Among Us - Can You Find A Venting Imposter On Mira HQ?

Not every research has success, and I used not to post those. Combined with the limited time, having to learn for exams, I didn't write any. Thus, I'll start posting failed research as well. Since you can learn from fails too.

Hypothesis

Screenshot of Mira HQ on Among Us Mobile
With the "Y"-Tunnel circled and the door
log marked ~ By GreenyNeko

Mira HQ is a map in Among Us, that is famous for its Y-shaped-tunnel. Each exit of the tunnel has a sensor, triggering a log when a player passes it, but not when venting. As such, you can't read the imposter from the door logs should be possible. To prove this, we'll look at the Crewmates' sensor combinations and compare them to the possible Imposter combinations. Another question is if the imposter can counter this. But first, we'll organize the information in a useful way. Therefore removing unnecessary details and keeping the relevant (sensors, Crewmate/vent pathing, cardinal areas).

Ill. 1: Crewmate/Vent Pathing in
Mira HQ
~by GreenyNeko

Simplification

We take the MIRA HQ map and draw in the paths between rooms, between vents, and the sensors. (see Ill. 1) However, we still have more information than needed. We only care about the sensors, so we reduce the paths to the north, south-west, and south-east. The result shows how players will trigger the sensors. (see. Ill. 2) From here on out, I will label south-west as west and south-east as east.

Ill. 2: Log Relevant Crewmate/Vent
 Pathingof Mira HQ 
~by GreenyNeko

Crewmember Logs

Given the nodes on the crewmate path (shown in green), they can be west, east, north, or in the tunnel. Additionally, triggering sensors puts it on cooldown for the player. Thus doubling back causes only a single log, not two.

So, we get these combinations:

• WN - The player went from west to north or is in the tunnel.
• WE - The player went from west to east or is in the tunnel.
• NW - The player went from north to west or is in the tunnel.
• NE - The player went from north to east or is in the tunnel.
• EW - The player went from east to west or is in the tunnel.
• EN - The player went from east to north or is in the tunnel.
• N - The player is in the north, or the tunnel. (NN, NNN... N⁺)
• S - The player is in the south, or the tunnel. (SS, SSS... S⁺)
• W - The player is in the tunnel or the west. (WW, WWW... W⁺)

We read NWE as:

• The player went from north to west, doubled back, and went east.

Doubling back makes the logs ambiguous. Thus, we can't tell the player's exact position or path.

We read NWWE as:

• The player went from north to west and then from west to east.
• The player went from north to west, doubled back multiple times, and went to the east.

Imposter Logs

The imposter can use the pink and green paths. Ergo, all combinations we found so far count here too, as well as the ambiguity. But if you think a person vented, you can check the logs. Seeing an imposter in the west, but there is no recent combination of SW/NW, and they appear in the log, they vented. Unsuccessful research? We just solved it! Well, you can't tell the difference if the imposter vented and then double backed on the sensor at the target location. Especially since doubling back is not uncommon on sensors.

Conclusion

Since both imposters and crewmates produce the same log combinations, and imposters can hide venting through doubling back. Reading who vented isn't reliably with a good imposter.

I have planned two more blog posts on Among Us, and if you're interested, I got some research going on. It takes 30-40 minutes to complete.

>> To the research

Calculating with Text! String Calculation!

For some reason, I am totally obsessed with this so it's one of the things I love about python! The basic idea behind it is quite simple. You calculate like in math with numbers but with String or text instead. Many programming languages allow you to do concatenation using the "+"-sign. Python also implements multiplication allowing "s" times four to equal "ssss".

Defining String

A string is a data type in programming languages to store text data. The way it does that is by storing characters in an array or list. "ABC" contains the characters "A" at position zero, "B" at position one and "C" at position two (in programming counting it often started at zero).

Addition

Just like in all the programming languages addition will work like that. It's quite simple. When you add 3 to 5 you get 8. In our example though if we add an "a" to a "b" it's gonna be "ba". The difference between our addition and the addition of (ℕ, +) is that ours is not commutative. Commutative means that a + b = b + a. In the case of (ℕ, +): 3 + 5 = 5 + 3. In the case of the way, most programming languages do the addition of Strings the second one is added to the first one. It is a concatenation after all.

• 3 + 5 = 8    "a" + "b" = "ab"
• 5 + 3 = 8    "b" + "a" = "ba"

It does not work in our case. You could argue that "ab" equals "ba", but.. it just feels wrong.

Continuing With (ℕ, +) Properties!

Let's move on to the next aspect. The (ℕ, +) group has a neutral element. The neutral element is zero. The neutral element basically does not change any element of the group if the group operation is used upon it. This means that a + 0 = a. We actually have that too when working with Strings. There's something called the empty String "". It's basically a String with no characters in it, a length of zero pretty much. If we add or concatenate this to anything it will result in the same you started off  with:

• 5 + 0 = 5    "a" + "" = "a"
• 0 + 5 = 5    "" + "a" = "a"

Funnily enough, the neutral element is also commutative, haha.

String Subtraction

Another property of the (ℕ, +) group is that there is an inverse element. If you apply the group operation to an element and it's the inverse element you get the neutral element. Additionally, the inverse element undoes the element. The inverse of three is minus three since 3 + -3 = 0. The inverse is often written with a negative exponent, a^-1. As such we have a definition like a + a^-1 = 0. This doesn't work for our strings though. The only way to get an empty string is to remove elements. We need the opposite of adding one character. We basically want to undo "" + "a" = "a" and that's removing the character. For this, we're gonna use the same way it's written with normal calculations. Thus we say "a" + -"a" = "". Interestingly we just declared subtraction

The definition of String subtraction will now be:

 "The removal of a character, the opposite of the concatenation."

But what if we have multiple elements like in "Hello"? Well, concatenation adds to the end. Thus subtraction should work just like that. If the character is not at the end, we just take the last occurrence of it. Simple, isn't it?

• "Hello" - "o" = "Hell"
• "Hello" - "ll" = "Heo"

Another thing we can define here is the subtraction of an a∈ℕ. Let's not go too complicated and just define it as subtracting a character from the end. So "Hello" - 3 = "Hel".

String Multiplication

In python, if you multiply an a∈ℕ with a String it takes the String multiple times. That makes sense. If we look at the definition of multiplication you might have learned that taking three apples four times you get twelve apples. Taking the three-four times is not different from 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12. Which is the same as 3 * 4 = 12 thus 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 3 * 4 = 12.

If we concatenate "a" + "a" + "a" + "a" we get "aaaa". This is the reason why python defined String multiplication so that 4 * "a" = "aaaa".

But what about multiplying "a" * "b"? 

The distributive property of (ℕ, *) allows a(b + c) = ab + ac. If we calculate "a" * ("b" + "c") we can calculate the addition to get "a" * "bc". If we assume that the result follows the example from the (ℕ, *) we can potentially define "a" * ("b" + "c") = "ab" + "ac" = "abac". This means that 

"a" * "bc" = "abac". This is similar to how matrix multiplication works. 

The only weird thing we get from this definition is that "a" * "a" = "a" + "a" = "aa". It sounds not too bad. But there's one more thing I want to define and let's see whether or not it causes issues.

String Division

While this sounds like we're going to partition our Strings it's gonna be more like it works in normal math. There are multiple ways to calculate division. But we go with the opposite of multiplication.

One of them is to see it as the opposite of the multiplication. We're saying that if 3 * 5 = 15 we can also reverse or inverse this with 15 / 5 = 3. This means that if "a" * "a" = "aa" then "aa" / "a" = "a". At the same time our other example of "abac" / "a" = "bc". As you can see basically what happens is that division removes all occurrences of the divisor. This clashes with the multiplication of "a" * "a" = "aa". Since the opposite of it is "aa" / "a" = "a" but we would want it to be "aa" / "a" = "". Additionally if we assume "aa" / "a" = "" this means that "" * "a" = "aa", however, logically multiplying something with the empty String per our multiplication should result in no change.

"" * "a" = "a". This also matches the "a" / "a" = "".  

I guess there's a reason why people use "w/o" as "without".

