simple machines forum

Never mind grammar. Just use English capitalization and punctuation and spelling. Oh and paragraphs! Just try harder for SOM and everyone else. If there is a lot of demand I will make an Ebonics language forum or something

Your map won't play until you fix the sound issue. It might play thanks to the measures put in place by that message box. But you are knocking yourself out to keep running into it. Anyway SomEx.dll 1.1.1.6 was officially released earlier today. It automatically fixes the bug for SOM.

You need to post what steps you took to break your install. It sounds like you are not following the guides. Could save yourself some trouble to review them. You never know.

Most people come here after spending time with an English fan-translated SOM only to find that they need to install SOM in a second place. Then they map their new install to the old install.

The guides are fairly straightforward but I don't mind racking up some threads in this sub forum that illustrate the missteps people will commonly make.

You don't need to "compile" anything. The source code is just in there so everyone has a copy of it to be sure that it is never truly lost by any mechanism.

Does the message box not tell you what folder it is looking for a kage.cp file in? I am inclined to just ignore kage.cp. But if you can figure out what folders it should be in I will add kage.cp files to the file repository here. Anyway SOM doesn't seem to actually need it but when the kage.mdl file is loaded up it expects a matching kage.cp file.


Offtopic: Hmm. I wonder why your posts say you "has 0 posts" along the bottom. That's not good???

EDITED: Oh yeah. I'm sure it's because posts to this sub forum don't count against your total.

Thanks dmpdesign. I will read this post again later.

But as for you question. No I just changed my status to ACCOUNT RETIRED. I did delete my browser bookmarks and stuff so I can't compulsively check the forum. And I won't be reading it. Mainly so I am not compelled to post. But also because I have bigger fish to fry.

And like I say I don't like to see SOM disgraced by the petty things people do when unchecked.


PS: For the record I don't believe people should be allowed to delete forum accounts. It's one of the first things I turn off. But I did tell Wolf he could delete my account, but I warned him I wasn't sure what that would do to my posts.

PS: About the sound message box. When I set it up I wasn't thinking about the no BGM bug and didn't even realize that bug would trigger it. The box is there so if someone tries a game the game won't be brought to its knees by the sound device, but instead they can keep playing without 3D sound so at the very least they will be compelled to keep playing the game and look for a fix if they like what they see.

I am frankly surprised the no BGM bug was not fixed until just now. I guess everyone is just so used to the bug being there. It only occurred to me to fix it when I was sent a test project to look at the other day that was hastily setup and so did not supply a BGM.

Well you found your way to the right sub forum then

Sounds like you are off to a good start. SOM is really easy compared to any other way of making a full fledged video game. Luckily for you if you went to school for computers as you say you've probably faced much more intimidating things in your classes. We see a lot of people who want to make a game as if playing games and making games is the same thing.

Mostly you just have to follow the guide on the site. There is one in the Ex section and another in the Subversion repository that is a little more terse but also more thorough (though it may be a little out dated)

I can't really help with every little thing. Maybe Verdite will.

The random characters are Shift_JIS Japanese. If you want to see Japanese you need to add support to Windows via the control panel. If not you have two options.

You basically need to map Ex to an alternative data folder. That looks like this...

[Folder]

alternative_data_folder = Z:\Transfers\KF\SOM\data
That is explained in the guide. You can also drop the "Old English" language pack into the text folder. There is a guide in the text folder.

If only the model titles are garbled then you probably did something similar for your tools (ie. alternative_tool_folder) unless you did something else like overwrite the tools with other files.

There can always also be a bug. If you think there is I can look into it. Anyway unless you intend to make all of your artwork from scratch which is really advanced, you will probably want to use an alternate data folder with some of the doctored textures you can find around the internet. SOM's textures have a lot of holes and things.

I haven't quite gotten to the stage of methodically remastering all of SOM's artwork.

