- Hideaki Hayashia,∗, Kohtaro Abea, Seiichi Uchidaa / Department of Advanced Information Technology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

While looking into methods of developing consistent typefaces, i found an interesting experiment into artifical intelligence assisted font face generation. The paper explores and succeeds in methods of creating legible fonts through ai, with a consistent style throughout the entire alphabet and significant differences from the training images. The paper is a fascinating read, and goes into great (actually understandable) detail about how everything works, but sadly it isn't copy paste code, so nothing practical learned here for me.

Examples of training patterns used in the experiment

- ren ​♡

"CARI, or Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute, is an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now." - homepage of cari.institute

The cari.institute is a wonderful tool for inspiration and artistic education. As a huge fan of the y2k aesthetic, neo-y2k, metalheart, and vectorheart art, i was delighted to hear from the y2k aesthetic institute that this page had launched. There are plenty of great styles you have likely never heard of, and its truly a fun dive into a large variety art, that otherwise wouldn't be easily accessible without thoroughly engrossing yourself in the content. Was happy to learn that Sims game / bubbly plant-full doctor's office aesthetic is more accurately known as "Frutiger Aero". Go check it out.

- ren ​♡

"This is Uberduck. It's a synthetic speech toy." -about page of uberduck.ai

I saw an Animation Curves Blender Tutorial by Kanye West and finally decided to look into the most popular synthetic speech websites nowadays. It is wild how accessible this stuff has gotten. It is both exciting and disheartening, as making high output low effort content continues to flood our lives more and more.

I'd recommend playing around with it yourself, though it can be pretty distracting. In spirit of having good fun with it I made /this/, a cringe tiktok meme, but good audio quality i guess.

- ren ​♡

"aeterne is a music duo based in Tokyo consisting of singers 花近 (kakin) and そらこ (sorako). Similar taste in music brings them together and the desire to produce more original songs has finally come true." -about section on spotify

I initially stumbled upon aeterne while browsing old sasakure.UK music, and wanted to hear more of the vocals that made one of my favorite songs of theirs (Mayday, Maybe navy). As sorako did not have any exclusive music, that led me to listening to aeterne's newest albulm, florere, which is very well-produced and contains a massive banger (Melody of the sunny spot), yet every song has less than 1000 plays. This surprised me quite a bit, considering an amateur artist like my own brother has more followers, monthly listeners, and plays on Spotify. Thus started my quick exploration into the lives and work of 花近 and そらこ.

kakin's twitter banner

Through my initial search I found kakin's YouTube, which apparently is where announcements for their upcoming albums and covers are posted. I was happy to see ~2-5k views on these, but I thought I'd keep digging. Next I found kakin's BiliBili. This featured additional covers and videos, with an higher average view count around ~4-6k per video. Again this was somewhat reassuring, but surprising that they would do songs with sasakure.UK, or maybe sasakure.UK isn't as popular as I think they are. I next found what appeared to be kakin's Utaite Wiki Page, though I found it strange they were listed as inactive. After checking the links it appeared this indeed was the same kakin.

What about sorako? Well their website actually brought the most intrigue, specifically the discography page. It showed they've been featured in songs for beatmania IIDX 28 and sasakure.UK work, all of which have high production value. Now that I mention it, so does their website. It appears that this duo is part of the interesting sphere of creators with connections but not much pull. It seems they are successful, living their life off of music and creation, though neither of them has a particularly large internet presence, each boasting around 1k followers on Twitter. I hope they continue to do well for themselves.

"...many people can not start walking on their own. With the help of others, I can continue to stand here now. thank you very much! And I look forward to working with you in 2021 and beyond!" -poorly translated portion of sorako's personal blog.

- ren ​♡

"I'm Mortis Ghost, hello. I'm making comics and stuff, speaking french and eating dinners. I had a magic dream about palm trees and that's all I have to say about me." -an introduction on mortisghost.tumblr.com

Mortis Ghost is most well known as the creator of the critically acclaimed French surreal adventure RPG known as OFF. It was released in 2008 and translated into English in 2011. It is widely praised for its in-depth writing and complex story, along with a particularly unique graphical style, blending the simplistic graphics common in other RPGMaker2003 games, with hand drawn often graphic visuals.

Smoke, the first of four elements.

