A few months ago, I was discussing with Timlah from Geekout South-West about interesting series ideas for The Mental Attic and his own site. For TMA he recommended I did writing challenges, a simple task with the winners having their work published on The Mental Attic and perhaps receiving a second prize. After much thought, I’ve decided now is the time to do this. Continue reading Fiction Challenge – Song Story
Tag: music
My Dublin Perspective
I’ve been in Dublin for two months now, and with a job secured it looks like I’ll be here for a while longer. But ever since I came here, the city’s struck me as odd—so many contradictions and quirks—more than I’ve seen in any other city I’ve visited.
Dublin is a city, but doesn’t feel like one, it feels like a big town instead. There’s a sense of familiarity, of close-knitted community that is perhaps impossible to find in any other capital in the world. Dubliners themselves are a mix of open and friendly townies, always keen to hear a new story and see a new face, and victims of what I call Big City Syndrome—no one looks at you in the eye and just walks on taking care of their own business. At any point of the day you can meet either type of Dubliner.
Dublin has a ‘robust’ public transport system…that no one understands. I felt better about being new in town when I saw locals having trouble figuring out which bus went where. There are buses running through the city all day and it’s not uncommon for people to wait for a specific one even if the two before it had the same overall route. I’ve seen people give up on finding a bus and just take a taxi.
Thankfully, it’s a very walkable city. As long as you’re within walking distance of the city centre, you can get anywhere.
After living in Canada, the postal system in Dublin makes very little sense to me. Unlike other countries with six-letter postal codes, Dublin postal codes are much simpler and depend a lot more on street name and house number than a specific code. There are 24 postal zones in Dublin, Dublin 1 to Dublin 24, with odd numbers north side and even ones for the south, the River Liffey being the line separating them. Funnily enough, the distance between one Dublin zone and another is minimal. At the moment I’m writing this I’m in Dublin 9 and that is about 30 minutes away from the city centre on foot.
For me, as an immigrant and admittedly someone who’s still discovering what he’s capable of, a bit of a late bloomer in that regard at 31 years of age, Dublin has perhaps offered me more chances than any other place in the world to do things and have new experiences.
I didn’t like going out until late at night or going to pubs, as I don’t really drink. I did have a pint of Guinness two weeks ago, but mostly for trying something new. As I did, I spoke to an old Dubliner in the bar and realised the appeal of the Pub. I understood the pub culture of Ireland and why even with hundreds if not thousands of them in the city, they were all packed to the rafters every single night.
People think it’s the drinking and Irish people have a reputation for it. But there’s much more to it. Pubs are about community, about having fun in an amazing and relaxed environment. The drinks are just icebreakers in the end. Pubs are places where everyone is equal, the young man and the old fellow, the big boss and the fresh employee. In a pub everyone’s just another man or woman looking to have a good time.
In the past three weeks I’ve sang—butchered—Irish traditional music, I’ve gone to lectures on famous Irish Writers, met up with fun people I had never met before and even walked home close to midnight. This last bit would scared the hell out of me in the past, but here it’s not a problem. Dublin might feel like a small town but it’s one of the most active cities I’ve ever seen and the streets are full until very late in the evening, even in the middle of the week.
I’ve expanded my tastes since I’ve come here and every week has had a new experiences, something fun to do and something more to learn about myself and the people around me. So when I say this, believe me that it is true: I’m happy I came here.
This place and its people are mental, they’re strange and interesting and it doesn’t take much to have fun. Having said so, Dublin can seem boring at first, like there’s not much to do except go drinking and eating. But when you start looking for trouble and go through the websites for city events you start to see just how much there is to do, especially if you love stories, good music, art, theatre and that beautiful Gaelic.
This is a strange place, but it’s also really fun.
Now I can’t wait to see the rest of the country!
Review: Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a puzzle game for iOS & Android, in which you help a princess explore strange monuments left by her people, restoring them to power.
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Genre(s): Puzzle Developer: ustwo Publisher: ustwo Release Date: April 2014 |
Played: Main Story + Expansion Platforms: iOS & Android Purchase At: Apple App Store, Google Play |
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Review
I first heard about this game during this year’s BAFTAs, where they nominated it in pretty much every category. It won the Best British Game and Mobile & Handheld awards. Once I finished watching the awards, I decided to buy the game on the Google Play Store and I even got the expansion pack.
As this is a mobile game, you control everything through taps and swipes. You tap on the screen to where you want the princess to move and you swipe to interact with the environment. There are cranks to turn, and segments of the environment with small stubs on them that you can move horizontally, vertically or even rotate the stage, to help the princess move along the monuments. Each level ends when you approach a certain tile and the character places an increasingly intricate geometrical piece on it, the Sacred Geometry, which is central to the plot, which I won’t comment on due to its simplicity. Anything I say will ruin it for you.
The mechanics are simple but the stages will take some trial and error as you learn to properly navigate them and make use of the different movable pieces. I’m certain one of the inspirations for this game were the works of M.C. Escher, as you have to take perspective into consideration. For example, something that is far away can be an adjacent platform if you turn the camera in a particular way. Perspective is central to many of the Monuments. There is one in particular where a door takes you to another one, placed in a different perspective so that now you’re walking on what you thought was a vertical wall. At certain times I had to turn my mobile around just to see things from the character’s new point of view. It was these moments, when the game took perception into consideration, where it truly shined for me and left me awed.
It’s difficult to talk about Monument Valley’s sound as a separate thing to gameplay. There is a soundtrack and the music is beautiful and ranges from subtle soothing melodies to haunting ones and even some upbeat adventure-y tunes, but also every stage is essentially a giant music box and interacting with them generates its own music, from pulling cranks to pressing a button that shifts the entire stage around. It’s almost as if by playing, you’re composing the stage’s music. It didn’t matter what level it was, this always made me smile.
I do wish the stages were longer. This is a game, like many mobile ones, meant for short play bursts and as such, the different monuments take at most ten minutes to complete. The Lost Shore—the 8 level expansion—has longer levels but still not long enough. It doesn’t detract from the marvellous experience, but it did leave me wanting more. Some of the later stages get complicated but as an experienced adventure gamer used to intricate puzzles, I felt as though the game could’ve given me much more than it did.
The visuals are minimalistic but gorgeous. Each monument is a work of art—if I could I would frame and hang them on my wall—that would make M.C. Escher blush, and it’s a joy to watch these music puzzle boxes change and move around to reveal new rooms and alcoves. The developers at ustwo must’ve known this because they added a camera mode for you to turn the world around however you want for screenshots. They even built in some of the more popular Instagram filters.
Conclusion
Monument Valley is a wonderful game, one of the best mobile games I’ve ever played and while I do wish there was much more and a higher difficulty, what is there is breathtaking and you should all play the game right now!
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TMA SCORE: 5/5 – Hell Yes! |