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<h1><a href="http://cheerleader.yoz.com">Yoz Grahame's Unresolvable Discrepancy</a></h1>
<h2>I came here to apologise and eat biscuits, and I'm all out of biscuits</h2>
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<h1><a href="http://cheerleader.yoz.com/2004/02/its-the-pictures-that-got-small.html">It’s the pictures that got small</a></h1>
<small><b>Posted:</b> February 10th, 2004
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<p>Saturday, <a href="http://cialis-price.net" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">hospital</a> <a href="http://cialis-forsale24h.com/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">treatment</a> midnight, Soho. Bob and I are in the arcade halfway down Wardour Street, eyeing up the various dancing games. Although we’ve tried most of them, we know there’s really only one we get along with: the king of <a href="http://www.bemanifever.com/" title="Short for 'Beatmania' - music/rhythm-oriented">bemani</a> games, <a href="http://www.ddrfreak.com/aboutddr.php"><b>Dance Dance Revolution</b></a>. Two women in their late-twenties are working through the beginner mode, and they’re doing pretty well. We’re wondering if we can edge in for the next game, but three guys place pound coins on the ridge above the controls – damn! Well, hopefully they won’t be long. But they look like they mean business…</p>
<p>When the two women finish, they ask the guys if they should be playing winner-stays-on – “Is that how you play around here?” – but eventually they settle on two of the guys taking over. And it’s just as well: they set the difficulty level on “HEAVY” and suddenly the screen is chock-full of arrows and “PERFECT!” and the machine is yelling “You’re doing GREAT!” and just trying to watch their feet is making me dizzy. It’s only during the break in between stages that I note that one of two guys is wearing a t-shirt with the four DDR arrows on the front and “DDR NORWAY” on the back. Ah-<i>ha</i>.</p>
<p>While he’s taking a break from the machine I discover that his name is Kim and that over the past two years he’s spent a total of two thousand pounds on DDR, just money pumped into the machine. “No, wait… <i>five</i> thousand by now. Whoah! That’s a lot of money. But now I don’t spend as much because I usually play for free at work, when I can.” His employer is the sole distributor of DDR machines in Norway.</p>
<p>I ask about the t-shirt. “<a href="http://www.ddrnorway.no/">We’re</a> a group of DDR players in Norway.” Do they play other bemani games? “No, just DDR.” He points to the guy he was playing with, now off the machine and chatting to his girlfriend. “He’s from Sweden, he has a DDR group there too.” The machine is now in the control of the third chap, a large-ish bloke with shoulder-length hair. “He has a group in France, but they play all kinds of music games.” Do you guys play competitively? “Sometimes… like tomorrow. It’s why we’re all here – <a href="http://www.ddruk.com/postview.php?post=72385">there’s a big contest at the Namco arcade in Westminster</a>. There’ll be players from four different countries. It’s pretty big.”</p>
<p>The Frenchman’s name is Benoit and he’s president of <a href="http://www.m-games.org/">M-Games</a>, a non-profit collective of bemani gamers who’ve received occasional sponsorship from Konami, the producers of DDR. I ask him what particular games they play. “DDR, Beatmania, Pop’n Music, Guitar Freak… hang on…” He reaches for his jacket, pulls out a wad of paper, unfolds it and shows me a list of games spanning four A4 pages. Quite a lot of games, then. (Kim, meanwhile, has reclaimed the machine – he’s now playing across both player areas, with the arrows going invisible halfway up the screen. He’s still doing irritatingly well.) So how did he get involved? “I got dumped!” Oh no! “Yep – it was about a year ago, and I was so depressed I started playing DDR for five hours a day to keep myself distracted.” He moves his hands out a few inches from his belly. “That’s where I was a year ago.”</p>
<p>Kim, similarly, lost ten kilos as a result of DDR. I ask him about his general fitness while he’s leaning over the bar, panting. “It’s much better than it was before.” How long are his DDR sessions, on average? “Two to three hours. Longest has been eight or nine. But I got into London on Wednesday and I’ve been playing pretty much non-stop – I’m exhausted!” I ask about the contest again: will there be <a href="http://www.ddrfreak.com/library/tips-performance.php?name=pakwan" title="Playing for an audience, using as many stylish tricks as possible">freestyling</a> there? “The main contest is straight DDR for points, but there’ll be some exhibitions too. You should come along! It’s at Namco Station, on the opposite side of the Thames from Big Ben… near the Millennium Wheel. Starts at ten AM.”</p>
<p>Eventually the experts head off (Benoit gives me his card before he goes, asking me to put my sister in touch regarding the karaoke game she’s working on at <a href="http://www.scee.com/" title="Sony Computer Entertainment Europe">SCEE</a>) leaving Bob and I with the DDR machine. We start a game on the “LIGHT” setting. We feel rather silly.</p>
<p>Saturday, <a href="http://cialis-forsale24h.com/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">treatment</a> midnight, Soho. Bob and I are in the arcade halfway down Wardour Street, eyeing up the various dancing games. Although we’ve tried most of them, we know there’s really only one we get along with: the king of <a href="http://www.bemanifever.com/" title="Short for 'Beatmania' - music/rhythm-oriented">bemani</a> games, <a href="http://www.ddrfreak.com/aboutddr.php"><b>Dance Dance Revolution</b></a>. Two women in their late-twenties are working through the beginner mode, and they’re doing pretty well. We’re wondering if we can edge in for the next game, but three guys place pound coins on the ridge above the controls – damn! Well, hopefully they won’t be long. But they look like they mean business…</p>
