This Handout I’ve Been Given Is Listing “reasons Why It’s Good To Be Creative” And Number 5 Is

Golden Retriever shows puppy how to use slide

i was talking with my brothers yesterday and we decided the best way to own a guy who takes off his shirt to fight you is to pick his shirt up and put it on

Everything movies taught me about archery is wrong. This is a complete mind-blower. 8D

If you are even remotely interested in archery or medieval combat, check this out, it’s just great!

one thing i think is interesting, as someone who basically grew up playing video games non-stop, is how some types of video game just don’t gel with people 

like, it’s easy to forget that, even though i’m pretty bad at most games, that my skill at handling video games is definitely “above average.” as much as i hate to put it like this, i’d say my experience level is at “expert” solely because I can pick up any game controller and understand how to use it with no additional training. 

a friend of mine on twitter posted a video of him stuck on a part of samus returns. the tutorial area where it teaches you how to ledge-grab. the video is of him jumping against the wall, doing everything but grabbing the ledge, and him getting frustrated 

i’ve been playing games all my life, so i’d naturally intuit that i should jump towards the ledge to see what happens 

but he doesn’t do that.

it’s kinda making me realize that as games are becoming more complex and controllers are getting more buttons, games are being designed more and more for people who already know how to play them and not people with little to no base understanding of the types of games they’re playing 

so that’s got me thinking: should video games assume that you have zero base knowledge of video games and try to teach you from there? should Metroid: Samus Returns assume that you already know how to play a Metroid game and base its tutorial around that, or should it assume that you’ve never even played Mario before? 

it’s got me thinking about that Cuphead video again. you know the one. to anyone with a lot of experience with video games, especially 2D ones, we would naturally intuit that one part of the tutorial to require a jump and a dash at the same time.

but most people lack that experience and that learned intuition and might struggle with that, and that’s something a lot of people forget to consider. 

it reminds me a bit of the “land of Punt” that I read about in this Tumblr post. Egypt had this big trading partner back in the day called Punt and they wrote down everything about it except where it was, because who doesn’t know where Punt is? and now, we have no idea where it was, because everyone in Egypt assumed everyone else knew.

take that same line of thinking with games: “who doesn’t know how to play a 2D platform game?” nobody takes in to consideration the fact that somebody might not know how to play a 2D game on a base level, because that style of gameplay is thoroughly ingrained in to the minds of the majority of gamers. and then the Cuphead situation happens.

the point of this post isn’t to make fun of anybody, but to ask everyone to step back for a second and consider that things that they might not normally consider. as weird as it is to think about for people that grew up playing video games, anyone who can pick up a controller with thirty buttons on it and not get intimidated is actually operating at an expert level. if you pick up a playstation or an Xbox controller and your thumbs naturally land on the face buttons and the analog stick and your index fingers naturally land on the trigger buttons, that is because you are an expert at operating a complex piece of machinery. you have a lifetime of experience using this piece of equipment, and assuming that your skill level is the base line is a problem.

that assumption is rapidly becoming a problem as games become more complex. it’s something that should be considered when talking about games going forward. games should be accessible, but it’s reaching a point where even Nintendo games are assuming certain levels of skill without teaching the player the absolute basics. basics like “what is an analog stick” and “where should my fingers even be on this controller right now.” 

basically what i’m saying is that games are becoming too complex for new players to reasonably get in to and are starting to assume skill levels higher than what should be considered the base line. it’s becoming a legitimate problem that shouldn’t be laughed at and disregarded. it’s very easy to forget that thing things YOU know aren’t known by everyone and that idea should be taken in to consideration when talking about video games. 

if youve never physically been in the presence of like, a real live wolf, and you probably wont get the chance to, heres some stuff about them you should know

a wolf’s fur is so unbelievably thick that you can get like, your whole hand into it while petting. and then you can keep going

wolves are a lot bigger than you think they are. think about how big you think a wolf is then just like double that

they dont really smell like dog but they DO smell and youre not going to be able to figure out if its a good smell or not

a wolf really wants to lick the inside of your mouth. he will not stop trying to lick the inside of your mouth at any cost, and generally speaking you need to press your lips together kind of tightly when he approaches your face so that he doesnt worm his damn tongue in there to give you what he thinks is an appropriate greeting

a wolf doesnt really want to look at you while you pet him but he wants you to pet him. hes embarrassed

if a grown ass wolf decides to lay down on you, you just have to deal with it and thats your life now

young wolves, much like young dogs, are overwhelmingly goofy and stupid. a teenage wolf will see your very fragile, very human shoulder and go “i can probably step on that with my full weight” and then he will do it

letting a wolf eat out of your hand is actually not remotely frightening, and youll want to do it all day

I finally finished coloring the frog I was drawing about a week ago.

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