Hooray

We defined the plus, minus, multiplication, and division on Strings or Text. It can't get any nerdier than that. The only issue is that "a" * "a" is not defined as the result does not make any sense in our definition. Though there might be even more issues in there. Nonetheless, it is fun just to think about such weird things, think it through and see how much hold up. Also, you can troll your friends or other people by calculating "1" + "1" = "11". :P

• 1 + 1 = 2
• "1" + "1" = "11"
• 0b1 + 0b1 = 0b10

What's Your Favorite Idea? Mine Is Being Creative!

Despite the title of this post, this is not about "Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared". Far from it even. I want to use this post to shout out to all fellow content creators, game designers or creative people. Even for those who just want to do brainstorming. Because what I'm gonna do now is point out something pretty obvious and yet - just like me - there are people out there that never gave this a thought. Literally.

The Idea Behind This

I came up with this idea of thinking about ideas when I was talking to my tutor at the Technical University Munich. In the introduction to informatics: games engineering we have the option to make our own game, in groups or solo. This project starts after getting tutoring in Unity with two example projects: A space shooter and a platformer. The discussion went about the topic of, while you can make any game project you want (no restrictions), most students do a space shooter or a platformer.

This made sense to me, so I answered: "Of course!". If you do the space shooter and the platformer in the tutorial you will have these things on your mind as of the latest. You can imagine it like a stack. Whenever you experience something it's put on the stack and when thinking about ideas you take things off the stack going down to past experiences. By now thinking further about it you would also have to take in the consideration that a handful of people might actually go into the study with no idea or not even planning to make a game as of yet. On the opposite, you have those people who already have an idea of what they wanna make, and that might not and then won't be a space shooter or platformer.

Thinking Through This Further...

That was not the end of the discussion for me. Far from it. This actually created more questions. The biggest one: "Why?". Why do we take almost only recent memories into consideration? The only case where we take older memories or experiences into consideration for our ideas is when we get triggered. The second question is what actually lead to this post: "What if we actually purposely search older memories for our ideas?". Instead of waiting for some outer force or another person to pass us the ball or trigger us, we could try to trigger it ourselves, right?

The Idea of the Idea

So, ideas come from our experiences, life choices, the influence of others, our believes and what not. Every place we've been, everything we are or have been interested in and even the people we have had to contact with it all gets soaked up by our brain and then it's saved there sometimes filtered as unnecessary or uninteresting other times saved to never be accessed ever again or at least that's how I understood it. This also means that the only time when two people have literally the same idea is if they actually grew up in the same circumstances, with the same people around them, same hobbies, same interests, same experience, etc.. Is this the reason why some twins are thinking very alike? Could be. This also means that everyone is unique in their thinking and ideas. That's amazing! Another reason to use the full capacity and not just the most recent experiences piled on the stack.

Shout Out!

And with that, this is the shout out to everyone! Ponder over this, think about how your past experiences influence ideas further and... actually don't even stop there. You don't need to do this permanently but for the sake of experiencing this... focus around the now as well and how this influences your ideas and then look for the future. I know about game designers who are like "go outside, that's where the ideas come from" and I'm like "yeah, but watching other people's ideas, especially cartoon, anime, movie or reading books also lets you experience good material".

Decide for yourself what's best for you. Everything and anything you do matters here. It will all shape the person you are and the ideas you'll have and that's scary and empowering at the same time.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Personal Reality and Bubble World Concept

I wanted to make another post about magick since it's been a while at the same time I kinda felt like watching an anime. So I got a suggestion to watch Toaru Kagaku no Railgun and yes I'm enjoying it. Something that they kept repeating was this stuff about personal reality and probability and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. おもしろい (Interesting).

Story

I can't talk about an anime or movie or other content without talking about the plot. :P Toaru Kagaku no Railgun plays in a scientifically-driven city called 'Academy City' in which pupils or people, in general, are taught to be espers. The main plot focuses on a student called Misaka Mikoto who is considered a level 5 esper and she can control electricity.

That should give you an idea on the scope of the anime without revealing anything that's happening.

Personal Reality

In some of the teachings, the anime keeps repeating the idea of finding your personal reality or your own reality. This goes well with a principle in magick that I and a few people in my contact circle often like to call bubble worlds. The basic idea is everyone lives in their own world or in their own bubble. Everything they believe in is real in this bubble. If two people get near each other those bubbles merge to a certain degree. If both bubbles are the same (same beliefs) nothing changes. However, if those bubbles differ the intersected area can be considered to be in a superstate as first. Which means it is at first not clear what it's gonna be like. What it will actually be like is later determined by the probability of which of both bubbles matches better.

Magick User vs Magick User

Even if both magick users or espers believe in magick to work differently it will still exist in both worlds depending on how open-minded they are both systems may work or both systems will work to a lesser effect.

Magick User vs Skeptiker

Assuming the magick user knows about the real world and sees it as one of many realities there's a higher chance for the normal world or real world as we know it to be the one the superstate will result in.

Skeptiker vs Skeptiker

The probability of magick to exist is nearly zero. The result of the superstate will be the normal world as we - and probably them too - know it.

In Context with the Anime

So, if we take this back to the context of the anime the idea is for your esper ability to improve you need to find your own reality, the reality in which your ability exists to a high degree. Unfortunately, this is not so simple as it sounds and it may be even more difficult in real life. The issue is that there are more than just millions of people on the world and each of their bubbles almost completely intersects with another. There's hardly any space that does not intersect. Hence why magick users create their own room or area to perform magick. At the same time, this is also the reason why magick users form groups to perform rituals as multiple bubbles with the same beliefs overlap resulting in a higher success on magick. Additionally with an increase of people believing in magick or simply being open-minded or not denying it would increase the probability of successful rituals as well. Hence why academy city houses mostly espers and almost only people who believe in it.

Outro

Lastly, it's really interesting to see another form of artwork to base itself on a concept that is used in modern magick. It makes one think if the author was inspired by those beliefs had the same thought process of maybe it's something we all unconsciously know and believe in? Whatever it is it's our best bet to explain magick scientifically. Whether or not this explanation is correct is something we will figure out as we continue to understand quantum physics and as we dive deeper into the lowest levels of physics. Funnily enough, people already believe in the placebo and have proven which amazing feats it can do and they keep on studying it. "Glaube versetzt Berge" (Faith can move mountains) is a German saying that matches this too well.

Thought Experiement: In Balance With All

Through my journey through learning about magick in an unbiased way, I came across this weird concept. This concept of being in balance with all and even weirder being all.

What is a Thought Experiment?

You might have heard of common thought experiments like Schrödingers Cat or the Trolly Problem. Thought experiments allow us to think about psychological or philosophical problems, questions or concepts. They also allow us to follow an idea, concept or thesis. In the case of both examples, I named actually performing the experiments would be animal cruelty or would mean humans are being sacrificed. Of course, you could argue that this is for the greater good but I think we all agree that this just can't be done. In both examples either humans or a cat is killed directly or indirectly. Thought experiments allow us to think these experiments through and sorta simulate them with the way we know the world works. As such these are very useful to think through unusual, absurd, impossible or inhuman experiments and their outcomes without hurting anyone.

The Idea

The idea behind this thought experiment is to follow this idea of being all and in balance with all. It's a concept I talked about people that assumes that we repeat our life over and over intending to be one with everything. I have no idea how this affects different people or what kind of feelings come up going through this.

Please read the disclaimer before participating. For all I know this may help people who have depression, it could make it worse, it could open people's eyes or change their way of thinking or maybe it doesn't have any effect. Our mind is something very special and very strong as the placebo effect has shown us over and over. So participate if you want but be aware...

*** DISCLAIMER: Actually performing this thought experiment is done by your free will as such I do not take any responsibility on how this affects the reader or the performer.

Preparation

It's not as easy when reading instead of listening as you can't close your eyes and let it affect you. Something you can do however and something I'd advise you to do is take the following statements for granted. You don't need to believe them after the thought experiment, you don't need to fully believe them but give them a benefit of a doubt. If you disclaim any of the following statements you might ruin the thought experiment and the idea behind it. I also don't mind reading through it first, do as you wish. Another good idea is to write your experience down afterward somewhere and try to share it with me via my E-mail, twitter or any other way. As the experience of other people plays a big role in research and in thought experiments.

Thought Experiment

We'll start easy with something I hope many people can relate with. First, let's think about any bad thing you've ever done. Anything that can be considered bad or evil can be mentioned here and from any time in your life. Stealing something, hitting someone, cursing, destroying something, being mean, trolling, even the thought of raping, killing or in some other way wishing someone hell.

