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Nor Your Kind of People and Other Musings on Music

2012-05-30T00:53:00.000+03:00

I guess I really should blog about this too, seeing as how I'm a pretty big Garbage fan.

I think, if my memory serves me, I originally got interested in Garbage when I heard the song 'Temptation Waits' on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer album, and liked it enough to dig up some more of their music to check it out. I've since bought all of their albums. Not necessarily the most typical example of bands I like. Well, at least back when I was first getting into them. These days I seem to listen to so many types of music, it's hard to define anything really as untypical...

And finally this May, after a long hiatus, they released their fifth album, Not Your Kind of People. I've had a chance now to listen to it a bunch of times. And my overall feeling about it is pretty positive. I think the more I listen to it, and get more familiar with the tunes, the more I enjoy it.

It's a pretty varied album, ranging from energetic dance numbers to melodic anthems. And they do all manage to sound like Garbage, always with a bit of edge and a healthy dollop of melancholy. Yet it is by no means identical to earlier albums. Although I find it impossible really to compare it with earlier Garbage albums. It's still too fresh.

Speaking of music and Buffy, I finally got around to actually purchasing the soundtrack to one of my favourite musicals of all time, the Buffy episode 'Once More, With Feeling'. It's brilliant. And that's about all I need to say about that.

I've also just bought a CD that won't be out until around September (well, technically it won't be billed until a couple days from now, but whatever). Say what? Yup, that's right, and it's also my first time backing a Kickstarter project. The album in question is of course Amanda Palmer's new one, which has today raised a million dollars in funding.

I don't actually know her prior works particularly well, but what I've heard of hers has by no means left a negative impression. And I greatly respect the way she's approaching her fans and handling this album release independently. I'm also sure the physical CD will be a cool, artistic object (the Kickstarter backer version will be a unique limited edition, too). And I still really love the physical album as a medium. So what the hell, I figured, and decided to toss in my $25 this one time. (If you want in on the action, the Kickstarter is running until the end of May. You can get the digital download of the album for as little as one dollar!)

Conquering YouTube and Jamendo

2012-05-29T20:49:00.002+03:00

Haven't been blogging much lately. Shame on me. Anyway, a quick update: in an effort to reach as many people as possible, and because free accounts on SoundCloud have a limited amount of storage space, I've recently uploaded some of my music on two new services.

Firstly, for quick and easy streaming, there's the mother of all streaming services, YouTube. I've uploaded both my recent albums there, the fantasy symphonic rock/metal experiment Winged and the instrumental work Demon Armour Mamori. (The links will take you to the relevant playlists.)

Secondly, Winged is also now available on Jamendo, one of the leading websites for distributing free indie music. (Just so you know, Jamendo allows people to make donations to artists, assuming I've set up my account properly to receive them, of course. However, they don't transfer the money to the artist until the total reaches $100. Which for an unknown amateur artist like me may take, basically, forever. I'm just saying this so that you know, should you wish to donate, the money may actually never reach me...)

And as always, more information about the albums is available at the website's music section, alongside links to all the streams and downloads.

Enjoy! ;-)

Skullgirls: First Impression

2012-05-07T23:31:00.000+03:00

Skullgirls was finally released for the PS3 in Europe last week. I had to buy it, of course (15€ was a reasonably fair price, even), 'cause what I'd seen of it looked pretty cool, and I've been playing a little over the last few days.

In case you don't know, Skullgirls is a traditional 2D fighting game title, looking back to the golden age of the genre in the 90's, but utilising modern technology with quality HD graphics. The franchises it can probably be best likened to are Guilty Gear and Darkstalkers, featuring a cast of crazy, if not silly, anime-inspired characters, and a fairly original setting with sci-fi and fantasy elements.

Now, when I first heard about this game, I was a little concerned about the fact that it was being made by Americans. This is a genre that, in my mind, is very much associated with the Japanese game industry. But its creators are passionate about the genre, and have been very faithful to all its trappings.

So, what have we got? Eight cool, weird female characters. (While eight doesn't necessarily sound like a lot by modern standards, for newcomers it's probably better to have fewer characters, makes them easier to learn. They intend to release more characters over time, though.) Some pretty good looking graphics (they boast about having the "most frames of animation per character of any fighting game"). Fairly fast gameplay, with a system that should be easy to learn for fighting game veterans (it uses the Capcom-style three punches and three kicks controls, and fairly standard motions for special attacks).

One of the most interesting features of the game is that it's basically a tag team game, but gives you the option of choosing one to three characters, balancing different sized teams against each other. I've mostly disliked team based games before, they tend to be less approachable since you need to learn to play several characters right from the start, but the option to play with one character and gradually expand (if you wish) makes the game much easier to get into.

The modes are fairly basic. You've got your single player arcade and story modes, local and online versus modes (you won't see me playing online, though, I suck too bad to even consider it), training mode, and some decent tutorials too (although there probably could be more of those for complete newbies, or scrubs like me). No fancy gimmick modes here, but that's probably expected from a relatively low price downloadable game (then again, there have been full priced fighting games out there with not much more content). The story mode for each character is pretty short, but the story and setting are fairly interesting by fighting game standards (not a genre generally associated with a lot of story depth).

There's a decent variety of difficulty settings. On easiest setting the single player modes should probably be beatable for anyone with any knowledge of fighting game basics. I played through the story modes on easiest difficulty without practising the game much at all, and the challenge level was pretty good for me (i.e. I could beat them all, but not without dying a few times). Of course I can't say how the game will be for real fighting game veterans (though of course they'll be more interested in playing against human opponents, anyway).

Music's the one thing I haven't talked about yet, mostly because... well, I can't say I've really paid that much attention to it (which of course isn't a great compliment to it). It's by no means bad, it's just not as memorable as, say, the kick-arse rock tunes of the Guilty Gear series...

