allVishal Journal Posts

Prince of Persia Revisited

Vishal — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:18:12 -0700

At the cusp of the 1990s, every home PC had to have one killer app installed. When you’d go round to a friend’s place and they’d show off their new Amstrad or IBM beige behemoth, the first question out of your mouth would be, “How did you convince your parents?” The second would be, “Do you have Prince of Persia?”

Jordan Mechner’s seminal 1989 game (published by Brøderbund) was the high watermark for computer games at the time, a title that combined fluid graphics, exquisite music and challenging gameplay into an astonishing final product. I remember the first time I saw it in 1990, on the PC of one of my parents’ friends. He fired it up for us, to keep us kids busy, I suppose, but I don’t think even he would understand quite the impact the next hour or so of play had on me.

Here was a computer game, until then just a kid’s thing with colourful graphics and tinny bips and bleeps for sound, only it was strangely adult-oriented. The character was humanoid and moved in a lifelike way (thanks to the rotoscoping animation process), the environments were grey and moody -- unsettling, even -- and there were no guns, no quick-trigger projectiles with which to fell waves of enemies. Come to think of it, there weren’t many enemies either, and the your character started with no weapons. Deadly spike traps, floor switches and a labyrinthine maze of a dungeon was all that lay between you and destiny. If only you could complete it in one single hour.

It’s amazing how well the original Prince of Persia holds up nearly two decades after its initial release. Sure, later versions cleaned up the graphics and gave our hero a makeover (out went the white pyjamas, and in came the turban and vest combo), but the essence of the game has remained intact in every version. The prince is still a tireless acrobat, leaping over pits and scampering up and down ledges. His swordplay is not the quickest -- can’t expect much else from a street urchin -- but there is an inherent pace and rhythm to the combat that was (and still is) uncommon among games, favouring position and timing over mindless button mashing. Many a heartbeat was skipped in the split-second that both his and the enemy guard’s swords arced through the air and I hoped that I was just that minuscule bit quicker.

I must admit that I never did finish the original Prince. My nascent curiosity about all things design was just forming (even though I wouldn’t realise it for another decade) and I spent most of the one hour of alloted time pootling around the first few levels, exploring every nook and cranny, seeing how it all fit together (I think I ran around the room telling all and sundry that I’d found the alternate way back to the intial starting point of the first level -- you could never do that in Mario). I was fascinated by the spike pits that were perfectly harmless when you walked carefully past them -- there’s more than one way to skin a cat -- and by the mirror prince, by health replenishing and enhancing potions and the copy protection roadblock before level 2 (you had to drink a certain potion of a certain alphabet, a fact only knowable to people to had the game’s manual and had therefore purhcased the game properly).

Mostly I was enthralled by the cinematic nature of it; the sweeping opening music, the stark, simple gestures in the opening sequence. It was the first game I’d encountered that was trying to tell a story rather than a high score. It was the first time I’d seen blood in a game, and I recall with morbid fascination the first time I saw the prince chopped to bits by a steel-jawed door trap, his blood still oozing from its teeth. Looking back now, there was also that fantastic device of having the game played on non-scrolling individual screens; you never knew what was going to meet you on the next one!

Prince of Persia spawned a whole genre of single-screen adventure games where the emphasis was on puzzle-solving and mood, and I was a huge fan of two of the most prominent Prince-inspired games, Delphine software’s 2D vector classics Another World (by Eric Chahi) and Flashback. As time passed and technology grew, the 2D side-scroller was rapidly losing its place in the world. It’s amazing to think that just five years after Prince of Persia was released, the original Sony Playstation debuted in 1994, ushering in the age of the 3D polygon videogame that is still with us. There was a 2D sequel to the game in 1994 (the lovely Shadow and the Flame), and in 1999 the flawed Prince of Persia 3D was released, but it wouldn’t be until late 2003 that the world would see a game worthy of the Prince of Persia name.

The orginial is still a classic well deserving of that status, and if you’ve never played it, you’re missing out.