EDITED: Like I think the guides probably suggest we assume that your "alternative folders" are full of English translated files (in which case translation is not an issue)

As for Kage.cp you can suppress the dialog with:

[Output]

do_missing_file_dialog_ok = yes
You can also use cpgen.exe to make a Kage.cp file. A 0 sized file may also work. Kage is the shadow that appears under NPCs. This dialog is very handy for finding files that are missing in your game. Which tends to happen a lot when people go to share/demo games.

The sound error is a fix to warn people when their sound device isn't up to 3D sound but is trying to do it anyway. But the most likely reason you are seeing it is because of a bug that afflicts maps without a BGM file. I made a thread the other day called "Sound fun" that has a tiny silence .wav file attached. But if you can wait like a day I am about to release SomEx.dll 1.1.1.6 which has a fix for this bug.

It's a good time to get acquainted with SOM. It's not quite ready for prime time. But you can make a professional looking bug free game with it now and 1.1.1.6 has very fluid analog controls with lots of motion effects. The last few versions have had analog effects too. But its taken a while to fully flesh out all of the little details.

I was about to post something about what to expect in 1.1.1.6. There will be a more pared down introduction accompanying the blog announcement.

First of all this seems like PM material. But I don't have any problem responding to this out in the open if that is what you prefer.

This is my last attempt to get you to understand how simple the "common forum etiquette" I'm asking for is and to stop responding so severely.

Problem with common anything is there is no clearly defined standard and if there was it would be a lot of work to commit such a thing to memory. You have to be compassionate even when conveying simple clearly defined objective rules. Edited: similarly what seems severe to you is fairly reasonable and straightforward to me. Recall I was banned for what was probably years. Never mind that disengaging is usually the appropriate thing to do when you find yourself in an asymmetrical relationship.

Apparently the snippet you took issue with is:
"But what you call "moral" is irrelevant; I will be deleting/moving  any of your posts that are excessively off topic or rude to other members, unless Todd asks me to do otherwise. My purpose is not to limit you, just to keep topics functionally focused and the environment pleasant."

I think I probably took issue with more than that. But the audacity of that statement sure didn't quite sink in until the second time it came to my attention. So yeah I singled it out as exemplar.

My problem isn't the sentiment and in lieu of my history with the forum in question I would not be so taken back by this. My problem is the hostile tone and the mere suggestion that I should be second guessing myself. If you are going to second guess yourself you might as well third guess yourself, fourth guess yourself, ad infinitum. That's placing a heavy burden on anyone. Lastly I take issue with the hypocrisy. You are going to delete/move a post that was a reply in kind to your own post. And I will admit that I doubt its sincerity.

By the good nature logic of this forum where I can hold sway your personal post would've been redacted, and users would be reminded to ignore personalized posts. Because this is a forum about Sword of Moonlight. Not interpersonal animus or rapport.

But that is not the history or practice of the som.com forums. So I replied to your singling me out because it would be rude not to.

The point is not that morals are irrelevant, but that you ALWAYS claim your actions are justified by some moral.

You are specifically referring to my statement that I was only posting in the som.com forums when it was a "moral imperative". Whatever my morals may be is completely irrelevant. Moral imperative is a a phrase that just means I am morally compelled to do something. Like helping a little old lady across the street. Doesn't matter what the morals involved are, only how I would feel about myself if I did not follow through with my own personal convictions.

In the MANY conversations I've had with you, you have never admitted any of your actions were wrong no matter how obvious it was.

That is probably because it isn't obvious to me. I always do the right thing. I'm a calm and collected 21st century bleeding heart liberal and every day the laws of this land are being revised to better approximate my private worldview. I think I am on the right side of history and it could not be more obvious.

You were claiming that you had a moral obligation to argue off-topic in someone else's thread. I evaluated your claim, decided it was wrong, and therefore your ERRONEOUS "moral" was irrelevant.

I only claimed that I had a moral obligation to say hello to this chap. And to make sure that he understood that he was making things hard on himself by not looking into extending SOM ASAP.

