#132 - Capes Galore

 Hello everybody! Today Mojang started bringing over Bedrock Edition exclusive capes to Java. Currently, the Founders and Pan Cape were copied with the possibility of the Progressive Cape as well. It'd be nice if they also brought Java capes over to Bedrock because I would like if my Minecon 2016 were available on Bedrock. We shall see as time passes and more capes roll out.

Anyway, I've been working a lot on my silly little triangle game. I finally bit the bullet and implemented community level loading. It took a whole lot of logical reasoning and going through every possible solution of what didn't work. Eventually, I was able to export the level of the dedicated editor project and load that level in the main game itself. Now that the system works, I'll be able to take advantage of the Steam Workshop in the future so that people can easily share or download through there.

The game is split into three primary components. First, there is the Living Shapes Engine. This is where the vast majority of logic and assets are stored. Next, I have the Living Shapes Editor. This is a collection of dedicated assets that I can freely share with the public so that people can build their own levels using the Living Shapes Engine. Lastly is The Living Threeangle. This is the official "game" portion. It contains the ten story levels, dedicated textures, and a few other things I probably won't use in any other game.

My plan for this project is not to make dedicated sequels as separate releases, but instead to release map collections. Some of them may just be bonus levels, others might be a continuation of the story I'm trying to tell in The Living Threeangle. It may just be a bunch of shapes moving around in the literal sense, but there is certainly a story I am trying to tell. Of course, I can't say anything about the story because that ruins the experience. People will have to play and make their own theories about the story.

I never got around to emailing Phantaboulous about his music. I sort of moved on again, back to Gaming Mix. As a refresher, Gaming Mix is a music playlist started by an online buddy of mine back in February 2016 (nine years ago!). With it passing 1,000 entries not too long ago, I decided to go through and listen to every single entry. It has been quite a long ride...

It would be easier if every entry were a regular song. But alas, I don't get that luxury. Some entries are compilations, looking at an hour or longer. The longest was over six hours. Oh my! That one compilation was about as long as the first 100 entries, which all were individual songs. In fact, the first 184 entries are individual... followed by that one 6-hour entry.

If you were to listen to the first 180 songs, you'd have right at 12 hours of music and an absolutely amazing final song. #180 is a great song on its own, but it's so much better after spending 12 hours sitting on the couch listening to music from many years ago... which is what I did a while back, after burning those 180 songs (as MP3s) onto a single CD. I'm not going to say which song because that could spoil the fun.
: P

On my path to listening to every single Gaming Mix entry, I have completed up through #510. #511 is another hour-long compilation, which means I'll want to make sure I have enough time to listen to it all the way through. That means I only have about 95 more listening hours to go. Yipee...

Since you probably couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great songs in here. For example, #338, Walking in the Night by CYTOKINE was a hidden gem. I don't know if I've ever heard it before recently, but if I have, I only ever heard it once and glossed right over. It was a great find, and I'm sure there are also plenty of other songs in the future that I won't remember hearing before. If I remember, I'll make sure to mark them here.

However, a lot of this music I don't particularly care for. Some of it is because I'm just not interested, but other songs are way overused in various remixes and versions. Flandere's Theme is one of them. There is one great remix of the song, but after hearing the tune reused over and over in various other songs, it just loses its charm. Music from Undertale has also been overplayed. Some of the songs are fine on their own with fan lyrics, but other times I'm not a fan of the direction the song version goes. Oh well. At some point I think the Undertale phase will end. I've already powered through a big chunk of it.

Gaming Mix #324 was the full album of eYe's by MYTH & ROID. Most of the album I don't particularly care for. There are some anime OPs and EDs on there, I believe. However, it ends very well with the original songs Sunny Garden Sunday and To the Future Days. After sitting through the 40-ish minutes to get to that point, it is worth it. In fact, those last songs were good enough to convince me to buy the album on CD. I got the special edition that also has a Blu-ray with a few music videos on there.

Another special edition CD I bought not too long ago was Harmonize Clover by Maon Kurosaki. It is a single featuring the two primary EDs used for School-Live, which is my #1 favorite anime. In fact, I liked the anime so much that I watched it with my mom. Multiple times. I had to get the Blu-ray boxset, original manga, the live-action adaptations, and various other media releases. This CD (which also had a DVD music video) was my latest purchase for School-Live. But even though it's my favorite, I haven't rewatched it recently.

My mom got really sick last May and had to be hospitalized. One of the last things we did together before the hospital was watch the live-action movie and drama series. Then for the next six months she was in and out of the hospital until she passed away right before our US Thanksgiving. When I listen to the songs, it's hard not to think of her and our time spent watching the anime. I'm sure at some point I'll be ready to watch it again.

In a few months, the anime turns 10. There is a Minecraft map I started based on the School-Live world back in June 2019 and I really hope to have it public-ready for the big anniversary. I really hope the original manga creator will get to see it! Time will tell if my team and I finish it fast enough. I've been spending a lot of time on game development and my usual streams.

And to wrap up this lengthy blog post, I was recently gifted a Blu-ray copy of Look Who's Back. I watched it on my nice home theater setup and it was totally worth it. Great movie! I haven't gone through the extras yet, but I will soon. I just hope there are English subtitles, like the movie itself.

Anyway, we'll see if next time I talk more about Caleb and Sophia or Evangelion 3.0+1.11. Thank you all for reading. Bye!