1/15/2016
Happy New Year all!
Anyone else think it's funny that the piece entitled "Focus" comes out like 2 years later? Just me?
Happy New Year all!
Anyone else think it's funny that the piece entitled "Focus" comes out like 2 years later? Just me?
These past 5 months, much like all my time since getting out of the military, has been a long series of chances, changes, and challenges. I switch jobs often to make room for my school schedule, and it has been quite the waltz transitioning back and forth between that and working full time.
But I have now circled the wagons for a time and will continue working on all the crap I like to make which means more posts!
So if nothing else, it gave everyone ample time to digest the previous articles! :D
So worry not, dear readers! (reader? ...anyone?) The show, it must goes on!
- MKG
Anywho, let me introduce our topic for this discussion:
Focus.
Alexander Graham Bell once said,
"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
I couldn't think of a more appropriate metaphor for human focus, or consciousness really, than rays of light. As your consciousness shines its attention on an object, you shed light on its nature. As you sharpen your attention on an idea, you penetrate it, finding what was below the surface and ultimately greater truth.
I could compare the process to trying to look at a Magic Eye poster, which requires you to stare "through" (basically changing your eye focus) an image of a static array of colors and patterns to see a hidden image. At first, the image is just nonsense, but after an short examination we can see its purpose. I think most ideas, activities, techniques, etc. are approached in a similar manner. Finding the things that you love is important, if for no other reason, to impart this discipline upon you. If you can't bring your entire attention to bear on a project, it will often never see completion or it will feel inconsistent in its quality.
I could compare the process to trying to look at a Magic Eye poster, which requires you to stare "through" (basically changing your eye focus) an image of a static array of colors and patterns to see a hidden image. At first, the image is just nonsense, but after an short examination we can see its purpose. I think most ideas, activities, techniques, etc. are approached in a similar manner. Finding the things that you love is important, if for no other reason, to impart this discipline upon you. If you can't bring your entire attention to bear on a project, it will often never see completion or it will feel inconsistent in its quality.
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| An example of a Magic Eye. |
The first thing I can recall ever truly giving all my focus to was my grandparents' old Commodore 64. At around 6 or 7 years old (around 1991-'92) the hardware itself didn't do anything to particularly excite me. However, they happened to own a few random games that could run on its insanely over-sized disk drive , and I was gonna play them! The concept of playing with "electronic toys" was a novel one for me back then.
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| The CPU portion was ALSO contained in the key board! That thing on the left is JUST the disk drive! |
Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of using one of these beasts, you'll know this is no easy feat without proper instruction. Unfortunately for young MKG, my grandparents had no idea how to use it. I don't even know why they owned the thing. The problem was, the C64 was way before the time of the Windows operating system. This means I couldn't just turn on the computer and click on conveniently labeled images with a mouse, I had to enter specific command lines. These basically told the computer what I wanted it to do at that moment. The first few times I attempted to use it, I would just uselessly type various requests into it, hoping the machine-spirit would take pity on a poor child:
READY.
Play
?SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
Run?
FILE NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.
Go
NO
READY.
Game Me
GTFO, SCRUB
READY.
You get the idea...
****COMMODORE 64 BASIC V2****
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
Play
?SYNTAX ERROR
READY.
Run?
FILE NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.
Go
NO
READY.
Game Me
GTFO, SCRUB
READY.
For whatever reason, this didn't deter me. I spent time going through the instruction manuals for the computer and the various games that still had boxes I could find. Soon, I had figured out at least how to make the games go.
I'm sure if you used a Commodore at some point, you remember the command line,
Load "*", 8, 1.
The moment I read through this golden piece of information, I was finally able to access these hidden gems that had eluded my knowledge for so long...
...and most of them kinda sucked. :/
Well, sucked wouldn't be fair, as most of these games were developed in the early 80's. Technology was limited and there weren't really all that many examples of what a video game even was, let alone how to make a better one.
Here are a few classics from my memory:
Load "*", 8, 1.
The moment I read through this golden piece of information, I was finally able to access these hidden gems that had eluded my knowledge for so long...
...and most of them kinda sucked. :/
Well, sucked wouldn't be fair, as most of these games were developed in the early 80's. Technology was limited and there weren't really all that many examples of what a video game even was, let alone how to make a better one.
