I've been using the same iPhone3GS since 2009, goodness knows why. It's been in a pretty sorry state for a while now: a broken power button, a battery life that barely exceeds an hour, and a half-eroded casing caused by a decade's worth of palm sweat being swept across its sides. Somehow, almost miraculously, it has kept chugging along-- even if its operating system is now outdated by at least 5 iOS versions. Needless to say, the phone contains a lot of history. While searching for some chords for an old song of mine in its notes, I stumbled across several entries of my old life journal. I kept this journal going for about four or five years, only stopping soon after turning twenty. I assumed it was a waste of time; my life events were too mundane and uneventful to even bother writing down. Regardless, I skimmed through all these notes, some of which stretched back to when I was fifteen. Most of them were utterly mundane or incredibly melodramatic: moping about school and university, sulking about crushes, the usual teenage angst. Despite that, I spent a good part of an evening reading them all, rediscovering the walking cringe I was all those years ago.
It gave me a pretty clear snapshot of my life. After its abrupt end at 20 I now realise I have a sizable gap missing from my record. And to be quite frank, I can't even recall what happened in those two years after 20 all that well. It's a little disheartening; I'm actually rather envious now of people who have documented large portions of their life in detail. Having such a comprehensive snapshot of your life is something that seems so appealing now-- apart from the constant ritual of updating and maintaining it all.
I've just turned 22 these past few weeks so I thought I would revive this old practice, albeit in a slightly different form. Being as busy (lazy) as I am I thought it would be nice to create an annual review of everything I enjoyed watching, playing or listening to this past year. So many times in the past I've tried to remember bands, films, and games I really enjoyed at various chapters of my life but I can barely recall any of them. Of all the bands I used to listen to during high school, the only one I can really remember is Coldplay. Clearly this is inexcusable.
Here, I hope to cover more or less everything in the period from my 21st birthday until now; a timeframe that covers about two thirds of my final year at University as well my first few months post-graduation. It's a bloody long piece and I do apologise for that, but it might be a worthwhile read for anyone that is interested in knowing a little more about me and my influences, or at least where I'm coming from.
Games
21 was another quiet year for me concerning games. Yet again, I failed to buy any new systems and instead, I have continued to make use of my older consoles and emulators. To be quite frank, the industry as a whole is in such a state I think this could be for the best. I really don't think games have matured at all in the past decade which is quite upsetting when you consider what great strides they took in the decades previous. With shovelware destroying the indie scene and AAA titles being routinely gutted by publishers flogging microtransactions and DLC, things are looking pretty bleak. Here's hoping to a better year in 2018.
I did however manage to complete a single game this year! The title, Battle Hunter, was one of the first games I ever owned for PS1. While much of the appeal of this game is sentimental- having played it as a child- it does have some notable features which are fairly unique; it's not everyday that you run into a procedurally-generated, tactical-RPG structured like a board game with dice rolls and cards. I do think the developers deserve some praise for the straightforwardness of the system as gameplay mechanics are deceptively simple despite all these additions being stacked upon the standard turn-based TRPG model. Another pleasant quirk is that every character model has their own unique set of animations for all actions: celebrations, idling, attacking, and so on. This goes such a long way for a game where the majority of characters don't have a single line of dialogue: their personality is reflected solely in their movements. Outside of these features however, is a game that is incredibly barebones, with many signs hinting toward a rushed development cycle. Many of these are issues concern variety. The most egregious problem with the game is the lack of variation between levels. While the procedural generation can create a near-endless amount of layouts, the content within each is identical-- a series of grey, drab tiles. A monochrome wasteland populated only by crates and characters. That is it. For every single level.