Well, this 'first impression' seems to have turned into an almost full length review. But I really don't have enough experience with the game yet to call it that. Anyway, my current feeling is that Skullgirls is probably the most fun of its genre that I've played for the current console generation. Its cool characters and setting, and appealing hand drawn graphics, make it much more interesting to me than the likes of Street Fighter IV.

From the Musician's Archives: Demon Armour Mamori

2012-04-29T17:44:00.000+03:00

Didn't I just release an album of brand new songs? Why yes, I did. (See here for info, in case you missed it.) So what's this, new music again?

Well, not exactly new. I was looking through old archives and came upon some old experiments, some of which have never seen the proverbial light of day, and figured they actually might deserve to.

First, a bit of background. In the late 90's I was introduced to a classic piece of software called Impulse Tracker. 'Trackers', according to Wikipedia, are 'music sequencer software used to create and edit module files; they allow the user to arrange notes (pitch-shifted sound samples from the module) stepwise on a timeline across several monophonic channels.' I messed around with the technology a fair amount in those days, both for the fun of it, and as part of game programming projects I was working on around that time (none of which were ever completed).

Since these pieces were made out of samples, which back in those days tended to be small and low grade, due to limitations in file size and storage space, the sound quality isn't very amazing. But of course this does not mean the compositions themselves are uninteresting.

So, back to the album at hand. It's titled Demon Armour Mamori. This was the title of an anime influenced sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game I was planning sometime in the early 21st century. I never actually got round to running the game, and it seems unlikely now that I will, since I'm much more invested in several other gaming projects. Back then, however, I started work on what was to be a soundtrack album, of sorts, inspired by the game. It was never finished, but I had composed half an hour's worth of music. Which I then all but forgot about for years.

The first six of the eight tracks on the album are from that project. Tracks 3 and 5 are actually composed of short segments of songs that were never finished. My notes for the game are a little sketchy in some parts, and I could find no notes concerning the music project, but I tried to write up the main points of the story for the album's web page (it's not necessarily identical in all aspects to what I had in mind back in those days, but that doesn't really matter). A couple tracks had incomplete titles, so I basically had to make up new names for them...

Another old project was a horror computer game concept called Beyond the Bridge. It was abandoned long ago (although I've since used the setting for tabletop RPG's), but I did manage to compose a handful of music for it. Since these were mostly fairly short pieces, I decided to combine them into a single track for this album, titled 'Beyond the Bridge Suite'. I was very much inspired by the Silent Hill games at the time I composed these, and this track, as well as the game concept, could essentially be seen as a tribute to them, and composer Akira Yamaoka.

The last track, called 'Adamant', has no specific context that I can remember. I don't even know why I picked that particular title for it, but saw no reason to change it (anyway, coming up with good names for instrumental pieces is hard)...

I'm not sure how to classify this album. There's a wide range of influences, from ambient and industrial sounds to rock and video games... I touched the tracks up just a little bit (adding a bit of reverb etc.). They could certainly benefit from some more work still, but, frankly, I can't really be bothered. These are a part of my past, not the future.

This one won't go up on SoundCloud, because free accounts there have a limited amount of space, and I don't consider this a very high a priority, or representative of my current musical endeavours. You can grab the MP3's from my website, and they should eventually be up at Last.fm (though as I'm writing this there seems to be some technical problem with uploading). EDIT: You can now also stream the tracks at YouTube!

I've also divided the discography page of my music section into two parts, one for more current works, and the other for these 'oldies' (stuff that differs from my more recent endeavours either stylistically or in terms of quality).

In Memoriam: Levon Helm

2012-04-20T13:42:00.001+03:00

The Band has always had a presence in my life, since I was a kid. Never perhaps the group I listened to the most, and time may often pass between listening to their albums, but nevertheless always there in the background, a very important element in the complex tapestry of music that made me who I am today. Their sound was, for lack of a better word, unique, during their time, and still remains so to this day.

So I was saddened to hear of the passing of Levon Helm, The Band's drummer and frequent vocalist. I can't say I really knew much about him as an individual, but he always seemed like a nice person, and certainly a talented musician.

It's strange to think that only two of The Band's five members are now left alive. Time's a funny thing. And slowly it's catching up with the first generations of rock'n'roll, I guess. Some bands have been so important in my life that I don't think I really even realise, unless I stop to think about it, that I have indeed been listening to their music for decades. Changes must happen in such a long time period. People come and people go. People grow old, and pass away. It is inevitable.

No more comebacks for The Band, then. Even if Robbie and Garth should get together, with all their talent, there would be no more The Band, not without so many of them, certainly not without Levon. It would be impossible to picture The Band without him hunched over those drums, face turned towards the microphone...

But the music lives on.

Winged

2012-04-16T17:01:00.000+03:00

Today I'm proud to announce the release of my new home recorded album Winged!

So, Facebook, eh? Love it or hate it.

Without it this newest release might not have come about, though. Early this year a meme was circulating. A creativity challenge, or whatever. The gimmick was that you promise to create something, with your own hands, for the first few people who comment on your post (with the assumption that they'll participate in the challenge themselves, of course). Since I'd for a while been thinking I should record some new songs, I thought this could be just the thing to motivate myself into actually getting around to it. So I promised all the commenters I'd compose and record a song for each of them and make them a CD of the resulting tracks. As an additional twist, I asked them to request topics for their own personal songs.

So here's a little background for the tracks on Winged:

I was asked for a final boss theme for my comic Escape from Lowresia. Obviously I don't know how the comic will end (assuming it will ever have a proper ending), but the character Vance White has been the main antagonist thus far, so I tried to imagine what might happen if he ever mutated into a powerful monster, as video game antagonists are wont to do. This became the song 'NeoVance'.

