Stealth in Games

[[unpolished post]]

I can't figure out exactly why I love stealth games as much as I do.

The funny thing is, I have not played that many, and I arrived at that conclusion after playing only one game - Thief 3. (To date I have played Thief 3, Beyond Good and Evil, Fallout3, and Splinter Cell)

So how and why did I come to be so married to stealth in games? It was a mystery to me, weakly explained by my love of first person and my enthrallment with the idea of getting to planning ahead and strategize. I would mention things like how I liked to explore and see every corner and detail included by the developers as possibly part of the explanation, but I couldn't really tie down why I find them intrinsically so much more appealing.

Well, I just discovered another reason, which may be an even more central cause. In stealth games inaction is an option. Therefore every action is a conscious choice.
At any time I can leave the area to hide in a safer zone, or I can weigh the benefits of charging ahead and into danger.
Becoming involved itself is a meditated choice I make, or do not make. I can either sneak by while the guard is standing there, peg him now, or wait until I know he will leave his post.

This has an enormous effect upon me. Suddenly, the act of playing the game itself is immersive. While I still easily break the immersion by making a game-y choice (eg, I don't care if I die, lets run past anyway) operating in the game world can't be avoided.

How is this different from, say, a shooter, an rpg, or any other genre? Well, it probably has to do with control. In an rpg, the encounters, the loot, your attacks, as well as the overall plot are all fixed, random, or otherwise out of my control. It is very limiting in this way and I am consistently aware of playing a game. I can still enjoy it, but only as a game, not as a world important to me.

(Being too aware that I am playing a game is a huge problem I have. It frequently makes games un-enjoyable for me and I can't seem to shake it, even when I really want to)

Playing an fps, on the other hand, is much more immersive for me because I am constantly making decisions right down to which gun and how I move. While the plot is still fixed and the world around me is very regimented, I can still feel like I am at least a real entity operating within in the game world. The game world, unfortunately, often conspires to make me remember it is a game. We've all walked into an open area spotted a few health packs, and immediately known: "This means a boss is coming." The fences, enemies, events, or lack thereof constantly force me to act in a specific way. This is great for tailoring an intended experience while still letting the player choose when and where to move, and I fully appreciate it. But it still makes it oh so easy for me to spot game mechanics.
A tiny lag - must be a checkpoint. Danger ahead.
A new weapon? Must be a new enemy or section of game head.
Oddly quiet? Must be a build up for a bigger battle or an extended puzzle.
Once that battle is finished, I can count on a restock and a plot point or a quieter section.
A new building model? Must be important later.
A locked door? Chances are I'll be questing for a key.
Character is the average good guy? Probably going to die later.
Character cares too much about something? They will probably betray you for it later.
Lots of chest high walls? Prepare for enemies.
Bright light? Probably supposed to head that direction.
The list goes on and on. And I always notice them. I think about how to take advantage of every little thing, trying to beat the game instead of enjoying it.

Stealth games, for me, make the entire game lose its boundaries in a way other games do not.
I can use any number of methods to overcome him, or I can just avoid the guard altogether. Taking note of all the game mechanics is what I am supposed to do, and therefore they are concealed a little more aesthetically - particularly since I have the time to stop and notice them. The environment is part of gameplay instead of just a part of forcing the player into gameplay. They are challenges and obstacles instead of guides. I can be playing to beat the game, and still find it enjoyable. I also have far more control over who I am and what choices I make. The world still contains me, but that is both because it is supposed to, and because I am the one who is unable.

As I said before - more strategy, more environmental importance, more exploration, more sense of being inside the game world (immersion). And on top of it all, I also am consciously and intuitively choosing how to play the game as part of the game. All of these together mean that stealth games are games that I can wholesomely enjoy where other games I lose enjoyment of.

Not only to I get to choose how to act, but whether to act at all. Be it for economic, moral, or enjoyment reasons, I can choose to act in exactly the way I want. And without "breaking" the game. Sure, in a shooter I can force my will upon the game and demand that I use my pistol against a gunship, but the game breaks when I choose to do that. The game will become contorted and deformed. I will most certainly die hundreds of times, it will not be fun, it will not be a good difficulty, and it will be not the same game. In stealth games, any method is an option and the game does not break when you choose alternative methods. Of course you can still break the game - running through a level with the expectation of being cornered eventually and dying, but often you can get away with any tactic and still find a way to accomplish your goal. Or at least make it back to safety to try again once the heat has died down.