If you want to play it for yourself, all downloads can be found at the Off Wiki Page (which includes all language translations). The game's obscure writing and music makes it quite a joy to experience, especially for those who have not been spoiled in any regard. The game was definitely a trend-setter for many of the themes present in indie games to follow. Specifically, its acknowledgement of the player themself through both prompts and character dialogue.

He really made his mark on the internet with this one, but often is only acknowledged as such, the developer of OFF. Though I agree that it may be his magnum opus, he has made plenty of other cool stuff too! I spent some time looking through and playing some of his other works, so let's talk about them. But first, one more OFF screenshot!

The batter being an icon.

The first thing I played was a short 2012 game made in a weekend by eXaHeVa and Moris Ghost called There Is A Picture. It was a cute idea with simple graphics and a decent message, though not very complex, it is very impressive for such a short time of development. I think it took just around 15 minutes to play. Its always interesting to me when a gamedev makes nothing for multiple years, but then just puts out a short game in a weekend.. wild~

A cool poster made for the game.

It is pretty interesting that he often makes "simple" pixel art games, when his artistic style is very professional and unique. Well that is what i thought until i found his comics! He really went ham on these comics, they definitely feel very true to himself. I read Dr. Cataclysm (which I actually read the beginning here), which had an unique assortment of characters and an entertaining plotline, but definitely lacked some mainstaying elements to keep me interested. Additionally translations of Mekka Nikki are available, though i have not read that one for myself.

A page from Dr. Catacylsm.

In addition to these, Mortis Ghost worked with many others making two other games, Duplo, and FreePuzzle, which can be found here. He's also got two stylish blogs: anticosmo97,6% and negacosmo2,3%. Finally, he has a patreon where I learned he is working on a new video game, with an armless protagonist?? I bet you're thinking: "well thats cool ig but i noticed you explicitly never credited the creator of the games' music." Wow you are perceptive! Nice job! Yeah, all of his games have really great music, I wonder who made the soundtracks...

Sidenote: Alias Conrad Coldwood

Alias Conard Coldwood is the creator of the soundtracks for all Mortis Ghost games, and a very fascinating individual. Due to most of Mortis' work being in French, it is troublesome reading about how he presents himself online. On the contrary, Alias' work is very available for me read. Their website (Unproductive Fun Time) is actually what provided access to much of the Mortis related content I had found thus far, and unsurprisingly, someone who works with Mortis is pretty fascinating themselves.

For starters, they have a FAQ Page that answers alot of questions about OFF and its music, but oddly enough, it showcases a fair amount of questions that it doesn't answer anywhere, which I thought was quite humorous. They also go into quite a fair bit of detail about their inspiration, I'll say I was happy to see Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) and Nakaida Reichi (Serial Experiments Lain) listed as inspiration, and surprised to see Quake and Resident Evil: 3 as well. They have a very unique personality, labelling themselves as asocial even among their friends, which is sad to hear. Additionally, they also have developed mods and maps for games like Duke Nukem and Kingpin. As a fellow programmer/developer, that is extremely impressive as a side-hobby.

Their musical work is abstract and often reserved, with a wonderful charm of intrigue. All of it is available for free in both mp3 and high quality FLAC. I highly recommend giving their stuff a listen. It always feels good to find the secret work of a soundtrack artist, and this is no exception.

- ren ​♡

"I'm Mortis Ghost, hello. I'm making comics and stuff, speaking french and eating dinners. I had a magic dream about palm trees and that's all I have to say about me." -an introduction on mortisghost.tumblr.com

Mortis Ghost is most well known as the creator of the critically acclaimed French surreal adventure RPG known as OFF. It was released in 2008 and translated into English in 2011. It is widely praised for its in-depth writing and complex story, along with a particularly unique graphical style, blending the simplistic graphics common in other RPGMaker2003 games, with hand drawn often graphic visuals.

Smoke, the first of four elements.

If you want to play it for yourself, all downloads can be found at the Off Wiki Page (which includes all language translations). The game's obscure writing and music makes it quite a joy to experience, especially for those who have not been spoiled in any regard. The game was definitely a trend-setter for many of the themes present in indie games to follow. Specifically, its acknowledgement of the player themself through both prompts and character dialogue.

He really made his mark on the internet with this one, but often is only acknowledged as such, the developer of OFF. Though I agree that it may be his magnum opus, he has made plenty of other cool stuff too! I spent some time looking through and playing some of his other works, so let's talk about them. But first, one more OFF screenshot!

The batter being an icon.

