1216: Hometime

I am writing this to you from English soil. Boooooo!

Yes, that's right; we're back home. Apologies to those of you who are in the Toronto area who maybe wanted to catch up and we didn't get the opportunity to — turns out we filled two full weeks pretty nicely with Stuff to Do.

A very public "thanks" to Mark and Lynette for putting us up for two weeks at their lovely house with its regular squirrel visitors, and thanks to our mutual friend Jonathan for providing us with some board and card game entertainment on more than one occasion. It's a shame we didn't have more time to try some games a little more than we did — I would have liked to play A Touch of Evil again, and I'm bummed we didn't get time to play Mice & Mystics — but we'll just have to save those for next time, I guess!

The flight back was uneventful, and unusually for me, I managed to actually sleep for most of it. This was perhaps at least partly due to the fact that we had to be up at some ungodly hour in the morning to actually catch the plane, but perhaps it was also a case of the prior two weeks catching up with us somewhat. It wasn't the most hectic, chaotic holiday I've been on — thankfully; I'm not a big fan of holidays where you're constantly doing stuff and never get any time to just kick back and relax — but it had enough stuff going on to keep things interesting while wearing us out somewhat. To be honest, my main priority for the trip was to see my friends rather than do the "tourist" thing, but I'm glad we had the opportunity for a jaunt around the ROM and the zoo while we were there.

I think the highlight of Toronto for me has to be the board game cafe Snakes & Lattes that I mentioned the other day. If there was such a place here in Southampton, I think I would probably spend a lot of time there — so long as I could find people to go with, of course.

There actually is a regularly-meeting board game group here in Southampton, but I have held off attending thus far due to my own issues with social anxiety and meeting new people. I have little doubt that I would probably have a good time if I just went along and met some new people, but it's getting over that initial hurdle that's the tough bit. Of course, if I lived in Toronto and attended Snakes on a regular basis, I'd probably run into the same issue, so… well. That's something to contemplate another time.

It is both nice to be back and sad to be home. We both had a great time, and I hope we get the chance to do it again sometime soon. For now, however, I think it's probably time to get some sleep!

1215: Zoology

Derrrrrp. Andie and I took a trip out to Toronto Zoo today. Getting there from Mark and Lynette's house was quite a trek on public transit, but it's eminently possible. (For those curious, you ride the subway all the way to the east end of the green line — Kennedy station — then catch an 86A bus to the zoo. Said bus stops approximately every 100 yards on the way, lengthening the journey by a considerable degree, but you do get there eventually.)

I've been to the zoo here before, but Andie hasn't. (Obvious, really, since she hasn't been to Toronto before.) Like much of my wanderings around the city in general over the last couple of weeks, I was surprised by quite how much I remembered. A few things have changed since I last came — some exhibits have opened and closed, and we were just a day too early to get a chance to see the zoo's newly-acquired giant pandas — but for the most part it was pretty much as I remembered.

I'm generally not particularly big on "cultural" trips. Museums often bore me if there's not much in the way of interactivity, and my appreciation of the visual arts (or lack thereof) limits my enjoyment of an art gallery. I'm not even a huge fan of live music in many cases, despite being a musician myself, because I'm more interested in the music itself rather than the performance more often than not. (The exception to this rule is live performances of jazz/soul etc, which often have a lot more "personality" than live performances of art music. But I digress.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I'm not generally that big on "cultural" trips, but I must confess to having something of a soft spot for a good zoo. I think it's the simple fact that animals are interesting and unpredictable to watch, and it can be fascinating to discover a creature you were previously unfamiliar with. Particular highlights today, for example, included a "tree kangaroo", which looked rather cat-like; the discovery that bats can and will climb around like monkeys as well as hanging there being boring and/or flapping around wildly; that tigers actually do say "rawr"; and that somewhere in deepest darkest Africa there's a ridiculous-looking bird with an enormous beak that would apparently rather jump between tree branches than actually fly.

Toronto Zoo is a good zoo if you enjoy looking at animals (derp) because there's a lot of them in a variety of different environments. It's quite a trek to get around the whole thing, but it's a worthwhile experience, as you'll have the chance to see all manner of different things. Although today, being a weekday, was relatively quiet, it was clear what the "highlights" for the general public were — the polar bears were winning by a long shot, though I suspect once the new panda exhibit is open to the public it will prove similarly popular, if not more so.

