Lith's Diary - April (Patreon)

Dear Diary,
I glanced at last month's entry, and dang! I think I completely forgot about trying to say nice things to my friends. I mean, it occurred to me once maybe halfway through the month, and I think at one point I was talking to a friend and thought I should say something nice, but... It's really hard?? This is confusing for me, honestly. I feel like I'm a nice person, and I can be kind to people, but when I think about actually paying someone a compliment, something specific, I just... I can't think of anything? And it feels like it would be super awkward to say it? Or maybe even, it feels like if I complimented them it might almost seem like flirting or something. I don't know. Also, calling it "paying someone a compliment" sounds really weird, but I think that's how you're supposed to say it. It makes it sound even more awkward, like you're implying you're getting something out of it or... something?

I think I might have to work on this. I remember one time I was with a friend and she asked me what I thought of her new haircut. And I was... boggled? To be honest, I thought it looked a little strange, but I just kinda said it was nice, and wasn't sure what to say. Someone else came along and said it framed her face well, and I was immediately like-- hey, it does! Yes, it frames your face well. But, you know. Doesn't really "count" to repeat someone else's compliment. I think I missed out on an important lesson on being a social, outgoing person as a kid or something. Don't just say nice things to people, say nice things ABOUT people. Somehow.

Did you compliment your friends this month? It's okay if you didn't. I just like the idea that maybe, even if I didn't manage to compliment anyne myself, I at least helped add one or two extra compliments to the world. Or something? We could always use a little more kindness going around.

Let's see... I talked about games a lot last time, and that made me realize: I actually haven't been playing games much lately. What I have been doing is watching people play games, though. There are a lot of games I'm interested in, at least to see, but don't really want to play for myself, and I'm really glad I've found a few youtubers that make that a pretty fun experience, for something to watch when I just want to relax.

So it feels weird to talk about this, but I watched a full playthrough of the new God of War game. And yeah, it's surprisingly good! It looks like they could've toned it down some with the sheer quantity of fiddly little RPG elements they added, that felt very silly and out of place to me, but overall it turned out way better than it originally sounded. It's God of War, but now Kratos is old and not angry anymore and he's lugging a kid around or something! It sounded like a disaster. But it actually does a great job playing a sort of homage to The Last of Us and using Kratos's past to kinda treat him as a veteran that's trying to deal with his past and find a better way now. I was honestly impressed.

And there's a lot of stuff in the game that, while not new, is more like they were inspired by a lot of other games and worked all those elements we've seen before into something just a little new, but really well executed. And I can definitely respect a game that's got that love put into it, where everything makes sense and works together and is just done well from top to bottom. Polished and rewarding, not rushed or trying to manipulate you for money or waste your time. It's so rare for a title that big, and I'm really happy it exists.

And it's been making me think about games as a medium, too. Lately I've been wondering, really, what will games be twenty years from now? Fifty years from now? We're still learning so much about what works and what doesn't, and how we can actually create an experience that feels meaningful and engaging. We've got so much today that you'd never dream of seeing in a game twenty years ago. And I'm not talking about the technology-- that's actually something I'm kinda sad about, thinking on it. Tech is going to keep getting better, and maybe VR will take off or something else, and most games will move on to a new form, but I feel like there's still so much we could do to explore the forms of games we have now. I guess that's why retro is still a thing, though.

But I mean, today there are a lot of things that are considered "common sense" for how to make a game, to make the experience less frustrating and easier to get into, that was barely getting experimented with a decade or two ago. What things do we just live with today that will be considered practically mandatory for a game in the future? Mechanics, maybe, stuff for convenience in gameplay, but more than that, how will the design change? The philosophy of what a game can or should be and do?

I think we're gradually seeing more games that don't just "deal with hard subjects," but actually experiment with real emotional involvement. There's so, SO much potential in games to draw you into a real emotional experience more intense than a movie or book could ever provide, but it's gone practically untapped this whole time. Maybe in ten or twenty years, they'll look back at all these big name games with their generic, cookie-cutter protagonists and see them as more backwards and primitive than we see old arcade boxes today. I think that would be really nice.

Sometimes it really bugs me when I think about the absolutely ridiculous amount of work, the sheer man-hours companies put into modeling environments and stuff. You might pass through a room in two seconds, but because you might possibly stop and look, they had like a team of people work on building and detailing that room for a week or something? So, SO much work on making every last thing detailed and pretty... and then it feels like the story was put together by two underpaid drunk guys in a weekend or something. It feels like such a... nightmare. I want to see games that spent as much money building the story and characters and recording layers of different lines so they really feel alive and responsive to your choices, as they do on making the damn bushes sway in the breeze realistically and stuff. It's great if it's pretty and all, but it's the story and the characters that'll stick with me, in the end. Or won't.

Maybe part of it is that it's harder to sell a game with "we promise, the story is really good." Maybe it's because a lot of the time games that DO focus on "storytelling" end up being pretentious art house pieces that don't actually play well, and the characters tend to be annoying more than actually engaging. Maybe it's because a good story to one person is garbage to another, and a fascinating story to one is boring and unrelateable to another. The numbers add up, I guess. But I want to see it happen. I want to see companies wake up and start shifting their dev budgets a little. I want to stop getting a beautiful wrapper with a dog turd inside. I want the big games that make up the face of the industry to the mainstream audiences to actually be good, you know? I want them to have games that make them go "wow... I had no idea games could do this?" and then maybe they'd go find more games and fall in love with them like I have. Instead of just playing the latest shooter and saying "yup... video games make kids shoot up schools etc."

Well, I ended up making myself kinda mad for some reason. I have lots and lots of opinions about video games apparently? But I mean... I just... I want them to be better. And I want everyone to be able to know the joys I've felt playing them. To get that thrill of discovery, or to feel that strange ache in your heart when you realize you connect with this character more than you ever thought possible. To feel that unbearable tension when you feel like you're in immense danger, and the incredible relief when you find safety at last. And I want to see games do things to me I can't expect even now. I want to see them grow.

Okay, I'm just repeating myself a bunch now, I should probably stop here. I hope you've had a game do wonderful things to you. If you haven't, um... My two favorites for that are probably Undertale and Subnautica. They've both put me through very different, but very intense emotional experiences, and if you haven't, I absolutely recommend you play them all the way through. Just... don't look up anything for them if you can help it, okay? ...Well Subnautica can get pretty tough after a while without a wiki, but try to look up as little as you can your first time through.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to all my rambling. Sorry if it gets kinda repetitive. And thank you for helping me out, in the void. It looks like we're finally done with... that whole area... and I have to admit, I'm pretty relieved, but also kinda scared? I'm not sure what's next, but I hear it's... well, I hear it's like... the end is coming? But what does that mean? Is that... good? Or does it mean...? It's hard not to get a little scared thinking about it. But... I've got you with me, and you've guided me through all of this to get us here. It's been... hard... but we've made it. So I know that, with your help, we'll make it all the way through... whatever that jerk Lithier throws at us. Just... thank you. Thank you so much. I really, honestly, couldn't have made it through all this without you. You've made all the difference in the world to me.

Is that a compliment? How about... umm... I like the way you... umm, I mean... Okay this is still really hard for me. Sorry! Um.

You smell good. I like your scent, and... when we're close, I feel comfortable, knowing you're there. Your scent feels like... home? Okay that sounds really weird. I am still definitely not good at this!

Sorry. Sorry for weirdness. I will take a class or something. Compliment class?? But for now, just. Thank you. And um. I'll see you again soon!
-Lith