Vogue India and the Offensiveness of Poverty

Vishal — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:56:35 -0700

Allow me to rant.

Vogue India ran a photo-spread in their August issue featuring high-price luxury fashion accessories as modeled by people who -- oh, what's the word -- are poor. This apparently caused some controversy. Mind you, these models were not just poor, but barefoot and missing-their-teeth poor. So poor that photographers from around the world come to India to take gripping, black-and-white shots of them in their state of bare-footed no-teethedness (sans Fendi clutch bag, of course), to highlight their, um, pooritude.

Now, frankly, I'm appalled... but not for the reason you think.

You see, I have no problem whatsoever with Vogue India's photoshoot. I don't care that they put 10,000 dollar accessories in the hands of people who make less than $1.25 a day (Who! Have! No! Teeth!). I don't have a problem with these people being shown as poor as they usually are, except flashing a pair of designer sunglasses.

I do have a problem with people thinking that this is somehow offensive to the poor people. Oh, it's offensive alright -- it's just offensive to people like you and me who buy and read Vogue (I have, and the Indian edition is quite nice). It's people like us who actually know what a Fendi bag is, know that it costs 10,000 bucks and know that we'll probably only ever buy a knock-off. It's people like us who think poor people should only be seen in gripping, black-and-white documentary pictures in National Geographic or some exhibition.

Because -- tell the truth now -- you wouldn't bat an eyelid at a young, skinny, urban person with a 10K bag in a magazine spread. Do you ask yourself, "Gee, I wonder if that model can actually afford that bag she's modeling?" No, of course you don't, because she looks like she can. She's looks like a perfectly normal, upper-middle-class person who can afford a bag like that, or at least a knock-off. Heck, she can at least afford to eat badly all her life and then have her teeth fixed by a dentist, and isn't that what's really important? That she has great teeth?

How is a barefoot Rajashthani farmer any less of a viable fashion model than a size zero caramel-skinned Mumbai model who scrapes together her monthly rent? Because the latter fits in with your cushy world-view of how things should work?

I'm sorry, but a photoshoot in Vogue is neither going to solve nor exacerbate the problem of farmer suicides in rural India, so please don't demean them (the farmers) by waving that flag around. And luxury brands are not tossing and turning at night in a moral quandary over how they're going to sell their gold-dusted open-toed shoes in a market where poor people who can't afford their brand exist. Last time I checked, there are people in the US and Europe who can't afford it, and luxury goods are still for sale there.

Have you heard of this crazy new invention? It's called Money. Works a little strange, but you'll get the hang of it.

(see, told you this was a rant)

Of course, it's not like Vogue is completely blameless. Firstly, they've dropped the ball by not crediting any of the models in their shoot (a courtesy they would show to most professional fashion models no matter how big or small). And when pressed for a response, the editor launches into some kind of biz-speak prattle about the 'power of fashion' and how they aren't trying to make a political statement or save the world. Well, yeah, you're bloody Vogue, we got that. But like it or not, a statement you have made, and it would help if you could have at least kept a well-prepared, intelligent retort ready for when this thing came up.

So, in summary:

- Fashion mag takes pictures of poor people with silly bags they could never afford.

- Everyone in a city gets upset that they're seeing people they're used to ignoring (except in gritty black-and-white shots) holding bags they secretly wish they could afford.

- People who can actually afford said bags are wondering where they can get that sexy ethnic turban the guy is wearing (HINT: Not at Louis Vuitton, baby).

- Creative types are wondering if the poor people are dirt cheap and where they can round up some for their latest campaign.

- Business people decide to comment on the issue by regurgitating every cliche in that last paperback on modern India they half-read on a plane once.

- All people born to be offended, are, and proceed to tack on their pet hot-button issue to things and generally tut and frown.

- As for the actual poor people, well, I have no idea what they think of the whole thing. Most of the people in the pictures are either smiling or bemused -- bored, even.

I'm an outsider. I'm not one of them in the only way that actually separates us (financially), and on a cultural level I don't think they give two hoots. I don't care when some other middle-class Indian (as most models actually are) totes a Fendi bag in a photoshoot, so do they care when somebody (hopefully) pays them to do the same?

