comes to blogging it'll be better to write stuff as myself, or at least the version of myself that exists on the internet.
In an effort to try to consolidate my writing efforts, I've also made most of the longform writing I've done since 2012 (that I still care about, anyway) available right here, including the stuff that's still on my Medium account, my rants from my regular Tumblr @trespeak, and the old movie reviews that were on my Kinja.
I still don't think I'll be doing regular updates quite yet because it takes more dedication than I can imagine myself having, but at least now there's a proper place for it when it does happen. If you like what you see, some notes or a follow are very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading and being here. It's good to be back. ✌🏾️
Not quite a review but not quite a rant either, Tremulous Thoughts is a new section on Tremulous One where your friend in the darkness talks about stuff that’s interesting. It’ll probably mostly be about video games, but we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve been on a robot kick lately.
On Rusty Trails, which is probably my favorite game of the year (even if one ignores the fact that I’m in the credits), was probably the initiator of it, but there’s been a few other things lately that stoked the flame. Destiny, Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, Evolve, the nerdy stuff I’ve been consuming over the summer to keep myself from going mad from boredom.
But what’s cooler than just cute robots? Well, how about cute robots with hoverboards? (Real hoverboards, not that wheels on the ground bull.)
(This GIF took way too long to figure out.)
I stumbled upon Finnish indie studio @oddrokoddrok’s debut game Power Hover for the second time recently after Apple made it their Free App of the Week. I’d always thought it looked interesting, but initially I’d passed over it because of the $4 price tag. Without the cost of entry as a factor, I saw no reason to let it slip my mind again.
If I could go yell at my past self to buy it, I would’ve.
The basic premise of Power Hover doesn’t ask much. Go left and right, collect batteries, try not to die. On paper it’s a hard sell, but in motion it works beautifully; every level and section is built with the physics of your hoverboard in mind, and while it can be challenging occasionally due to the pace, most of the levels are smooth, enjoyable rides through a variety of locales.
The presentation of the game is a winner too. The aesthetic is effectively a modernized version of the low-polygon look that dominated the PlayStation era of gaming, and with a dynamic camera that isn’t afraid to switch things up, you’ll be able to appreciate every Day-Glo vista and environment Oddrok’s packed into the game. The music, done by Ted Striker, is appropriately retro-futuristic minimalist electronic stuff-- my only complaint is that there’s not enough of it (the whole game only has four tracks).
(Side note: the default robot’s design is my favorite. They’re very green. It’s wonderful.)
Everything gets tied together by a progression system that allows the player to upgrade their survivability and performance based on their scores in each level. Going back to previous levels to improve old scores becomes that much more satisfying when you’re finally able to unlock that extra life or that character you’ve been saving up points for-- and even if you aren’t particularly interested in replaying the old levels, Oddrok’s got you covered with a cohesive challenge mode and the campaign’s four infinite runner-styled boss levels.
There are a few moments where the game feels like a spiritual successor to Acceleroto’s criminally underrated Unpossible, particularly in the challenge mode and on the two campaign levels set on a long, winding pipe. Close as they are in basic gameplay and vibe on those levels, though, Power Hover is very much its own thing, and a Very Good Thing Indeed.
(I turned into a screwdriver and an original Game Boy after taking this picture. The things I do for blogs...)
I’m a tough cookie when it comes to mobile games, precisely because of the ulterior motives that seem to be inescapable within the market. I went into Power Hover expecting to be bamboozled somehow, but instead I found myself playing my favorite mobile game since Black Pants’s Blown Away dropped at the tail end of last year. Get it for free if you can, but I promise that it’s worth the money if you do choose to buy it later.
I’m excited to see where Oddrok goes from here, and if there’s ever a sequel, well. “I won’t hesitate.”✌🏾️
You know, it’s interesting. I am where I am today, a fully-paid-for college student about to go back to school with a 3.6, and it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the fact that I’m pretty good at standardized tests.