A couple of my friends requested songs about their characters in my RPG campaign Tales from the Teya'o Iva. 'Head in the Clouds' is about the captain of a pirate airship, while 'Winged' is about the Ta'oha, a species of winged felines, and their prophecy of a coming apocalyptic war. (I chose 'Winged' as the title for the album mostly as it was suitably simple, and as the theme of flying was present in several of the tracks.) 'Lost Soul', on the other hand, is about an NPC in another RPG run by friends of mine called In Time (about which I've previously recorded a song, likewise titled 'In Time').

The topics of a couple songs were left up to me. For one of them I decided to try doing an instrumental track. The name, 'Take the Skies', was inspired by the fact that there were already a couple songs touching on the topic of flying. (The line occurs in the song 'Winged' as well, although I came up with this title before I wrote those lyrics.) 'She's Gone Z', on the other hand, is a silly little number, the title of which came to me last winter while watching the first Resident Evil movie. I was getting close to the part where Rain turns into a zombie, and caught myself thinking: 'She's about to go Z...'

Musically the album is obviously still not professional quality, but it is probably the most impressive of my recordings so far. The arrangements are more layered, the guitar parts heavier and more rhythmic. There's definitely some metal influence on this one. I'm still not really satisfied with my vocal performances, and there are many, many little flaws if you listen to the tracks closely. (Keeping rhythm is not one of my strong points, and I had to do a lot of retakes on some parts before they felt steady enough. Getting a really clean sound on acoustic parts is also troublesome with my equipment, I'm not exactly working with studio gear here.)

As a novelty, I tried recording violin, but the sound was very unsatisfactory (not sure whether this was due to the mike, my playing, or what). (A bit of violin can be heard on the track 'Lost Soul', albeit with some pretty heavy effects that give it an eerie sound.) I was equally dissatisfied with my attempt at choir-like segments on 'Winged'. Recording many tracks of my voice was quite tiresome, and the resulting sound was too messy, so I gave up any thought of recording more.

I took a slightly different approach with this album than with previous recordings. Whereas the songs I've recorded before have been written, and rehearsed and performed acoustically, before the recording process, I begun this project from scratch, recording backing tracks before writing the vocal parts. The process took about a month in whole, although obviously I wasn't working on it full time most of the time.

As usual, the album is available online for free. You can stream it at SoundCloud. For more options and additional information, including lyrics and artwork, check out the discography page in my music section.

Life as Usual, A Filler Blog Post of Various Topics

2012-04-07T02:42:00.000+03:00

Last night I dreamt about writing a blog post. I can't remember what the topic was, though. Anyway, I haven't been particularly active with the blogging lately. Which mostly boils down to not really having anything that interesting to say.

So, a bit of what's going on in my life.

I finally managed to purchase Final Fantasy XIII-2. The first 15 hours or so that I've played of it have not been un-cool, but we'll have to see how it develops. Thus far it's at least had a lot more NPC interaction and exploration than FFXIII, aspects in which I thought that game was particularly lacking. And I still quite enjoy the battle system.

I've been busy working on a new EP. It's a) gonna suck, like all my other recordings (there's only so much I can do, alone, with my limited skills, equipment, and, most of all, patience), and b) despite that gonna be the coolest thing I've recorded thus far. It should, hopefully, be ready sometime late April or early May, and will, as usual, be posted online for free.

I started reading the webcomic Weregeek. I've run into it before, but for some reason or other never got around to reading it then. I'm sorry I didn't, 'cause it's pretty darn brilliant. Definitely recommended for any RPG enthusiasts. The D&D stuff in it, though, brought on a bit of Pathfinder withdrawal. (It's been a little while since my group's last session, and with IRL stuff happening may be a little while till the next...) It's not that there haven't been plenty of other RPG's in my life, but Pathfinder/D&D does have a.... certain unique feel to it.

Speaking of Pathfinder, I added a few more books to my collection (Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, Bestiary 2). I should have enough rules now to last a good long while (basically all the main rulebooks currently out there, with the exception of Bestiary 3, but that's not a very high priority, got plenty of monsters to choose from in the first two volumes)...

And that's about all I can think of tonight. Till next time!

Nemesis, Being a Post Concerning Irrational Hatred

2012-03-20T11:25:00.000+02:00

Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice

Bond had SPECTRE. Angel had Wolfram & Hart.

I have Marimekko.

Sure, it might not be (publicly, anyway) an organisation of criminal masterminds or defenders of evildoers working for their own secretive ends (although I would not be at all surprised if something like this turned out to be its true purpose). It is a design company.

Everyone in Finland is familiar with this company. Their 'Unikko' ('poppy') pattern is downright ubiquitous here.

And I just don't get it. I think their designs are incredibly ugly. Garish colours, overly simple motifs. They look like designs for little children, not for anyone with an ounce of aesthetic taste.

'Nemesis', in its original sense, was a 'spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris'. The name is derived from Greek 'nemein', literally 'to give what is due' (and originally this could be both good fortune and bad). Today of course it is mostly used simply as a synonym for arch-enemy. But there is an element of balance perhaps still there. A hero must have his nemesis. And the best nemeses in fiction, the ones truly deserving of the title, tend to arise from mistakes in the hero's past, or prey on them.

I honestly don't know what I've done to deserve such an assault on my senses, but it must be pretty horrendous. And I don't know what to do about it, really. Mostly I just wish they'd go away. But of course they won't. That's kind of the point of Nemesis.

A Handful of Late Night Angsty Haiku

2012-03-18T02:44:00.000+02:00

Friendship can't be found
At the bottom of a glass
But I'll drink to Night

At the end of each
Day of friends and make belief
Darkness waits, alone...

