Posts Tagged ‘tetris’
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Not long ago I toyed around with Second Life, creating an avatar of myself (as a short, bald old man with a walking stick that I designed…) and spent time trying to figure it out. After spending some time completing the exhaustive training island and then exploring for awhile, I just didn’t see the appeal anymore and I uninstalled it.
Well, BBC had an article I was just reading on “what happened to Second Life”, that more or less addresses the drop in popularity of this virtual world. An interesting point made in why some businesses avoided going online with SL is that it’s not always easy to get a grasp of the technology (perhaps even the navigation) and not all computers can handle it. This is definitely the case with my 8-yr old Sony Vaio, which can barely run SL. On a different computer, it would work better, but I’d still find myself waiting for places to fully load, so I’d almost be playing SL while reading a book at the same time waiting.
Anyhow, for kicks, I’m linking in some Flickr pics that I grabbed long ago of my SL adventures. I had an account and spent the time traveling and just taking in all the details of the place. Some of it could be interesting, like the interactive monastery (presumably with monks lingering around somewhere. Why would someone want to be an online monk?) while so much of SL just seemed trashy to me: there would be so many places just devoted to selling junk for your avatar. Likewise, it seemed as if places offering adult content, and advertising for these places, was prevalent throughout SL. I *thought* that I had some sort of adult filter on my profile, but apparently not.
What really struck me about SL is that its NOT really accessible unless you want to be a paying member. So much of the gimmick of SL is just buying stuff and homes and garbage, but when you start the game as a freeloader like me, all you get are a couple bucks (for a pair of shoes or something.) At least you don’t need to feed or house your avatar, but all the same, having no home in a massive online materialistic faux-world can seem at times a little bit humbling… until you lose interest and turn the game off and play Tetris instead.
I keep referring to SL as a game, and maybe that’s the problem. It’s not a game… it would be a horrendously boring game if that was the case. Rather it’s just one of those things I classify as a massive online time-waster. There can be some interesting things to see, like some of the detailed buildings and avatars, but above and beyond that, I don’t see the appeal. I’d rather “talk” with a real human over an avatar format (maybe this will change for me later, but for now, I just don’t get it.)
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So I was reading about the “24 Hour Comic Day Challenge”, on Oct. 3, in which creators are challenged to create 24 consecutive pages of a comic book in the span of 24 hours. I look at something like this, and it just makes me sad, because with December Sun, I’m more of the time-frame of 24 pages in 24 months! (well, maybe not that bad, but close.)
I’ve often wondered (Rob is going off into muse mode now) what it would be like to be a full-time comic book artist. I mean, not having to work a “real” job, but instead able to just wake up and get to work drawing and inking. I wonder if it would take away the pleasure of the craft, having to do it for a living? Could you, in fact, get tired of drawing, and burned out of inking?
As it stands now, I draw, ink, and Photoshop-manipulate the pages in the evening as a way to unwind. I hate television and most movies these days, so comics make up one of my few hobbies (that, and this awful Tetris site… evil! Especially now that they have a beta of “Tetris Live”, with “weapons” and things to use in 6-player matches.)
24 hours to do 24 pages would be a joke for me. No way I could do that. But it’s a neat idea for those who have the time and resources.
I hate Tetris. I’ve played an unhealthy amount of it growing up, and even today, I’m hooked on the stupid game. So along comes “Tetris Friend“, and, of course, lemming that I am, I click the link and get hooked. Not only is this classic Tetris free, but there are some variations where you can battle random strangers of different skill levels: some you can defeat easily, and others who clean the floor with you. It’s an awful drain of time that I need to stop playing at night, because it’s wasting time I should be using for December Sun #5, which I’m lettering now.
My earliest memories of Tetris were from the old Nintendo system. I used to play this for hours, then dream of falling colorful shapes and obnoxious Russian-sounding music. Then in high school, in the computer lab, there was a really cheap knock-off of Tetris, ironically called “Nyet”, installed on the PC’s there. I wasted a good amount of time playing Nyet, truly making the most of my time in school.
The curious thing about Tetris is, I think I’ve hit the skill wall with the game: I don’t get any worse, and I don’t get any better. My gameplaying just sortof leveled off at this strange level of Bruce Lee-style playing of “feel, don’t think”, where I just start playing and pow-pow-pow just start dropping shapes at the same consistent speed. I don’t think about it: the shapes just drop into place. It’s sad, and a little frightening, actually.
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