Cold is the snow falling down the window
Gently, softly, quiet on the meadow
Its an endless expanse, totally flat
Except over there, pawprints of a cat
She silently wanders through frozen land
While the flakes keep falling, drops of candy
I follow the cat into the unknown
And then – like the wind – She’s suddenly gone
Falling snow covers the trail of small paws
I turn back to find the warmth of the house
But see just white – swallowed in nature’s jaws
To her expanse, I am just a mere mouse
I navigate by smell of warm cocoa
To home – I warm my hands from winter’s snow
She smells a flower
But she is lost in the dark
Blind, in the pitch fog
He sees the flowers
They cascade before his eyes
Picks one, holds it high
She tastes the flower
Bittersweet memories burn
But ghosts cannot feel
He feels the flowers
As he falls into her grave
Heartbreak is soundless.
I hear the flowers
They tell a tragic story
A life ended here
Rearranging some words and lines, the 5 haiku from The Flowers can be given an entirely different meaning. The love of his life is dead, and unable to cope, he dies next to her in a heartbreak. The flowers here are mere witnesses.
He smells the flowers
But is blind and cannot see
Lost in the meadow
She sees the flowers
Their eternal beauty shines
But ghosts cannot feel
He feels the flowers
Brings a petal to his mouth
His taste is extinct
She tastes the flowers
Bittersweet tears cry in pain
But their voice is mute
I hear the flowers
They tell a tragic story
Dead, fragrant no more
Five Haikus, in a cycle of gaining one sense at the expense of another. If there exists any message behind the words, its probably that if a human and an object of great beauty coexist, one will succumb to the effects of the other.
This idea is not new. In The Odyssey, there were Sirens whose songs were the most beautiful sounds to ever grace the planet. Unfortunately, anyone unlucky enough to hear the sounds will meet an impending doom of hearing the songs and forsaking all other necessities including food and drink, possibly even breath.
Many poisonous animals employ vibrant moving colors which would captivate the eye, but should one approach too closely, a downfall involving potent neurotoxins awaits. Of course, some people kill and preserve these animals to admire their beauty, but this of course leaves said animal dead.
To survive, everything needs some form of defense mechanism. An object/animal/plant of beauty’s defense lies not in its appearance, so they more often use the element of surprise. Woe to the innocent observer who gets too close then, and is jumped upon by such a defense mechanism. Either it is potent enough to harm the observer sufficiently, or it is not and the observer retaliates, destroying the object/animal/plant of beauty. Thus, unless under special circumstances, they cannot coexist.
Here is a poem about reincarnation and death and socks that I threw into the washing machine.
I wrote it while sitting in front of the washing machine watching everything spin and I thought of how sad those socks must be. Stains on shirts are like memories and the washing machine brutally and violently rips these memories away from the beings. It is a sad thought to think. I was crying as I wrote this. One sentence in this paragraph is a lie and it is not this one.
Transformations matrices have found their way into a great number of games. Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. Most of these games share a defining characteristic. They are mostly first-person or third-person. In other words, there is a view window, and you either see from a vantage point equivalent to the character you are playing, or directly behind (and maybe slightly above in the case of Sonic).
Now, Chromomancy is not a first or third person game by any stretch of the imagination. It is top-down (I think that’s the official term). So it was a bit of a challenge to figure out how a transformation matrix could be applied to this game. The easiest solution is to not use the matrix, but that’s the easy method. This is the not-so-easy method that I decided to use.
As you can see, it is a little more trippy than it was last time. That is because there is even more spinning than there was last time. Now, the dots and the plasma can spin in different directions! So yeah. I’m not sure if I will keep it this way. But now that I know how the transformation matrices work, I can set it up as a real game mechanic. But that’s all speculative.
I do not own the music, it is owned by Sega.
And this is the depressing powm:
I’m spinning forever – Locked in motion.
Direction devoid of – All its meaning.
I’m lost and my mind is – Dizzy, fading.
The colors are leaving – Life forsaken.
It’s more song lyrics than poem actually. The meter of the lines before the hyphen is -^–^-. This part is meant to be sung. The part after the hyphen is simple iambic, ^-^-. This is meant to be spokenish. The first line is spoken somewhat normally but with reverb to make it trancey (Locked in motion). The second should be said in a way that makes it sound more depressing than the first line as if speaker is about to cry (All its meaning). The third should sound like the speaker is really in despair, like a howl of metaphorical pain (Dizzy, fading). And the last line is a true to goodness death growl (Life forsaken).
The progression to death growl applies only to the last 4 syllables of each line. The first 6 are meant to be sung with the same tune each time. Also, it’s not a progression of volume, the volume should stay about the same for each line, with the last 4 syllables louder than the first 6. These directions are probably not as clear as they could be.
Oh, and more about Chromomancy. There’s a source control set up on google code. Luke is working on AI, and I’m not really sure how that’s going aside from the fact that I know the green enemy in level 3 shoots at the player and if the bullet hits, its lights out. And the bullet bounces on the screen walls. There’s a Pylon in level 6 (and you didn’t have to construct it, nor will you need to construct additional pylons later because I’ll construct them for you), and pressing ‘O’ will activate it and allow the player to offer color shards to it and gain luminosity. Typing HELP in the Pylon screen gives a help message.
I think the next feature that will be implemented is a main menu so one can actually exit the game without having to take the time of dying. Because there’s no big red X on the top right corner that you can click. And if you just alt f4, the program will still keep running, eating up all your CPU. Yeah, that’ll be next.
Agathokakologic Alartolater 