--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 032
+title: Your worth to humanity
+excerpt: A thought experiment on the Renaissance man.
+date: January 2, 2015
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: asphalt
+---
+
+We often consider ourselves to be exceptional[^1], in the sense that we have
+unique qualities which cannot be found in any individual. Moreover, we are
+built this way, this feature is what separates the individual from its society
+and we might even say that it is useful in the Darwinian sense, i.e. people
+with useful exceptional traits are much more likely to survive. In all fairness
+though, most people have two strands of DNA, two hands, two legs, two eyes, a
+pair of lungs, one heart and one brain, which is anything but exceptional.
+
+Having said that, I'm inclined to believe that the reverse line of reasoning
+also holds: given an abstract, spherical human, there are those qualities which
+hold the essence of his or her humanity and which make them anything but
+exceptional. Now, given a concrete human, say, you, what are these qualities
+and how many of them do you possess? Uncoincidentally, the philosophical domain
+called humanism[^2] studies such aspects as human nature, agency and
+rationality, and so the thought of discussing such already well-established
+concepts is far from me.
+
+I will instead provide you with the following thought experiment. Imagine that
+a day from now a so-called apocalypse comes and everyone dies; that is,
+everyone except you and a handful of children, enough to repopulate the Earth.
+Other than that, the planet itself remains mostly in the same state as the day
+before, so you have access to mostly everything, so the initial conditions for
+the survival of civilization aren't all that bad. All you have to do is educate
+the children and help them become humans in the true sense of the word: agents,
+not animals, people who will lead the new humanity to its prosperity.
+
+Given this rather bleak context, you would have to ask yourself, what are the
+qualities that make you human? You obviously need more than what's now called
+"general knowledge": language, philosophy, history, geography, mathematics,
+physics, you need to have a grasp of all these. It's not that you need to know
+them[^3], but you need to understand as much of them as needed to ensure that
+future generations will use them the proper way, so that they will be able to
+distinguish technology from magic, virtues from vices, humans from animals.
+We've fallen into the dark ages before, but this time it'll be quick, so how
+much of the human civilization can you carry onwards? How much of the *homo
+universalis* is there in you?
+
+In other words, what is your worth to humanity?
+
+[^1]: Just like everyone else.
+
+[^2]: Yes, I am discussing the branch of philosophy, not the belief system, not
+the political doctrine. These may be relevant in other contexts, but not here,
+not now.
+
+[^3]: I hate to break it to you, but it is in fact precisely that.
--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 033
+title: The Blackwell series
+date: January 25, 2015
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: gaming
+---
+
+<p style="text-align: right">
+*So a ghost walks into a bar...*
+</p>
+
+Wadjet Eye Games are a small indie game company focused on developing and
+publishing a kind of games you don't see very often nowadays, that is,
+classical point and click adventures. Surely, I'm a nostalgic prick and an old
+fart, but newer titles such as [Broken Age][broken-age] and [The Walking
+Dead][walking-dead] don't fit the bill; they're certainly not what I'm
+personally expecting from a so-called "classical" adventure game, and that is
+less shiny and "immersive" stuff and more storytelling.
+
+<span class="imgleft"><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-01.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-01-thumb.png"
+title="The first episode of Rosa, before Joey."/></a></span>
+As far as Wadjet Eye go, I've already played, in a somewhat chronological
+order, Gemini Rue, Primordia and Resonance, so I'm more or less familiar with
+the quite distinct visual style they employ: most of the games are created
+using the [Adventure Game Studio][ags] engine, while the art is pixelated and
+as far as I can tell 16-bit, making it very similar to '90s titles. Developed
+and published over the course of eight years, the Blackwell games are a very
+good measure of the company's evolution in time, as one of Dave Gilbert's
+(Wadjet Eye's founder) first creations.
+
+The universe where the series takes place is a typical contemporary fantasy
+setting: events span about fifty years, starting sometime in the 20th century
+and ending nowadays, in New York, where, probably not coincidentally, Wadjet
+Eye Games are also based. The game's main protagonist, although not necessarily
+a playable character, is Joey Mallone, a ghost somehow destined to be companion
+to so-called "mediums" whose job consists mainly of bringing ghosts into the
+afterlife, but also other epic stuff, as is seen in the game.
