Arcana

People are starting to backpedal on this issue. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/pipa-support-collapses-with-13-new-opponents-in-senate.ars Now, I don't know much about the "OPEN" act (which a Senator from Oregon proposed) but apparently it might not be too much better than PIPA. It's rather annoying that so much time is tied up in these kinds of things. Is piracy REALLY that big of a deal? Maybe it's because I actually have money now, but I find that it's nowadays much easier to just buy stuff rather than to try to pirate it. With iTunes, Steam, online distribution, Netflix, Hulu, or advertisement-supported streaming, buying is easier than ever. Sure, there are going to be people who pirate, but really, they're probably doing so because the material is hard to get, or they're not going to buy stuff anyway.

I probably won't have a WIP for a while but I really want to do Final Fantasy Tactics: Battle on the Bridge.

Still downloading this, but I am SO EXCITED that this has been released!

Hey guys, I have Golden Sun (original) and Golden Sun: The Lost Age for sale. These are the original Game Boy Advance carts for sale, comes with box, maps, and instructions for both games. $15 each or $25 if you buy them both (+shipping costs), PM me for details. Thanks!

Added. I should get myself onto the OCR group there. I haven't really done a lot of Steam gaming lately but it's a good time to start up, eh? Now that I think about it, the fact that the graphics are rather abstract in Frozen Synapse might actually lend more toward it being a "friendly affair" that is less personal than let's say, fragging noobs in Halo. You don't get as much of this huge "oh my god" elitism that's based on skill, especially since a lot about Frozen Synapse is luck as well as skill (luck with respect to predicting correctly your opponent's actions). I was doing well in my first MP match ever (Rank 1 vs Rank 11) and got him down to 2v1, but then I made a critical mistake and thought that he would move left rather than right and didn't "think like my opponent" so to speak. I then got my guy killed and then I was shot through the far window and lost. In some respects you can't tell if you're playing "against a pro" until after all of your guys are dead and you think back on the match.

oh lol I thought I did a search but obviously it was too late at night. Anyway they also have an IRC channel (irc.maxgaming.net #mode7games).

Anyone playing this? http://www.frozensynapse.com/ It's a turn-based tactical game, very strategic. It's like playing chess because you assign moves to your guys, the opponent assigns movements to his guys, and then the game "executes" their actions and then resolves the situation. So it's in "simulated real time" so to speak. It's quite like playing a slower, more strategic version of X-Com combat. It's also Multiplayer. I bought it on Steam, so if you're interested let me know. The in-game system hooks up to its IRC channel and the people there are really nice too, so it's very easy to find games and then to chat about them after. A few things I really like: - The amount of determinism the game has. Very little is left to chance, it is up to you and your opponent's moves. - The art style is minimalistic but appropriate. - It's awesome watching strategies play out. Or fail. Also it's nervewracking once you've submitted your own moves and watch the situation resolve. One thing that's cool about the game is that you can pretty much play games in parallel since the "Moves Planning" phase takes a while. In fact if you were so inclined you could even play virtually offline - you can check your pending games, submit moves, and then wait for your opponent whenever he does it. Anyway... I recommend checking it out especially if you're a tactics buff. The game seems rather hardcore but it's actually pretty easy to play. it costs $25 for two copies of the game (basically you're supposed to give the game to a friend). If you get the soundtrack (it has a pretty awesome electronica soundtrack) it's $30. http://www.frozensynapse.com/ It's on Steam let me know if you're playing! My steam name is Arcana.

I dunno, I think you should use whatever you want. For a long time, I avoided samples and loops, even ones that I thought were really cool, because I wanted to be "a real composer". That's a load of bull, you can take existing stuff, slice it up, process it, crunch it up, filter it away, whatever. If it gets you one step closer to where you want to go with your song, then go ahead and use it even if it's not your own personally handcrafted loop with personally-handcrafted synths. When I started music I read a lot of OCR and there was a huge anti-loop bias around here. I think that was a problem for me (I had no music training) because it denied me an easy way to simply get started. It's like trying to learn how to color things by being given a brush and oils, rather than being given crayons and a coloring book. You can make something good, given enough years of practice with oils, but sometimes you just want to get something done now and have it look reasonably good. So yeah, I love presets and loops and stuff, but I also do this kind of thing for fun and not as a secret dream to become a super-elite musician or something.

David Arkenstone is a very well-known new age artist. You could even listen to our very own Jillian Aversa.