The problem with making assumptions is you go out and make trouble for people based on misunderstandings.

The only offtopic post was yours. You brought up that you thought that there was a bug in Ex. And then you got very bossy (via PM) just because your claim was refuted in kind.

Because you personalized that assertion it would not have flied in this forum and any trouble that could have arisen from it would have stopped then and there. If you don't allow personal posts you can't have personal arguments period. If people need to vent all they can do is be passive aggressive.

I can't be expected to take the time to convince you (who never admit you are wrong) that you are incorrect before taking action.

That's beside the point. I don't post in forums for my health. Just the idea that I would have my posts moderated period is enough to turn me away. And I am not going to say you can't do that.

Forums are messy business. You can't sanitize them. If you want something ordered you have to setup a blog or something. If someone butts in with a truly random tangent. I've seen it happen. It's good to fork it as soon as possible. Otherwise if there is a thread connecting some point however bare you just have to let it run its course.

You said:
"But I just know that I am doing myself, SOM, and everyone who cares about SOM, a disservice to spend time with this forum. Anyway I retired my account and deleted my feeds/bookmarks last night. I just can't have any involvement with an angry site so entwined with something so close to me as Sword of Moonlight."

Seriously!? I ask you not to be rude on the forum and you think that means the forum is so "angry" that you have to disassociate from it? I am one of the most compassionate, moralistic people I know (hence why I am spending my time writing this message) and I have zero desire to be hostile or allow anyone else to be hostile on the forums. Your logic and conclusion here is just plain wrong.

Yeah like I said we don't see eye to eye. I can only interpret your actions as hostile. Both when you denigrated Ex on the most tenuous of grounds despite the absolute absurdity of what Ex achieves on behalf of SOM without which SOM may as well not even exist for all of its complications and inadequacies.

And then you turn around and bust my ass like a cop with a hard on because I replied as briefly as possible to something you posted that you knew well and good could not be left alone anymore than if you had insulted my mother. Regardless of your intentions your response demonstrated a certain lack of sensitivity which I am just not prepared to submit to or adapt to.

For the fourth time, what I'm expecting is simple:
Don't post EXCESSIVE amounts of off-topic text in a thread.
Don't be rude to others.
If you think these requirements make a site "hostile", you are wrong. I'll ask you directly, come back the SoM.com forums and enjoy sharing your enthusiasm for SoM with others. That is the purpose of a forum and the very reason I think the above two rules are required.

I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. I don't feel comfortable or welcome, and even if you are just covering your ass here, which is well commendable, the fact remains that it just won't work out. I am more comfortable here where I can ensure any discussion of SOM does not degenerate into abuse / domination of anyone much less myself.

Don't get the wrong idea. I understand very well in the real world flare ups, outbursts, open hostility, psycho drama, are always palpable and beneath the surface. But I don't think that is constructive, or the direction western civilization is heading. And I would prefer to model appropriate behavior as long as I have anything to do with it.

I will get down in the dirt in any given online forum just because, there's that word again, I have a moral imperative to model good behavior. But this isn't any given online forum. It's a Sword of Moonlight forum. And by god I won't stand for anyone disgracing Sword of Moonlight. It's not just a fan thing. I've devoted and invested a good deal of my life to it and may well identify myself personally with it for all I know...

So that's why I have a very difficult time taking part in any discussion of SOM that is irreverent (to my mind) and would just assume not know that such forums even exist though I am glad that they do.

If anything I have a "moral imperative" to try to participate. I tried. And frankly I am relieved to have found an out. You shouldn't take it personally. But that's not to say that I would not have handled things very differently were I in your shoes. Besides the fact that there would have been no problem at all to begin with (were I)


PS: There is a new thread around here that explains how to make 75% smaller BGM files if you want to make sure everyone knows they can do that. SOM downloads are too huge as it is and BGMs make up a lot of the bulk.