I'm not offended that someone did this. If anything, I applaud it (the photos are beautiful). I'm not offended that there are still poor people in the world while others can afford 10,000 dollar bags. Hey, I can afford tons of crap that other people can't, and I still can't afford a bag like that, so where on the levels of entitlement to being offended do I fall? I find all of this amusing and baffling and just a little bit sad.

Mostly, I'm just offended that you're all still a bunch of idiots.

Google Chrome & the Power of Comics

Vishal — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:39:15 -0700

Over the next few days you will hear a lot about Google Chrome, the new web browser from the internet behemoth. I've tested it out and am happy to report that it's quite nice. Of course, I'm a long-time Mozilla Firefox user, so the transition has not been very stark. But if you're one of the poor people who still use Microsoft Internet Explorer (or worse, if until now you didn't even know what a web browser is and that there are mutliple available ones), then Chrome will be a revelation.

Even for me, the new browser is an intriguing new beast. It's very quick, intuitive to use and so far does things well. I can see myself using it for most tasks, at least those that don't require certain firefox plug-ins that I'm used to (but there will no doubt be equivalents for them in Google Chrome eventually), and I'm very happy that there is now a new robust, polished open-source browser. Competition and choice can only lead to better products in this regard.

But as impressive as the browser is, it is not the thing that I really wanted to blog about here. For you see, the most impressive thing about Google Chrome for me today is the fantastic comic that serves as an introduction to it.

The name Scott McCloud should be familiar to most comic book geeks such as myself. The author of seminal works like Understanding Comics has carved a name for himself as true master and expert of the comics medium. Who better to explain a new web browser; an application that's so simple to use it's invisible, but is so complex underneath that entire careers can be dedicated to it? Scott McCloud, of course.

I love how he manages to represent even the most arcane programming concepts in a fun and exciting way (helped, of course, by the words from Google Chrome's programming staff), how there's a single narrative thread but multiple voices from members of the team -- this is a feat you can't really achieve as well in video, for instance, but as a comic it works great. Alan Moore has always maintained that comics as a medium are rich beyond measure, that there are things you can do in it that you can't do in a movie or a book. I can think of several examples of Moore's own work to support this, but Scott McCloud's introduction to Google Chrome is a shining example too.

So even if you don't give Google Chrome a spin (I highly recommend you do), please do check out the comic that goes with it. It's simply superb.

Independence Day

Vishal — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:43:07 -0700

I grew up in Muscat, Oman, and went to an Indian School there. Legend had it that the school had started as a simple gathering under a tree, but by the time I got there in the late 1980s and until I left around ten years later, the school was a gargantuan, organically grown complex of grey buildings, and contained (or tried to) upwards of six thousand children from kindergarten to grade 12. Recess out in the dusty school field was like entering a medieval battleground.

Having so many people from so many different parts of India in one place was a unique experience. Places like Mumbai are highly cosmopolitan, but even though your classmates might be Bengali or South Indian they tend to identify as Mumbaikars first. Not so as expatriates in a foreign country, where many kids’ families had come directly from non-metropolitan towns or villages, places I’d never even heard of. We were aware of the differences -- it was often the source of much mirth -- but our collective identity was forged as Indians. Being an Indian school we’d sing Jana Gana Mana every day, celebrate all the Indian versions of things like Children’s Day (November 14th, Nehru’s birthday), and get holidays for Diwali, Eid and Christmas (not to mention Holi, Dussera and a host of others -- it’s fun being Indian, the next festival is never more than a month away).

Independence Day, that is the day in 1947 when the British officially handed over power (August 15th, today), was always celebrated. Classes were canceled but middle and high school students were obliged to come to school that morning. It was just a half hour or so, nothing fancy; a flag-raising ceremony and a speech by the principal, maybe a song or two by the school choir, and then we’d roam around the field, maybe stalk the eerily empty corridors of the school, play impromptu games of football with pepsi cans (a teacher or two might join in), and then leave.

