150 Hours of Bus

How would you like to drive a bus for over one hundred hours? Through a desert? That pulls to the right? And you can't stop? And it can stall on the side? It sounds awful right? Well, what if it was with a bunch of your friends? Will all kinds of goofy hats and costumes? And phone calls from friends that you work with? And guests that show up every now and again? And you're supported by a bunch of different businesses. And you keep a running video feed and chat with the internet? And it's for a good cause?

This is what Desert Bus for Hope is all about.

In 2007 the group behind the popular video series, Loading Ready Run, started a charity drive for by playing the horrible game Desert Bus for as long as they had supports and donations. They broadcast their self-induced torment to the world to help raise money. They've been doing this every year since, raising nearly one million dollars in six years, and bringing in countless celebrities and personalities to help their cause.

The reason I bring this up is because Desert Bus for Hope is happening again, right now. This is the first time I've actually watched it, but it's been incredibly entertaining. But behind all the crazy voices, ridiculous hats, and generally goofy acting, I really appreciate what they are doing.

The organization that they are raising money for is Child's Play. This charity was founded by the guys behind PennyArcade. The goal is to make the lives of hospitalized children better by providing toys and games for them. They are also out to crush the stereotype that gamers are all antisocial, maladjusted, adult children. And the results speak for themselves. Child's Play has raised somewhere over 12 million dollars to date.

The Loading Ready Run crew might not be known for being the smartest comedy, but they are entertaining. They've been working and growing for years and now reach a wide audience. And what are they doing with their influence? They're working to better life for others. The reason I want promote their work is for the same reason Child's Play was instituted.

The world of gaming is as wide and varied as that in TV or film. There are good people. There are stupid people. And unfortunately, the stupid people seem to get a lot of the recognition. But the community has a deep soul to it. First and foremost, we are all human. We are not some monstrous entity made of immaturity and Mountain Dew.

I would invite you all to check out Desert Bus for Hope and consider supporting then. If nothing else, you can enjoy their antics. But I hope you see the real reasons behind it all. They've already spent over a day playing.

I'm so getting quarantined for all this steaming.

Just something to chew on.

Whose Freewill is it Anyway?

If there is one sure fire way to get Christians arguing, it's to bring up the ideas of predestination and freewill. Typically everyone in the argument will be on one side or the other. Either God has predestined everything in your life to happen and you have no control over what goes on, or you have the freedom to choose where your life will take you. This is one of those topics that get everyone riled up, with good reason. I believe, however, that we can approach this a little differently

Life is like a rerun of an improve show.

But before that, let me just address why this is such a major issue for Christians. What it boils down to is an understanding of our purpose on this earth. Each side has its strengths and weaknesses. Predestination offers undisputed confidence that God is controlling everything. They can hold onto the fact that God knows what happens in the next year, the next week, and the next second. The downside to this seems to be that there is no chance for anyone to make a meaningful choice in their lives. God has already chosen who will be saved, who will live and die, who will marry who, everything. The choices that we think we are making amount to nothing really. With that, the idea of why do anything at all starts to creep in. On the other hand, if it is all freewill, then that is all different. The choices we make have impacts on the our lives, and the lives of those around us. Making that choice to become a Christian becomes a herculean effort on our part to align with God. The things in life that we choose have significance then. But that does make it hard to recognize things like God's omniscience. If the choices are our own, made right then and there, then we might end up "surprising" God. If He doesn't already know what we will pick, then are is He really all-knowing? As you can see, there's a lot of theological weight on either side.

Now then, I would guess that most of us have seen the show Whose Line is it Anyway at some point. It is an improve show centered around four actors (Ryan was my favorite) and their host Drew Carey. The actors would get random scenes and personalities to act out for a few minutes. They did their best to be funny and original. It was a great show. The best part, was that Drew the host often didn't know what the actors would do, and his reactions were usually just as riotous as the audience. Even the reruns were good, but there was something different about them. If you had seen it before, then you know what choices the actors were going to make for the skits, even though at the time, the choices were freely chosen and unknown.

