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Towers and Navigation in Breath of the WildPosted: 2017-03-31 Filed under: Game Criticism Leave a comment
The towers and navigation in Zelda: Breath of the Wild (hereon BotW) have problems.
Towers, revealing the landscape
Viewing and pinning landmarks from the top of the tower tied into the theme of using landmarks as navigation. To understand the landscape as an environment to remember, rather than an obstacle blocking the way between a fast travel point and the goal.
The best moments of this navigation were creating pins on landmarks – a strange looking rock out cropping. Oddly shaped trees. A meadow I haven't seen. The worst – pinning shrines. Adding a chore to my list, a destination which, once I arrive, would often be a passable puzzle box or easy fight.
BotW could have taken a page from Shadow of the Colossus – create a vague map, one without precise roads or area names shown all at once. Never let it fill in with detail, but let the player fill it with their own markings. Forget reaching the top of a tower and revealing 200 place names. I want to see the name only when I walk into the space, and I want to reach these spaces through the use of the tower.
Smaller size for better exploration
BotW's tutorial plateau is the best part of the game in terms of learning about a landscape through surveying and exploring. In the plateau, we gain this ability to survey the land and decide where to go, to see a forest, a small mountain, and go and check it out – yet, because we are confined to the plateau, there is not as much distraction of the infinite other places to see.
The plateau is how all of the areas in BotW should have been designed. A contained, small geography, which is easy enough to keep in one's mind while exploring, small enough to become as familiar as one's morning commute.
Still an open world, but where you rarely need to fast travel.
As in other open world games, fast travel in BotW parallels the creation of public transit hub – neighborhoods centered around train stations, leading us to forget about what lies along the paths in between. Convenient in real life, but flattening with respect to a game's landscape. BotW's world feels more like a series of tiny islands we barely think about, warping from one to the next. It's fun to uncover new places, but rarely did I establish a relationship with one environment, because of how I was constantly in transit.
To be sure, exploration between shrines in BotW is engaging, but it becomes watered down when the game hangs quest, shrine, and Korok seed collection over our heads. It's hard to focus on that joy BotW does so well, when we're also looking out for shrines, a certain item, or odd markings that lead to Korok seeds.
I like to imagine a BotW which keeps its towers but removes their Google-Maps-ifying of the landscapes I travelled to reach it. I wonder about how a game might be influenced by Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker, to use its ideas of dense, layered levels with exteriors and interiors – and transfer that thinking to creating an enhanced BotW tutorial plateau.
It is no surprise that the second strongest area of BotW is Eventide Island, a tiny, but multifaceted island where you must complete challenging tasks, stripped of most of your items and weapons, only using what you can find. BotW shines when you must actually Think about the items and things you encounter in the landscape, as the game progresses more and more situations become setpieces to steamroll through.
As Tevis Thompson mentioned , there is no underworld in BotW. A few moments do achieve a sense of this – Tevis' examples: the final castle mimicking traditional 3D action games, Divine Beasts where the traditional ceilings become activated parts of the dungeon space, the introduction. And a few more I like: a cave hidden in a deep hole, where you must go through a small river. A giant skeleton inside of a hidden cave in a remote mountain. A temple filled with Guardians at the end of a quiet canyon. A shrine at the end of a hidden, underground, snaking and icy river. The hidden passages of the tedious labyrinth areas. The approach towards the clan hideout.
Shrines though technically interiors – do not count, with their uniform aesthetics leaving me with a sense of confusion of place in the same way visiting a Starbucks in Chicago and then in Tokyo does. Their spaces are totally disconnected from the entrances in a nonphysical way.
BotW has made a great argument for open world designs, but as one might expect, BotW falls to the issues of scale that plague many other open world games. At least one solution lies in scaling down these worlds.
I look forward to what game designers come up with in response to BotW.
Next time – a few words about the musical spaces of BotW's shrines, as well as thoughts on the design of how players find shrines in BotW.
Deios II : Deidia (Game Music Review)Posted: 2017-03-11 Filed under: Music Criticism Leave a comment
My gamedev/musician college BARCHboi recently finished his game, Deidia. It had one of the better soundtracks of any 2D game to come out in 2016 (or ever, really), and so I wanted to jot down a few notes about why I found that to be the case. BARCHboi is part of an interesting (small) trend of solo game designers who also have a large background music production, and thus, their solo musical work and musical work for games often overlaps.
You can watch some footage below:
The Intro
The game starts with a shareware-like intro, reminiscent of the 90s, even featuring what sounds like general MIDI instruments (or synths and samples close to or complementing that aesthetic). Intros are an important thing within games – not necessarily from a narrative standpoint, but they do preview and and help prepare the player for playing the game, sort of like dimming the lights in a theatre before the movie – asking you to focus on the game.
In Part 1, around 1:30 the game fakes a loading screen, adding a lovely pad sound before the game action starts, reminding me a bit of short melodic line at the beginning of this character creation song from PSO 1/2.
The sound effect is important – it mimics the process of logging into early web services like AOL or even login noises for desktop computers, giving us some hints as to how to interpret the game ahead. In that vein, so far the sounds of Deidia have given a similar feel to 'viewing the future' from the perspective of the booming internet in the 1990s, though I would like to distinguish this from the sounds of vaporwave or 80s pop and the like.
And then… silence!
In the game
Mostly silence, at least. Silence can be as effective as music in games. It draws your attention to what you're doing rather than as a background to what you're doing. Eventually, though, you can forget about it (or it can be very awkward depending on the situation). Wind, a buzzing noise sound, water drops in a cave, the human grunt of the character jumping, and soon, the clicking of your deitycoin miners.
Deidia has what is called 'dynamic game music' – its music shifts and changes at a finer grain than that of normal games that only use single loops. Around 3:35 of Part 2, as I approach the cave, a pad synth fades in, as well as louder rain noises. Later around 4:45, up to three layers of rain (each with progressively more low end content) fades in, to simulate walking into a rainstorm. These techniques can emphasize the contrasts between different areas within games by changing their sounds. This idea, emphasizing contrasts, is fundamental to making game music, and traditional single-loop music can do it too (like if the interior and exterior of a building have different sounds). However when making a game with dynamic music it can be easier to do this on a finer-grained level.
Sound of deitycoin
The deitycoin miners – things I can buy through an in-game menu in order to gain more money – are an interesting design choice. Deitycoins are essentially useless outside of opening a few doors in the game, in that sense they seem like an underdeveloped game system. But their signature clicking, which fades in whenever you open the game menu, I would argue serves as reminding us that this game is intended as some sort of strange post-apocalypse – a game taking place in the decaying remains of some sort of online space. That is the sound effect signals back to the player that there's some kind of strange programmed, internet architecture at play in the game's world. The user interface of the game does this, as well – allowing you to glitch things – resizing the player, moving around collidable objects, changing colors.
But it's this idea of a post-apocalypse that is interesting: Deidia's post-apocalypse is not after the end of our physical Earth, but an abstraction of what would remain after the end of some kind of common internet social space, perhaps what an MMORPG looks and sounds like when everything has crashed and become corrupted, or a social network when everyone's left. Endless, rainy, cloudy mountains, vast seas and networks of caves, little direction and forlorn music. While playing Deidia, we're treated to what this may sound like.
Traditional Music
Deidia does contain "normal" music. 6:20 features signature sounds of BARCHboi – some synth from the 80s (which I always ask about and forget the name of), using a brassy swelling pad. To me these often sound like music "leftover" in the world of Deidia – coincidentally appearing at places. As if, the coding scripts gluing together the world have been falling apart slowly.
There's even a strange musical moment at 6:40 when I'm warped into some cloudy ambience zone – inexplicable movements through space which further reinforce the game's aesthetic.
Another sound I like -appearing around 7:20 – is the fake animal noise. These synth squeals simulate some kind of lifeform, but we only ever see birds in the game and it's not clear the birds are making the noise. It gives the sense that the world of Deidia is slowly repopulating with animals, alien life.
The sequence around 9:20 is one of the more brilliant points of the game, utilizing interesting camera work, sound design, visual aesthetics of a crashing shore, and the assumption of players to just run to the right in platforming games.
The drama of Deidia jumps all over the place. Music will cut out at random times, fade in suddenly. For minutes at a stretch you might be stuck hearing bird and rain noises, to be treated to a traditionally composed track by BARCHboi. I like this aspect of personality and depth to Deidia, and it's been inspiring to me for learning to compose dynamic game music, much like some of the work of David Kanaga (like on Oikospiel – highly recommended).
Regular looping music has its place – and so does dynamic – and so why not explore both as a composer? Perhaps game composers can bring these ideas into the world of standalone music. Experimental and game composers have a lot of common ground to learn from each other, in writing for the spaces of clubs, homes, commutes, writing about systems of power and oppression, writing for the digital spaces of games, websites, videos, and so on.
Buy here: https://barch.itch.io/deiosiideidia
Detention's Resolution of Taiwanese Martial LawPosted: 2017-02-25 Filed under: Game Criticism Leave a comment
返校 [Detention] (RedCandleGames, 2017)
Last year, I was thrilled when I heard about a Taiwanese team of developers creating a game set in Taiwan's martial law period (1940s-1980s). It has sold well, reaching wide English and Chinese-speaking audiences. Though not one of the bigger countries in a USA/Europe context, Taiwan has always had a presence within gaming history, from early RPGs to more recent titles also addressing Taiwan's political history.