I was always surprised at the turnout at these events. Not just students, but their parents too would come along. Some of the school buses would ply their routes, and being one of the only Indian Schools in the country some kids lived hundreds of kilometres away, but they’d still be there. Maybe it was because we were Indians in a foreign land. Maybe it was even national pride. But maybe, just maybe, it was the spirit of independence itself.

I don’t like to think of India like most people do, as a nation now only sixty-one years old. India as an idea been around forever, India the place and the people and the intangible spirit has always been there even when it was a hundred disparate kingdoms and villages and hermits’ huts, even before it had a name. For me India is synonymous with independence, with freedom and liberty and fun, yes, fun! I don’t equate it with a flag and an anthem and a political party, and certainly not with a parade of military power.

For me Independence Day is about standing around a place where discipline and order are the norms, and just kicking a can around with your friends.

Isn’t that what it's all about?

Comic Konga 2 #5: Megalomania

Vishal — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:48:56 -0700

Finally, the fifth and final strip of the second Comic Konga!. Dunno why I dawdled do long on this. It didn't take me long to do. I guess that's because I had a bunch of other strips planned and never got around to doing them (sorry Dolly!). I'll have to get around to those soon, or when we do the next comic knoga in a month or two. Come to think of it, I didn't end up doing any of the strips I thought I would do this time. Most of the ideas were very long, multiple page ideas, and would have required a lot more drawing. Still, I've enjoyed all the strips I've done (not to mention the rest of the strips).

Don't Call it a Piña Colada

Vishal — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:42:24 -0700

Further adventures in processed food in this, the fourth and much delayed strip of the second Comic Konga! Click on the image to see the full strip.

The drawing is all over the place in this. I'm just a bit out of it this week, I suppose, running around doing real life stuff. One more left; have the script, should draw it asap.

Comic Konga 2: A Short Intermission

Vishal — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:29:24 -0700

Due to unforseen developments, I'm going to have to put my contributions to this second Comic Konga! on hold for a couple of days. I won't have computer access for the next two days, and instead of rushing and putting up some crap or the other, I request my readers to be patient with me for a little while.

The remaining two comics will be posted on Saturday and Sunday (12 & 13 July).

Meanwhile you can look at these monks. Ah, don't they look serene? You would be too if you were dreaming of comics.

Comic Konga 2 #3: Mint Chocolate Marvels

Vishal — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:57:30 -0700

Third day, third strip of the second Comic Konga!. Today's strip is a two-pager, so click on the thumbnail above to bring up the first page, and then click next at the bottom to see the second. Alternately, you can click here to directly see the second page.

I can't say I really hate mint chocolate -- the ice-cream version is something I enjoy quite a bit -- but most varieties of it are not very well made, and the experience is more negative than positive.

I have no idea what tomorrow's strip will be. Oh noes!

Comic Konga 2 #2: A Dilemma

Vishal — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:38:51 -0700

Here's the second strip of the second Comic Konga!. Click on the image to see the full strip.

This was actually the first strip drawn but I wanted to post it after the single panel from yesterday. Tomorrow's strip has been penciled; I only have to ink and scan it, perhaps shade it in like this one. Like I said yesterday I think I'm not going to do full colour versions (Today's strip is done in shades of desaturated blue). For no other reason than, like most Indians, I have a bit of a lenient hand with colour and it always ends up gaudier than I would like (strangely this is only a problem with my illustration work; my colour sense works fine when I'm doing design).

Comic Konga 2 #1: Jewels

Vishal — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:12:59 -0700

So begins the second Comic Konga! I think I'm starting to like doing the first one as a single panel gag; it's a format I never otherwise use, and it's a challenge to distill something down to one panel and one line only. Like most writers I have a tendency to ramble, and something like this could easily have been a three or six panel piece.

The anatomy and line-work is all over the place, and I did try to colour it but decided just to keep it to black and white (perhaps that can be a theme for this time's CK). Hope your own comic endeavours are fruitful. Can't wait to see what you lot have come up with.