Jinxi

So this is my blogpost for final indie game.

It’s a late submission. Though I still wants to gain some points, so I submitted it.

When I first heard the game engine Twine in our guest lecture, I was very glad and surprised thinking that I like narrative game and Twine is definitely one possible engine for me. But then I saw the professor of our guess lecture introducing her game of all these English and word plays, and I though, well, I can’t do that. At least I need some pictures or animations, I couldn’t just rely on a not-mother tongue language to introduce my story. Then I browsed through tutorial videos of Twine but didn’t see any specific animation guidance, or I believed that it could be done but may requires tons of coding and programming, some skill that I don’t possess.

With that said, I look for other engines and that’s when I saw Renpy. I saw that people used it to make Galgames which is great, I like the mechanism of galgame, so I downloaded it and started learning it. Coding in Renpy is quite simple, even me who didn’t know what indentation is before this project can code a crude game.

So I found my best friend Bella, cheerfully told her that I have a game and wants her to draw some pictures for it. By then I still don’t have any clear idea about the plot, but I told Bella that there will be a good ending when the protagonist broke the glass window and jumped out a building, mocking the scientist, saying “you couldn’t trap me anyway.” I told her that I want her to draw a villain, could be anyone as long as they looks evil.

Bella is great. Just to say this so that you know that she’s great. She quickly brought me the drawing of a “crazy scientist”, which is later used as the image of the player. She also drew Fiona. Though I “sewed” it with Novelai(an Ai drawing engine, its drawings not copyright protected)’s drawing, just so you know.

It is with Bella’s picture I thought out the plot.

There’s this evil scientist, incubated Timber and Fiona because his father died in the factory due to an accident, and he, believing that this problem just couldn’t be solved by upgrading the machines, dedicated himself to create furry creatures to work and replace the manual workers, in this way, humanity won’t be hurt.

These furry could not talk. Nor could they run as fast as human. Their genes are organized by the scientist that they are smart enough to work on the assembly line, but is not strong enough to escape.

But you know, that human aren’t human because they can talk or can stand stable.

One good ending is that Timber broke the glass window, and the other one will be that Timber murdered “You”. In both ending Timber kept its hated spirit and followed its cruel heart as an wolf. Which is great. This reflected my personality when I was young. I was “borned as an ingrateful and hateful child”. When I saw my father mistreating my mother I wanted to kill him. Though my mother said no because she love me and wants me to have a bright future. And later I converted Christianity, so I gave up the murdering idea. Oh, plus my mother loved her family members, every of them, and can sacrifice everything for them.

Some said that it’s very ungrateful to kill one’s parent. But isn’t it very selfish to not hate one’s father who do wrong things only because he’s your father and feed you?

There will be the third ending, which isn’t finished yet but, it’s a bad ending. In my script it’s label as “weak”. But it’s not weakness in muscles, its weakness in Timber’s heart. This ending could be achieved if you treated Timber nice enough to the point that he is puzzled. That he don’t know whether he should kill ‘You’(who did wrong things) or not, for you taught it how to understand language and feed it.

The protagonist, Timber, a wolf furry, is prototyped from timber wolf. This is because I like the muddy and dirty look of Timber wolves.

The link of a video record of me reaching one ending is attached. Though the audio of it is a little bit cracked.

In the future the game will be updated, and, yes I’ll create a Chinese version for my friend Bella and just to say again that Bella is great.

https://clipchamp.com/watch/rkrw3DPnsFV

This intervention is done show the weakness of this type of teaching method,”homework”. It is just very common for students to gave up on their homeworks, which means that, they’ll finish the homework but they’ll gave up to learn anything from the homework. In the end this statement is demonstrated in a way of “stuffing” the homework with itself, just like what the snake Ouroboros did in Greek legends.

I’m not attacking any specific homework, but just taking this homework as a target for assault, as a representation of all homeworks that need to be recorded and need to be submitted and gave enough freedom to students. If students failed to found something meaningful enough for they to intervene, they could have just gave up, and just “lie down”. They’ll enter a passive state of trying to finish the homework in a most time-saving or effortless way, just like how I hope to finish my homework in a comfortable and easy way by lying in front of the floor of the classroom. The problem is, the student gains too little in the process. I don’t really see the tutorial aspect of this assignment. That’s to say, if I’m doing my assignment for my excel class, I’ll learn how to write functions and to arrage strings if I want to. But this assignments, such “intervention” assignments, that didn’t taught. 

Interventions are nice. Putting black tapes on stairs is nice. Though, what does that taught? “The fun theory”? Won’t that just be obvious, since if it’s not the team won’t have the idea of doing this activity intuitionally?