We also took a ride on the "zoomobile" electric car tour thing. This initially appeared a bit steep at $8 each, but after riding it all the way around and being taken into some "zoomobile exclusive" safari park-style areas with free-roaming animals, it proved a worthwhile experience, so be sure to check it out if you're in the area.

Oh, and also we saw a horny male zebra with a gigantic dong trying to boff a female who wasn't having any of it. Poor chap.

1211: I Want A Place Like This

Toronto is in possession of an establishment that I very much wish was a more widespread "Thing", particularly in the U.K. Said establishment is known as Snakes & Lattes, and you can probably guess from its name what sort of place it is.

Or perhaps you can't, since it's sort of an unusual establishment.

Snakes & Lattes is a board game cafe. That is to say, it's a cafe in which the playing of board games is not only welcomed, it is actively encouraged. How, you ask? By the fact it has an impressively huge selection just sitting there on its back wall waiting to be played with, ranging from well-thumbed copies of popular card games to the hardest of the hardcore Eurogames and everything in between. It costs just $5 (plus food and drink) to hang out there for as long as you like, and that price gives you access to the establishment's impressive collection of titles as you please.

Snakes, as it tends to be known, is not just a place to go and play board games, though. It's also a great place to go and learn new board games. The staff on hand are all ready, willing and able to recommend new titles to you, and even to teach you how to play. If you're looking for a particular kind of game and you're not sure what to try, chances are someone at Snakes will be able to recommend it to you.

The other thing that Snakes is is a place to buy board games. A healthy proportion of the games that it has available for play are also available for purchase at the front of the establishment, and for very reasonable prices, too — I picked up a couple of games myself today on the recommendation of a Snakes staffer. Specifically, I grabbed a copy of Zombie Dice, which is a very simple game I've heard a few people recommend recently, and a copy of Smash Up, a very entertaining and chaotic card game that rewards being a complete dick to your opponents — I'm looking forward to introducing this one to my friends back home.

I'm certainly going to be taking at least one more trip back to Snakes before our holiday is over, since there are a number of games I've had a chance to try that I'd like to take back with me. Specifically, King of Tokyo and Flash Point are two that intrigued me a great deal — King of Tokyo for being an excellent, fun and quick game with simple but enjoyable mechanics, and Flash Point for being a great cooperative game with enough differences from Pandemic — and a similarly short play time — to be worth a look. There are also a bunch of small games that I'm keen to introduce to my friends back home, too — stuff like the color-matching card game Coloretto and the thoroughly silly Ghost Blitz and Anomia, but I haven't decided which of these, if any, I'm going to pick up my own copy of. I did also try and snag a copy of Love Letter to take home, but that game appears to be like gold dust at present.

Anyway. No idea what's on the cards for tomorrow daytime, but I believe we're going out to a comedy club tomorrow evening to see an entertaining-sounding improv and sketch show on the subject of Internet memes. There's a subject that could easily be cringeworthy, but the comedy club in question is apparently rather highly regarded in the area, and thus I'm looking forward to it quite a bit. Doubtless I will be splurging my thoughts on the matter over these pages tomorrow evening, so look forward to that then.

For now, good night!

1209: Further Adventures in Fudz

As I noted the other day, one of the fun things about our trip to Toronto is that we've had the opportunity to sample some of the city's more colourful eating establishments. Mark and Lynette both know the places that Torontonians (I bet they hate being called that) visit on a regular basis rather than the inevitably much more expensive touristy places in touristy areas. Consequently, we've had the opportunity to eat well for relatively reasonable prices — Mark and Lynette refer to a $20 bill as a "yuppie food stamp" and it's easy to see why, since the vast majority of meals we've had while we've been here have come out somewhere in the region of $20 each.

We've had a lot of Asian cuisine of various descriptions since we've been here, as I noted the other day. Today I added to the range of Asian foods that I've experienced by having a taste of okonomiyaki. I had no idea whatsoever what okonomiyaki was prior to today, but I had at least heart of it — the character Kirari in the visual novel Kira Kira (which is eminently worth your time, by the way) is obsessed with it.

