Taylor Swift

As game developers, we often talk about the technical aspects of building games; but every once in a while I think it’s prudent that we discuss games at a more fundamental level. Today, I’d like to talk about how games become fun.

This is certainly a divisive topic, and clearly there’s no one answer. There’s no formula you can follow, no library you can use to “import fun”. When I was doing the research for this article, I asked my friend what he thought and he said “that’s like asking a comedian how to be funny”, ­­the implication being that it’s much more art than science.

There are surprisingly few people studying the fun of video games, considering the market size and broad applications of the ability to make things fun. But the (growing) few who have studied this have certainly come up with interesting observations.

The brain is a pattern learning machine.

The human brain excels at discovering and remembering patterns. It’s what we do all day long. Whenever you recognize an object or a person, that’s your brain calling up a previously learned pattern. The same holds for whenever you perform a task, write an article, do a skateboard kickflip, or drive to your parents’ house.

Since pattern learning is so important for your survival, your brain has a way to reward you when you learn a new pattern: it releases dopamine. It feels good to learn something new! That’s your brain’s way of incentivizing you to keep learning stuff. And for good reason; learning things is hard, and if there were no incentive, we’d just sit around staring at the wall all day.

Game designers ended up taking advantage of this learning/reward mechanism. It feels great to discover a new secret in a level, it’s really rewarding to figure out Bowser’s movement pattern and finally defeat him, and “getting the hang” of the games controls is a good feeling.

Now we understand that we should give our players patterns to learn and master, because learning those patterns is satisfying and fun for the players. But patterns that are too difficult to learn are a turn­off. Have you played Dwarf Fortress yet?

To avoid overwhelming players with brand new patterns and concepts (or, “game mechanics” and “ludemes”) for each game that gets built, it may be better to simply evolve upon game styles and mechanics that are already out there. Players won’t feel alienated or in over their heads, but they’ll still get the joy of learning a game’s new take on a mechanic, or a unique combination of game mechanics and ludemes.

It should seem natural, then, that as games evolved, so did their mechanics. Every once in a while a game would come out that invented a new mechanic, but more often than not, new games would simply expand upon an existing mechanic or try to combine established mechanics in new ways.

When Pong came out, it popularized the “ball and paddle” mechanic. Eventually, someone said “we should make a 1­-player Pong”, and invented Breakout. It still used the ball and paddle mechanic, but the opponent was a brick wall instead of another paddle. Thus was born a unique game that nobody had ever seen before, but the core mechanic was still familiar to players.

Donkey Kong popularized the platformer mechanic, and a few years later Mario added to that with more in­-depth gameplay and a few other mechanics (the “secret area” mechanic and the “player upgrade” mechanic, for instance).

The Legend of Zelda popularized the open world RPG mechanic, and also brought in the melee combat mechanic, player upgrade mechanic, secret area mechanic, and even an in­-game currency mechanic (some of which had already existed, others were new at the time).

If Zelda’s mechanics all sound familiar, that’s because they’re still in use today! Those mechanics have been used over and over again, in different permutations, in many games since then. Those mechanics are also seen in the Elder Scrolls series, Diablo, and even Grand Theft Auto. Those best­sellers didn’t need to re­invent the wheel: they just needed to concentrate on great story, gameplay, and immersive worlds. Magic, experience and leveling, currency, melee combat, open worlds, and non­linear story were all established game mechanics by that point.

It might seem that the two things I’ve talked about­­ “make your players learn new patterns” and “use established patterns so as not to alienate players”­­ are statements at odds with one another. However, they form a nice thesis: games should be easy to learn and difficult to master. (“Should” is a strong word; I’d rather say that many­­–but not all­­–groundbreaking games were easy to learn but difficult to master.)

Easy to learn, difficult to master.

Mastery is much more than being able to beat a game. Mastery comes from having a deep understanding of the underlying mechanics of the game, and using that to not only beat the game, but to do it handily and gracefully. This also implies that a game that can be mastered has a certain level of depth, and that allows its players to keep coming back and try to learn more about the game.

Chess is the ultimate example of this mantra. There are only 12 or so simple rules that define the game of chess (7 for movement, and a couple extra for check, checkmate, castling, pawn promotion, and something called “en passant”, which I hadn’t heard of until now). But mastering chess takes years of dedicated practice and learning. And because the simple rules combine in so many different ways, almost every chess game is different, giving it infinite replay value.