And yet, I can’t help but loathe the things, not only for the inherent ennui of them, but also because they don’t actually reflect the intelligence of the American high school student in much of any way whatsoever.
Take me, for instance. I was born without the ability to socialize on a normal level. I had to learn how human interaction worked from scratch, and it took a team of various educators and therapists just about a decade to get me anywhere remotely close to what we consider “normal,” for lack of a better word.
Furthermore, along the way I amassed an almost encyclopedic collection of knowledge about things, or really, capital-T Things, the stuff that intrigued me. Logos and graphic design. Mergers and acquisitions, the parent companies of organizations and those parent companies’ parent companies. Histories and timelines of modern media. The shit I like to think about, y’know?
And none of that knowledge, none of those skills, nothing that has made me Tre L. from one night in late 1996 to the time I sat down for the tests, is reflected in my SAT or ACT scores. To me, all those things are are numbers. Not numbers reflecting my intelligence, not numbers determining how ready I was for college as a junior in high school, they were just numbers.
I don’t know the answer to the question I’m implying exists (that question, of course, being “then how do we fix it?”), but I do think that the future leaders and creators of America deserve a better means of understanding them, because you just can’t try to understand a person from a number.
On Rusty Trails review: a little less conversation
originally published on June 13, 2016 on Medium
Two years ago this month, I played Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers for the first time. It was on sale on Steam for $3, which I didn’t have, so I worked out a deal with an internet friend to get it for me in exchange for Amazon store credit (which, oddly, was far easier for me to get ahold of back then than PayPal money).
Since then it’s become Probably My Favorite Game Ever (note the capital letters), so much so that I’ve kind of tried to turn myself into a “one-man fandom” for it. I’ve written about it, started a fanblog, drew a few doodles, and I’ve made it a priority to tell folks whenever it’s on sale, because it’s one of the few games I’ve come across that has been able to occupy my mind to the same kind of level as the Rayman series did before it (and Destiny afterward, to my simultaneous delight and chagrin).
So, fast forward to 2016. Black Pants Studio’s putting the finishing touches on their next big title, a new 2.5D platformer titled On Rusty Trails. I’ve been following the game’s development since it was publicly announced at the tail end of 2014, and I finally got the chance to try it out earlier this year during the game’s closed beta.
Now that the game’s hitting Steam and the Humble Store, I figured I’d share what I think!
The story goes like this: In a world populated by red/orange triangular robots and blue hairy folk, you are Elvis, an average pyramid person with a comfortable lifestyle and no worry in the world until a strange storm with corrosive rain leaves your home in shambles. With the warranty for the house in hand, you dash off on a frantic search to find a comfy place to stay.
It’s not going to be easy, though. The denizens of the world of ORT are in the midst of a bitter conflict with no end in sight, and this battle’s permeated to the very architecture of the places you’ll visit — being a Spike will forbid you from being able to use platforms made in the image of the Hairies, and vice versa. Luckily, early on Elvis finds the Shifty Suit, a nifty contraption that allows him to, well, shift between Spike and Hairy forms.
This gameplay mechanic sets the stage for the rest of the game, from its level design to the interactions Elvis has with the world around him. You’ll have to switch forms at a breakneck pace as our robot friend runs, jumps and occasionally flies through the game’s zippy levels.
ORT isn’t the first game or the first platformer to use a color-based system, but it still feels fresh despite that thanks to the detailed, smart presentation. Cheers from Spikes you see along the way will turn to jeers as you become a Hairy (and vice versa), and every shift has a visual impact on the scenery in a way that allows the player to really appreciate the contrast between the Hairy and Spike lifestyles that the game hints at through their respective buildings and platforms.
Pretty as the game is, though, you’re not going to want to always stop and smell the roses. From a pure gameplay perspective, On Rusty Trails is best played as a twitchy, edge-of-your-seat experience, and in that regard it is extremely satisfying. Black Pants have cited genre cornerstone Super Meat Boy as an inspiration for the game’s pace, and while ORT isn’t as punishing as Team Meat’s infamous platformer, the influence is quite clear. You’re probably going to die a lot, and that’s just fine.