You are a bad person, you are evil.

Now think about all the good things you have done in your life, helping people, supporting someone, doing anything another person liked, making someone smile or making someone's life easier, again anything goes.

You are a good person, you are good.

Yet you are evil. You are good and evil at the same time.

Let's think about what you've learned through your world. All the information you soaked up like a sponge, school, work-life, everything you can do, all the skills you have, all the languages you speak. You are intelligent, you are wisdom.

Look at the animals they can't speak their people who are not as intelligent as you. Yet, you make mistakes, you do stupid things. Some people are more intelligent than you. There's so much you don't know so much you should know. So much you can't know.

You are stupid, you are stupidity.

Yet you are intelligent. You are wisdom and stupidity at the same time.

You do sport, don't you? You move around every day, even if it's a bit, you move more than nothing. You do more sport than other creatures, there's always some creature that does less, that is lazier.

You are an active person, you are a sport.

Do you run a mile every day? Do you do 50 push-ups every day? Do you go by bike for hours on hours? You never move as much as the next person, there are people more active than you and even if you were the most active person ever you could still be less lazy and move more.

You are lazy, you are inactivity.

Yet you are sporty. You are active and inactive at the same time.

You can feel your body, you can touch your arms and legs and you can feel it. This is your body, this is you. From head to feet this is you, this is what you are.

You are your body, this is you.

Where do your thoughts come from, is this really your body? Or are you imprisoned in the head of this body? Track your thoughts back and where they come from, are you sure this is your body? Is this really you? This isn't you, this isn't your body, you're something else.

You are something else, you are different.

Yet this is you. You are this body and you're not at the same time.

Do you remember how old you are? Of course, you do, no one forgets their age. You celebrate your day of birth every year, you're reminded of how old you are every time. This is your age, this is the number of years you have spent in this world, this is your time. You've been on this old for so long already, so much time has passed already. Thus...

You are old, you are an older generation.

You can feel it, you are still young, sometimes you don't feel how old you are, you might call it your inner child and avoid calling what is part of you, you. There's still so much you can do and no reason not to do it. Because...

You are young, you are the inner child you feel.

Yet you are old. You are old and young at the same time.

You are living in this life, maybe you're enjoying yourself and every second, maybe you're trying to achieve something unique no one else has or you try to compete with someone, whatever the reason or goal you have is you are alive, still alive.

You are alive, you are life.

Every day, every second a part of you dies, you slowly rot away. Your regeneration worsens day for day, year for a year until it can't keep up anymore.

You are dead, you are death.

Yet you are alive. You are dead and alive at the same time.

Whether or not you believe in life after death or death afterlife. Whether or not you believe in god or not. You are just a human, after all, a fragile, finite creature that in some way could be considered an animal, you are not as wise, you are not as omnipotent, you can't compare with a god-like figure.

You are normal, you are a mortal being.

Yet God has created you like a copy of him, you have the power to change things, you can learn your whole life your whole time, you can even be reborn according to believes. God isn't only in your heart.

You are god, you are immortal.

Yet you are normal, you are a mortal being.

You are construction. Yet you bring destruction.

You enjoy violence. Yet you want peace.

You love things. Yet you hate things. 

You are a demon. Yet you are an angel.

You are awake. Yet you are asleep.

You don't believe what you can't see. Yet you are a believer.

You are everything. Yet you are nothing.

You can't do anything. Yet you can do everything.

Magick Aptitude Test

So I've been thinking about the research I wanted to do on the One For All and energy control. To keep it short: If I really can control my energy and it works like One For All from Boku no Hero Akademia, I should be able to do a sprint in a shorter period in comparison. However, as I mentioned in the respective post this takes quite some time even if I keep it short and the results may not even be worth it so to say. However, I came up with another extremely simple test that takes a lot less time for every single execution but may take longer in the long run.

The Idea

If you read the magick oriented posts you should know this already but let's go into the details anyways. I remember from reading almost a year ago, Vrater V. D. wrote in the book "Schule der Hohen Magie" (approx. in engl.: school of high magic), that magic changes the chances of an occurrence by will. The example taken in the book assumes you want a meteor to hit exactly where you perform the ritual. The chance of a meteor hitting the earth, even more, hitting the earth exactly at this place is extremely low. Yet, using magic this chance can be increased.

I'm Not Planning on Suicide

Now, I'm not going to make that happen, I'm not planning on dying yet and I have no fun in having meteors crush down into the earth, even worse my home. The meteor thingy is just an example. I'm planning on something less dangerous that still can be extremely infuriating. I'm talking about dice. If you paid attention during the class in math - if you had stochastic... - you will know that dice has the same chance to land on each side. (Of course, this assumes a perfect dice, if you have one with holes in it or worse, numbers on it this might affect the balance, additionally damage done to it will also influence this). With every occurrence having the same chance this is called a Laplace experiment, by the way.

Throwing a Dice and Magic; How Is This Related?

If you combine both concepts explained in the paragraphs you may come upon this theory:

If throwing a dice infinitely results in each side showing up at the top equally often, this means that when using magick to influence the chances regardless of how often you throw it will occur more often. Even better, the higher the chance diverges the stronger the actor's aptitude to magic should be. At least that's the idea or concept behind.

Live/Life Research

I'm actually planning on posting all my ongoing research on my blog in the projects category under research. This project will listen there soon too probably. I mean the pure idea of this is ridiculous. You will need tons of dice throws for it to ever reach an equal distribution and secondly I doubt that my own magical power is strong enough to influence the chances so much that it's outside of the error margin.

Well, I guess we'll see.

Is My Hero Academia's Full Cowl Possible? (Part 1)

A few months ago I made an episode on Midoriya's training in Boku No Hero Akademia or My Hero Academia, where I explained from a wizard's point of view that it could technically be a real thing. I'm interested in whether or not it's possible or plausible in real life, or if it's a myth to be busted.

Energy Control

I've also talked about being able to control what seems to be energy in my body, I can focus it or move it around, which basically seems to work very similar to the way All for One most likely works on Quirkless people. If we look at the ability of Full Cowl, we can see it primarily enhance the strength of the user, which in return allows Midoriya to increase his speed as well. This makes sense if you're applying more force to the ground or an object you jump off of the opposite force is applied to you allowing you to gain greater speed or higher jumps, Newton's third law.

Assumption

If we assume "Full Cowl" to work the way we described it just now, it can be assumed that a person who is assumed to be able to control his bodies energy, Chi, Qi or any other phenomena similar in nature to enhance their bodily functions to increase the force applied to adjacent objects. As an example given a person who uses this phenomenon can increase their running speed.

The Experiment

I'm using that example for a good reason. If these hypotheses are indeed correct, I should be able to apply my practice from the past months to manipulate my running times. Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that play in, especially since I'm anything but an athlete and at the same time I don't have that much spare time to spend. I still want to do this so I came up with a plan.

I want to measure the time it took on a certain distance while running and alone. Getting a distance is rather easy since all you need is a start and an endpoint. The sport place at my old primary school will do good since it's open space to my knowledge. For the time measurement, I will need a stopwatch that fits into my hand. It needs to be handy, as I'm going to stop the time myself and something like a smartphone won't do the trick. Since there's a time constraint I can't just run 24 hours, additionally there's the weak endurance I have. Another factor is the "getting warm" phenomena.

All these factors need to be added to it, so I came up with the following. I'm going to do some jogging first. Then I'll give myself just a measly five minutes of rest. After this, I'm going to do the first timed run. This will be a normal run to get the time without and modifications. This too will be followed by a break, but this time 15 minutes. This will be followed by another run now focusing the energy on my legs and feet. Assuming the way I described it earlier works this should yield a faster time. This too is followed by a 15 minutes break. After which I'm going to do a run using the "Full Cowl" technique. Then taking another rest of 15 minutes before I'm doing a last normal run as a control run to make up for the improvements since the first run.

Thoughts

While this schedule only gives me two normal control runs and each one enhanced and a "Full Cowl" run it is still a tight schedule. If the times of the "Full Cowl" and applying energy to my feet and legs should fall into the control run times, the experiment is over. However, if there's a slight but significant difference, the experiment should be reattempted on another date. The schedule I created here takes 5 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 50 minutes. It's neither too long nor too short. The result of these experiments may be a prove for there being more than we think, or I just might be one of the first people to evolve Quirk.

