Game Design Series: Mime Theorem

Invisible walls.

If you're a gamer type you just said 'ugghhh' .
If you're the sort of person you just said 'ugghhh' because you wanted a rant or something good then all I can say is 'too bad.'

Let me start out by saying that I do not like invisible walls - I don't think anyone does.

Okay, so what is there to say about invisible walls that hasn't been said before?
Nothing I suppose.

How about this - invisible walls are the sort of thing that I find counterproductive in gaming. Mostly because I like having a lot of different ways to approach a situation. Why is it that there is a need to confine the player to a certain path?

There's more to it than that. Invisible walls are just lazy. Instead of just plunking an invisible wall there, why not put something that makes sense and blocks the path? Give it proper collisions and you're good. See, was that so hard?

Oh and by the way, don't try anything funny like making it shorter than the top of the player's jump height or taller than the player's crouch height and then having an invisible wall. That is just as bad as not having it there at all.
On the other hand, making it so that if the player tries, it is easily bypassed on purpose is a completely different matter. You see, that sort of thing is good game design.

So like I said before, why is there the need to force a player to approach a situation a certain way? Is it because your situation falls apart when approached form that angle? Maybe you shouldn't be constricting the player but, instead, creating a tougher situation.

Dreamtime.

What an odd dream.

For some reason C had dragged me into the school washroom with her. I suppose to be more accurate, she had dragged 45 and I. at least I think she had dragged us. Maybe she'd dragged me and...

Yes, that was it.

She had dragged me in. I was saying something like "This isn't a good idea". "It'll be fine, I'll pee quick" she replied. At this time, 45 shouted from one of the stalls "Dan! Dan is that you?"

C went into her stall at the end. She closed the door. There was still a good two foot space between the end of the door and the wall. I told her this.

She said something like 'I know'. She walked back out. Did I mention that we were all naked?

We might have been the whole time, but this was the first time that I noticed.

So she walked back out of the stall, past me, turned around, and kind of half squatted/half bent over with her hands on her knees. 45 was behind her and was going to... you know.

Before they started, I walked up in front of her, and stood there with her face right there.

She shouted 'Dan!'

I woke up.

Summer List

Thing's I've Done

Learned Get Out of My Yard (this is my crowning achievement)

Got the Muff

Demo'd the Muff

Got some more lyrics down for Electrician

Got a cool jacket

Got some cool high tops

Got 514s

Got Saints shirt

Got Grateful Dead shirt

Got Dead Weather album

Learned Dead Leaves

Learned Hyper Chondriac

Recorded a version of Dead Leaves

By extension of the above, found out that I need to do a different version

Saw Hamlet (fucking awesome)

Saw Macbeth (not as cool as Hamlet, still cool)

Things Still to Do

Record Get Out Of My Yard on video and put it on youtube

Maybe demo the Blackheart

Maybe see Inglorious Basterds

More lyrics for Electrician

Things I Didn't Get To Do

Cut an album

Get a Radiohead shirt

Get a mando/bass

Hell

So lets say that for a great many people, hell is getting lit on fire and poked with pointed sticks. And being spit on and a great many other bad things.

Now for the intelligent and the self-aware, what if hell is lighting people on fire and poking them with sharp sticks and spitting on them and doing a great many other bad things to them? For the first while you hate it because you have to deal with the screams and the fact that you're being really rather mean to other people. The fact that now you've become a murderer a thousand times over.

Then eventually you get used to it. Now it's just a job. You get your lunch break and you flirt with the secretary. You make friends and have a couple beers with them after work. You all swap stories about how that fat guy lit up like a chri- pine tree. Everyone has a good laugh, the secretary from before smiles at you. You smile back. You love your job.

Then one day you wake up and realize it.

You love your job. You love torturing all of those people. Watching them writhe and scream. Watching them burn into piles of ash and bone. Lighting them on fire and stabbing them and kicking and spitting on them and throwing them into pits of rats.

And you can't stop doing it.

Is it the magic of hell that keeps you, or is it your own twisted mind?

Think About What Your Words Mean

"Dan, you aren't making any sense, quit being stupid" is a sentence I am very familiar with.

Think about this for a minute.

You don't understand so I'm the one being stupid. It's the other fucking way around, here. You are the one that doesn't understand, how does this make me the stupid one? If it were reversed, and I didn't understand what you were saying, then you'd be the stupid one. 

Fuck it, you're the stupid one anyway.


I'm not going to be offensive yet here.

Lets back this up then. If there is someone that does not understand that 'two and two are four' (in most modern day instances), is he/she stupid?

I think you'll agree that the answer here is yes.

So if it is then expressed that 'well, really there are an infinite amount of times when two and two aren't four, they just don't come up much', who is stupider someone that understands this or someone that doesn't?

I hope you follow me here otherwise you're a dumbfuck here's another example.

It is then expressed that 'Geeze, there are a lot of times when two and two don't need to be four'. So I propose to you, who is stupider - someone that doesn't understand this, or someone that does?

What I'm getting at here for everyone who is stupid as shit  -- no, wait -- for everyone who is stupid as shit, is that (understanding a concept) > (not understanding a concept).

Those are math parenthesis in case you're a fucking idiot not keen on math.

Toe-may-toe Toe-mah-toe

Tomato.
Fruit or vegetable.
To anyone that isn't a botanist it's a vegetable.

If you aren't a botanist or aren't related to any botanists it's a vegetable.
Otherwise you're just a pretentious fuck.

'Hey look, I learned that scientists call tomatoes fruits.'

So would you say that strawberries are fruits?

'Yeah, duh.'

WRONG!

'But they-'


No.

'But-'

NOPE!
Strawberries are not fruit. They are not developed from the ovary.

What about peas, are those a vegetable?

'Of course!'


WRONG AGAIN!

'But they're green.'


Too fucking bad.
Peas are developed from the ovary, same as tomatoes.

C'mon one more.
Corn, fruit or vegetable?

'Most people would say vegetable, but I don't want you to shout any more - so fruit?'


Now you're catching on.
Corn is a fruit because corn is the the seed produced by an ovary.

What this is really about is having it both ways.
You can't go around saying that tomatoes are a fruit and that strawberries are also fruit.