That is what I feel our freewill is like to God. God chose from an infinite number of worlds to create the one we live in today. He knew the history and future of each and every world. He experienced it first in His mind, before it was ever created. When He chose our world, God knew what choices we would make and what their outcomes would be. But we still have the freedom to choose.

It is sort of like Merlin from the T.H. White book The Once and Future King. Merlin claimed to live backwards in the book. He knew the choices that Arthur would make, and even the ones that he himself would get into (including being locked in a cave by a crazy ex for years). Everyone still had the freedom to choose their own actions, but Merlin would know what the outcome would be.

Knowledge does not limit the choices available. I can still make my choice even if God knows what it will be. The thing is, He made me free, and He put these opportunities into my life. He wants what's best for me, even if I don't make that choice. I could if I was informed enough, or not so stubborn, but sometimes I chose wrong. This isn't because God destined me to choose wrong, but because He lets me choose. God already knows where humanity is going, we just have to make the choices to get there.

I do wish He had caused me to pick some different friends a few summers back. Wouldn't mind missing that event.

Just something to chew on.

Darth Mickey

Lucas Arts was bought out this week by Disney, and I am impressed. That is a big move for the house of mouse, and it'll have a lot of ramifications on the entertainment industry as a whole. The Disney touch will now be on their movies, games, and books. I've heard a lot of fans bemoan the change. For some reason, Star Wars in the hands of George Lucas is a good thing to them. I'm might not agree.

I think this acquisition will open some great doors for fans.

Let's be honest, most of us know that George Lucas is kind of a hack. His first few movies were good because he had good directors who told him when things were stupid. It's pretty common knowledge now that Luke was going to look like Darth Vader in Lucas's original vision, but the director wouldn't let that on set. So Lucas had some major help from the outside. When he got control and started his own work, things get messy fast. Anyone remember the fourth Indiana Jones movie? No, you don't. It never happened. And the prequel trilogy? Another fowl up. George Lucas has been abusing his toys for too long now.

With Disney in control, and the promise already of a new series of Star Wars films, I think there is a lot to look forward to. For starters, Disney is pretty nice to its intellectual property. We heard a lot of complaints when they bought Marvel comics, but look how that has turned out. We've had a run of enjoyable, if generic, superhero movies, and the comic section have continued publishing unhindered. Disney executives didn't charge in and make drastic changes, but they improved on what they had. With all the junk Star Wars has been accumulating, Disney might be the spring cleaning the universe needs.

Along those lines, Disney's production values are phenomenal. The prequels had some glaring issues in production, and faltered because of it. Lucas Art's film section is strong, but they couldn't seem to pull it together in the best ways. Something that always bugged me were the transitions between scenes. This might sound like a small complaint, but it get's bigger if you recognize it. They basically use the same transitions that comes stock in Window's Movie Makers. They have the pinwheel, the box out, even the slide checkerboard. Once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it (which means that I've just ruined the movies even more for you). Disney is held to a higher stander than most, and they'll apply those expectations to the works with the Star Wars franchise.

This might also see a revival in quality Star Wars videogames. The recent releases has been decent, but not as great as they could be. Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware's MMO, recently took to the free-to-play model even after saying initially that it would not. With the backing of Disney, developers will have more that they can invest into the projects and have a better end result. We might even see the release of Star Wars: Battlefront 3, which had been canceled, even though it was basically finished, by the president of Lucas Arts two years ago. Fans have been waiting for it, but management decided to shaft the fans.

Star Wars is being brought under the umbrella of one of the most prolific companies we have around. There is so much good that can come from this. Despite the fans woes, I believe this will give Star Wars the new life that it so desperately needs. I would hate to see such a fun franchise go the way of others, becoming hallow shells with no innovation. I expect a great deal of good from this.