I was half expecting okonomiyaki to be something similar to takoyaki — the small fried rice flour balls filled with octopus meat and other goo, then drizzled with Japanese mayonnaise. Okonomiyaki is, as it turns out, absolutely nothing like takoyaki. No; rather than being small bite-sized thingies like takoyaki, okonomiyaki is instead somewhat akin to a cross between a potato cake and an omelette, with lashings of a rich barbecue sauce-style substance slathered all over the top of it. I forget exactly what the omelette-type-thing was made from and am far too tired to actually research it at this hour in the morning, but it was quite tasty. Like an omelette, it could also be made with a variety of different fillings, ranging from beef to shrimp or squid. I had a squid one to make up for the fact I didn't have a squid taco at Banh Mi Boys the other day, so I now feel suitably guilty about devouring some of Ika Musume's relatives.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make of okonomiyaki, as I was aware going into it that it was made with onions, which those who know me well will know are a vegetable I despise with a great passion. (I had terrible trouble growing up convincing my parents that I really genuinely didn't like onions, despite actually retching at the dinner table when I could taste them on several occasions; the fact that being able to taste onion today still makes me retch makes me feel somewhat vindicated that I wasn't just being an awkward child about them.) Fortunately, however, the onions were shredded up to such a degree (not to mention having had the shit fried out of them) that they were inoffensive to my palate's delicate sensibilities, and consequently there was no retching.

Actually, I enjoyed the okonomiyaki very much. I'm pleased I tried it; I'm not sure it's my favourite of all the Japanese food I've tried to date, but I am happy that I've tasted it and now know what to expect should I find myself ordering it again.

Now all we have to do is complete the "Japanese trifecta" by having sushi one night this week and we'll be all Asianed out.

1207 Part 2: Food Travels

Here's a full update to make up for the pitiful effort last night. Apologies for that, but I was in far too much pain to even contemplate writing more than a couple of sentences at the time. I was even sick. You really wanted to know that, didn't you? Of course you did. BLAAAARGH.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to talk about in last night's post was one of my favourite aspects of travel: food. I'm not necessarily talking about sampling local cuisine — which here in Toronto would probably be poutine, I guess — but wandering around and having a chance to sample some local eateries, and eat some interesting food that you might not be able to get back home.

Toronto is particularly good for Asian eateries of various descriptions. Yesterday we sampled two of them: the Banh Mi Boys sandwich shop, and Kinton Ramen.

Banh Mi Boys is a pokey little shop that often has queues extending out of the door. They serve a variety of Vietnamese-inspired food that includes Asian-style tacos — floppy rather than crispy — and steamed rice flour buns known as bao. They also do Vietnamese-style baguettes, the titular banh mi, which are a decent meal in themselves. We tried the tacos and the bao, both of which were delicious. I had pulled pork in my bao and some sort of spicy beef in my taco — there were several different options on offer besides these, including squid tacos, which I sort of regret I didn't try now, even if eating them would make me feel a bit guilty towards Ika Musume-chan.

Kinton Ramen, meanwhile, is fairly self-explanatory. It's a ramen shop. All they do is ramen and a few side dishes. They do do several different types of ramen, to be fair, but if you don't want ramen this is probably not the place to come. I must confess to not being overly familiar with ramen, as it's something we don't seem to get all that much of back in the U.K., but the couple of occasions I have had it in the past have been thoroughly enjoyable.

For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, eating "ramen" generally involves getting an enormous bowl full of broth made from pork bones (with the amount of fat used in it determining how "rich" it is) which is then filled with ramen noodles, vegetables such as beansprouts, nori and various other bits and pieces, and typically topped with a lump of pork. Some also have a whole egg in them — sometimes this is served chopped, but at Kinton, there's just a whole egg dropped in it, which is quite amusing. You then proceed to consume the whole bowl using a combination of chopsticks and a wooden Japanese soup spoon. At Kinton, they take your photo if you finish the whole thing, which is actually quite an achievement — there's a lot of food there, and due to the way it's structured, it often looks like you're not making any progress with it for a very long time. Like the Persona 4 beef bowl, if you will.

Anyway, that should hopefully make up for last night. And hopefully my headache will fuck off and die now.

1204: Torontonia

We went out and about for a bit in Toronto earlier, primarily to pick up some computer bits for my friend Mark to build his "Steam Box" PC but also to get some dinner and have a little wander. Again I was struck with this city's enormous diversity.

