Log 002

Dear Internet,

                Now, the kinetic visual novel is something that I am much more used to.  I do not mean in the sense that I have read more kinetic visual novels than those with interaction or choice.  What I mean is that I am much more prepared to be able to make a kinetic novel than the other kind.  From the smattering of short stories I have scratched out, it is a better fit for myself to jump into.  Also, it is overall easier to think and tell a story in a straight line than one that has to curve around like a grape vine.  That is not to say that thinking and storytelling is easy themselves, but I am sure you get the point.  

                While short stories and endless ramblings of reviews might seem like a good experience to prepare one's self to make a kinetic visual novel, I have to say it does not help much at all.  In fact, I would have to say that it does not do a darn thing at all to aid you at all.  The fact of the matter is that about the only thing that will aid you is dialog writing, which is something that I needed no help in as far as I am aware.  No, writing a visual novel, even a small one, is so far removed from the act of telling a normal typed story that it would have been foolish to think that it would be easy to transition.  Thankfully, I realized this and chose to make an already short story instead of making something longer.  The very foundation of the visual novel as compared to a pure text story has to be altered in its handling lest the medium be either wasted or untapped.

                To start off, the perspective has to usually be reworked.  Most fictitious stories are told from an outside perspective.  The narrator is one that is unconnected to any of the characters and is usually aware of everything occurring in the made up world at any one time.  This allows the story to jump from one setting to another, sometimes to locations that none of the story's protagonists could have possibly be aware off.  The audience can learn about an impending doom that rides in from beyond the horizon without the protagonist being aware of the threat.  Or, the party can split and continue by different roads.  Their actions can end up affecting each other but they can remain unaware that their actions have far reaching consequences.  We, the audience, will know because the narrative is able to jump around.  Can you imagine how boring "The Lord of the Rings" films would have been if they only followed around Frodo for six plus hours?  In a visual novel, this ability to jump around is made much more difficult due to the normal perspective being altered.  This is because a visual novel will most likely follow around a single character.  More so, it will most likely follow around a single character who is also the story's narrator while the story progresses in real time rather than being told about some time in the future.  

                Having the main character act as the narrator is a tricky business. The audience will only be able to get a single perspective of the world being created, and they will only be able to see it through the eyes of a specific person, with all the alteration that comes with that character's perspective of the world.  This means that not only will the audience only know that the house has got a porch in the front, never knowing that there is a back porch or even a back of the house, but they will only be told that the porch is colored blue according to the main character, never knowing that the porch is actually a shade of Prussian blue with an underlying shade of emerald green in certain parts due to the Prussian blue being a more recent coat of paint.  This all falls into the "unreliable narrator" mechanic. 

                But then, what happens when you know you cannot even trust the narrator?  Well, not much, really.  All you can do at that point is try to tell if the narrator is either a liar or a mental case.  There is the off chance that he is both, but that can make for a rather confusing story.  If the narrator lies even to themselves, then how can the audience follow along at all, especially since the point of view is of the main character thinking to himself, not intentionally narrating to someone else.  At that point the confusion usually overcomes any sort of fancy that the story contains and becomes a myriad of horror and disgust.  But I digress.

                On top of this change of perspective, there is the change of material that cannot be mentioned.  Instead of using words to describe the face someone makes to hearing news, it is better to just show their face outright.  There is no point in having the narrator describe something if it can be shown.  The only thing that stops you from doing so is a lack of skill or plain laziness, both of which you need to cast off when making a work.  I remember reading recently a dream sequence of sorts from a visual novel styled game.  Included in the dream sequence was a terrifying description of a demon, complete with a rotting carcass and a body incapable of being alive, but only one thing went through my head when I was reading it.  "Why is not the demon being shown via sprite or still image instead of a lengthy and rather wordy description?"  The obvious answer was because game was still in alpha and being made from a scrap team of volunteers.  Numerous background tiles labeled as "Placeholder Image" was evidence enough of this.  The less obvious answer was that the game was being made by a team that was not planning well enough to eventually convert the game script to reflect the final product.  Eventually, if all things go according to their plan, they would have a competent artist to provide the various art assets.  However, putting all their art assets into the game would in turn force certain portions of the game script to become pointless or redundant.  You should not be telling the reader that the flower the girl was holding was yellow if the image shown clearly has her holding a yellow flower.  Woe to you if the flower being held is red.

