On (My Own) Visual Memory

There are times when I think my memory is deficient.  There are a lot of things that I don't remember that most everyone else does.  Being how I am, I have to think through it all and wonder if there's some pattern or some category of things that I don't remember or some theory I can create...  One of those theories would be that I didn't care about the same things other people did, and so I didn't remember the same things.  And one of those categories could be visual memory.  Or so I thought.

Unfinished Stories (aka Why I may never return to DK Summit)

I know I've left some unfinished stories on my Youtube channel, with the most notable being this one.  I don't regret that I stopped playing DK Summit; I only regret that I tried to go on with the story when I knew I didn't want to.  You see, I never intended to write some endless story, and it wasn't my expectation that I could set a record that would just never be beaten.  Yes, there was supposed to be an end to the story, no matter how good or bad that ending might be.
It started out with getting the world record the first time.  Back then, that was something that seemed almost impossible.  To set a world record in a well contested game with a worldwide leaderboard, now that was something to write a story about.  And then eventually I did get it, and it was like, "Wow, I actually got the world record!!"  And then of course someone else beat it.  But then I got it back, and not only was it that I got the world record once, but I also defended it.  And then some time later the strategy on the course changed significantly.  Then once again, getting the world record looked like something that was really hard to do.  Some of what I had previously learned was now useless, and if I wanted to even be able to compete for the record again, I would have had to learn something new.  And then, despite all that, I got the record again, and reclaimed it a couple times after it was beaten again.  After that, it was less of an amazing feat to reclaim the world record and more of something I believed to be possible.  Certainly not easy, but just not as meaningful as it once was.  I didn't feel like I had anything left to prove.  I was able to set the world record once, get it back after losing it, get it back after the course strategy changed, and get it back again after losing it again.  I fully believed, and I suppose that today I still do, that if I really wanted to get the world record again, I could do it.  It might take some ridiculous effort, long struggles, and a lot of failed attempts, but hey, I went through that before.  The only problem is that it's not my goal to set a world record in Mario Kart anymore.  I'd rather do something different, learn something new, find some area where I have much more potential to improve.  In that way, the story continues on, just not in Mario Kart.  Say what you want: that I ran away or that I gave it up.  Maybe I did, but right now I'm fine with that, and because of that, I may never come back.

As for Street Fighter IV, I did get a lot better at it.  I guess I found out though that, while I had the motivation to play the game, I didn't have the motivation to make videos about it.  Eventually I moved on to other fighting games anyway, and I got a lot better at fighting games in general.

Oh, and I was going to do a series on Starcraft II, but it's probably good that I didn't.

Hard Games and 2 Player Games

That's pretty much all I care to play anymore.  When you're playing a game that's difficult for you, you usually have to learn something new or develop some new skill or ability.  I guess that's one of the things I like most about playing games: that you can keep on learning new concepts and skills, essentially, that you can keep on improving yourself.

I can't connect with others. (Closing points)

Well I'm certainly an introvert, and a pretty extreme one at that.  Dealing with other people almost never seems like something enjoyable to do.  Of course there are exceptions.  I can't say that I've never enjoyed talking with other people, or that there is no one who I enjoy being around.  But still, it's so extreme, like, if I were to say, "Have you ever played some kind of game, a board game, video game, you name it, and enjoyed it?" and you say yes, and then I say, "So, you can see why there are people who could play the same game a hundred hours, or a thousand hours, their entire lives even, because they really enjoy it, right?" and unless you're actually into games you say, "Uh, no not really."

With a quick search you could find out all kinds of stuff about introverts.

Introverts tend to dislike small talk.

Well, I can say that this one fits me.  Most of what could be called "small talk" is stuff that I'm not interested in saying, and not that interested in listening to.  I guess extroverts just ask these questions that other extroverts have long responses to, and they expect people to go on and on with an answer to a question like, "How are you today?" but all I have to say is, "Fine," "Good," or something.  "Well."  If you wanted to know something more, you'd have to ask about it specifically, because all I would really be interested in knowing is stuff like, "Are you still alive with no major injuries and no huge difficulties to face and you haven't won the lottery or anything?" so really that's all I'd be answering.  "I'm still alive and well and I have nothing else to add unless you have something else to ask."

Introverts need time alone to recharge.

 I see this a lot, but I've never seem myself like that.  Maybe if you looked at my "social battery" like a terrible laptop battery, you know, the kind that runs out in a couple minutes, then I could see it.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.