Compare chess to tic­-tac­-toe, which is “easy to learn; no mastery”. You’ll play it a couple of times when you’re bored, but it’ll never be a game you spend too much time thinking about. It’s also not really fun. It’s easy to learn, but there’s no depth and very little replay value.

Chess and tic­-tac-­toe both start off easy (though, admittedly, chess is slightly harder to start playing), but once the player begins progressing in skill is when the differences become apparent. Chess grows with the player­­–the learning curve is comfortable but still takes you somewhere­­–whereas tic­tac­toe remains at the same depth forever.

One of the best examples of great learning curve design is Super Mario Bros for NES. When you booted up Mario, there were no instructions (well, there was a booklet, but we rarely read those!). There were no “hop on the bad guy to kill it!” popups like there are in games today.

Instead, the first level was meticulously designed to teach you everything you need to know about the movements of the game. First you walk, then you figure out you can run. You try jumping. You run into a goomba and die. You realize you need to jump on the goomba, and then you learn that you can break blocks by jumping into them. You’ll also discover the mushroom caps, and the fire flowers, and if you’re a curious player you’ll quickly discover the secret area in the sewer pipe. It’s all there, right in the first level, as a gentle introduction to the rest of the game. It takes only five minutes to figure out nearly everything you need to know about Mario, and then the game takes you through progressively more difficult levels so that you keep learning and getting better with the game.

Early games like Mario were also much more rewarding to finish than modern games because there were no save points and failure was punished. If you lost a life, you started from the beginning of the level, and if you lost all your lives you had to start from the beginning of the game! Obviously this isn’t practical for very long modern games (imagine having to restart Skyrim after dying three times?), but it helped early games reinforce the notion that “failing = bad, winning = good”. It made many players obsessed with beating a game or even a level (“Auuugh! So close! Let me try just once more…”). That’s also why cheats like GameGenie were fun for a little while but would eventually become boring. It took away the risk and punishment of failure, and in turn dulled the joy of winning.

Key Takeaways

You could write entire textbooks on what makes games fun, but my goal here was to show you just a few of the important patterns and techniques you can observe in the groundbreaking and successful early games.

The gaming landscape is a little different now; some games today are fun just because the world is so big, or the sound design is great or the graphics are beautiful. There are also quite a few wonderful games today that win on just ambiance or casual gaming (“Solar 2” is an example of a relaxing ambiance game that I love; Left 4 Dead is another great casual game that doesn’t have too much mastery depth to it). Some games are great just because they give you something to do on your phone while you wait for your train to come (Subway Surfers et al).

If we were to boil this down to a few key points, they would be:

• Don’t overwhelm. If your goal is to invent a brand­-new game mechanic, then try not to toss too much other stuff in there. Many games have been successful with just one or two mechanics. And if you’re inventing a new mechanic, odds are you won’t have the time to make sure everything else is up to snuff.
• Take advantage of the human brain. People enjoy learning patterns, getting the hang of controls, figuring stuff out, and discovering secrets. Take advantage of your players’ brains’ rewards system, and give them stuff to discover!
• Use established mechanics. Not every game needs to invent something new. By finding your own unique combination of existing game mechanics you can simultaneously make your players feel comfortable while still giving them something to learn and appreciate. This also lets you concentrate on story, gameplay, and ambiance.
• Nail the learning curve. Take a hint from chess and Super Mario Bros and let your game evolve with your player. Your player should constantly be in a position of being just slightly challenged, with a couple of few easy levels thrown in here and there, that way they constantly feel like they’re learning and getting better.
• Use rewards and punishment. By making failing suck, you make winning feel even better. But be careful with this one; today’s gamers aren’t as patient as they were 25 years ago, so don’t make the punishments too harsh. Even simple short cinematic scenes that demonstrate the glory or shame of success or failure can be enough.

image credit

Mako and Nau are two friendly and eye-catching girls we met in Harajuku, both wearing dark colors.

Mako, on the left and in twin tails, is 19 and goes to Bunka Fashion College. She is wearing a matching skirt and blazer, which, along with her pussybow blouse, are all handmade. She got her heart shaped bag from Vivienne Westwood, and the platform ribbon shoes are from Tokyo Bopper. Some of her accessories – floral rings, a chunky necklace and raisin butterfly earrings – are from reinette et mirabelle. Mako told us that Anna Sui is her favorite fashion designer, and that she likes Japanese singer Shiina Ringo. You can find out more about her from Twitter.