                That does not mean that everything visual needs to be described through the use of an image rather than with text.  If the scene is right outside a bar, clearly a bar façade should be shown.  It is rather unsettling to see a hair salon being displayed when the narrator is thinking of getting a pint to drink.  The reader would then be lead to believe that he was going to go inside and drink the anti-bacterial slush that the stylists keep the combs in.  Displaying a bar is the ticket.  Afterwards, the text needs to elaborate on the picture, telling of all the nuances that the image is unable to express.  Sometimes the text has to tell all the details that the artist was unable to express, but that is more due to the artist's lack of skill or the misinformation between the artist and writer.  Either way, it does not mean that the text has to completely rely on an image.  An image cannot always tell the history, minute detail, emotional impact, or manner of movement of what it showcases.  The text might not be able to transmit the beauty, ugliness, humor, or villainy of what needs to be told.  The image and text must work together without stepping on each other's toes.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Current Assets

Writing: ~300 lines

Coding: ~35 lines

Art: 0%

Audio: 0%

Entry 132: "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005)

Dear Internet,

                I have wanted to watch "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" for some time.  I saw the other two films in the Vengeance trilogy a few years ago, both of which I enjoyed quite immensely.   I particularly enjoyed "Oldboy" which got me interested in Park Chan-wook, the shared director for all the films, and got me to watch some of his non-Vengeance films, notably "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" and "Joint Security Area."  Overall, I find his films to be quite enjoyable if at least more than a bit hard to stomach.  Park's films are not visually disturbing in the same way that a gory film like "Saw" is.  No, "Lady Vengeance" is more difficult to watch because of the topics that it covers, most difficult being kidnapping, child murdering, prison life, and the conflict between personal revenge and public justice.

                The film tells the story of Lee Geum-ja, a recently paroled woman who has done thirteen years for kidnapping and murder of a five year old boy.  During those thirteen years, she created a demeanor of an angelic persona, taking care of numerous other prisoners, pretending to have converted to allow for early release, and incapacitating the prison bully.  Once out, she begins to call in a number of favors from the other ex-convicts.  One by one, the audience learns of the various things that Lee did while imprisoned and how each favor she calls in begins to fit into a much larger plan.  She plans on finding the real perpetrator to the crime that she paid thirteen years for.

                "Lady Vengeance" has an intertwining plot that does not let itself be known right away.  The film's true plot does not become apparent until about thirty minutes in.  Until that time, the viewer has to piece together a number of nearly disconnected scenes that do little to create a concrete understanding of the film's central character, Lee.  At one moment, the film presents itself as a straightforward redemption film, only showing how Lee responds to a preacher as being penitent, wishing to be forgiven for her actions.  After she is released, we do see that her actions prove this is a falsehood, only one of many faces she wears throughout the film.  While this does work while having the whole film examined in its entirety, I found myself heavily confused as to what I was supposed to be understanding at the time.  The whirlwind of information presented in the beginning can be difficult to absorb since the film as a whole is suspense and mystery.  The film takes a while to show that Lee was indeed innocent by only showing flashbacks to scenes that are outside her own experience, ones that are unaware of her guilt or not.  This early hump comes from spreading out the exposition out a little too much.  While it does eventually resolve itself, it should be noted.