+
+<span class="imgright"><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-05.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-05-thumb.png"
+title="Lauren, before Rosa. Jazz."/></a></span>
+The game's other main protagonist is for the most part Rosangela Blackwell, the
+exception being Unbound, which focuses on Lauren, Rosa's aunt. And thus the
+games' story evolves from "look ma, I'm a psychic!" to conspiracies and events
+spanning "the universe", fortunately without going into much detail regarding
+either conspiracies or "the universe", which would have probably made the story
+arcs much cheaper in my opinion.
+
+One of the interesting things about the games is that they don't go too much
+into the main characters' internal issues, although they do subtly emphasize
+them: Rosa's an introvert by the way she speaks to people; Lauren's a heavy
+smoker; Joey is, or rather was the typical man of the '30s, with his hat and
+tie and attitude toward "broads". However, the supporting characters are often
+portrayed in an excellent manner: the Deacon is a sinner only because he
+himself believes so; Joseph Mitchell is the journalist archetype; Tanya Corsey
+is split between her actual and her old self; Lauren's ghost is tired and
+apathetic, her soul supposedly crushed by all the insanity and the medication.
+
+<span class="imgleft"><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-02.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-02-thumb.png"
+title="A hallway of Convergence."/></a></span>
+The Blackwell Legacy, created initially as a free game called Bestowers of
+Eternity, is probably the least interesting game in the series: Rosa Blackwell
+becomes haunted by Joey and works on her first case and that's all; I'm
+guessing that this was created as a starting point for the rest of the games,
+otherwise it's not a very good game standing by itself. Unbound, actually a
+prequel, is on the other hand a huge step forward in terms of storytelling, as
+it begins the Countess arc, leading to Convergence as a bridge between the
+Countess arc and the Madeline arc. Finally, Deception opens an unfinished
+conspiracy arc, while Epiphany brings closure for the Madeline arc and the
+entire series. I won't go into details regarding each of the stories, but I'll
+mention that I've had a sense of continuity going through all the games almost
+at once, which made the overall experience pleasant enough.
+
+<span class="imgright"><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-03.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-03-thumb.png"
+title="Joey, a ghost in the dark bowels of Deception."/></a></span>
+What I didn't like about the story is that, unlike good dramatic art, and more
+like comedy and whatnot, it doesn't amount to much. The story's universe
+doesn't change fundamentally from the beginning of Legacy to the end of
+Epiphany, although, as some of the characters remark, New York is always
+changing and it's hard to recognize it from one decade to another; other than
+that, we're left with Joey, who's now a human, and without Rosa, and while this
+void is certainly interesting, it falls more into the manga-esque open, often
+dry, endings and less into the Western drama, which usually leaves us with some
+meaning to it all. As far as the universe at large goes, the game returns at
+the initial state where the universe at large is an unknown incomprehensible by
+the human mind.
+
+However, I enjoyed the fact that the story remains very much in a "realistic"
+setting, without resorting to any crappy mystical stuff, i.e. he's a ghost and
+she's a more or less ordinary human, and all the "energetic", "aura"
+pseudo-science doesn't matter too much here. At least that's how most of the
+story goes, and the story can be brought to an end without caring too much
+about the mumbo-jumbo.
+
+<span class="imgleft"><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-08.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-08-thumb.png"
+title="Epiphany."/></a></span>
+Finally, I must say that I enjoyed the music very much, especially because most
+of it is jazz, but not only that. The songs add quite a lot to the atmosphere
+and provide to be a good counterbalance to the less masterfully executed parts,
+especially in the first games. As I was previously saying, I can only guess
+that making the Blackwell games has in time provided Dave Gilbert with enough
+experience so that at least the last two are more than pleasant. At the end of
+the day I can't say that I'm left with a memorable piece, certainly not as good
+as Primordia or Gemini Rue, but it was one that I'd play again some day, if
+only to experience stories of lost ghosts again.
+
+Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to what other neat stuff Wadjet Eye Games have
+to pull out of their hats.
+
+<span><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-04.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-04-thumb.png"
+title="Row, row, row your boat."/></a></span>
+<span><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-06.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-06-thumb.png"
+title="One ghost, two ghosts."/></a></span>
+<span><a href="/uploads/2015/01/blackwell-07.png"> <img
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2015/01//blackwell-07-thumb.png"
+title="Rosa and Lauren, admiring the universe's forever-ness."/></a></span>
+
+[broken-age]: /posts/y00/024-broken-age.html
+[walking-dead]: /posts/y01/029-the-walking-dead.html
+[ags]: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
projects / thetarpit.git / commitdiff