I have no plans on when to do this experiment yet and it heavily depends on a lot of factors in my real life. Well, at least I have this planned out now, hooray!

Boku No Hero Akademia: Midoriya's Gran Torino Training

The past weeks I've been watching Boku No Hero Academia (a.k.a. My Hero Academia) to catch up. Yes, I binge-watched two seasons and I'm now up-to-date. And a certain aspect in that anime inspired me.

Also spoilers for season 1 and 2. You've been warned.

The backstory of Boku No Hero Academia

Boku No Hero Academia plays in a world where the human bodies have developed to a much more streamlined version and at the same time developing uncanny abilities known as quirks. By the time the story plays 80% of the population have quirks. These quirks go from producing nitroglycerin sweat that can be made explode to being able to do whatever a frog does to producing fire and ice as well as superpower or invisibility and many more. 

How One-For-All Works

Well, I warned about spoilers already so let's start with the story of this quirk. One of the first quirks that came to be was All-For-One. This quirk allowed the owner to take and pass quirks. The person who had this quirk had a brother who had no apparent quirk. So his brother gave him a quirk that allowed him to stockpile power. Surprisingly his brother did have a quirk that is useless on its own. The ability to pass on his quirks. This ability combined with the stockpile ability and created a new quirk, One-For-All. From here on out One-For-All has been passed down stockpiling the abilities from one person to another person. In the anime, the quirk is given from the number one hero All Might to the main character Midoriya or Deku.

So that's the history of it, All Might also mentioned that One-For-All is an augmentation-type quirk. So let's look at how it operates for Deku and Allmight.

Many of the reporters, news as well as other people think of All Might and Deku having some kind of super strength or super speed, in the case of All Might even invincibility. Understandably so as they both increase their speed and strength when using One-For-All. Looking at Deku specifically it's important to analyze the animation. When Deku uses One-For-All focusing all on one body part, the body part starts to glow pink to red and there are veins shown lighting up. Another interesting fact is that All Might starts smoking whenever he's swapping to his buff version or vice versa. Some more information that we get is the idea of focusing the power on a body part. The word focus plays a huge role here. In the anime, it's even said that the energy is focused. If something contains a lot of energy it's particles increase in speed. Faster particles result in more collision, more collision then again results in friction, which produces heat. If something reaches even higher energy it may even emit photons of light. This is what makes the body parts look glowing red, especially since compared to All Might Deku is not able to contain the immense amount of energy in his body. Heat reacting with the air also results in the air heating and the body cooling which can result in vapor or even smoke depending on the water contained nearby, explaining Allmights smoke. Even the training with Gran Torino shows Deku having green lightning appear occasionally around his body as well as his body emitting some kind of light. All these elements show One-For-All being pure energy that is added upon the human's energy thus augmenting any ability even quirks if quirks are available. So what happens when One-For-All is passed on to the next person? It will contain Midoriya's energy as well.

One-For-All in Real Life

Quirks don't exist in real life, not as they do in the anime, however, something can definitely be taken from this anime and I can tell this from experience. Whether or not you believe me is your thing. When I was a child I thought that lying down and focusing on a part of my body or a state could heal it up faster. Surprisingly it at least felt like it would really work. Funny thing is this came naturally for me. I've kept this ability through my teens using it to amplify attacks when playing with wooden stacks (I'm sorry for breaking your self-made wooden sword with a normal stick, Robert) and I'm still able to focus energy on certain body parts as a young adult. So while it's not a stockpiling ability and I don't think, making anyone eat my DNA will give them my power, with enough practice it should work to reproduce at least... let's say 0.01% of One-For-All or something. Hey, One-For-All in the anime is way too strong, even 5% is already way stronger than anything considered above average. Unfortunately, I did not go through the training regime Deku went to. I'd consider myself more like a mob from Mob Psycho 100 than an All Might.

Gran Torino's Training

So one of the realizations Deku made in his internship at Gran Torino is not calling upon One-For-All but making it a part of himself. The idea behind this is to just have the power active at all the time having it part of his whole body instead of just one part. So the goal of this exercise is to focus not on one body part but to focus on the whole body. This gave the idea for me to try it myself. I already could focus energy on one body part so all I had to do is apply the same procedure to multiple body parts.

Applying the Theory

The first try was a total success at first, except that I lost focus after moving just a little like the way it felt changed. Next, I repeated the procedure and this is what I noticed. As it's shown in the anime Deku must be a natural. The concept behind it is simple and it's easy to get it to work when standing or sitting still (when not moving basically). However, in real life moving with this is not as easy and here's why.

Damn You Physics...

If you paid attention during physics you may know that if you want to jump for example you have to apply a force to the ground to gain an opposite force that accelerates you, right? Now if you're focusing energy on your whole body and you try to move or jump you will most likely lose the balance of energy as you automatically start to apply energy and/or the focus to the affected or required body parts to apply the force required to do the movement. Now I'm just human I don't have One-For-All it's not a big issue for me, but if Deku would focus on his whole body to split the 5% of One-For-All and he moves or jumps and applies the energy he may easily focus much more heavily on the body parts required to produce the opposing force for acceleration. The result of this would be applying a higher amount than 5% in the worst case it will result in him damaging himself.

So that's why I said he's a natural.

What's the Result?

In the anime, Deku increases his strength and speed using 5% of All-For-Ones capability. Implementing the same principle in real life seems to increase precision in movement. You can reduce unnecessary movement, the senses related to touch seem to be sharper and it seems to improve the strength and force applied to the surrounding area also affecting movement speed. It comes with a drawback though. If not trained it actually may hurt.

I know I can only say that it seems to do these things I haven't been able to use it long enough to notice definite effects and I haven't trained it enough to know the results of that.

Regardless this is gonna stay on my list longer. 

Chinese New Year - Year of the Dog and Zodiac Animals

This post was planned for today but since I wasn't able to write on Wednesday I would've shifted this one back to go my order. However, it makes less sense to do a topic about the Chinese new year a day after the Chinese new year. So here you go.

Chinese New Year and Zodiac Signs

I don't know how many people reading this know their Chinese zodiac but those who do and are interested in it should definitely look out for the Chinese new year. In total there are 12 zodiac animals. Every year it's time for the next one and in the end, it repeats. They iterate through and restart with the first one. If we start with our current year it looks like this:

• Dog
• Pig
• Rat
• Ox
• Tiger
• Rabbit
• Dragon
• Snake
• Horse
• Goat
• Monkey
• Rooster

Since this repeats over and over we can even lookup future years as well as previous years. Here's a small table.

	xxx0	xxx1	xxx2	xxx3	xxx4	xxx5	xxx6	xxx7	xxx8	xxx9
196x	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster
197x	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat
198x	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake
199x	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig*	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit
200x	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox
201x	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig
202x	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster
203x	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat

I Don't Know My Sign

It's not as complicated as with the zodiac signs you may know. If you're born in the year or the animal you are that animal. So, for example, I was born in 1995. Going back to 1995 in the table tells us I'm a pig. So basically all you need to know is when you were born (only the year) and which zodiac animal matches the same year. Well... basically. It gets a bit tricky since the Chinese new year is on the 16th of February. This means if you were born before this date it's the previous zodiac animal. For example, if a child was born before the 16th of February this year that child would be a rooster, not a dog. If the child is born tomorrow, for example, it's zodiac animal would be the dog.

Great! I'm a Dog! This Is My Year!

Well according to Chinese superstition, it's great not at all. It is said that you will offend the god of age every time your zodiac animals year comes which in return brings bad luck. Aside from the year of your birth, this happens every 12 years. So with the ages of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, 108, 120 and last but not least 132. No, I did not count this high for fun. In Qi Gong it is told that it is saved in our body that we can get 135 years old - just a small side note.

So I'm basically telling you that every 12 years you're gonna have a bad year? No, don't worry, there's a solution to it.

Preventing Bad Luck In Your Year

Some Chinese traditions are said to prevent bad luck from happening. So without holding you have any longer from averting your misfortune here you go.

Wear Red

In Chinese culture, red is believed to avert misfortune and bring luck, prosperity and drive bad spirits away. The downside to this is it can't be something red you bought yourself it must be from someone else. Even better if it's a family member or friend.

