With ↑urban china ↑2R has breezed one more set of his photos from China online. Again very moody, cyberpunk, and noir. Enjoy.
more cyberpunk china
snaking and strafe-jumping
Screencap from ↵Team iT‘s movie “DeFrag”. The gaps between the floor elements to be seen in the background could not be crossed without the technique of strafe-jumping. Run done by cyrus.
The currently featured game innovation at ↑GIDb is the ↑first use of snaking in the game ↑F-Zero GX (2003):
Snaking is a technique that takes advantage of the “mini-boost” technique that is popular in many racing games. Basically, the players have to powerslide into a turn, and upon release, gets a slight boost of speed. Now, by applying this technique repeatedly, especially on straightaways, a player can constantly weave back and forth, harvesting constant mini-boosts, and maintaining a speed far higher than normal.
This innovation was important because it added a whole new layer of complexity for top players worldwide. While many people consider snaking to be a form of cheating, Nintendo has confirmed that it was put in the game intentionally. It’s also worth noting that snaking cannot be done effectively without a craft of highly-specific stats, hours of practice, or insane amounts of skill and physical dexterity.
This innovation was important because it added a whole new layer of complexity for top players worldwide. While many people consider snaking to be a form of cheating, Nintendo has confirmed that it was put in the game intentionally. It’s also worth noting that snaking cannot be done effectively without a craft of highly-specific stats, hours of practice, or insane amounts of skill and physical dexterity.
Compare that to ↑strafe-jumping [from Wikipedia]:
Strafe-jumping is a form of trickjump used to increase a player’s speed in computer games based on the Quake engine. The technique is common in QuakeWorld, Quake II and Quake III Arena, and widely accepted as being part of the game. In Half-Life (which uses a heavily-modified Quake game engine) based games, such as Counter-Strike, strafe jumping is viewed by many as being an exploit or as cheating. Several Half-Life mods have introduced changes that limit or prevent strafe jumping along with bunny hopping.
Strafe-jumping requires a very specific combination of mouse and keyboard input. The exact technique involved depends on the game itself; however, most games follow a certain pattern of user actions.
The movements are usually as follows:
1. The player presses the forward key, preparing to make the first jump.
2. Still keeping the forward key pressed, the player jumps, adding either the strafe left or the strafe right key.
3. To gain maximum speed, the player must now move the mouse smoothly (i.e., turn) in the direction of the strafe, while still holding down the two aforementioned keys. This part is called airstrafing, which is responsible for increase in speed during the jump.
4. For successive strafejumps, the player immediately jumps again on landing, swapping the direction of strafe as well as mouse motion.
Done correctly, this will dramatically increase the player’s velocity with successive jumps. The only way to learn this technique is by practice. Sequential strafejumping is mainly a matter of muscle memory, as the maximum angle of mouse motion increases slightly with consecutive jumps.
To understand strafe-jumping in better detail, watch demos of pro strafe-jumpers at low timescales (<.5).
Strafe-jumping requires a very specific combination of mouse and keyboard input. The exact technique involved depends on the game itself; however, most games follow a certain pattern of user actions.
The movements are usually as follows:
1. The player presses the forward key, preparing to make the first jump.
2. Still keeping the forward key pressed, the player jumps, adding either the strafe left or the strafe right key.
3. To gain maximum speed, the player must now move the mouse smoothly (i.e., turn) in the direction of the strafe, while still holding down the two aforementioned keys. This part is called airstrafing, which is responsible for increase in speed during the jump.
4. For successive strafejumps, the player immediately jumps again on landing, swapping the direction of strafe as well as mouse motion.
Done correctly, this will dramatically increase the player’s velocity with successive jumps. The only way to learn this technique is by practice. Sequential strafejumping is mainly a matter of muscle memory, as the maximum angle of mouse motion increases slightly with consecutive jumps.
To understand strafe-jumping in better detail, watch demos of pro strafe-jumpers at low timescales (<.5).
In respect to the ethnography of gaming culture there are some interesting points contained in this issues. As I stated earlier, I take game-related accounts at Wikipedia, or now at the GIDb, to be emic voices from within gaming culture. The quoted entries on snaking and strafe-jumping clearly are attempts of verbalizing embodied knowledge. But obviously even the specialists reach the limits of the possibilities of description by language, hence the hint to “watch demos of pro strafe-jumpers at low timescales”. Here the qualities the medium computergame is able to offer [specifically ↵demos and slow motion] are used at large to communicate cultural knowledge.
And I insist that ↵trickjumping and ↵speedruns are instances of the cultural appropriation of gamespace. This practice even cumulates to exploration of and research into gamespace from the gamers’ side. Take e.g. the article ↑Zigzagging through a strange universe by Anthony Bailey, which has a twofold goal:
The motivating one is to explain some techniques that QdQ [the Quake-done-quick speedrunner collective] have recently discovered for making the Quake-guy run faster than normal without cheating. These techniques depend on a peculiar anomaly in the physics implemented by the Quake engine that came to light in the course of my, er, research. You could see the trick I describe as the Quake version of DooM’s strafe-running.