It helps that there are regular checkpoints to keep yourself from losing too much progress, but if you’re HARDCORE they’re intended to be optional. (Didn’t always work out that way for me because I’d too often activate a checkpoint on accident, but I’m a wimp and used them pretty often anyway so it didn’t really matter.)
The war that the setting is based on is never particularly placed in the focus, but the player’s given enough context through the game itself that it’s not particularly needed. Propaganda litters the walls of levels with messages like “BEWARE OF SPIES” and “THEY ARE WATCHING YOU” warning the citizens of their enemy’s malice, protestors have presences with picket lines and signs, and explosive platforms are rigged to blow when you touch them while in the wrong color. (You’re expected to use this to your advantage after they’re introduced, too. It’s pretty rad.)
Instead of making the war a priority, the game uses the conflict to establish the importance of tolerating folks that aren’t like you. For every angry person or picket line you meet there’s someone out there who will give you a friendly wave regardless of your color, and every now and then you’ll see Hairy and Spike folk just hanging out, with nobody at each other’s throats. (There’s even a little star-crossed romance involved by the story’s end.)
So, does the game stack up to Tiny and Big? In a word: yes! In some more words, it’s much less experimental than T&B, but provides what ultimately proves to be an equally if not more enjoyable game, with a widened scope that leads to deeper themes within the story and a more satisfying length. (It hasn’t usurped its predecessor as Probably My Favorite Game Ever, however. Not that that’s a big deal, but still.)
SUMMING IT UP: Black Pants Studio’s second major title is a triumph, and a worthy addition to the canon of twitchy 2D platformers.
It’s simple, but the plot is a cleverly executed way of presenting a moral with a great deal of relevance in the real world, and the actual gameplay puts a clever spin on enough established ideas to stand out. If you’re like me and have had it on your radar for a while now, you won’t be disappointed, and if you haven’t heard of it but love a great 2D platformer with a side of die-and retry, you’ll be right at home with it.
Disclosure: Because I was part of the beta testing for the game, I was provided with a copy of the game by Black Pants Studio, which I was then allowed to keep. I am listed in the game’s end credits as a beta tester under (kinda) my Steam name, “Apple-Tre.”
So. I’d like to think I do a pretty good job of being up front about it on here and in real life, but for the sake of clarifying the context, I’ll say it here: I have autism. Asperger’s, PDD-NOS, whatever you want to call it, it’s something that’s been part of my existence since the day I was born.
Guess I might as well talk about it while it’s a conversation topic! (I don’t get to do that very often with things that I enjoy talking about, so I might as well relish the opportunity and strike while the iron’s hot.)
How does it make me different? Well, to summarize it, I’ve always had a degree of trouble being able to socialize with others, because my brain isn’t built for it. Years of practice and outside influence have made me much better at it than I was as a child, but there are a few things that I still struggle with to this day, among them being maintaining eye contact with conversational partners and detecting what my peers are comfortable with when physical interactions or specific topics are concerned.
There are a few other ways, too. I’m almost always singing or humming whatever song’s in my head as a means of stimulating my senses (they call this stimming), and I have extensive knowledge stored about the minutiae of stuff that I half-jokingly say no one else cares about (these are commonly known as special interests; I call them Things, with a capital T). What I lack in discourse skills I make up for considerably with how much I could tell you about my favorite video games off of the top of my head.
Now, I guess this is the part where you’d expect me to say something like, “even though it’s been difficult for me at times, I’ve never let it get in the way of being my true self,” or something along those lines. And it has been pretty hard occasionally! My elementary school years were about as turbulent as one could imagine thanks to bullying and my inability to interact meaningfully with my peers at that point. Even today, it can make things with charitable intent significantly harder to support because of the violence against people like me facilitated by said charities. (I could write a whole post about that, but I don’t feel like I need to– there are a ton out there already. As far as options for organizations worth supporting, @autisticadvocacy is a good place to start.)