                I enjoyed the film, but I continued to think of the other two Vengeance films while viewing this one.  The other two films remember that the one that was enacting the vengeance was not without crimes themselves.  "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" ended with the protagonist succumbing to the consequences of his own actions.  "Oldboy" at least made the viewer wonder if the protagonist had even gained his revenge at all or if his actions had dug himself into an even deeper pit than the one he was originally thrown into.  This film, however, gets to the end and leaves the viewer with a quick and dry answer.  Lee commits crimes throughout the film, but each action is against a guilty party that has committed far worse.  At the end of the film, there is no question of "Now what?" because Lee has tied up every loose end and received everything but forgiveness for her initial crime, something that she will never gain.  The audience knows that her first crime, aiding the kidnapping but not the murder of a child, can never be truly forgiven by the victim because the victim is dead.  Lee will never receive her redemption through her vengeance.  The best she can hope for is to stop the perpetrator from continuing his actions.  The film rests its ending on this obvious truth, but the viewer can reason this out when they learn of her plans.  In turn, the ending comes to its logical conclusion without any sort of twist that the other Vengeance films are able to spin.  But that leads more into the two-thirds twist that diverts the film as a whole.

                Near the climax of the film, the story switches to Lee's personal vendetta to that of small mob justice, for lack of a better name.  More crimes are found against the man who had sent Lee to prison.  The victim's relatives are brought in and his sentence is chose by mob rule instead of being instantly handed over to the police.  The whole thing turns rather "Murder on the Orient Express" rather quickly.  Then the film's speed slows down considerably because of this shift in tone.  It then has to spend time elaborating on the various new characters.  It does not get to the point that each and every character gets an exhaustive, but with a cast of at least of half a dozen that already received a likewise small introduction, it becomes a bit tiring.  Throw on top that thematic change and the film can really be divided into two parts to the point where it might have been easier to just separate it into two films.  The fact that the climax and the division occurs at the two-third mark means that the last third moves slowly and is worse yet, just playing out the logical conclusion.  The viewer can guess the rest of the film at that point as they watch being played out what is going through their head.

                "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" is an enjoyable film if one can stand the film's content.  The film presents the brutal honesty of human depravity while depicting a horrible fiction.  Film artistry is there as well as a compelling plot.  The acting is spot on with the cast being able to convey the character's pain without being comically melodramatic.  Overall, it is a film that can stand next to other Vengeance films, if just standing a sit short.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Nier" for the PS3.

Log 001

Dear Internet,

                Last week, I said that I was in the beginning steps of making a kinetic visual novel.  I also said that I was going to detail the progress of said novel about once every week.  So, whether you like it or not, I am going to ramble off here every Monday or so.

                The visual novel, as a genre, is something that I have known about for some time.  It is also something that I have admired as a mechanic for story telling since I became aware off.  I was introduced to it from the game side initially rather than the narrative side.  Summed up, I thought of it as a game type where the story takes precedence over the gameplay.  In many ways this is true.  Many visual novels are designed to the point where there is no gameplay at all, just a minute amount of choices that often boil down to two or three choices per conundrum.  I have often seen them compared to "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.  The only difference is that visual novels have audio and many more pictures to accompany their stories.  

                Like the physical books, visual novels have a limitation to themselves that work against themselves as being categorized as games.  They share a few elements that would get themselves easily grouped together with video games, but there is also a strict distinction that makes me hesitant to call visual novels "video games."  Both visual novels and games have some sort of win/lose condition.  There must be victory and there must be defeat.  Chess has a set of rules that the two players must follow until one player wins or the game ends in a draw.  Rock, paper, scissors has rules that dictate a victory or a draw.  "Super Mario Bros." has a set of rules that determine if the player has succeeded.  Visual novels have these, too, to a certain extent.  The player must navigate a set of choices that lead to a happy ending, a true ending, or just survive long enough to get out alive.  Whether or not you agree to the definitions of a "happy ending" or "true ending" can be argued or even disregarded depending on the player or the maker of the visual novel, but the fact remains that the player is well enough made aware that they have reached an end of the novel.  It is usually clear enough when an unfavorable end is reached, which prompts the reader to try again.  That win/lose mechanic is there is some effect.