Here are a few classics from my memory:
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| The Trivia Monster: Commodore 64
This game used to scare the shit out of me. You are invited to create an avatar to compete on a game-show. I guess "avatar" would be a loose description with customization options like; "boy or girl?", "legs crossed?", and "blue". So what fabulous prizes await our contestant?
Their survival.
In Trivia Monster, your character sits oblivious in front of this sinister-ass door while being drilled about obscure facts. But the door slowly breaks as you get questions wrong (and you WILL get them wrong), eventually revealing a hideous claw that reaches for you hungrily... What is on the other side? What happens to the loser?? Why do they force us to engage in bar trivia??? The host repays your inquiries only with their damning silence... and, eventually, the nightmare spawn that is the TRIVIA MONSTER emerges from the center of the screen, emitting waves of pure hate. His head, which I faintly recall resembling Satan's taint, slowly swivels back and forth in glorious 4 bit animation, spurring your little legs carry you from the room in terror.
No? Just me?
|
 | ||
| Super Huey: Commodore 64
Super Huey is a helicopter
Mostly, because you had to be an actual trained pilot to play it right.
|
 |
| Ghostbusters: Commodore 64
Now this game I really liked. You actually started the game as the Ghostbusters going into business. It even gives you the option of buying a different car instead of the iconic hearse. See the VW Bug in the picture? Broke-ass 'Busters. It was an interesting idea. Plus, you could mash the space bar at the title screen to hear the announcer scream a garbled, "Ghoshbushers!" over and over.
|
OK, so what's the point?
As I said above, focus requires concentration. The problem is that we, as human beings, have very complex minds. Depending on your age and your current state of being, your conscious brain requires anywhere from 40% - 70% (or more) of your metabolic energy at any giving time.
Translation: Just the mere complexity of your thinking requires you to eat almost twice to three times as much as if your brain had a less developed thought center.
So because of this, your brain often needs to be entertained. It's much like if you bought a Ferrari. A car like this is meant to be driven consistently at speeds of well over 60 MPH. You wouldn't use it as a commuting car. The engine is not tuned for this and it would ruin the transmission after a time.
The same is true for your mind. That feeling of dread you get at the prospect of prolonged periods of boredom? That's the principle in action. Your thoughtful mind is so complex that it needs to entertain itself if not engaged in an active decision making process of some kind.
You see this in animals of higher intelligence, as well. Dolphins have been studied for years to test their cognitive abilities as some of the smartest mammals. Bonobo apes are able to be taught a vast vocabulary of symbols and signs to communicate complex ideas.
The reason the dolphins, the apes, and we the humans all can be taught these types of things is because our brains have a sincere desire to learn them. Evolutionary-wise, we have invested so much energy and development into our brains that it is simply inefficient not to. Using our brainpower, we are able to easily adapt to our respective environments and cooperate better as social creatures.
Now humans are not monkeys or dumb fish things, so we must entertain our brains in a way that is similarly as complex as our minds. This is why most human games involve some kind of obscure rule set that must be adhered to, even if just 3 rules long like in the cases of "tag" or "hide and seek." I believe it reflects the social "rule sets" of our sub-consciouses, which makes our games very relatable to the way our minds work, very "human."
Speaking of complexity, video games are no different. There is a consistent universe that has a rule set. Its own rules should make sense in the context of its universe and be consistent. What attracts the mind here I believe is the perceived hidden content of the experience.
For example, someone says, "pull my finger." The entire premise of the joke is that your brain has been tempted by some sort of end result, some cool surprise, that will come from this action. This surprise you want to discover everyone can relate to. If you have ever desired to read, play, watch, find, travel, eat, etc. something new, then you understand this desire very well. Novelty is very attractive to our minds. As your thoughts are racing in preparation as to what is about to happen, the resultant and concise fart leaves you in a state of bewilderment. Thus, comedy.
(In today's age where this is common knowledge, the joke has become a bait and switch. Basically you catch your own reflexes before you can be fooled. #ScienceOfHumor)
And it was this same perception, that somehow these games contained some wonderful esoteric knowledge, that gave these dusty relics in my grandparent's computer room the ability to make me desire to learn. To be focused enough to see the game through to its conclusion. And that all began with simply figuring out how to play.
