Moten, Part I: Background and Phonology

Today I realised one thing: my blog is subtitled "Arts and Crafts of Words and Tongues", but I've got only two posts tagged "language", and absolutely no post about conlanging, despite it being my second most favourite hobby! (everybody will agree that my most favourite hobby is procrastinating). So I've decided to fill this hole by writing a series of articles about my conlangs, starting with a few grammars (which will be spanned over a few articles). Doing so I'm actually killing two birds with one stone: not only I generate a bit of contents for a blog that desperately needs it, but I also create more exposure to my invented languages, for which until now information has only been available on the archives of the Conlang Mailing List, or in French.

To inaugurate this series, I've decided to publish the grammar of the Moten language, starting with a background introduction and its phonology (and related fields, like phonotactics, morphophonemics and the writing system). Moten is one of my first languages, and to this day still the most developed one (it has even got a lexicon!), so it's the best place to start. So without further ado, here is the first part of the Moten grammar!

Background Information (External)

Moten is one of the "First Five", i.e. the last five languages I had invented before joining the Conlang Mailing List, and the first ones that were not shamefully bad and forgettable. Of them, it is the most developed one, and still my favourite. According to my notes, I originally created this language because I wanted to create something that looked as if it had a lot of irregularities, but was actually very regular (the seemingly irregular surface forms actually being the result of completely regular morphophonemic mechanisms). Also, I had just learned some Basque grammar, and wanted to emulate some of its features (mainly the periphrastic conjugations and the fact that only the last word of noun phrases gets declined). Finally, I had discovered infixes, and wanted to see whether I was able to develop a conlang using them. Whether I managed to reach those goals is arguable. In any case, the result was a language not quite like anything I had created so far, and something I still think has got lots of character.

Background Information (Internal)

Languages don't always need a fictional background. Some are invented "just 'cause". Actually, that's how Moten started. But in time, a kind of weird fictional history crept in, without me trying to consciously create it. It just appeared in bits and pieces as I was designing the language, and eventually became too strong for me to ignore. It's this internal history I'm presenting here:

On the 25^th of March 1984, a boy was found wandering in the Walloon countryside by a couple of Belgian farmers. He was naked, looked hungry, and despite being visibly frightened, he was so exhausted he didn't resist when the farmers took him and brought him to the nearest hospital. There, he was found to be about eight years old, and, despite the ordeal he seemed to have gone through, to be relatively healthy. Still, he was kept in observation as he had the symptoms of a profound shock: he refused to speak, was afraid of everyone and everything, and suffered from panic attacks and nightmares.

His picture was broadcasted, but without success. After two months, nobody had yet contacted the police. During this time, the boy slowly recovered, until he started to speak again. That's when the second mystery began: the boy didn't speak French, and nobody seemed to recognise his language. Interpreters were brought in, but all in vain. People started wondering whether he was a feral child. However, a speech therapist who was working in the hospital and had taken a liking for the boy quickly recognised that he didn't suffer the usual impairments of feral children: he walked upright, didn't display any sign of animal behaviour, ate normally, and his language ability sounded well developed, although his language was still unknown. Also, the boy showed signs of picking up French words without even being encouraged to, another clue that his language capacity wasn't limited.

With the help of a child psychiatrist, the speech therapist started testing the boy's intelligence using non-verbal tests. The results were surprising: the boy scored very high on those tests, showing a superior intelligence! Also, he began to learn French at an accelerated rate, although at first he had difficulties with some of the sounds. The speech therapist helped him, and he started getting attached to her. After a year and a half, he left the hospital, and the speech therapist got custody of him. She ended up fully adopting him a year later. In this time, he had learned to speak French with only a slight foreign accent, and went to school like all children his age (he had to learn writing and reading first, but got up to speed very fast). Despite him being able to communicate, his past remained a mystery: he had no recollection whatsoever of his life prior to being found, and that amnesia resisted all treatments. But that didn't matter, as he was starting to get a normal life.

However, he was still known as "the child that had been found in the fields", and his celebrity was in the way of his social development. To try and provide him with a normal childhood, his adopted mother decided to leave Belgium. She changed their names, found a job in France, and settled there in anonymity. As it would happen, she settled in a town close to where I lived, and one day, I met the boy.

Although I had no idea about his past, our encounter was still a shock: we were nearly exactly alike, as alike as identical twins could be! That was not all: our birthdays were identical! (in his case, the day he was found was used as his birthday) Those coincidences created a near-instant bond, and we became the best of friends. In time, I learned all about him (at least what he remembered, which was still nothing prior to him being found in the Belgian fields), and started getting interested in the language he spoke prior to learning French (yes, even in this fictional history, I'm still a language geek!). That's how I discovered that not only he still had a perfect recollection of his language, but also a very good idea of how to describe it grammatically, far better than what you would expect for a guy who presumably lost any contact with other speakers of that language when he was eight.