It is, for me, one of Toronto's most defining characteristics, and one which you can notice very quickly upon spending some time downtown, or even out in the greater Toronto area. Go for a walk and you'll be in one distinctive district one moment — perhaps Chinatown — but then you'll round a corner and suddenly it'll be suburban-style houses with lots of greenery. It's quite disconcerting at first, but you soon realise it's part of the city's character.

Today we had a wander in the Kensington area, which is fascinating to walk around. It's difficult to describe exactly what it's like, but there's a definite sort of Latin/Central American vibe going on, with lots of pokey little shops, many of which have their wares strewn all over the street outside them.

We happened to find an amazing video games shop in the middle of all this. From the outside it looked like just another crappy used games store, but inside it was like a treasure trove of Every Game I Want To Play Ever. Seriously. I have either played or very much want to play every title on the back wall of that place. It even had some rare offerings, such as the original Persona games for PS1 and rare stuff like Dracula X, Chrono Trigger and Mother 2 for SNES — all of which cost a pretty penny!

It's very warm here at the moment, which makes going out and walking for too long a little uncomfortable. I think I might invest in a pair of shorts while I'm here as I feel like wearing jeans is suffocating my legs!

1193: London Calling

I went to London today. I do not like going to London. I do not like London generally, in fact.

Fortunately, my trip to London today meant that I didn't have to go very far, as in I didn't have to catch the tube or the train or the bus or anything like that. We got a coach in (which, yes, did require getting up at 5 in the morning, but which was a relatively painless experience) then were able to walk to where we were going (the passport office, if you were curious) and then walk back, catch the bus home and not have to piss about with Londoners and their attitudes towards other people.

For many, living in London appears to be some sort of ultimate goal, some sort of Ultimate Cool Status. It is, of course, certainly true that a lot of industries make their home in the nation's capital — the UK video games industry barely acknowledges that any other city exists, for example — but I cannot possibly imagine ever living there. It must be hellish. And expensive. Why would you want to pay a fortune to live somewhere that is hellish?

I had a job offer a while back that would have required me to move to London. I've thought back on my career path since then, which has been entirely working from home for American companies, and I wonder if I might have been better off taking that one as it was a more inherently "stable" position. The conclusion I inevitably reach is "no", incidentally, with a large contributing factor to feeling that way being the fact that I don't have to live in London. (The others being that I wouldn't, by now, be living back in Southampton near my friends and with Andie, which are all awesome things in my life that I'm happy about.)

I'll tell you why I don't like London. Well, some of the reasons, anyway.

The weather is never right. When it's grey and miserable, it's really grey and miserable, and the dirty streets and oppressive, cramped way in which all the buildings are crammed together just emphasises how grey and miserable it is. When it's hot, meanwhile, like it was today, it's really hot, and humid, and the thickness of the dirty air from the hordes of cars who inexplicably think it's a good idea to drive around Central London (hint: it's really not) just makes it all the more unpleasant to immerse yourself in. Particularly when, yes, you've been up since five in the morning.

As I said above, thankfully I didn't really run into my other London bugbears today as we were pretty much "in and out" — or as close to "in and out" as is possible when riding a bus from a couple of hours' drive away. For the record, though, said bugbears largely revolve around people who have to be wherever they're going faster than you getting wherever you're going. This most commonly shows itself on the Underground escalators, where the left lane is the "dickhead" lane of people who think that barging past people who are often carrying large, heavy suitcases and/or bags will get them where they're going a bit faster. (Hint: it probably doesn't, given that when you get to the bottom you all have to wait for the same train.) It also shows itself on the street, where if you dare walk anywhere except smooshed up against a wall, some jerkoff in a suit will come charging past you on Important City-Boy Business and make you — just for one, single, blissful, homicidal instant — consider pushing him into the path of the open-top tour bus that is coming around the corner.

As I say, though, thankfully I didn't encounter any of these issues today, and instead we saw some ducks, geese and other unidentified (well, someone has identified them, obviously) birds in St. James' Park. Which was quite nice.

I still hate London, though. Even with its "nice bits".

#oneaday Day 935: Edinburgh, How I Miss Thee

A brief Twitter conversation with the always-awesome Mitu Khandaker got me all nostalgic this evening. Y'see, Mitu has just come back from the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, where she was speaking about exciting and clever things to do with love, sex, relationships and obsession in games — a topic which I find particularly fascinating, as my extensive series of posts on Katawa Shoujo will attest.