Night is the mirror
Of a solitary soul
Its beauty crushing

My beautiful Nyx
I worship thee with silence
But long for your kiss

Solitary life
My friend and my nemesis
Love, hate, both the same

The world's gone to bed
Funny how no one's around
When you're most alone

Longing - but for what?
This question I ask from Night
But it is silent

Bore my friends again
With angsty little haiku
If they're even read...

A Couple More Free Albums

2012-03-02T15:52:00.000+02:00

Following up on this post from January, here's a couple more neat artists with freely available albums I've discovered through Jamendo.

Gladius Noctis. I haven't found a lot of info about this band. Apparently they were from Poland, active around the turn of the millennium, and since split up. Their self-released album Croaton is pretty impressive, though. The sound could perhaps be described as instrumental folk metal, making heavy use of strings. (The album at Jamendo.)

Eternal Dream. This is a more recent band from Spain. They play symphonic power metal with female vocals, and their first full length album, The Fall of Salanthine, was released at the end of last year. It's a pretty high quality release considering they've made it available for free. (Website, with links to various streaming/download services.)

That's it till next time!

A (Pointless?) Formality, Being a Post Concerning Apostasy

2012-02-21T16:54:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I've written here about about any spiritual topics, mostly because I don't want to bore people with my meanderings which are, frankly, quite personal. However, I thought a quick post might be in order to commemorate an event, which in the grand scheme is, more or less, utterly insignificant.

First of all, I'd like to emphasise that nothing below is intended as a criticism of Christianity or Christians. I believe strongly in the concept of freedom of religion and in the potential all religions have for being a positive force in people's lives (as long as people stop taking scripture too literally and accept other viewpoints as equally valid).

Like the majority of Finns, I was baptised as a baby by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. As churches go, this is (mostly) a fairly moderate, modern, tolerant institution.

Today, though, I finally received a letter from the local magistrate's office confirming my resignation from the Church.

This was a mere formality. It has been a long time since I've considered myself a Christian. Now (despite some rotten apples that seem to do their darnedest to spoil the reputation of religions worldwide), I do respect the faith, as I respect any faith that can be used as a positive force in the lives of individuals. However, the reality is it simply holds no personal appeal for me. And that's the gist of it.

The only reason I hadn't quit years ago was simply not getting around to it. Which speaks volumes about how significant Church membership really is in the hearts of many Finns. Or, rather, isn't. Church membership is a tradition, a mere formality. Christenings, weddings and funerals are about the extent of religion for many these days. Few of us go to Sunday services any more or in other ways actively participate in worship. Regardless of the fact that we have a so-called national Church that the vast majority of the population nominally belongs to, Finland is a modern, western, and increasingly secular society (which, in my mind, is as it should be; religion is for individuals, not societies).

And there's the rub, of course. Religion should have nothing to do with formalities. It is not something that happens on paper. It should come from the heart. And while I don't hold any kind of grudge against society or my family for my baptism, in general I do find the practise of baptising children somewhat questionable. (Even confirmation at 15, as it is practised here, is too early in my mind. How much can a teenager truly understand about religion?) Religion ought to be a personal choice, not just a matter of tradition.

I should also perhaps state that, unlike many people in recent years, I didn't quit the Church as any kind of protest. Quite the contrary, I'd say it was more about respect for religions in general. I am not a Christian, ergo I should not be a member of a Christian church in name only. (What exactly I am, is a much more difficult question, that I myself am rarely quite clear on, and not really a matter for this blog post. But as I've written before, I tend to lean towards neopaganism.)

Current State of the Fighting Game, or, Expectations for Skullgirls

2012-02-15T02:12:00.000+02:00

I've written before about fighting games (mostly complaining how much I suck at them). They interest me as a phenomenon, and an aesthetic style.

The mid-90's were of course the golden age of fighting games. Capcom's Street Fighter and Darkstalkers series, SNK's King of Fighters series and other titles, the first Guilty Gear for the PlayStation... But what about the current status of the genre? Many of the old games, after all, are becoming harder to obtain (apart from a handful of re-releases), and, frankly, the low-res sprites are beginning to look a little dated...

Guilty Gear XX was released in 2002. It is still surely one of the finest fighting games around. Not only does it have a solid system, but, perhaps most importantly, it has tons of style. The characters are some of the most interesting and original in the genre. The story mode as well in home versions was, for a fighting game, fairly cool.

Over the last decade since GGXX, however, precious little has happened in the fighting game genre. A few revisions of GGXX, yeah, but no truly new releases in the series, nor anything for the current console generation. Street Fighter IV was probably the most significant release of the genre in recent years. And it was an OK game, but the Street Fighter franchise has never been one of my favourites. The setting and characters just aren't all that impressive. And the art style of SFIV, 3D graphics imitating a 2D look, just didn't really... 'do it for me'.

A decade without an interesting fighting game of any real originality. Really? Have I totally missed out on some rare gem there somewhere along the way?

Sometime last autumn I heard of a game in the works called Skullgirls, slated for release sometime in 'early 2012' on PS3 and XBOX networks. (Here's one trailer.) I was initially sceptical when I discovered it was being developed by westerners, a concept tantamount to sacrilegious. But once I started seeing footage of the game... I was intrigued. There's some crazy, original characters, that appear to draw influence from the likes of Guilty Gear and Darkstalkers. The art is quite pretty, hand drawn in high definition. There's a big name composer, Michiru Yamane. (I'm not 100% sure of the musical style, though. What I've heard isn't bad, but I like my fighting game music with a little more... rock.) And the system looks pretty solid, designed by fighting game enthusiasts.