<p>When the two women finish, they ask the guys if they should be playing winner-stays-on – “Is that how you play around here?” – but eventually they settle on two of the guys taking over. And it’s just as well: they set the difficulty level on “HEAVY” and suddenly the screen is chock-full of arrows and “PERFECT!” and the machine is yelling “You’re doing GREAT!” and just trying to watch their feet is making me dizzy. It’s only during the break in between stages that I note that one of two guys is wearing a t-shirt with the four DDR arrows on the front and “DDR NORWAY” on the back. Ah-<i>ha</i>.</p>
<p>While he’s taking a break from the machine I discover that his name is Kim and that over the past two years he’s spent a total of two thousand pounds on DDR, just money pumped into the machine. “No, wait… <i>five</i> thousand by now. Whoah! That’s a lot of money. But now I don’t spend as much because I usually play for free at work, when I can.” His employer is the sole distributor of DDR machines in Norway.</p>
<p>I ask about the t-shirt. “<a href="http://www.ddrnorway.no/">We’re</a> a group of DDR players in Norway.” Do they play other bemani games? “No, just DDR.” He points to the guy he was playing with, now off the machine and chatting to his girlfriend. “He’s from Sweden, he has a DDR group there too.” The machine is now in the control of the third chap, a large-ish bloke with shoulder-length hair. “He has a group in France, but they play all kinds of music games.” Do you guys play competitively? “Sometimes… like tomorrow. It’s why we’re all here – <a href="http://www.ddruk.com/postview.php?post=72385">there’s a big contest at the Namco arcade in Westminster</a>. There’ll be players from four different countries. It’s pretty big.”</p>
<p>The Frenchman’s name is Benoit and he’s president of <a href="http://www.m-games.org/">M-Games</a>, a non-profit collective of bemani gamers who’ve received occasional sponsorship from Konami, the producers of DDR. I ask him what particular games they play. “DDR, Beatmania, Pop’n Music, Guitar Freak… hang on…” He reaches for his jacket, pulls out a wad of paper, unfolds it and shows me a list of games spanning four A4 pages. Quite a lot of games, then. (Kim, meanwhile, has reclaimed the machine – he’s now playing across both player areas, with the arrows going invisible halfway up the screen. He’s still doing irritatingly well.) So how did he get involved? “I got dumped!” Oh no! “Yep – it was about a year ago, and I was so depressed I started playing DDR for five hours a day to keep myself distracted.” He moves his hands out a few inches from his belly. “That’s where I was a year ago.”</p>
<p>Kim, similarly, lost ten kilos as a result of DDR. I ask him about his general fitness while he’s leaning over the bar, panting. “It’s much better than it was before.” How long are his DDR sessions, on average? “Two to three hours. Longest has been eight or nine. But I got into London on Wednesday and I’ve been playing pretty much non-stop – I’m exhausted!” I ask about the contest again: will there be <a href="http://www.ddrfreak.com/library/tips-performance.php?name=pakwan" title="Playing for an audience, using as many stylish tricks as possible">freestyling</a> there? “The main contest is straight DDR for points, but there’ll be some exhibitions too. You should come along! It’s at Namco Station, on the opposite side of the Thames from Big Ben… near the Millennium Wheel. Starts at ten AM.”</p>
<p>Eventually the experts head off (Benoit gives me his card before he goes, asking me to put my sister in touch regarding the karaoke game she’s working on at <a href="http://www.scee.com/" title="Sony Computer Entertainment Europe">SCEE</a>) leaving Bob and I with the DDR machine. We start a game on the “LIGHT” setting. We feel rather silly.</p>
<p>
… <a title="Slipping and sliding" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3440403.stm">let it snow</a>, <a href="http://buy-viagra.net/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">diet</a><br />
<a title="MyDoom, hitting me at 100 an hour" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3432639.stm">let it</a><br />
<a title="Oh, and we got hacked" href="http://status.j-colo.net/">snow</a>,<br />
<a title="BBC shows the govt what to do when caught out" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2003/david_kelly_inquiry/default.stm">let it</a><br />
<a title="b3ta comes up trumps" href="http://b3ta.com/board/2688682">snow</a>.”</p>
<p><a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/">BBC Four</a><br />
had “Computer Night” tonight, <a href="http://viagra-order-online.com/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">urologist</a> which consisted of a half-hour overview<br />
of the evolution of the PC (very UK 8-bit focused, which was cool for a<br />
nostalgia freak like myself, but it was all a bit speedy) and another<br />
half hour of <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.joystick101.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001/1/16/174911/133">Stephen Poole</a> looking smug in between various people who should have known better, of which more later. These two were preceded by <b>TETRIS: From Russia With Love</b>,<br />
an hour-long documentary following the story of the game’s origins in<br />
the Moscow Academy of Sciences and the various shenanigans along the<br />
way to becoming one of the most popular games ever.