But that's not what I want to talk about today, as I'm sure video and/or slides from Mitu's presentation will be available online at some point soon, and they will probably say things rather more coherently than I can. (I LOVE YOU EMIIIIIII)

No, instead I just want to look back on why Edinburgh is awesome. Because it is awesome, and if you've never been I strongly suggest you take the opportunity to do so.

My memories of Edinburgh stem entirely from my several trips to the Fringe festival with the Southampton University theatre group, known on various different occasions as SUSU Theatre Group, "Blow Up" and "RATTLESNAKE!", for reasons that I have, sadly, since forgotten.

My first trip there came during my first year at university. I'd joined the theatre group and had already had a small part in our overly-elaborate and rather pretentious production of Macbeth. The Matrix was still fashionable, you see, so it was seemingly obligatory for every student theatre company in the country to do a Matrix-inspired Shakespeare production, and we were no exception. (It actually ended up being quite good, though vastly over budget.)

Anyway, Wachowski-Shakespeare crossovers aside, my association with the theatre group eventually led to me auditioning for the Edinburgh production and successfully securing a part. The play we'd decided to take up was Ivan Turgenev's A Month In The Country, which is a good play with interesting characters (I played Afanasy Bolshintsov, a character for whom I was legitimately able to leverage my legendary Harold Bishop impersonation), but quite heavy going. Our bright idea was to perform it outdoors in the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, which sounded like a great idea on paper.

Actually, it was a pretty great idea that added some lovely atmosphere to the play, the only flaws in the plan being 1) the amount of rain that Scotland gets and 2) the fact that the Botanical Gardens were rather off the beaten track. As a direct result of 2), we had rather disappointing viewing figures, but soldiered on regardless, despite having no more than one or two people watching most days.

Performing the play was just a relatively small part of the whole experience, though.

In the mornings, we'd be flyering on the Royal Mile, one of the main streets in Edinburgh that attracts entertainers and promoters come Fringe time. Flyering was always fun, even if it was rather difficult to sell the idea of a tragic Russian love story performed outdoors in a venue no-one really knew the location of to passing tourists. We managed to get a few people coming along, though — and not just all our respective parents.

In the evenings, we'd take in some shows (all right, lots of shows) and then go drinking. Lots of drinking. You see, at the time, Scotland's licensing laws were significantly different to England's — in England, you could only drink until 11pm in a pub and 2am in a club; in Scotland you could drink until… actually, I can't remember what time you could drink until in a Scottish pub (I want to say 2am) but I certainly remember that the clubs were open until 4am.

Our two regular haunts for drinking purposes were the "Frankenstein" pub, a rather tacky (but awesome) theme bar that sold overpriced (but awesome… and deadly) cocktails; and a club just around the corner called Espionage, which had five floors, each of which was themed after a far-flung locale that James Bond had visited in one of his movies. (Incidentally, I am very pleased to note that both of those venues are still there. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy.) Following drinking until some ungodly hour in the morning, we'd often decide that The Thing To Do at that point was to get a pizza from the conveniently-located all-night pizza place that was near Frankenstein — an all-night pizza place which provided you with said pizza at an astonishingly high speed.

It wasn't all roses, though. On this first trip, I was enjoying the experience but found myself suffering considerably from the social anxiety that has wracked my personal life for as long as I can remember. I found it difficult to start up conversations with the people I was living with at times — despite the fact I was acting with them every day — and I found myself worrying that people would think the things I said would be stupid. I recall one evening getting very depressed, breaking down in tears and being very embarrassed about the whole situation despite the fact I was sitting by myself in the hallway when it happened.

Two of the guys I was staying with came to my rescue: Chris and Des (no relation to Des). I was very grateful to them, because they proved to me that the things rattling around in my head were completely wrong. They took me in to their room, talked to me, got to know me and let me stay the night in there with them. (To sleep. This was not a period of "experimentation" for me.) We had some laughs, particularly at Chris' expense when he fell asleep in mid-sentence, and I got up the following morning feeling considerably more positive about myself, my situation and my ability to make friends.