The gameplay is standard point and click horror with the occasional puzzle. The main character, a female student named Ray, has both a reality and a horror/dream-state world. The player guides her through both. The horror world has motifs of prison, otherworldly monsters drawing from Taoist and Buddhist culture. These motifs, as well as textual documents in the game, contribute towards a sense of unease and repression, partly intended to portray the martial law period. During this period, people were unable to create art freely (literature and film were often repressed in this period), unable to study freely, and people who broke with the status quo could find themselves imprisoned (or worse).
The game's story is a little cryptic, but it turns out that Ray committed suicide during the martial law period, due to mental stress from a dysfunctional family, and pressure/jealousy from a failed relationship with her high school guidance counselor. Before her suicide, she ratted out an illegal reading group in her school, leading to the imprisonment of a classmate, the guidance counselor and a female teacher.
Since the main action of the game is controlling Ray, keeping her safe, and exploring her alternate reality, the game succeeds primarily as a horror game, and secondarily as historical exposition/exploration. The game shows events related to the martial law such as school propaganda, Ray ratting out a reading group, teachers being taken away by the police. Though these events make sense to use as background for a horror narrative, I would be more interested to see the issues explored in a more nuanced fashion – perhaps looking at why people went with the status quo (as either oppressor or oppressed), or went against it (and faced consequences) – rather than a sort of blanket horror atmosphere.
At the end of the game, it skips into the future, after martial law, where you briefly play as the newly-freed classmate of Ray, who was originally imprisoned due to Ray's snitching. At this time, the weather is sunny and cheery, the environment, calm. There are no obstacles or monsters in the school. This historical transition comes off as a simplification of the end of martial law.
I don't think the developers personally view it this way – they had done lots of research, grown up in Taiwan, etc. – but the ending conveys the sense that of Taiwan being in one of two states: martial law or no martial law – skipping over the intervening periods of transition – creating a gap. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is worth noting as an effect of jumps in time within narratives.
(See http://www.taiwandc.org/twcom/tc31-int.pdf for a news brief from around the time of the martial law lifting).
Policies changed quickly after the martial law lifted – art collectors were eventually able to investigate Taiwan's history of objects and propaganda. Scholars could study and research events of the war and the previous ruling system. Taiwan became a stable democracy, though favor for the Kuomintang (KMT) party is still relatively high. The KMT ruled during the martial law period, and falls in and out of power with each government election. The remnants of martial law still float amongst Taiwanese society and diaspora.
Despite my criticism I don't mean to paint the game as ineffective in shedding light on the martial law period. I bring up the criticism as a point of inquiry into how such a setting could be used in other effective ways. According to the many Steam reviews and tweets about the game, non-Taiwanese players learned about a part of history for the first time, and some Taiwanese reflected on the progress of their society. It's nice for non-Taiwanese to learn about the country, as Taiwan usually only comes up in the news when being talked about relative to US-China tensions, or its odd name in the Olympics. And according to developer interviews, it was their goal to help non-Taiwanese learn about Taiwanese culture in the same ways games from other countries have helped them do the same.
Incorporating ancestors' experiences into games
In bringing up the issues with martial law as a backdrop, I want to think about how a historical event can be represented in a game by ancestors of those who lived through the event.
How should a person represent an aspect of their ancestor's history in a game, what should be left in or out? How prominent within the game should the period be? Should it be a direct representation, abstracted, etc?
I think it's important when doing a reading of a work, or creating your own, that you recognize the limitations of analysis/creation. From analsysis and criticism's standpoint, a game cannot possibly represent every aspect and view of the causes, events and repercussions of something like martial law – or perhaps any event. As a creator, when trying to make work about a period of time, at some point you just have to focus in some way, rather than trying to cover all your bases.
My feeling of the time period being mostly a background for atmosphere in Detention seems mostly correct based on interviews with the developers, who picked it as it fit a preconceived narrative theme. I personally would have liked a little bit more investigation, characters, etc., but at the same time knowing the challenges inherent in making a game, I can't fault the developers' intentions, especially in light of their success at reaching players outside of Taiwan.
And there is a benefit to the 'time gap' I brought up earlier – though the game may sharply jump from the time period of martial law to the aftermath, that alone still conveys to a player, "How did Taiwan get from point A to point B?" Even though Detention does not investigate that point, it brings up the point for discussion. And so it makes me think that, we may leave gaps in history or analysis in the works we make, but if framed carefully, those gaps can become launchpads for players' further research or interest. The gaps may simplify the process of social change, but gaps are better than no gaps, and I think Detention's team knew this well. A gap in time does not necessarily imply that the historical transition was "easy". The choice to end the game this way, I think, is much better than to just end it during martial law. Doing otherwise may have seemed more exploitative of the "Martial Law" aesthetic – purely used to make a horror game and mesh with the main character, Ray. Or, possibly unrepresentative of Taiwan, which was definitely not a goal of the development team.
Loose Ends
Who has free reign over making work of a particular period? That is a sticky question whose answer can't be easily generalized. I would like to say I welcome investigations by any person of something like the Taiwan martial law. I believe it is much more up to the skill of the game designer, than their ethnic background, to determine whether or not they will do an effective job in investigating the various vectors of history pointing to and from the period.
Related links…
Review – http://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2017/02/22/taiwan-white-terror-brought-back-to-life-for-gamers/
Interview – https://newbloommag.net/2017/02/22/interview-detention-game/
Guide to the game's plot/endings: http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/01/detention-game-endings-explained/22848/
Buy Detention here.
4 Good Songs of 2016Posted: 2017-02-03 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
This is a pretty incomplete list… I will keep better track in 2017. Anyways. Here are four songs I really liked. These songs all do great jobs of evoking interesting digital spaces.
Bryant Canelo – all this water you cannot drink
The song develops in the way you might peel back the world surrounding us to uncover, slowly, more about it. I would call it 'realistic' in the sense it sort of jumps out at you and asks you to recontextualize your surroundings.
The skittering trill throughout the whole song always has an unsteady feeling, both from the mechanical nature of trills in general, as well as its pitch changing (or a filter envelope moving around, not sure). Further contributing to this are occasional one-off percussion giving the impression of 'did I hear that or not?, 'dissonant' midi-guitar-like plucks, and further percussive and choral layers.
ella guro / Liz Ryerson – (untitled sitting in the rain track)
I heard this song without knowing it also was in Robert Yang's game, No Stars, Only Constellations. I'm particularly fond of the gently delayed, overlapping guitar sounds, especially around 1:19 when a single sequence of notes is played in different rhythms. I enjoy the layering of vinyl-ish static sounds in the song as well to give an impression of 'recollecting' a memory.
Liz's music is important, especially in the context of games, where it is actively contributing and help push existing boundaries on what music for games (and music in general) can be.
emamouse – STP
See this song in a different context, with emamouse's visual work: (6:20) http://psalm.us/mousewasher.html
emamouse puts out a lot of music, I was glad to be able to meet her at a show in Tokyo last August. A lot of emamouse's songs have a lot of motion going on a lot – I think everywhere in this song, some synth, somewhere, maybe more subdued at times, is always doing some sort of scale-like run up and down. It's something I'd like to do more of but is pretty hard to pull off! It's interesting to zoom in on parts of the song and uncover new layers. Passively listening sort of gives you this kind of murky and dark flavor for the song, but like exploring an area in a game, you understand more of it and see new things over time.
That, and the hook at the start is really catchy, using a vocal sample which is characteristic to some of her other work.
Gazelle Twin – Outer Body
I heard this some point last year – and it's really catchy. It's has this repeating percussive bit reminiscient of times in AAA games where you're approaching or waiting for action to happen. To that end it would be neat to see Gazelle's music within the context of a game!
The vocal samples partway through the song add another interesting layer to the mix. The "ambient" aspects of music are fun when the artist drops in different parts, creating a panorama of sorts of a musical space. In this song, bass clips pop in, reversed percussion samples, processed vocals, etc. Looking forward to more music by Gazelle Twin.
SAIC's Experimental Game Lab, Fall 2016Posted: 2017-01-19 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment
This past fall, I taught undergrads and a grad student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) as the lecturer for the Experimental Game Lab class. There was a lot of luck in being able to get this opportunity (thanks William Chyr). I am teaching there for the near future and am in talks for developing a game music composition and critique class for the fall.
The Class
It was a studio-style class, meeting at nights twice a week for three hours. I could see this being nice during the summer, but teaching 6-9 PM is kind of drab once day light savings time kicks in.
I decided to make the first half a discussion/lecture, then the second half 'studio' time, or time for students to work on their projects/troubleshoot.
The class structure and content were up to me to design. I decided it would be a mix of introductory game design with Twine/Unity and critique and critical play of games (to try and increase the variety of games students were exposed to.)
One issue with the class was that it took place on Tuesdays and Thursdays – so I had to figure out what games I wanted to assign by Thursday to have them ready for the next week. In practice I was really busy with releasing Even the Ocean (please buy it) till November so I ended up having to assign 3-4 games over the weekend and a few games on Monday/Tuesday. As you might expect most students had trouble playing the games assigned on Monday/Tuesday for the Thursday class.
Part of why this was the case was that students seemed overworked – most taking 4-5 classes a semester, requiring many hours per week in-class and with projects to work on. I wasn't really able to assign as much work as I'd like to, but perhaps this was also to blame on assigning too many game projects (more on that later.)
Luckily for next semester it's a once-a-week 6 hour class, so it'll be easier to structure – just assign once a week and discuss all of them for half of the next class.
Overall I managed to assign around 50 games, which was about my goal. Including student critiques that brought the total number of games discussed to around 100.