An interesting thing about these old games is that they conveyed your goals and possible actions extremely poorly. In The Amazing Spider Man, for example, the way the player interacts with the game is by entering basic verb/noun combinations to 'request' actions of Spider-Man, such as, "Spider-Man go west." What is supposed to then happen is that Spider-Man will then 'perform' the action you requested. What instead happens is that he is a fucking idiot.
For example, if you ask Spider-Man to punch the Lizard (a giant man crocodile) before he eats your liver, he replies, "Spider-Man does not resort to violence!" Oh, is that a fact, Spidey? You seem to have no problem with it while you're beating every one's faces in. I seen dem movies.
If you request Spider-Man to fire his web at an enemy, Spider-Man will famously reply, "How do I shoot web?" What kind of response is this from a video game? It's like if I had to enter, "Lift with your legs, Mario!" Or else he slips a disk throwing a turtle.
What the resulting game becomes is actually a long and round about series of actions you are supposed to piece together in order to complete the presented goal. Of course you can't pick up the anti-matter egg, you haven't found Madam Web! Of course you can't use Spidey's web, you have to make it in the lab. Wish I was making that up.
This type of experience was rather new to young MKG. The desire to interact with the content of this game, to see where the hell they were going with this, encouraged me to be patient. This constituted trial and error, experimentation, I had to pay attention and learn to adapt.
The very process of simply accessing the games required me to learn a tangential skill, even in a limited capacity. I learned how to use a computer. I learned that they needed to 'access' information stored on disks. I learned the most basic principles of data storage and computing. I could see how these might be things one would not even care to understand as an adult, let alone a spastic little boy. But there I was, pouring over technical manuals just to watch the most horribly drawn Spider Man ever die trying to gently lift an egg.
Maybe that might be the trick to it? No, not a horribly drawn Spider Man, but to make learning more of a game.
This past summer, I had the opportunity to work for a youth technology summer camp. Many of the classes offered work primarily with the game Minecraft(2009). If you know absolutely nothing of the game, think of it as digital Legos. Now imagine if you could, on the fly, change the color and texture of your blocks to create almost anything you want. On top of that, then imagine if you could take some of your blocks and give them simple instructions, like becoming a switch, and combine them to make machinery. You could see how there are quite a few possibilities for creation.
This type of experience was rather new to young MKG. The desire to interact with the content of this game, to see where the hell they were going with this, encouraged me to be patient. This constituted trial and error, experimentation, I had to pay attention and learn to adapt.
The very process of simply accessing the games required me to learn a tangential skill, even in a limited capacity. I learned how to use a computer. I learned that they needed to 'access' information stored on disks. I learned the most basic principles of data storage and computing. I could see how these might be things one would not even care to understand as an adult, let alone a spastic little boy. But there I was, pouring over technical manuals just to watch the most horribly drawn Spider Man ever die trying to gently lift an egg.
Maybe that might be the trick to it? No, not a horribly drawn Spider Man, but to make learning more of a game.
This past summer, I had the opportunity to work for a youth technology summer camp. Many of the classes offered work primarily with the game Minecraft(2009). If you know absolutely nothing of the game, think of it as digital Legos. Now imagine if you could, on the fly, change the color and texture of your blocks to create almost anything you want. On top of that, then imagine if you could take some of your blocks and give them simple instructions, like becoming a switch, and combine them to make machinery. You could see how there are quite a few possibilities for creation.
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| Minecraft
"Just enough skeletons." 10/10 - IGN
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As I watched the kids play, their dexterous little fingers whizzing over the keyboard as they stare transfixed, I couldn't help but think of my own early experiences with gaming and the old C64. They were creating dungeons full of traps, huge carnivals with blocky roller coasters, one TA even had an almost completed replica of Hogwarts made with references to the architecture from the books. Here, they too were learning the basics of modern computing, art editing, coding, and most of all they wanted to do it. I couldn't help but at times wonder where these things would take them, as they're now taking me places myself. To watch the kids so transfixed and having a good time was very cathartic, like seeing something come full circle, in a way.
So I encourage you, find what you love and let it focus your concentration into something amazing. Only then will your mind truly be satisfied.
It's Why We Play.
Thanks for reading!
- MKG ^_^-b
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There's alot more where this came from if you go to the dance with me.
Yours Truly,
MKG