The second, broader theme is a more general look at anomalies like this one; things that started as bugs, or at least were unexpected by id Software, but which have turned into well-loved features over the course of time.
The second, broader theme is a more general look at anomalies like this one; things that started as bugs, or at least were unexpected by id Software, but which have turned into well-loved features over the course of time.
To my knowledge the possibility of strafe-jumping has been discovered in ↑Quake II (1997) by gamers. Seemingly it was a glitch in the engine’s code, which allowed a ‘physics anomaly’ to appear which could be exploited by gamers. And in the beginning it indeed was seen as an ‘exploit’ or even a ‘cheat’ to prey on those ‘anomalies’. But things changed and a whole subculture arose, condensating around said bundles of practices called trickjumping and speedrunning. And the gamedevelopers reacted: The ‘glitches’ were left in the engine, appeared in other games based on the same engine, and now are deemed to be ‘features’. With ‘snaking’ Nintendo obviously took the same path. Computergames indeed are co-creative media. To back that up, here is a quote from ↑A brief DOOM demo history:
Before DOOM was developed, the great minds at idsoftware had taken notice of the modifiability of their previous games like Wolfenstein3D. When DOOM was released on December 10th 1993, they proved their genius to the world for the first time. The DOOM experience is so configurable that playing possibilities are virtually endless. Out of the box, DOOM allows five skill settings, player speed modification, respawning monsters, fast monsters, IPX 4-player multiplayer, and innumerable ways to play in an unbounded gaming world. Being able to create your own levels, modify the game’s engine, play single-player and multiplayer games, and replay playback demos are the key to DOOM’s longevity.
game canvasses
Yet another instance of the appropriation of computergames by fine art: Jeremiah Palecek produces oil paintings based upon screencaps from games.
via entry at boingboing
demo
It’s time to clarify the ambiguous term “demo” as used within gaming culture. For that purpose I’ll quote from some ’emic sources’.
1. Let’s start with the obvious, Wikipedia’s entry ↑Game demo:
A game demo is a freely distributed demonstration or preview of an upcoming or recently released computer or video game. […] Game demos come in two variations: playable and non-playable (also called a “rolling demo”). Playable demos generally have the exact same gameplay as the upcoming full game, although game advancement is usually limited to a certain point, and occasionally some advanced features might be disabled. A non-playable demo is essentially the gaming equivalent of a teaser trailer.
2. The less industrial and culturally more interesting meaning of demo deals with “demo” as in “demoscene”. Wikipedia on ↑Demo (computer programming):
A demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer subculture known as the demoscene. Demos are the main way for demosceners to demonstrate their abilities in programming (“code”), music (“zik”), drawing (“gfx”), and/or 3D modeling. The key technical difference between a classical animation and a demo is that the display of a demo is computed in real time (like people performing a play compared to showing a movie), making computing power considerations the biggest challenge. Demos are mostly composed of 3D animations mixed with 2D effects and full screen effects.
Machinima.com’s ↑glossary of terms related to machinima supplements:
Demo […] 2) A graphical demonstration of artistic and programming skill. See “Demo Scene”. Demos often overlap with Machinima, and the best demos can be considered pieces of computer art.
Demo Scene A related field to Machinima: the computer arts scene centered around the creation of “Demos”, computer-generated artistic sequences, often in real-time 3D.
Demo Scene A related field to Machinima: the computer arts scene centered around the creation of “Demos”, computer-generated artistic sequences, often in real-time 3D.
3. The to me at the moment most interesting, and till now not so well covered, meaning of “demo” refers to ingame-recording. Again from Machinima.com’s ↑glossary of terms related to machinima:
Demo 1) A recording of a game in progress, made within the game engine itself. Demos were originally intended to allow users to watch their greatest games again and again, but with the creation of demo editing tools became the basis for Machinima in the Quake series of games.
Wikipedia’s entry on ↑Speedrun knows something about the origin of ingame recordings:
December 1993 saw the release of id Software’s ↑Doom (1993). Among some of its major features, like at that time unparallelled graphics, LAN- and Internet-based multiplayer support, and user modification possibilities, it also gave the players the ability to record demo files of their playthrough.
The ↑Doom II (1994) manual describes the “record demo” command like that: “Record a demonstration “movie” of your game, which will be saved for later playback.” The development has gone on and still is going strong. Here’s a snippet from the ↑Open Demo Project’s mission statement:
↑Quake III Arena and derived games are an excellent frame-work for modification and they also allow to read and write files during the game on the server and the client. So it is easy to write a server modification (Record part), which writes during the game the current state (coordinates and attributes of all entities) of the game server into a file [the result is a universal capture—see ↑bullet time—of the game]. This file can be manipulated outside the game with any program and can be read in by another (Replay part) modification of the game. A client can connect to such a replay server and instead of playing the game, the client get the recorded data from the file. This information can even be stored locally on the client in a standard game specific file (DM3, DM_48, DM_66, or DM_67).