But I don’t see it as a thing that blocks me from being who I am or anything. In fact, I wouldn’t be the Tre I am without being autistic. The way I see the world is shaped by my special interests, my Things. I’ve built reputations with friends and family for being absolutely taken with topics that most people couldn’t tell you a single factoid about– the ins and outs of applications on Windows and OS X, the universes I’ve created, the latest mergers and acquisitions, the limbless wonder, the brand identities and logos of all kinds of organizations, the nerd with a laser, the color green.
It isn’t just a part of me, it’s everything about me. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
No, not anyone I’ve met with said website. I mean the service itself, and it’s the one I’m publishing this on, Tumblr.
The love part was established in 2009, a year that seems like it was forever ago these days. I’d initially started using it as a replacement for WordPress, my old blogging service, because the design appealed to me and there was more freedom to do what you wanted with your space. I wasn’t around for MySpace’s heyday, but a lot of the same things that made it such a phenomenon in the early 2000s were also true of Tumblr, right down to the occasionally illegible custom themes.
It was also incredibly addictive. The amount of interesting stuff to be found on the site has always been one of the core strengths of the service, so much so that one of the slogans for the service was ‘follow the world’s creators.’ In its prime, it felt like the smaller, cooler Twitter, with a sleeker feel and revolutionary features like the askbox that brought users, be they friends from real life or complete strangers, together in a way that no other social media service really could.
The hate part is more recent. Now more than ever it seems like Tumblr is moving into directions that have alienated the established userbase in what can only be assumed is an extended attempt to simultaneously attract even more new users while also monetizing the service, as the latter has become more of a priority since the site’s grown to levels the management wouldn’t have dreamed of when I first joined. While I don’t blame Yahoo! entirely for this part of things, I can’t help but side-eye them a bit because they’ve owned the company since 2013.
It almost feels like it’s going backwards sometimes. 2015 in particular brought a number of changes to the service that would rile users up to the point of threatening to leave: a new layout for comments within posts on the dashboard, the removal of replies to posts and the ability to edit comments previously made on posts, and banner advertisements.
I’ve stated multiple times on my main blog that I’m not fully sure why I’m still even on Tumblr, and while I do kind of say it in jest, every joke has a bit of truth to it.
I figured out why the Elmo ‘R I S E’ meme makes me so happy.
I’ve mentioned before how autistic folks have Things (phrased elsewhere as ‘special interests’) that they develop a deep, passionate curiosity with that seems excessive to the uninitiated. (I’d say it was ‘obsessive,’ but that’s demeaning.)
Anyway, y’all know my more recent ones. Rayman, Tiny and Big, Destiny, Adventure Time, the stuff that I go on and on about here, right?
Well, when I was younger I had two that still ended up staying to a degree: The Iron Giant (which has continued to be my favorite film of all time), and.
You fuckin’ guessed it.
Sesame Street. With a particular fixation on Elmo. (Fun fact: my favorite color actually used to be red. Red like Elmo. I ended up changing it when BP changed their logo to their current one, and after that it just kinda stayed that way to the point of becoming a character trait.)
Stuffed toy Elmos, board book Elmos, Elmo video games, I had it all. I know every kid had that phase but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a standard case. I was fascinated with Elmo, the brand they advertised him under back then (Sony Wonder), the people who made the merchandise (Knowledge Adventure and Tyco Toys, later Mattel after a buyout), everything.
Remember this? No? I do. Had the VHS, the DVD and the soundtrack to that shit. (Vanessa Williams was also in it, which might explain why I didn’t immediately dismiss Ugly Betty when it first aired.)
So yeah. Here’s an explanation on why I love a Thing even though it probably wasn’t even needed.
I get that most of them are just temporary type affairs, but come on, by the time Rihanna’s ANTI came out anywhere besides TIDAL nobody cared because Beyoncé had already put out Formation (also on TIDAL) and now Kanye’s TLOP is only legally accessible there, no option to buy it through iTunes or anything.