Not only that, but level generation does not have any balancing meaning that the outcome of matches heavily depends on luck; opponents can spawn in areas surrounded by boxes while you spawn on the opposite end of the map, worlds away from anything meaningful, spending turn after turn crawling your way across the barren world to reach whatever scraps your opponent may leave behind. Outside of character sprites, the graphics on offer lack variety-- there are only four different enemies that can be encountered in the entirety of the game, one of which is a just a living pool of ooze. Other issues include a text box so small that it can only display five or six words at a time-- the content of which is sometimes comically bad due to poor localisation. Despite all these flaws, I still hold this game close to my heart. Explaining why such a game, pushed through production with such blatant defects would garner my admiration would require an entire article of its own so I'll have to save that for another day. Shockingly, there are others that share my sentiment[1].
Another game that grabbed my attention in a big way this year is Super Smash Bros. Melee. I've been playing casually with friends for at least a decade, but in these past few years I've been slowly creeping into its competitive sphere. Its been the only eSport so far that has piqued my curiosity and actually tempted me to get involved. I've been watching live tournaments on Twitch regularly since EVO 2016 and I've been hooked on it ever since. Other eSports have often left me indifferent and uninterested in watching again or engaging in the communities. One thing Melee has over other titles such as DotA and Street Fighter is a rich history due to the enduring nature of its game. Even after 16 years, while other franchises may have seen numerous iterations of their game pass by, the Melee community has continued to grow around the same game, exactly as it was all those years ago. While this has some logistical implications for the community (relics such as CRT TVs and Gamecube controllers are still required for play), it has allowed for the cultivation of a long, illustrious, and most importantly, compelling narrative that creates clear points of interest for amateurs such as myself. On top of that, I think that the diverse backgrounds within the community (in all areas with the exception of gender) has created a blend of top players with characteristics I feel we rarely see in other sports. The 'Five Gods' of the Smash mythology captures a lot of the variety within the scene with each 'god' having a distinct personality, background, playstyle, and in-game character. Joseph 'Mang0' Marquez, one of the gods and arguably the face of Melee, is in my opinion one of the most interesting and remarkable eSports players of all time.
I realise this picture does kind of make them all look the same-- a group of pale twenty-somethings with facial hair-- but I assure you there is more to it than what meets the eye!!
Naturally, I've been playing the game regularly on top of watching tournaments. While it was a frequent activity during pre-drinking (and post-drinking) in my last few years of university, my recent graduation meant that the number of chances I got to play also shrunk, which is particularly frustrating when I've grown accustomed to the idea of having easy access to Melee-playing flatmates. Having moved back home I've started participating in a few local monthlies to help feed the habit. Outside of these few events I rarely sit down to play but this is quite possibly the most invested I have ever been in a game-- not since my mid-teens playing TF2 have I thrown away so much time playing, reading, watching and involving myself in a game for such a long period of time. While I have dabbled in fighting games before, none of them have come close to engaging me on the same level as the Super Smash Bros. series. I think the reason for this is that the game allows for so many styles of play due to its loose adherence to genre convention:
Getting rid of the health bar was one of the best decisions they could have ever made.
By getting rid of such a fundamental staple of the genre and instead replacing it with a percentage meter meant that completely new strategies could be formed. For those unfamiliar, Super Smash Bros. uses a system where the player's objective is to knock the other player off of the stage. Successfully knocking them off results in the loss of their life, known as a 'stock'. The distance a character is knocked back is dependent on the strength of the attack as well as how much they have been hit already. This change allows for two distinct playstyles as opposed to the single strategy available in standard fighting games. In the games that use health bars, the player is boxed into one strategy-- do more damage to the opponent than they do to you. While this is more of an 'umbrella'of various strategies rather than one in of itself, the creativity of the player is still confined to this single tenet. On the other hand, Melee, due to its knockback system, offers two possible strategies:
- Deal as much damage as possible, and finish with a move so strong, it guarantees a knockout.
- Pressure the opponent into a certain position that allows us to knock them out with a move that would not normally cause such an outcome.