                But what about that distinction that separates them from games?  Unlike a game such as checkers or chess, visual novels must follow a strict script that is rigidly bound to travel a set direction each and every time it is run.  Checkers and chess have enough variety within the possibilities of play that a person cannot comprehend by themselves all the ways the game could go when examining the game from the start or looking at the game as a whole.  Visual novels only have a set number of endings and possibilities that are clearly defined and figured before they are even released.  The player has little control to say that the player can dodge a punch if the option to do so is not made available to them.  It is not like a skill based game like "Super Mario Bros." where the player can gain a higher score depending on the abilities of the player.  Unless you get a better ending depending on how quick you make a decision, skill plays very little into the visual novel's mechanics.

                Visual novels are in many ways just interactive fiction, but that is precisely what makes them great.  A story heavy video game that places more emphasis on gameplay than on story, such as the "Tales of" series, wants to focus more on the game aspect.  "Tales of the Abyss" has got one of the most generic and annoying plots that I have come across.  The characters are generally unlikable, the themes are handled badly to the point that characters swerve haphazardly with their dialog, and the plot is one that has been beaten to death by its own series and other games in the JRPG genre.  Despite all this, I found myself entering battles and fighting monsters because the gameplay was enjoyable.  I was not even doing it to grind for money or experience.  The gameplay, itself, was what was enjoyable and made me continue to play the game.  Visual novels, or at least visual novels without a game mechanic, cannot get me to say the same thing.  The story is what the player is interested in when they start up a visual novel.  You do not get the thrill from making a decision in a visual novel.  You get the thrill by seeing how that decision impacts the story.

                Of course, a certain question must have popped in your mind by now.  What does any of this have to do with a kinetic visual novel, which separates itself by negating any sort of story changing mechanic?  Well, not much, really.  But knowing all of this is something that made me realize that I need to start off a step lower than a full visual novel.  A short attempt to try and make a barebones visual novel prototype resulted in realizing that I was biting off more than I could chew, especially considering the limited amount of time I have.  The first step is to make a straight road.  After that I can worry about making one with dead ends.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Current Assets

Writing: 170 lines

Coding: 25 lines

Art: 0%

Audio: 0%

Entry 131: "Spriggan" (1998)

I was disappointed at the lack of Cornish faeries.

Dear Internet,

                Later this month, the film "Noah" will be making its theatrical debut across at least one country.  Lo and behold, it will be following the Biblical story of a non-unioned carpenter taking a divine interest in animal husbandry and fresh water traveling.  Now, what does this have to do with the animated film "Spriggan," based on a seven year running Japanese comic?  Well, I'll get to that point in a paragraph or two.

                "Spriggan" is very open about its brutally violent nature.  The opening scene includes at least three deaths by ultrasonic vibrations.  This is one of those films that makes me want to have a body count ticker in the bottom right corner of the screen.  Unless the character has got a name, they are most likely going to be cannon fodder before the end.  Considering that there is at least one secret paramilitary organization in the film, it only makes me wonder how such an organization could exist considering that the sheer amount of people that are dying would probably guarantee them a reserved position at the local unemployment office.  People die left and right in such numbers that it is boggling to think that they are not nearly as secret as they hope to be.

                But let me start off by telling a little about the plot.  "Spriggan" centers around Yu Ominae, a high-school student in Japan and a member of the secret military organization known as ARCAM, a group created to keep under wraps a number of ancient artifacts from a forgotten society.  Early on in the film, Yu's classmate is shown to commit involuntary suicide by means of an incendiary vest.  Yu is mildly injured in the resulting explosion.  This event prompts Yu to take action within the organization to find out the details despite his superior denying Yu to take on any missions while being injured.  He learns that ARCAM has discovered the remains of Noah's Ark.  However, unlike the scriptural description of the vessel, this ark is at least four times larger and made from a material that cannot be affected by traditional human means.  What follows is a struggle between ARCAM and another secret organization that wishes to gain possession of the ark for their own personal reasons.  Between cyborg soldiers, inhuman levels of pain tolerance, telekinetic children and the occult, "Spriggan" pulls from a variety of different angles in an attempt to keep the audience glued to the screen.