It’s not just TIDAL that bothers me, though, you’ve got EVOL by Future, literally everything by Taylor Swift (excluding features) and then Mýa’s new record locked up over at iTunes/Apple Music, and all signs point to the same thing happening to Drake’s new stuff going forward. It’s almost like there’s this mindset where you have to remember where that one artist will let you listen to their work before you even can do so, and then if you want to switch from one artist with an exclusive deal to another that isn’t on the same service you actively have to change whatever app you’re using, and that’s even if you have that service at all, which you probably don’t because who is going to pay for redundant shit?
It’s nonsense! They’re modeling the music industry after that of film, and it’s making it a pain in the ass for people like me who actually want to support artists but can only do so with free streaming or the rare album purchase. The technology has evolved to let anyone be able to listen to whatever tune they want at any time, but we’re stuck continuing on the dead spirits of LimeWire, Kazaa and MegaUpload to do it because digital music has turned into the lunch tables from Mean Girls.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be as big an issue if the historic streaming industry leader, Spotify, paid its artists in whatever manner they promised they would, and I don’t really know whether Spotify should be believed in that regard or its artists (which is part of the reason I’m not fully sure whether or not I wanted to get a premium account). The general excuse is that this happened with Spotify because they offered a free tier, but the secondary success of a certain little video service as a music provider says otherwise.
(Side note: still appreciate them as much as anyone can do so with a multinational corporation, but Google taking away previously free features and shoving them behind the YouTube Red paywall was kind of a dick move.)
I don’t see the deals going away any time soon, either, which is sad because I know what it’s like to feel diminishing returns on one’s work but I also feel like music’s one of those things that ought to be accessible to as many ears as possible.
tl;dr Tre’s pissed off not only because he can’t listen to Kanye without going to The Pirate Bay, but also because he really wouldn’t have to do that if that weren’t the way the industry were going.
I’m starting to grow sick of the idea that sharing one’s life on the internet is a bad thing.
One thing I’ve noticed about myself in particular is that I love one particular blogging platform, Tumblr, but the most popular and frequent blog I run on the service is made up almost entirely from posts from other people. When I put something up on my own, it sticks out like a sore thumb, like it’s out of place in a stream of things that are actually interesting. I’ve fallen victim to the same curse on Instagram; Twitter is a little better because messages on it are so small that it’s easier to make it your own than culling it from other accounts, but the point still stands.
The classic narrative about how talking about yourself too much on the Internet is bad for job hunting has only served to exacerbate my personal problem. My high school teachers talked about Facebook like it was made for sabotaging your chances of making money in the future, that if you so much as said ‘I had a delicious can of Coke today’ on there it’d kill any possibility of getting hired for some nebulous boss out there in the Real World who liked Pepsi.
It also seems like one of the biggest issues that some have vocalized about with social media is the idea of oversharing, that dreaded food picture on Instagram or that Tweet about someone’s cat that you could not give any less of an expletive about. I can understand why this might be bothersome to these folks, but the idea of annoying my peers with just a couple of lines of text or making myself unattractive to employers has infected me to the point where I can’t even bring myself to write things for my own blog anymore without panicking about it, and Lord help me if I ever give into my temptations to create art of practically any sort.
Personally, though? I don’t mind it, and I’m not going to fault someone for wanting to spread their love for something. There are seven billion people on this planet, so it’s almost impossible for absolutely all of them to hate what you’re passionate about, figuratively and statistically.
Of course, in the case of me keeping to myself there is a possibility that it might just be a perception thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. One trait that people with autism spectrum disorders often display is a desire to speak constantly about topics that interest them often to the point of annoyance for the listener if it isn’t something they share that same passion for. I’ve grown aware of this to the point of almost actively avoiding my 'special interests’ (or, as I like to call them, 'Things’, capitalization included) in casual conversation unless I’ve grown comfortable with whoever’s there, and I guess in my case it ended up bleeding over to the 'net.