The first strategy is almost identical to the traditional fighting game strategy "hit them more than they hit you". The latter however is something unique to Smash Bros. This strategy, known as "gimping" within the smash community, still uses the same skillset required by the first strategy: positional awareness, opponent prediction and reaction, as well as technical ability. However, it applies these skills in an entirely different way. Players are not confined to either strategy in a match: instead, players will shift between them on a moment's notice. This results in a much more varied match where knockouts are essentially possible at any given moment, given the right circumstance. How good or bad a player's situation is depends on so much more than just their 'health'. It is this kind of variety that makes Smash Bros. stand to me. Not just variety in strategy but also variety in characters and stages. The amount of situations possible due to different matchups on different stages is truly mind-boggling. The only drawback to its breadth of scenarios is that it has created a larger disparity between the canonically good and bad characters: of the 26 characters available in game, only the top eight are regularly used and the bottom six are considered so unfavourable that they are almost never seen in tournament.
Despite its success, fellow fighting game developers seem to stick rigidly to the well-defined system outlined by Street Fighter II. It's upsetting to find that the fighting game genre has barely changed in the past 20 years, with very little experimentation and creativity outside of presentation. I do think that the success of Smash Bros. at least partially lends its popularity to its uniqueness within the market, especially with players outside of the fighting game community. I really think it would be interesting to see more developers throw out more of the design features that have entrenched themselves so deeply into the fighting game genre. I personally would love to see a fighting game that tries to adapt the highly cerebral fighting style found within Hunter x Hunter.
I myself have a few ideas for a fairly unique fighting game. Hopefully I'll have a chance to make it after The Valentine Watch. See you in 2020...
Film
During my sophomore and junior years I was watching films almost daily. Unfortunately, this past year has seen this rate decline to maybe one or two a month. As a student I used to borrow DVDs from the university library (the only time you would ever catch a cool dude like me there) regularly. They had a wide array of films from all over the world, ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to obscure foreign film. The whole process was so much more hassle-free than streaming: you never had to worry about resolution or buffering. Not many people used this section of the library: it often felt like I had the entire department to myself. Looking back, this may be the part of university life I miss the most, as bleak as that may sound.
With the help of the library my interest in Chinese, Korean and Japanese film grew. I had a particular passion for Korean Neo-Noir films such as Memories of Murder, The Chaser, as well as The Vengeance Trilogy. During this time, Bong Joon-Ho quickly cemented himself as my favourite director. Perhaps surprisingly, the darker elements of his comedy remind me a lot of contemporary British creators such as Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker: their bleak comedic depictions of British culture appear to be depressingly similar to Bong's own outlook on various aspects of South Korean life. These filmmakers have had an unrivaled influence on me and my own work, more so than any game developer.
My passion for these creators has never diminished-- I simply ran out of their material to consume. While Morris, Brooker, and their peers tend to only release new shows every few years, if ever, I ran into an entirely different problem with Asian cinema: a lack of localisation for many films. While the university library had a great selection, I've failed to find anywhere that can compare, legal or otherwise. Initially this search was for a service to plug the gaps in the library's own catalogue. Having graduated and lost access to it, this alternative service would need to function as a complete replacement. So far I haven't had much luck.
As I moved through directors' libraries I've been forced to look in increasingly obscure places, with increasingly questionable quality. This eventually came to a head in my senior year when I was trawling through a Chinese website looking for the English subtitles for a film by Lam Nai-Choi that only had an eye-watering 240p raw available (the man is a god, I highly recommend watching his films if you can). Essentially, I had reached a point where the amount of effort I had to put into watching the films I wanted to see could no longer justified itself.
This past year both Bong Joon-Ho and Park Chan-Wook, another favourite, released films. I was pretty psyched for both of them, having previously devoured all of their available work and was still hungry for more. While I was fairly indifferent towards Bong's Okja, I really enjoyed Park's The Handmaiden-- the character of Count Fujiwara may be my favourite character of all time.
