Week 4 Blog

Here are the 4 poems I found: The following English sonnet was written by William Shakespeare and is number 18: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/sonnet-examples.html Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. VILLANELLE FOR OUR TIME Frank Scott (1899 - 1985)"Villanelle For Our Time" http://www.scribd.com/doc/51599682/Villanelle-for-our-time From bitter searching of the heart,Quickened with passion and with pain We rise to play a greater part. This is the faith from which we start: Men shall know commonwealth again From bitter searching of the heart. We loved the easy and the smart, But now, with keener hand and brain, We rise to play a greater part. The lesser loyalties depart, And neither race nor creed remain From bitter searching of the heart. Not steering by the venal chart That tricked the mass for private gain, We rise to play a greater part. Reshaping narrow law and art Whose symbols are the millions slain, From bitter searching of the heart We rise to play a greater part. Sestina http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina/ September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house were both foretold by the almanac, but only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child, It's time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. Elizabeth Bishop September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house were both foretold by the almanac, but only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child, It's time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. Elizabeth Bishop Evening Harmony Pantoum - http://poetry.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=poetry&cdn=education&tm=12&f=00&tt=14&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//fleursdumal.org/poem/142 The season is at hand when swaying on its stem Every flower exhales perfume like a censer; Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air; Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo! Every flower exhales perfume like a censer; The violin quivers like a tormented heart; Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo! The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar. The violin quivers like a tormented heart, A tender heart, that hates the vast, black void! The sky is sad and beautiful like an immense altar; The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals... A tender heart that hates the vast, black void Gathers up every shred of the luminous past! The sun has drowned in his blood which congeals... Your memory in me glitters like a monstrance! — William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954) About the reading: I am completely uninformed of these types of poetry and am unsure what to make of them without some explanation of the reasons we were reading these and how they pertain to games. They are different from the kinds of poems I would normally read in that they seem to tell a story. I am interested in finding out more about these types of literature so that I can understand more of how they relate to my gaming experience. The last one stood out in my mind as I am being walked through the description of a plant or flower almost as if the point of the poem is to try and get me to guess which plant it is. It seems that the relation to games in this poem may be to play the part of a detective and figure out the riddle. I may be way off base but that is the direction that this poem seems to take with me in my mind. The poem by Elizabeth Bishop it seems like this is some sort of puzzle of words and layer upon layer you find out how each part of the puzzle relates to the other rain to tears to the almanac and everything between forming a sort of relationship of how they are all intertwined. The Shakespeare poem was a little difficult to understand and I am not sure how to interpret it without analyzing what it means in the first place. The VILLANELLE that I found seems like it kind of rhymes but yet it doesn't, and it seems to repeat words in a way that I personally would not do naturally almost as if the poem is circular in motion. All are interesting and I can't wait to learn more about them and how they came to be. About the game: Started playing braid and it has some aspects of something that might be fun but it seems to torment you as you are playing it. The game teases you with finding pieces of a puzzle when at times they seem impossible to get. This game takes a look again at the time aspect which I do like if I wasn't constantly being mocked that I am not doing the game right. I am not sure if that is the point...to frustrate you... but if it was it worked. I will continue to play and find out if the parts of the puzzle I could not figure out how to get are completely necessary or if they are meant to make you spin your wheels for a while. I got to this one part on what seemed to be a cloud bridge and there was a puzzle beneath me that made me fall. I wasn't sure how to get the two pieces of the puzzle or why I kept falling with no way to get them. This kind of frustrated me and made me not want to play. I don't really know the point yet of the game so I will continue because it is an assignment, but not because I like it.