It’ll probably be hard for me to break that barrier and start actively talking about my Things in a context like my main blog, but I guess it’d be best to make it a gradual thing. If it happens, it happens, and if not, I don’t think I’ll sweat it a bunch.
Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers review: think outside the boxers
I never thought I’d fall in love with a video game about a pair of briefs.
I know, I know. Just hear me out on this one before assuming the worst, please?
Alright, rad. Released in 2012, Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers serves as the debut title for Black Pants Game Studio, a two-location group of developers in Kassel and Berlin, Germany. In the two years since its release, the game hasn't exactly hit the big time as far as indie titles go (a Minecraftian success this one isn't), but the few who actually have played it like it quite a bit.
My humble opinion? Probably one of my personal favorite games of the 2010s thus far, indie or otherwise. Here’s why.
Tiny, nerd extraordinaire, ingenious inventor and improbably strong being. This is you!
From the first time I saw it in a weekend sale on Steam, something about Grandpa’s Leftovers has clicked with me and hasn’t let go since. It might be the game’s gonzo, graphic-novel style, or the soundtrack that at once sounds like the stuff you could hear in a German basement rock club and in the background of a classic exploitation film from the ‘70s. It might be the way that both the brainy hero and his brawny opponent have a dorky sense of humanity to them despite looking more like lumps of oil than people, or how their conflict echoes some of the more violent clashes of my own childhood.
Or it could be, and probably is, some sort of weird mishmash of all of those reasons.
One of the most fun things about Tiny & Big, surprisingly, is its plotline. You are Tiny, a nerdy dude with a talent for invention, and you're on the hunt for your prized possession; namely, a pair of tighty-whitey underpants left to you by your beloved grandfather. The pants have been stolen by your rival Big, who intends to enslave the world with their help.
This, of course, would be totally unreasonable were the pants not imbued with otherworldly powers. Indeed, Big gains the ability to manipulate the environment around him with his mind, giving his aspirations for conquest that much more levity. Assisted by his grandfather’s blabbermouth Radio and a sharp wit, Tiny ventures out to keep Big from achieving his plans for world domination — though it’s a task that’s easier said than done.
Radio’s response: “Forgot to take your pills today?”
The setup is ridiculous and, to be frank, awkward as hell, but knowingly so, and the atmosphere is kept fairly light as a result. Brushes with the fourth wall are frequent and funny — Tiny and The Radio will argue over the player’s path when they focus on exploring rather than advancing, and following the instructions the game gives you during one level even when you don't need to wins you some prime snark from The Radio. I'm a sucker for some good postmodernism, and Tiny & Big is full of it.
The game’s a 3D puzzle platformer — and a gorgeous one, at that. The presentation resembles the cel-shaded art of titles like Borderlands, but with a distinctly cartoony feel (particularly in the design of the eponymous characters; I’ve heard so many jokes relating Tiny’s look to Finn from Adventure Time’s design that I’ve lost count). The visual appeal serves the game well, and Black Pants never seem to lose their touch there, as not one of the game’s six levels is boring to look at.
See what I mean? Gorgeous.
But looks aren't everything. Indie titles like Tiny & Big have to rely on their gameplay to keep things interesting for the player. Black Pants approach this by giving the player a set of three tools to manipulate Tiny’s surroundings: a ray cutter, a grappling rope and rockets. Makeshift platforms are the name of the game; and while the game unfortunately doesn't venture far away from the concepts it establishes at its onset, the satisfaction of turning the ruins of the desert into your own personal pathways never fades.
Big, a pipsqueak party pooper and master of pants magik. He wants you dead.
Beyond some mild stagnation in the gameplay within the later levels, the only thing truly keeping Tiny & Big from being great is its length. Now, normally I try to get past a game’s longevity because I feel like it’s a cheap criticism, but Tiny & Big feels like an experience that goes as quickly as it comes — which is a shame, given how much there is to like about the game. Overall, though, I’m not too worried about this, and you shouldn't be, either — thanks to the decent amount of hidden content and secrets in each level (and the more esoteric jokes), it can easily stand through multiple playthroughs.