This summer I also attended my first film festival. I didn't really know what to expect: to be quite frank, I didn't really know that there were film festivals outside of the glitzy and glamorous events regularly covered in news features. I was especially surprised when it turned out that there was one barely 20 minutes away from my town. I of course went through a few times and I actually really enjoyed it! Being able to go into a viewing for a film that you might have never heard of before, and may never come across again is quite exciting. Having the director present at many of these showings was also a neat bonus. Before now, I never really had a chance to see a director, or any creator in general for that matter, just talk about their work in person. Best of all however, was simply being able to attend two or three screenings back-to-back in a single day; there was something truly wonderful about investing an entire day into immersing yourself in film. While you could argue that you can easily achieve a similar effect from home, there is definitely something missing when compared to the same experience on the big screen. While I didn't see anything truly mindblowing, I enjoyed everything I saw. Ikari was probably the best of the lot.
The Film Festival also exposed me to a few hipster cinemas in the area and I've been going to them fairly regularly since. Perhaps the best film I have seen post-festival is Loving Vincent, which is certainly one of the most beautiful films I've come across (even if its beauty is concentrated heavily in some scenes more than others). Aside from that, two other films I have seen this past year that I loved are Love Exposure and The Shape of Voice. Naoko Yamada, the director of the latter actually visited Scotland earlier in the year for one of its screenings. I'm actually quite devastated that I missed an opportunity meet her. Hopefully it's not the last!
Music
Nearly every year of university had me listening to something distinct from the previous: first year had Steely Dan and Simon & Garfunkel, second year had Nujabes and chill-hop, and third year had American Football and Math Rock. Initially, my final year appeared to have had a much more subtle shift away from Math Rock and towards Emo, with bands such as Marietta, Boy's Life and The Promise Ring at the forefront. I immersed myself in this kind of music for the first half of the year but, like film, I simply ran out of good bands to listen to and just ended up exhausting the same six or seven albums. Trips through YouTube recommendations rarely cropped up anything new or exciting. That is until I came across this album:
A Vast Scenery by Hang in the Air. I don't even remember how exactly I came across it but this seemingly unknown album once again shifted my music preference in an entirely new direction. While I knew of a few bands from China (Chinese Football, LAVA|OX|SEA) and Japan (Tricot, A Picture of Her, Hyakkei) I hadn't even heard of any bands from Taiwan (well, apart from Elephant Gym), yet this album's style immediately grabbed me with its eclectic, lo-fi, 'rough around the edges' feel and its apparent sincerity. With this one album, all sorts of new, barely known albums found their way to me. YouTube recommendations started pulling out obscurities from the other end of the world and they were actually pretty good. Through this I've started listening to Sunset Rollercoaster, No Party for Cao Dong, Touming Magazine and a fair few others.
I really couldn't tell you what exactly it is about these bands that really draws me to them. If I had to guess I would have said that their music just sounds more genuine and heartfelt than a lot of bands from the West. Maybe that's just because of the language barrier. Or maybe these East Asian bands just add their own regional 'flavour' into the mix. Or it might very well be all in my head and I am just a massive snob.
I also came across Fishmans by sheer coincidence while searching for a film soundtrack of all things. I've been slowly making my way through their discography but they have quickly become one of my favourite bands. Both Long Season and Uchu Nippon Setagaya are two of my favourite albums. I'm actually really looking forward to going through more of their work.
For the first time in a while it looks like I have enough band material to keep me busy, at least for the time being. Here's hoping.
Art
Around my 21st birthday my interest in art was beginning to manifest. I never really had an interest in paintings before then, often finding them pretentious and elitist: I really only liked art with vibrant colours and novel ideas. However, I slowly began to find tiny niches of traditional artists that I actually really enjoyed. This past year I slowly began to cultivate this pocket of artists, developing my interests alongside its growth. I think I can safely say that my previous assumptions surrounding art were a gross misunderstanding of the medium, leading me to gloss over so many concepts and ideas that I now find so interesting today. I think I can finally say that I 'get' art, or at the very least some rudimentary understanding of the paintings, artists, and movements present in recent centuries. I've really grown to love a lot of the late 19th Century art produced in and around the UK and France. Even a year ago I never would have believed that I would utter such a phrase.