And if Darth Vader happens to be in Kingdom Hearts 3, awesome.

Just something to chew on.

Character Design: Spontaneous

So some of you might forget that I am actually a professional writer, not just some chump with access to blogspot.com and a keyboard. I forget myself sometimes. I've decided to take a bit of time to stretch my writer's muscles every now and again. So I've decided to start up a recurring section looking at what makes a good character. Usually this will be inspired by whatever I happen to be indulging media wise at the time. Let's get started.

Good characters think on their feet.

Romantic movies and books always point out how women want men to be spontaneous, to do the unexpected. A cute thought, but not what I mean. Spontaneity is the notion of not settling into a routine. That is not, however, what we expect out of a hero. A hero needs to have a plan when there seems like there can be none.

Take Batman. Batman has contingency plans for everything. His main strength, however, is his mind and his ability to think. In his work, if a plan goes wrong, he will be able to think up how to come at the problem from a different angle. Even as plan A fails, plan B is being implemented, plan C prepped, and plan D going into beta. Thinking on his feet is the reason Batman can come out on top.

Now what does this mean for writers? It's all well and good to say that characters need to think on their feet, but how do you put that in as a writer. That comes through in the execution of sequences. Here's what I mean. When crafting a scenario where you the author knows something goes wrong, there needs to be a back up plan that the character can implement later. The mechanics for that have to be in the works before hand as well. That is your job as the writer.

When writing the scene, there can be little indication that there is other plans in the works. It's so tempting to drop little hints that, when looking back, give away what happened. This is a big thing in movies, and can be pretty cool. But most savvy readers can pick up on stuff like that, especially if it is in a suspense or mystery story. That ruins it for them and makes the plot predictable. The goal should be to execute the new plan in a way that seems organic. It should seem to flow from the failed first plot and round out the story.

Surprisingly, Scooby-Doo was great at this. Fred always came up with ingenious (and stupidly elaborate) plans to catch the bad guys. Typically something would go wrong and the monster would avoid the first trap. Then, Scooby and Shaggy would find a way to haphazardly catch the monster for the big reveal. These situations show that a secondary option can appear completely out of the blue as long as the writer understands how to make the character seem like they thought of it on the fly.

I'm still trying to figure out how they managed to screw up Batman's plan when he teamed up with Scooby.

Just something to chew on.

A Pirate's Life For Me

Yes, I've been gone for a while, but I'm back. I know you think that I'll probably be writing about something that is deep and spiritual for me. And you would be right...just not now. Instead, I'm going to take a look at the internet, media, and profit. Basically I'm just avoiding writing about what I've been thinking about. On to the subject.

I believe we are thinking about piracy wrong.

While I wish I was talking about the high seas and raiding local villages for plunder, I'm taking about the ideas of digital property. Interestingly enough, a recent survey suggested that the ones who pirate music illegally are also the ones who buy the most legally. Honestly, I can understand. I feel that those who really like music always want to expand their libraries of music. They may pirate music to sample it, then purchase the one's they like. I can understand not wanting to invest in something you don't know if they're any good. I appreciate this because it shows that "pirates" are not just cheap, greedy music grabbers who don't support the artists.

The thing is, however, digital property is something we don't understand. It is created material, and some ownership of that is true, but that falls more under copyright laws than protection. See, I don't believe in plagiarism as acceptable. It should never be okay to take someone's work and use it for your own gains. I should not be able to copy the direct idea from a Stephen King novel and try to sell it. That is intruding on an artist's work.

But acquiring the work is another thing entirely. The thing about digital media is that it is not a physical thing. Taking a book from Barnes and Nobel is depriving someone else of a physical, limited material. Meaning, there are only so many physical copies, and you have denied someone access to one of them. However, with digital media, there is only the information file. It costs nothing to copy the material and send it to someone. In that regards, you are not depriving anyone of anything.

