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Saturday, December 19

...


Listening to this... again...

It's been a long autumn, but it also went away in a flash. Mainly because I've been sick since May... It all blurred into one long streak of something bleak and foggy.

Tuesday, August 11

summer of 2015

I'm so sleepy today that I started putting my glasses on contact lenses...

I've been ill for more than a month this summer (thanks to our 'free' GPs, no doubt) and still more likely than not to feel under the weather each given day.
It gives me no confidence in myself.

When I think of a vacation I feel like hitting something with something very heavy. I don't want to go anywhere, I'd like to have a quiet nice vacation in my hometown first. To settle my feelings and be comfortable, instead of all those 'new experiences' advertised by friends/family.
No one seems to understand, though...

Wednesday, May 27

Google translate fail [ENG/UKR]


REALLY?..

Asks to IMAGINE the payment?

on Eurovision 2015 / Maraaya 'Here for you' / Uzari&Maimuna 'Time'



This song was so underrated.
It certainly took about 20 secs to get used to her voice first time I've heard the song in semi-final.
Yet this song is much better than very generic Italian song (sorry, Italy) lots of people are complaining about. When Italy placed in top-3 I had to listen to their song again just to remember what it was.
I think that Maraaya deserves to be in top-5 or even in top-3 list, instead of Italy and/or Russia.

My personal top on Eurovision 2015:
1. Sweden (the best show, good song)
2. Slovenia (the best song, average show)
3. Belgium (original performance)
4. Australia (the most confident singer, very energetic song)
5. Georgia (good performance, good song)
6. Estonia (bad performance, good song)
7. Latvia (good performance, bad song)
8. Serbia (original image)
9. Montenegro (good traditional song)
10. Albania (good song, bad performance)

Also I liked a Belorussian song, but it didn't qualify for the final. If it did, it would be somewhere in my top-5.


Tuesday, May 12

moving from win7 to win8

I've been moving from win7 to win8; as usually the process took more than two days and still ongoing.
Reinstalling OS is such a pain... getting a new HDD is even greater pain... moving and sorting your stuff... urgh...


Friday, May 8

priming paper

when I was priming paper for oil paint today [yes, I've started doing some paintings in oil], I kept thinking that if I was born rich and/or not in this country, I could have had a studio for messing with primer (instead of my kitchen space).

then again, it could have been worse. you never know...


Thursday, May 7

Broken Age: love/hate relationship in action

I've finished playing Broken Age surprisingly fast; partly because it's quite short, partly because I got tired of it.
I don't like when something is released in parts (episodes, etc.), Therefore I've played Broken Age after Act 2 has been released and I've played Act 1 just before I've started Act 2.

I'm going to link to gamezebo.com here, because they were fast at producing oh so much needed walkthrough of Broken Age Act 2.

Let me start by saying this: I loved Act 1 of the game. Story is good, featuring a girl Vella that is about to be sacrificed to a giant monster and a boy called Shay that is stuck in a never-ending routine on a spaceship in deep space.
Illustrations didn't scare me off, but I have to admit environments look better than characters.



Act 1 has everything a quest needs to succeed: good story, original characters and puzzles that do not make you sick. Instead, puzzles in Act 1 felt organic and I didn't have to resort to walkthrough at all; it's safe to say I hadn't run so few circles in a quest before. AND solutions didn't feel too obvious. A win by my book.
I'm not going to spoil your fun and talk about story evolution here. Let's say that by the time you reach the end of Act 1 you're used to certain degree of logical integrity in the game.
If I could separate Act 1 from Act 2, I'd say Broken Age Act 1 is a very good game. Worth playing and paying for.

But then Act 2 starts and... logical integrity disappears into thin air.

I know why can happen; after all, developers were working on Act 1 and Act 2 separately and most probably ran out of money somewhere along the ending of Act 1.
Nevertheless, it's a shame that positive impressions from a good game are ruined by sloppy and rushed Act 2. I grew to hate Act 2 in part because of striking contrast between parts of what was meant to be a single product, in part because of onerous puzzles. Most of the time you'll be playing Act 2 you'll be swearing at puzzles or repeating something over and over again trying to hit the right answer.
It seems that developers wanted to increase play time somehow and the only way of doing it without going over budget was to artificially increase the difficulty of puzzles. Really, they didn't have to be so tiresome, repetitive and illogical. Tiny portions of story left in Act 2 drown in puzzles, making you wonder was it even meant to be fun. A bit of spoilers here: do not expect lots of new locations in Act 2. You'll mostly revisit old locations, but with a new character.

Broken Age Act 2 offers very little story and answers to all the questions asked in Act 2 go mainly unanswered or answered with "we wanted to do it, don't ask us why [we don't know too]". Solution to the main conflict of the game introduced in Act 2 (big surprise!) is rushed and childish to the extent of being comical.

If you don't have a budget, don't go for something epic. Simple, but well thought-out things are more satisfying.