</p>
<p><a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/tetris.shtml">As the director explains</a>,<br />
the programme focuses on the people who brought the game to the outside<br />
world and the lengthy rights battles that involved. There was much<br />
dramatisation of the differences between Cold War Russia and the<br />
Western games industry (initially overplayed, but ultimately justified)<br />
and the key personalities were well represented – especially Evgeni<br />
Belikov, who starts off as a potential villain but ends up as one of<br />
the heroes of the piece. And in the middle of it all, charming,<br />
innocent and happy despite the almost total lack of royalties, is <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Pajitnov">Pajitnov</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the genuinely fascinating drama around the sales rights, I<br />
couldn’t help but be frustrated at the obvious pieces missing from the<br />
programme. Nothing at all was made of the <i>huge</i> impact that<br />
Tetris has had on games. Similarly, when starting the tale about<br />
Nintendo’s quest to license it as the Gameboy’s bundled game, the<br />
momentousness of the nomination itself is completely ignored. (Though<br />
it’s later explained that, through Gameboy sales alone, over 70 million<br />
Tetris carts were produced.)</p>
<p>Still, it’s well worth catching on the <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/listings/index.shtml?day=today&service_id=4544">repeats</a><br />
(tonight at 11:30, and at various other times this week) or via<br />
BitTorrent when it eventually shows up. For a potted history of the<br />
saga, see <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030603224421/http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/special/tetrishist.html">this page</a> from the old AtariHQ.com site.</p>
<p>… so onto Stephen Poole’s <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/listings/programme.shtml?day=monday&filename=20040209/20040209_2230_4544_4613_30"><b>Trigger Happy</b></a> show, <a href="http://viagra-order-online.com/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">prostate</a> which was basically a presentation of the “Computer games are serious valid culture, y’know!” argument, with <strike>the usual suspects</strike><br />
such luminaries as Peter Molyneux, Jez San and Prof. Susan “Over here,<br />
Melvyn!” Greenfield. To be fair, I thought that including <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.julianopie.com/index.htm">Julian Opie</a> was a great idea, but this was countered by some of the cinema-centric nonsense being spouted by <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,6900/">Charles Cecil</a> (who really should know better) and Sir David Puttnam (representing BAFTA, hosting their first <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.bafta.org/events/eventscalendar_ifestival.htm">Interactive Festival</a> this month).</p>
<p>In the midst of the usual discussion about games and narrative,<br />
Puttnam managed to inadvertently trash the history of computer games so<br />
far when he said that the equivalent of DW Griffith’s “Birth Of A<br />
Nation” probably wouldn’t appear for another ten years. I don’t know<br />
which games he’s been playing (though I’d guess at Solitaire and the<br />
occasional bit of Minesweeper) but I think that games got to that point<br />
twenty years ago with – forgive me – <i>Elite</i>. If Griffith took the giant step forward to show the massive narrative scope that the screen could offer the viewer, then <i>Elite</i><br />
was, if not the first, then amongst the first to show the fictional<br />
universes that computer games could contain and the freedom they could<br />
offer the player in creating their own compelling narrative experiences<br />
– a freedom that gamers had only recently begun to experiment with in <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>.</p>
<p>The problems of sticking to a strict narrative path while still producing an enjoyable creation are among games’ <i>strengths</i>,<br />
not their weaknesses. More than ever, I’m realising that the best games<br />
are the ones that combine a compelling challenge/reward structure with<br />
as much freedom as the designers can possibly provide. We want as much<br />
control of our virtual lives and life-stories as we can get – the huge<br />
popularity of MMORPGS is testament to that. Probably the most<br />
satisfying aspect of <a title="Link outside of this blog" href="http://www.vicecity.com/"><i>Vice City</i></a><br />
was the ability to completely ignore the storyline and go off to take<br />
part in street races, commit random armed robbery or deliver pizzas for<br />
a couple of hours, all the while enjoying the radio stations and being<br />
happy in the knowledge that all of this was still contributing to my<br />
score. (I could go on about <i>The Sims</i> and <i>Deus Ex</i>, but I think you get my drift. Besides, <a title="Link to another page in this blog" class="blines2" target="_blank" href="http://cheerleader.yoz.com/archives/000041.html">I’ve done most of this before</a>.)</p>
