Month: October 2023

fictionz:

Time loop video games and why we love (or hate) them

Some essays about time loops in video games:

“Time Loop Narratives Are About Love” by katy (cw: incest)

“Growth is a genuine change in you. Growth is seeing the world differently than you did before because you’re someone different now.”

Games highlighted: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, DEATHLOOP, Twelve Minutes, Oxenfree

“Time loops are a weird genre for an anxious time” by Jenna Stoeber and Polygon

“Part of why they’re regaining popularity is because the world is a mess and we either don’t know how or don’t have the power to fix it.”

Games highlighted: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Elsinore, Outer Wilds, Undertale, Inscryption, The Stanley Parable, The Forgotten City, Twelve Minutes

“Time Loop Nihilism” by Jacob Geller (cw: graphic violence and incest)

“I eventually came to realize, if I’m going to do this all again, if there are few real consequences for failure… why would I play in a way that’s so boring?”

Games highlighted: DEATHLOOP, Dishonored, Hitman 3, Bloodborne, Twelve Minutes

“Clockwork Games and Time Loops” by Game Maker’s Toolkit

“Every decision you make matters because you’re always spending your most precious currency: time.”

Games highlighted: Outer Wilds, Dead Rising, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, The Sexy Brutale, Elsinore, Minit, Vision Soft Reset, Twelve Minutes, DEATHLOOP, Hitman 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution

“Why Time Loops Work Best in Video Games” by Extra Credits

“Failure doesn’t feel like an inconvenience or a punishment, but is instead a natural and necessary part of the story.”

Games highlighted: Elsinore, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Undertale, DEATHLOOP, Returnal

“The Problem with Time Loop Games | 12 Minutes Analysis” by Ozzy II (cw: graphic violence and incest)

“This is the point I was talking about earlier, where the first half of the game is just worthless.”

Games highlighted: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Outer Wilds, Twelve Minutes, The Sexy Brutale

“Dying Rules in Time Loop Games” by Inside Gaming

“When the sun began to glow and implode, I knew I had no choice but to put down whatever I was doing and accept what was about to happen.”

Games highlighted: Outer Wilds, Into the Breach, Minit, Twelve Minutes, DEATHLOOP, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

“The Best Time Loop Games” by The Gadget Show

“Its black-and-white design and funny writing make this one memorable way longer than the minute it takes to complete a loop.”

Games highlighted: DEATHLOOP, Outer Wilds, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Minit, Elsinore

I’m glad this is still going around because I think about that Game Maker’s Toolkit quote constantly:

“Every decision you make matters because you’re always spending your most precious currency: time.”

New Horror 2023 – Day 12

“People who live indoors always remind me of something peeled and skinless.”

“The Man Who Went Too Far” by E.F. Benson (1912)

This is going to be the funniest title I come across this month. An alternative title is: “The Man Who Was Extra.”

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“You’re my favorite girl, but you’re still a rotten detective!”

“The Living Ghost” by Frank Belknap Long & Fred Guardineer (1948)

I had a note next to this story asking “superhero who’s a zombie???” because they reference this character appearing again in later issues, but it seems to straight up be a comic series following a villain who is a spawn of satan. Though he’s not an especially clever spawn.

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“I was hungry for you for as long as I could have you.”

The Velvet Vampire dir. Stephanie Rothman (1971)

Mostly an excuse to watch Celeste Yarnall vamp it up with other attractive actors, but that final sequence is great. And I like what the director has to say.

I’m very tired of the whole tradition in western art in which women are always presented nude and men aren’t. I’m not going to dress women and undress men – that would be a form of tortured vengeance. But I certainly am going to undress men, and the result is probably a more healthy environment, because one group of people presenting another in a vulnerable, weaker, more servile position is always distorted.

From “Women in Horror Month: Stephanie Rothman, The Feminist Queen of Exploitation Cinema”

New Horror 2023 – Day 11

“I may not see her; and I warned you to prevent her.”

“The White Priest” by Hélène Gingold (1893)

Another old timey apparition of benign intent. The characters in this one are kinda nonchalant about it, too.

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“It is too much fun being alive…”

“The Thing from the Sea” by Wally Wood & Joe Orlando (1951)

It’s intriguing that there is no attempt to explain things in these older stories. It’s just spontaneous haunted stuff, wrath of the lord/universe, etc. But it also means there’s no pathos for any of the characters.

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“I wish you would at least let me be happy.”

Hatching dir. Hanna Bergholm (2022)

That’s the stuff. I was afraid it’d be a trauma monster or contained in a certain point of view, but there’s no doubting it. And I’m sure that’s the point, because how else can you get someone to listen?

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“Laura… Laura!”

D dev. Warp (1995)

That was excruciating. The pace just crawls and the prospect of having to play through again because time ran out (which it will because there’s no pause or save feature) is bananas. If you must play it, do it with a guide open, or prepare for at least two or three playthroughs. I can see why it hit in the 90s, especially since I came back to play it because it left a big impression, but it’s more valuable as an artifact than a story worth replaying.

dollsahoy:

sevengummisharks:

futureevilscientist:

urbanpineapplefarmer:

othersystems:

It is really important to me that all of you learn about Al Bean, astronaut on Apollo 12 and the fourth man to walk on the moon, who after 20 years in the US Navy and 18 years with NASA during which he spent 69 days in space and more than 10 hours doing EVAs on the moon , retired to become a painter.