Here’s the picture of me lying on the ground like a dead dog.

Me, mentally lied-down, is trying to embody that physically. And I did. If entered the apathetic mental state, people will not try to work hard or impress anyone anymore, just like how I’ve chosen this way of representation because it’s the most comfortable way. Plus, I can wait outsides of classroom rather than sitting in the classroom, which definitely gave a sense of freedom.

I was inspired by Yoko Ono and her Cut Piece from 1964. I like her idea of using herself as an experimental sample, and her bravery. Buzz, just to tell you my inspiration is not from this class.

No, No, no,,haha, definitely not, how could that be possible? I was certainly influenced by Yoko Ono, I must, I mean, I was,, inspired…no, give me the points, give me the points, give me the points, givemethepointsI’m sorry Ijust said that I’sorryyy Every one just do that, isn’t it? Many of us just seams some random reference with our work, isn’t it?

No no no that’s not the fact she’s a lier! Don’t believe her! Don’t! Please DONT!! We’ll complete our homework, we’ll complete our homework, we’ll complete our homework, complete our homework I Begged, pleaaaaaaaaaase don’t deletemy point pleeeeeeaaaase

FINAL ANSWER: YES, THIS WORK IS INSPIRED BY CUT PIECE.(

Anyway, here’s some text documentations of my actions.

I started to prepare twenty minutes before class ended because I worried that class would end earlier.  Then I posted myself in a comfortable position in front of the class’s door. I texted these words while I waited because I don’t want to waste time. I was actually resting because I think I deserve that and, I didn’t start recording till people started to leave classrooms.

One by one the people went, until beside the door I can still hear Jaliyah chatting with professor Celia. I waited for them to come out, meanwhile keep typing my future blog post.

Then discovered I didn’t clicked record. People opening the door with surprise, Yibing helping me by taking picture, Maximus and Jaliyah who says they like my idea, and other comments, I’ve lost all of them.

I sited miserably between the door and the corridor. Though not very miserable because at least I have something to finish my homework.

A fan-art game about Onmyoji, focus on rebuild the Onmyoji game scene in Minecraft. Made for my friend Bella during last summer vacation. This game that mainly focuses on plot and performing. There are many NPCs in the game, but they don’t really exist on the map, their names and description will be given by text, and players need to “see” them with imagination. Clues and “ties” are collected through the “find button” method.
Production process: I found a Japanese-themed map on the market(the used map’s name: 沧海城）,remodeled some of its building, and built the dock and Liren(or Lee chin) cabin based on the game advertisement’s picture. I took screenshots from the original game, extracts the text, and then use command blocks to enter them in Minecraft.

My main challenges are to convert the third person of the original work to first person, to build and convert the scene, to build the time system (so that I can restore the in-game scene, for example, Yeecin saved Shiranui at the sunset on the third day in the original work, that correspond with “52” in Minecraft), money system, altered part of the prototyped plot and added some of my own(the whole fisherman thing, for example. Because in the original game it is with his monster friends’ help Yeecin fled Leechin Cabin. Monsters requires massive text description and thus is heavily relied on the player’s imagination. (There is no NPC function in the Neteast version Minecraft.), for this reason I deleted three of his monster friends. Also, this change make multi-ending possible, that I can set difficulties for the player with my original plot, while in the original game you don’t have chance to choose, the game just go to true ending)

I want to say that one main joy of playing this game came from the interaction of the hoster(me) and the player. The players are supposed to groan at and complain about the game’s unhuman difficulty level(which I set up on purpose to make fun of them), and also mock at all these bugs I have in my games. And I’m suppose to laugh when the players fail to reach happy ending again and again(only works for best friends).

I had two players. One is my best friend Bella, who spent eight hours playing and more hours testing the game for me so that I can debug it. Bella did exactly what I mentioned on the last paragraph. Another player is fom this class, Fred, who is Chinese and thus can understand the story and interact with me. Due to time limit I helped Fred to reach true ending with only one try. I enjoy the feeling of manipulating how difficlult this game is, as if, “I’m the producer…! I know everything about this difficult game!”.

Also, just to mention Dadaism for my grade. I can see now that one reason for why people of this generation is pursuing beauties, is that we really have a nice life now. The distorted and dispressed scenes from Dada art is fostered by the darkness of that society, while in our’s society we “beautiful-ize” monsters such as Shiranui. (The Shiraui in the legend is not a young beautiful lady but just mysterious fire on the sea).

The follow links, one is a walkthrough video, with translation and summary provided for the class. It shorten an one-hour process to 15 minutes. The other one is a performing scene, with two part(important!!), one is pure fanart version and the other clip with comparision to the original game. Guest that would be critical to grading.