Week Three Blog

ABOUT THE READING I found the Fretting the Character to be interesting in that it shows the relationship between the player and the game. I never thought of playing a game as being just a person steering a character. I guess that is what you are doing, but I have always thought about it as just playing. The writer kind of lost me when he was talking about the IF, then I realized he was talking about interactive fiction. When he was talking about Book and Volume he said that it was supposed to spark some sense of motivation, but I was not motivated in the slightest. Reading through the script of the game even left me wondering, what is the point? I am a nonconformist anyway, and do not like being confined to what the author has in store for me and what I should do, especially if I have to think and create the environment in my own head. Is Book and Volume a game or a story? When I read Interactive Fiction that is what I found myself asking. I think that if it looks like a story and feels like a story it must be a story. The game doesn’t let you go your own way it has a predefined destination that you need to adhere to. ABOUT THE GAMES I am not a big fan of the whole read and imagine sort of games. In fact this is the first time having engaged such a game first hand. I mean you are simply engaging in text, I can’t even possibly see how anyone would find this fun let alone amusing. There is also this sort of condescending attitude when you do something wrong as if you are an idiot and don’t know how to interact in real life. My mother always taught me If you have nothing nice to say don’t say it at all. I don’t have a whole lot of anything nice to say about this game, so we will leave it at that.

Week Two Blog

ABOUT THE READING

In the introductory note I found it interesting that “THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS” was first translated into French. I think it is neat to see how stories tell a story themselves when you learn about the history of where they came from. I also like how the story was told nightly by Wezir’s daughter which was left unfinished nightly because of the practice of a King who had the habit of killing his wives after the first night. This story in particular is not one that I have read before but it seems like it would be a good read. In the introduction I found it interesting that the messenger prayed and kissed the ground before the King. It is such a different era to see such respect for leaders in such a manor.

ABOUT THE GAMES

I have been trying my best to beat Prince of Persia, as of the time of this blog post I have not been able to beat the part that I am at. I am stuck in this part where I am near a cliff and have to beat about 8 guys or so to move on. I am not sure why this part is so hard but it took me more than ten tries to beat the last part that was similarly difficult. I had the girl with me for the last part and it took me a long time to figure out that I needed to kite the entire time to spread the guys out so they were not all on top of me at the same time. This time it is harder to kite because I am at a cliff and am not sure what strategy to use to get them off me without falling off of the cliff or being pummeled by them all at the same time. I think it is interesting that even the way you get past things in the game involves a time dimension to the game in that your timing has to be right on to move forward.

Week One Blog

ABOUT ME

My name is Israel Soentpet and I am studying for my AAOT .  I want to major in psychology premed in hopes of becoming a psychiatrist some day.  As far as where I am coming from as a gamer, I am a lot more casual as I used to be.  I have spent as much as 4 and a half years playing a single game to as little as maybe 15 min in a week.  Some of the interests that I have had were games such as Dark Age of Camelot, where I have 10 level 50 characters.  I try not to get too involved with the games these days as they can become an addiction.  Most of the time the games I now play are games that I can get in and out of without too much worry of being sucked in.  Leveling a character and maxing the characters statistics is just more involved then I want to get right now.   One of the reasons for taking this class was basically to explore games in a different way and maybe even find a few never played before.

ABOUT THE READING

In the chapter “The Unbearable Lightness of Games," I had never really paid much attention to games as being art.  I had always just seen games at face value, mostly just for their entertainment purposes.  When I stop and think about it in that light though, I can see the many aspects of why it would be considered art.  I mean the graphics alone on any newer game are unimaginable.  I remember playing pong on the Atari and how it was the greatest thing since sliced cheese, but the games and their graphics today with the story lines and all really do take some skill as an artist. 

ABOUT THE GAMES

I really enjoyed getting to know the game The Prince of Persia, the controls are a little difficult especially when trying to climb back and forth from wall to wall.  I really liked the way that the game seemed to be a cross between Tomb Raider and The Matrix.  The game is interesting in that it has the time element, one that I have not seen a lot of in my gaming experience.  Grand Theft Auto IV was alright, it is not as much fun as the other unless I mindlessly wonder about doing crazy stuff.  I really did not have as much of an interest in the story of this game then I did in the other one.  I never really got into the whole robbing and being a thug sort of games.  It is interesting the things that are said on the TV and radio in this game, it doesn’t sound like things a child should hear that is for sure.