He is my favorite astronaut for any number of reasons, but he’s also one of my favorite visual artists.

Like, look at this stuff????

It’s all so expressive and textured and colorful! He literally painted his own experience on the moon! And that’s just really fucking cool to me!

Just look at this! This is one of my absolute favorite emotions of all time. Is Anyone Out There? is like the ultimate reaction image. Any time I have an existential crisis, this is how I picture myself.

And then there’s this one:

The Fantasy

For all of the six Apollo missions to land on the moon, there was no spare time. Every second of their time on the surface was budgeted to perfection: sleeping, eating, putting on the suits, entering and exiting the LEM, rock collection, setting up longterm experiments to transmit data back to Earth, everything. These timetables usually got screwed over by something, but for the most part the astronauts stuck to them.

The crew of Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Al Bean, and Dick Gordon) had other plans. Conrad and Bean had snuck a small camera with a timer into the LEM to take a couple pictures together on the moon throughout the mission. They had hidden the key for the timer in one of the rock collection bags, with the idea being to grab the key soon after landing, take some fun photos here and there, and then sneak the camera back to Earth to develop them. They had practiced where they would hide the key and how to get it out from under the collected rocks back on Earth dozens of times.

But when they got to the moon, the key was nowhere to be found. Al Bean spent precious time digging through the collection bags before he called it off. The camera had been pushing their luck anyways, he couldn’t afford to spend anymore time not on the mission objectives. Conrad and Bean continued the mission as per the NASA plan while Dick Gordon orbited overhead.

Fast forward to the very end of the mission. Bean and Conrad are doing last checks of the LEM before they enter for the last time and depart from the moon. As Bean is stowing one of the collection bags, the camera key falls out. The unofficially planned photo time has come and gone, and he tosses the key over his shoulder to rest forever on the surface of the moon.

This painting, The Fantasy, is that moment. There have never been three people on the moon at the same time, there was never an unofficial photo shoot on the moon, this picture could never have happened.

“The most experienced astronaut was designated commander, in charge of all aspects of the mission, including flying the lunar module. Prudent thinking suggested that the next-most-experienced crew member be assigned to take care of the command module, since it was our only way back home. Pete had flown two Gemini flights, the second with Dick as his crewmate. This left the least experienced – me – to accompany the commander on the lunar surface.

"I was the rookie. I had not flown at all; yet I got the prize assignment. But not once during the three years of training which preceded our mission did Dick say that it wasn’t fair and that he wished he could walk on the moon, too. I do not have his unwavering discipline or strength of character.

"We often fantasized about Dick’s joining us on the moon but we never found a way. In my paintings, though, I can have it my way. Now, at last, our best friend has come the last sixty miles.” – Al Bean, about The Fantasy.

There’s also Alexei Leonov, writer and artist and first person to conduct a spacewalk!

This is his art.

You can’t forget this, the first art made in space.

March 1965, Alexei Leonov made this drawing only moments after narrowly surviving the very first space walk.

This is all lovely and beautiful, but Pete Conrad almost didn’t make it into the astronaut program because he would not stop playing/making jokes.

Here’s Pete Conrad’s official NASA photo

“Super! Really enjoyed it!” is what you get when you send a comedian into space.

electrificata:

the key to understanding kermit is that line from the original muppet series where lesley anne warren is like “i thought you were the only person here who wasn’t crazy” and kermits like “me not crazy? i hired the others” that guy loves chaos. he loves crazy shit, and he loves being the guy who has to handle the crazy shit. he deliberately creates these circumstances! he puts himself in these positions! and then he’s like “i cant believe youre making me do this.” anyway that frog is more human than any of us

New Horror 2023 – Day 10

“For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that place.”

“The Stolen Body” by H.G. Wells (1903)

There’s this whole spiritualism angle in stories from this time. Those Victorians just had to know what kinds of spooky stuff was out there, probably in defiance of (or in concert with) scientific rationale that was overtaking society.

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“It weeps a foggy fluid when pressed, even gently.”

“A Pretty Place” by Emily Carroll (2023)

Describing a fluid as “foggy” just conjures up some gnarly imagery, and of course it helps that it’s part of a comic with lots of gnarly imagery. Truly, Emily Carroll can do no wrong.

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“You know I know, don’t you, Bonnie?”

The Godsend dir. Gabrielle Beaumont (1980)

What in the sam hill. I bet this was in the wake of the mid-70s “kids are monsters” craze.

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“Watching you… cradle under the star…”

Clock Tower dev. Human Entertainment (1995)

The tension here is singular. No weapons, no fighting back, simply running and hiding in an environment rife with decay. This is an absolute gem of the era and it’s good to see it’s getting remastered soon.