I do think that there needs to be some kind of protection for this material. If all material is free, then there will be no profits for anyone. I can see this causing a lot of trouble in the videogame world. There is so much capital poured into them that there needs to be some kind of return. On the flip side, so much media is so expensive, that it is hard to come by it in a legal way that is also personally responsible. What we need, I believe, is not laws that demonize the individual, but one's that help the company. It is such a hard thing to regulate, but there should be ways to legally obtain this kind of information. We need to take time and think about how to best regulate and not to punish.

I do think it should be a crime to listen to Justin Bieber, however.

Just something to chew on.

From Concentrate

Guy's aren't good at multitasking, it's a fact that we should all have accepted by now. I know for me, that when I am doing more than one thing, they tend to suffer in quality, if only slightly. If I take it one task at a time, I tend to do better and stay more organized. Things require focus and concentration, for video games, to writing, to any kind of work.

The same is true of our relationship with God.

Talking to God is easy, right? Just start talking and to Him and He'll listen, despite how we ramble. God listens and we have a healthy, happy relationship. No problem. Except that's not usually how it works. I have a watch that has a few alarms that go off through the day reminding me to pray. Do it do it as every time? No, sadly. I keep myself busy, and it seems like I've built up a reaction to just hit the off button and move on. More often than not, I don't pray.

For me, talking to God requires a lot of focus. When I really need to talk to him, I have to go off on my own, find somewhere where I can think quietly, and literally talk out loud to Him. Whatever my problems are, whatever I need to deal with, I say it to the air, knowing He will hear me. The thing is, I need that silence. I get so easily distracted by whatever is going on around me that I don't focus on God like I need to.

Quiet time is important in the Christian walk. That's not new. I think, however, that we need to do more than just take time to be quiet. We need to practice focus. We need to start in our quiet time, learning how to concentrate on God, then be able to take that concentration with us into our busy lives. That's one of my goals for the summer. In the heat of the kitchen, during the rush of meal preparations, I want to be able to take a few seconds and focus on God. It'll take effort, but that's what I'm hoping for.

And girls, I still doubt how good you all are at multitasking.

Just something to chew on.

Fermenting Games

I’ve never drank wine, but I understand a little bit about it as a concoction. Wine ferments and needs to age to reach a peak of flavor. Typically, the older the better.  As we know, this process doesn’t work for everything. Try fermenting milk and you’ll just have a disgusting pile of curd. Some things don’t age well, including my topic for today.

Some games age well, others not so much.

You’d think that newer games are going to be better than the old, right? Better hardware offers better graphics, new developing methods help create innovative gameplay, and general growth in the medium allows for more mature storytelling. This is not always the case. Ask any Silent Hill fan and they’ll probably tell you the series stopped being good after Silent Hill 2. Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest is generally regarded as being worse than the original Castlevania. And I back the claim that there hasn’t been a good sonic game since the Sega Genesis. I’m going to look into two games that I picked up again recently, and explain a bit about how well, or poorly they’ve aged.

We’ll start with the well-aged game, Dark Cloud 2. This is a Japanese RPG developed by Level-5 studios. I’ve had it for a long time (though I still haven’t beaten it) and I really enjoy it. Coming back to it, I am surprised that it is still a fun game. Even after playing many other RPGs and JRPGs, I still like Dark Cloud 2. And there are a few good reasons, I think; the first being the gameplay. DK2 is a sort of hack and slash dungeon crawler. That’s a poor description, but it gives you a basic look. The two characters each have their own signature weapons and secondary fighting styles, but each one has a wide variety of their main weapons, and there are numerous branches to take each weapon upgrade. The controls are easy and streamlined. The randomized map generator works very well in the dungeon system, and makes each play through of a level unique. Oddly enough, the damage system is also a plus. The characters cannot tank damage like many other games, and can only take a few hits before either passing out, or being dangerously close. All this combines into gameplay that stays fresh. The same mechanics work in each level, but still requires the appropriate amount of strategy and forethought to continue.

