Tamakun's Journal

davidn recently re-released his game Crystal Towers 2 on Steam, but as the game had been quite a few years in the making before release initially, and then a few more years before it was Greenlit on Steam, he decided to go through the game and give it an overhaul, making it Crystal Towers 2 XL, including improvements to the controls, graphics, and even the UI. (Pretty much, he wanted to add widescreen support and then he realized that the graphics needed to be updated because of the increased viewing window, and while he's at it, might as well use a new font, and etc, etc, etc...)

I had played the game a few years back, enjoying it massively, but now that I've been thinking a lot recently about game design and working in Game Maker, I have been thinking a little more critically about how games are made and I ended up making a little analysis of the first few stages, primarily in how each Challenge is designed and what needed to be set up in preparation for the level.

( This got lengthy )

While I'm on the subject of newly released programs, ravenworks also recently released his first app, Squishtoon! I've had a chance to see it in action and it's extremely powerful yet easy to work with!

A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends, Garfield Turner, got into a vehicular accident and passed away. Today was his funeral and celebration of life. This was the second funeral that I've had to attend in as many months, and this one was just as hard and I wish it didn't happen.

I didn't know Garfield very well, I will admit. He is a friend of a friend of mine. But you wouldn't know that if you saw us together. He loved everyone as if they were his best friend, he dedicated his time to you.

The funeral was quite grand. A lot of people came out, and something that really stood out was that at least a hundred people from his cheerleading crew attended, one of the many groups he's been dedicating his time to for the past five years - and that made up only about a quarter to a fifth of the entire attendance.

I'll reiterate what was said by one of the people at the funeral: He was a Bucket-Filler. In today's schools they are teaching children that your bucket - filled with love, warmth, compassion, and caring - is not entirely filled by yourself, but by others. While you give compassion, friendliness and warmth, you fill others' buckets, and in return, it fills yours. Garfield was one of the best Bucket-Fillers that anyone has ever seen, with an unwavering compassion and a never-ending stream of compliments and gratitude, and I could see so many people nodding in agreement today.

He lived his life to the fullest. He enjoyed everything. He always smiled. He did what he wanted to do. He was always joking, always playing around, sometimes even making a fool of himself - but you know that it put a smile on people's faces. His enthusiasm and dedication would brighten any situation.

One of the songs played at the ceremony was Gone Too Soon. He truly is Gone Too Soon. I still don't know if I'm processing it correctly even after everything I saw today.

I miss his contagious smile already. Every time I say, type, or even think it I can't help but cry. If I have anything to take away from what I saw today, is that he was universally loved and respected. If I could aspire to even have a quarter of the compassion and love that Garfield had for his fellow friends (and by that, I mean everybody), then I would be a better person.

You will be missed by the world, Garfield.

So word came out today that Studio Ghibli will close up shop and just work on managing its copyrights.

This is sad news to come across today.

A couple of days ago I reposted something on Tumblr regarding Miyazaki's thoughts on the inevitable closing, comments which were made long before the announcement happened. At the time, was just something whimsical and thoughtful. Today, I revisited it and gave a small sendoff at the bottom.

I really don't think I have much else to say about this.

EDIT: It didn't even last 30 years. This saddens me MORE.

Hi everyone!

I bet you're all stunned that I'm updating, but I'm still alive and kicking!

I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful belated Holiday Season, and I plan to start updating things here again soon. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things and wanting to get back in touch with all my friends, so look for more posts from me (including a long-overdue WEDDING post) in the near future :)

Take care, see you all soon!

Tama :)

I just sat down to watch a documentary titled "Jiro Dreams of Sushi". (There's a good New Yorker article about the movie.) As I'm making my way through it, watching the wonderful sweeping shots of Japan, the Tsukiji Fish Market and the auction, and the Japanese mentality of work, and I'm kinda wanting to go back to Japan. I miss it...

...I'll admit that I'm pretty easily influenced, too. All the glorious food porn images of the sushi is making me hungry for some sushi pretty badly.

I have been finally been able to breathe and think now that I'm working at The Chocolate Factory, and it's been so welcoming. I've missed having the odd thought like remembering Independent Women as performed by kittens. (and I'm so sorry that I haven't updated this in ages, my thoughts all end up on Twitter these days, in small, 140-character chunks.) Being able to sit at home without worrying if the bakery is burning down or tensely waiting for that call at 8pm when a cashier doesn't know how to do the End-of-Day. Management at COBS was definitely not for me!

While I love what I'm doing, I do have to think about the future too and see just what I really want to do or what comes next. Admittedly working as a Candymaker is a pretty sweet job, no pun intended! There is the occasional moment where I wonder if what I'm doing is good, or if I could be doing something else, but right now, making chocolate = incredibly awesome. I have to watch my parents' dog this weekend so there may be a few moments of introversion as I'm left all alone in a big house.