                This is all well and good, but there is an important fact to remember about the film.  It is being based on a specific arc that occurs in the source material.  The film is not the entirety of the story that the original manga wished to tell.  This of course does not allow it a handicap in any sort of way.  A film has to stand on its own merits and present itself to an audience as a standalone item.  It cannot rely on hoping the audience is caught up with some other medium to be able to tell the story.  "Spriggan," thankfully, does not do this, but certain elements do highlight the fact that the film is but one of a series of tales in an overarching plot.  Some of these elements include the character Jean Jacquemonde, a number of lines made by the film's main antagonist, and the back story of main character Yu.  While these do not create a whole detraction from the film, they do create a nagging feeling when viewing the film.  I found the character Jean to be most notable of these nagging sensations, mostly due to his repeated appearance whenever the film wrote itself into a corner and needed a way out.  Has Yu got into a fight he might not win? Jean shows up and nearly solves the problem single-handedly.  Yu snaps and goes on a personal vendetta?  Jean stops him from going crazy.  Yu gets caught in a collapsing structure?  Jean appears out of nowhere to help Yu hobble away.  It feels artificial in the very least and just makes me wonder if the character was thrust into the film to appease the original fanbase of the manga.  

                I mentioned the film "Noah" at the beginning of this rant for now obvious reasons.  "Spriggan" takes a science fiction approach to ancient stories.  I have no qualms about this.  It is an interesting take, even if it is not all that original.  Pointing the finger at prehistoric aliens has been around for decades prior.  The only thing that the film, or at least the subtitles, constantly irked me was the fact that the characters would constantly refer to the ark itself as "Noah."  They would only sporadically call it the arc or refer to it as a ship.  It is as silly as referring to Little Bastard as James Dean.  But I should not be so critical of this.  It probably stems from a Japanese habit or something of the sort.  One thing that the film does interestingly enough is being able to spin the ark from being a solution to being a problem.

                The film does have one pivotal problem.  The film is suspense based, deeply encroached in mysteries and secret societies, which means that quite a lot of information is not readily made known to the audience.  The balance of knowledge, ignorance, and revelation is a delicate game where if one begins to outweigh its position all three topple.  There is no other element that so strikingly comes across as poorly balanced as does Yu's back story.  Throughout the film, there are numerous references to where Yu came from, why he is a teenage soldier, and his various previous interactions with the film's antagonists.  If the audience is even paying attention, they can piece together what the characters are saying into a reasonable understanding of how Yu got into the position he is currently in.  The only hole maybe being the reason as to how Yu gained superhuman abilities.  Instead of treating the audience as having two brain cells to rub together, it decides to completely illustrate Yu's background as a child soldier in the middle of the film's climax.  This in turn slows down one of the most pivotal moments of the film so it can display information that could have already been reasoned out or just plain out neglected due to the minutia of its importance.  This deluge of character exposition is poorly placed and halts a climatic confrontation that also sadly gets slammed to the ground quickly.  The final fight is just plain uninteresting and does not logically work considering that Yu overpowers his enemy despite being in a clear disadvantage.  

                "Spriggan" is not a bad film.  The entire narrative works, and it can be entertaining at times.  It pulls from the hardcore 80's era of graphic violence and cannon fodder individuals.  I am reminded in part of "Genocyber" and how that treated non-named characters.  However, it also makes me think of the "Full Metal Panic" series, which came out a few years later, and was able to explore many of the same elements expertly.  Overall, I am underwhelmed by "Spriggan." It aims for a lofty narrative by interjecting numerous elements throughout the film, but fails to culminate into a story that can stand on its own.  Too many elements causes the film to feel spread out too thinly.  Perhaps the manga had better pacing and was able to introduce the various themes well, but the film feels too much like a segment of the comic was ripped to make a movie.  At the same time, if there are plot-holes, they are patched over with either a 30 second scene or a line to smooth things over.  Both are true and sadly work against each other.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Sympathy for Lady Vengence."