A second reason for this is the game world. This game world is easy to understand while maintaining a complexity and a liveliness that many other, bigger games, fail to grasp. There is so much you can do in the world. One of the main mechanics is the camera, and the ability to take pictures and find special photos that can help create ideas to invent new items. The creating system is a great blend of that camera, searching for recipes in every town, and good old trial and error. This is available outside and inside the dungeons. Each dungeon has their own sub-goals. Each has a time attack goal that rewards you for defeating all the monsters in a given time. After they’re gone, there is the option to play Spheda, a golfing mini game. This game is frustrating, but still enjoyable, and combining it with the randomized levels, the game is never dull. Fishing is also a big deal. Some levels have bonus rewards for fish caught in the dungeon, while the main city hosts two events, a fishing competition and a fish race. These options are fun and offer different challenges and goals than the standard hit-back-guy-get-xp formula. Catching fish and training them become entertaining distractions, and the fishing mechanic itself is fun. On a final note, another option is the Georama gameplay, which let you edit and add to selected areas of the outer map. This kind of SimCity management system is much like Legos, letting you how you want, while still meeting certain requirements. There is a great deal of freedom that stays smartly restrained by individual desires and an overarching goal for the build. All of these help the game world to feel vast, keeping the player from getting bored, all while working within the limitations of a relatively small overworld.

Finally, Dark Cloud 2 is good because of its character. Not just the player characters and people, but character of the game as a whole. This is in two parts, the people and the places. The characters you play as and meet are incredibly memorable. Max and Monica are the two main characters, and you can change between them on the fly, but each is unique in how they react and interpret the world and its happenings. They make a great team because their similarities are highlighted by their differences. Neither one is a standard, two dimensional, hero. They are full of life and personality. And they weren’t the only ones. The villains, the supporting characters, even the towns folk all had variety and nuance. The towns felt alive and real, not just hallow places with static characters that the player visits whenever they have to unload some loot for cash. This is the other part, the world is full of variety. The main town is this nice city with a homely feel, but the player goes on to see a lush forest, an enchanting ocean, a powerful volcano, and more, in the present, and the future. Dark Cloud 2’s world is believable, not relying on the same old tropes as most other fiction or fantasy, and instead making each setting its own unique take. The story is memorable, and even after having not played it for something like four years, I still remember much of the plot and characters. The personality attributed to the game wraps up the first two points and helps this game be like a fine wine, still good after all this time.

On the other hand, we have Dynasty Warriors 4. This will be shorter, so just stay with me. Dynasty Warriors 4 is a forgettable game for basically all the reasons above. The gameplay is static. It has remained the same since its first incarnation, and hasn’t changed at all, even though it is well into its seventh official game (not counting the various expansions and off shoot games). While hacking through thousands of harmless mindless grunts and a few more interesting generals is fun, it doesn’t have a lastability. The game world is just as dry. The meta-game consists of menus and an annoyingly repetitive theme song. In-game, the landscapes are bland, the camera makes it hard to see, and there is little variety. There is no way to really immerse yourself in the world. Finally, there are the characters. We’ve covered that the world lacks character, but so do the cast. Dynasty Warriors 4 has something over sixty characters, with maybe only 5 that are really interesting. Most others just lack personality and anything that could make them relatable. Its off shoot, Samurai Warriors does a better job in these cases, having fewer characters that are more interesting, allowing for uniqueness in the maps, and at least trying a few new ideas in the gameplay. I still play Dynasty Warriors 4, but it just isn’t like it was when I was younger. It might be better to let it die quietly in my closet.

These games deserve at least one play through. Dynasty Warriors is like a bag of chips, simple and unrefined, but a good way to kill time. Dark Cloud 2, however, is like a multi-course meal. Each level requires time to taste and savor, appreciating the subtleties and looking forward to what comes next. Enjoy them both, but make sure you see just what makes each game what it is.

For a reference, I have over 100 hours in Dark Cloud 2.

Just something to chew on.