For each game I assigned, I gave some readings (often reviews or other criticisms), and then I wrote up some questions, which were usually short essay questions but I only required a few sentences. I tried to focus on questions requiring students to deconstruct how a game worked, or how effective a design decision was, or occasionally asking to think about the game's presence (or lack of) sociopolitical themes.
Some students consistently gave good responses, others half-assed them. If anything I need to be clearer on the expectation and then enforce that in grading.
Question examples…
Yume Nikki: Did the presence of the 'effects' change how you perceived and made your way through the game's world? How would the game have changed if there were no effects to find?
Lacuna III (An visually 'spooky' game): The NPC dialogue in Lacuna III is an interesting choice – although some NPCs may speak cryptically, a few speak in friendly, almost cute ways. What's the effect of this on the player's experience and perception of the game?
LSD Dream Emulator: In the dream-like games we've played so far, you transition from one place to another through doors, waking up, dying, or portals. LSD Dream Emulator adds a new way to the mix. What is the overall effect of colliding with any object functioning as a trigger to the next dream-world?
Now that I've generated around 50 games and written questions for them, that should buy me some extra time this semester to polish up questions, readings, and find new games to replace my weaker choices. I would like to include more short writings of my own on the games – I managed to do this for a few games, but for most I only had time to write summaries. I think it's important to introduce why I'm picking a particular work. The past few weeks I've played ~80 or so games so I've found a handful I think are worth assigning.
I'd like to more strongly theme the games together. E.g. "newsgames", "political", "architecture", "dreamscape 2d", etc. I did attempt to do this for some weeks, but other weeks I had to do some 'easy' weeks like assigning some 3D games that weren't Great but that I thought would be easy for students to emulate in their work, or even assigning my own games (which I'm still feeling okay about doing – though it does feel a little weird at times.)
We had four crits over the semester. I think this was too many. The first three required entire classes (of which I only had 28 classes in total), the last final crit took the last two days of class.
The idea was: Twine game, 2D Unity game, 3D unity game, Final project. It was an easy way for me to get a decent syllabus done, but it's clear in retrospect that expecting four finished projects with the expectation of a crit was too much.
Instead what I'm shifting to for the spring semester will be a few shorter assignments focused on literacy with tools and design exercises, and then just a midterm and final project critique.
In the future I'd like to incorporate more interesting design exercises – perhaps when I get more confident with teaching. Robert Yang, Jake Elliott and Paolo Pedercini's teaching work have been good reference points in this regard.
I was initially nervous about these at first, but then I realized it was basically a feedback session and it got a lot easier. It helped I had taken a few art classes in undergrad. One problem is that it got a little awkward when it was unstatedly obvious the student wasn't satisfied with their work or, maybe, knew they turned in something of poor quality. But I never really brought this up and insisted on investigating the work anyways, and that seemed to have been fine and perhaps contribute to class goodwill.
I made sure to take notes for each student… which helped the discussion get going when the student had trouble talking about their work.
Because we are dealing with games and not traditional artworks, students must play the games ahead of time. Which is fine but this ends up having to shave a few days off of each student's development time for a given project. This should be less of an issue since next semester will only have two crits.
General lessons on teaching
I didn't anticipate how much of a distraction electronics would be. It feels a bit absurd to do this, but I'm planning on banning all electronics during class discussions, unless a student specifically requests to use something for note taking. Which I would then grant permission for (under the threat of a grade reduction if they take advantage of the policy). I'm not really the most confident when it comes to punishments but it seems like a necessary thing for discussions to be productive. Some students were producing music, chatting, etc.
Additionally, I'm implementing a no late work policy. I had a few students who couldn't keep up with the work and ended up missing many assignments. I think this will help to prevent work from piling up for those students. In terms of projects the no late work thing sure sounds stricter – but I think it is also necessary. I had students turning in things a few days late or even on crit day and it really fucked up the crits sometimes since only I and a few others would have anything to say about the work.
If anything I want to emphasize that it's okay to turn in unfinished work/WIPs. But it's hard, and I assume it's something students don't feel as proud of doing.
As for discussions in class, I only did this a few times but taking notes during the discussion is really helpful over a 90-180 minute discussion, in order to reference back things people said. Should have done this more often. Might have been anecdotal, but I felt like discussions were livelier when I sat at the same big table as students, rather than project the game onto the screen during discussion. I'm still for live play, but it seems better to have another student play the game – I think students may see it as easier/more ok to be distracted if I'm up at the front of the class.
Unity (3D)
For 3D, Vanilla Unity is a hard thing to teach to non-coding students. It's an extremely powerful tool and as you might expect if you're not used to coding it can be hard to track down problems.
From the students, I mostly ended up with little/no-interaction first-person games. I tried to teach coding for a few days but this was pretty much a failure. I think teaching coding would be too difficult alongside the other goals of the course – I'd probably have to axe game assignments – so I'm focusing on looking into scripting tools this semester.
This semester, I'm requiring (non-programming background) students to use Playmaker if they want to use Unity 3D, hopefully that will result in better games as it (I hope) helps abstract away some of the coding and get them more into design, rather than worrying about randomly downloaded libraries not having namespace collisions or figuring out C# syntax.
2D Unity
Unity 2D wasn't much better. For getting student to just make a simple game, there are so many caveats that make this a nightmare… objects disappearing because their Z coordinates change for whatever reason, it's hard to get pixel-perfect set-up, the sprite animation system in Unity can quickly become tedious.
So I'm using Stencyl instead. Game Maker feels a lot more ideal and documented, but I've managed to figure out enough with Stencyl that I feel comfortable teaching it. It also has drag and drop coding, which, while tedious, is less error prone.
And, it works natively on Macs, which is necessary because my students are only guaranteed to have Macs.
Despite shortcomings with the course the students seemed to all be satisfied. On a few accounts I heard that it was one of their more well-organized classes. Evaluations will come out soon so I can see some more feedback, hopefully. Using different tools should help – I would rather leave the students in a place where they can go further with the tools rather than being stuck at a coding roadblock.
In general…
Teaching is pretty fun, especially when getting a good discussion going or when a student produces interesting work. It's nice to stay up to date on aspects of youth culture.
I was pretty lenient with grading this time around – not sure how much I should change that. I think for the most part, students did put in good effort and their projects will be improved by structuring the class slightly differently, and changing up what tools we use.
Time and Eternity: 42 MetacriticPosted: 2016-12-31 Filed under: Game Criticism Leave a comment
If you see this game on the shelf, don't touch it, don't even look at it. You would have much more fun spending your money on a dentist appointment.
I implore you to avoid this game at all costs, and play just about anything else on the market with the joy in your heart that you aren't playing Time and Eternity.
There's no need to talk about why the game is bad – look at any reviews. If we idealize any popular JRPG form, TE doesn't stand up to it. I had thought that the game may have been more popular for the original audience in Japan, but a cursory glance at the reviews shows that Japanese-speakers didn't like it, either. One review title reads something to the extent of "it's impossible for something to be this shitty", its first line asking if the 5-star reviews were written by the game's developers.
A few reviews mention the positives – which I agree with – there are some absurd story beats which end up seeming like pasted-over stories from some writer's life, cut and past into the fantasy of TE's world. In the game's first main arc, you have to defeat the Assassin's Guild, but you end up running into the Assassin's Guild Fan Club, which has monthly magazines about the true guild. Some point later on a side quest, you have to remind a journalist walking around a field as to what his job is. As it turns out, he completely forgot his purpose for being there, the main male protagonist even questioning how he can do his job when all he does is walk in small circles.
But what's more fun, at least for a few hours, about TE, is how the ways in which it is broken point to ideas about JRPGs/games in general.
I get a small sense of "Why on earth do I exist?" from many of the NPCs. Why does any NPC exist? It's a well-treaded subject, and as I played TE I found myself being able to see the writers behind the game. Because the writing was so flat, the characters so predictable and shallow, it's almost as if I could see the spreadsheet and outline of plot points and story beats to hit laid bare before me, the game's mismanagement, tangible.
It makes me question long, 20+ hour games. The game sends you back in time – to fix something – only to have a time paradox erupt and require you to go slightly less far back in time. I quit at the beginning of the second arc. Perhaps this would work in the right hands, but there was no way the game was going to get better, and I didn't want to play the same thing for another arc, so why bother?
Most long games suffer from repetition wearing thin over way-too-long playthroughs. In this sense, TE made a great choice to have fighting be (a flawed) 1 on 1 system, but made a poor choice to spawn battles every 20 seconds and have most battles require killing 3-4 enemies in a row.
The same wearing thin can occur by separating any of the story beats by hours of fighting, or some other repetitive task. Take Persona 5, which was harmed by dungeons that always went on for an hour or two too long – thus wearing thin its difficult balance between seeing the benefits of the dating-sim aspects of the game influencing your stats in the game's dungeons. Unfortunately P5 worked just well enough that it didn't bother most people enough, so I'd assume that for Persona 6, the dev team will probably try to make it even longer!
This points to the popularity of Undertale. Undertale eliminates the long-playtime inaccessibility of JRPGs, and combines and simplifies popular aspects of the genre such as character development, NPC dialogue and battle systems into a 3-5 hour package with enough variance from playthrough to playthrough. Its most interesting setpiece being that its game world, abstractly, is a character with its own development and reactions that you can influence through the battle system.
For the record, I enjoyed both P5 and Undertale but didn't encounter much new territory from a thematic standpoint, though some of P5's arcs (and its characters in general) were very fun. TE was terrible across the board, though playing it makes apparent that in many JRPGs I'm going through the motions of the battle so I can just see the next bit of a story. Repetitive area after repetitive area, fighting recolors of 6 enemy types, with a few sidequests and treasures to find before advancing the plot. How many JRPGs are like this, but slightly better and with these mechanical cores harder to see?