That night was a real turning point for me. Remembering that night gave me the confidence to go back to Edinburgh on two other occasions with the theatre group — once without a show, once with a double-bill of The Importance of Being Earnest and Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round the Garden. Both visits were amazing, and neither were tainted by feelings of anxiety. In fact, the experiences I had on those two visits were remarkably akin to the way I felt when I visited PAX East a couple of years ago before my life went to shit — I felt like I was "home", "among friends", and completely comfortable. I would have given anything for it to have lasted forever.

But these things don't last forever, sadly. What will stay with me forever, however, is the memories — Des getting told off for trying to dry-hump a guy dressed as a dinosaur on the Royal Mile; recording our drunken conversations on a Dictaphone in the kitchen of the hostel we were staying at; climbing Arthur's Seat after a solid night of drinking, reaching the summit in time for sunrise, drinking sake in silence as we witnessed dawn breaking, then sliding down the muddy hillside on our arses.

Thinking about it, my positive memories largely revolve around what I did while I was there than the city itself. I've never been there when it wasn't Fringe time, see — and at Fringe time it's a magical place, infused with a wonderful atmosphere all day and all night for the entire duration of the festival. But from what I saw beneath the glitz and slightly grotty glamour of Fringe time, it's a beautiful city, too, and one that you really should visit if you've never had the opportunity. One day I'll make it back there, though whether or not it'll be at Fringe time I don't yet know!

#oneaday Day 809: PAX Pact

Disclaimer: I'm aware that I wrote almost exactly the same post as you're about to read at this time last year, and for that I make absolutely no apologies.

It's PAX East time! Yay! I'm not there! Boooo.

I've not been to many conventions or big shows like that over the years, so I have very fond memories of those I have been able to attend. My decision to attend PAX East in 2010 was very much a spur of the moment thing — I'd decided I wanted to leave my primary school teaching job because I'd given it a chance and determined it wasn't for me, I was trying as hard as I could to pursue a career in the Writing Words About Games industry, and I was feeling a bit miserable and lonely. So, with a little financial help, I flew across the pond to Boston and went to my first big show in America.

It was an exciting time for a number of reasons. I'd just started working for Kombo.com which, while it didn't pay particularly well, provided me with a position where I could legitimately say I was a professional member of the games press. I knew that a large number of my buddies from communities such as Bitmob and The Squadron of Shame would be in attendance, so I'd have the opportunity to meet some people face to face. And I always love the opportunity to visit the States. I'd never been to Boston before, and while I was under no illusions that I'd be seeing much of the city while I was there, I was looking forward to being Somewhere New.

It was also terrifying. As a sufferer of social anixety at the best of times, the prospect of meeting people I'd only ever talked to on the Internet in the past was a scary one. What if we didn't get on? What if it was a massive disaster and it destroyed the carefully-cultivated relationships we'd built up with one another? What if I had nothing to say? What if I got lost and it was actually because they wanted to lose me? All these thoughts whirled around my head as I was on the plane, but I was very happy to discover that PAX was, in fact, a happy, inclusive and wonderful place for geeks of all descriptions to call home — whether they were someone who just liked video games or was also into collectible card games, role-playing games, board games, cosplay, the history of technology… anything like that.

That word — "home" — is an important one. Because it felt good to be there. It felt like a world which I wanted to belong to, surrounded by people that I wanted to be with. It was a world that accepted and embraced each other's differences and brought people from many different walks of life together in the name of common interests. Perhaps most importantly, it made friendships real. It's all very well chatting to people online on a regular basis, but once you've spent time with those people in person — seen them, heard them, hugged them, tickled their beards in a homoerotic manner where applicable — your friendship is on a different level. I haven't seen some of those people I met at PAX East 2010 in person since that weekend two years ago, but in many ways I feel closer, more connected to them than many of my — for want of a better word — "real" friends. Perhaps it's because they're also "Internet friends" that I speak to most days via Twitter, Facebook and G+.

Whatever the reason, knowing that lots of people I know are at PAX East right now and undoubtedly having a great time (and/or queueing for hours) makes me a bit sad — not that they're there, obviously, but that I'm not there with them.

I propose a pact, then, faraway friends: PAX East 2013. Be there. You have a year to prepare. Get cracking.

