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Backloggery Revolution

6/25/2016

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You've probably seen or heard me talk about my Backloggery, where I keep track of my progress through all the video games I own or have played. Since I joined in 2009, I've been using my Backloggery as a means of keeping up with my buying habits—the more unfinished games on my list, the more the completionist in me strives to play what I've purchased, instead of continually going back to my old favorites. Although I've been successful in playing more and buying less, I've also turned my favorite pastime into something of a chore. Too many of the games in my backlog have ended up being long on replay value and short on fun factor, yet I've insisted on playing them to 100% completion. Marking every game on my Backloggery as Complete is a game in itself, and it's one I'm predisposed to playing.

Fortunately, a few of the games I've played since joining The Backloggery have worn down my resolve. Final Fantasy VIII made me question my rigid completionist mentality, and Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls confirmed that I needed to break out of it. Sonic and the Secret Rings empowered me to abandon games I don't like enough to play to any sort of completion, let alone 100%. Today, the Gradius Collection version of Gradius III incited a revolution that's been brewing for a long time: a total shift in how I define 100% completion.

The Backloggery gives you three options for marking a game as finished: Beaten, Completed, and Mastered. The exact meaning of these options varies from one person to the next, but the general consensus is that Completed means you've done everything there is to do in the game, both obvious and secret. Now, there are games in my collection such as Escape Goat, Dragon Warrior III, and Police Quest II where I'm very close to earning Completed status, but I lack the skill or patience to go after whatever I've missed. Then there are games such as Star Fox 64 and Rollercoaster Tycoon where I'm nowhere close, and games such as Star Soldier and Area 51 that aren't even in my collection. By adhering to a strict code of what it means to be Completed, I've saddled myself with a load of Beaten games that have little or no hope of upgrading their status. It kind of defeats the purpose of working so hard toward 100% Backloggery completion if the best I'm likely to achieve is 70%.

Gradius III drove home how futile my approach has been. I know that I'll never be good enough at space shooters to beat any of the Gradius games on the highest difficulty setting (this is not a defeatist attitude; this is statement of fact), so I've adjusted my definition of "Completed" for these games to mean "finished on the highest difficulty setting I can manage." This kind of compromise is not a new one; for example, I prematurely marked Muramasa: The Demon Blade as Completed, because the hardest difficulty setting is so absurd that Mastered would be the only appropriate completion status. What's different about Gradius III is that, more so than the other games in the Gradius Collection, its roots as a quarter-gobbling arcade machine shine through.

Only a game designed to steal your money would be so relentlessly difficult (to the point of being outright cheap) and offer so few checkpoints to compensate. I am stuck on the last checkpoint of the game, and I am tired of spending four minutes slogging through a tedious corridor and beating up on an easy final boss, only to die repeatedly in the last 10 seconds of an overly fast escape sequence that demands incredible reflexes and perfect precision. It is only through abuse of save states that I made it this far, and I am playing on the easiest of nine difficulty modes. The game stopped being fun a long time ago, but I've already beaten the (considerably fairer) SNES port of Gradius III, and I was able to conquer the other games in the collection with enough practice, so the completionist in me is insisting on seeing this game through to the end. I mean, I'm only 10 seconds from beating the game!

No. No I'm not. I'm probably a couple hours from beating the game, if it's possible for me to beat it at all. And even if I win, I can't mark the game as Completed until I've finished it on the next highest difficulty mode as well. I never want to play this game again. This is where I finally draw the line. All the Completed medals in the world aren't worth the pain I've already endured, let alone what's ahead if I stay on this course. I'm changing the rules: this is as far as I care to play, and I'm marking the game as Completed so that I'm never tempted to go back and waste more of my life on this.

My new rules are simple. Beaten means I've reached a good stopping point, but want to keep exploring the game. Completed means I've done everything there is to do, or else everything I have the skill and desire to do, and thus have reached an even better stopping point. The goal of maintaining a Backloggery is to keep playing the games I own, not to get hung up doing something that makes me unhappy. I know; this should be obvious, but that completionist mentality is difficult to shake. To help enforce these new rules, I've gone through my entire game list and updated the status of every game accordingly. Wait until you see this month's Retrospective; the Backloggery section is going to be ridiculous.

I feel better already, like a huge, self-imposed weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Video games are supposed to be fun, and I refuse to let my completionism keep my favorite pastime from being enjoyable anymore.
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A Reflection on a Reflection

6/21/2016

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A couple months ago, I Iooked in the mirror in the morning and saw a ghost of the man I was expecting to see. Pallid, sluggish, slouching, and with frighteningly dark circles under my eyes, I resembled the undernourished children or sad-looking animals you see in those heartbreaking TV commercials asking for donations. The only thing missing was Sarah McLachlin singing about me as I struggled to apply deodorant. "For only 20 minutes of your time, you could send this man to bed a little earlier." I hadn't been taking good care of myself, and this was the visual alarm I needed to bring attention to the matter.

I believe that there are four major kinds of fulfillment that every person needs: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Everyone seeks them from different sources and needs them in different amounts, but they're all equally important. For me, good food, sleeping in on weekends, hugs, taking walks, and the perks of being married (namely, getting to hold my loved one while we're watching TV; I'm not sure what you're thinking of) are how I usually get my physical fix. I get emotional satisfaction from doing a good job of something, helping others, singing, writing, and immersing myself in escapist entertainment. Intellectually, I need to pick things apart and analyze them, apply my creative problem-solving skills, and discuss topics of substance with the people around me. On a spiritual level, I am energized by affirmations that my life is important and is making a difference in the world; I am refreshed by devotionals, Bible studies, and being part of a community that shares my religious faith; and I need the perspectives of people who don't share my beliefs so that I'm better equipped to differentiate truth from Truth. Over the last few years, my priorities have gotten misaligned, and it's only recently that I've realized how neglectful I've been of myself.