Pictured to the right is Nau, an 18-year-old student. She is wearing a graphic top and a faux leather skirt, both from Spinns, with over-the-knee socks and creepers. We also noticed her cap, backpack, collar and suspenders. Nau’s favorite music is by One OK Rock and Shiina Ringo. She’s also on Twitter.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Platform: iOS — Scurvy Scallywags is a hybrid match-3 puzzle game created by Beep Games, that studio where that guy Ron Gilbert works, not to mention his DeathSpank collaborator Clayton Kauzlaric. Scurvy Scallywags dresses you in your piratey best and sends you to the sea on a quest to discover the ultimate sea shanty (a.k.a. "song"). Along the way you'll defeat all sorts of foes, swap and match piles of gold, attach swords, coconuts and rats, spend your pirate booty on ability upgrades, and witness one of the most awkward pirate dramas ever performed. Tagged as: beepgames, ckauzlaric, game, ios, ipad, iphone, match-3, mobile, pirate, puzzle, rating-g, rgilbert

WBZ reports Lucky Star, which provides bus service between South Station and New York's Chinatown, shut down Wednesday night after some bad inspections.

Platform: Windows — Behind a closed door in an abandoned apartment building, a freelance spy is trying on a new pair of pants. Little does he know that those pants would lead to a case full of mystery, danger, and electrical rewiring! Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle platformer where you can use your cool spy gadgets to change how electronics are hooked up, tricking your enemies into their doom. There are many ways to clear each building in this clever noir-style adventure, but when it comes time to choose up sides, who will you support? Tagged as: download, game, indie, platform, puzzle, rating-r, stealth, steam, suspiciousdevelopments, tfrancis, windows

Gunpoint was released on Steam yesterday. The brainchild of PC Gamer UK editor Tom Francis, Gunpoint is a stealth game where you play a freelance spy who has to steal sensitive data for his clients. To finish your missions, you’ll have a variety of gadgets at your disposal, the foremost of which is a Crosslink device that will let you rewire lights, switches, cameras and doors. The other gadgets are acquired optionally and offer the player more ways of achieving his or her goals.

fun to see the glitches get debugged  

"a (questionably) ero visual novel whose text is entirely driven by Markov chains"  

Solar Bears stand out from most of the synth- and nostalgia-fetishists through a surprising mastery of warmth, texture, and emotional adventure. Nowhere is this more evident than their April release for Planet Mu, the expansive Supermigration. Over the course of the album’s 12 tracks, this Irish duo traverse some of the most sinfully blissful reference points ever – somewhere between Air’s classic Moon Safari and John Carpenter’s pulsing soundtrack work. Most importantly, Supermigration sounds way more developed and consistent than 2010′s She Was Coloured In, suggesting that Solar Bears are still evolving, and that fans can look forward to future transmissions with their chins up. Below, view the cosmic, colorful album movie, directed by Mark Robinson and featuring several of the best tracks from the new disc.

The post FRESH VID: Solar Bears appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

“Islington”, Arvid Noe‘s crowning/singular vinyl captures the trio’s inexorable live sound, a last consummate utterance to commence “Noe Future” – Arvid Noe’s dying tour. Song structures simultaneously build steam and fall to pieces while somehow achieving an overreaching continuity, propelled by the furiosity of Zach D’Agiostino on drums, ripping a gash through a heavy blanket of squall and skronk.  Luke Einsiedler and Alek Glasrud’s guitars exist in a sound world entirely their own, the barrage forming a tight insulation around the compositions, each benefiting from repeated listens. “What Makes a Person Break Their Phone” reads as an open love letter to US Maple as much as The Minutemen, unleashing chainsaw fuzz and silencing, both subtle and visceral.  ”Islington” rarely stays the same. Pieces fall away and regain momentum, timing and harmonic/dynamic approach change so drastically that the shape-shifted piece scarcely resembles its former self, followed by a massive refrain.  Each of the 6 tracks on the record are illustrative in this way. Arvid Noe is one of the few bands that epitomizes a specifically Allston aesthetic, one that is difficult to explain by conventional means, or one possibly understood best by having seen these songs performed at a GGs show.  Luminously captured by Mark Fede, who has an impressive assemblage of engineering credits from the past few years (Fat History Month, Guerilla Toss, Skimask), “Islington” is not one to be missed.  File next to “awesome bands that left this earth too soon.”  Get it @ Hiddentempletapes.com. Also Luke has Big Bear vinyl if anyone is looking… Out on Hidden Temple Tapes/Midnight Werewolf Records/Surveillance Investments.

