In Case You Missed It, #1
An idea I’ve had for a long time while contributing to Saate.net is making a regular feature called “In Case You Missed It,” where any time I think of things I’ve seen, or run into new things, that I think are interesting or at least very much worth your time, I could just make a little collection and comment on them. Well, I unfortunately haven’t been writing them all down, but here’s some to get you started:
Pretending You Care: The Retail Employee’s Handbook: I’m about to lay down something that’s going to sound like hyperbole, but let me assure you, it isn’t. This is the greatest fucking book I’ve ever read. EVER. It has been a personal bible to me ever since I read it about two years ago, and I have recommended it to almost everybody I’ve met.
Norm Feuti does a comic strip called Retail that’s nationally syndicated, and it is born out of his own experiences working mall retail both as an employee and as a manager for many years. Suffice to say, everything anyone who’s ever worked retail has to say has been concisely written down in that book. Honestly, it should be mandatory reading for every human being in the developed world, or at least countries where the concept of retail exists. This book very much explains WHY you should never talk to me about “big business” and “corporate America,” because it’s 300 pages of all the reasons both of them are a personal Hell to everyone involved.
It’s painful how amazingly true every last detail in the book is, but for anyone who’s had to suffer the misfortune of the experience, it’s impossible not to laugh out loud while reading it.
Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! Numbers: For those of you who’ve never heard of these guys (are they known in Australia?), they’re a relatively famous pair of magicians in Las Vegas. They have kind of a Jay and Silent Bob thing going, where Teller is mute and Penn speaks at great length, often going on long rants. They had a long-running show on Showtime called Bullshit!
The show was unabashedly liberal and obviously biased (they made no secret of that fact, either), but it was an incredibly entertaining show nonetheless, and it brought up interesting points of thought.
That segment happens to be one of my favorites from their show. It’s a brief discussion on the psychology of how numbers “make sense” to all of us. That is, if someone says 1 million to you, and then says 10 million, most people don’t really comprehend what they mean. They’re just “a big fucking number.” After I saw the episode that segment is from, it was very surprising how often you see large numbers tossed around in day-to-day life that, when you pause to think about it, don’t really mean anything to you in the sense of truly comprehending them.
The Company of Myself: This is by no means a new game, and I imagine a great deal of people have probably played it already, but that’s why this segment is called “In Case You Missed It.”
The Company of Myself is a flash game that has a unique premise to it, or at least I’ve never heard of it being used in any other game. The first few levels start out as basic platformers, but you’re quickly introduced to a mechanic of “shadow copies.” Basically, every time you start a new level, every move and action you make is recorded. When you hit spacebar, a ghost will appear, doing exactly what was just recorded. You have to work with this ghost in order to get through the various levels.
For example, the first time you encounter this mechanic, there’s a cliff that’s too high to jump up. However, if you walk yourself to the cliff’s bottom, then hit spacebar, your ghost will also walk to the cliff’s bottom. You can then jump on the ghost’s head, which gives you enough leverage to then jump up the cliff.
It’s a very entertaining game of logic and fantastic practice in forward-thinking. You have to figure out what you need to do in order to help yourself later, and it’s hysterical how quickly you can get frustrated because you are unable to work with.. Well, you. For example, there’s a lever that requires your shadow copy to pull a series of levers in order to remove a series of walls – the catch is, the lever also removes the current platform you’re standing on. This means you have to time your jumps such that the lever is pulled while you are in mid-air, which means you have to setup some way to communicate to yourself when you’re going to pull each lever.
There’s some interesting critique about the game’s narration, as well. Like some others, I immediately connected with the sentiments of the opening monologue. “I’ve been alone for a long time, but I’m used to it. One of my two passions, however, is performing – even when I don’t connect with others, I find I’m very comfortable getting in front of them and performing or making them laugh.” Some people who reviewed the game commented that most introverts probably empathize with that sort of thinking.
However, the ending to the game seems to suggest something very negative about introverted people as a result. I won’t spoil it for you, though.
Auto-tune The News: A user on Youtube has taken various news clips, then added music and used auto-tune to make the people in the news clips appear as if they are singing along to the music. The most famous of these is probably the “Bed Intruder Song” (hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife…), but I’m also a fan of Auto-tune the News #6: Palin Quits (Hell No, Hell No, Hell NooOooO!)
Super Mario World: The Impossible Levels: If you never played Super Mario World for the SNES, you probably won’t get what’s so hysterical about these videos. Somebody made a hacked ROM version of the game involving levels that are one step below impossible to beat, and they’re a mix of difficult maneuvers and puzzle-solving in order to finish them. In order to get from one part of a level to the next, you often have to use some interesting mechanic that people used to use in the game (for example, jumping into the air with a yoshi, then dismounting at the top of the jump for a “double jump”).
What’s really funny is for those people who played the game enough that they could almost finish it with their eyes closed – some very familiar sections of the level have been designed to kill people who do them the typical way. For example, in the world on the left of the start screen, in the normal game, as you run to the right side of the screen, a giant Bullet Bill appears, and most people will simply jump on top of it. Well, in this version, at the exact spot everybody always jumps at, there’s now an invisible block that will appear and kill you.
For a lot of people, these are really just videos of levels that look incredibly frustrating, but to those of you who are very familiar with Super Mario World, they are fall-out-of-your-chair-laughing awesome. The biggest reason is that the guy who made that video and this one of level 2 has a fantastic sense of comedic timing with his editing.
Factory Balls 2: The last I’ve got for you today is a game called Factory Balls 2. The first one’s fun, too, but the second one’s better. This is a logic game where you are presented with a blank white ball and some materials. The goal is to use those materials to make your ball look exactly like the one on the box. For example, to make a blue ball with a green stripe, you might dunk a white ball in a bucket of blue paint, then use green tape around the center. To make a ball covered in grass, you’d put some seeds on a white ball, then use the watering can on it a couple times.
So that’s it for In Case You Missed It #1. If you guys have some interesting or cool things you’ve seen around the web, feel free to send me an e-mail at Zevia@Saate.net, and I’ll post them to the next one.
So, uh, I’m the dude who made The Company of Myself. I’m really impressed with how well you’ve deconstructed the game! The bits that you consider good or bad line up with how I view the game perfectly. You also describe some of the mechanics in better ways than I’ve been able to, which impressed the hell out of me. Keep up the good work!
Well, let me tell you, my primary complaint with Company of Myself was the same complaint I had with Portal:
This is so cool that it needs to be a lot longer.
Kind of surprised to hear back from you, though! I was under the impression this was a pretty well-known game, so I’d think it strange that such a (relatively) small site as this one would grab your attention.
You a regular reader, or is someone you know?
Loved this.
Keep them coming!
Bullshit is still on. And i know most the world has a different definition of liberal, but from the American use of the word, they are Libertarian or Minarchist. In fact Penn is a self proclaimed Libertarian and tends to hate on all things liberal.
Also, check out his online show Penn Point.
“The Company of Myself” reminds me a whole lot of the game called “Braid”, where you have to solve puzzels too like that, but only abit later in the game. In Braid you can reverse time if you make a mistake, but reversing the time also makes the only way to solve the puzzle :) You can read about it here: http://braid-game.com/ And you can find the demo on steam.
If you really like “The Company of Myself”, braid will most likely also be a game you will enjoy alot!