This week's game, Cageomel is somewhat of an oddball.
-=-=-
There's a weird geometric shape, and your ship only really has one bullet at a time, and there's waves of enemies but it's only really one enemy, and there's a ton of bullets being fired at you.
It's really not a normal shoot-em-up, but .. It also kind of is.
The game started as me trying to make a nice geometric shape on the screen, from there the circles were added at cross-points, and from there the player ship.
If you think of classic Space Invaders, there's one ship, one bullet onscreen, and a set of baddies up top. This is more or less identical to that.
You still only get one bullet, except because it looks like a grappling hook, your head isn't going "Only one bullet?!" and is instead going "Ooooh, my grappling hook missed by a pixel!!! Grrr!!"
It's a subtly different form of frustration!
Similarly, the little balls are essentially just the invaders moving side to side, except now they move around in different directions.
And there's little lines joining them to each other. And not always well, either!
But it plays differently, and it feels different.
It's a transformative idea, but it's pretty much the same game.
It's like how Space Invaders is pretty much Breakout, except the ball and paddle are a ship and bullet, and the blocks are little alien sprites.
There's rarely an original idea out there, any more, and as curiously different as Cageomel might appear, it's still just a Space Invaders clone, at its heart.
Originality is hard, nowadays. Practically every game you can find has that something that came before it.
As much as I might think that I'm full of creativity, I'm really not. I've recently been looking through images that the AI Art Generators have made, hoping for a spark of inspiration. And that's layer upon layer of things that aren't exactly original!!
Even the name for this week's game, Cageomel, came from the fact that it's a "Geome"tric shape that looks a bit "Cage" like. .. Except Cageometry had a number of Google results, whilst Cageomel didn't.
It's not original. It just looks that way.
Over on SoCoder we're currently wondering whether "New AI Song Generator on the Block" LoudMe is original or not. It looks and sounds like it might just be reusing Suno's assets, rather than being a unique thing of its own. The discussion of uniqueness and originality got me thinking about that a lot, and it's what sparked this morning's blog.
Sorry for the waffle! But I hope it helps to show that, even something that appears to be unique and original, isn't always.
Sometimes it can be. Sometimes, like with Cageomel, it can start as something else entirely, and somehow get dragged back into being just another Space Invaders clone.
*shrugs*
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
A.I. Corner
Today's Suno Song is..
1. Take the blog post above,
2. Ask Claude.ai to turn it into catchy lyrics > Reveal 🔎
[verse]
I made a game called Cageomel
Thought it was unique, oh well
Geometric shapes and grappling hooks
Just Space Invaders in new looks
[chorus]
Oh, I'm not original (not original)
Asked an AI to write this song (Hi Claude)
'Cause my creativity's gone (it went away)
But hey, (hey) at least the tune's catchy (really catchy)
Even if it's not from me (it's not)
Unoriginal me!
(claude wrote this)
[break]
[verse]
AI art for inspiration
Layer on layer, no creation
Loudme or Suno, who can tell?
Originality? Oh well
[chorus]
Oh, I'm not original (not original)
Asked an AI to write this song (Hi Claude)
'Cause my creativity's gone (it went away)
But hey, (hey) at least the tune's catchy (really catchy)
Even if it's not from me (it's not)
Unoriginal me!
(claude wrote this)
[break]
[bridge]
From Breakout to Invaders
To Cageomel, we're all imitators
In this digital age, it's plain to see
True originality's hard to achieve
So here I am, writing my blog
About creativity's mental fog
Waffling on 'bout uniqueness
While an AI pens this mess
[chorus]
Oh, I'm not original (not original)
Asked an AI to write this song (Hi Claude)
'Cause my creativity's gone (it went away)
But hey, (hey) at least the tune's catchy (really catchy)
Even if it's not from me (it's not)
Unoriginal me!
(claude wrote this)
[break]
[verse]
But don't you fret, don't you fear
Transformation's always near
Mix old ideas, make something new
That's all us humans can really do
[chorus]
Oh, I'm not original (not original)
Asked an AI to write this song (Hi Claude)
'Cause my creativity's gone (it went away)
But hey, (hey) at least the tune's catchy (really catchy)
Even if it's not from me (it's not)
Unoriginal me!
(claude wrote this)
[break]
[outro]
Unoriginal me!
(At least the AI's working for free)
3. Feed a snippet of an old song of mine (Fanatically Nuanced) into Suno
4. Ask Suno to extend it, using the lyrics that Claude gave me.
5. Choon!!
[Dave is slouched on the couch, staring dejectedly at the sales counter still showing "1". Green is sitting nearby, sipping his extra tall full fat latte with chocolate sprinkles.]
Dave: [sighing] I can't believe we've only sold one copy of BurrowOffice. Maybe I should've stuck with Coke-related inventions.
Green: It's been less than a week, Dave. Give it time.
Dave: But Greenie, we should be millionaires by now! Even Watership Down wasn't this long.
Green: [sarcastically] Yes, because animated rabbits are the key to software success.
Dave: They ran for days, but it only took a couple of hours. This doesn't make sense.
Green: Dave, I think you're confusing movie time with real time.
Dave: Details, details. The important thing is that this taking far too long!
[Scene Two]
Int. Dave's apartment - Later that evening
[Dave is now pacing, clutching a can of Coke. Green is still calmly sipping his latte.]
Dave: Maybe we need to pivot again. What if we turned BurrowOffice into a fizzy drink?
Green: For the love of all that is holy, Dave. Stop pivoting. In fact, stop pacing, too. Sit down.
Dave: I can't stop thinking about what a total disaster this is. Why isn't it selling?!
Green: [sighs] Most people use online tools nowadays, Dave. I'm not sure anyone likes paying for things in the traditional sense.
Dave: I don't see why people would prefer subscriptions.
Green: Me neither. Gimme a pile of punched cards and I'm happy.
Dave: I mean, could you imagine if you had to subscribe to your punched cards?
Green: New punched cards? Would they be pre-punched with data, or would they be blank cards?
Dave: Are you dreaming about Punched Card subscriptions now?
Green: Might be..
[Scene Three]
Int. Dave's apartment - Late night
[Dave is now at his computer, furiously typing. Green is looking over his shoulder, bemused.]
Dave: I've got it, Greenie! We'll double down on the VR experience. Make that the primary way to work with your data.
Green: Oh no, not the VR again. Dave how do you expect people to input data with just a VR controller?
Dave: A giant VR keyboard. Oooh, what about a bunch of rabbits, each with numbers on their heads, and you bop the rabbits enter the data!
Green: [dejected] Oh my god.
Dave: Yeah, I know, right! Wow, this'll be amazing. Right, I need some way to animate the bopping rabbits without it looking evil.
Green: I don't think you should..
Dave: [cuts in] A giant rubber comedy oversized mallet! Whammo!! Yeah, and it'll leave those little stars around the bunny's head!
Green: Dave, it's past midnight. I'm going home.
Dave: Little cartoon tweety birds flying around the rabbits head! Tweety tweety tweet tweet!
[End credits roll, Dave continues to explain his concept. Greenie's already left.]
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