As far as shorter playtimes go, from a development standpoint there's less to worry about in terms of player pacing, and a higher chance players will "See Everything", or at least get into a position where they can dive deeper into repeated or alternate playthroughs. There's a lower chance that you'll wear your story themes or characters thin through repetition or a grating, endless battle system, a higher chance you end up presenting the more interesting ideas by trying to work within a smaller playtime. Does a game really need 40-80 hours to cook and say something interesting? I don't think so!
Next time: A review of Deidia's soundtrack, maybe some post-release thoughts on Even the Ocean and intuited limits on the narrative possibilities of games?
Album Review: rio8 – 🐹 OST (11/2016)Posted: 2016-12-17 Filed under: Music Criticism Leave a comment
This is a review of the OST from the game 🐹 by carpetbones. Also written as "u1f439", or for this review, HAMSTER. (The game name is officially just the emoji but sometimes it doesn't render, so.)
Listen along and support the composer here – https://rio8.bandcamp.com/album/u1f439-ost
No commentary playthrough of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw_uswPTai8
This game comes from a lineage of 2D, top-down dreamscape exploration games where the places you explore and inhabit are often of a surreal nature. Thus the music often doesn't follow traditional structures.
Music for these settings can draw from a range of influences, the least interesting way to discuss them is writing them off as ambient, it is more interesting to create descriptions of textures, materials, atmospheres – that the music draws upon.
The sort of style for many of these types of games, Hamster included, is a short ambient loop – which is constructed as a combination of moods, textures, 'shapes'. It's not so much the notes that matter in particular here (you can often just slap on random notes and it will work for this style of composition) but the sorts of textures of the sounds.
1) Credits
Objectively the most cheery piece in the album – perhaps the simplest as well, with some added complexity in the quieter harmony notes of the rhodes-like lead, which add a nice layer of depth to help accentuate the cuteness of the piece.
What sticks out to me, in context of this album, is just how cheery this piece is. It's here I need to bring up the context of the game – and that it seems to stake a divide between dream and reality, as the music does, too. As we'll see in later tracks, the music seems to suggest particular connotations about dreams.
For the unfamiliar, this song falls has the locational context (not a genre!) of"Title Screen", as in it joins a group of diverse music that plays on the Title Screens of video games.
It's music that plays when you open a video game up to play it, but before the game itself starts. Sort of like a title card or intro credits to a movie.
I find it helpful to ask, how does the title screen music in a game frame the game or foreshadow it, how does it sound once I've played the game?
2) Garden
This song is one instrument as well (though with three separate voice lines), similar but warmer to the one in Credits. It is a short, straightforwardly positive loop – each voice working in the same key and accentuating the same mood, with that a sort of 'yearning' or nostalgic nature brought upon by the chosen chord structures, most apparent when the middle voice holds a sustain note on a chord.
In some ways it reminds me of noodling on a Casio in my college dorm room – sort of a sheltered, quiet and friendly place.
It sets an interesting tone for the rest of the album – this occupies a completely different mind-space than anything else, that of a cheery garden or nostalgic place. And fittingly, it is set in such a place in-game – the outdoors garden of the protagonist hamster, in the hamster's waking world.
3) White
This is the most violent rupture in mood continuity in the album (and game) – immediately I get some calls back to Yume Nikki's OST and very likely other games and spin-offs related to it which I've never listened to the music from.
In this case we only have two: a droning, downsampled buzzy synth with a sine-LFO on its amplitude. The LFO is important in not wearing out the listener's ear, it also helps with accentuating a feeling of uncertainty and anticipation (though those feelings would exist WITHOUT the LFO, I'd argue). We also hear the volume of the drone voice being automated with its volume to grow and recede in intensity, further accentuating this feeling.
The second important element to break up the pace of the drone is the delayed synth which seems to have the same or similar timbre as the drone, just it's not sustained, but bounces around the song.
Overall I'd say this serves as a good transition to the rest of the album – where moods continue to vary but stick to the same format of a more textural music.
4) Puddle
For me, sometimes it can help – either while composing or listening to music that does not follow the structure of popular music – to imagine it as a progression through a particular landscape, where in place of a landmark passing your vision, the song brings in particular elements.
This is one of the longest songs on the album. The background of the entire song is the delayed bell synths, secondarily, the more melodic ones that come in at a lower register.
The most interesting 'sight' here would be the traditionally dissonant sound that comes in around 0:50 – contributing even further to the clipping of the music, transitioning from a simple sound to a wobbly one by means of an extreme sine-LFO on the pitch of the sound.
Composing something like this is fun – one fun thing is to change up what the most melodic element of the song is, which happens throughout. (I like 1:44, though it fades into the mix rather quickly, it provides an interesting point of contrast that departs from the general 'uncertainty ambience' of this piece.
As for the game context, this takes place in a rainy tennis court. Interesting to read the delayed bells as 'rain' and the misty/cloudy-like optimism of the song as being used to color in an ambiguous, yet slightly positive and cloudy day.
5) Highway
Highway is interesting – the scene in the game it is from is a highway, and I think takes influence from one of my games, Anodyne. Dark road, yellow lane markings and skid marks.
The song itself conjures a demonic, bumpy car ride through a dark underpass. The clipping, water-wet-sounding blips that surround the 'engine growl' synth add a nice widening to the song.
This kind of textural music tends to create an unsettling feeling – letting you tap into darker places or ideas in your mind.
6) Office
This is one of the trickier songs to critique off the album – listening to it now, outside of the game, it strikes me as a bit annoyingly random and weak, the bassline randomly meandering at a constant pace.
It makes a lot more sense, within the context of the game, though, where you navigate a series of small, square-shaped office rooms. With the game, the song is complete – calling upon a tone of disorientation and confusion that's conjured by the strangeness of uniform office spaces across the world. Office spaces – confined, orderly rooms with water coolers and cubicles.
7) Train
Alone, this is one of the weaker songs on the album.
The volume LFO around 0:40 is a nice twist on the constant timbre of the synth, as well as the steam-y breathing synth that plays in parallel with the more pronounced wobbly bass synth. These two ideas seem like they could have led to more, but instead this song choose to randomly jump around with the pitch of its main synth. Things become a bit more interesting near the end of the song, but never enough to really cohere into a more interesting atmosphere or image – the song comes off as a little rushed or noodled into the keyboard.
Taken a little further, in some way – more layers, effects, or compositional changes, I think this could work for some kind of empty and sprawling space, or a quieter confined and subdued space.
For some reason this song plays in a later part of the game than it does in the album. It plays in a realistic-ish looking city where you can walk over train tracks and watch trains going by. In this context the song makes more sense, the meandering synth serving more as a point of creating tension within the game's atmosphere.
8) Jelly
I can kind of understand this track – but I think some mixing might have helped with reducing the bass frequencies, which seem to overpower the pleasant bubbling mid-range synth that pops up now and then.
Still, I like the song at a more abstract level – this barely audible rumbling contrasting against a louder bubbling.
It's worth mentioning that I don't think this fits the area it plays in particularly well, where you walk through a black field filled with sugar cubes and a spoon. I imagine more of some kind of place where you are in transit.
9) Phone
I almost want the meandering bassline here to be a little less random – or more consistently confined to one range, maybe interspersed with silence or gaps. The repetition here sounds more grating – like putting a randomizer on the pitch for a donky xylophone synth and calling it a day. To some extent, this does seem to describe the dial tones of a phone, which I would chalk up as a positive for the song. The area in-game also features scissors and telephones in its landscape.
10) Underwater
This takes a similar approach to previous songs – building up the sound with meandering notes, except each note is sustained longer and has a longer attack. In this way, the effect of the random notes is more bearable to the listener, because the randomness of the notes is not as apparent, thanks to the timbre of the notes being sort of a growing drone.
It's interesting – on its own this song feels hot, warm. Kind of a gritty/fire texture to it, but in-game it's used in an underwater area where you walk very slowly! Works well as an example in where an environment and the song may have some contrast to them that creates something interesting together.
11) Doors
This song goes alongside one of the more surreal spaces inside of Hamster, a black space with doors scattered around with blue skies and white clouds showing through them, reminding me a bit of the painter Magritte's Surrealist work.
The form of doors may be a reference to Yume Nikki or other sorts of games (LSD Dream Emulator). Which feature doors prominently as passageways between spaces.
How should the passageways between one room and another be delineated in an abstract setting?
Well… you can use the most literal choice, of doors. Which has an interesting effect.
I think this song uses silence well. Silence is a tool that is easy to forget we have, as musicians. Creating anticipation for the next note, confusion as why music cut out, contemplation of what's to come…
In some way this song points more to anxiety, I think due to the dial-tone like synth that pervades the song in between staticy synth that appears from time to time.
12) Kid
This is a 'sad' song – fitting into the locational context of a 'game over' song, or 'sad cutscene' song. A more melodic song in the middle of a bunch of more textural work always hints at some narrative meaning. The area in the game this song takes place in features toybox-like shapes, clown heads, fried eggs, childrens' blocks. Even without the game, the word "Kid" gives us some connections to sadder or nostalgic moments of someone's childhood.
I find this song nice, but since it covers well-treaded musical ground I find it less interesting than others. I do like it as it kind of calls back some of more melodic songs on the album (like #2 Garden).
13) Candle
The breathy ambience here seems a little too quiet relative to the rest of the OST. Reminds me of times at night when walking alone through the city – hearing air conditioners echo through streets surrounded by tall buildings.