I find myself rather looking forward to trying out this title. Even though I'm quite certain I will, again, absolutely suck at it, possibly spiralling into frustration and depression (but that's a risk I'm willing to take). Whether Skullgirls will be a saviour for a dying genre is too early to say, of course...

(EDIT: Oh yeah, some of you may wonder why I haven't mentioned the likes of Tekken or Soulcalibur. Those 3D games can be sort of fun in their own way, I guess, but I just can't bring myself to think of them as true fighting games. 2D games are just way cooler.)

(EDIT 2: BlazBlue from Arc System Works was brought to my attention. It looks like a potentially interesting game, something of a spiritual successor to Guilty Gear from what I can tell. I'll have to try to get my hands on it sooner or later...)

R.I.P. Google Wave

2012-02-01T11:35:00.000+02:00

As of some time last night, Google Wave became read only. In a few months it will go offline entirely. This is a sad moment.

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding how the service could have been so unpopular that Google decided to pull the plug. Me and many of my friends found it a very useful tool. Primarily we used it for planning our RPG's.

And there's simply no straightforward replacement for it. Its combination of realtime discussion and persistent information was unique. Sure, I can use things like wikis or Google Docs to store information, but they lack the discussion element, so important in the planning stages of a project. Forums and social networking sites, on the other hand, are too public for many of the discussions we have, while I've always found email very awkward for longer discussions. Meanwhile, the open source versions of Wave are still pretty raw, and I don't really have the server capability to run my own instance of one.

So what I need is a tool for private small group discussions. Something that feels a little more simple and immediate than email, but lighter and more private than a forum.

I've been half-heartedly playing around with a little JavaScript and PHP, just to see how hard it would be to create a very simple discussion platform. The working title for this project is 'BeeSAW' (originally derived from 'Bee Sure Ain't Wave'). In my current ideas it would be extremely minimalist, maybe work a little like comment threads on social networking sites, but with discussions limited to a small number of people. It is pretty doubtful any actual usable tool will come out of it, of course. But one has to have these little pet projects.

A Totally Random Milestone Post

2012-01-24T14:13:00.000+02:00

This appears to be my 300th blog post.

I created this blog in March of 2008. Wow. That's like, nearly four years? Before that there had been some sporadic news posts on my site (some of which, going back as far as 2006, were imported into the new blog), but switching to the tools at Blogger.com naturally made writing posts much easier. On average I've been writing at least a post a week since then. Mostly pointless drivel, of course... :P

My readership is by no means huge. But if anyone out there has ever found a post of mine informative or entertaining, then I'm happy. And, being the social and emotional exhibitionist I am, I'm not likely to stop.

And that's about all I have to say.

DM vs. GM: A Nitpicker's Rant

2012-01-23T22:55:00.000+02:00

The truth is, I cringe a little whenever I see or hear the term 'DM' (as in 'Dungeon Master').

Somehow I just feel this term is so... discriminating, for lack of a better word. Even offensive. Sure, it may be the original term, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right term. I'm not generally one for extreme political correctness, but on this issue I just feel I need to speak out.

It is a term associated with one, and only one, roleplaying game franchise. The rest of the gaming world is quite happy to use the term 'GM' ('Game Master'). And with 'the rest of the world' I mean scores, if not hundreds of game systems.

The term is very restrictive to begin with, referring to a rather narrow and specific genre. 'GM' is much more applicable in most gaming contexts.

I realise there may be gamers out there who've only ever played that one game. And I'm probably an elitist and hypocrite and all manner of bad things for saying it, but a part of me feels sorry for such people, while another part of me is angered by their ignorance. And this, I'm afraid, is the impression I get whenever I hear someone use the term 'DM' outside the rulebooks of that game; that you only know RPG's from a very limited viewpoint, like someone who's just learned the first bars of Stairway claiming they're a rock star, or a lifelong Mac user claiming they know anything about Unix.

And that's just how I feel. No offence meant to anybody. (Except Mac users.) (That may be a joke.) (Maybe.)

Free Music Can't Be Good, Right?

2012-01-23T17:59:00.001+02:00

Frankly, all the anti/pro sharing/piracy/censorship hullabaloo of late was starting to make me sick. I seem to remember a time when people enjoyed culture, instead of just bickering about who owns it. So to get my mind off all that I decided to spend a little time looking into music that was out there for free, and legally. And there is, actually, a lot of it. Obviously there's a lot of uninteresting junk out there (but the same applies to commercial mainstream music too, of course, perhaps even more so), and finding the gems among all of it takes time and work. But there are definitely gems to be found.

Jamendo is one pretty neat site with lots of independent and amateur music you can stream there on the site, or download. Here's a handful of cool artists I've found there and through other sources.

Hungry Lucy. This duo has been characterised as trip-hop and darkwave. Nice female vocals and mellow electronic sounds, etc. I find them quite pleasant and relaxing to listen to. (Here's their latest album Pulse of the Earth at Jamendo. Others available there as well.)

Sweet Mother Logic. A really hard to classify instrumental band, who combine rock instruments, synths and cellos in a very interesting fashion. (Their eponymous album at Jamendo.)

Williamson. Another talented instrumental artist, this one leaning perhaps towards a more post-rock sound. (His debut album A Few Things to Hear Before We All Blow Up at Jamendo. A couple more releases there as well.)

These are relatively unknown indie artists, of course. But even well known artists occasionally release free material for the benefit of their fans. One example is Nine Inch Nails, whose last couple releases, The Slip and Ghosts I-IV, were Creative Commons licensed. The first is an eclectic collection of industrial rock songs and more ambient pieces, while the latter is a lengthy instrumental ambient work. (Download links can be found for example in the Wikipedia articles on the albums.)