SUMMING IT UP: Grandpa’s Leftovers salutes the 3D platformers that preceded it while modernizing it for a new age of video games.
Unrepentantly quirky, consistently humorous, and deceptively deep, Tiny and Big is one of the best pure 3D platformers of recent years and a hell of a first impression from the guys at Black Pants. It may not keep you for very long, but the time it does is nothing short of engaging.
Well, what are you waiting for? Go get those pants!
Perfect timing: a high schooler’s stance on the Moto360
originally published in January 2015 on Medium
Photo by Crystal Gotay.
It’s third period on a B-day in early January. Business class with Tomey’s as lively as ever, and for whatever reason, my classmates are debating what the meaning of the word “dovetail” is, as they are apt to do whenever something takes their attention away from the curriculum.
Seeking closure on the subject, one of the folks in the back yells, “Just Google it already!”
As if on cue, I tap the sole button on my watch, a Moto360 by Motorola. “Okay, Google,” I say. “Define dovetail.”
My peers are awestruck as the meaning of the word loads. “Fit or cause to fit together easily and conveniently,” I read, nonchalantly but with a smile.
And with that, my wrist becomes a talking point about the classroom.
My watch fits into an emerging category of products from companies like Motorola and Apple called wearable tech, which is exactly what it sounds like: technology that one directly keeps on their person. Simultaneously a fashion statement and a venture into a new frontier of consumer electronics, the Moto360 is Motorola’s take on the smartwatch.
Anyone looking for something to replace their phone will be disappointed, as the 360 and its rival Android Wear watches from Samsung and LG (among others) rely on their owners’ Android smartphones; the thing won’t even tell you the right time unless you tether it to one. Inconvenient as it may seem, after the initial setup it quickly feels natural; the watch largely acts as a second screen, being able to handle smaller tasks that one may not necessarily need to pull out their phone to do like making a quick Google search or checking the weather.
Everything on the watch is done either via quick touch input or by speaking, as the version of Android that runs on it lacks the ability to type without the use of external apps. The omission isn’t a particularly painful one; the display, while certainly large and legible, wouldn’t be able to handle a full keyboard in the slightest. The screen is acceptably sharp and responds well to touch; the voice recognition, on the other hand, can be a bit of a mixed bag. The beta status of its software starts to show when one uses certain proper nouns or tries to speak to the watch in an area with any notable amount of noise (using it in a cafeteria, for one, would be a downright nightmare).
Should teachers be worried about their students using devices like the 360 and the upcoming Apple Watch in class? If the first generation of the former’s a sign of how future products will operate, well, probably not. Interacting with the screen, while intuitive for the user, is fairly conspicuous to bystanders, and speaking to one’s wrist to write a text message is getting-caught-with-your-phone-out awkward. “Clandestine” is not the name of the game here.
The 360 is a well-made device, but it’s also an answer to a question that might not be on everyone’s lips just yet. As a supplement to your smartphone that, while flashy and bound to earn you some cool points, isn’t entirely necessary for every Android user, the watch— and, really, the whole of Android Wear as a product range— is going to have to rely on the support of the Android development community in order to carve a niche into the market. Google’s done its best to make this a smooth process by making development for Android Wear particularly similar to that of development for phones running modern versions of the system, and we’re starting to see the fruits of this relationship with some of the things the 360 can do— from Flappy Bird clones to Tesla car key-fob replacements. It’s a bit early to give a final verdict on whether or not the 360 and its ilk are worth buying, but overall, the experience is still worth talking to your classmates about.
This article originally ran as a front page story in the October 28, 2014 print issue of The Hi-Times, my high school's newspaper.
I’ve always wondered what the word ‘normal’ meant.