Announcement: Hello

Dear Internet,

         Hello, Internet.  How have you been?  I have been well.  Busy, but well.  Today marks the one year anniversary since I started to write to you.  One whole year.  Of course it also marks the general point of five months without any sort of correspondence.  I apologize for that.  Like I have said, I have been busy.

         In the end, my little experiment was something of a success and also a failure.  It succeeded in scraping away a few layers of my Backlog, but it failed when I gave myself a little breathing room.  Because of this breathing room, I have not reviewed a single thing in the last five months.  My true displayable productivity halted to zero for the most part.  With this announcement post, however, I will try to rectify this.
  
         Taking this one year anniversary as a catalyst, I will take up the Backlog, again.  This time I will not make the ambiguous statement,or lack thereof, concerning the frequency of entries.  From here on out, I will be making one entry post for the Backlog each week, usually Friday.  It may be of the usual types of media: games, shows, music, movies, and books.  I will review them in a similar fashion as before, but will only be dedicating a minimum of five hours per week to the item.  This is a huge reduction as compared to before where I was doing twenty-five hours per week, but I cannot allocate more time than this.  Please understand this, Internet.  This is only half of what I plan on doing with my time for site.

          At the same time, I will be beginning a project for you, Internet, and for myself.  The act of reviewing is a one sided thing in some regards.  When I review something, I am taking a work that has been completed and finished (usually) and breaking it down to the point where it can be analyzed or inspected.  I then hand it off to you to read whatever little musings that have popped up in my head.  I get nothing from this little endeavor short of a little joy seeing my view counter crawl along.  But in the end, I am not making much of anything new.  I am making a review, yes, but all reviews require something to review.  They require a work made from outside the person doing the reviewing.  There is of course the instances where someone reviews their own work, but outside of self criticism for the sake of improvement this usually leads to a revolving door policy where the reviewer is the criticizer and is just patting themselves on the back.

         Instead of only creating secondary works that come from examining someone else's work, I wanted to make something of my own from scratch.  With this in mind, I chose to start making a kinetic visual novel.  I have always admired video games and their mechanics, but knew that I was more of a writer than a programmer.  The visual novel is the closest I can probably get to such a goal or is in the very least the first step toward such aspirations.  The kinetic novel is even more basic than that, with the varying choices that usually come from a visual novel not existing.  I chose to pursue the kinetic novel less to do with the artistic choice of negating player and reader choices and more with the practical reason that I am fairly new to the act of making a visual novel.

        The kinetic visual novel, that I will be detailing the progression of and eventual release here on the Backlog, is a reworking of an old writing exercise that I had done a few years back.  I do not hope or want accolades or praise for the final product.  Let me say that outright.  This project is for my own benefit.  I want to use this as a means of refining a few skills that I have into making a novel with the hopes of eventually going the next step, which would be to make a fully fledged visual novel with diverging paths and intertwining narratives.  That is my goal, and a small kinetic novel is the first few baby steps that I can make towards that goal.  Considering that as I stand now, I'll be doing the writing, coding, art, music and sound effects, it is enough of a small goal for me to aim for.  Expect to hear more information about once every week from here on out.

        So, there you have it, Internet.  The revival of the Backlog and the start of an amateur kinetic visual novel.  Both will fall into obscurity soon enough amiss the tidal waves of data that sweep through your servers every day.  But it means something to me at least.  Like a polished button or a colored rock being kept in an old cigar box under a bed belonging to a small child, this means something to someone, no matter it's worldly value.

Yours in digital,
BeepBoop

P.S. Next to be reviewed is "Spriggan," the  1998 film.