Walkthrough video:【纯纯的交作业用-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/vAgriEW

【【阴阳师百闻牌不知火】作业用部分翻译版本我的世界同人游戏-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/7eOXtuy

Score:

Read the following sentences titled in “statement” if you want.

Send comments to liu.jinx@northeastern.edu if you have one.

Warning: the statement is currently grammerly inaccurate. Intrepret it, and if you don’t want to, skip it.

Statement

2022/9/26

“A day

Then get up in the morning reluctantly

Attend classes

Struggle with homework

Be miserable

Be sad

Be perplexed

Go to bed”

This is my ex-score.

This is me, manipulated by hormones. Fragile body, and uselessness. A day is happy, the other day is sad, and poor “me” can’t even define myself.

When I wrote this(score), other than completing homework I also wanted to find resonance. I want to know…what’s other people’s thought. I want to know…In the end, whether I can find the meaning of life in crowd or not.

……you see, if I’m blind, I can’t paint anymore. If I have broken arms, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

My former teacher told me a story in which there was a question, “What is the meaning of finding meaning in life?” “I think that a good question. It can be used to help you find meaning in life.

In Richard Hall, I sat on couch beside the doorway. There is a plaque painted in black with gold characters that reads “1941-1945, commemorating these Northeastern people who died for their country”.

…… Golden plaque. As if by erasing this, they would no longer exist. Is that right? The sacrifice is meaningless.

No, the definition should not be defined by me, it must be by themselves.

Let’s go see “the Confessions” again.

……

2022/9/27/13:05/In Ryder hall waiting for class

These days are busy and my brain have not recovered yet. And I came back to do the score reluctantly.

Why did I write a score? I guess it’s, “avoid being the only person in the class who didn’t do their homework”. It’s not about fame. Because as if I have not been, the first or the last, in my class. I have been there, and there’s no difference.

It’s because that if you are the special one with defect, you’re ability of understanding everyone very well is deprived by the group. Because every soul is unique and there is so much more I want to understand, I still want to be in the group.

Last night I ran to read the Confession again. Leo Tolstoy’s book. It’s nice to see that he’s even crappier than me on this issue.

Me, the limited me.

(From professor Celia:) Meaning is for “someone”.

In my eyes, ants on the ground carry food by following their genetic instincts to survive. However, this may not be the case for the ants.

Eternal things do not need to look for the meaning of existence. Only with such a short life do I need to exist by attaching myself to something eternal.

By then I felt it.

This could be the answer, the cause, and the result.

My brain felt weak and burnt, its strength is depleted by this question. Now what I’ll do is to record my feelings honestly.

This is the answer in my mind:

“Seek eternity until your death.”

……

2022/9/27/21:00

I spent most of my leisure time on watching other people’s lives. I went to video sites to watch people go into factory, do night shift for ten hours, live in a dormitory with bugs on their beds, and then earned 4,000￥. If I become some big man, would I try to improve their lives? Would I? Though I don’t have the ability, not at all. If I get superpower suddenly, maybe I would sneak into the government department and then talk to the leaders. “Y’all”…

Though incompetent, I do “have a life”. You see, if I were brave enough, would I be able to sacrifice myself to get the attention of my superiors? Then many more people will be happy.

……

I’ve read Ono’s grapefruit, and I felt that many things in it are not so meaningful to me.

Hey, fun fact. Just by reading the works of my classmates in class, I don’t think these are interesting at all. Watching them presenting, I thought, “the loveliest thing is actually them”. One by one, they showed their personalities.

The black girl who swears freely, the guy who plays his instrument in silence, the dice artist with blonde hair and blue eyeshadow, the classmates who’ve concluded his good weekend, the girl who sat next to me having a nice smile and nice cat. Grabbing cake with friends, trying to show the paint stains of tennis balls but have had problem unfolding, asked everyone to plays parachute together. Or draw pictures, tell stories, ask twenty-five people to twist a cube. What really gives meaning to their works is them.

……

If I want to present my score to class, I must present myself.

What do I have?

My life is kind of by myself. Sitting in the dormitory. Busying……

Woo! I typed these words when Sydney suddenly protruded from the side of the door and scared my roommate off. Sydney has black curly hair, dyed green at the end, and beautiful gray eyes.

Though, how could she be so lovely? Why is she so cute? Is it really my poor flesh that gave me such beautiful emotion and made me in tears?

I want to see your souls. Then when I see it, I’ll say:

“How could you be so cute!”

*My words are translated from Chinese and could have loss its strengths.

*My brain is exhausted and I have to get up next morning very early and I felt a little bit dizzy now. I can’t continue. I’ll edit it in the future if I have chance.