Curiosities for November 2021
A lot of books, an Anime of the Year contender (?), and my Best Game of 2021
Hey friends,
It’s almost the end of the year, and here in the Philippines, it’s the Christmas season! (well, it started last September, but yeah). I’m definitely going to miss participating in Simbang Gabi (Night Masses). It is when we attend Mass during the wee hours of the morning then eat bibingka (baked rice cake topped with cheese) after. Good stuff.
📝 From the blog
It felt like I didn’t write a lot this month. However, I still managed to publish one post—so I’m still on-track with my goal of publishing one blogpost per month. This November, I wrote about spaCy’s project and configuration system:
Also, I’m now working with the folks who built spaCy: so it’s pretty awesome when they let me publish my blogpost in the company blog:
I’ve always been interested in MLOps, especially on how we can build tools to improve a data scientist’s quality-of-life. So it’s cool to solve these problems altogether!
Recently
Wow, I discovered a lot of great things this November. It seems that all my favorites released something at the same time. I’m drowning with all the things I have to watch and read (and play)!
📖 Reading
I’ve been reading a few books here and there. I’m still engrossed with the Dune universe (almost midway through Children of Dune)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: think The Martian + Arrival. It’s the nerd’s time to save the world (again). This time, these nerds are coming from the social sciences department. If Mark Watney survived through his ingenious engineering and botany skills, Ryland Grace has to survive using his understanding of language and anthropology (and Noam Chomsky!).
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: Man, this was a heavy read. But it goes into the idea of how food, geography, and positive feedback loops led to how other societies developed hegemony over the others. It’s a “fun” book that I read from time to time. I haven’t finished it as I’m really taking the time to absorb every detail and understand the nuance of Diamond’s theses. I’ve also been searching for clips of the companion PBS Show, so if you know a source, then ping it my way!
AI Superpowers by Kai-fu Lee: I think that this is a good introduction to how AI is starting to shape our societies today. Truth be told, if you always pay attention to tech news and your Twitter feed (things move so fast!), some of Lee’s theses can be very obvious. However, seeing the broad strokes of how machine learning is affecting nations is still interesting.
This is a good book to juggle with Guns, Germs, and Steel. Back then, food and terrain shaped the course of societies. Now that we’re in the Information Age… it’s still the same lol. Haha, you get what I mean: it’s interesting to apply Diamond’s ideas to these new information-resources Lee talks about. Awesome stuff!
Elements of Style by White and Strunk : I never had a physical copy of this book until now. I bought the one with cute illustrations: the paper feels great so I’m pretty sure that it will last for a very long time.
Also, this is a book that I never appreciated until now. I still suck at prepositions, and my writing still feels sloppy at times. It’s good to have a book that helps me relearn the fundamentals.
📺 Watching
Woohoo! Two shows that pumped me up this November!
Ousama Ranking (Ranking of Kings): Dude, just watch it. It’s a coming-of-age story, where a deaf and mute prince befriends a shadow creature, and they go on a journey to conquer their fears and anxieties. It’s Studio Ghibli + Adventure Time + mature and dark themes. Sh*t, the first few episodes just made me cry—for real! The opening music is great too (it’s King Gnu):
I also enjoyed how sign language was portrayed (the main character is deaf and mute). It’s great that the animators put a lot of effort into these hand signs:
It’s too early to tell, but if they keep up with the pace and story, Ousama Ranking will be a great contender for Anime of the Year.
Arcane (on Netflix): I don’t even play League of Legends (nor DoTA), but Arcane blew me away! Truth be told, I’m still two-thirds in (it has nine, 45-min episodes), but the storytelling, animation, and voice-acting are on point! A LoL player told me that aside from a few references here and there, you’re not missing a lot on Arcane if you don’t play the game.
Definitely one of the best things that came out of Netflix recently, so please watch it!
I am also happy when Arcane announced that there will be a Season 2 in the works. As someone who once tried Legends of Runeterra, I hope that they focus on the story of Lux and Garen next!
(Also, I’m always looking forward to the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Movie this December! I’m pretty sure that the international release will still be on Q1 2022, but I’m gonna muster the remaining Japanese skills I have left to enjoy it hehe. My favorite character is gonna get animated and take the main stage!)
🎮 Playing
This year, I’ve played a lot of coop-games. Here are two of the games I’ve spent most of my time in:
Valheim: this game got popular during the early months of 2021, but I only started playing this last August. Since then, the game got a lot of updates: a food rebalance1, a new mini-boss in a biome, and a new set of armor! There’s nothing more to be said about Valheim—my Steam stats tell me that it’s the game with the highest amount of hours I’ve put in to. Great game. It’s my personal Game of the Year (last year was Celeste).
Deep Rock Galactic: I never knew I’d enjoy first-person shooters. Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) is one of those multiplayer games with a nice and friendly community. You are four space dwarves doing a mining mission, you kill alien bugs, then you all escape to a drop pod while on a timer. The game loop is simple and addicting, but I had some good moments with the community:
I was lost in a cave during the escape sequence and a teammate went out of their way to come back and save me.
Teammates treating me virtual beers after an intense mission.
High-level players helping newbies: you can ask a question in chat and they’ll respond politely, e.g., I didn’t know what to do when you’re low in oxygen and I kept dying at times.
It’s an interesting case study on how a game’s system can actually encourage a group’s behavior. Is it because it’s coop? But why do battle royale games like DoTA / LoL end up a bit toxic even within teams? There seems to be a positive feedback loop in DRG that makes it friendly to play.2
Playing indie games like DRG and Valheim made me appreciate game systems a lot. Also related, if you’re going to design a course on game literacy and / or game design, what will the curriculum look like? What games will you discuss? What concepts will you talk about?
Well, that’s all folks! See you again next month :) Stay safe and take care!
I got so addicted that I even made a simple data viz about it!
Also, is there even a field or journal that is centered on game design? I only learn by watching Mark Brown’s GMTK (which is great by the way, check it out!)