- Matt Robideaux

 

The post FRESH STREAM: ARVID NOE appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

Jeremy Keith notes that what happens between the breakpoints is just as important as the breakpoints themselves—perhaps even more so. While I agree with this, we do have to start somewhere. In a way, this part of the process reminds me of storyboarding, or creating animation keyframes, with the in-between frames being developed later. We’re going to do that here.

Major breakpoints are conditions that, when met, trigger major changes in your design. A major breakpoint might be, for example, where your entire layout must change from two columns to four.

Let’s say you’ve chosen three basic design directions from your thumbnails. Think about what your major breakpoints will look like (Figure 7.6). And here’s the key: try to come up with as few major breakpoints as possible. That might sound crazy, since we’re talking about responsive design. After all, we have media queries, so let’s use about 12 of them, right? No! If a linear layout works for every screen and is appropriate for your particular concept, then there’s no need for different layouts. In that case, simply describe what will happen when the screen gets larger. Will everything generally stay the same, with changes only to font size, line height and margins? If so, sketch those. For these variations, make thumbnails first, explore some options, and then move on to larger, more detailed sketches. Use your breakpoint graph as a guide at first and make sketches according to the breakpoints you’ve estimated on your graph.

When thinking about major breakpoints, remember to think about device classes. If you’re thinking about smartphones, tablets, laptops/desktops, TVs, and game consoles, for example, you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re thinking in terms of brand names and specific operating systems, you’re on the wrong track. The idea is to think in terms of general device classifications and, sometimes, device capabilities. Capabilities are more important when designing web applications, since you should be thinking about what screens will look like both with and without any particular capability.

Rough sketches of major breakpoints can help you determine:

Rough sketches are more detailed than thumbnails, but they shouldn’t take a long time to create. In a short period, you should have a sketch of each major breakpoint for each of your chosen designs. This should be enough to decide on one of the designs.

• Whether or not more major breakpoints are needed
• Which design choice will be the most labor intensive; you might opt for a design that will better fit within time and budget constraints
• Whether or not a particular device class has been neglected or needs further consideration
• What technologies you’ll need to develop the design responsively

Minor breakpoints are conditions that, when met, trigger small changes in your design. An example would be moving form labels from above text fields to the left of those fields, while the rest of the design remains the same.

So where and when will you sketch minor breakpoints? In the browser, when you do your web-based mockup. You’ll find out why and how in the next chapter. In the meantime, simply focus on making sketches of the state of your web pages or app screens at the major breakpoints of each design.

At this point, don’t worry too much if you notice that the initial breakpoints on your breakpoint graph simply won’t do. Those were just a starting point, and you’re free to revise your estimate based on your sketches. You might even decide that you need an extra breakpoint for a given design and record that in sketch form; you can add that breakpoint to your graph. This is a cycle of discovery, learning, and revision.

Think about your content while sketching

While sketching, you’ll certainly be thinking about the way things should look. My experience is that much UI sketching of this type revolves around the layout of elements on the screen. I’ve found it useful to keep thinking about the content while sketching, and to consider what will happen to the content in various situations. When designing responsively, it can be useful to consider how you’ll handle the following content in particular:

• Text
• Navigation
• Tables

Oh, sure, there are many more things to consider, and you’ll end up creating your own list of “things to do some extra thinking about” as the project progresses. For now, let’s take a look at the items listed above.

Text

Before you say, “Hey, wait a minute, didn’t you just tell me that I didn’t have to draw text while sketching?” hear me out. While sketching, there are a couple of text-related issues you’ll need to tackle: column width and text size, both of which are relevant in proportion to the screen and the other elements on the page.

Column width is fairly obvious, but it can be difficult to estimate how wide a column will be with actual text. In this case, sketching on a device might give you a better idea of the actual space you have to work with. Another method I’ve used is just to make a simple HTML page that contains only text, and load that into a device’s browser (or even an emulator, which while not optimal still gives a more realistic impression than lines on paper). When the text seems too large or too small, you can adjust the font size accordingly. Once it seems right, you’ll be able to make your sketches a bit more realistic.

Note: Distinguish between touchability and clickability. Many designers, myself included, have made the mistake of refining links for people who click on them using a mouse, or even via the keyboard, without considering how touchable these links are for people on touch devices.

