#Shorter is sometimes better

[goombasa]

Embracing Shorter Experiences

So one of the things that I really wanted to do this year was make a concerted effort to try and clear off a lot of the games from my backlog. This has included a lot of older and more classic games, and let me tell you, one thing that I've noticed when going through several classic and older game collections, is that these older games, even earler 3D games, respected the player's time so, so much more.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a longer experience now and then. I love binging older anime that had upwards of near a hundred episodes. I have played a lot of modern RPGs that require something like 60+ hours to just see the end of the main quest. That's not me bragging, I just want to lay down that I have no trouble with longer experiences, but sometimes, it's so easy to get burnt out on them. I can't count how many games I've just dropped because it just took so long to get anywhere or move the game forward that I just sort of drifted away and didn't pick it up again. It wasn't out of rage quitting or anything, it was just taking so long and I wanted to do something else. For someone like me, who prefers to only focus on one or two games at a time at most, it can be real annoying to get a new game, get hooked on it, play it for several dozen hours, and then just drift away from it despite enjoying it and wanting to finish it.

It isn't like all modern games are like this either, there are  plenty of games, and even plenty of genres that essentially keep their playtimes fairly succinct and to the point. I can't recall the last time a platformer required me to spend an inordinant amount of time performing busywork in order to make progress. By the same token, it isn't like every older or retro game was good about respecting a player's time. Old-school dragon quest (Dragon Warrior in America) practically invented the concept of level grinding. If you actually look at a guide or a walkthrough for the original DQ, it's a remarkably short game, but it's runtime is padded out by the necessity to grind out both gold to afford better equipment and experience to level up to get strong enough to actually make progress to the next part of the game.

But I am thinking more of games that aren't necessarily shorter but always feel like you're making constant progress towards your goal. A lot of modern open world games break this rule because so much of what you're doing doesn't feel directly connected to your quest, it's just a load of busywork. And yes, while it does technically make you stronger in some ways, perhaps giving you access to more materials or better weapons, or filling out your map, or whatever it is that the side quests do, so much of it feels like a chore. That's what I mean by not respecting your time. When a game is so thick with story, it can also feel like it's wasting your time as well. That's the issue I had with Persona 5. I did enjoy the game, it was a lot of fun to play, but I ended up dropping the game on two separate occasions because it felt like it was taking forever to make progress… and that's a game that has a time limit, and a definitive end! Time marches forward in that game whether you want it to or not and I still felt like it took control and agency away from me often enough that I sort of zoned out and stopped enjoying it, needing something a bit more fast paced. In the moment, I could have fun with it, but longer stints of playing it really burned me out on it.

A game that respects a person's time isn't necessarily short, but it is one that feels like you aren't being held back by its design. Chrono Trigger is an RPG that I think pulls this off flawlessly. It's not a long game by RPG standards, roughly 15-20 hours or so, but you are constantly moving fowrard, constantly getting things done and moving the story forwards. It doesn't feel like the game's pacing ever slows down or takes control or agency from the player for extended periods of time.

Or how about a more modern game that I feel is good about this: Hades. Hades is a very, very long game if you want to see or do absolutely everything in it. Even getting through the main storyline takes several dozen successful runs at the very least, and that's not counting all of the side content and side stories and hidden dialogue you get even when you fail a run. It's a game that constantly feels like it's moving its plot and its characters forward, even when you aren't managing to successfully finish a run, and I think that's wonderful.

I bring all this up because, thankfully, shorter experiences are coming back, at least in the indie field. We've seen some attempts at AAA publishers to make shorter experiences that are still satisfying; Tango Gameworks' Hi-Fi Rush is an excellent, linear rhythm beat-em-up that is just long enough to be a great time without overstaying its welcome and making you feel like the experience is being dragged out, for example. But the indie space is where things like this really shine. Larger game developers, even since the shift to 3D it feels like, have constantly been pushing forward to make bigger, more cinematic spectacles, longer experiences that really push the technology they're on to its fullest degrees, and yet many of the games being put out don't feel nearly as fun or as satisfying to play because they feel bloated. Sometimes, a short experience is the best one.