I mean that figuratively, of course. Etymologically, it’s rather simple: “conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.” But what would being normal entail? What would it be like to adhere to the ‘rules’ of my society, but in a passive way?
You might be confused, but that’s alright, I may need to explain a bit. I’m Tre, a seventeen-year old Broughton student, and I have Asperger’s syndrome.
Don’t get scared, it isn’t contagious, nor is it anything life-threatening. My perennial favorite site, Wikipedia, calls it “[a disorder] that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.” That specific diagnosis doesn’t exist anymore in the world of psychology, though. Since Asperger’s and less severe forms of autism have been more or less determined to be the same, the distinct name isn’t formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also known as the DSM, or, more bluntly, the Great Big Book of Mental Differences.
Literal thinkers, or people who think in pictures
That’s a little hard to swallow, is it not? Let’s put it in English. Laura Boyce, the curriculum assistance teacher and coordinator of studies on autism spectrum disorders here at Broughton, says that the word autism makes her think of “literal thinkers, or people who think in pictures.” Those of us with autism might have difficulties relating to others in ways that, for most people, might seem ubiquitous-- for some of us, it may be idioms, or facial expressions, or sarcasm. How we speak and communicate may also be alien to others; we might be a bit wordy, or occasionally fumble with second nature behaviors like basic eye contact or vocal volume.
People on the whole are complex beings, so everyone might have struggles with these sorts of things every now and then, but we’re a little more prone to them than what most of our peers expect. That’s not to say people with autism can’t relate to others at all, however, or that they’re cold, unfeeling robots. It may seem like it at times if you’re not used to the ways we express ourselves, but we’re far from there-- we’re just as capable of anger, sadness, joy and amusement as everyone else.
We're not cold, unfeeling robots
When I asked about whether or not it could be considered a disability, Boyce stated that it could be for some people, depending on the degree to which they’re affected. Because autism isn’t really something that can be measured with one clear-cut diagnosis, we refer to it as a spectrum of disorders instead of just one. This is why there might be people you know that you wouldn’t suspect of having a disorder at all, and why there are some who might need more extensive intervention and help throughout their school careers and possibly their lives as a whole; you might just know a few people in between, too. No two people with autism are really capable of being exactly the same, and the terminology has to reflect that.
A common trait of people on the spectrum is an intense curiosity directed toward one or a few interests-- a set of Things, if you will. Sometimes our Things are common stuff that many of our peers enjoy, but often they’re not. Mine are pretty easy to determine; if I’m not talking or thinking about electronic music or a series of video games about a guy without limbs, I’ve probably got Cartoon Network’s comedy shows on the brain. I could literally go on about any of those for hours at a time, but I’ve discovered that it’s hard to do that with people who might not necessarily share your interests.
Our Things can lead us down great paths, though. Temple Grandin, an autistic activist and doctor of animal science, became a proponent figure in the livestock industry because of her passion for analyzing the ways the cattle on her family’s farm behaved; with two critically acclaimed books under her belt in the field, she’s also made a name for herself by sharing her experiences as a kid and as an adult living with autism. She’s not the only one either; a lot of people you may recognize have been diagnosed, like musicians Susan Boyle and Owl City or film director Stanley Kubrick.
I heard an analogy a long time ago relating people to computers, and while it was a bit simplistic, for our purposes, it’ll do. Most people are like Windows PCs: different in their own distinct ways, but identifiably made up of similar components and capable of a huge amount of tasks. Those of us with autism, meanwhile, are closer to the Mac end of things: a little different internally and perhaps a bit unsuited for certain tasks, but incredibly specialized for a specific set of skills and, once you get the hang of their quirks, friendly to a fault.
I had one more question for Boyce: whether or not she believed it was possible for people with social disorders like autism to operate and find success within their societies. Her response was brief, but very clear.
WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?
Hmm. If it were real, I'd say Greyson City :P
For serious, though? Probably Toronto. Scott Pilgrim's done wonders toward making it look like a cool place to visit sometime, if not outright live because of how cold it is.
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