Knowing Not

"
It does sound corny. But that is only because I have never experienced anything close to the pain you have inside you. That is only because there are other people out their who want attention and jabber this story out to get people to give them things. But when this story is real. That is when it rips my heart apart and makes me see how terrible the world is in the dark forgotten corners that everyone tries to pretend don't exist.

I am one of the lucky ones. One of the few that has a ridiculously perfect life. And I know it. All that I can do is offer to do anything I can for you.

Right now the only thing I can say is never ever give up hope, because then you have lost yourself. Keep hoping. Keep trying. Never stop. Thank heavens that you wrote this. That you realize that maybe you need to listen to someone, that maybe you need help.

And don't tell me that this confession makes you weak. That is a complete lie. Please, start searching, start finding a way to change your life for the better. If nothing else wake up from your sweet dreams and tell yourself that you are you. You will not give up. You will make a path for yourself and you will live. Live because it is worth it. Because it is always worth it.





I know it is worth it.
I am here.
I am listening.

"







I wrote that probably about four, or so, years ago. I know I have had a sheltered life. That I don't know anything when it comes to hardship, wrongness, or suffering. I have never experienced an encounter with death. I don't know gangs, or violence, or desperation.
I think myself strong of mind and I think I could understand someone who knows those things, even if I couldn't understand the experience of those things themselves.

I am lucky in so many ways. I have never known real pain or fear. I have always been cared for. I am rich, perhaps not in the strict sense of amount of money, but I have definitely always had everything I ever wanted.

I've easily been myself my entire life, with hardly any opposition for it. ( Though what little I have had, never touched me. )

So, innocent lily that I am, I still think I can judge the world with a clear, knowing mind. I still think I can understand others who have seen what I have not, and I still think I know more than them.

And I still feel no emotion for most reality, only for concepts and ideals.

Its probably abnormal. It probably means that I am either something out of time and place, or maybe I can claim to be ahead of my time. (Hopefully still unbelievably primitive compared to what kind of thinking the future will bear)

I think I experience life deeper than everyone around me. That I see the beauty and the pain in colors hidden from others. That I care about the things that matter more than flat reality, the ideas behind them that give them essence. I think I know just how much the world isn't magic, but senseless reality. I think I know what is real and what is fake and what to think in the face of it all anyway.

But it could all be fallacy. I could just be a foolish child who knows nothing and never will. One who will not even know that I know nothing.

And even that, I lie in thinking I know what to think of in the face of anyway.
How lamentable that there is no way out.

Five Leaves

I watch anime.

And, while I don't watch a ton, I have definitely racked up quite a number of shows over the years.

Most of the anime I watch is probably of the more uncommon or unpopular variety with a few obvious exceptions. I find that I enjoy the more serious and slower paced ones, often with science fiction elements. Of course I don't always watch or even enjoy the same types all the time, but I definitely have a tendency to prefer complicated, dark, slow, and thought-provoking anime. I hope that some of the best ones I come across I'll be able to share one day with someone else who will enjoy them for what they are just as much as I. I'd have so much to talk to them about, I would think.

In any case, House of Five Leaves is a 12 episode anime that is fairly unusual. Though it takes a traditional premise - a samurai, down on his luck, gets involved in a gang that performs kidnappings, and then he begins to suspect that there is more here than meets the eye - it feels and tells a story that is very unique, unusual, and interesting. And I would argue, wholly enjoyable.
There are no magical elements. What coincidences that still occur retain their feeling of reality. The characters are each fleshed out, no so much in a variety of emotions, but at least in terms of interesting back story. Being a work of fiction, their backgrounds are abnormally interesting, but they don't cross the line to extremely fantastic and they are composed of a good variety of sources and events.

I guess I am most impressed by this anime because the entire way through it felt dreamlike, but so very plausible. All of it I could believe without feeling like I had to force myself to think - "give it some leeway, it is a story. It is an anime. It is just trying to be impressive or climatic." None of that. I never once had to make excuses for it, and that is far far more than most anime. Most anime, nay most stories, (even the good ones) I have to forgive for various transgressions when they shoehorn in to increase the stakes for the sake of excitement. While I admit that this anime wasn't very exciting, I still cared about the story and didn't every feel cheated, played, disgusted or forced to be charitable.

House of Five Leaves is exactly what it means to be. It doesn't need to apologize for trying to be something it is not. If you don't like it, you won't like it and there is no way around it. It stays true to itself the entire way through and doesn't change its characters, plot, pacing, or style at any point.