See also the ↑Open Demo blog, ↑demospecs, the ↑demospecs’ recording faq, ↑demoscene, and my entries on ↵speedruns, ↵piling up, and ↵appropriation by mastership.
collaborative game research
A new project promising new insights into the history and development of computergames, as it focusses on the perspective of innovations:
The goal of the GIDb [↑Game Innovation Database] is to classify and record every innovation in the entire history of computer and videogames. Because we could never complete this daunting task alone, we have made the GIDb an open wiki, allowing anyone to easily add innovation entries for the benefit of everyone who cares about the history, study, and practice of game innovation.
And then McKenzie Wark, author of “A Hacker Manifesto” has put the draft of his next book ↑GAM3R 7H30RY online as a ‘networked book’. He created the website “as a way to think about games”.
Games, as in computer games, are the subject of my next book, GAM3R 7H30RY. I am interested in two questions. can we explore games as allegories for the world we live in? can there be a critical theory of games? I thought it would be interesting to share the book in its draft state to see if these questions are something other people might have ideas on or might want to pursue. Please remember that this is only a draft, and that it is not meant to be an encyclopedia of all things game related. It’s a short book that explores a few ideas. […] With that in mind, please feel free to use this space to explore these two questions, of what games tell us about the world, and what kind of critical theory one might develop out of the experience of gamers.
superhero renaissance
“There were no superheroes during the renaissance period. Why? Apparently there were no supervillains so they were not needed. That would explain the lack of superheroes in fine art. It’s time to fix that.”—see the results at Worth1000’s ↑Superhero ModRen 2 photoshop contest. They really ↵seem to come back these days …
From top down:
“Heart of Clark” by dan5677
“Portrait of a Young Flash” by NomeDaBo
“Batman and the Centaur” by ParasiteDemon
via entry at boingboing
“Heart of Clark” by dan5677
“Portrait of a Young Flash” by NomeDaBo
“Batman and the Centaur” by ParasiteDemon
via entry at boingboing
drive-thru sequoia
↑Redwood Trees, CA is a wonderful collection of historical postcards depicting California’s famous giant sequoias. The recurrent theme are the drive-thru trees, reflecting the history of transport technology’s rapid changes in front of the backdrop of seemingly eternal organic life.
hypergeertz
Last term some students complained that Evans-Pritchard’s classic “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande” (1937) was no more to be found in our library. All the copies we held on stock apparently have been stolen. Which is a shame. Furthermore the students informed me that the German version of the book is out of print for several years already. A shame all the more. Those dreaded copyright restrictions—at least the classical texts of anthropology, indispensable for coursework, should be available online. In the case of the German version of Evans-Pritchard’s above mentioned book the situation is a little ridiculous: What sense does it make for a publisher to sit on the copyright but not to reprint the book? Especially if it’s a book where demand for it definitely exists. Anyway, speaking of indispensable anthro-reading, Kerim’s recent post
↑Anthro Classics Online: Geertz’s Notes on the Balinese Cockfight at
↑Savage Minds reminded me of
↑HyperGeertz—Nooped already had pointed me to it ages ago, but somehow I forgot to post about it. HyperGeertz is not only an excellent source on Clifford Geertz, but features a comprehensive bibliography of his works, many entries of which are augmented with hyperlinks to the full text online. Contains e.g. the indispensables
↑“Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture” (1973) and
↑“Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight” (1972/73). Note to students: When you are at it, please do not read the indispensables only, but dig deeper into the resource (the staff loves that). Note to staff: Beef up your online curricula with some links to full texts (the students love that).
crabs galore
Salvador Dalí—remember, the fellow who coined the term ‘liquid television’, for whatever that means—once put a lobster upon the lap of a naked beauty. Nice contrast, that was. Then he went on and replaced a vintage telephone’s receiver by a lobster. Even better contrast, I’d say … crustacean vs. technology. The next step would have been to place said animals into technology-soaked sci-fi environments of the post-apocalyptic kind. Dreams come true and it’s amazing to see how certain topoi creep up again and again. Mike K. Nowak visited E3 and found out that during the last year or so creeping crabs must have given a whole posse of gamedevelopers the creeps in something like a collectively shared nightmare, as within a significant number of games presented at this year’s E3 crabs are featured prominently. The above pic shows a fine specimen from “Gears of War”. Scrutinize Nowak’s collection: ↑E3 Crabtacular. Just to add some salt’n’pepper: In “L’Incal Lumière” (1982), second volume of the original ↑Incal-series by Moebius and Jodorowsky, the main protagonist John Difool, a P.I. class R, enters the very innards of a huge tech-complex through a hatch to suddenly find him outside on the surface of a geosphere. And there he encounters, guess what, an immense cybernetic crab.
initially via entry at gamersgame
supermyth
Since the ↵new gods, and since ↵Luthor finally made it, I’ve waited for that.
Neil Gaiman’s and Adam Rogers’ ↑The Myth of Superman at ↑Wired, and oneman’s ingenious discussion of it: ↑Wanna Fly Like Superman at ↑Savage Minds. And don’t miss ↑Superman and Social Darwinism.