I was thinking. Maybe one problem with stats is just the precision of them. A person cannot detect their fitness according to some precise number. But you do have a general sense.

I think the grade system used in many From' games is a pretty good model for this. Alternatively you could just use a fuzzy number, so instead of A B C you have 1 2 3, which you can arrive at simply by scaling the actual stat by some arbitrary value. So that 99 HP is divided by 10 so that you have 9 HP for sure, for a scale of 1 to 10. The point is you don't know precisely where you are between 90 and 99, so there is a degree of fuzziness.

Likewise you can tell when a stat is getting better. So comparing two things you could have blue A -> red A for a downgrade, even though you don't put a precise figure on it. You could also use a segmented bar to represent the grade graphically.

For the most part I think even this is clutter. But you do need to know a few things that may not be able to be visually apparent. The grade of the player's health or whatever. The grade of equipment where the equipment also has health or whatever.

Equipment affinity is probably best left to optics, but you might want to grade that too. Perhaps a special NPC could provide this service both with respect to equipment and the PC's development.

Things that can be readily measured precisely such as weight and reach should probably have precise stats. It's hard to think of more examples such as this unless you are in a futuristic game like Armored Core in which all parameters adhere to a precise specification.

Playing Dark Souls lately... after decades of playing games, I am beginning to have doubts that all games benefit from the "stats" approach to play.

In From' you have two main games (as far as I am concerned) in King's Field and Armored Core.

In King's Field you are a lone adventurer. A person on an adventure. And in Armored Core you are a pilot, and a mechanic of sorts, it's a vehicle simulation really, even though mechanically it is near identical to King's Field if you think about it, since the vehicle is an anthropomorphic robot.


Once you add stats. Especially the huge amount of stats sported by a game like Dark Souls. The game almost becomes a bean counting simulator. This (http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits) got me thinking about so-called depth vs. complexity.

I call the Souls games incredibly shallow. They totally lack depth IMO. Compared to the King's Field series namely. But a certain kind of gamer seems to think about depth in a completely other way to this. They see depth as an act of accounting. They are obsessed with pushing beads around an abacus. This is not the traditional values of all other forms of story telling media for sure. You can call that game play depth instead of artistic depth I suppose...

That said. It still begs the question. Is an adventurer an adventurer or an accountant? To me this is an immersion killer. But a pilot of a futuristic engineered vehicle on the other hand is by all means an accountant. In my mind this just goes to the simple logic that the game mechanics should fit the game's presentation.


If I am a primitive adventurer I have no so-called stats. The only stats are the numbers of arrows in my quiver, the coins in my purse, and inventory in general. And I am not just of the mindset that stats are unrealistic or unfitting. I am actually wondering if they do more harm than good in a human scale adventure...

If you can't tell which equipment is better by looking at it, observing the performance, and if all else fails seeing what you can get for it, then the optics for that item are probably all wrong.

In the first KF game it was very difficult to work out the stats of anything. There was one stats screen that you had to exit out of and go back into the equip screen, make a change, and then mentally compare it to the previous stats which you hopefully remembered. I don't know if even that screen was really necessary.

And really if the stats make that much of a difference in a lone adventurer game then the game must be totally exploitable, and if nothing else easily broken by stat progression.

Most of all the focus on stats reduces the player to a nerd. That's what you want in Armored Core, but its the antithesis of a heroic adventurer.

Deemphasizing stats also has the effect of emphasizing appearances. So a player is more likely to choose the equipment or whatever options that they find most stylistically appealing instead of reverting to the most base instinct of sticking to whatever yields the highest stats.

Finally should the player really be allowed to distribute experience points or whatever however they want to across a spreadsheet? Or should their stats simply progress based on the action performed repeatedly in the game? And does the player even need to know where those stats are at any given time?

I would rather know that all of that sword swinging has made me a better sword swinger than have to look at a bunch of obnoxious numbers.

And if your sword swinging is not good enough to get you to where you need to go, then probably you should not be going there just yet.