Wear Jade Accessories

I haven't gotten into gemstones yet, but jade is one of the gemstones whose purpose is said to be protecting one as well as bringing you good luck. So obviously that's a good choice then.

Turn Away From The God of Age

The god of age is said to be an imaginary star as well. This star moves 30° every year. So it's wise to look into the opposite direction of it in your year. Since the rotation starts with the year of the Rat you'll get these positions.

Zodiac Animal	God of Age position	Approximate direction	Opposite position	Approximate opposing direction
Rat	0°	North	180°	South
Ox	30°	Northeast	210°	Southwest
Tiger	60°	Northeast	240°	Southwest
Rabbit	90°	East	270°	West
Dragon	120°	Southeast	300°	Northwest
Snake	150°	Southeast	330°	Northwest
Horse	180°	South	0°	North
Goat	210°	Southwest	30°	Northeast
Monkey	240°	Southwest	60°	Northeast
Rooster	270°	West	90°	East
Dog	300°	Northwest	120°	Southeast
Pig	330°	Northwest	150°	Southeast

By the way, there is another way to prevent this from being your unlucky but that one takes more time to write and it's a bit of another story. So some other day, sorry.

Theory Friendly Games

Since I spend most of my time currently theorycrafting games at some point I figured out that in some games it's easier to find theorycrafting material and in other games, it's harder. Same for theories. But why?

Theory-Friendly Design

Theories fill up the space of the unknown with a logical concept or an idea. Back in the old days, people didn't know how the weather worked so they assumed some gods took care of that. A weird theory. Many years later people figured out how it actually works. The old hypothesis was disproven. Nowadays we don't know how things in quantum physics work exactly. So theories were created, like the string theory or the many-worlds theory. Anyways it's the same in games.

If you tell your game's story and leave out interesting parts that are not important to progress the story people start to think about it. A good example of this is Scott Cawthon's Five Nights At Freddie's series. Throughout the whole series, he kept what's been happening in the background and what's going on a mystery. Even though he gave hints throughout all the games it was still the gamers, community or player's job to figure everything out.

So for theories, in the end, it comes to telling the story but keeping interesting parts that raise curiosity out to leave it to the player base to figure it out.

Theorycrafting-Friendly Design

There's a huge difference between making theories about games and theorycrafting. Theorycrafting has a lot to do with calculation and how we perceive it but it basically comes to the same principle as with theory-friendly design. Again you want to keep details or information secret. Though this time it's more about technical details. A common example is how damage is calculated. Also the more technical content like stats, physics, point system, etc. there is the more theorycrafting is possible.

This is something I noticed in WildStar. WildStar allows a lot of theorycrafting about the item system the gear progression to be exact as well as the prime system. Aside from that, there's a little currency conversion but all in all, that's it already. In Guild Wars 2 there's not much to theorycraft about gear progression but there are many more currency systems, PvP and WvW point systems. How much the infinite items in the shop are worth it or how long it takes until they were worth their buy price and much, much more. Though I guess, it could be just me too.

Anyways the goal again is to keep the calculation behind stuff hidden and add a lot of things you can calculate. Yet this is harder to design than a theory-friendly design.

Why Bother?

First of all, you don't have to. Aside from that theory-friendly games may be picked up by theorists to create theories and solve problems, Youtube channels like Game Theory or Reddit posts about games may lead other or more people to your product resulting in your product getting more interested people. It's the same with my blog. There is a chance, even if it's not too big for people who play Guild Wars 2 to pick up WildStar and people who play WildStar might check out Guild Wars 2 and it doesn't stop there. When I switch games or play other games making theories about those people may pick those up as well. In the end, it's publicity.

Especially since Guild Wars 2 and WildStar are free to play even though there are certain limits this does anything but discouraging people to take a look or check it out.

So, in the end, I do something good for all the games I write posts about while enjoying living my inner researcher analyzing games mathematically.

Speedrunning Friendly Game Design

Speedrunning is a great thing. It takes a lot of dedication, experience, practice, and knowledge to do fast speed runs with record times and it's always enjoyable to watch the GDQ (Games Done Quick) or AGDQ (Awesome Games Done Quick) there are tons of people who view them. Additionally, some speedrunners upload Youtube videos or stream the games they speed run.

Speed Running For Publicity

So with no doubt tons of people watch speed runs, which in return means if there are speed runs for your games more people will see it and maybe more people will play it. So having speed runners pick it up is a good thing. However, without paying speedrunners to pick up the game and speed run it you need to motivate them passively. The best way to do this would be to make your own speed run yourself. Unfortunately in most cases even if it's your own game you might not have what it takes to make a speed run. So we need to motivate other people to do it.

Preferred Games

Speedrunners prefer certain games to others for speedrunning. Watching speedrunners, taking a short look and using some common sense you can determine the factors that are needed for this and you can implement them to a certain degree into your game. So let's look at those factors from a speed runners point of view. Now I must say I'm not a speedrunner myself, I'm just a speedrunning enthusiast who tried back in the old days. Though the self-doubt of playing perfectly for up to hours to get the best times is quite discouraging. I know there are segmented runs too but getting near world record times. I doubt I'll be able to manage that without giving up something else.

Important Factors For Speed Running

As the name is saying it already: Speedrunning includes speed and running. It's about beating the game as quickly as possible. This means that situations where you have to wait for the game to continue to halt your progress and slow the runs down some times even immensely. Examples for this would be 

• levels that scroll without allowing the player to leave the area. 
• cut scenes that can't be skipped

Speed runs are often about the feel. If someone does a speed run they're not sneaking around slowly and carefully. Speedrunning is all about fast-paced progress. It's about running if.. you can call the fastest way to move through the game running as this most often does not describe whatever's the player character doing. Anyways what I want to get to next is the capability of movement. The more capability and maybe even combo's there is, the better. A good example of this is the Super Mario 64 series. In Super Mario 64 you could

jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, long jump, kick jump which also produces negative momentum when done against a wall side jump and wall jump

In Super Mario Sunshine the basic abilities weren't as good but you now got

jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, long jump, kick jump which also produces negative momentum when done against a wall, side jump, wall jump, spin jump, hover and tummy sliding

In Super Mario Galaxy we can now spin in air to keep us in the air by a little longer but therefor we lose a little of our arsenal. We're now left with

jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, long jump, kick jump which also produces negative momentum when done against a wall, side jump, spin in air and wall jump

With Mario Odyssey, we now can roll as well and some more tricks thanks to cappy

jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, long jump, kick jump, which also produces negative momentum when done against a wall, side jump, wall jump, throw and dive on cappy, jump off of cappy, dive again

If you give people an arsenal of movement abilities for all kinds of situations, speedrunners will most likely love it. So we've got movement and halts in games. With these both, you're pretty safe already. Though there's one more thing you can't account for.

Bugs & Glitches

 Sometimes it happens, that a wall or collision isn't set correctly or a loading zone can be triggered from somewhere else. Some times even heavier mistakes happen, like building nearly infinite momentum, wrong warping, and overflowing and storage. Let's go through these names as you should know what they mean as a game designer but as a gamer too.

INFINITE MOMENTUM Usually when stopping any motion or actions through controls the character should return to zero momentum relatively fast. However, sometimes there's an unintended way to gain more momentum when you lose, allowing you to build infinitely much of it. This can be used to accumulate a speed that ignores the collision of walls allowing you to skip parts of the game.

LOADING ZONE Describes an area that triggers the loading of another level or scene when the player enters it.

WRONG WARPING Wrong warping describes the technique to teleport or load a certain area of the game that was not intended to be loaded by the respective loading zone. For example, if you enter the level 1-2 warp zone from Super Mario Brothers by bugging yourself through the bricks instead of jumping over the pipe you can load the level -1 which is not supposed to be in the game. Not really helpful but I think you get the idea behind this.