Think about the size of links—not only the text size, but also the amount of space around them. Both of these factors play a role in the touchability or clickability of links (and buttons): large links and buttons are easier targets, but slightly smaller links with plenty of space around them can work just as well. That said, there’s a decent chance that no matter what you choose to sketch, you’ll end up making changes again when you create your mockups.

This is the great thing about sketching that I can’t repeat often enough: you’re going to refine your design in the browser anyway, so the speed with which you can try things out when sketching means you won’t have to do detail work more than once (unless your client has changes, but we all know that never happens).

Navigation

Navigation is another poster child for sketching on actual devices. The size issues are the same as with links, but there’s a lot more thinking to do in terms of the design of navigation for various devices, which means navigation might change significantly at each major breakpoint.

Think back to Bryan Rieger’s practice of designing in text first, and ponder what you would do before the very first breakpoint if you had only plain HTML and CSS at your disposal—in other words, if you had no JavaScript. That means no, you can’t have your menu collapsed at the top of the screen and have it drop down when someone touches it. If you have your menu at the top, it’s in its expanded form and takes up all the vertical space it normally would.

This is a controversial enough subject, with even accessibility gurus in disagreement: JavaScript, after all, is currently considered an “accessibility supported” technology. But this isn’t necessarily about accessibility. It’s about thinking about what happens when a browser lacks JavaScript support, or if the JavaScript available on the device is different than what you’d expect. Your content will be presented in a certain way before JavaScript does its thing with it, no matter what the browser. So why not think about what that initial state will be?

In the chapter on wireframes, I talked about my preferred pattern for navigation on the smallest screens: keep it near the bottom of the screen and place a link to that navigation near the top of the screen. JavaScript, when available and working as expected, can move that navigation up to the top and create the drop-down menu on the fly.

But a pattern is not design law, so how you choose to handle the smallest screens will depend on your project. If I had only a few links in my navigation, I might very well put the menu at the top from the very start, and there it would stay at every breakpoint.

Remember that JavaScript and CSS let you do a lot of rearranging of stuff on the screen. That knowledge should empower you to safely design a great page with plain HTML and use JavaScript and CSS to spice it up any way you like. This is the essence of progressive enhancement.

Tables

Tables! Oh, the bane of the responsive designer (or wait, is that images? Or video? Or layout? Ahem). Tables are tough to deal with on small screens. I’d love to tell you I have all the answers, but instead I have more questions. Hopefully, these will lead you to a solution. It’s good to think about these while you’re sketching.

First of all, what types of tables will you be dealing with? Narrow? Wide? Numerical? Textual? Your content inventory should give you enough information to answer these simple questions. Once you’ve considered those, try to categorize the types of tables you have into something like the following classes (Figure 7.7):

• Small-screen-friendly tables, which you’ll probably leave as they are, because they’re small enough and will work fine on most small screens.
• Blockable tables, which you can alter with CSS so that each row in the table functions visually as a block item in a list (Figure 7.8).
• Chartable tables, which contain numerical data that can be transformed into a chart, graph, or other visualization that will take up less space on a small screen.
• Difficult tables, which are hard enough to deal with that you’ll need to come up with a different plan for them, sometimes even on a case-by-case basis. These are our enemies, but unfortunately, are the friends of our clients, who all love Microsoft Excel. Oh well.

Thinking again in terms of progressive enhancement, the base design should probably just include the whole table, which means that the user will have to scroll horizontally to see the whole thing in many cases. On top of this, we can employ CSS and JavaScript, when they’re available, to do some magic for us. Blockable and chartable tables can be blocked with CSS and charted with JavaScript. Plenty of designers and developers have experimented with many different options for tables, from simply making the table itself scrollable to exchanging columns and rows.

The fun part is that what you do on small screens isn’t necessarily what you’ll do on larger screens. That’s why now—when all you have to do is sketch and it won’t take much time—is the time to think about the changes you’ll be making at each breakpoint.

What to do if you get stuck

Every designer gets stuck at some point. It’s no big deal unless you treat it like one. There are countless ways to deal with it, from asking yourself what if questions (“What if it weren’t a table, but a list?” is what I asked myself before “blockifying” the attendees table for the Mobilism site) to the cliché taking a shower, which you hopefully do on a regular basis anyway. The reason this chapter focuses so much on sketching is because the act of drawing itself can actually stimulate your brain to come up with more ideas, provided you push it hard enough by sketching past your comfort zone of first-come ideas.