Music from all the artists listed here can be bought as well, of course, and you should buy it, if you like it and are in a position to do so. I still believe that a carrot generally gets you more than a stick, though. Letting people experience your works has to be better PR than nagging about copyrights, right?

Thought or Two on Jan 18th Protests

2012-01-18T16:53:00.000+02:00

It seems fitting that on this day of protest I should write a word or two.

Frankly, I feel that with every passing day I'm less and less inclined to discuss anything related to copyrights. Therein lies a tangled web that only leads to anger, bitterness, depression and despair.

So let's keep this simple. 1. Censorship is never an answer to anything. It is paramount that the Internet remains free and open. 2. I believe, passionately, that it should be everyone's fundamental right to enjoy culture, regardless of wealth. 3. Creative people must be able to make a living doing what they do best (and I do mean creative people, not greedy corporate executives). 4. Reconciling the dilemma between points 2 and 3 is one of the greatest challenges our global electronic culture faces, and I, for one, have no solution to offer.

But, the way I figure it, why spend the day bemoaning the short-sightedness of so-called authorities, when I could be celebrating culture? And perhaps in particular culture that is out there for free and legally, and not in the least because we have this wonderful web of interaction and sharing to pool our resources in and draw inspiration from.

For starters, I just watched the beautiful animated short Sintel, which I hadn't seen in a long while.

Maybe I'll listen to some free releases from Machinae Supremacy. Or even watch their awesome concert video that they released, entirely legally I might add, on The Pirate Bay.

The possibilities are endless. Just remember, don't let the bastards grind you down.

The RPG's of My Life

2012-01-10T23:54:00.000+02:00

I've got a cold. Not a very bad cold, but enough to distract and demotivate me from doing anything really worthwhile. So, inspired by my previous post, I thought I'd spend a moment contemplating some of the various 'pen and paper' RPG systems I've used over the years and picking my favourites.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition) was likely the system I used most back in the 90's to run my games. (My longest campaign at the time was a Dragonlance game.) As a system it's of course about as classic as they come, and I do like it, although these days I've got Pathfinder to give me my D&D kicks, which means the odds of returning to 2nd Ed. are fairly slim. I have also run a few games with the so-called 'basic set', which was also fun, though I never got any of the additional sets.

The D6 System from West End Games was another one we used a lot early on. I was first introduced to it in their Star Wars RPG. This was a quality game I have fond memories of. Later I ran a campaign with the Hercules & Xena RPG, which featured a modified, somewhat lighter version of the system. I actually liked this version of the system a lot, but production values for the rulebooks were... let's just say less than perfect. It required some serious tweaking. I don't really see myself returning to D6 in the foreseeable future, but... never say never.

GURPS... Got the revised 3rd edition back in the day, and planned a lot of games for it, but for some reason none of them really got off the drawing board, so to speak. In the end we came to the conclusion that the system was just too heavy and detailed for the direction we wanted to take our games. I've played since in games run by other people using GURPS (3rd and 4th editions), though, and I think it's a fine system... as long as someone else is willing to keep track of all the skills and stuff. And knows what to do when combat happens. (Luckily these games haven't been very combat heavy.)

I used the 2nd edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth for a couple short campaigns (and contemplated its use for others that never happened). It's definitely been one of my favourite 'light' systems, although lately other systems (like Fudge) have largely replaced it for me. I bought the 3rd edition, but I've never used it for anything. While I liked some of the changes, overall the game felt like it was getting perhaps unnecessarily complicated in some ways (and the official character sheet in the book was the ugliest I've ever seen, basically unusable).

One of my longest campaigns in recent years used Eden Studios' Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, which is based on the 'cinematic' version of the company's Unisystem. (My game wasn't really set in the Buffy universe, although it drew some influence from the show.) I liked using this system a lot, although it wasn't perfect. In particular, our group seemed to have trouble getting battles to run as smoothly as we would've liked, even though the system was pretty simple at its core.

And finally, there's Fudge. I'm using this system for my other main campaign currently (the other one being my Pathfinder game). And it's been pretty good for this game (epic, cinematic fantasy with steampunk trappings). Fudge is more a set of building blocks than a strict system, with a lot of room for customisation. I like to use a very stripped down, minimalist version of it, and I use it primarily for games where narrative is the main element. If I feel like messing about with a lot of rules and details, well, I've got games like Pathfinder to give me those kicks. But a lot of the time I just want the rules to stay out of the way. Oh, and Fudge can be downloaded for free. Yay.

All of these systems have their good and bad sides. All of them have been right for a particular time and context. Some I will probably keep using for a good time to come. Many of them I might not use again. But I'm still happy to have them in my bookshelf.

(I also have a web page with more details on many of the actual campaigns I've run over the years.)

On RPG's, Loyalty and Commitment

2012-01-10T18:19:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we heard news of an official announcement from Wizards of the Coast that they're working on a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. As an avid role-player and GM I thought I ought to write a thought or two on the topic.

In my past writings I've been somewhat critical of D&D 4th Edition. Now, this criticism hasn't really been directed towards the system as such. (I've never played it, nor read its rules extensively, so I can really say very little about it. I'm sure it has many interesting features.) Rather, from all that I'd read about it, it seemed to be getting pretty far from what I, personally, thought of as D&D. If I play D&D, I have certain expectations for it. To be honest, the appeal of D&D for me is largely about nostalgia, rather than cutting edge development.

So, when last year I decided the time was finally right to start a new D&D style campaign, I chose Pathfinder, which appealed to me more as a system. Also, its publisher, Paizo, as a company felt much more respective towards its fan community. So I'm now the proud owner of the Pathfinder rules, along with several additional source books. And I like them a lot.