It took me a while, but I eventually convinced him to write down as much as he could about his language, arguing that the only link he had to his mysterious past was something too precious to let it disappear. C.G. (that's his nickname, what this means exactly will be revealed in a future post) was reticent at first, but eventually relented, and the result was the first description of the Moten tongue this world has ever seen. I also started to learn the language, and together we started speaking it, creating new compounds and loaning words from other languages for concepts (especially place names) that didn't seem to have already existing equivalents in Moten.

General Language Information

Now that this is out of the way, let's focus on the Moten language itself. Moten is, as far as anyone knows, a language isolate with a very non-Indo-European grammar (but a very simple phonology for generic European speakers). It is strictly head final (especially verb final), although attributes normally follow the noun. It is generally SOV and pro-drop, although not to the same extent as Japanese. Apart from two auxiliaries, verbal conjugation in Moten is strictly periphrastic. Word formation is mostly done by compounding, although Moten has a few derivational suffixes. Nouns inflect for case, number and definition. Fully inflected nominal and verbal forms can receive further nominal inflections to change their meaning or their role in the clause (a phenomenon usually called by its French name: surdéclinaison). Inflection uses a combination of suffixes and infixes, and sometimes also prefixes. When those combine with nouns, various phonological phenomena can happen, but those are always regular. Moten is a very regular language, with irregularities few and far between.

Phonology

Moten has a relatively simple phonemic inventory with little to no allophony. It has 5 vowels and 18 consonants.

Moten's vowel inventory is simply the 5 main cardinal vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/, like the Spanish and Modern Greek languages. As in those languages, the two mid vowels /e/ and /o/ in Moten are truly mid, i.e. they are slightly lower than the ideal versions described by their IPA characters. They would be more correctly transcribed as /e̞/ and /o̞/ (or as /ɛ̝/ and /ɔ̝/), but the versions without diacritics are used for simplicity. Moten also lacks diphthongs (two consecutive vowels always have a syllable break between them) as well as long vowels (except in a few interjections, but it is common for those to break the phonology of a language). Vowels are only very slightly nasalised when followed by a nasal consonant, and nasalisation isn't phonemic anyway.

Moten's consonant inventory is about as boring as its vowel inventory. It is relatively symmetrical, and features sounds common in most Western European languages. The following table shows the full inventory (using the IPA):

	bilabial	labiod.	dental	alveolar	palatal	velar
plosive	p b		t d			k g
fricative		f v		s z
affricate				ts dz
nasal	m			n	ɲ
lateral				l	ʎ
approx.					j

When two phonemes appear in the same cell, the first one is voiceless and the second one voiced. Phonemes appearing alone in a cell are considered voice-neutral, but are normally realised as voiced. Moten's consonant inventory lacks any rhotic consonant (loanwords with rhotic consonants normally replace them with /l/). Also, while most coronal consonants are alveolar, /t/ and /d/ are realised as dental. As I wrote above, phonemes in Moten usually have a single perceivable realisation. The only exceptions are /n/ and /l/, which are usually realised as [ŋ] and [ɫ] when followed by a velar consonant (but this is a rare occurrence). /l/ is otherwise always clear in any position (unlike in English where it darkens in codas).

Writing System

Due to its peculiar history, it is unknown whether the Moten language has a native script (if it has one, eight-year-old C.G. hadn't learnt it yet, or forgot it as part of his amnesia). So when C.G. and I started talking about writing a grammar of the language, the question of a written transcription came early. Eventually, C.G. created an alphabet for it, based on the Roman alphabet. The simple phonemic inventory allowed him to create a phonemic transcription where one letter is exactly one phoneme (the system is truly phonemic: morphophonemic sound changes are always reflected in writing) without having to divert much from the standard Roman alphabet as used in French or English.

The Moten alphabet has 23 letters, corresponding exactly to the 23 phonemes of its inventory. Of those, 19 are taken straight from the Roman alphabet, while 4 were invented specially for Moten. However, even those can be approximated in typography by digraphs using the pipe | followed by another letter. This is the convention used here.

The following table lists all the letters of the Moten alphabet in alphabetic order, in capital and small form, followed by the phoneme they transcribe in IPA, the name of the letter (used when spelling), and an example Moten word starting with the letter.

Moten letter	phoneme	name	example
A, a	/a/	a	at: fire
B, b	/b/	ba	bazlo: town
D, d	/d/	da	di|la: mother
E, e	/e/	e	elej: sleep
F, f	/f/	efa	fuli: gold
G, g	/g/	ga	ge|sem: father
I, i	/i/	i	ibo: air
J, j	/j/	eja	jem: brook, river
K, k	/k/	ka	ku|lu: language
L, l	/l/	ela	linan: bird
|L, |l	/ʎ/	e|lo	|la: peace
M, m	/m/	ema	mosu: paw
N, n	/n/	ena	nudel: respect
|N, |n	/ɲ/	e|no	|nuba: letter, character
O, o	/o/	o	oskana|not: ceremony
P, p	/p/	pa	pe|la: to see, to watch
S, s	/s/	esa	sigoj: name
|S, |s	/ts/	e|so	|suko: brother
T, t	/t/	ta	tina: room
U, u	/u/	u	umpi: house
V, v	/v/	eva	vone: (cold) water
Z, z	/z/	eza	zanej: (finger) ring
|Z, |z	/dz/	e|zo	|zika: mountain

As you can see, Moten lacks the letters c, h, q, r, w, x and y. Those are not used in loanwords either. Rather, loanwords are adapted to fit the phonology (and in some measure the phonotactics) of Moten.

