little fragments of thought

[egypturnash]

Browsing through a random selection of the LJs that have a non-reciprocated friend relationship with me. Some I feel vaguely guilty about not reading, some I don't. Some occasionally trigger moments of deep wistfulness, regret, and other glooms, because of, well, complex reasons.

I woke up in the middle of the night with creepy dreams resonating in my skull. I got back to sleep, though. There's just a half of a hint of an image left from them now.

I need to get some things done today. Things that involve money. If I do them, I get to think about finishing off that comic from earlier in the week. I haven't thought about where its story will go next, not in the least; I'll just do some warm-up tangentially-related doodling, I think, and just launch into the next pages. I know I wanted to do a couple more panels of monster-of-the-month schtick, because it's fun, and I had an idea for some parallel action in there. I'd planned ahead to the center-spread of tentacles, and really don't know where to go from there.

Somehow that seems like a good metaphor for my life. Planned ahead as far as the tentacles. What do you do after the tentacles?

---

I feel like I'm right on the edge of a deep pit of circular depression that opened up in front of me, and need to figure out how not to fall in. Suddenly precarious. I need to do something unexpected. Something different. Ideas and proposals are welcomed.

Link from the above-mentioned lj-browsing: minimal shootemup found by wolfwings. Windows-only so I have no clue how good it is but the concept's cute.

Maybe some of this sudden gloom is from talking to my mother about the conversation she had with my grandmother the other day. It was the extended mix of the "why can't you make Paul be a good boy" theme that Grandma has never expressed to my face for the last twenty years or so, if not longer. And from not really hearing back on the job leads I got. And probably lots of other little things piling up.

Maybe I'll feel better after a shower.

Comments

[holohedron.livejournal.com]

Aw! I'm sorry (and hope I'm not one of the journals depressing you ;P).

FWIW, none of my extended family has ever approved of me. Except my maternal grandmother, but she's dead now.

What to do for an encore? Well, that's obvious. The whole squid. ;>

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Do something different. Go get food at a place you've never been, or would never go to because you think you won't like it. Go the library and get a book you've never read, perhaps a "Classic" that you're supposed to like, but never wanted to read before (like Jules Verne or Ernest Hemingway, or something like that). Rent or go see a movie you weren't planning on seeing, or if renting, go to the foreign section and rent something from a country you've never been to, or from which you've never seen a film. Whatever the activity, make it something you haven't done before. That sometimes works for me.

-T'

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

hey hey, easy now.. back away from that ^_^ it's picnic weather here.
i plan for my birthday, coming up soon, to have one in the park (boston common) and to get everybody who attends a crappy $1.50 kite to fly. and sammiches. and things of that nature.

find a park and a book and some grass to barefoot it in and do that there instead.
omg you can be depressed later, honest *hugs*

A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

The one I initially posted wasn't really minimal, it was an experiment in dynamically generated bosses by some Japanese guy that turned out to be fun to play. :-)

rRootage (http://macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=17639) is much closer to a minimal schmup, IMHO. It does one single thing, and does it well. Dynamically generated 'raindrops to dance between' levels, to reference an old description you gave to some good schmups being like dancing between the raindrops. :-)

It covers four major 'genres' of schmup as well.
NOR: Bullet-clearing bombs, slow down when firing laser.
IKA: Blue and Red variant of Ikaruga.
PSY: Graze metter. Touch the raindrops, just don't get hit by them.
 GW: GigaWing. Hold the special button for a reflector shield.

It has around 40 levels built-in, with around 4 bosses to beat in each level, and the above is true, and quite seperate, for each of the 4 modes. So, yeah, 160 levels, 640 boss ships to beat, 4 ways to play. Big stocking-stuffer of schmup-ness without any of the crap like powerups, little enemies, etc.

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Well, nothing but you and bosses is pretty minimal. Hm, I'll have to check that one out, too. Wonder if it'll run alright on my aging machine with the stock video card.

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

I don't call Warning Forever 'totally minimal' now because of the intricate controls and strategy involved. It has a directional gun that dynamically widens and narrows it's arc-of-fire based on how you maneuver the ship, and 'developing' the boss into a form you can defeat as it gets harder is a great deal of the strategy involved in gaining high scores.

Beating the bosses in rRootage is far simpler. You versus hundreds of bullets, nothing more. Ergo, rRootage is a far more minimal shoot-em-up. =^.^=

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

That's soooo cute. Especially after swapping out the music for driftier dronier trancier stuff. ('specially Twilight from that page) And pleasantly pick-up-and-blast... pick a level, bang bang bang, it's over after a couple minutes.

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

That Warning Forever game is interesting, though I always seem to end up with the Phoenix type: long and pointy front, wide branching tentacle back. I looked at the "evolution" chart, but I have no idea what to do to get some of the other ones. I'm also not sure what affects the Front, Generator, Defense, Rear, Search, and Core stats.

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen, there's three 'tracked stats' that influence the evolution.

• Pruning off huge chunks of the boss for the 'chain bonus' value.


• Getting high 'speed bonus' points by getting lots of pieces to blow up in a row, whittling down leaves instead of lopping off branches.


• Having large chunks left over when you take out the core.


Since a piece has as many hit-points as itself plus all attached parts you tend to get the first two bonuses a LOT more often than the last one, and as far as I've been able to tell, the last one especially is the only way to get THE ISE-ONE boss-form, is by ONLY killing the core in the first level. Take out anything else, retry.

Basically, there's 5 valid targets on the first stage. Forward guns, aft guns, forward 'body' and aft 'body' pieces, and the core itself. Whittling down will tend to get you the 'spikey' forms. Pruning will tend to get the 'diamond' forms, and core-kills with lots left over will tend to get the 'round' forms, IIRC, though it's been a couple weeks since I've played last so I might have reversed a couple.

Re: A cross-platform (if you dig around) relative of the above shoot-em-up.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

That would make sense. Looking at the evolutionary chart, I could figure out how to get the "triangle" and "tentacle" parts, but not the "circle" ones. I'll have to try that. That also explains why I tended to get spiky arrangements, as I tended to attack the inner parts to conserve time. Once I switched over to 9 lives +1 per hundred parts, I started getting other shapes.

wanted to say thanks

[siddacious.livejournal.com]

I just thought I would say thanks for pointing me (indirectly) to folklore.org. Burell Smith is my new Hero.
-sBs

[raki.livejournal.com]

Socail gatherings really change my mood these days. If I'm feeling down about my own job hunt, or family, spending quality time with friends really helps. Maybe that'll work for you?

Social time changes your priorities, and your focus, for a period of time. It may not solve any problems, but it can change the way you look at them.

Any chance of some quality socialising anytime soon?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Not really, nope.

I so direly need either the money for better transportation or to get the hell out of LA.

Say the word...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...and I'll come pick you up and take you somewhere for a get-together, be it me tagging along, or just dropping you off and picking you up when you call, if you'd like. A couple bucks for gas would be nice, but not needed. =^.^=

And just for MapQuesting reference...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...I'm currently staying at:

11718 Victoria Ave. #4
Los Angeles, CA 90066