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Penny Arcade - Comic - Pluckr

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Pluckr!

Penny Arcade - Comic - Pluckr

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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Posts

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    Is this a real condition some people have, like they can’t dance for example? Or just an exaggeration for the sake of the penny arcade comic universe?

  • T-DangerT-Danger Registered User regular
    I'm curious as to what rhythm game he's been playing. I don't know which ones have come out lately, and I'm always on the lookout for a new one.

  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited June 2022
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    Is this a real condition some people have, like they can’t dance for example? Or just an exaggeration for the sake of the penny arcade comic universe?
    Seems like it can be a real problem in different ways, pitch, rhythm, etc.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music-specific_disorders

    But I would assume that here it's mostly hyperbole. As far as I know Mike does actually like and listen to music so he can at least perceive rhythm, though he may have trouble reproducing one.

    Monkey Ball Warrior on
    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited June 2022
    T-Danger wrote: »
    I'm curious as to what rhythm game he's been playing. I don't know which ones have come out lately, and I'm always on the lookout for a new one.

    Metal Hellsinger. It apparently features metal, hell, and singing?

    Edit: oookay so this looks cool, like if Doom and Amplitude/Frequency had a baby. A cursed demon baby with a guitar.

    Monkey Ball Warrior on
    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • YoungFreyYoungFrey Registered User regular
    edited June 2022
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    Is this a real condition some people have, like they can’t dance for example? Or just an exaggeration for the sake of the penny arcade comic universe?
    Not being able to perceive "the beat"? Oh yeah, 100%. I speak from personal experience.
    Or just that Gabe/Mike has it? Also yes.
    e4f9j4qgfy66.png

    YoungFrey on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited June 2022
    Jerry played it a bit yesterday (click for VOD):

    e9ltf7q5oe9j.png


    dennis on
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    Is this a real condition some people have, like they can’t dance for example? Or just an exaggeration for the sake of the penny arcade comic universe?
    Seems like it can be a real problem in different ways, pitch, rhythm, etc.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music-specific_disorders

    But I would assume that here it's mostly hyperbole. As far as I know Mike does actually like and listen to music so he can at least perceive rhythm, though he may have trouble reproducing one.

    As far as I can tell from cursory googling, music-specific disorders are either rare or just poorly documented. However if you ever went to a club at any point in your life you will see that many if not most people have clearly angered the god Canens in a past life and are cursed to wander the world a rhythmless embarrassment to themselves. Myself, for example.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited June 2022
    It's hard to know how much of it is biological and how much is just environment. I wasn't raised with a lot of music or dancing. I can't dance and am bad at following the beat. Seems like a simple explanation for my deficiency.

    It also reminds me of all the studies that seem to show you're much more likely to have perfect pitch if you speak a tonal language. And it definitely makes a lot of sense that practicing the latter would develop the former.

    dennis on
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    I don't know a C from a D or really anything about music which just worked out that way, never really avoided it or anything.

    I understand the idea of the beat and moving and/or groving but it alludes me as well.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    It's hard to know how much of it is biological and how much is just environment. I wasn't raised with a lot of music or dancing. I can't dance and am bad at following the beat. Seems like a simple explanation for my deficiency.

    It also reminds me of all the studies that seem to show you're much more likely to have perfect pitch if you speak a tonal language. And it definitely makes a lot of sense that practicing the latter would develop the former.

    I greatly enjoyed the one Radio lab episode where the audiophile host started ranting about how unfair that is.

  • Erix The RedErix The Red Registered User regular
    There is one rhythm game with which Mike could connect: Dubwars.
    https://youtu.be/CHvLHeHsf3M

  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    It's hard to know how much of it is biological and how much is just environment. I wasn't raised with a lot of music or dancing. I can't dance and am bad at following the beat. Seems like a simple explanation for my deficiency.

    It also reminds me of all the studies that seem to show you're much more likely to have perfect pitch if you speak a tonal language. And it definitely makes a lot of sense that practicing the latter would develop the former.

    I started social dancing 10 years ago after not really growing up with either music or dance and have met many others in that scene who are the same. The people with some experience in those can have a sizable head start of course, but it's hardly required to get really good at it. To be a professional performer or champion, maybe but that's a tiny minority of the people who do this stuff.

    That said, I've also encountered my share of people who really do not seem to get it despite attending classes and really trying. It ranges from people that never get the basics to people who reach a plateau early and aren't able to get past it (though the latter knows enough to be better than the general populace that's never tried a class).

    It is its own general skillset with several styles that sometimes intersect and sometimes don't and a lot of people underestimate the depth of it because people good at it make it look natural when the body mechanics and ability to dissect music in real time is anything but natural.

    The ballroom studio I used to take lessons from has seen a lot of couples where after dedicating some time to really trying to learn, the husbands/boyfriends find it a lot more doable than they initially thought because they had convinced themselves it was never something they could do and the wives/girlfriends find it a lot harder than they thought it would be. A lot of those men have been engineers and scientists of some sort who unsurprisingly took to a methodical breakdown of dance and music pretty well. I know that early on when I really struggled to find the major notes of a song I had to fall back on knowing that each measure of a non-waltz song had 4 beats and evenly dividing that part of the song as best I could. Still sometimes do for really tricky songs.

    I do know that there are people who genuinely cannot find the beat of a song though, even with a lot of effort put into trying; One is a best friend's husband who still dances at goth clubs. Just not to the beat of the song that's playing.

    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

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  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Jerry played it a bit yesterday (click for VOD):

    e9ltf7q5oe9j.png


    Apparently that's it's own mini-genre now, as a very similar one came out a couple years ago. I assumed that was what the comic was about!

    (it's called BPM Bullets per Minute)

  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    I played BPM for a while back in the day.

    It was very good. Still haven't found a roguelike that quite gets me hooked to the point of wanting to play it endlessly like Binding of Isaac (I'm at the point where I just do endless runs of Greed Mode with Keeper, I don't have anything left to unlock there I just really enjoy it) or Rogue Legacy, but I played BPM for a while and enjoyed it. If I enjoyed FPS games as much as ARPG's I might have stuck with it, the mechanics are solid. So I'll have to give Metal: Hellsinger a shot, I downloaded the demo during Next Fest but never got around to playing it.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    Still haven't found a roguelike that quite gets me hooked to the point of wanting to play it endlessly like [...] Rogue Legacy

    Have you tried Rogue Legacy 2? In my opinion as a huge fan of the original, it's fantastic.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    edited June 2022
    Slay the spire and Ziggurat 2 have been my play-endlessly roguelikes. And FTL back in the day

    Lttlefoot on
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