Phonotactics

Moten has a relatively strict syllable structure (not as strict as for instance Japanese, but stricter than English). Syllables, no matter their position in the word, have the following shape: (C)(C)V(C), i.e. an optional onset of one or two consonants, a single vowel, and an optional coda with no more than one consonant. In particular, sequences of two vowels are always separated by a syllable break. Agreeing with this syllable structure, up to three consonants can appear between vowels. Syllabification is then done with a preference for the onset of the second syllable, although clusters of two consonants are separated equally between the syllables.

Vowel sequences are quite limited in Moten, despite the fact that a syllable break is always present between two vowels. Basically, only a, e and o can freely follow each other. I and u are never allowed next to another vowel.

Consonant clusters have other limitations besides number of consonants allowed. The main rule is that consonants in clusters always agree in voicing (the nasals, laterals and approximant are considered voice-neutral for this purpose, and thus can appear next to voiceless consonants as well as voiced ones). The second rule is that two identical consonants never appear next to each other (even across a syllable boundary). The third rule limits the occurrence of the consonants |l, |n, |s and |z. Those behave sometimes as a single consonant, sometimes as if they were clusters of two consonants. So they can appear in syllable codas, except when they are followed by a consonant, onset of the following syllable. When they appear in an onset, no other consonant is allowed in that onset. Note that this rule is not always followed in loanwords. Since they were all adopted at a time when C.G. could speak other languages (like French and English) with freer phonotatctics, some loanwords allow those consonants to appear in situations where they are disallowed in native words. An example is the word Doj|slan: Germany, which was loaned from German Deutschland. It is syllabified as Doj.|slan, which shows a |sl onset that is normally disallowed in Moten. If the word had been borrowed following all the phonotactic rules, it would have been *Doj|sulan, but C.G. and I just don't use this form. Notice however how the ending of the word was simplified to fit Moten's strict syllable structure. Moten's phonotactic rules are still in place. It's just that in borrowings, those four letters behave like single consonants whatever their position. The last rule forbids the *ts and *dz sequences, even across syllable boundaries. As I'll show below in the section about morphophonemics, those are always simplified to |s and |z respectively. In a similar fashion, the sequences *lj and *nj never appear in Moten. More surprisingly, neither do the sequences *jl and *jn.

Besides those rules, consonant clusters (whether in onsets or across syllables) are quite free. Plosive + plosive or fricative sequences are considered normal even in syllable onsets, and both s and z can be followed by another consonant (including plosives). Other continuants don't allow such freedom, and actually continuant + continuant sequences are quite limited in onsets (they are very free across syllables). Mostly only those starting with s or z are allowed. In the same way, all consonants can appear in coda (even absolute codas at the end of words), including plosives. Continuants are preferred in that situation though.

Morphophonemics

Moten is relatively free in allowing word compounding, and inflects using a combination of prefixes, infixes and suffixes. This means that it is common for words and/or affixes to combine in ways that result in forbidden clusters according to phonotactic rules. This section gives an overview of the possible ways those clusters are resolved, although the rules are complex and not always regularly followed (when it comes to compounds. Inflections always follow regular morphophonemic rules).

The simplest case is when two vowels meet. As indicated in the section above, a, e and o can happily coexist (although the sequence ae is sometimes simplified to e). The other rules are:

• When two identical vowels meet, they are simplified into one.
• When i meets another vowel, it becomes j. That j might then interact with neighbouring consonants.
• When u meets another vowel, j is inserted to break the sequence.

Consonants are more complicated, as there are many more possible cases of disallowed clusters. Nevertheless, the number of rules governing the treatment of disallowed clusters is still relatively limited.

There are two overarching rules that affect consonantal clusters before any other rule is applied:

• Consecutive consonants must be all voiced or all voiceless (keeping in mind that the nasals, laterals and approximant are voice-neutral). When consonants of different voicing meet, at least one will change to meet the other consonant's voicing. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a single rule that states which consonant should change in which case. There are some tendencies, like the fact that s and z will always be the ones to change voicing when meeting another consonant, while f and v, on the other hand, always impose their voicing to neighbouring consonants. But there doesn't seem to be any such rules for other consonants.
• Two identical consonants (possibly after voicing agreement) will merge in one.