These kinds of textures summon images and ideas related to vast, mechanical and oppressive spaces, devoid of any living creatures.
In the game it's put to use in a sort of ruined, grey cobblestone city with unlit candles.
14) Radio
Goopy, bubbling black textures make up the lower end of this song's frequency range. This part establishes the general mood of the song, the higher notes are used to create the feeling of walking through a dark place, and quickly darting your head at what seemed to be a passing light or sound.
In a more taste way, I thought the higher notes may have been too much, at least at ~0:40. Perhaps a better way could have been to reduce the delay feedback, or just lower the volume of those sounds? I was hoping for something that made those moments of sounds darting around to be much quicker. The lower-frequency sound at ~1:30 works a lot better for this kind of goal since it doesn't separate itself too far from the general sound palette of the song.
I like this song a lot – especially in game, as you traverse a dark space, only able to see in a small circle around yourself. As you walk around you reveal the red glowing tips of radio towers, eventually leading you to the exit of the area.
15) In Death
A far stronger 'ending' track than #16 Stars, the notes here call back to the feeling of #2 Garden – almost as if the song is trying to recall or wake up to the atmosphere created through Garden. I like this sort of intra-album linkage, as well as how it works in-game, as you travel through a cemetery/forest-like place. It creates some nostalgia for the beginning of the game.
16) Stars
Sort of like #12 Kid, I found the musical territory this treads to not be particularly new. It's an oddly sad way to end the album – I liked the tonal change in #15 In Death and thought it would have worked well as a replacement for this song.
Worse, it felt out of place in the game – a short walk on clouds through a starry background, back home to end the game.
Whereas many of the tracks sound neutrally or sometimes 'negatively' ominous, this song goes for a more sad, piano lullaby vibe, which struck me as a bit off considering the progression of the narrative as a whole didn't point towards this kind of ending, nor was this describing a particularly sad/lullaby sort of space/scene.
That covers my thoughts – I liked this album! Again, you can purchase it and support the composer here.
I hope to write more reviews later and figure out more interesting ways of writing about music. This review got a little formal at times, but I think it's useful to break music down to figure out why it gives us the feelings it does. "Disassembly" work also makes it easier to incorporate aspects of a song into work as a composer.
Feel free to leave comments below!
A note on music found in Games… maybe I'll expand on this later.
The value I find for this sort of short-textural music, or more generally music in games – or More Generally experimental music, as a composer, is how it expands my vocabulary for describing spaces (hospital, driveway, store, etc). I can see how a composer envisioned a particular place sounding – or, I can ignore the game context entirely, and see what images the music conjures. This format of music makes it easy to incorporate elements of all genres of music, for various effects.
A game plants the seeds for a composer to envision new sounds, likewise, a song can plant the seeds for a game designer to envision new spaces and systems and interactions.
As a listener, this sort of music is interesting in its effect to transport one to unknown and new places – places you can stand still and observe in.
As a critic, this music is important to talk about and signal boost, as a part of the wide variety of experimental music that can be listened and used as-is, or as a base for creating more music, as part of political statements in albums, games, or other media. This kind of music is easily overlooked and ignored from the critical sphere.
Music in games can often be a sort of experimental music. By way of being for games, its roots can sometimes be hard to trace back culturally, at least not in the clear paths often defined in popular musics. But, it's wrong to say that creators of music in games are not influenced by other music, nor does their music fail to influence future composers (just look at all the popular composers who love 90s game music!).
Further, since there's not really popular game music (except for some obvious nintendo/final fantasy etc stuff), it can be hard to categorize many game composers into easily-defined movements or buckets.


text:
Improvement of alignment accuracy utilizing sequentially conserved motifs
Multiple sequence alignment algorithms are very important tools in molecular biology today. Accurate alignment of proteins is central to several areas such as homology modelling, docking studies, understanding evolutionary trends and study of structure-function relationships. In recent times, improvement of existing progressing programs and implementation of new iterative algorithms have made a significant change in this field.
We report an alignment algorithm that combines progressive dynamic algorithm, local substructure alignment and iterative refinement to achieve an improved, user-interactive tool. Large-scale benchmarking studies show that this FMALIGN server produces alignments that, aside from preservation of functional and structural conservation, have accuracy comparable to other popular multiple alignment programs.
The FMALIGN server allows the user to fix conserved regions in equivalent position in the alignment thereby reducing the chance of global misalignment to a great extent. FMALIGN is available at
The advent of large genome projects has led to an explosion of sequence data in public databases. Analysis of protein families, understanding their evolutionary trends and detection of remote homologues are now the primary objectives. Genome annotation and analysis tools like fold prediction, homology modelling, protein-ligand docking and clustering algorithms rely heavily on accurate multiple alignments to provide a genome-wide perspective.
The most popular approach for multiple sequence alignment has been the progressive alignment method
In this paper, we present an alignment algorithm that combines the properties of both progressive alignment methods and iterative refinement algorithms. This algorithm offers the user the selective advantage of guiding the course of alignment by simultaneous inputs of multiple conserved motif regions that in turn guarantees retention of structure/function in the final alignment. FMALIGN is an alignment server that provides the user to obtain a control over the alignment by providing important conserved regions as input to the alignment program to achieve a more structurally relevant and functionally useful alignment of protein sequences. It employs the sequential branching method to identify the closest pair of sequences and subsequently includes the next closest sequences to generate a guided tree using UPGMA
Implementation: methodology and description of FMALIGN server
The algorithm of FMALIGN (Fixed Motif ALIGNment) program combines three main criteria: (a) Progressive global alignment method, (b) substructure (local) conserved region fixation and (c) iterative refinement of alignment with identification of more conserved regions. The procedure involves three steps: (i) identification and fixing of the specified sequential conserved regions. This alignment method requires specific regions of the sequences to be aligned as anchor and these anchors are generally meant for sequentially conserved parts which do not undergo many changes. (ii) derivation of the progressive multiple sequence alignment guided by the tree. During this step, excluding the fixed anchored regions, the rest of the sequences are divided into several sub-segments that are aligned employing a dynamic alignment algorithm in a sequential order from N to C-terminus. The phylogenetic guide tree has been derived using Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA)
Figure 1
Cartoon representation of the flowchart of FMALIGN methodology
Cartoon representation of the flowchart of FMALIGN methodology. Coloured parts are meant to be important segments of protein sequences.
FMALIGN server can accept amino acid patterns for multiple motifs provided by the user. It also provides option to the user to search motifs within their sequences using FINDMOTIF routine or to obtain them for the alignment by providing a link to SMoS
Alignment scores
To assess the performance of FMALIGN in comparison to other programs, Sum-of-Pair-score (SPS) and Column-Score (CS) alignment scoring scheme
Results and discussion
Benchmarking at family level
FMALIGN derived alignments retain high degree of conservation in secondary structures. Six members from the globin family were selected comprising a wide range of sequence identity between them (7% to 61%). Conserved regions for six aligned globin sequences were identified by the FINDMOTIF routine starting from CLUSTALX
Figure 2
Six members from globin family are selected and aligned by FMALIGN utilizing sequentially conserved regions
Six members from globin family are selected and aligned by FMALIGN utilizing sequentially conserved regions. The structure-annotated JOY [24] representation of the alignment shows high conservation of structural features retained in this alignment. Capital and small letters represent solvent-buried and solvent-exposed residues, respectively. Helices and β-strands are represented in red and blue colours, respectively. Concensus secondary structures are marked. Hydrogen bonding patterns are also annotated: hydrogen bond to main chain and side chain are indicated in bold and underlined, respectively. Residues with positive-φ conformation are italised.
In order to evaluate the FMALIGN server, the results have been compared with 10 other alignment programs and objective criteria were employed to assess the quality of an alignment. We selected the BAliBASE benchmark alignment database
Reference 1 alignments consist of a small number of equidistant sequences of similar length, i.e. the percent residue identity (% ID) between any two sequences is within a specified range and no large extensions or insertions have been introduced.
Reference 2 contains alignments of a family of closely related sequences with >25% ID, plus up to three 'orphan' sequences (distant members of the family with <20% ID, sharing a common fold). It is designed to evaluate program accuracy according to two criteria: (i) the stability of the family alignment when orphans are introduced into the sequence set and (ii)the quality of the alignment of the orphan sequences.
Reference 3 checks the ability of the programs to correctly align equidistant divergent families into a single alignment. The reference alignments consist of up to four families, with <25% ID between any two sequences from different families.
Reference 4 and 5 contain alignments of upto 20 sequences including N/C-terminal extensions (upto 400 residues) and insertions (upto 100 residues), respectively.
Reference 1: a small number of approximately equidistant sequences
This dataset is designed to study the effect of sequence length and percentage identity on the performance of the alignment program and provides a basis for the remaining tests. The overall performance of FMALIGN server for this dataset is comparable to the two best performing alignment programs, like PRRP
Figure 3
SPS for reference 1 for all three categories
SPS for reference 1 for all three categories. a) SPS scores are shown for VI (<25% sequence identity) (b) for V2 (20%–40% sequence identity), and (c) V3 (>35% sequence identity). Alignments of different length categories are shown by different line plot.
Reference 2: a related family with divergent, orphan sequences
It is possible to assess the performance of the methods to align divergent 'orphan' sequences (10–20% ID with the family and between orphans) with a family of highly related (>25% ID) sequences using this data set. It is also interesting to observe the disruption of the family alignment due to the introduction of orphans. Figure
Figure 4
SPS scores for reference 1 for V2 (20% -40% sequence identity).
SPS scores for reference 1 for V2 (20% -40% sequence identity). Alignments of different length categories are shown by different line plot.