Even in Armored Core there are things that should really be unknowable. You cannot really quantify the quality of your armor once it is compromised.

I mean think about it. Wouldn't it be more fun if a game manual told you what kinds of materials exist in the fantasy world. Then you could look at the item and judge by the amount of the materials that are visible how effective the item ought to be? And if its not obvious then that is either on the game designer, or the difference should be so negligible that it comes down to the player's own stylistic preference.

The text in the item's description could sum up the PC's estimation of the equipment's value. Perhaps if the game had a knowledge stat like KF3 the PC's estimation could improve over time. The status screen could simply reflect in text form the nearness to expiration, if it could not be made apparent by the player's mannerisms.

I don't know, I am just at a place where I am overwhelmed by all of the stats. They don't feel appropriate, and I've never seen a game that has ever attempted to just do without them.

Formerly: What is the nature of irreality?

UPDATE: I recommend starting with Reply/post #6. It is the final word on this topic.

This is something I actually think about an awful lot considering the relative obscurity of the subject.

I constantly find myself thinking about fantasy in literary terms. Is good and evil really the ultimate dichotomy? What about reality vs. irreality? That seems far heavier and potent to me. And more interesting.

More and more this distinction seems to be the ultimate obsession of mankind. You think nowadays sure, the educated lot of us seem to gravitate towards a lifestyle that is split between these modes of being. Sometimes reality almost seems to be purely in the service of irreality. We live thousands of lives via artistic media, and we get actual life where we mostly keep ourselves alive, the more astute of our kind allocate a good portion of our free time expanding the frontiers that we have to thank for the relative safety of our day to day existence. The safety to enjoy all forms of irreality.

But that is a modern perspective. What about in ancient times. What about religions, superstitions, folklore, theatre, literature? It seems like irreality has always been with us. Even more so perhaps the further back that you go. At least that is until the recent advent of interactive video game virtual realities.

I think about Seath and Guyra in King's Field (forget about Dark Souls for a second) what is the relationship there? It seems to me like Guyra is reality, and Seath is irreality. It seems to me like the Moonlight sword is irreality and the Dark Slayer is reality. Seath is a deception, and Seath is nature, Seath is loved, Seath is adored. Guyra is Seath's opposite. Guyra is the ugly truth no one wants to acknowledge. Guyra is not a beautiful deception. Guyra is unnatural. Guyra is physical, the stuff of light and shadow, scientific. Guyra is despised, Guyra is hated. Like I say I think in literary terms.

What is moonlight? It's a kind of false light. It's a reflection. And what does it mean to slay darkness? It means to let the light in, to see things more clearly.

These are powerful metaphors anyway. And to my mind it's really great to think of Sword of Moonlight as a tool of irreality. I think you can if nothing else have a lot of fun with games where the swords are creators of worlds and exist like a weird hologram in the worlds they create... perhaps instruments of undoing. Not unlike Stormbringer in Michael Moorcock's many interwoven tales.

Moorcocks fiction intersects with the modern day world, or at least a fictional version of it. There's no reason the Moonlight Sword can't do the same. In fact there is ample evidence that the Moonlight is based on Stormbringer. You can easily hypothesize that the Moonlight sword is Stormbringer only by another name (as is so often the case) and if you really want to have fun, you can go as far as to declare Sword of Moonlight itself to be a facet of Stormbringer in the flesh in the here and now

Which brings about the question. Another name that has been attributed to Stormbringer is a familiar one to us in the west. We know it better than Osama Binladen. It's a name with a literary cachet. You guessed it, none other than old Satan himself

Did I just say Sword of Moonlight is satanic? Yeah I did, but not knee-jerk satanic. Satanic in a far richer literary tradition. Now hear me out. Satan is a concept we just can't let go to waste.... there's a lot of value there. And fundamentalist religious people won't be around forever.