Another way it isn't a lie, is that it doesn't try to push some moral or meaning onto its events or characters. Everything involved is not necessarily completely good, nor completely bad. While the villains are ruthless outlaws for the money, so are the good guys for the most part. It is a fine line between right and wrong, when there is a line to be seen at all. This means that you don't get a feeling of victory when a heist is completed successfully, nor when an enemy is killed. Just as it ought to be. The entire anime has the effect of dulling your senses, both from the neglect of definitive values and also from the slow pacing and general apathy. You would think this could only be bad, but it is what House of Five Leaves is, and what I appreciate about it. It doesn't ever give a concentrated feeling of being real, in the sense that many "gritty" books and movies do, but all the elements that make it up, right down to the amount of exposition, are very realistic.

The House of Five Leaves is an odd bird.
It's characters aren't terribly intriguing. The plot isn't harrowing. The mood isn't thick. The music, while nice, isn't amazing. It is told in a dreamlike manner, but still realistically. It has grey morality without making you question your core values. I can't pin down why this anime is so good, nor can I really claim that it is altogether really good. I can say that it stands out compared to the glut of terrible stories. I can say that it is very unique and has many good qualities.
I just can't give a solid reason why I recommend it as being good. Nor why I liked it quite as much as I did.
I do know that I want to watch it again. I feel like its meaning is not direct.

More than that.....It's like...




House of Five Leaves is about second Truths. Not the kind of Truth that beckons us to act. But the kind of Truth that directs how we choose our compromises. Not the type of Truth that defines us, but the type of Truth that is forced to exist because we can't meet the definitions. It is still pure, it is dirtied beneath reality, messiness, and complexity, and thus not absolute Truth.

House of Five Leaves doesn't try to speak about these second Truths directly, but I feel like they hang in a fog all through it. I don't think I can ever know a Second Truth. The closes I can get is to just graze by them, and maybe become familiar with them in that way. I don't think I'll ever be able to put these ethereal concepts in words since they are made of of all the degrees of Truth between Truths, but I do think that by watching it again once or twice more they will seep in to fill the cracks between things I "know" in my mind. .

Maybe some day you will watch it and you will know what I mean.
I hope so.

Developer for Life

So I was just kind of messing around on the internet, doing a hundred things, all of which don't really matter all that much. Well, I was listening to an ExtraCreditz episode. I wasn't even watching it fully, though I was listening to it closely enough (while looking at other things) to really hear every word. This is a bit odd for me since I used to watch every ExtraCreditz with full attention, and near when they were released too. Well I managed to get behind and for some reason, was so intent on escapism that I didn't even want to commit my attention to an entertainment video. (truly, they are farrrr more than a simple entertainment video, but wording is for communicating more than just fact)
Here is what I was listening to.
What amazed me, was that even in this half-dormant state of mind, their message crystallized in me so easily.

Truly, it was an episode on how to be a good developer, and the message was essentially: go out and do things until you know everything there is to know - but really they were touching on a subject that I have had hanging over my head in all manner of ways: How to be the best I can be, and who exactly do I want to be anyway?

Their words on being a developer encouraged me that I really could become a developer if I wanted to set out to become one. While I didn't think I had the character traits to be a real leader (I don't) I was basing that on the way I haven't taken apart machines for fun, created a game for fun or written my own programs for fun yet. While those are true, many of the other critical aspects of a developer I do have. I do want to understand things from the bottom up. I do value other people's talents/ideas/methods and I do have some idea of how to communicate with a team. I do look at things and wonder how they work and I do like to research alternative ways to do things. I am willing to put in the time and effort to make something right, but I understand the need to say "enough is enough." I do have a wide variety of knowledge and I do have problem isolation and solving skills.

So, then, I lack two things. I basically knew it all along, but I am one step closer, by naming them clearly, to possibly moving forward and changing them.

The first is that I rarely ever take "the first step." I don't decide - okay! Time to do something! - and then go do it. I have very little self-initiative. This ranges from just getting out to explore the place I live, to building little projects, to contacting people, or just pursuing ideas.
The other thing that I do not do, is think of projects and then do them. I don't take things apart, or create new things. I don't come up with ideas and then see what I can make based on them.

Between these two I limit myself in a lot of ways. These are traits I admire in others. They are things that I see other people do and it makes me turn around and think about how much greater they are than I. But, in all honesty, they are traits that I really should and really can teach myself.