Next are a series of rules for cluster simplification and breaking. Note that those rules don't have any inherent order. They happen more or less simultaneously or in different orders depending on the context:

• The sequences *ts and *dz become respectively |s and |z. In a similar manner, the sequences *lj and *jl become |l, while the sequences *nj and *jn become |n.
• The consonants |l, |n, |s and |z are simplified to l, n, s and z respectively, when in a position where they are disallowed. This rule has exceptions though. In particular, when next to s or z, it's not |s and |z that are simplified, but rather s or z that disappear. Also, when |l and |n appear next to a continuant (other than j, which disappears) and simplifying them would still result in a disallowed cluster (for instance two consonants in coda position), they are not simplified. Rather, an u is inserted to break up the cluster.
• If, despite simplifications, impossible clusters still appear, those are broken by an epenthetic u.

This last rule has a lexical exception. In Moten some roots break the phonotactics of the language by ending with two consonants. Those roots are used as is for inflection and compounding, but rather than using an epenthetic vowel, disallowed clusters involving this coda cluster are resolved by deleting the last consonant of the root. This last consonant is fragile, and will tend to disappear as well when forming a cluster onset in a following syllable, unless it was simplified in another way.

The most typical example of such a root is the numeral vel(d): five. In the nominative, it will surface as vel, while its genitive is veldi. In compounds, in some cases the final (d) is present (even if simplified): vel|ziza: the fifth of the month (vel(d): five + siza: day). In others it's absent: velmune: May (vel(d): five + mune: month). In some cases, it's absent, but its influence is present in voicing effects: velbele: five minutes (vel(d): five + pele: minute, used when telling the time).

Such roots are relatively uncommon, so I will always make them obvious when citing them by putting their last consonant in parentheses, as I did here.

Stress and Pitch

Stress in Moten is usually not distinctive, and very weak in any case. All syllables in a phrase are pronounced equal in time, strength and pitch, except the first syllable of the phrasal head, which receives a very weak high-pitch stress. This stress pattern helps identify the head of a phrase, but it is usually superfluous. For this reason, stress is not indicated in writing.

What's Next

OK, I believe this will do for now. Sorry for the relatively dry post. I promise the next ones will be more lively, including more examples of the Moten language. Hopefully you still enjoyed it. If you have questions (whatever they are), don't hesitate to ask them in the comments. I will try to answer them to my best ability.

Next post will be about nominal morphology and syntax. I will present noun declension, pronouns, and noun phrase formation. I will also discuss the meaning of the various noun declensions, which can be surprising at first. So stay tuned!

Reports of my death have been highly exaggerated

No, really! I'm sorry I haven't posted anything on this blog for *gasp* more than six months. It could look like I've been neglecting it, focussing solely on Twitter for my Internet bragging needs. But nothing could be further from the truth: I've actually spent a lot of time on this blog!

The problem is that that spent time is just invisible for you: I've been preparing something special for this blog, a secret project I've actually alluded to a few times on Twitter. This project is going on, and has resulted so far in something like 25 (!) posts that are just waiting for the right moment to be published. That right moment is approaching (the posts will be published weekly), but I just have quite a bit of work left to do before I can actually publish them.

Part of this work is to actually get a few more posts ready (I am trying to build myself a comfortable buffer, so that publishing can carry on even if I'm not able to write new posts at the necessary speed). But another part of that work (and one that has been time-consuming) is to create bits of artwork to go with those posts. Given that I'm bad at drawing, and have little experience with graphics software, this has been a uphill battle, but one I feel I'm actually winning!

So in order to prove that I'm not pulling everyone's leg here, I thought I'd show some kind of teaser of the work I've been doing. Here it is:

Like it? I've made this bit of 3D graphics using Blender (that Blender for Dummies book really came in handy!). It's not finished yet, but I think it looks great already (for something done by an amateur). And it should give you some clue of what I am actually preparing (people who remember my original website will know exactly what I'm talking about).

So there. I'm really working on a project that I will unveil as soon as possible (I can't be more precise about the time-line as I don't know myself when I'll be ready, but I think beginning November is as good a bet as anything). In the mean time, I'll try posting a few things here, but I can't promise anything. And there's my Twitter stream anyway.

All right then, have fun trying to understand what this teaser is all about! Don't hesitate to comment on this post with your theories, however wild they are!

I'm all a-Twitter!

If you've come here in the last week or so, you've noticed that things have changed a bit in the sidebar. I've added quite a bit of contents there in the last weeks, like the blog roll, but the most important thing here is just under my profile: yes, I'm on Twitter!

For a long time, looking from the sidelines, I felt Twitter was a waste of time. So what made me change my mind? Well, I discovered lately that a lot of people I respect were already on Twitter, and they've been praising the micro-blogging platform. Since there was just no way all those people could be wrong (most of them aren't known for falling for the latest Internet fad), I decided to look into the phenomenon more closely. Doing so, I discovered not only that there seems to be something to this Twitter craze other than hype, but also that it may even be of use for me! Indeed, I know that my Internet presence (basically this blog) suffers from two issues:

• I don't update nearly often enough to achieve a sustainable readership. Unfortunately, I'm a slow writer, and I don't often find a subject I feel comfortable writing about. I have quite a few posts lined up, but none is anywhere ready for release. And that brings me to the second point.
• My posts are generally too long-winded. I lose myself in the details, can't seem to be able to write a paragraph less than 20 lines long, and my style lacks punch.