This morning, I looked in the mirror and saw that same ghost. I wasn't expecting to see him again so soon; the last couple months have been an exercise in self-care, and I've made it a point to follow a curfew befitting a working adult. But I am not the only factor in my own well-being. I worked a 13-hour day last Thursday, with my only break being 20 minutes to grab a burrito for dinner. On Friday, I worked past midnight. I've had a string of appointments and long car trips (made longer by terrible traffic). Every time I turn on my computer, I see news about another avoidable tragedy, and more evidence that it's unhealthy for this country's election cycle to last so long. Physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, life circumstances have been running me ragged. I've spent the last several days devoting my precious little free time to a regimen of aggressive relaxation, and that's the only reason I haven't cracked yet. That's caregiving 101, right? You can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself.

Through all of this, I've realized that I've been working too hard to take care of myself. There will always be things beyond my control that impact how I feel, but I've put myself in a situation where the negative surprises routinely outweigh the positive. If I really want to take care of myself, and banish that ghost for good, I need to change my circumstances, not keep fighting against them. I need to surround myself with the people and things that build me up, not just seek them out after being beaten down. It's time to make some changes.
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Retrospective: May 2016

6/3/2016

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May was a fantastic month for my online projects, and I've been working on a number of things that won't be ready until at least June or July. For one thing, I started learning FamiTracker so I can try my hand at composing music for a certain semi-secret project that's in the works...

This Website:

Not much in the way of blog posts, but I did spend a lot of time developing various Series Opinions pages, finishing one and bringing several others closer to completion. On a related note, I really need to start including a "last updated" date for each of these so I can remember which ones to list in these Retrospective posts. I'm fairly certain that the majority of opinions I've written have never been mentioned in a Retrospective, on account of finishing them too early in the month to remember to include them. Well, and I also made the decision not too long ago to start highlighting each installment as it gets finished, rather than waiting for the whole category page to be done, so a lot of reviews fell by the wayside there. Poke around; there's plenty to read (and all of it is always subject to change).

- Retrospective: April 2016
- Series Opinions: Star Trek: Generations

GameCola:

By the way, GameCola is back! Again! A couple podcasts we recorded previously finally got their fifteen seconds of fame.

Podcasts:
- GC Podcast #91: Directly Indirect
- GC Podcast #92: The Singing Podcast

YouTube:

A few of the best livestreams I've ever done are preserved for posterity, my last two GameCola Podcasts are now on YouTube, and I finally got around to creating a channel intro video that's beneficial for new viewers, but mostly aimed at my longtime fans. Specifically, the longtime fans who have no idea that my GeminiLaser work is but a tiny portion of what I do in this series of tubes I call home, and especially the ones who assume I must be dead if it's been more than 72 hours since my last video or comment. Also, the video was super fun to assemble, and I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out. The last item on the list isn't technically for YouTube, but I did contribute a short clip to a video put together by Patricia of Old School Lane, whom you may remember as the host of a podcast interview I did at the beginning of 2014. The video itself gets very personal and spans a range of emotions (being at various times serious, silly, depressing, and uplifting), but it's an interesting watch if you've got the time, particularly if you're familiar with Patricia's work. You'll know my clip when you see it.

Flashman85LIVE:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest - Part 1: Contest Results!
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest - Part 2: Judging the Judges
- Mega Man Fangame Sampler #8: Square Root of Negative One, Mavericks, Bon Ball

GCDotNet:
- The GameCola Podcast #91: Directly Indirect
- The GameCola Podcast #92: The Singing Podcast

GeminiLaser:
- An Introduction to GeminiLaser

Old School Lane:
 -Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days?

Games:

May marks the second time this year where a Mega Man level I designed for a contest was released for public consumption. Last time it was the Mega Man Legacy Collection; this time it's Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest, the awkwardly titled fangame comprised of levels from 20 contestants and five judges, all tied together by a hub filled with zany characters. In addition to contributing a level ("Maze of Death"), I had the honor of announcing the contest results via livestream (see above), I designed the logo on the title screen, and I've been an unofficial playtester and copyeditor/writer (you can blame me for most of the instructional text now). My personal stake in the game aside, this is one of my favorite Mega Man fangames yet; it's funny, highly replayable, and a solid challenge. The sheer variety of level designs makes for a unique experience, too; even the levels that aren't so fun to play make for good conversation, and it's interesting to read the judges' reactions to them. The game is free to download, and a multitude of improvements and tweaks have been made since I livestreamed the game. If you're even remotely interested in Mega Man, platformers, or collaborative game design, give this one a look.

- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest

The Backloggery:

It's nice to play games I'm enjoying, and nicer still to stop playing games once I've gotten everything I care to get out of them, even if I haven't beaten them yet. Faced with the reality I will probably never again be able to log into my Desura account to play the one game I have there, I did a little housekeeping.

New:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)
 
Started:
- A Boy and His Blob  (Wii)
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night  (PS)
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
 
Completed:
- Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest  (PC)
 
Removed:
- Star Runner  (Desura)
- You Have to Win the Game  (Steam)

As it turns out, you don't have to win the game.
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