In some ways I don't want to. I like being the "shadow support" more than "the leader accomplishing goals." In other ways I know that there are things I am passionate about that I wish passively that I pursued and improved more often.

So, while I do believe I can start to cultivate these characteristics in myself and become a different person (one I admire more) because of it, there are two road blocks - ironically, the initiative to actually do it and also the /desire/ to do so. I don't know if I want to become that type of person even though I admire them and their work so much. I've been content to not be noticed, to be told ideas and then do the work without being the inspiration or seed that began the whole thing in the first place. I like being that unassuming person that is pushed by the tides, but also can whirl in and make a difference before fading away just as mysteriously. I like being the one without a dream or a goal, who is there to build up other people's without having my own grand ideas.

On the other hand, I can still be the friendly person who helps others while still possessing my own goals and strivings. There ought to be no reason not to want to become more of a leader and more of, well, someone who is amazing enough to actually do these incredible, unique, crazy, and worthy things.

I don't know.

I still don't know who I want to be or if I want to be something different.

The Greatest Speech Ever Made

Truly one of the greatest messages, one of the greatest moments in history, one of the greatest impacts you will ever experience...

And how did I learn about it?



A techno song that I thought was pretty good, and then I liked the lyrics. It began to work on me until I was feeling humanity's call to action shine through. Not long after I discovered the origin of the lyrics.

And now there are other versions - ones with more impact for the general public (now that the original has lost its original context and time period.) These are created by random citizens using their free time to orchestrate and improve on what came before.



And you know what? There is another version, one that touched me just as much.



And it makes me realize that video games will come to have incredible moments that will echo through the ages and change the world, bringing universal messages to the public in such a way that they will never forget that single moment. That second when something inside them shifted and they could see another shade of light in the world around them.

How wonderful that books, music, then movies, and soon games do this for us. I think each with their own method, but each with such capability to impact so strongly, and each with more or less ability to reach different kinds of people.

I am also reminded of SOPA and PIPA and how copyright has become pervasive and invasive to the point that it is threatening the ingenuity and desire to improve and share what other people have done.




These things exist because people want to share a vision, they want to create a message or spread a message or improve a message. They don't care about self benefit, they care about us. They care about the message and the audience and they want to do whatever they can to make us and this world of ours a little bit better.

Ayria

Much of my music taste has remained the same, so I find myself searching for stuff I listened to a couple years ago. Most of these songs that I try to find I because I remember they were fun to listen to. A few songs however, somehow became a part of me. I will be reminded of them just as something captures my interest, or I will be thinking about how something is important to me and fragments of the songs lyrics will flutter down. Sometimes it is the entire song that reflects the unspeakable thing (is it a concept? A mood? A perspective? Something of each.) other times it is a few lines.

As I listen to this song again, it feels more flat than it did the last time, but I suspect it is because I have not devoted my attention to it. I have not felt the vibrations, absorbed the lyrics' subtext or let it flow through me. Still, when the final verse arrives, I know it still has the message (thought, concept, feeling) I remember so well. I feel it as it pulls and pushes me, making my being sway as in an ocean current.

Yes, yes it still retains it's power over me. I still am swept along, feeling how ravenous I am to confront the world around me. Every single time the final verse comes on, I lift my voice in accordance.



I will give a proper rendition for "Friends and Lovers" when I have the ability.

Intricacy, Purity, and Movement are all Beautiful

I am obsessed with movement. Whether it is observing things in real life or watching the artistry employed in cinema. Whether it is that of nature or machine, conscious, or unconscious, rigid or fluid, graceful or clumsy, fast or slow, simple or complex... movement is something that constantly captures my attention and molds my opinion.

This was found months ago, but I never finished the description so I forgot about it. I just recently re-found it.