OVERFLOWING Overflowing, as well as underflowing for that matter, describe the numbers to jump to their opposite counterparts. For example, if we say we have 2000000 points and we continue to get points we end up with -2000000 points. What happens here is numbers - especially in older games - are capped to a certain degree. This cap is defined by the variable type used. For example, an 8-bit Integer holds the numbers from almost -2^7 to nearly 2^7. Why exactly this much? The Integer has 8-bits the first one is used to define whether it's a positive or negative Integer. This means the Integer is described as signed Integer, the opposite would be unsigned Integer which has 8 bits to represent the number and thus goes from 0 to 2^8-1 = 255. Our signed Integer, however, goes from -127 to 127. If we happen to count up in an 8-bit Integer variable once we reach 127 one more count will make it turn to -127, an overflow. If we count down to -127 one more step would make us go to 127, an underflow.

STORAGE Storage can describe many things, obviously since the name is no generic. In the end, it comes down to the same thing. You're trying to create a situation where the game takes a game object or something else as a placeholder ending up to implement this stored object once the placeholder is called. It sounds complicated and it's hard to explain trying to stay generic. There are two strategies for storage I know in speed runs or games. One of them is the storage of items in Super Mario World. This is most famous for the videos where people literally rewrite the game code while playing or simply store yourself another feather in case of need. Er.. yes. The other one is scene storage. The idea behind this is that you want to trigger a scene at the same moment another option could be possible, like triggering an object to move your character, triggering another scene, leaving the area or something like that. What happens here is that the scene hasn't finished playing to my knowledge the next scene you see now is going to be stored. For example, some games allow you to watch all the scenes of the game, as well as the final boss scene. So if you watch the final boss scene it's now stored. Once you get back to your normal game and you continue where the normal next scene would've played it might get overwritten by the stored one placing you wherever that one plays. In our example at the final boss fight. I might not have explained it 100% correctly but I'm assuming you get the point.

That's Nice And All

Yeah, it is, but the point I want to make here is, don't patch certain glitches and bugs out. People love certain bugs and glitches and they make for their own category in speedrunning. Most commonly known as any% run. Not to be confused with any% glitchless runs.

Random Number Generators

RNG or RNGesus as people call it describes something in games people can't influence. If you can't plan for a situation that makes it hard to predict and work within games. This means that games with a lot of random number generators and luck - especially if needed in the late game - are less likely to be picked for a speed run. This does, however, not count for roguelikes. Since roguelikes are all about generated content and feeling unique with each run speedrunners know what to kind of expect from these. Though the option to allow the player to pick a seed will be most likely preferred.

So How Should I Design My Game?

Well, it's simple. If you want it to be speedrunning friendly, make sure scenes, talking and such can be skipped either completely or after the first run through. Make sure the player has a set of tools at hand that allows him to move from point A to point B, even vertically if your game is about that. Try to avoid too much RNG in the late game if possible and leave certain glitches in if they bring value to the speedrunning community without breaking your game too much. Just look at games that have been a speed run before and at speed runners commentary to certain speed runs. I mean why wouldn't one wanna watch these? They're awesome too much. TAS (tool-assisted speed run) or not TAS doesn't matter.

Goosebumps - The Power of Believing

My family and I watched several movies over the Christmas holidays. We watched "Behind the Blue Door", "Mad Max" and "Mother Krampus". A few days later I remembered that I wanted to watch "Goosebumps", the movie Jack Black plays in since I enjoyed several of the movies he played in.

Goosebumps

If you know the books, that's what this movie is about. The idea behind it is that the creator, R. L. Stine of these books actually made up these creatures in his childhood and they're locked in the original manuscripts of the books. In the movie, the main character Zach unlocks one of the books because he's more or less friend Champ begs him to do so. When the girl, Hanah, Zach worried about suddenly appeared and asked what they're doing in the house he drops the book. In an attempt to pick it back up the monster locked in the book gets released. After all the books open their goal is to catch all monsters and lock them back in the books. If you think you read a spoiler, no worries this is all in the trailer or can be concluded from watching the trailer. So no spoilers yet.

Minor Spoiler Warning

So the thing I'm going to address next is explained in the movie but doesn't further the plot, instead, it explains the back story and how this situation or problem came to be. Still, in case you want to avoid potential story or lore spoilers, I'll warn you in advance now before people complain. :P So feel warned!

Still Interested?

Okay, good. So the topic I want to address is how these monsters came to be. In the movie, the author R. L. Stine explains that he made up these monsters in his childhood because he hated humanity so much. They were.. in a sense his imaginary friends at some point. Though they didn't stay that. At some point, they became real to him and later real for everyone. So to save humanity from this threat he locked all monsters up in the books he wrote - the original scripts. The interesting aspect of this is that they were just imaginary and now they're real.

Power of Believing

I've already mentioned that one way to see magic is a way to change the possibilities of reality. Let's say you imagine there to be a cube on your desk. You picture exactly how it looks like lying there on the chest and you continue to imagine it being there. You do this every day and at some point, you convince your unconsciousness that there's actually a cube on your desk. At some point, the chance of there actually being a cube should increase until it's high enough to be there. So that's the idea or concept from our scientific viewpoint out. It should work the same with anything else than a cube, though much more difficult. This matches perfectly with the explanation from the fictional character R. L. Stine.

Witch's and Wizard's Familiars

On a side note, this is also how witches and wizards create spiritual familiars. It differs in detail but the basic concept is the same. If you want to create a spiritual familiar the first thing you do is a small ritual that creates the entity. Usually, this is done by breathing on an object that should be bound by the entity three times. This is supposed to represent a part of your soul being infused into the object. Though you should make sure what the purpose of this being is supposed to be before, for example, an entity to protect your room. Once you've created the being the next part is quite simple. All you need to do now is sending attention to the being. Talk to it or with it. Greet it every time. In some cultures, people even place food items and drinks to connected objects. For example, in Thailand, people place food and drinks to the "ghost house" that is supposed to be either occupied by the previous family members or a spirit that is supposed to protect the family. The more energy, time and attention you spend in your familiar the more likely it is going to be for it to become more real. By the way, these creatures do not need to be bound to an object though it improves the success of the implementation.

Conclusion

Again a movie that does something right either coincidentally or on purpose. I really like to see this happen. Oh, by the way, I really enjoyed the movie, it's a great one that I can suggest for the whole family. Though I guess someone else's taste may be different than mine... hm. Anyways have a nice evening and maybe when you watch it with your family you do like it as well. :P

Losing My Religion

Losing My Religion is a great song by R.E.M... I really enjoy listening to this band, however, neither the band nor the song has much to do with today's post. The reason I used this title is, that it fit the cause or topic.

Born a Christian

I was born and raised like a Christian, luckily as a Lutheran Christian. I always heard bad things from catholic friends. Things like, they had to learn too much and that they have to go to the church every week and to go to confession. I didn't have to do any of those. It felt freer and I enjoyed it. My own faith? Hm. It changed according to how things were going in life. Sometimes I prayed to the god other times I didn't. Just like many others at a young age, I thought of god being some old man in heaven. Of course, it bums out after years that nothing ever happens and that God isn't doing anything. So if you think about god being some old man or some powerful entity that can change anything and is omnipotent you kinda start to doubt everything.

Apparently, There's This Thing Called Agnostic

A few years into the Realschule, one of the subsequent schools you have to go to - if you had to choose between the best and most exhausting education, the worst and most chill education and a middle path, this would've been the middle path. I met this one guy that came to our class. It was a weird fellow. He was like hardly even in school always missing and yet he kept getting the best grades. On raising questions about his state teachers told us that he had a psychic problem. Unusual but happens, I guess? Anyways on someday - I don't remember if it was the teacher, me or another student - he was asked what he believes in and explained that he's agnostic and what that means. I don't remember the details but it must've sounded perfect for me back in the day. So obviously I started to call myself agnostic as well. I really liked the idea behind it.

What Is Agnostic?

In case you don't know. People who call themselves agnostic stopped wondering about the question of whether or not God exists. The basic premise of this religion is that asking yourself if god exists and how to behave costs too much energy and time. So instead they're going for an approach to say god either exists or not, we can't prove it, we can't disprove it so just live with it. At least this is what I've taken from it and how I've lived for quite some time until... something happened. Years later, though.