The not shy introverts say that just because you're introverted doesn't mean that you're shy, which is surely true.  But just because there are introverts that aren't shy doesn't mean that all introverts aren't shy.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.

On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

I guess you could say I'm even more accepting of others than most.  I mean, in general I would say that I've got nothing against other people, and I don't care if you don't see the world in the way that I do.  But I probably won't say much to you because I just don't have much to say period.

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

 I've got to believe that this is the best way to talk to introverts.  If you can find what they want to say and show that you're genuinely interested in hearing what it is they want to say, well I'd imagine that it would make for a good conversation.  That would probably be an excellent way to talk to other people in general anyway, introverts or extroverts.
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So, the next thing would be, "What is it that I want to say?"  Well why would I tell you that?  So you can tell me that you don't see the point in talking about something like that?  So you can say, "Oh, thaaat's what it is that you enjoy talking about." in some extremely judgmental tone?

Yeah, I do feel that social anxiety to some extent.  The first paragraph on it in Wikipedia says:

Social anxiety is anxiety (emotional discomfort, fear, apprehension, or worry) about social situations, interactions with others, and being evaluated or scrutinized by other people that is typically characterized by an intense, ego-driven fear of what others are thinking about them (specifically fear of embarrassment, criticism, rejection, etc.), which results in the individual feeling insecure, and that they are not good enough for other people, resulting in intense fear and anxiety in social situations, and the assumption that peers will automatically reject them in social situations.

 I read through it saying, "Yeah, yeah, I guess so," until I get to the part about insecurity and not good enough for other people.  I don't have any doubts about myself, and I would prompt a challenge by saying, "What, you think you're better than me?"  I mean I don't know, surely you are at some thing (you know, like some random thing out there that I'm not that interested in), but I would never consider myself to be "not good enough" for someone.
I don't mind saying that I probably have social anxiety because I've somehow ended up in the ironic position where, if anyone were to say that my way of life or my interests or my desires were just wrong, then a million counterpoints would jump to the forefront of my mind and then I'd actually be making myself feel more at ease instead of making myself worry.  Like, if you actually wanted to make me doubt myself, you'd have to out-logic me (which is already virtually impossible (not because my logic is so good, but because you'd have to find some set of absolute statements which I don't believe exist)), and if I lose some kind of logic battle then it's because I said something that's actually wrong, and it's different being corrected on something that's actually wrong.  Basically it wouldn't be an opinion thing anymore and so I wouldn't be bothered by it.  So yes, I'm saying that if you want to challenge my opinions, go ahead.  In some ways it'd put me at ease, and I have a ton of counters ready, so, good luck.
But the fact of the matter is that it's still there.  I really don't want to hear people telling me how wrong they think my opinion is, and at the same time, I'm not really interested in having my opinion supported.  So not only is there no reason for me to tell other people my opinions, there's actually reason not to.  Which, as you might imagine, greatly limits the amount of things that fall under the category of "things I want to say."
See, I'm virtually always silent on my (very very slight preferences that are so small and vague that they hardly deserve to be called) opinions, so other people really don't know what they are.  Which means that any time a strong negative opinion is expressed on something, it could very well be a strong negative opinion on something that I, you know, care about.  Now with how it is with friends, I'd bet that if, after someone said something like, "Man, who would like something dumb like that?" I said, "Hey, I like that," then the response would go something like, "Well it has this and this which are redeeming qualities," or "Well yeah I guess it's not that bad," etc etc.  Okay, so you were either over-emphasizing the negative points initially (which why would you want to do that?  To make me feel uncomfortable?) or you're softening you're true opinion (which is nice and all, but you already said how you actually feel).  And then the closing point is that, well, maybe I don't actually have an opinion on what you're talking negatively about, but you're still showing that you make negative judgments on people based on their opinions on a given topic, and that almost guarantees that I'll never want to talk to you about my (very very slight preference that is so small and vague that it hardly deserves to be called an) opinion on anything near that topic.  Look it's cool that you have your judgments on things, but I really don't care about making you support what I like, and I really don't want to have to answer questions like, "Well why do you like something like that?" or to have to deal with people saying how awful what I like is.
But it would be how close I am to another person (or, well, every other person that my preference was being expressed to) that would determine how hard it was to express my preference.  And either you were coincidentally similar to me as far as feelings and mindsets and personalities went, or it was a looooong bridge spanning a huuuuge gap.  But, I don't believe any such bridges are truly uncrossable.