Hey I've been playing this small casual game by an indie developer lately called Hoard. You're a dragon and you terrorize a kingdom, steal treasure, burn cities, and steal princesses. http://www.hoardgame.com/ It basically operates like a twin-stick shooter but it plays fine on keyboard and mouse too. The single player mode is entertaining but the multiplayer mode is what's really fun about it. There's both co-op and competitive modes and they both have a bit more depth to it than I thought. However it takes forever to matchmake games unless you have friends so I thought I'd tell you guys about it on the off-chance that some of you will buy it on Steam and then we can play once in a while on weekends. Let me know if you've tried this game out. It's $9.99 but Steam has a sale for $8.99 this week.

Thanks for the feedback. I get this kind of comment a lot (regarding bad pitches) so I think I have some pitch recognition issues, I'll be more aware of that next time.

Echo Mia MIDI has been sold, thanks all.

I don't think the original DS was an overnight hit though either, it was something that got a lot of positive reviews and then led up to continual sales over the past five or so years. http://crenk.com/nintendo-3ds-sells-over-400000-units-in-first-day-of-japan-sales/ This site gives a number and says they sold over 400 000 units in Japan. The Destructoid article isn't clear if they're referring to Japanese or US sales.

Hey all, I'm finally starting to release some songs out to the public. I've done a lot of One Hour Compos recently, but It's good for me to get into the habit of finishing works even if they can't necessarily be perfect. I hope you enjoy them. "A Little Tea Party". A Happy trance song. "Gold Dust". I don't know how to characterize this by genre, if you have any suggestions let me know.

That's not a bad thing as long as the units sell and keep selling. Does the system not being available anywhere in town, such that you're willing to buy it for twice its list price (giving that extra to some DUDE who did nothing other than buy one from the store) apparently make many people want it, such that they go to the store and, guess what! They can't buy it either!!!

Something you may want to do (as a general exercise) is to sit down and write down: - What you like to do in your spare time - Why do you like doing these things? Then, from there, distil two things. First, what are the SKILLS required to do the things that you like to do? Second, what are the inherent BELIEFS and VALUES that drive what you like to do? Beliefs and values are things like, "I like mental challenges" or "I enjoy watching people's reactions to what I make". Distill those down into short phrases and try to get a sense of what really motivates you. Then, repeat these steps for not just the things that you enjoy doing, but for your biggest personal accomplishments. It doesn't have to be something that is an award - just something that you are personally proud of. What this exercise does is that it helps distil what your core beliefs and motivators are and then allows you to help write about them. This doesn't apply to just music but might apply to your life in general.

I might have to look into this especially if it does knobs/faders/etc

OCR parody quick go go go

I think you have to be a moderately attractive 14-year old girl.

WOAH Cool. I used to remember preferring, back then, to level people up manually because it had a huge influence on how their stats were going up. That is, because every level an archer would get (for example +9 agility), an archer who started from Level 6 to Level 15 would have more agility than a knight who was Level 6 to 15 and then class-changed to an archer. It was a very subtle way to give the classes some individual character as well because otherwise they were pretty carbon-copied from each other.

Damn it, I wish I had a PSP so I could play this game. I loved Tactics Ogre. It was such a good game (Knight of Lodis was not anywhere as good). It was a bit grindy though, if you wanted to do a good job with it you really had to make good use of the "negotiate" function or grind their levels in the training mode a lot. Did they change that at all?

I am unable to listen to the songs at the moment but one thing to keep in mind is that instrument selection is a very important part of mixing/mastering. It's not just about the effects/EQ/compression. So even if the "arrangement is perfect", maybe it isn't if you have two instruments that conflict for the same frequency space.

That's basically a jet of air into the atmosphere though, there would be nowhere near the volume of material released from something like Chernobyl.

Once I made the mistake of making a "surround" track instead of a stereo track for a compo. During the listening party, the "surround" track ended up being lost and muddy and all kinds of stuff. People didn't know what was going on. This isn't exactly a great story, but I think the point is that you need to know what kind of systems your audience is going to be listening to the song on. If it's a music track, in a digital form like MP3/FLAC, then you can bet 99% that it'll be listened to on a computer or on an iPod. Yeah, maybe someone will listen to your song on their home theatre system but I bet that is the absolute minority. As far as the WIP board goes - if you want people to listen to your song, then remix a popular song. Rozovian's comment is specifically addressing getting people to listen to your work. Yeah, there's a lot of songs out there for remixing and a lot of passion and drive to things outside of SNES RPGs, but let's face it, more people are going to listen to your "Schala" remix than your "Hunyun Fei" remix.

I had fun with the original but I never got any of the DLC or expansion packs (I played like 100 hours of the original which was more than any other game I've played in like the past 6 years besides WoW, and WoW is a special case). Anyone want to post a mini-review of this game? I see a few people who are having fun with it, some people who said they didn't like it. I can't afford (time-wise) to get this for a month or two so I am not in a rush but for some reason I got really excited about DA but not so much about DA2...