If your problem is that you’re stuck creatively, there are many inspiring books and resources to get your creative engine started during the bitter cold of designer’s block. Although there are plenty of resources on design and creativity itself (try such classics as Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking), the greatest inspiration can come from sources outside the realm of design.¹ Trying to combine things that normally aren’t combined can lead to surprising results. It’s a simple little trick, but I’ve often used Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies to force me to take a different approach.² Worst case, it’s a lot of fun. Best case, you’ve got a great idea!

If your problem is that you’re not sure how to handle something in the context of responsive design, there’s no harm in researching how others have solved problems like yours. Just be sure to use your creativity and tailor any ideas you might find to your own situation; after all, you’re a designer. At the time of this writing I find Brad Frost’s This Is Responsive to be one of the most exhaustive collections of responsive design patterns and resources available.³ You can spend hours going through there and you’ll certainly come across something that will get you unstuck.

Excerpted from Responsive Design Workflow by Stephen Hay. Copyright © 2013.
Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and New Riders.

Photo: Andrew Lyman

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From the minute you hear Milk Music you will know that there’s something very rare and special in their sound. They caused some trouble with their 12″ “Beyond Living” last year. The title-track from that record hits you hard with it’s visceral and untamed energy. The song breathes, it has a life of it’s own. It’s easy to see that their genuine and their songs transcend any sort of hype or classification – they don’t really care what people have to say about them. That’s why you should be so amped to hear their newest record “Cruise Your Illusion” on Fat Possum. The vibe of this song is really best said in the name. “Illegal and Free” will take you on a journey and leave you better for it. These young Northwestern men hit these notes with the same liveliness and intensity as their wood-wielding forefathers. Their must be something in the soil of the small town of Olympia that gives birth to amazing music and these men are living proof of it. Find out for yourself and see them when they hit Boston this month!

The post FRESH STREAM: MILK MUSIC appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

when all the numbers swim together
and all the shadows settle
when doors forced open shut again
a flytrap and a petal

my eyes burn and claws rush to fill them
and in the morning after the night
i fall in love with the light
it is so clear i realize
that here at last i have my eyes

when all the figures sound retreat
the soft skin starts to shrivel
when dreams made real become less sweet
the orchid and the metal

my sex turns and claws rush to spill them
but in the morning after the night
i fall in love with the light
it is so pure i can't arise
without the fear of secret lies

when all the characters full size
and every moon is level
when all the spirits burn in lies
as center grief by steel

my eyes burn and claws rush to fill them
but in the morning after the night
i fall in love with the light
it is so clear i realize
and now at last i have my eyes

--Genesis_P-Orridge

"Dancing is alien to heavy metal for two basic reasons. One is the continuation of the tradition of the youth counterculture. The audience for psychedelic music and for folk-inspired political protest songs listened while seated, to better concentrate on the lyrics. Second, dance music is understood in the modern West as an erotic activity. As a masculinist and overwhelmingly masculine grouping with an extreme heterosexualist ideology, the heavy metal subculture stresses male bonding, not male-female pairing...Yet heavy metal music is based on a strong regular beat that calls for the movement of the body...The solution to the problem of body movement was to create a code of gestural response to the music that could be shared in common. One of the two primary gestures is the arm thrust, usually a sign of appreciation but also used to keep time with the rhythm. The other primary gesture, called headbanging, involves a downward thrust of the head with a gentler upthrust...A distinctive demeanor and expression are also nurtured in the metal subculture. The familiar insult that  metal fans are "slack-jawed", evincing a look of dull stupidity, needs to be examined. In part it is an accurate characterization of the faces of those emerging from a heavy metal concert, but it could also describe someone who has just spent several hours enjoying ecstatic physical activity. The look also reflects the impact of the downers and beer consumed by metal fans.

...Ingestion of massive quantities of beer has remained a constant feature of the metal subculture. Beer induced urination has influenced at least one venue in the U.S. to spread large amounts of kitty litter in the area near the stage."
-Deena Weinstein

Geena Davis. Jeff Goldblum. Jim Carrey. Damon Wayons. They all starred in this fucking movie about ditzy valley girls falling in love with aliens. All you need to know is that a spaceship crash lands in the pool of a Los Angeles manicurist. What does she do? Duh, gives the extra terrestrials makeovers and “they’re like totally hot!” Before long the alien triumvirate are having elaborate dance offs in brightly colored nightclubs and women are swooning. Ah, the 1980s… It’s a silly, stupid movie that accepts its ridiculousness and turns out entertaining as hell.