So here's the thing. It doesn't really matter to me whether a new edition of D&D will be an improvement or not. The likelihood of me getting such a thing any time in the foreseeable is extremely small. And it's because of simple math. I've just invested in a system in the same genre, which I actually like a lot. I have limited money. I have limited shelf space. I have limited time to actually play games. When it comes to getting my D&D kicks, I'm pretty much committed to Pathfinder. And I do believe I may even be developing a certain degree of loyalty towards it, and Paizo, in a way I doubt I could ever have for Wizards of the Coast.

It is important to point out here that D&D is just a RPG, not the RPG, not by a long shot. I play a large variety of games. And frankly, most of those games wouldn't work in the D&D paradigm. D&D is a system for... well, D&D style stories. It is not a particularly flexible system. It is a particularly clichéd system. And yes, I do like it, but I wouldn't ever want to play only D&D, whatever edition.

RPG's have never been about buying stuff for me. Some of the most fun games I've played have used systems that can be downloaded for free. Or systems with just one small rulebook bought for a bargain price. Or a simple system we've devised ourselves. Or no system at all, relying solely on the narrative. Bottom line, the system should always cater to the needs of the narrative the GM wishes to tell, not the other way round.

But I'm starting to veer off the point, I think. Which, I guess, boils down to 'there are only so many big RPG systems one can have in one's life'. (But lots of little ones.)

I used the abbreviation 'D&D' 12 times in this post. Oops, make that 13.

New Year's Ramblings

2012-01-01T16:42:00.001+02:00

Somehow I feel I should mark the first day of the year by saying something clever or insightful. But I've got nothing.

Years turn into other years. Nothing much really changes. I guess I'm getting older (no, not growing up, just older, and jaded)... The fireworks may have been sort of cool when I was a kid, but now... I would not mind in the least if selling them to the general public was banned altogether. The waste of money, the amount of rubbish produced, chemicals released, distress caused to animals - it's all simply ridiculous, and utterly unnecessary.

I thought of maybe spending the first moments of 2012 playing video games, just as a statement of who I am and what I value in life (and I first typed 'what I value in lice' there :-p). But in the end I was too tired. And the new year merely... happened.

(Brief pause to air guitar to a brilliant solo in CoF's Filthy Little Secret.)

(Pause lengthened by lack of inspiration, drinking tea, etc.)

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. If I want to change something in my life, I'll strive to work at it, when I feel I'm ready for it. Spur-of-the-moment, hardly-thought-through promises only lead to disappointment. That is assuming you even remember the promise a fortnight later. So I'll just promise to be my old lazy, underachieving, self-centred, cynical bastard self. And should I be unable to keep that promise... well, I don't expect anyone will be crying over it.

Like always I do hope that I'll accomplish more on the creative front. Both working on my own projects, and enjoying works by others (particularly video games, which I always seem to play less than I'd like to). Procrastination seems to be my one true talent, though, and there's little I can do about that.

Well then, just be nice to each other, try not to blow up the world (well, IRL, at least), and generally enjoy life. Have a good 2012, and stuff.

I Heart Ramona, aka Presents

2011-12-30T18:33:00.000+02:00

There's stuff that tends to get written about this time of year. There's the recapping of the year's highlights, the looking forward to what the future has in store, etc. I did all that stuff in a previous blog post. There's the complaining about the weather. I think I actually touched upon that as well in that previous post.

Then there's the traditional 'bragging about cool Christmas presents' thing. Which is just another excuse to write crap about stuff I like.

So, this year the present that stands out most for me is undoubtedly the complete set (volumes one through six) of Scott Pilgrim.

Have I written about Scott Pilgrim in my blog? I don't remember doing so. I saw the movie for the first time last summer. I enjoyed it. There was something about the combination of cute romance, martial arts action, video game references, indie rock and crazy humour that rather appealed to me. Hell, it was almost like the whole thing was engineered to specifically appeal to my particular tastes. Even down to the lazy underachiever gamer musician protagonist. Talk about relating, ahem... (Except all that 'getting the girl' stuff, maybe. I guess that's a protagonist thing. And I'm just not protagonist material. I could be an antagonist, maybe, except I'm too lazy to go around kidnapping girls. :-p)

A little later I read the comic. And liked it also. More even than the movie, since it obviously goes more in depth into the characters' backgrounds, etc. I decided it would be cool to own my own copy of it, and ended up requesting it for Christmas. So now I can read it whenever I like, yay. :-)

Oh, and Ramona Flowers is, like, totally hot, and stuff. And I hope I won't have to fight anyone to the death 'cause I said that. ('Cause I'd lose. And I hate losing. Especially in a fight to the death.)

EDIT: Apparently putting a '<' in my original post title messed it up, so it got posted without a title, and Blogger didn't even bother to notify me about this... Well, whatever. I fixed the title, although the permalink (seriously? the spellchecker in my browser recognises 'permalink', but not 'blogger'?) is words from the start of the post rather than the title. Of course this should not matter in the least, but the perfectionist nitpicker in me made me write this note...

Who Is This Elcalen Guy Anyway?

2011-12-23T00:18:00.000+02:00

For years now, I've used the nickname 'elcalen' on many online services. I don't think I've ever really discussed its origin, though.

It goes all the way back to the mid 90's. And it was originally made up as a name for some RPG character. Probably for MERP, or possibly AD&D, or possibly both. And I'm pretty sure the character or characters were never used for anything. This was before we started spending all our waking hours online, and people (well, kids anyway) actually had time to waste doing something like character creation just for the fun of it. It was also a time when I was very interested in RPG's, but didn't get as many chances to play them as I would've liked.