#oneaday Day 780: Nihon

It's a big ol' stereotype for someone who is "into" video games to have an interest in Japan — at least it was, anyway. As popular, mainstream titles have shifted far more towards Western studios with this current console generation, Japan and all things related seem to have been relegated to something of a niche. And that's absolutely fine, I think, because it means that people like me can explore things like the country's culture without feeling like they're jumping on some sort of bandwagon.

I say "explore". Most of my knowledge of Japanese culture comes from, you guessed it, video games. (That and following J-List on Facebook.) But before dismissing that out of hand, it's worth noting that many Japanese games do explore and celebrate Japanese culture and traditions in a way that you hardly ever see in Western titles.

I can remember the first game I played in which I was conscious of this: Shenmue on the Dreamcast. I found it interesting that the main character removed his shoes every time he entered his house. Not only was this a pleasing attention to detail, I discovered that this is traditional behaviour. And given that Shenmue was based very much on the idea of creating a realistic, small-scale game world in which to "live" as much as pursue the game's story, this was just one of many things which initially jarred but started to make sense the more time I spent with them.

The Persona series are notable for this, too. To date, I've only played Persona 3 and 4 (and have recently started the first game in the series) but I feel I got a good sense of what it's like to be a high school kid in Japan — or at least, as close an interpretation as the media will ever give you. I do wonder if the depiction of Japanese schoolkids in anime and video games is akin to the depiction of American "highschoolers" in TV shows and movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Clueless.

From these games and numerous others (including Katawa Shoujo which, interestingly, was actually developed by Westerners who clearly had a good understanding of Japanese culture) I've picked up all sorts of useless facts (mostly centring around schools) which may come in handy should I ever find myself in Nihon-koku. I know that schools have big shoe racks inside their front doors. I know that kids are expected to join clubs as well as attend classes. I know that traditional festivals with fireworks are A Big Deal, and that boys supposedly go crazy for girls in yukata. Boys also go crazy for girls in hot springs. I know that udon and soba are types of noodles, and that takoyaki is both made from octopus and regarded as a kind of fast food. (I also know that your stats have to be high enough to finish a big beef bowl, but the same could be said for a big-ass steak in the West.) Moving into more esoteric territory, I know that popular supernatural mythology suggests that restless spirits often hold grudges and can do very unpleasant things to people who piss them off.

It strikes me every time I play one of these Japan-centric games (the most recent being Persona and Corpse Party) that it's rare to see an analogous "learning experience" in Western games. Or is it? Perhaps I'm just too immersed in Western culture on a daily basis to notice; or perhaps Western culture has lost a lot of its traditions over the years, leaving most people free to behave in a manner of their own choosing. Consider what you did when you walked into your house today: did you take your shoes off? The answer is "maybe", because it wasn't expected (unless you have a self-decided "shoes off household") so it was up to you.

We still have plenty of strange traditions of our own, though, mostly, like Japan, surrounding significant festivals. Look at Christmas: we have carol singers, German markets in city centres, mulled wine, mince pies, midnight mass, christingles and all manner of other things. We have very specific rituals in place to celebrate things like birthdays. We cheer when waiting staff drop trays of drinks (though I really wish we wouldn't), and we have songs for all occasions.

As I think about it further, it's becoming clearer to me why there's something of a tendency to see comparatively less traditional culture in Western video games than we do in Japanese ones. It's to do with subject matter and setting: Japan is very fond of mixing the mundane and the uncanny for dramatic and unexpected effect, whereas in the West we're rather fond of "hero"-type characters who focus on getting the job done, not pissing around building up his Social Links. This is a generalisation, of course — there are plenty of games that involve a lot of sitting around talking, though even then they tend to be through a self-deprecating lens rather than taking a genuine pride in traditional culture. When was the last time you saw an English character (i.e. someone from England, and not just a character with an English accent) who was not either 1) evil or 2) posh — or sometimes both?

Perhaps there's no place for traditional culture or ritual in Western video games — or no traditional culture or ritual left in our modern society to even incorporate into a game. That's fine, of course, though I think it rather sad, in that case, that we have the opportunity to learn a great deal about Japanese culture from their creative output, while any Japanese players exploring the Western body of work will arguably take little from it save "nice architecture".

Am I wrong? If so, please feel free to share some of your favourite examples of video games that exemplify Western culture, tradition and ritual in the comments — I'd be curious to hear what people think, or even, if they don't think it's relevant, why they don't care.