9:15PM // All Ages // $ome cost // Brattle Theater

The post GO TO: (5/31) EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (1988) DIRECTED BY JULIEN TEMPLE appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

It was just past 9 on a Friday night. The baby was asleep. My wife was turning in early. Finally, I had a chance to pop in the copy of Tomb Raider that a friend had lent to me. Not to go all sitcom-dad on you, but I was practically giddy to have a couple of hours to myself. I poured a drink and fired up the PS3.

"The latest update data has been found."

Okay. Fair enough. We're six and a half years into this thing. I'm used to it by now. And, as PlayStation 3 patches go, this wasn't a bad one.

At the title screen, the display glitched in an ominous way I've seen before. But I thought it might have been intentional. Maybe Tomb Raider attempts some Kojima-style breaking of the fourth wall.

Nope. I made it as far as inverting the Y-axis -- inverted being the one true Y-axis -- and then the PlayStation beeped and the screen went black. I tried to restart it, but it wouldn't power on. I couldn't even eject the disc, which, remember, I had borrowed from a friend.

Kaput.

The gaming situation is less than optimal in the Krpata household right now. The Xbox 360 has been out of commission since last fall thanks to, let's say, an incident involving the collision of a gamepad with a wall. With the PS3 out of the picture, that leaves a mid-range PC that is starting to show its age.

In the past, when I was reviewing games on the regular, I replaced hardware as needed. It paid for itself, and was a tax write-off. These days, circumstances are different. To replace a console is a big investment. And with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One right around the corner, it seems counterproductive to replace a current-gen system, especially since they're still charging three hundred goddamn dollars are you kidding me for a new PlayStation 3. Better to grab a Blu-ray player with wi-fi for under a hundo, and get 90% of what I was using the PS3 for anyway.

All this has gotten me thinking about game consoles in the big picture: what they're for, how we use them, and whether we even need them anymore.

Obviously, the console manufacturers have been wondering the same things. They're trying to make themselves indispensable with carrots (new features, more powerful hardware) and with sticks (no used games). They're trying to become all-in-one entertainment solutions, which not coincidentally allow you to make all your entertainment purchases directly through them. But the tighter they try to keep consumers in their grasp, the more we want to escape.

Let me make an observation: I've already had to repair or replace each console from the current generation, but my 15-year-old Super Nintendo works just fine. (And my saved games are still intact on my Super Metroid cartridge!) Of course today's consoles can do a lot more than my SNES ever could. But what is reliability worth?

Even when modern systems work, they don't work. The PlayStation 3's system updates and pre-installs are the stuff of legend at this point (and I thought it was interesting that Sony reps made a point of assuring us that the PS4 will handle these things in the background). The Wii's vaunted motion controls were so bad that even a game like Skyward Sword, which required an additional peripheral to function at all, included a manual override for all the times it got messed up. I guess the Xbox 360 pretty much did what it was supposed to, provided your console didn't RRoD or you didn't get a Kinect.

You can't just own a console anymore; now, you have to manage it. It takes three separate subscriptions to watch the new season of Arrested Development on your Xbox. On the PS3 you can subscribe to a monthly service, the PlayStation Network, in order to sometimes be able to pay less for other things you can buy. I don't even know what the hell you need to do with Nintendo's online service, but in fairness, I don't think Nintendo does either. The PC used to be better about this, but I was just trying to figure out how I could take advantage of an Amazon sale on BioShock 2 to install it on Steam so I could buy "Minerva's Den" from Games for Windows Live, and ultimately decided that five bucks was still too much to spend to deal with that. Sorry, Steve.

I haven't been a foot soldier for one console maker or another since the 16-bit days. I learned my lesson when I finally got a SNES after years of proselytizing for the Genesis and discovered, to my shame, that it ruled. Since then, I've been omnivorous. So, when I say that I'm going to have to think long and hard about which next-gen console to buy, it's not about brand loyalty. It's about whether I need to buy any of them at all. It's about whether I want the effort of owning them.

Based on what I know right now, I don't want what Sony and Microsoft are selling to me. I don't want to buy a game system and then have to pay a fee to use it. I don't want to spend several hundred dollars on a piece of hardware that can do everything but stay up and running for more than three years. I want something that runs video games. If it can do other things as well, fine -- I'm happy to stream Netflix through wherever. But if it isn't fucking great for playing games, then I am not interested.