I think most of us never asked for games to get bigger. It's impressive, to be sure, but it was never meant to be a regular thing. I don't want to read a book that's over 1000 pages unless it is a really, really damn good book. I don't want to watch a movie that's over four hours (or even two hours really) unless I feel as though my time is going to be well spent. I typically will drop a show, no matter how long running it is, no matter how much someone insists that it gets better two season in, if I can't be swayed into watching it after three or so episodes, I'm not going watch further.

Time is a precious commodity, something that I've grown far more aware of as I've gotten older, and so choosing where to spend it is far more important to me. I am someone who often laments when I don't see to the end of something, I always feel bad when I cannot or do not finish a game or a movie or a show or a book, but at the same time, if its length is causing me to feel like I'm just not making progress or that I could be moving on to something else, then I consider that a bit of a failing with the media in general. I want to see the ending, and that's why I've grown a lot more fond of things that actually have endings now, something I can play for around ten to twenty hours, see the ending, feel satisfied, digest what I felt about it, and then move on without guilt. Same with a movie or a show.

This is another rambly post, I admit, but I'd like to know how other people feel about the generalized length of something. Not in how it relates to how much you pay for something, I've never felt that equating length to worth is a good metric, but in how it makes you feel. What does something very long have to do to keep you invested in it, make it feel like it's worth your time to continue on with it, even when it starts to approach 40, 50, 60 hours and beyond?

[royalarchivist]

Tallulah: tio pac and fit are so Perfecta by Miranda coded 🥹💕

Phil: This is Pac and Fit? [Dramatically zooms-in on the fanart and makes them "sing" along to the music]

Chat: he's LITERALLY making a ship amv right now

Tallulah: How things got weird 😞

Make sure to show love to the artist who drew this fanart!

[ Full clip ]

[reallyprofoundkryptonite]

some Sandor doodles because I love this man dearly and wish him the best.

Tormund was right, he does have very sad eyes.

also with quite a few of my designs/personifications for characters i kinda just tend to pick and choose things from the source materials (the show and the books) and go from there. Like the book’s description of Sandor was actually when he was younger, and actual time frame he Yk. Aged. Since he’s 35 years old in the show. (At the end he’d be about 40-42 I think)

but anyways

dog helm sketch/personal interpretation.

[pepperpixel]

“put me on a pedestal and i’ll only disappoint you

tell me i’m exceptional, and i promise to exploit you

gimme all your money, and i’ll make some origami honey!

i think you’re a joke!!! …but i don’t find you very

fuuuuuuu~nyyy”

More tagr art!!! Assorted stuff this time! Featuring some cute chibi stuff. Some solo gaz’s, a lil uhhh. Comic of an altercation.. and a very belated Halloween pic I started drawing last Halloween and didnt finish lol. Also featuring lyrics from pedestrian at best cuz that song rllly rlly fits my ver of tak lol.

[gingergari]

my beautiful baby gorls

[dunmeshistash]

Sometimes I ramble while answering questions cause I'm actually writing down my thought process lmao

[shichidikai]

it still counts as alternating pov if sanji's scenes are megabeasts that delve into his thoughts, trauma, dreams, fears, childhood, inner demons, fantasies, what he had for breakfast, quantum physics, etc. while zoro's are like 1/12th the length and any insight basically boils down to "huh, he's hot. guess i like him" right

[catenary-chad]

Even though I’ve gone into how Electra being a rich celebrity is a… really tragic contrast to irl US electric lines, I actually do think it can be a compelling direction. Especially if you go all in on basing them on MJ/Prince (though I know less about the latter).

I tend to picture them as a new model on trial/press tour and that’s why they have their crew following them around and celebrity status. Akin to the demonstration tour an ICE 1 trainset went on in the early 90s. Being shuttled around and in the spotlight since an early age in a “child star” sort of setup (akin to MJ) gives… a really tragic but interesting reason for why they’d still be relatively childish as an adult. It’s why Electra being pretty socially lost and having issues with boundaries and a near-endless need/capacity for physical affection has always stuck in my head.