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</div><div class="block pinboard-1 widget_pinboard"><h3><a href="http://pinboard.in/u:yoz" class="pinboard_title_link">yoz's bookmarks</a></h3><ul class="pinboard"><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="https://medium.com/writers-on-writing/391af294481a" class="pinboard-link">How to win a grant</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2013/07/22 18:17:48">2013/07/22</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">"Skip the long-winded argument on why your idea—your life’s work—deserves institutional support, and instead do this:"</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.upworthy.com/bullies-called-him-pork-chop-he-took-that-pain-with-him-and-then-cooked-it-into" class="pinboard-link">Bullies Called Him Pork Chop. He Took That Pain With Him And Then Cooked It Into This.</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2013/04/12 21:03:33">2013/04/12</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">Amazing multi-artist video for Shane Koyczan's poem about being bullied.</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/mario/" class="pinboard-link">learnfun and playfun: A general technique for automating NES games</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2013/04/11 21:45:55">2013/04/11</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">Algorithmically analysing recorded gameplay and in-memory value increments to ascertain scoring techniques. The video is fantastic and funny, and the algorithm finds some useful bugs in the games.</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://devblog.bu.mp/how-we-use-redis-at-bump" class="pinboard-link">How we use Redis at Bump - Bump Dev Blog</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/07/16 19:23:38">2011/07/16</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">How Redis became Bump's Swiss Army Knife to solve all kinds of data-related problems</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2011/6/28/the_new_heroku_4_erosion_resistance_explicit_contracts/" class="pinboard-link">Heroku | The New Heroku (Part 4 of 4): Erosion-resistance & Explicit Contracts</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/06/29 23:12:29">2011/06/29</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">Fascinating description of how Heroku's recent changes are aimed at killing software erosion (or what I think of as "bitrot").</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-HTML-JS-DOM-CSS-hacks-that-most-web-developers-dont-know-about" class="pinboard-link">What are the most interesting HTML/JS/DOM/CSS hacks that most web developers don't know about? - Quora</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/06/17 03:28:20">2011/06/17</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">Marvellous collection of JS, CSS & HTML hacks. Did you know you can get the browser to parse a URL or escape HTML for you, with existing JS functions? (via gnat)</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://avatarsinmotion.blogspot.com/" class="pinboard-link">Avatars In Motion</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/05/21 03:34:46">2011/05/21</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">"This blog is to show all the beauty you can find in Second Life." Gorgeous photography of great SL locations. (via Hamlet)</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.develop-online.net/features/1192/Gabe-Newell-on-Valve" class="pinboard-link">Gabe Newell on Valve | Game development | Features by Develop</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/05/14 05:42:12">2011/05/14</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">Great, inspirational interview on how they hire and organise.</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.quora.com/Rebekah-Cox/Design-Quora-Web2-0-Expo-Presentation" class="pinboard-link">Design @ Quora (Web2.0 Expo Presentat... by Rebekah Cox - Quora</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/05/03 20:56:56">2011/05/03</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">"Great design is all the work you don't ask the people who use your products to do."</span></li><li class="pinboard-item"><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1746447/qa-with-david-kelley-of-ideo" class="pinboard-link">David Kelley on Designing Curious Employees | Fast Company</a> <span class="pinboard-timestamp"><abbr title="2011/04/20 12:25:02">2011/04/20</abbr></span><br /><span class="pinboard-desc">"In this interview, he explains why leaders should seek understanding rather than blind obedience, why it’s better to be a coach and a taskmaster and why you can’t teach leadership with a PowerPoint presentation."</span></li></ul></div><div class="block text-392392802 widget_text"><h3>yoz on twitter</h3> <div class="textwidget"><div id="twitter_div">
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