Twitter's format seems particularly fit to help me tackle these problems:

• It embraces short, frequent updates, and feels more informal than a fully fledged weblog. It encourages updating even when you haven't got much to say, and since I have to confine my updates to 140 characters I don't suffer from the fear of not knowing what to write about.
• By strictly enforcing the 140 characters rule, Twitter forces me to concentrate my thoughts and use less words to express them. This can only be good for my writing style.

So I've decided to give Twitter a try, and so far I like it. And to make it official, there's nothing better than blogging about it!

So what can you expect from my tweeting?

• Expect it to be more personal than my blog articles are. I blog only about things I find important, but I still try to keep my personal life out of it. Twitter is more of an immediate reaction kind of medium, so expect to see glimpses of my personal life in there, once in a while.
• Twitter's motto is What are you doing? I'll personally try and focus more on What are you thinking about? Do expect some tweets to be simply about what I'm doing at the moment though, if I feel it is exemplary and/or interesting.
• I'll try and send links to sites, articles, videos, and other things I find around that I find interesting, as often as possible. I've never really been able to do so with the blog because of the time it takes me to write an article. By the time I'm finished, the issue/article/blog post has been debated to death, has become out-of-date, or has simply been forgotten, and whatever I had to say has become meaningless. The Internet is a bit too fast for me at times. However, with Twitter I can quickly send a link with a few words of my own, five minutes after I've discovered the site.
• Expect my tweets to be even more random than my posts, although the same themes will probably recur. I have a wide range of interests, and the Twitter format is even better than the blog format to let me talk about it all.
• If you follow me, I'll make sure to follow you back. It's the least I can do.

Besides what you can expect of me on Twitter, here's what you cannot expect of me:

• Don't expect me to update my status 50 times a day. I'm no Stephen Fry!
• Don't expect me to tweet much during the weekends or holidays. I don't have a smartphone, and I only have a company-owned mobile phone. So currently I can only tweet when in front of the computer, and that's mostly at work or in the evening.
• I'll try to use the social features of Twitter as well, rather than only soliloquying, but don't expect me to be a champion replier from the get go. I still need to dip my toe in to check how hot the water is.
• Don't expect me to suddenly show up on Facebook, Myspace, Hyves, or any other social network. It's nice and all, but a Twitter account, a blog and a website are about all that I can manage (given that my website still hasn't been updated after all this time, this shows you how well I can manage).

So, here I am, all a-Twitter! You can follow my tweets here, or via the RSS feed. And if you're on Twitter yourself, don't hesitate to follow me and/or give me a shout! Happy tweeting!

The State of My Linux Desktop

First, let me get this out the way: Happy New Year everyone!

Now, on to the meat of this post. A little over a year ago, I was complaining that I wasn't able to move away from my GNOME desktop, despite it being a resource hog on my then 6-year-old computer. Now my computer has grown a year older (but I'm still using it. I'm amazed that even its original hard drive is still working), so I thought it was time to give an update on the situation here at the front.

During last year, things only got worse between me and GNOME. Although I could still use it and be relatively productive, it was obvious from the noise my computer's fan made that it was suffering from the load. Clearly, my computer with its Pentium 4 1.6GHz and 512MB of RAM was starting to tire. I needed to switch to something more lightweight. KDE fell out of the equation pretty quickly (I actually removed it completely in order to free a bit of space in my root partition), and although I tried it again, Xfce still failed to stick (I've decided to wait until version 4.6 appears. Somehow, version 4.4 has all kinds of weird little issues that spoil an otherwise enjoyable experience. I'm not even sure those issues are even strictly Xfce's fault, but I have neither the time nor the will to look into it right now. Maybe some other time...). I looked at all kinds of window managers, but couldn't find anything that really interested me (well, except maybe Enlightenment 17, but I am a bit wary of trying something that is considered pre-alpha by its authors, however stable it may look at first sight).

And then one day, while browsing through packages in Synaptic, I discovered a suspicious little package called lxde. This led me to discover LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. Reading through its website, I realised that it may be the solution to my woes, and at least it looked stable enough. So I installed it and started it up, and was pleasantly surprised by its speed: it took about 3 seconds to fully load, which was a relief compared to slugs like GNOME. Of course, it didn't look good, but its theming options were easy to find, and within a few minutes I had a nice and light little desktop with a look and feel similar to the one I had given GNOME. I kept on using it, tweaking things here and there but mostly browsing, watching movies and doing all kinds of other things, and was happy that my computer was staying silent all this time. Before I knew it, I had set LXDE as my default desktop, and was always logging into it.