I've been playing a lot of Antichamber lately. The Steam Summer Sale really pushed me to pick up a few games. I've been really spending more time thinking about what games I want to play that I would actually enjoy. That said, I haven't even cracked open Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask yet (still need to finish the Last Specter), and Kid Icarus Uprising. Club Nintendo also gifted me with Link's Awakening, so I've also got that on my 3DS, my first virtual 3DS Nintendo purchase. So I'm awash in games and don't know what I should be playing next! XD

The wedding is in less than a month now! Most of our ducks are in a row, and things are going pretty well for that - I have Christine to thank for that, she's organizing things really well. I think at this point all we really need to do is show up! ^^

Well, that was fast. Not three days after my previous posting (friends-only link) about leaving COBS and the prospective jobs that I was looking out for, I went on Tuesday to The Chocolate Factory to learn about what they do and lend a hand for a day.

Once I got there, I met the owner, really nice guy, and without even starting my work, he told me my starting pay, and said "Welcome to the team". By the end of the shift I had made 18 batches of fudge with the family, and I was on the payroll, simple as that.

So, I've moved from my job as a Bakery Manager to -- get this -- a Candymaker. :D

The Chocolate Factory is a family-run business, not too many people work there. The Mom-and-Pop feel is still present (it is a Mom-and-Pop with their daughter helping out), despite the wide variety of products that are made. Almost 30 years ago, they started with fudge and eventually moved into items like hard candies, chocolates, and truffles. Every day they typically make something different - not to keep it fresh and interesting, but to make what's being ordered for the next few days. In one day you can make a LOT of one particular item (i.e. 18 batches of fudge is enough for maybe 500 of those "blocks" of fudge that you buy at the store), so over the next month I'll likely see a lot of different items being made. (I'm kinda excited to see the Hard Candy machine in use, admittedly...)

For the first month I'll be there for 4 days a week (Tuesday-Friday) as it's actually a quieter time, but we'll be getting ready for Christmas soon enough (!), so it'll eventually graduate onto a 5-shift week. Even so, four days a week is a good opportunity for me to gradually get into the swing of things.

I still can't believe that I ended up finding this position. Of all places, I found it on Craigslist. I applied probably about 10 days ago, and had an interview with them only last week... and then started working with them the day before my last day at COBS. (They wanted me to come in today, and I had to tell them "let me just finish out my previous job first!" XD) This is kinda absurd but I'm already amazed.

I guess I need to tell the other interviewers that I've already found a position... but hey, Candymaker. :D

So now I've reached the ripe age of 34. Insert strange number joke here :P

I really didn't have any plans on what to do to celebrate. I have been wandering a lot through my days off, and Tuesday was a day off for me, so I was content with just sitting at home and reading e-mails (and quite the amount of e-mails came my way - lots of Facebook notifications and personal e-mails. I got a lot of them on my phone :D).

Christine, though, wanted me to do something a little more grand and memorable. So, we had gone out to Wimpy's Diner for a nice breakfast, then visited the Pink Lemon Bakeshop to finalize some details for our wedding cake (oh yes-- that's the extent to our wedding updates right now, we now have a cake!), then, with some deliberation and surfing the website, decided to go visit the Ontario Science Centre and catch a movie at the IMAX theatre there.

We saw "Hubble", a documentary on the Hubble Space Telescope and the pictures that it's taken over the years, as well as the numerous repair missions that have been undertaken to correct and update its capabilities. Being it was in an Omnimax Theatre, the scene filled your entire field of vision, so scenes with the Space Shuttle taking off were so grand that it was actually moving me to tears. It's both a little humbling and yet incredible to think about the grand vastness of space, and what we have managed to do in our lifetimes is nothing short of incredible. The determination and focus are testament to what we as a whole can accomplish. It's making me tear up even just thinking about it... (I should probably follow Chris Hadfield while I'm thinking about it...)

Plans were to meet up with David (lj user="bassbeast">) after he was done work, as I figured hey, why not? I hadn't seen him for awhile and I should probably have a nice dinner with a friend. Little was I aware that Christine had planned a surprise party for me! She had invited a small gathering of people together (including a couple I hadn't seen since... probably 6 months :P) and we had a really nice dinner at Green Basil. :D

And this may sound strange, but I got exactly what I wanted for my birthday -- a briefcase! I've been wanting to carry about my work papers in something a little more formal than a bag, so I had been looking at the old-style briefcases (i.e. not a laptop bag). It's already stuffed full of papers, and I'll be reorganizing things tomorrow. I feel so professional. :D

Gotta get to sleep! I want to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday, I never expected quite the outpouring that I received. :D

So while I was waiting for the demo of The Cave to download, I decided that I would look through my backlog of demos that I've downloaded on my Xbox over the past few years (!) and delete what was uninteresting. Here's my thoughts:

Amy: The game tries to look realistic but suffers from a poor framerate. As Christine put it, due to the uncanny valley the titular little girl looks creepy, and the story didn't grab me out of the gate. From there, I got lost in the train station and had trouble with the controls, had trouble finding "DNA Codes" due to lack of an explanation, and then died since my weapon broke and didn't know what button combination let me pull out another one.
WizOrb: If you played Pinball Quest's RPG Mode on the NES way back in the day, this looks like a similar game. It's a Pinball Adventure game, something I can definitely put my money towards. It controls well and I love the Paul Robertson animations :D
WhipCrack: A futuristic game where you swing a whip around to destroy blocks and recycle them. Simple idea, with a wisecracking robot recycler. I actually liked it. It was simple and easy to pick up. The whip was satisfying to control.
Zombies and Pterodactyls 20XX (ZP2KXX): A kind of Team Fortress 2 or Smash Bros clone where you run around a side-scrolling environment, picking up weapons and using them to defeat your opponents or bots. The controls took some getting used to (they use the 2-joystick controls, the right stick to aim your attack) but it was fun, but I wouldn't play it since it was meant for multiplayer, and I hardly do that anymore... This is by the same team who made I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 and The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai though, so I'm glad to see some different games from this team :)
R-Type Dimensions: I like side-scrolling shooters, but I found R-Type to be too slow for me. I guess my tastes have changed... but I did like the fact that with one press of the Y button, the game went from 3D to 2D sprites seamlessly. It was amusing - but not enough for me to get into it. (Also, only one level for the demo.)
You Will Die: Anyone play Warning Forever? It's pretty much the same idea. You destroy one little machine, then it taunts you (with the titulat "You Will Die") and rebuilds itself with additional parts that will try to stop you from using the same tactics (i.e. if you stayed in one place, it would use homing missles. If you liked to attack from behind it would increase its turning ability). Unfortunately I like Warning Forever a lot more (it was more adaptable), and that's free...
War World: I don't recall downloading this one. Short. The MechWarrior-like Mecha caught my attention. I liked the controls despite having something different on every button. "Died" in less than a minute. Dunno if I ran out of ammo or overheated or what, but I didn't explode.
Wayne the Brain and the Insane Physics Crane: Now this is the kind of game I've been looking for. A simple physics-based game where you have to stack blocks with a magnetic crane. It has a slight "mad scientist" feel as Wayne is actually a brain with an eyeball and his objective is to cover the stains but not the drains and not anger Zane (his Master, I presume). And yes, they make puns.
Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard: As much fun as it would be to be a scythe-wielding nun for this game, it was stupidly simple - you can jump, you can cut, you can shoot a gun, but you can just run to the right and swing the blade from time to time and get through unhurt. Boring as all hell.
Gravity: No music, poor running animation (he doesn't even look like he's walking much less running), barely any sound effects, and no on-screen effect to tell you how Gravity is being affected in the game (when you control it yourself and they expect you to use the change in gravity to make bigger jumps, I would expect to see some kind of change to the room to explain it).
I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1: After playing through a few bad games, I just had to come back to this one. I've always loved how the music lined up with the visuals and the game was simple enough to enjoy, being a twin-stick shooter with zombies, ZZT Snakes and multiplying blobs.
TEC 3001: If anyone ever played Pepsiman and liked it, then you might like TEC 3001 since it's a straightforward "run and collect things" game. It has a few extra tricks like changing the environment colour on-the-fly and super-smooth controls, but I'll let this review speak words instead :D
The Cave: I uh... didn't end up playing it. I exhausted myself on all the other games...

Other games I just deleted since I didn't figure I'd enjoy them:
Virtual On: Oriango Tangram
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise
Ninja Gaiden 2

I'll review more later... somehow I collected over 180 games on my list - and I only have a dozen of physical Xbox games, and maybe another 6 downloaded ones... so that means I have about 150 demos on this thing...

Okay, I can't even recall how I ended up watching this -- oh yes, now I do, someone had a set of .gifs animating this and I just had to see what this game was about.

So, considering that a few of my friends are playing through a game where all the characters are literally pigeons, and one of those people heading it up has his own show called Stumbling Through, I figured that they would get a kick out of this.

This is Surgery Simulator 2013, "Rage Quit" Edition, by Rooster Teeth (yes, the Red vs Blue guys). The objective is to perform heart surgery. And... that's all they leave you with - aside from the table, the patient, and the tools.



I have to admit, I'm kinda... wanting to try this. Just for the sheer absurdity of it all. Where else can you shatter a person's ribs and pull their lungs out with no effort whatsoever? Just watch the actual arm flex with such elasticity as if Stretch Armstrong was doing the work.

edit ...oh god that came out sounding so sadistic, didn't it :S

edit 2: Ah, will you look at that: It's playable online with Unity installed. Knock yourself out. :D

(cross-posted from professorlayton)
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Hallowe'en!

I'm having to head off to work for the rest of the day, but I figured I'd share with you what I'll be looking like at work :)

( Cut for picture! )

Edit: I just uploaded a few more pictures that I took at work that imitated my profile picture from crazyhattrick here :D