If I haven't played Act 1 and if I didn't like it so much, I would drop Act 2. It has no positive value as standalone game and it wouldn't survive as a standalone game with such combination of story/characters/puzzles. I wanted to know how it would end, but was left with a feeling of being tricked into wasting my time.

I used gamezebo walkthrough of Act 2 extensively, but guess what? Some puzzles change randomly so you don't have an escape route, you have to suffer through them. It was tiresome even knowing what I had to do; I have no idea how people would struggle with them without knowing what the goal is - a thing that a walkthrough provides you. There is just not enough story content to cover for that lack of fun gameplay. A fail by my book.

A verdict?
Broken Age is a good game ruined by artificial division into 2 acts. Was it a money struggle or something else? I have mo idea, but project managers had messed up.

It would probably turn out much better if developers invested more into story of Act 2 instead of covering lack of playtime with puzzles. Or they could have just added 30 minutes of playtime to Act 1 (using less puzzles) and finished the game in one act, one solid piece.

For people who had waited for release of Act 2 it must be even greater disappointment.
Yet, project as a whole is a good attempt to make something original.




Wednesday, May 6

a short post about mornings

...
what have I been doing this morning?
I have no ida, but it's already past 1pm.
Yeah, I've been doing paperwork for past community events I've helped to organize; then I did some paperwork for future events.
Paperwork @#$%.

Tuesday, May 5

Avantasia #2

I never knew Avantasia had a track with Scorpions.


Sounds a bit funny - not enough Avantasia and not enough Scorpions :)

recent holidays

You may or may not know that in May Ukraine has a lot of holidays.

Usually people gather to drink and eat bbq during May holidays, but I'm not a fan of drinking. And to tell the truth, this year my friends just weren't up to bbq.
Bad weather, fires at Chernobyl, general situation in the country - all of this attributed to the fact that we couldn't gather a big company of friends like we used to.


Instead, I spent time with those of my friends who had time to spare and willed to do so. We were playing board games, visited various parks... had some food :)

I like sushi so it's no wonder we went to eat some. I don't have too many chances to eat sushi lately, so...

Even though it's May, at night temperature is still about +5C and in the morning it's generally freezing.

And it's been raining steadily for several days.








Several spring-like pictures follow :)



Monday, April 27

music and Avantasia

was reminded of Avantasia (and this song particularly) on the weekend, been listening to it quite a lot since :)


...

Have a lot of boring work to do and some of it for pretty ignorant people.

Yes, I'm slacking off by writing this. Sometimes you just don't want to do your work.

another Monday morning

It's past 11am in the morning, on Monday, birds are singing outside my window, but I feel like it's past 6pm already.
Can't drink coffee any more, so I've made myself a cup of cocoa.
Happy beginning of the week.

Thursday, April 2

Sea and pastels

Another A4 painting I've done some time ago and completely forgot about it...
Seriously, I need a break it seems...


Monday, March 30

About Germanwings

Lots of speculation is going on about the guy who 'most probably' brought down the Germanwings plane...
as horrible as it is to stat with,
constant attempts to make sure 'blame isn't put on him prematurely' aren't helping the situation.

Public opinion is quite set as of now.
I can't say that this opinion is 100% correct, I'm only saying that it would require rock-solid EVIDENCE to change it. And most likely there'd be no such evidence...

Therefore I think in the end the company in question would succumb and 'compensate' all parties involved.

It's very hard on the family of the pilot, sure, but what about the families of the victims? Where do you draw the line? Who's more 'victimized'?

If it'd be proven that pilot didn't bring the plane down intentionally, then it's one different story.
If he did bring it down intentionally (setting autopilot to low altitude seems quite intentional to me, though), I can only offer my sympathy to pilot's family for having such an insensible son (brother, etc.), who wasn't thinking of consequences of his actions even on people he should care about. They should understand how families of passengers feel...

Last Sunday of March 2015

Yesterday, as it's become customary in Ukraine, we had snow and cutting winds. Let me remind you that it was the last Sunday of March, almost April. You see first buds on trees and then you see big loafs of snow falling from the sky...
'Typical' April...

Air pressure roller-coaster ridden weather doesn't help you maintain mental stability... even if you haven't been prone to personality changes before.

I had a more than two hours long walk in that weather yesterday, it wasn't anything you'd call 'lovely'.

Saturday, March 28

...

time flies and mostly there's nothing to say...

or I don't have a fitting mood to talk about life or happenings in my life...

Ukraine is still in turmoil, and even most positive predictions aren't that good... several more years of this @#$%? Talk about lost generations...

Also there's constantly a talk of WAR. Full-scale war.
No mater how far that seems to be from EU, I'd like EU citizens to consider that possibility...

Wednesday, February 11

Cockroaches

Cockroaches born at someone's kitchen think they own the place.
And we think we own Earth.

Just saying...

Sunday, January 4

...

I'm still eating leftovers from New Year's party...

Why do we have to buy/cook so much food for celebrations?
Each time I'm trying to cook less... and still...

Saturday, January 3