I mentioned MERP, which of course stands for Iron Crown Enterprises' Middle-earth Role Playing system. This was the first RPG I ever bought, I think, probably not in the least because I was a huge Tolkien fan as a kid (and I guess I still am, even if I don't get around to reading the books very often these days). Since this was a Middle-earth character, I made up the name by picking words from the Elvish vocabulary provided as an appendix to The Silmarillion. 'El' stands for star, and 'calen' I think is a word for 'green'. So together they're supposed to mean something like 'green star'. I don't know if it's grammatically correct or anything, and I've never cared about that. (Anyway, these days I don't really even think about the meaning much, it's just a word that stands for, well, me.)

And later, when the Internet and online chats and forums became a 'thing', I recalled this name from my memory. And it kinda stuck.

The end.

EDIT: And I realise this post has very little to do with who 'elcalen' actually is. But whatever, it was a good title.

EDIT 2: And as for pronunciation, I don't say it 'elCAYlen'.

2011 Wrap Up Post

2011-12-21T21:52:00.001+02:00

It's been a not uninteresting year. So a traditional highlights post is in order, I suppose, and a little look toward what's cooking next year. Sure, the year's not quite over yet, but there's no time (for procrastination) like the present...

The most noteworthy event is sure to be starting my own webcomic, Escape from Lowresia. It was a very spontaneous creation, really. For whatever reason, I ended up contemplating these old sprites I had from abandoned game projects, and thought, what the heck, why not try actually making something out of them. Which has thus far resulted in about four months worth of twice weekly comic strips, and is likely to continue on a regular schedule at least for the foreseeable future. Although, while the response from friends has been very positive, the fan base hasn't been growing very fast, what with me being really bad at marketing myself and stuff... (If fans of the comic happen to have great ideas about how to promote it, I'd certainly be interested in hearing them.)

Other than that, my life has mostly been defined by the usual geeky activities; gaming, music etc.

The RPG front has again been fairly active. My ongoing campaign Tales from the Teya'o Iva has provided much fun. Another noteworthy event is discovering Pathfinder and getting back to some oldschool-ish fantasy gaming after a long break. These games are likely to continue next year as well, and there are some other, crazy ideas also in the works...

With video games I've again been rather lazier than I'd like, I'm afraid. Skyrim is probably the most notable event for me this year. Finally getting round to playing Portal is probably worth mentioning (though I still haven't managed to buy Portal 2). And I've played a bunch of interesting small indie games, too, so at least there has been variety, if not great quantity. Games produced in the west seem to have dominated my gaming this year, which is somewhat new. Though I did also finally play through FFX-2 (and found it unexpectedly entertaining). I don't really have many games lined up next year that I'm particularly looking forward to. FFXIII-2 will of course be a must play.

Some of my favourite music from this year includes new offerings from Nightwish, Within Temptation, Tom Waits, etc. If anything, I think my listening habits this year have been more varied than ever. Metal still comprises a large part of it (with genres ranging from symphonic to power to black), but as usual, there's a lot of classic rock, soundtracks etc. thrown into the mix. I've also been exploring new genres, like post-rock. (You can check out my profile at last.fm, if you wish.) Next year I'm looking forward to at least new material from Garbage and Epica. And yes, new material made by myself will be along sooner or later...

And yeah, I guess I must also admit to succumbing to a certain degree of bronyhood.

It looks likely to be a 'black' Christmas here in Helsinki. I think it may be a first for me, having spent most of my Christmases further up north. And I'm loving it. After the last couple winters we've had, I'm just bloody sick of snow. Let it be dark and dank!

EDIT: I realised I'd neglected to mention charity video game marathons. These have provided some great entertainment for a bunch of weekends this year. I think I first discovered the phenomenon last year, probably through someone's retweet about Mario Marathon 3. I watched a fair amount of Mario Marathon 4 this year (my blog post about it), and a few others, like g33kWatch's Mass Effect Marathon 2, and Metroid and Zelda marathons by TheSpeedGamers. This is a trend that will surely continue next year.

A Brief Story with a Bear in It

2011-12-11T18:46:00.000+02:00

One of the funniest things I've seen recently happened when I was walking up this fairly steep mountain road. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large bear reared up in front of me. Well, I didn't have much choice but to kill it. After it fell, I looked down, with a mind to skin it, but the carcass had mysteriously vanished.

So I turned and looked behind me, and there it was. Sprawled on the ground, nose pointed downhill, sliding down the mountain path.

I laughed my arse off.

Oh, and this all happened in the land known as Skyrim, of course.

Do I Have a Hobby?

2011-12-08T16:14:00.000+02:00

Just something I've been thinking about a little lately.

I'm a geek, that's been well established. I play video games and roleplaying games. I watch sci-fi and fantasy movies and read comics.

I'm also keen on music. I listen to it, I write it, I play it.

These things fill my life. But are they 'hobbies'? According to dictionary.com a hobby is 'an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation'. Sure, they're not exactly my 'main occupation' (at least in the sense that I get no income from them). But still they seem to go beyond what people generally think of as hobbies. They're more like a way of life to me. I couldn't imagine my life without any of them.

But if I don't define these things as hobbies, does that mean I have no hobbies? Doesn't that make me sound like a dull person?

Well, there may of course be more specific subsets of the whole that work better with the 'hobby' definition. Currently my webcomic might be one such. While strongly influenced by my other interests, it, in itself, isn't (at least yet) a defining factor of myself, or a compulsory part of my core being. It's something I choose to do, because it's fun (and gets me complements from friends)...

I guess all this also ties into what I was writing about a 'post-geek' lifestyle earlier this autumn, the way that geekdom has gone beyond being a 'hobby' so that what remains is simply... me. Hard to quantify or categorise, just being myself, the way I am, and spending my time the way I wish to spend it.

Did I have a real point to all this rambling? I guess not...