Of course, LXDE is far from perfect:

• Customisation is very limited: adding items to panels, moving them around, controlling the amounts and names of virtual desktops, choose a background image and a screensaver, and that's basically it.
• It lacks advanced volume management: don't expect to see a file manager open by itself when you put in a DVD or plug in a USB key (but they do appear in the sidebar in the file manager when you open it, so it's not really an issue). And it's completely unaware of network drives (so when I bought myself a shiny new 1TB network hard drive to simplify the sharing of files within my home network and finally set up some much needed back-up routines, I had to switch temporarily back to GNOME just to see whether Linux could find the shares, at least until I set them to mount statically via fstab).
• It doesn't support much in the way of modern desktop effects. I've read that one can make it work with a compositing manager, but it looks like it's more trouble than is worth. But then it's a desktop designed to work with low end and old computers, so it's understandable that it doesn't bother with typically resource-hungry, fancy effects.
• You can't get the desktop icons to open on single-click. I had the same problem with Xfce, and it's still annoying me.
• The list of panel applets is rather short. I'm especially missing a uim status applet, and LXDE doesn't seem to support GNOME applets, unlike Xfce. Uim itself still works, but using it blind is not fun.
• It doesn't support the Debian Menu System. I still need to send a bug report about this, as this is an oversight of the package maintainer, rather than a problem with LXDE itself.

Still, it has a lot going for it:

• It's blazingly fast on my ancient computer. Since it doesn't bother with fancy effects and services, it really uses a minimum of resources. Of course, it means the experience is rather bare-bones, but I'm willing to put up with that as long as the basics I find important are covered.
• Despite being based on independent components, it feels nicely integrated.
• It stays out of the way of other installed desktops (I'm still annoyed at how Xfce somehow managed to mess up my GNOME desktop. I could recover without much problem, but it still shouldn't have happened).
• It uses the GTK+ library, so it plays nicely with other GTK applications, including GNOME programs. It also can use the same themes as GNOME, so I could set it up to have a similar look-and-feel.

Still, as it stands, and for my use, it works well enough that I can see myself using LXDE in the foreseeable future. However, I'm also thinking of building myself a new computer this year, so while it's very possible that LXDE stays my desktop of choice on this computer, I don't think I'll use it on a more modern one. If I've got the power to do it, why shouldn't I enjoy it? I do like me some eye candy, after all!

Sonic Unleashed: why the hate?

Image via Wikipedia

Rarely have I seen a game so undeserving of the beating it's been getting, from reviewers and players alike (including from people whose opinion I usually share). So although I know it doesn't mean much, I decided to give my own feedback on Sonic Unleashed, if only to tip the scales ever so slightly back in balance.

Disclaimer: I am not a Sonic fan. I've never owned a Sega console (I've always been a Nintendo guy, even at the time of the Nintendo-Sega wars), although I did play the original Sonic the Hedgehog casually at my cousin's, who did own a Mega Drive (that's how the Sega Genesis was called in Europe), as well as the 8-bit version of the same game on my sister's Game Gear. They were both OK as games go, but that's about all I felt about them. They were OK platformers with a speed gimmick, and that was about it. As a result, I completely missed Sonic's transition to 3D (although I have enough anecdotal evidence to agree with the common opinion that the 3D Sonic games have mostly been terrible), and the very first Sonic game I ever bought was Sonic and the Secret Rings, which I actually enjoyed despite some flaws that spoiled the replayability of the game for me (let's just say that some of the missions were just not fun, and made earning medals a chore I simply decided to skip). So when Sonic Unleashed was announced, I was prudent yet interested, and eventually previews and game footage convinced me it was worth the risk. I actually bought the game for the Wii upon release, and this is the version I will refer to in this post.

So, what do I think about the game, now that I have had a chance to play it? (I actually played most of it, although I haven't seen the ending yet) In short, I like it. I like it very much. I'm having a blast playing it, far more than when I was playing Sonic and the Secret Rings. The game has lots of great parts:

• The day stages are just fantastic, far better than what Sonic and the Secret Rings provided. The 2D sections in those stages are particularly fun.
• The fighting in the night stages feels very good. I don't care what reviewers and players are saying about what a Sonic game should or shouldn't be about. There is just something exhilarating in using the Wii-remote and Nunchuck to punch your opponents silly and deliver bigger and bigger combos. The other motion-based actions also feel good and immersive.
• The difficulty curve is nearly perfect. My main gripe with Secret Rings is that some of the missions were just impossibly difficult, frustrating, and sometimes felt even unfair. It was also far too difficult to get the medals necessary to unlock secrets and new stages. Sonic Unleashed is far better in that respect. Getting all the secrets and unlocking all the stages is far from an easy task, but it is not brutal in its difficulty curve, and there's no point where you feel that the game is playing dirty by providing you with cheap tricks and impossible challenges. I'm still far from getting perfect scores in the stages I've played, but at no time did I ever blame the game itself for this. In each and every case, the only one I could blame was myself and my lack of skill.
• The music is gorgeous. The rock songs of Secret Rings just didn't feel appropriate, and going back to an instrumental style was just the right thing to do. The music really fits the various environments and complements the action nicely.
• The graphics are lovely. The art style is very good, and the frame rate is smooth and solid, which is very important in the day stages. The camera works very well in the day stages as well.