A New Era of My Life Started

So after graduation and finding a job, working there, in the third year of my apprenticeship I met this shy being online in an MMORPG WildStar and I kinda got talking to her and figured out she likes magic. I've always liked magic since I was young. The reason behind this is partly because I had some experiences during my school where it felt like I could heal myself after being hurt or exhausted. Another reason was that I was fascinated with the idea of magic like shown in games and movies. Since all those elements of ritualism and magic from the medieval times still exist and people have been claiming magic exists for several years, you can't just write it off. At least that was my opinion. So anyways this kinda got me into magic again. I found this book called "Die Hohe Schule Der Magie" (engl.: "The High School of Magic") by Frater V. D. and started reading and working through it. A quarter way through my coincidence I found out that a person that played Guild Wars 2 has deep knowledge about magic and when we got into talking about this we kinda made a little contract. She teaches me magic at the same time I pay her in in-game items I receive. Of course, I agreed to that contract.

How Did This Affect My Religion?

Well, there's this thing called Kabbalah, which is a religious-philosophical system. This kabbalah interpreted the well-known sentence differently.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

 They say the idea behind this is, that God created us as gods. So we can be omnipotent. We are a god. I liked this idea and it helped me grow spiritually so I changed my religion to "agnostic with tendencies to Kabbalaism". I don't know if that's a thing but now it was. However, things didn't end there. A few years later like two or three, I've learned enough about magic to create my own opinion of it and well. From what I learned from a very distant, scientific and skeptical point of view it seemed quite obvious to me. The question if god or any god in that matter exists can be explained by how many people believe in it. If magical creatures are created by sending them attention, this would mean that gods might also exist for the same reason.

So There You Have It

This is my current belief. I believe in everything to have the potential to exist under the circumstance that at least one person believes in it. The chance for something to exist changes accordingly to the number of people who do believe them to be real.

I don't know if anyone else has reached this opinion or view on religion or if I'm the first but I have no idea what this religion is or will be called and I'm not going to come up with some stupid name so I'll leave it to others. If you know this exists or if you even know what it's called feel free to share. I'd love to know.

The Magical Meaning of Colors

Colors are a beautiful thing, aren't they? There are so many and you could make up so many color names. From fox orange to burned brown. Additionally, everyone has at least one favorite color.

Influence of Color

There's no doubt about us being affected by color. There are studies out there that confirm that players of a red team play more aggressive and players of a blue team play more calm and thoughtful.

We even associate feelings with colors.

From color theory, we learn that:

Red represents

fire, blood, energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination, passion, desire and love.

Orange represents

joy, sunshine, tropics, healthy food, fall, harvest, strength, and endurance.

Yellow represents

sunshine, joy, happiness, intellect, energy, cheerfulness, food, honor, loyalty and cowardice.

Green represents

nature, growth, harmony, freshness, fertility, safety, lack of experience, hope.

Blue represents

sky, sea, depth, stability, trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, heaven, tranquility, calmness, piety, sincerity and expertise.

Purple represents

royalty, power, nobility, luxury, ambition, wealth, extravagance, wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery and magic.

White represents

light, goodness, innocence, purity, virginity, perfection, safety, purity, cleanliness, successful beginning, faith, and purity.

Black represents

power, elegance, formality, death, evil, mystery and grief.

Though the color theory is not what this post is about, it's interesting to compare the color meanings according to color theory and according to magic.

Magical Meaning of Colors

This is most likely what you came for though I must say these are just a small bunch of meanings I got taught. So if you've learned something different from your sources they might be right just as well! I'm not saying neither are wrong. Anyways here we go:

Red is the most active of all colors.

It increases strength and power and helps against depression.

Orange is the color of vitality, it increases spiritual power, supports communication and cheerful serenity.

Generally, yellow is an active color that supports interest in learning, increases interest and understanding. It is useful for and improves thinking while attracting the positive and changes things to the better.

Green is also an active color that brings good luck in business. It represents the flow of movement and makes faltering energies move again. It improves spiritual growth, heals feelings and is the color of choice when working or interacting with children.

Generally, blue calms and removes anger. It decreases any kind of stress while supporting concentration and relaxation. It counts as a color that heals and protects.

Lavendel is a spiritual color. It decreases any kind of stress and improves calmness, spirituality, and internalization.

White counts as a neutral color.

Black deflects negative influences, can be used for banning and protects from influences from outside. It also purifies and protects from dark scheming.

Comparison

Alright. I have some more but let's compare these for now. It's actually quite different but the most different is probably the color black. In color theory, it is compared to something unknown or evil whilst in magic, it is supposed to protect oneself - from evil as well. No wonder witches and occultists like to wear black, everyone likes to be safe. 

Physics Digression

Also, physicists may notice that red is called the most active of all colors here.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Electromagnetic_spectrum_-de_c.svg/2000px-Electromagnetic_spectrum_-de_c.svg.png

As you can see red is one of the colors of light with the lowest energy. So what happens here? Shouldn't magic and physic agree if they're connected like I mentioned in an earlier post that magic is a science? Of course, there must be a reason for this. I would assume that it's a leftover in the unconsciousness of us all. Everyone knows if something is shown as hot it's shown a red. If something is cold it's shown as blue. If something heats up the particles increase in speed and if something has speed it has energy. Following this through one would assume red would have more energy. Maybe it has to do with the warmth of the light since it matches the spike of heat flux near the red light? I guess this is one of the problems magic has that haven't been solved yet. The problem is that most often something in magic is taken for granted. In magic, almost everyone goes for the effect or end result instead of the way to get there which is understandable since in physics you too can tell a quantum computer to calculate 1 + 1 but if you actually look at how it calculated 1 + 1 you might get three as a solution. Alright, enough of physics digression.

Additional Magical Meaning of Colors

Let's go through the rest of the list I have noted down so this post is complete according to my current state.

So two variations of yellow are:

• Gold, which strengthens the spirit as well as every type of perception. It can be used for gold and money spells.

• Amber develops visionary abilities, improves communication with spirits and supports reaching a deep meditative state.

Using Guild Wars 2 For Rituals!?

Just the idea of using games content for rituals is absurd. As if it's not absurd enough yet to do rituals themselves. Either way, it follows the same concept as normal rituals.

What It Represents Matters

Whether you vibrate the names of gods and spirits or the gods and spirits of a game. Technically it comes the same. The important part is, that your unconsciousness knows what they stand for, what they represent. So to know this we need to read through the lore of said represents.

Dwayna

The goddess of healing, air, warmth, and life

Melandru

Is the goddess of nature, earth, and growth

Lyssa

Is the twin goddess Lyss and Ilya of beauty, water, and illusion

Grenth

Is the god of darkness, ice, and death

Kormir

Is the goddess of order, spirit, and truth

Balthazar

The god of war, fire, and courage

Abaddon

God of water and knowledge

As you can see, each of these represents something. It's the same with most polytheism.

How Would I Go About It?

Once you know what something represents the best thing to do first is meditate over these. Whether you meditate over the planet of the day, the symbol of the planet, the spirit, the element, the zodiac sign or even the Chinese zodiac sign. This way you can attune to it and feel what its energy feels like. One would assume that the energy of Melandru feels way different than the feeling of Grenth, just like the feeling of earth feels different than ice.

After doing this to your satisfaction you should be ready to go to build them into a ritual. A few things you notice hear is each god in  Guild Wars 2 has also at least one element added to them as well as other things they represent. So whenever you use elements, like in the Pentagram Ritual you can replace the angels you call with the gods of Guild Wars 2 for example or if you would use the heart Chakra to heal some wound you could use Dwayna's energy. Another way you could use them is whenever you call a Greek god, like Dionysus to make your plants grow, for example, you could use Melandru at this point just as well.

The Downside of This

Depending on your confidence this may or may not work. Like I've mentioned several times the more you believe in something and the more others believe in the same thing the more likely it is to exist. So if you don't believe in this to work, it probably won't work. Even the smallest doubt can be fatal. At the same time, one would think since it's some gods from a game, most likely hardly anyone will believe in them being real, so technically one would assume that it's inefficient to work with these. However, I'd say if you use these energies and you feel comfortable using them then it might work wonders for you.

Conclusion

After all the idea behind all this is something that many free mages and witches strive for:

"Find your own path, your own style."

References and More on the Topic

Here are some links to inform yourself about these gods and the religion of Guild Wars, if you're interested.

Six Human Gods

Dwayna

Melandru

Lyssa

Grenth

Kormir

Balthazar

Abaddon

Yesterday The World Came To Be

Imagine the world came to exist yesterday and all memories you or your friends or anyone else has just come to exist on the same day too. Alright. Now try to find arguments that disprove this theory and that can't be disproven themselves.