Reference 3: families of related sequences
This allows the assessment of the programs to correctly align approximately equidistant divergent families (<20% ID) composed of highly related sequences (>25% ID) into a single multiple alignment. Figure
Figure 5
SPS scores for reference 1 for V3 (>35% sequence identity).
SPS scores for reference 1 for V3 (>35% sequence identity). Alignments of different length categories are shown by different line plot.
Reference 4: N/C-terminal extensions
This dataset includes large N/C-terminal extensions to investigate whether the programs are capable of aligning the core blocks flanking the extensions. No large internal insertions are introduced at this stage. Mostly local alignment strategies out-perform the global methods. PILEUP (Wisconsin Package v.8; Genetics Computer Group, Madison, WI) is the only program based on a global alignment method which does reasonably well compared to other global methods. Performance of FMALIGN is comparable to the best three methods (DIALIGN
Figure 6
Alignment scores (SPS) are compared for reference 2.
Alignment scores (SPS) are compared for reference 2. Alignments of different length categories are shown by different line in the plot.
Reference 5: internal insertions
In contrast to reference 4, in this dataset the insertions are internal to the homologous domains and not at the N/C-terminus as overhangs. FMALIGN also performs well in this category and results are comparable to the other better performing global alignment methods like PRRP and CLUSTALX as shown in Figure
Benchmarking at superfamily level
Utilization of structural motifs to improve alignment accuracy
The performance of FMALIGN has been tested on a dataset of representative superfamilies of proteins belonging to different structural classes in PASS2
Figure 7
Alignment scores (CS) are compared for reference 3.
Alignment scores (CS) are compared for reference 3. Alignments of different length categories are shown by different line in the plot.
Utilization of sequence motifs to improve alignment accuracy
Representative superfamily alignments belonging to different structural classes from the PASS2
Table 1
List of superfamilies used for FMALIGN benchmarking.
Superfamily code
Superfamily name
Structural Class
Average length of proteins
Average sequence identity(%)
All α
Putative DNA-binding domain
All α
All α
All α
SAM/Pointed domain
All α
C2 domain(Calcium/lipid-binding domain, CaLB)
All β
Galactose-binding domain-like
All β
ISP domain
All β
Acid proteases
All β
Hedgehog/intein (Hint) domain
All β
Phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC)
α and β
Ferredoxin reductase-like, C-terminal NADP-linked domain
α and β
Thiamin diphosphate-binding fold (THDP-binding)
α and β
"Helical backbone" metal receptor
α and β
Chromo domain-like
α and β
Regulatory domain in the amino acid metabolism
α and β
Ribosome inactivating proteins (RIP)
α and β
Leech antihemostatic proteins
α and β
Figure 8
Alignment scores (CS) are compared for reference 4 and 5.
Alignment scores (CS) are compared for reference 4 and 5.
Figure 9
Comparison of alignment accuracy on the basis of sequence similarity.
Comparison of alignment accuracy on the basis of sequence similarity. Conserved motifs are identified for superfamilies like, Cytochromes (code: 02.01.050), ACP-like (02.01.060), C2 domain (Calcium/lipid-binding domain, CaLB) (code: 02.02.027), ISP domain (code: 02.02.058), Phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) (code: 02.03.018), Esterase/acetylhydrolase (02.03.054), Chromo domain-like (code: 02.04.010) and BPTI-like (02.07.023). These motifs are utilized to realign the sequences by FMALIGN. Alignments are scored using sequence similarity scores based on a 20x20 substitution matrix. FMALIGN derived alignments are compared against CLUSTALX [4] and sequence-structure alignment, COMPARER [21].
Figure 10
Comparison of alignment accuracy
Comparison of alignment accuracy. FMALIGN derived alignments of the PASS2 [20] superfamily members are compared against the same derived by CLUSTALW [22] and T-Coffee [23].
FMALIGN server provides a web interface for pairwise and multiple sequence alignments of proteins. FMALIGN provides an alignment by combining progressive dynamic algorithm, local substructure alignment and iterative refinement presenting an improved, user interactive alignment procedure. FMALIGN server allows the user to fix conserved regions in equivalent positions amongst the sequences to be aligned leading to alignments that are reliable and biologically more meaningful. Additional options for the users to choose substitution matrices and gap penalty values may be incorporated in future.
All the alignments provided in BAliBASE are realigned by FMALIGN and the resulting scores (both SPS and CS) are calculated using a standard program kindly provided by the authors of BAliBASE. The inter-motif regions are aligned in FMALIGN by normal progressive alignment using standard substitution matrices like BLOSUM62. The gap penalties used in this version of FMALIGN are all maintained according to standard multiple alignment parameters. Benchmarking at the superfamily level has also been done utilizing both structural and sequential conserved regions. The dataset is wide enough to include proteins from different structural classes and of different length. The average sequence identity for this dataset was less than 30% since the proteins are related at the superfamily level. The performance of FMALIGN has been tested against one of the best performing multiple sequence alignment (T-Coffee) as well as structure based alignment tool (COMPARER). Studies on large and different datasets revealed an overall better performance of FMALIGN server for all categories in BAliBASE benchmarking database. It works especially well at lower sequence identity range, such as superfamily level, where no two proteins are more than 25% identical to each other in comparison to other popular methods like CLUSTALX and T-Coffee. It is well-known that automatic multiple sequence alignments at poor sequence identity are often subject to careful manual validations and improvements to avoid offsets of critical functionally important residues. FMALIGN can sensitively address this issue to avoid manual intervention subsequent to final alignment. FMALIGN-derived alignments also show a high conservation of secondary structural elements and provide better alignments for comparative modelling. The implementation of this alignment algorithm can be used to include new members into an existing protein superfamily with the help of motif regions that provide a reliable approach to connect protein sequences with their structural homologues within a particular superfamily. FMALIGN is available via the following URL
Authors' contributions
S.C. had carried out the benchmarking, was involved in the development of the server and has written the first draft of the manuscript. N.B. had written the initial part of the code and P.A. has written the latter part of the code and developed a web server. R.S. had initiated the idea, was involved in discussions and in the critical reading of the manuscript.
List of abbreviations
SPS Sum-of-Pairs Score
R.S. is a Senior Research Fellow funded by the Wellcome Trust Grant. We would also like to acknowledge National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR) for financial support.
Progressive sequence alignment as a prerequisite to correct phylogenetic trees
A strategy for the rapid multiple alignment of protein sequences. Confidence levels from tertiary structure comparisons
A flexible method to align large numbers of biological sequences
The CLUSTAL_X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools
The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees
Pattern-induced multi-sequence alignment (PIMA) algorithm employing secondary structure-dependent gap penalties for use in comparative protein modelling
DIALIGN: finding local similarities by multiple sequence alignment
Fast and sensitive multiple alignment of large genomic sequences
Simultaneous and multivariate alignment of protein sequences: correspondence between physicochemical profiles and structurally conserved regions (SCR)
Meta-MEME: Motif-based Hidden Markov Models of Biological Sequences
DbClustal: rapid and reliable global multiple alignments of protein sequences detected by database searches
A workbench for multiple alignment construction and analysis
A comprehensive comparison of multiple sequence alignment programs
SMoS: a database of structural motifs of protein superfamilies
A structural basis for sequence comparisons. An evaluation of scoring methodologies
Significant improvement in accuracy of multiple protein sequence alignments by iterative refinement as assessed by reference to structural alignments
SAGA: sequence alignment by genetic algorithm
Pattern-induced multi-sequence alignment (PIMA) algorithm employing secondary structure-dependent gap penalties for use in comparative protein modelling
PASS2: a semi-automated database of protein alignments organised as structural superfamilies
Definition of general topological equivalence in protein structures – a procedure involving comparison of properties and relationships through simulated annealing and dynamic programming
CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice
T-Coffee: A novel method for fast and accurate multiple sequence alignment
JOY: protein sequence-structure representation and analysis

subset: commoncrawl


text:
No More Pain!
Katie Souza: Healing Your Soul – Real Keys to the Miraculous is the weekly Television Broadcast of Katie Souza Ministries. This program teaches cutting-edge revelation on the wounding of souls, and how to apply the blood of Jesus, and Dunamis power that comes from the resurrection, to cause... Read More
Healing Your Soul Episode 44 "Pain Pain Go Away" This is Part 3 of Katie's 4 Part series on Rebellion and the King that's over Rebellion. So many issues come from the wounds in our soul that specifically come from the sin of rebellion. That specific sin and the king over rebellion can be the root of all kinds of sicknesses, diseases, disorders, relationship failures and financial debacles. The good news is, when you get healed of those wounds connected with rebellion, the enemy has no more legal right to torment you and HAS to GO! In this series, Katie will walk you through all kinds of scriptures, examples, prayers and practical steps you can take, right in your own home, to get free from rebellion and see your breakthrough. Remember, it's not a matter of IF you get healed, it's only a matter of WHEN. www.KatieSouza.com


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Wild Rose Smoothing Day Cream
Retail Price:
Our Price: $17.99 (Save 37%)
Why You'll Love It
About This Brand
Water (Aqua), Prunus Persica (Peach) Kernel Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Alcohol, Glyceryl Stearate SE, Rosa Moschata (Rosehip) Seed Oil, Hydrolyzed Beeswax, Lysolecithin, Sedum Purpureum (Orpine) Extract, Equisetum Arvense (Horsetail) Extract, Commiphora Myrrha (Myrrh) Extract, Xanthan Gum, Fragrance (Parfum)*, Limonene*, Linalool*, Citronellol*, Benzyl Alcohol*, Geraniol*, Citral*, Eugenol*, Farnesol*. * from natural essential oils
California residents: Learn more on Prop 65 warning. Disclaimer: Information, statements, and reviews regarding products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Results vary person to person, and there is no guarantee of specific results. Thrive Market assumes no liability for inaccuracies or misstatements about products.