Of course, the game is hardly perfect, and I have a few gripes with it:

• The balance between day and night stages feels skewed. Although the number of stages is approximately equal, and their sizes are similar, the focus of the day stages on speed, and of the night stages on fighting and exploration means that one spends most of their time in the night stages. It makes the experience feel unbalanced, even though the night stages are fun as well. The great amount of replayability of the day stages (which all have multiple tracks and secret shortcuts) does somewhat make up for it, but Sega could have made the balance in player experience better by providing a few more day stages.
• The menu-based hub worlds are a pointless waste of time that breaks the flow of the game (more than the so-called slow night stages). Even though reviews of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game criticise the hub worlds they have as well, I still feel that 3D hub worlds would have benefited the Wii version. Those at least have some added value, unlike the menu-based thing that we got stuck with.
• The camera in the night stages sometimes creates awkward moments. I remember a case where I had to quickly walk through a very thin bridge, but was hindered by the camera choosing to look at the scene from a weird angle, and constantly moving, making it very difficult for me to direct Sonic well. I've also had a few times during fighting sequences where the camera position made it very difficult for me to align with the opponents and get my punches to hit them.
• Related to the previous point, the fighting in the night stages could have benefited from a form of Z-targeting. Maybe not full-fledged Z-targeting, but at least have Sonic follow its opponent during combos, even if that opponent is knocked on the side rather than in front of him, or have something like Ōkami's combat system, where Amaterasu will hit the nearest opponent if he is within range, even if alignment between them is not perfect. Sonic's Werehog form is supposed to have stretchy arms. Why should they only be able to stretch in front of him? As the combat system of Sonic Unleashed stands, Sonic will more often than not flail his arms in the air with nothing to catch his blows, simply because your weren't perfectly aligned with your opponent, or simply because Sonic completely passed through a group of enemies during a combo and left them all behind.

So Sonic Unleashed is hardly a perfect game, and it doesn't hold up to a chef-d'oeuvre like Super Mario Galaxy (but then, in my opinion the original 16-bit Sonic games don't hold a candle to the various 2D Super Mario games either). But does it mean that it's a bad game that deserves the treatment it's received so far? Of course not! Sonic Unleashed is a very good game, it's fun, has lots of replayability value, and looks extremely good. Its defaults are minor, and if people would stop with their prejudice that Sonic is only supposed to be about speed (those people would do well to replay the original games. All those platforming sequences and underwater sequences, were they about speed?), they would see that the night stages are actually enjoyable platforming/brawling sequences, and in no way spoil the game experience.

So relax, don't take it all so seriously. You have here a good game with various kinds of fun gameplay, a good-looking environment, great music, and good replayability. Enjoy it, rather than nitpicking about what it should or shouldn't be about. As for me, I will just keep playing the game, enjoying myself in the process, while keeping an eye at the horizon, where Sonic looms, a sword in his hand. What? Could Sonic Unleashed have made me a Sonic fan where the original games failed?

How Ōkami stole my heart

Before anyone freaks out, I am talking about Ōkami the video game, specifically the Wii version.

In previous articles, I've professed my love for Beyond Good & Evil. I am a big fan of Zelda-like action-adventure games, and BG&E was for a long time my favourite of the genre that wasn't a Zelda game itself. However, things change.

Now don't get me wrong. I still think BG&E is an exceptional game. It had a great cinematographic story, interesting characters that it made me care about (and a female main character that wasn't a superficial sex bomb), and an art direction that reminded me of the French science-fiction comic books of my youth. Interesting game mechanics, good voice acting and an unusual setting made it all the better. Of course, it wasn't perfect. It was far too short, and the stealth sections, although they made sense for the story (Jade is a journalist, not a soldier), just didn't do it for me. It could also have benefited from a better difficulty curve (the difficulty in that game was just erratic). But still, even with all the warts, BG&E was the best Zelda-like game I had ever played (that wasn't a Zelda game of course).

That is, until I discovered Ōkami. When I first heard about the game, it had just been released on the Playstation 2, and was being hailed as the best Zelda-like game for the PS2. Intrigued, I checked reviews and screenshots of the game, and fell in love with its style. The graphic style was expressive and really managed to emulate the style of Japanese ink and wash painting, the Celestial Brush gameplay technique (which consists of drawing various shapes on the screen to interact with the environment and perform miracles) really caught my attention, and the storyline (a mix of various Japanese legends, centred mostly around Amaterasu, the Japanese Sun goddess, who is also the protagonist of the game) captured my imagination. Hey, I am a sucker for traditional Japanese legends and style! In any case, Ōkami looked like a perfect match for my taste in games, and I actually said at that time that it was the only reason I ever regretted not buying a PS2.