The first thing I played was a short 2012 game made in a weekend by eXaHeVa and Moris Ghost called There Is A Picture. It was a cute idea with simple graphics and a decent message, though not very complex, it is very impressive for such a short time of development. I think it took just around 15 minutes to play. Its always interesting to me when a gamedev makes nothing for multiple years, but then just puts out a short game in a weekend.. wild~

A cool poster made for the game.

It is pretty interesting that he often makes "simple" pixel art games, when his artistic style is very professional and unique. Well that is what i thought until i found his comics! He really went ham on these comics, they definitely feel very true to himself. I read Dr. Cataclysm (which I actually read the beginning here), which had an unique assortment of characters and an entertaining plotline, but definitely lacked some mainstaying elements to keep me interested. Additionally translations of Mekka Nikki are available, though i have not read that one for myself.

A page from Dr. Catacylsm.

In addition to these, Mortis Ghost worked with many others making two other games, Duplo, and FreePuzzle, which can be found here. He's also got two stylish blogs: anticosmo97,6% and negacosmo2,3%. Finally, he has a patreon where I learned he is working on a new video game, with an armless protagonist?? I bet you're thinking: "well thats cool ig but i noticed you explicitly never credited the creator of the games' music." Wow you are perceptive! Nice job! Yeah, all of his games have really great music, I wonder who made the soundtracks...

Sidenote: Alias Conrad Coldwood

Alias Conard Coldwood is the creator of the soundtracks for all Mortis Ghost games, and a very fascinating individual. Due to most of Mortis' work being in French, it is troublesome reading about how he presents himself online. On the contrary, Alias' work is very available for me read. Their website (Unproductive Fun Time) is actually what provided access to much of the Mortis related content I had found thus far, and unsurprisingly, someone who works with Mortis is pretty fascinating themselves.

For starters, they have a FAQ Page that answers alot of questions about OFF and its music, but oddly enough, it showcases a fair amount of questions that it doesn't answer anywhere, which I thought was quite humorous. They also go into quite a fair bit of detail about their inspiration, I'll say I was happy to see Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) and Nakaida Reichi (Serial Experiments Lain) listed as inspiration, and surprised to see Quake and Resident Evil: 3 as well. They have a very unique personality, labelling themselves as asocial even among their friends, which is sad to hear. Additionally, they also have developed mods and maps for games like Duke Nukem and Kingpin. As a fellow programmer/developer, that is extremely impressive as a side-hobby.

Their musical work is abstract and often reserved, with a wonderful charm of intrigue. All of it is available for free in both mp3 and high quality FLAC. I highly recommend giving their stuff a listen. It always feels good to find the secret work of a soundtrack artist, and this is no exception.

- ren ​♡

'“the most exquisite mind in Grape-Nuts marketing that this generation has seen…”' -a quote of a quote / SLIME.DOC

I have been a semi(at best)-active reader of this wonderful website called kickscondor.com, and per my last visit, I got inspired to work on my site alot more and put a page together tottally not ripping off like theirs (i.e. the page you are looking at rn). I don't got that fancy javascript but my version is functional at least, though no where near as beautiful and stylin'. I highly recommend checking out their site, you can find links to all sorts of interesting sites/topics, way more niche than what I will be providing.

They are one of the (many??few??) proponents of hypertexting. Internet users like these are much more well versed than me, and I hope to someday ascend to a level like that. In their explanation of hypertexting, they mention a user by the name of h0p3, who I had the pleasure of encountering over discord once. The interaction was very inspirational, but I could tell they were on a different wavelength then me, though they did provide me some resources if I wanted to get started with proper hypertexting. Unfortunately, it has continued to fall to the wayside... h0p3's website (wiki) is absolutely spectacular, but quite a confusing arrangement for an outsider like myself. Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I hope to one day communicate with and integrate myself into a community like that, eventually upgrading my website to an artistic and creative haven, rather then a mess of random information and stuff about myself. I will try reaching out to kickscondor on Twitter just to say thanks for the inspo, we will see how that goes.

Average screen while browsing here

Back to kickscondor conversation! Their articles/link date back to July 11th 2015 with anywhere from zero to almost thirty in a month. They've explored alot of different corners of the internet and I am torn between exploring their links or finding new stuff I can write about haha. I'd feel bad copying their topics, but I inevitably will by nature of overlapping interests. I guess I don't have as much to say as I thought, but their needed to be some semblance of a tribute to this page's inspiration, so I guess this is it. Thanks kicks~

- ren ​♡