So far, I'm not convinced that I must have either the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One. Not with cheaper alternatives for their non-gaming functions, and especially not with a backlog of great games I've missed that I can still play today. I haven't played much new recently, but in the past couple of months I've made my way through Metro 2033 and Super Metroid, and right now I'm waist-deep in System Shock 2. None of this has made me feel as though I need a new console, that's for sure.

I recognize that I'm an old man having his get-off-my-lawn moment. But I'm not trying to argue that games today are crap and that everything was ideal back in my day. My concern is that the barriers are getting ever higher. If you can't borrow a game from a friend, if you can't play a single-player game without an internet connection, if you can't trust your expensive hardware to last its intended lifespan, then where does all this lead?

Maybe it leads to the end of consoles.

Platform: iOS — Phoenix Wright is back, and he's in HD! After months of waiting Capcom has finally released Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Trilogy HD, packing three Phoenix Wright games into a single, easy-to-get-hooked-on download. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of the series or are a tried and true fan, Ace Attorney offers a lot of story and a lot of suspense in a very attractive package. Tagged as: capcom, demo, detective, free, game, ios, ipad, iphone, mobile, mystery, puzzle, rating-o, tablet

It’s another rocknroll ripper in Allston - come out and twist the week away! The sweet vocals and choppy pop licks of Bent Shapes are exciting but never saccharine, and lyrics like “I just hope she makes the most of her neurosis” will make you think you’re listening to the Lost Gospel of St. Costello. The garage-pop “funboys” of New Swears (Ottawa, on Bruised Tongue and Dirt Cult Records) rock a particularly summer-y set that is insanely catchy and nothing but fun. Squall will send you to space with their sound, described by a fan as “like the Butthole Surfers covering Joy Division”. Fuzzmasters Courters will round out the show with a tasty set of rock thumpers. Touring bands and Boston greats on one ticket – don’t miss this one!

9pm // All Ages // $5

The post GO TO: TONIGHT (5/31) BENT SHAPES, COURTERS, NEW SWEARS, SQUALL @ DZ appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

Harajuku street style icon Una has announced that she’s launching a musical career. Under the same management as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Una’s debut single will be produced by the Japanese electro group 80Kidz (best known for their work with Autokratz, The Shoes, and CSS). The single, “Juicy Juicy”, will be released on August 14th by Universal Music. The song will premiere in a Mentos commercial in Japan on June 5th – a short preview of which was just released.

Una first hit the Harajuku scene back in 2010, and her modeling career has been on an upward trajectory ever since. She’s a regular Zipper model, as well as appearing in many other magazines including Nylon Japan and Kera. She also models for several Japanese fashion brands as well as appearing in recent fashion shows including Harajuku Kawaii and Kawaii Matsuri.

In addition to being a fashion leader, Una is also active in the street fashion scene in Harajuku. She previously worked at both Spinns and Bubbles Harajuku. Though her modeling career has taken off, we see Una around the streets of Harajuku all of the time, and she remains friendly and down-to-earth. She also continues to appear in street snaps and Harajuku-centric events. Some models move on after getting famous, but Una continues to support the town where she became famous.

For more info on Una’s upcoming debut as a musical artist, check out her official website or her YouTube channel.

Good luck Una!

Yurika is a 17-year-old student we met in Harajuku, wearing an all-white outfit which contrasts with her dark braids and center-parted hairstyle.

Yurika is wearing a Norihisa Ota cutout and fringed top with sheer striped wide leg pants from the same brand. Her clean look is accessorized with a Bebe clutch and a pair of heeled platform sandals.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Photo: Josh Sinn

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Lisa Hanawalt

New book now in stores!

Here are two fun Bunka Fashion College students who we met on Cat Street in Harajuku. The girl on the right, with green hair, is Cathy. The girl on the left is Kaoru. You might recognize Kaoru from her appearances in Kera Magazine. On her website, she describes herself as “Avant-garde, androgynous & kawaii”.

Kaoru is wearing a white leather jacket with black faux leather shorts, Avantgarde Harajuku flame tights, and chunky platform boots from Glad News. Check her out on Twitter for more fun!

Kathy is wearing a black leather jacket with a graphic top, graphic leggings, and tasseled heels. She is also on Twitter.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

^ Costa Ballena, Cádiz. 2003-2012 via Nación Rotonda   Nación Rotonda (Nation of Roundabouts) is an extremely valuable visualization tool to travel back in time to natural landscapes before the housing boom in Spain. Simply by overlaying satellite imagery of