Snow, the Careless

It dances from the sky, with a reckless proclivity.
Defying all logic, all concept; laughing at gravity.
Each and every flake destined to one of two manifests -
Life of chaos leads to abrupt perish or patient languish.
but still every individual flies in the face of fate.
Such energy - teeming from a white void, they originate
Cover the sky, cover the ground, untold numbers fill the air.
All boundaries of time, space, depth, and sound, it willfully impair
You can taste infinity, you can feel as it always fades,
but never decreases its presence. It cuts with icy blades
Or gently brushes with a downy kiss. Endless chaos seen,
Whirling with reckless turmoil, joyful tumbles, it lands to gleam
then winks out as if traveling across a foreign time stream
It robs you of your senses and leaves you free and powerless
Each glint, a truth - to fathom it means salvation or madness
A white blanket canvas; a recording seismograph of time.
every moving thing; its passage marked. A living paradigm
A trillion crystals all reflect the infrared wax and wane
And the ethereal landscape morphs in a divine disdain
Ice sculptures grow from nothing, wind shifts and carves before your eyes
So fragile that the trees doth make snow dematerialize
So strong, conceals the world and the world hides away. Perfection,
A featureless ocean of deviation and deception







unused concepts/lines:
Whirling like cloth with no threads,
And when the wind whisks across the fields
And once its given up its ghost,
It can be any texture composition or density - once clear and solid, then smooth and crisp
often softer than down and slices like blades.
Pound it like clay, chip it like rock, crunch it like shell or explode it like glass
It can absorb your struggles like a torpid swamp, it can block you with an impenetrable barrier, or leave you frictionless, without anything sturdy to brace upon.
It can be collected into a staircase, dug into a canyon, or flown upon with blades.

my Plant waters Me

So I am trying to grow plants in my room for the innumerable-th time, and every morning I pour a little water in the pot. Consequently I refill the water bottle every morning. Suddenly I have water within arms reach all day. The - hardly surprising - consequence being that I finally am drinking water and making tea on a regular basis. Its so nice, and what I won't do for myself I will do for my sprouting plant....
Sometimes I think plants are smarter than us. They don't have silly wants or desires. We have both and don't take care of either of them very well.

Copy Cat

I believe I have original, worthwhile thoughts, but I never seem to arrive at them unless another person helps me along. I believe I am a good friend, but only by my friends coming to me and then letting me tell them they can stand on their own. I try to be so independent and courageous and original and then I fail over and over to do anything on my own. Sometimes all I want is my perfect knight on a white steed to ride up and take all my troubles away. But I can't even have that fantasy because as soon as I imagine it I rip it to shreds. Such a thing doesn't exist for one. For two I would never be able to enjoy such a life. For three I would live a life of no meaning, no growth, no pain, no Truth. I would have no struggles and no goal to achieve.

We all wish for the perfect answer to all our problems that requires us to give nothing of ourselves. And I think we all realize how such an answer would ruin us. I think we all know just how worthless a perfect life would be if we had no problems to overcome. If we have no goals to strive for, then how pointless it, life, all is.

Which leaves me in an endless trap that I see no way out of. The endless struggle of life with no answer. If there were an answer there is only the fear of finding it. But if you fear finding it then there is no reason to seek it. With no reason to seek it, there is no point to life. If life is not about seeking answers, then it has no direction, no worth, to achieve. This cannot be escaped by saying you find your own answers, because that falls victim to the same logic. If you make your own answer, then you have nothing more to strive for. But stopping short of making your own answers doesn't avoid the innate contradiction either.

So what then?
Are we doomed to wander in this endless trap? Can answers be worthless? Can seeking be worthless? Can life without seeking be worth anything? What is left for us then?

Nothing.

Is life meaningless? What a classic question.
No, our hope lies in trusting that we can seek the answers forever and never find them. Always be making partial progress, but never achieving the goals we set.

Pitiful isn't it? But that means that the journey is enough. And it is enough. I hope it is enough, because in times like these I am no longer sure. I just have to trust that my memory of how sure I was in brighter times in my life is true and that the journey is enough and always will be enough. All that changes is my certainty. Sometimes I know it to be true, and some times, like now, I do not know what to think.




--------------------------

As I think, there is another way of saying what I have already. We can set goals, achieve them, and set new goals. Life cannot be measured by the height you have achieved, as resting on goals achieved can only be temporarily worthwhile. Life can only be measured by the speed at which you rise to the goals you do choose. Whether or not you achieve them (or how high you began or reached or have been) matters little. It's not unusual for minor distinctions to be incredibly important. The goals themselves, while important, do not matter in the end. It can only be the continued attempt to reach them that matters. That would seem pointless, to some perhaps, but sometimes it seems as clear and reasonable as day to me. However it all depends on what viewpoint you are looking at. In terms of history, the unfeeling universe, and objectivity, it is the absolute goals that matter, but for humans and their lives ingrained in the temporal passing, value is not in the absolute but the relative rate of achievement.

I am reminded of Camus essay on the Myth of Sisyphus.