I believe this recent interest is mostly rooted in my attendance at life drawing sessions in my last year of university. Up until this point, I had never spent much time drawing aside from my childhood. I would consider myself 'adequate enough' when it comes to pixel art but my talent with a pencil was pretty weak. I hoped these classes would improve my drawing ability so that, in turn, it would also improve my pixel art. Being the dork that I am, I wasn't a part of any other clubs either, so I thought it was about time I actually did something productive outside of lectures. Naturally, my drawings were piss poor to begin with, but they slowly developed with every session. I would argue that a lot of the improvements weren't to do with my ability to hold a pencil, but rather an increased understanding of how the body is-- how it's various curves interact with each other in different circumstances. My own sketches have become semi-tolerable which I am actually quite proud of.
As of now, artists such as John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and Atkinson Grimshaw are among my favourites. This past year I have been fortunate enough to see a lot of their works in person at various galleries in the UK an US. I would highly recommend seeing a painting in person before making a judgment of it-- I didn't realise how much a monitor can warp the colours and minor details of a piece. Works like Sargent's Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose didn't leave much of an impression on me when I viewed it online but after seeing the colossal painting in person, and in it's true colours no less, it left such a strong impression on me that it is almost certainly my favourite painting as of now. I think it's a great shame that paintings such as this are so unknown within the general public. Sargent is considered one of the great American artists, and this is one of his most well-known pieces, yet so few have heard of him, let alone the painting.
I think part of this is due to the perceived barrier to entry within the medium. I would argue that it has often been unfairly represented in contemporary culture with most of the attention it is given coming from criticisms of the pretentious and incestuous nature of the current scene: pineapples being mistaken for art pieces, seemingly blank canvases selling for millions... The list goes on. And while I agree with a lot of these points, especially those relating to the current prevalence of pseudo-sophistication, weak aesthetics and elitist communities surrounding a lot of contemporary art, I think a lot of people have unfairly formed an opinion on all styles of art based solely on their views of the contemporary art world. I think a lot of people agree that older works are 'nicer' because they are technical and complex, but it seems as though people stop there, failing or refusing to recognise what is beneath its surface-level aesthetics:
I think it's incredibly beneficial to anyone wanting to work in the visual arts to at least have a moderate interest in art outside of those found on Tumblr and Deviant Art. Not to say that artists on these platforms are without merit, rather that the quality of work that you will find in a gallery is magnitudes greater than your average internet artist. The density, composition, and technicality displayed in their works is certainly worth learning from, even today. These artists are the best of the best of the past millennium, you should take advantage of them!
Anyway, I'll stop being a knob prattling on about the supposed deeper meanings of art. I'll shut up about it until next year.
It seems as though this year has been a mix of discovery and stagnation. While I'm really excited that art has finally opened its doors to me, and that I have found new avenues of music to discover, I really hope I find something big that draws me back into film and video games. I would argue that these two mediums have been the most important to me in my life so far, so I'm a little scared that I seem to be straying further and further away from them, games in particular: I'm trying to be a game developer after all! Sadly it doesn't look like the game industry is moving in the direction I was hoping it would go. I'm still hoping for another indie auteur to make waves and pull me back into the scene.
Anyway, to close off, here is an updated version of my inspirations list that I included in my very first post:
And that's about it! Congratulations on finishing this fucking epic. I really do appreciate anyone that was willing to read this as it does actually mean something to me, as sappy as that sounds. I feel this year has been a bit of a weird one. I am really quite upset that I haven't got The Valentine Watch out yet as the original deadline was supposed to be the day before my 22nd birthday. It is shaping up very nicely however so I'll hopefully be back very, very, soon!
- J.A
P.S.
My apologies for not writing anything in six months. And now that I have actually written something, it is just a stream-of-consciousness personal blog that probably paints me as a complete tosser. Once again, my bad.
Normal programming will resume soon! I promise. Hopefully by the end of the month.