Reviews For Wild Rose Smoothing Day Cream
Based on 5 Reviews
Favorite cream ever
This cream is magic. My face responds so wonderfully to this product. It evens out my skin tone and reduces oil too. Like others have said, this product is all it is described to be and more. I never want to use any other moisturizer on my face ever again!
- Nicole Rodriguez
Your face, protected and your senses, soothed
I could wax poetic about the wonder of the alchemy of this product but suffice it to say , it does more than it claims to help you gave the world.
- Diana
Great for Skin
This cream is great for skin! It is visibly smoothing my fine lines after consistent use and smells divine. I was buying it in store, but it is much cheaper here and comes to me quickly after ordering so it is worth the wait!
- Naomi Gonzalez
Smells Beautiful
Many smoothing creams smell like medicine or chemicals. This has a sweet rose smell that I love! It also absorbs quickly and grease free which makes me one happy lady!
- Belinda_R202
Love it!
Smells wonderful - I love rose scent. It has an interesting texture that gets immediately absorbed, not greasy. It's a lovely product.
- Traci
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Hi, Sorry to bother you all once more. I'm seeing two problems when trying to get ccs/cman working. On my Celeron 2GHz, when I try to start ccsd and cman, all is well. I start ccsd, then 'cman_tool join', and the machine begins periodically broadcasting such packets: 23:22:26.300381 IP 10.0.0.1.6809 > 10.0.0.255.6809: UDP, length 24 23:22:26.300491 IP 10.0.0.1.6809 > 10.0.0.255.6809: UDP, length 24 However, when I try the exact same thing on a Dual Xeon in the same subnet, I get this: 23:19:51.095492 IP 10.0.0.3.32770 > 255.255.255.255.50007: UDP, length 20 23:19:51.344805 arp who-has 10.0.0.9 tell 10.0.0.3 23:19:52.344396 arp who-has 10.0.0.9 tell 10.0.0.3 23:19:53.344257 arp who-has 10.0.0.9 tell 10.0.0.3 The machine begins ARPing for 10.0.0.9 -- but that IP isn't even used at all! It doesn't broadcast like the other machines do, and after waiting for a while, both machines decide to create a new cluster instead of trying to talk to each other. Futhermore, when I try to 'cman_tool leave' on the dual proc, I get: Jun 26 22:51:43 phi kernel: CMAN: we are leaving the cluster Jun 26 22:51:43 phi ccsd[9833]: Received bad communication type on cluster socket. Jun 26 22:51:49 phi last message repeated 106830 times syslogd then starts looping, until I kill ccsd. On the uniproc, I don't get any such error at all when I issue a leave: Jun 26 22:51:40 xi kernel: CMAN: we are leaving the cluster Jun 26 22:51:40 xi ccsd[2181]: Unable to bind cluster socket: Transport endpoint is not connected Jun 26 22:51:40 xi ccsd[2181]: Exiting... I tried a UP kernel (exact same one as on the uniproc) on the dual proc, but same result. Anyone any clues? Anything obvious I forgot? I've attached /etc/cluster/cluster.xml -- it's identical on both machines, they both run the same kernel, and same binary packages (I hope.) Do I have to provide more info? cheers, Lennert
<?xml version="1.0"?> <cluster name="alpha" config_version="1"> <cman> </cman> <nodes> <node name="phi" votes="2"> <fence> <method name="single"> <device name="human" ipaddr="10.0.0.3"/> </method> </fence> </node> <node name="xi" votes="1"> <fence> <method name="single"> <device name="human" ipaddr="10.0.0.1"/> </method> </fence> </node> </nodes> <fence_devices> <device name="human" agent="fence_manual"/> </fence_devices> </cluster>


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Do you want to make Ohio.com your homepage?
David Ignatius: Frustrated with the president
In this Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012, file photo, Gen. Salim Idris, who defected from the Syrian army in July, speaks during an interview in Antakya, Turkey. Syria's main rebel units, known together as the Free Syrian Army, regrouped in December under a unified rebel command called the Supreme Military Council, following promises of more military assistance once a central council was in place. The Western-backed council is headed by Gen. Salim Idriss, who defected from the Syrian army, and a 30-member group of senior officers. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
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Chapter 3.4 (Ryder)Mature
I touched her hip gently and her legs wrapped around my waist, her hips arching. I couldn't help the slight moan that escaped my lips. Her hands slid under my shirt, touching my skin. My own hands grabbed her hips. Her fingers deftly undid the buttons of my shirt and her lips brushed against my collarbone.
"Oh, Mollie," I breathed.
She shivered, a slight tremor running through her body.
"Say my name again," she whispered, nipping at my earlobe.
"Mollie, Mollie, Mollie..."
She laughed softly and rubbed against my crotch with her hips. She rolled us over, straddling my lap.
"If this is just a dream..." she trailed.
Her pyjamas started sliding off and I realised where this was going.
"Mollie... We really shouldn't," I said, trying to stop this without making her think that this wasn't a dream.
"But I want to. I wanted to in the store but... I couldn't say that to you." Her skin flushed a deep pink and she moved her eyes away from mine. "I've not got long left to make stupid decisions."
I smiled sadly. "I know." I stroked her cheek gently. "If my boss found out though, I'd be dead all over again."
She frowned at me. "What boss?"
"Doesn't matter. Just sleep." I was prepared to send her to sleep with magic if I had to.
"But this is my dream to make up for just walking away today," she said with a petulant pout.
I couldn't help my slight chuckle. As I looked up at her, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. I had only a second to make my decision. If I slept with her, I'd be taking advantage of her, I knew, but she wanted this, and she never had to know it had been anything but a dream.
I pulled at her lower lip with my teeth gently, playfully. "If you really want to then."
She shivered again and kissed me. I felt my body respond to hers in a way that I couldn't remember feeling in a very long time. Her fingers trailed over my skin to the button of my jeans, which she began to undo. I didn't stop her.
After, I kissed her gently and she started to go to sleep.
"Mollie, don't sleep yet," I said, shaking her arm slightly. It would kind of be a problem if she woke up naked...
"Why?" she asked sleepily.
"Need to get you dressed again."
"Fine," she mumbled.
I got her dressed, and she helped as much as she could in her sleepy state. I let her fall asleep when she was fully dressed once more.
By the time she woke, I'd already gone back to being invisible. I watched her sit up in bed and she looked around the room before flushing a deep pink. I couldn't help but smile. She got up and went into the bathroom for a shower. Then I left.
I was in the back when Mollie turned up for work. I heard her call my name so I went back into the shop.
"Hi," I grinned at her.
"Hey," she replied nervously. "Um, can we talk about yesterday?"
"Of course."
She was silent for a few moments.
"Will... Will you go out with me?"
I knew that I should say no. I knew that I should go straight home and ask to be taken off the assignment because I was getting far too involved. Thing was, though, despite all that, I already knew what I was going to say to her.
She blushed. "W-Wait, really?"
After a short moment, I nodded. She walked over and kissed me. I kissed her back and felt her arms wrap around my neck. We kissed for a bit before getting back to work.
I was in the back when I heard, "J-Joe, what are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd stop by where you worked."
"Joe, you should go."
"Why?" he asked her.
"I... There's something I need to tell you."
"It's about your feelings for me."
"What is it?" I could hear the hopefulness in his voice.
"I can't return them. I like someone else."
Neither of them said anything more, leaving behind only a deadly silence.
I went back into the shop and glanced between them. Mollie met my gaze and blushed. Her friend, Joe, saw and looked somewhat heartbroken. He stormed out and Mollie winced.
"Are you okay?" I asked her quietly.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I-I hated doing that to him."
"Well, if you don't feel the same way about someone, you should tell them." I smiled reassuringly.
She nodded. "Yes, you're right." She blushed again, turning a deep red. "I definitely don't feel the same way about him."
I hid my smile; clearly she was remembering her 'dream'. I went over. She looked up at me and I kissed her softly. She returned the kiss and shivered. I stroked her cheek and she grinned. I smiled back and we both returned to our work.
After a while, the door opened and Alistair walked in, grinning.
"Hey, Ryder."
"Hi, Alistair."
His eyes touched on Mollie. "Who's this?"
"This is Mollie," I said, giving him a pointed look to tell him she was my assignment. His nod was barely noticeable.
"Ah, I see. Nice to meet you, Mollie."
"Nice to meet you," she replied with a smile before going back to pricing books.
"Ryder, want to go out tonight? I know a good place."
"After the other night? No," I answered.


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Rapper T.I. sentenced to 11 months in jail
By Matthew Bigg
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Grammy Award-winning rapper T.I. was sentenced on Friday to serve 11 months in jail for violating the terms of his probation after he was arrested in September on suspicion of possessing ecstasy.
"I screwed up. I screwed up big time and I am sorry," the singer told U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell, who also ordered him to serve a year of supervised release.
T.I., 30, has won three Grammy Awards, most recently in 2008 for "Swagga Like Us" and has been nominated 12 times.
Even by the standards of U.S. hip-hop stars, T.I. has undergone a remarkable few years.
In 2007, he faced a possible 30 years in prison on federal gun charges after he was arrested the same day he was due to have starred at the Black Entertainment Television awards after being nominated for a series of honors.