The last thing was that it often took me a long time to put together my words.  Sometimes I feel like when people ask me a question I should say, "Wait, give me 15 seconds to organize my thoughts and all, and then maybe I can give a meaningful answer."  And I can already imagine the murmurs of, "Is that a weakness?  A disability?!" and my reply of, "No way, I don't believe in things like that!" as I go on to spend the rest of my life focused on improving my communication skills to show that it was something that could be overcome...  Something like that.

Task performance over time

Have you ever done some task over and over only to find that you were doing worse the more you did it straight?  I think this might be something that happens to a lot of people.  Of course, I don't have much support for that statement, but I don't have much to go against it either.  At any rate, it's something that happens to me sometimes.

This is how I feel I perform when I do the same thing over and over:

It's something I'm interested in for the purpose of doing things like improving game records, but it might apply to a lot of different situations.

Rhythm Lines Update

The game actually turned out as I envisioned it.  I see it as a solid concept for a rhythm game.

Video with me playing the 2 hardest songs so far:


The game has a lot of freedom in where notes can be positioned.  Not as much as you might expect though: you can only have horizontal or vertical lines, and, due to how the information is stored, you can't have horizontal lines unless they connect to the note in another column.  That's not something I'm going to add in either, unless I completely remake the game.  The game and the editor were relatively simple to make specifically because everything was based on the fact that you only need to know the note timings and the columns, and the program will know where to draw the lines.  I could maybe add in diagonal lines, but it'd be tough, and I think the game is fine as it is.
The freedom that the game does have in note placement is good and bad.  It's easy to make a bad chart (have the lines go off the screen or the lines intersect confusingly or go through notes you don't actually hit, etc etc...), but you can also create interesting and challenging patterns, or patterns that are specific to the song.  It can be fun just watching the notes move around, especially on a song like Drum Lines with 4 different simultaneous beats all having notes to go with them.

I changed the scoring.  I knew the old scoring was putting an emphasis on hitting notes, but I didn't realize until I played it how much I personally disliked that type of scoring.  So, being my game, I dropped the point values for the middle ranges, so you can miss a few more notes but get a better score if you did a lot better with your accuracy in general.

Game update

So the game was "playable" after 2.5 days of semi-serious and not that efficient work on it, but I had to type in every note track manually at that point, so I only made a test chart with a couple notes, and then I went to work on an editor.  That took a while but in the end I'm happy with how it looks (it's far from perfect yet but it does work).  So I finished that a few days ago, but then I realized I had to use it to make a chart before I could even play the game...  So I completed a chart two days ago.  For stuff that's still to do, well, there's a results screen, life and a life meter, editor improvements, implementing the song selection screen from Triple Beat into this game (I liked that one and I definitely don't want to make something like that again for a long time), creating high score files and then a file system for everything, and then work to make everything look nicer, minor adjustments and improvements, etc.  Oh and charts for songs.  I suppose that's pretty important too.

Scoring... I guess you could say the scoring I'm using is kind of a "feel-good" scoring.  DDR's scoring is 50% for greats and osu!'s is 33% for greats.  Well I'm giving 80% for greats (may change to 75% though, it was 70% initially).  First, if you're hitting the notes around the right time, I think that's pretty good.  And second, a higher score for greats puts more emphasis on not missing notes.  Then, the low end scores (similar to good and almost in DDR) are worth 30 and 15 points.  There's a way early penalty of -8 and finally a top rating (like DDR's Marvelous) that is worth 100 points, while the perfect rating is 4 less at 96.  The timing for Marvelous is pretty tough, with the hope that it will make a perfect score really difficult.  And that is something I want so that scores will always be improvable, and not so close to perfect that when you miss a single time it's like, "Well now it's just impossible to beat my high score."  What?!  No, I'm not frustrated with osu! or anything!
On the flip side, I intend to make a very insulting difficulty rating.  Hey, if I can nearly fc a song after playing it for a day, then that means it probably shouldn't be rated higher than a medium 4 (on a 0-10 scale) level.  And then easy will be a level that's easy.  For me.  And then I can watch people say "Hey, I'm pretty good at rhythm games so I'll try starting on medium" and then they fail in 5 seconds.  And I'll name the easiest level ultra-beginner with difficulties like .1.  With that said, I can't wait to see the hard and insane levels.

Also, I was going to make a video of what I have or at least take screenshots, but I don't feel like it at the time...  So maybe later.  It actually looks a lot like what I had for the rough drawing of it.