With the close of the mashup portion of the class, I would just like to say that this was a really awesome prompt. Although my mashup kind of sucks, in my estimation, this assignment really pushed me to become familiar with audio editing and sequencing software Fruity Loops Studio 7. After the videos, I was not eager to spend any more hours in the Mac lab in DuPont, so I opted for audio, choosing to do a rap mashup. I strove to choose two songs that are almost nothing like each other. The a capella is Notorious B.I.G.’s “Suicidal Thoughts,” but the “beat” I made samples the psychedelic rock band Atlas Sound’s “La Luna.” While I’m afraid it gives Biggie’s seriously melancholy rap too much of a lighthearted tone, what I was trying to go for was a trippy, dreamlike, fugue state. At any rate, I think it changes the feel of the original considerably.

To address the crappiness of “my” song, as I mentioned, I essentially learned how to use Fruity Loops by making this. I felt really stupid because one of my oldest and dearest accomplices, Markus Swarvey, who is a fantastic producer, and who I will proudly and shamelessly plug the CHILL-ASS BEATz of right now, couldn’t stop extolling the “easiness” of Fruity Loops. Despite hours of careful tinkering and resampling, I couldn’t get the loop exactly, perfectly right, until I came to the conclusion that it was either an intrinsic “unevenness” in the sample or something going horribly wrong during the syncing. I started getting frustrated, and eventually I got so sick and tired of trying different ways to achieve my goal that I figured it was better to just finish it, especially because I liked the idea so much. So it’s a little skippy, but like peanut butter, some things are good that way. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them, but I just hope it doesn’t distract TOO, too much.

I tried.

Also, for anyone unfamiliar with the concept of gangsta rap, there is some incredibly naughty language, so don’t click if you’re sensitive to such vulgarities.

la_luna_suicide

Regardless of the craftsmanship, this exercise definitely impassioned the art of mashing and mixing in me, which I will hone and perfect from here. At least, moreso than this.

As far as my favorite mashups go, I racked my brain for something that hadn’t already been brought up in class (Shining: The Romantic Comedy, G.I. Public Service Announcements, Duck and Cover on South Park), and, honestly, the most memorable one to me is quite simply a map of the United States…after the 2004 presidential election results:

Perhaps it stuck with me because I was so upset. I didn’t know who to give credit to until I realized that it has its own Wikipedia page, so the creator is “G. Webb, a poster on yakyak.org.” Oh, the meta-age we live in, when fleeting internet memes are meticulously documented so that they might live on past the esoteric circumstances under which they were created, however…sigh…tragic they may have been.

In other news, I’ve been furiously working on my final project when time permits, although I’ve been often stymied by the sometimes finicky syntax of Inform 7. Writing this game is eerily similar to my experiences in CPSC 220, a fundamental object-oriented programming class I also took this semester, but nowhere near as clear-cut as Java. My main issue with the documentation is that it doesn’t give you a finite list of accepted syntax and lexicon, but, then again, it’s just a text game, so how much do you need to know, right? Actually, you need to know a lot. To write one of these infernal contraptions well, you should be accounting for every-freaking-possible-thing the player might try, which can be incredibly, circuitously, unrealistically detailed, lengthy, and sticky.

As you will see, I am a great deal from the finish line on this one, but it grows with each passing day. Don’t hate if something is described in a room description and you try to examine it only to find that it “isn’t here,” don’t be dismayed if a room doesn’t even have a description, don’t kill me if it seems like there isn’t much to do. There is only one puzzle in the demo release, which I would rate as “pretty easy,” however, in such a large and somewhat empty game world, I would expect that simply locating it is more of a challenge than solving it, but hey, half of the point of these games is exploring.

Just know this, I have a fantastic story in mind, I just want to make you wait. I guess I should package a custom-made map of Fredericksburg with the final release so wanderers unfamiliar with the ‘Burg will not be thrown immediately by the layout, as I’m trying to accurately recreate Our Fair City textually without throwing in excessive details/locations. I don’t know if it looks like it, but the source code is over 7000 words so far.

Having talked about it this much, I really, really, really, really, REALLY, REALLY wanted to get this up here to play, so you guys would know I’m not just yanking your chain about actually creating this and so I could receive lots of insults/destructive criticism, but unfortunately for me, WordPress won’t let me do anything with any sort of Z-Code files because of supposed “security issues,” so you can imagine how disappointed I am, especially because I don’t consider anything on the internet truly worthwhile unless you can play a game with it. Thanks, WordPress, you’ve made a difficult job even more difficult. In light of this utterly horrifying discovery, I will work unceasingly to either get the game operational in-browser or die trying.

PEAS OUT!