A judge eventually sentenced him to just one year in jail after he pleaded guilty and agreed to do 1,000 hours of community service, warning young people about the dangers of drugs and gangs -- work for which he was widely praised.
Friday's hearing stemmed from an arrest on September 1 in Hollywood, when police said they found drugs in his vehicle.
On Wednesday of this week, T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, helped persuade a man not to jump from a 22-story building in Atlanta's midtown. Continued...


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List: Top 15 BBQ spots in Central Florida
We asked you where to find the best barbecue in Central Florida and you voted.
Here are the top 15.
14. Dam Smoker Barbecue
Hours of operation:
Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Sunday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
11. Jack's Barbeque. Order "Jack's Special" which includes one-half pound of your choice of meat, two sides, and a toasted roll.
Hours of Operation:
Mon - Sat: 11:00am-8:00pm
10. Cecil's Texas Style Bar-B-Q. Family owned and operated for 21 years, visit Cecil's for a "Lone Star Taste In the Sunshine State."
Hours of Operation:
Sun: 12:00pm-8:00pm
Mon-Sat: 11:00am-9:00pm
8. Sonny's Bar-B-Q.
Hours of Operation:
Sun-Thurs 10:45am - 9:35pm
Fri-Sat 10:45am - 10:05pm
390 University Blvd., Winter Park, FL 32792
7460 Dover Garden Lane, Oviedo, FL 32765
2210 E. Semoran Blvd., Apopka, FL 32703
7055 S. Semoran Boulevard, Orland, FL 32822
7. Oakwood Smokehouse. Baby Back Ribs have helped build this restaurant's solid reputation. These ribs have won the award for "Best Entree" in the Taste of Tavares Competition for three consecutive year.
Hours of Operation:
Mon-Sat: 11am-9pm
Sun: 11am-7pm
860 S. Hwy 27/441, Lady Lake, FL 32159
27745 hwy 27, Leesburg, FL 34748
2911 David Walker Drive, Eustis, FL 32726
6. Bubbalou's Bodacious Bar-B-Que. Recognized by USA Today, Southern Living, The New York Times and The Food Network, Bubbalou's offers a variety of items which have been slow cooked over a hard wood fire.
Hours of Operation:
Mon-Thur 11:00AM – 8:00PM
Fri-Sat 11:00AM – 9:00PM
Sunday 12:00AM – 7:00PM
*Apopka Location opens at 7:00AM if you're craving some BBQ for breakfast!
12100 Challenger Parkway, Orlando, FL 32826
1049 East Altamonte Drive (SR 436), Altamonte Springs, FL 32701
1701 Rock Springs Road, Apopka, FL 32712
5818 Conroy Rd, Orlando, FL 32835
5. Black Bear Smokehouse. The brisket served here is slow smoked for 16-18 hours over a blend of hardwoods. It is dry rubbed in a rub created specifically for their brisket.
Hours of Operation:
Mon – Sun: 11:00 am-9:00pm
2. Porkie's Original BBQ. Porkie's sauces are 100% original recipes. Try their award winning ribs, slow cooked on a 20-foot BBQ pit using oak and hickory woods.
Hours of operation:
Monday: 11am-3pm
Tuesday: 11am-9pm
Wednesday: 11am-9pm
Thursday: 11am-10pm
Friday: 11am-9pm
Saturday 11-9pm
Sunday: Closed


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Photo by Bill Barrett/ISIphotos.com
By THOMAS FLOYD
It's not terribly often that Jeff Parke contributes on the offensive end. The industrious Seattle Sounders defender, in fact, is quick to acknowledge as much.
In his seven MLS seasons, Parke has been one of the more durable commodities the league has to offer, starting at least 20 games each campaign. The 6-foot-1 centerback, however, has just two career goals and a handful of assists.
So as a Sounders squad loaded with attacking talent faced the Chicago Fire on Oct. 4 in the U.S. Open Cup final, it's doubtful anyone figured Parke would end up facilitating the match's opening goal. But when the 29-year-old steered Erik Friberg's corner kick on goal in the 77th minute, the shot forced a save from Chicago goalkeeper Sean Johnson, and Fredy Montero was on the doorstep to fire home the rebound.
"I don't get too many chances," Parke said. "But I definitely love to contribute in any way I can."
The tally put Seattle on its way to a 2-0 win that gave the franchise its third Open Cup crown in as many seasons. As Parke explained, that consistency "says that you're a team that is sound, that you've built a great organization, a great base."
"There are not too many teams that can say they have hardware," he added. "When other players want to come to this country, if you go to a team that has been around for 15, 20 years and has nothing, it's kind of hard to recruit guys in. This team has only been around for three years and it already has trophies."
That it does. When it comes to balancing the pursuit of hardware in multiple competitions, the Sounders have quickly established themselves as the league's gold standard.
In addition to claiming the Open Cup this year, Seattle clinched passage to the spring's CONCACAF Champions League knockout phase. In MLS play, the Sounders have compiled the league's second-best record.
There nearly every step of the way has been Parke, ever the sturdy, reliable veteran.
"He is helpful in organizing and also is solid when he's on the ball, and he makes good decisions," Seattle defender Patrick Ianni said. "All of those things come from experience."
Parke is not a four-time World Cup veteran like Kasey Keller, who mans the posts behind him, or a former MLS Defender of the Year finalist like Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, who regularly partners with him in central defense.
But the Pennsylvania native is second among Seattle field players with 35 matches started in all competitions this year, trailing only holding midfielder Osvaldo Alonso.
"If you're playing a lot of games throughout the year, your club is doing something right," Parke noted. "We're not here for just the season and that's it — just go home and call it a year. You want to play in tournaments and as many of these games as you can because this is what you live for and what you get paid for."
While one would imagine the grind of those extra fixtures taking its toll on even the most upbeat of personalities, not much seems to faze Parke.
"From my perspective, he's always smiling," Ianni said. "He's a really enjoyable character in the locker room."
Parke's year, though, hasn't been without its bumps in the road. He had to exit Seattle's 2-0 loss to Philadelphia on Oct. 8 with a concussion and was subsequently held out of last weekend's 2-1 triumph over San Jose.
Parke returned to the pitch for Seattle's Champions League clash with Mexico's Monterrey on Tuesday, logging 67 minutes. Always the optimist, he figures being sidelined for a few days could be a blessing in disguise as his club looks ahead to the playoffs.
"It's definitely a good thing to get a bit of a rest right now — we've played a lot of games lately," Parke said. "I never want to step out of the lineup because I just want to keep playing. So that part is difficult. But sometimes, your body needs a rest and your body needs to recharge."
In 2008, Parke could only watch as his New York Red Bulls fell to Columbus in the MLS Cup while he served a 10-game suspension for testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug. Three years later, he is hoping to finally see the field in an MLS Cup, now playing for a Sounders side that enters the postseason as the Western Conference's No. 2 seed.
Although he's approaching 200 games played in his MLS career, it's the one he hasn't played in, of course, that matters the most.
"It's what we play for, and it's what I play for," Parke said. "At the end of the day, when you look back at your career and your life as a player, you would hope you can either be in one or win one.
"You'd like to brag about it someday and hopefully have one to show — a ring and a big trophy in pictures — and look back when you're done and say, 'Wow, I had a great run and great things came from what I've done and all the hard work I've put in."
Michael Stypulkoski
I'd like to see more MLS Spotlights on lesser-known players such as Parke. It's a great way to get casual MLS fans such as myself better acquainted with the league.
Is he still the only lowest-ranked draft choice (Mr. Irrelevant) to have made a successful career out of soccer?
Great player, defintely missed in NJ. Always thought he should get a chance at the National team.
jose cuervo
Nice article to see regarding Parke. He really had a roller coaster ride these past few years. His signing with Seattle was quite contentious, but since that time, he certainly has had a big influence although often understated influence on the clubs performance. He doesn't get the limelight much – but I for one appreciate his hard work and dedication to the club.
Parke is one of the most underrated defenders in the league. You never hear about him despite him being a rock in the back.
Great to see him get some love!
I wonder what @Pain Machine has to say about this?
H Li
Mediocre player…Seattle's weakness is still defensive depth. They are a different team when Hurtado is out.
You apparently haven't been watching the Sounders much this year. Parke has been our best defender all season long, without question. Hurtado has taken several steps backwards, and it's troubling to watch. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to the knee injury recovery, but it's difficult to do that for too long.
exactly. Hurtado, of late, has become the strong one v. one defender we all remember. But his distribution has been…. well, it's been awful. Amateur. In the last game, my wife, friend and I kept count and of the 22 headers he took, only one was actually intentionally directed to a teammate (often, teammates were standing not ten yards from him wide open). Same thing with his passing lately (although not as bad). Shaky year at best for Hurtado, but I'm definitely hoping we'll see a return to form in '12. Let's not even get into those 60 yards in the air, 15 yards up the field clearances he's had all season.
Parke, on the other hand, is solid, solid, solid in all aspects of the game. Yup, he'll have the occasional gaffe, but mostly he's reliable and his distribution is always accurate, if not probing.


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Not happening bro
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Symmetry and clean termination points – lowered contrast at the edges helps, too.
In the past, I've written about the importance of conscious exclusion in the process of composition: you don't want to confuse your audience by including elements that are irrelevant or worse, distracting and visually stronger than the main subject. As we know, the very act of composition itself is one of both cropping and curation: we are choosing what not to show as much as what to show, based on our own preferences and biases. How we structure the rest of the composition around that is very much up to us, and of course the intended story or message of the image. But where do we end things – and in what situations is a little trimming necessary? How can we achieve a clean frame and a clean idea?