So the back story for Seath and Guyra goes. I've read this on very authoritative looking Japanese websites anyway. I can't exactly quote the games themselves yet. A god, Valad I think, could be wrong, thought that the elves and dwarves had gotten lazy, and mankind was at endless war among themselves. Valad I think is an earth god, one of a trio, who was left to do everything, because the sea and sky gods got bored went to sleep or something. Valad decides the best thing to do is to split himself up into two dragons, Seath and Guyra. I like to think that Valad is something like Abraxas... Wikipedia says:

"The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung wrote a short Gnostic treatise in 1916 called The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which called Abraxas a God higher than the Christian God and Devil, that combines all opposites into one Being."

Usually Abraxas has two serpents instead of legs. You can think of each serpent as being our friends Seath and Guyra. And so the back story goes Seath is designed to be a figure of worship, and Guyra is designed to be a figure of hatred. Through the synthesis of the two mankind would reunite as Valad saw in his wisdom that nothing brings men together better than worship and hatred.

Speaking of Jung. I also think a Jungian approach to games would work really well for SOM. I call it extreme first person. And I like to think of the worlds of King's Field really being virtual reality worlds that are a cross between Total Recall (PKD) and Jungian like psychotherapy... which apparently equals something like The Wizard of Oz. IOW: what if the NPCs in the game looked like your friends and family? It's like the screen where you get to name your party characters taken to the Nth power! And what are ancient myths, why do we still remember them, why because they are all psycho (-logical) dramas that's why! If you want to make a good story you have to structure it around psychological phenomenon that is personal. But that is another thread.

Again, why satanic?? Well like I said, I am firmly of the conclusion that good/evil is not it. In fact good/evil might even not be something that can even be teased apart. What I think is the ticket though is reality vs. irreality, and there is no good guy or bad guy there, it's relative, just like the taijitu structure of King's Field 2. And one reality can be another man's irreality. It's turtles all the way down in other words...

The word Satan is Hebrew if I am not mistaken. It means something like "the other team" so to speak. Or the opposition. If you have two competing realities they are each other's Satans so to speak. But we recognize that video games are not reality. That's pretty obvious to sort out from our perspective. Sword of Moonlight is a tool used to make virtual worlds. And a tool to destroy those worlds; from inside the game that is; think about it. You can even compare the Moonlight sword to Shiva at this point... the creator and destroyer of worlds

Now I want to quickly unify SOM and Megaten (another personal obsession of mine) real quick. The thing about gods and demigods, deities and devils in general. Their names are always simple things. They don't have proper names, and they don't have alien names, no they are named after their very nature. It's like Earthsea, the thing is its name, and can't be otherwise...

Christians have been conflating two of their favorite devils for a long time. They've almost succeeded in making Lucifer and Satan synonymous. But from a literary standpoint these are different figures for the most part. Lucifer-cum-Satan is a fairly contemporary invention. Now I have no clue the basis for these two in Christianity. I am not a religious person though I have my private fantasies that are not entirely divorced from traditions here on Earth. I tend to prefer religion that is good for the arts. I'm into anything with a Hell too, because I'm kind of keen on justice, and I like to think that any half decent god(s) would see the utility of a hell

The word Lucifer is Latin (Rome) and it just means light. Period. In the west we usually think of light as being the stuff of the good guys. Only christians would think to denounce light. Of course they've worked out that somehow a demigod can be transmuted, perverted, by their god, but what is the literary value in that?? We already have a Satan don't we? Yes we do. Maybe its just uncomfortable to have other godlike figures taking up space in the pantheon.

In fact christians never really liked the idea of angels or devils in the first place. It was a concession to a very popular religion of antiquity that now goes by the name of Zoroastrianism. It was dualist. It has two supreme deities at odds with one another. Not unlike Seath and Guyra and loads of other popular fiction. Wikipedia/Zoraster says:

 The religion states that active participation in life through good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay. This active participation is a central element in Zoroaster's concept of free will, and Zoroastrianism rejects all forms of monasticism. Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail over the evil Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, at which point the universe will undergo a cosmic renovation and time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation—even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to "darkness"—will be reunited in Ahura Mazda, returning to life in the undead form. At the end of time, a savior-figure (a Saoshyant) will bring about a final renovation of the world (frasho.kereti), in which the dead will be revived.