The game, unfortunately, failed to catch the attention of most gamers. It was released only a few months before the Playstation 3 was released, and was not advertised in any way. Like Beyond Good & Evil, it was acclaimed by the game press, but was a commercial failure. Still, as the Nintendo Wii was approaching release, voices began to be heard among the game community asking for a sequel of Ōkami built for it, or at least a port. The Celestial Brush gameplay mechanic seemed like a natural fit for the Wii's motion controls (specifically the way the Wii remote can be used as a pointing device), and people felt that a Zelda-like action-adventure game would have a better chance of success on a Nintendo platform. Myself, I was not optimistic (at that time, no sequel of BG&E had yet been announced, and the general feeling was that it didn't matter how many people would petition for it, game companies wouldn't risk making a sequel, or even a port, of a game that hadn't been a commercial success), but I still decided to add my voice to the others. After all, there's no harm in trying! So imagine my joy when Capcom announced that they were porting Ōkami to the Wii!

So when Ōkami was released here in the Netherlands, I bought it nearly immediately. That was back in June, and last weekend I finally saw the end of the game. I have spent nearly 70 hours in the game (I'm a leisurely gamer. I only have time to play in short bursts, and even then I like to take my time in the game itself), and I've enjoyed every last minute of it! Ōkami is not only as good as I had imagined, it's better! Just to give you a taste of why I am so enthusiastic about the game:

• Ōkami is long, but never boring. Moreover, it has lots of replay value (despite the time I've taken, I still haven't finished all the side-quests, and I look forward to replay the game).
• The art direction is fantastic, and looks even better in motion and wide-screen. The environments are varied and lavish, and interact beautifully with the protagonist's divine powers. And seeing Amaterasu run around in those environments, followed by a trail of blossoming flowers, is just gorgeous.
• The Celestial Brush's motion controls work really well and make it really fun to use Amaterasu's divine powers. I'm a big fan of gesture control (ever since the Opera browser introduced mouse gestures, which I'm still using now with the Firefox browser), and as a gameplay mechanic it works really well, and the Wii remote is indeed particularly fit for this kind of interface. The shape recognition can be a bit finicky (especially as you accumulate more Brush techniques with similar gestures), but it's just a minor gripe (and I'm known for having a particularly unsteady hand).
• The storyline is just fantastic! Seriously, the writers have managed to take various bits and pieces of Japanese mythology and make them fit into an original, fresh storyline that keeps surprising you. You don't need to know Japanese mythology to appreciate the storyline, but knowing some of it makes you realise the attention for detail the writers had.
• The characters are interesting, and well-fleshed out. And the game makes you care a lot for them. Hey, I'll stay vague in order not to give anyone any spoilers, but the game managed to make me care for a piece of paper! That's how good the writing is.
• The music and sound effects are gorgeous. Based on traditional Japanese music and instruments, they flow naturally and set up the atmosphere beautifully.
• And yes, before someone asks me, yes, Ōkami made me shed a tear. More than once, even.

So, dear Beyond Good & Evil, I know you brought me a lot, but you're no longer my favourite. Ōkami is my new sweetheart, and I feel like we are going to be together for a long time. Now let's petition for a sequel...

Some info about my blog feeds

Lately I've decided to finally join the 21^th century and start using feeds to read the blogs and news sites I'm addicted to, rather than hop on from site to site hoping something has been updated. Why did I wait for so long? I'm not sure, but I think the main reason was that most newsreader programs, whether desktop or web-based, looked too much like e-mail clients. Reading news or blog articles to me is an experience that is very different from reading e-mails, so I just ignored the whole RSS feed phenomenon altogether.

However, as the number of sites and blogs I went through everyday was growing too much for my manual way of doing things, I realised I needed some automation, and decided to look again at this news feed thing.

After looking very hard, and eliminating some obvious contenders (mainly Thunderbird and Google Reader, which still look too much like e-mail clients. Although in Thunderbird's case, the reason is quite obvious!), and thinking hard about the fact that I'd like my feed list to be synchronised between the various computers I use, I settled for Brief, a Firefox extension which basically transforms Firefox's Live Bookmarks facility into a simple but efficient desktop news reader. And since it uses Live Bookmarks, Foxmarks takes over the job of synchronising my feeds between computers.

So, now that I was set up and enjoying my increased blog reading productivity (I am now following 48 feeds. Switching to a newsreader was past due!), I thought of the people that might want to follow my blog via their newsreaders, and realised it was not optimal for them. For this reason I did some small changes behind the scenes, and added a Subscribe widget under my profile widget on the page.

But if you want to do it manually, here is the feed's URL:

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

You needn't worry about Atom or RSS: the feed is automatically translated to the optimal format for your newsreader.

A few months ago, someone asked me whether you could subscribe to the RSS feed for a specific tag (or label, if you use the Blogger terminology). At that time, I thought it was not possible, but it actually is, and here is the kind of URL you need to do that:

• Atom 1.0 feed: http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/tagname
• RSS 2.0 feed: http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/tagname?alt=rss

Just replace tagname with the tag you want to subscribe to. There's a list of the tags I use on the right column of my blog, and I try to be both consistent and slightly redundant when I use them, so you should be able to use them without missing a relevant post. Note also that those feeds are not automatically translated, so you need to specify it if you want an RSS feed rather than an Atom feed.

So people, I've given you all the needed tools for comfortable newsfeeding. Fire up your newsreaders!