Any?

No Proof - No Disproof

You won't be able to argue against this idea. That's like arguing about aliens or god. You could say that it seems unbelievable, after all, you got all your memories, right? And they feel real, everything you remember seems real. The better you remember something the more real it seems, in the end, it's just memories. The thought that these might have come into existence the same time the world came into existence seems absurd and yet it could very much be possible. You have no proof to confirm this. Just like there is no hard evidence on the existence of god or aliens. At the same time, you can't rebut it either. There is no evidence to approve these from not existing. We have the same case without an example.

The Phenomenon's Name

This may be called Last Thursdayism, Omphalos Hypothesis or Five-minute hypothesis. In all of these the basic concept is the same:

• happened some or a specific time ago
• the world came into existence just like it is right now
•  we came into existence with all the memories we have

The only thing that differs is the time-span or the story behind. 

Omphalos Hypothesis This hypothesis says god created the world several years ago the way it was back then for it to be able to function. If everything is supposed to stay in balance you have to create everything at the same time, right? That's the idea behind it.

Last Thursdayism According to it the world was created last Thursday the way we remember it to be on that day with all the memories of what happened before.

Five-minute hypothesis, in this case, we, the world and everything came to be just five minutes ago with all the memories of what happened before.

Regardless of what the parameters are it's always the same problem. If everything came into existence as it is and you have all these memories it's hard to disprove it.

Trying to Disprove

One attempt that was made, was of someone who had a note from before last Thursday. They said it can't be that they have a note with a date written on it from before last Thursday and remember what they wrote on it.

However, if the note came into existence on Thursday and you were given the memory of it being written by you before Thursday, the attempt already failed.

Conclusion

So what does this all tell us? Like the example of ghosts, god, aliens, demons or this hypothesis, some things can't be proven nor disproven. In these cases, we should stay skeptical. Though in my opinion, it's never a bad idea to give anything a benefit of a doubt. You'll never know and being open to changing your way of thinking is better than being wrong and trying to hide that fact.

By the way, it would be cool to hear your attempts on trying to prove this hypothesis wrong, such a great topic for discussion.

~GreenyNeko, out!

Leveling: Tutorial or Part of the Game?

Ah yes, you start a new MMORPG and the first thing you'll have to do is level your ass up to the end game, what a great way to start off your game. No wonder some games scare people away. Sometimes the leveling goes too fast, sometimes it goes too slow, but why?

Leveling As Tutorial

Some might argue leveling is a tutorial. The problem with this statement is that leveling takes a lot of time in many games. Tutorials usually take a few seconds up to some minutes in other games and now you want to tell me these tutorials take days and up to or more than 40 hours? What am I supposed to learn? Well, I guess there's a lot in some MMORPGs. Let's check out what you can learn in WildStar.

WildStar Tutorial

WildStar has a tutorial but that hasn't gotten much to do with leveling. So let's just look at what you unlock when leveling.

There are 50 levels. The first two levels do not unlock anything with level 3 you get the looking for group-tool, Player vs Player, the skill tree basically and two new zones. Level 4 and 5 each unlock one new skill and another skill slot. Level 6 unlocks three skills of your alternative role (e.g. healer), your first instance and the first PvP instance, as well as two new maps. Level 7 gives you the 6th skill slot and two new abilities. Level 8 unlocks salvaging and another skill. Level 9 gives you 2 new abilities and a 7th skill slot. Level 10 unlocks crafting, two skills, the last skill slot and the first point for the skill tree and the first point for upgrading your skills. From here on out every level unlocks another point each. Level 12 gives you the ability to create guilds, the next instance, and two more skills. With level 14 we get two more skills, housing and two new areas including our main city. Level 15 gives us the ability to craft upgrades for our gear, the ability to upgrade our skills further and a new PvP and PvE instance. The next level unlocks just a new skill, followed by unlocking of another instance. Two more skills with level 18. With level 20 our skills can be upgraded even further, we get two more skills and access to a new PvE instance. New area and two more skills are unlocked with level 22. Two more skills with 24. 25 allow us to upgrade our skills further and we get two more PvE instances, followed by another instance at level 26. Now it takes a while until we unlock more upgrade possibilities for our gear as well as raising our skills further, two PvE instances, one PvP instance and a new map with level 30. 31: a new PvE instance. Now it takes until 35 to unlock another PvE instance and the ability to upgrade our skills further and a new map. With level 40 we get skilled riding, the ability to further improve our skills, three PvE instances and a new map. Level 45 gives us the ability to push our skills to the maximum and a new map. Another map with level 46. Two new maps with level 49. And we did it. Level 50 with PvP arenas, more PvE instances, raids,  improved riding, special quests (contracts) and some more maps.

Alright, that's a bunch. But as you might have seen some levels do not unlock anything but points for the skill tree. Nothing wrong with this, but for a tutorial hardly meaningful. However, there is a reason leveling may take this long. Let's look at the possibilities you have.

Build Possibilities

You start off with three skills and three skill slots. Only one possibility for your build. With level 4 and 5 we get each another slot and another skill. We have five skills and five skill slots now. With level 6 we unlock three skills. Now we have eight skills but only five skill slots. The number of combinations is now:

C(n,r) = C(8,5) = 8! / (5! * (8 - 5)!) = 56.

So with level 6 we already have 56 combinations. With level 7 we get a 6th slot and two new skills. We now have 10 skills and 6 skill slots.

C(n,r) = C(10,6) = 10! / (6! * (10 - 6)!) = 210

210 possibilities now. Of course, not every possible build is also useful or makes sense. Anyways the next change we have is at level 8 with another skill:

C(n,r) = C(11,6) = 11! / (6! * (11 -  6)!) = 462

To speed things up here's a list of levels and combinations:

• Level 10: C(15,8) = 6435
• Level 20: C(24,8) = 735471
• Level 30: C(28,8) = 3108105
• All abilities: C(32,8) = 10518300

This is only taking into account the skill bar. The skill tree and the ability points that can be spent on upgrading our skills allow for many more combinations. Especially since they go hand in hand with the combinations above.

Guild Wars 2 Tutorial

Like in WildStar the actual tutorial only consists of a small instance. The leveling here goes up to 80.

The level rewards can be found here: Guild Wars 2 Wiki: Level Rewards

In Guild Wars 2 it's even more complicated than in WildStar. We have a lot more combinations here. For example, you can wear a two-hand weapon or a one-hand weapon in the main hand and off-hand. Each weapon gives you class and weapon-specific skills. There are already several different combinations here and that's only the start. There is even more with the utility skills, heal skill and elite skills you get and you can combine one weapon set with another weapon set.

Well Sounds Like a Lot

And it is a lot and learning to use it all takes some time, but it might not take as long as the developers may have anticipated. In some cases like Guild Wars 2, the developers want people to test different builds and skills creating a higher leveling time but also having the time not to level too fast enjoying the area and beauty of the world.

Guild Wars 1 Tutorial

Anyone who has played Guild Wars 1 knows: Once you have reached the maximum level you're done with the tutorial. Now the real game starts. This tutorial only took a few minutes to a few hours. Nothing compared to the leveling nowadays. This is a fine example of how leveling as a tutorial works

Path of Exile Leveling

Path of Exile is an extreme opposite of this. Here the leveling doesn't stop even in the end game. At level 90 the continued leveling is extremely tedious and time-consuming. Especially since you lose the experience of your current level when dying. So it often happens that people don't reach the maximum level of 100 in a season.

Is Leveling a Tutorial or Part of the Game?

Going through all these examples I'd say it can definitely be used as a tutorial and also as a part of the game. Whether you like leveling or not is something everyone needs to know for themselves. There are ups and downs to this system. Also, it helps out to prolong unlocks to not overwhelm the player. Especially in MMORPGs which nowadays should and partly do focus on offering people all kinds of different content from achievement hunt to costumes to difficult content and even a little grind here and there. So with growing content and possibilities for the players to come these need to be introduced slowly. However, developers should keep in mind that the leveling doesn't go too slow nor too fast. Finding the right speed for the players is hard though.

Another way to use leveling would be like in real life. You never stop learning new things, you never stop leveling in real life. So you could make a leveling system in similar games. Keep in mind that this doesn't work well with people who seek to "complete" everything though. They might not like something infinite.