The way Amtrak got strategic, bordering on conniving, in their attempts at freight service to break even over the years also nicely parallels how MJ was VERY strategic in his attempts at “gaming the system” to achieve crossover success and mainstream fame (such as crossing over to rock channels to appeal to white audiences). This video explains the history of why and how Amtrak did freight services better than I could:

And then there’s also the thread of how ugly tabloid media coverage of MJ got, only for posthumous info to shed a VERY different light on things like his wildly varied appearance (he had multiple medical issues like lupus and vitiligo that he tried to hide). I’ve already gone into how the NEC gets made fun of for what a mess it can be, when it’s due to very deep seated physical issues.

I know far less about Prince but someone described him as “challenging- in multiple ways, for better and worse” which I really love as a characterization for Electra. Being externally “difficult” to deal with and argumentative due to stress and the kind of circumstances they live and work in, but also being someone who’ll openly challenge supposed norms and speak up. Like “electrification can’t handle X, it’s too delicate for Y” “bullshit, here’s how WE did it in the 30s and Europe regularly does now, it’s all a matter of long term lack of investment”

I think the link of them both being notably conspiratorial is another interesting trait to give Electra. I think they definitely believe GM killed the trolleys and border on being paranoid about the government/railroads plotting against them and wanting them to fail, which… is honestly just true in a lot of ways.

This has been another TED Talk on how Electra is accidentally VERY interesting with real life/historical context. Honestly, I think going the MJ/Prince direction is a really great mix of being fun to watch and recognizable if you don’t know the language, but also full of potential to be a much deeper character.

[sysig]

Anime good :) (Patreon)

[brainrot-has-overtaken-me]

I keep getting promotion for ExposureCraft and they have all been some version of “I miss old Minecraft. Since 2020 every server has just been lore streams with way too much content to catch up on! What ever happened to just playing Minecraft with friends? So I’m joining this new server with lots of mods and a life system gimmick that I’ll be streaming!”

Like I’m sorry?? But you’ve missed your own point! Many of those “lore” servers started as just playing Minecraft with friends and turned into something more because of a system on the server. And it’s way too much content to catch up on because it’s nothing but long ass streams that not everyone can catch live or have the time to go back and watch a vod of. You also mention missing “old” Minecraft but here yall are adding 40 something mods onto the server and adding a life system. Usually if people are talking about missing “old” Minecraft they mean vanilla Minecraft with maybe 1 or 2 mods.

Like just they way the creators are promoting ExposureCraft like they are better than other servers in the past few years when they are doing the exact same thing servers have been doing for the past couple of years rubs me the wrong way. I also looked up the vods for it and the shortest one I found was just under 3 hours long at 2:56, with the longest being almost 10 hours long and the average being 6 1/2 hours.

Just the way the creators have been promoting and talking about ExposureCraft puts me off watching it despite there being several creators on it that I love watching.

[gabriestat]

actually it's so sad that criston cole is overly hated but at the same time who cares. and same with alicole. she doesn't love you and never will but you love her and the thought of her keeps you going through the battlefields. many such cases in life

[royalarchivist]

I'm always so torn between posting full clips of funny moments / important lore moments or splitting them into two parts and cutting some things out, so I want to know your guys' preference:

[icewindandboringhorror]

Everytime I face a new character limit on a website that didn't have them before/used to have really long ones... AUGHHhhh the modern social media world was not made for people like me (lovers of details, rambling, elaboration, thorough explanation, and nuance)

[cavefairy]

You're too tall. That's p mean of you, you should shrink maybe- the kind thing to do.

[The user sending this is a tiny 5ft goblino]

hah. short.

(/j ily goblin <3)

[seaofreverie]

So I actually finished listening to the whole Sparks studio album discography today, with Plagiarism, which I probably would have put off still for an indefinite amount of time, but since that was the last album on the list and the new Sparks era is now imminent... felt fitting to sort of finally listen to that. So I've been thinking of making a (short-ish? lol) post and talking a (little? lol) bit about all the albums I've left off from my Sparkstember writeups because I wasn't familiar enough with them yet at the time. So that the essay collection is completed at last yay. But well yeah, big day I guess, I'm officially all caught up, after... A year and 10 months?! I take my time with things... even if I'm super into them, or maybe especially??

[copper-dragon-in-disguise]

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