Sound familiar? Of course christians would not accept Ahura Mazda as their mono-god. So to placate the Zorastrians we get two angels instead. One of light and one of dark, and you can guess which is Lucifer, and which is Satan. In fact angels are pre-Abrahamic religions. You guessed it, they are Zorastrian inventions. They are like the many gods of Hinduism, splinters of two root deities in this case. I'm not positive but I think most modern Hindus assume a single root deity.

EDITED: For the record, I am pretty sure that there are still adherents of Zoroastrianism around, and they probably do take it seriously. Wikipedia says they number in the tens of thousands.

Of course we all agree that once upon a time Lucifer was #1 angel in heaven, but that he had a falling out with the god. First of all angels don't have free will. They are like programs. Whether people do or not is beside the point. So this falling out could've been expected. And it is pretty easy to see why. If Lucifier is the embodiment of sugar spice and everything nice, then he's going to find fault in a god of all things sooner or later. Because a god of all things can't be 100% just all of the time. Sooner or later you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. So Lucifer ends up in hell as the story goes. Not put there, he chooses to make his home in hell. From hell Lucifer gets to be the executioner of enlightened justice that he always imagined himself to be. And that gives Lucifer a bad image. Does that remind you of anyone? *cough* *Guyra*

And what about god then? That statue of a maiden in KF2? Do many of god's followers ever start to look like satanists? Worshiping a maiden that turns out to be a serpent wearing a dress??? Many traditions believe nature itself is a deception. Gnostics, Buddhists. Statistically speaking they are probably right on the money. We live in a strange reality that by all rights should probably not exist. Did two Escher like realities simultaneously erect one another? And if so what the hell was the firmament for that process?? If you can't meditate long enough on that to cut your fellow man some slack then maybe that is the definition of evil that we are looking for...

Anyway, I bet this has been a long post. And I bet you are wondering what the hell conjured this up out of me. It's actually this...


For a long time people have been thinking. Video games are becoming more than just games. We need a new word to describe this nascent phenomenon that will soon begin consuming all of the arts and if we are not careful, reality as we know it.

I've always thought we should just ditch the goggles concept of 90s "virtual reality" and call it all VR. Because that's what it is. Even Tetris is a reality, goggles or no goggles, or piped directly into your brainpan. Its a reality. But it occurred to me this afternoon that we have a better word, if only for its brevity, in "irreality"...

And an abbreviation does not a word make. So I vote, as the art of video games matures, and as we begin to see all forms of storytelling media being developed with the same tools used to develop video games, because make no bones about it, it will just be a thousand times more economical to do so, and there will be a thousands times more people who will therefore be able to afford to do so...

We slowly begin to refer to this stuff as "irreality". The word itself is already strictly limited to the subject of fantasy, fantasy fiction almost exclusively. So there is no ambiguity in terms of terms like hallucination or surreality to be had


The End (of this post; please discuss)


PS: Why are movies etc. not irreality? Well they are. But they are not interactive. I think something has to be interactive and intuitive to strictly qualify as a(n) (ir)reality.

Aren't video games games? For the most part yes. But a game usually has a win condition. And its not appropriate to describe something as fine art and a game in the same breath. We are not at fine art yet, but we do have open ended games with no obvious win condition... and there is certainly no shortage of players who would seem to want their favorite games to go on forever and ever.

Can something be commercial and fine art at the same time? No not really, but in essence certainly yes. This website is squarely a non-commercial enterprise. So non-commercial games are not that hard to imagine. Free software itself is about as immaterial as things get.

Are "fine artists" allowed to take their audience into consideration?