April 2014
You like magical girls, right? This is the only magical girl, I know! Stop judging me!
Nihilistic Ninja
Hey, there. Enigma here! Welcome to another installment of the AAO Member of the Month. That monthly (usually with delay....) interview where we find prominent members of our community who've done great things or are just great guys. Today we're going to be interviewing a well known member of the RP and xat parts of AAO, but also someone who has even been dubbed the "Deus Ex Machina detective" in the past for his skill at solving mysteries.
In any case!
Here we go! Let's get this interview started!
Enigma: Hello, NN. And welcome to the Member of the Month April Edition. How are you feeling today?
NN: Hi. And I’m feeling decently well; it’s kind of a cliche but I’m really honored to have been selected, so I’d like to thank you for that.
Enigma: Well, hey. You’ve done a lot for the community. And, also, even I got selected once so… Anything’s possible. Haha. Now, then. Before we begin… I have to ask, what is your favorite colour?
NN: Hmm… favorite color… probably light blue, I suppose? Either that or purple.
Enigma: I see, I see. I ask because a certain moderator insists that coloured text is a necessity. XP Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, we can really get on with the interview. So, NN… How DID you find the AAO community?
NN: As in, how did I find the website? Well, I think it was one day back in 2011 I was really bored and started searching “murder mystery games” or something along those lines in google, and happened upon this site. Then I played a few of the cases (some of the stuff in the featured list; I don’t remember which ones at this point) before starting to play Virtual Turnabout. And I thought it would be entertaining if I joined and posted commentary while playing the game, and so I did.
And afterwards I kind of got attached to the site, and stayed on (ignoring a couple hiatuses). Then, eventually, I kind of started to feel isolated because I would only frequent Your Trials. So on a couple people’s recommendation I spread out and visited the other areas of the site, and the AAO Xat. And… here am I, more or less.
NN: Oh, heh, right. Actualy, really what made me popular was that I solved Virtual before even getting to the trial portion; apparently something that had never been done before. I don’t really know what to say about that… it’s just one of those things where things clicked for me.
Now Courage… Courage was kind of the opposite. Essentially I had a 50 page debate with BP, kwand, and I think a uesr named Cereberus_Alpha (or something similar) that isn’t around anymore, and was… more or less completely wrong. Which was relatively humiliating, honestly.
So really if I have a claim to fame, I guess it would be Virtual. Courage is… just a case I would rather forget, honestly.
Enigma: Ah, well then… I’m sorry for bringing it up. That’s my bad. *Ahem* Though, on a different note, besides Turnabout Nanoha and [That case that never happen] have you made any other trials on AAO? Do you have any planned?
NN: Oh, it’s fine that you brought it up. No big.
Aside from Turnabout Nanoha and that other case, I don’t have any completed cases to my name, no. I’m not very good at generating ideas on my own, honestly. And I hate when people rip things off, as I think I’ve made clear in the past. So it’s been hard for me to make an independent case. However, I am working on a couple projects at the moment with other users- I don’t know if they would want me to/care if I made exactly what they are public, so I would prefer to not say anything about them. ^^
Enigma: Ah, phew. That’s good to hear. Speaking of trials, I have to ask… Do you have any favorite trials? Maybe a top 3 or 5?
NN: Hmm… I’ve made it quite clear on Xat that I really, really love Turnabout Pairs. If I had to pick a trial on this site that was my favorite, that’d probably be it. I feel like the puzzles were challenging while still intuitive, the mystery interesting, and overall just a fun case to play.
A second and third favorite? Hmm… kind of tricky. I really like Two Sides of the Same Turnabout, despite how crazy obtuse the solutions are at times, so that would likely be on there. Hmm… I’m not sure on a third, in all honesty. Maybe Burial? I’m just hesitant to put an unfinished case on there.
(If I can pick non-AAO cases, Turnabout Substitution is imo the best case ever made, so that would go on the top as well)
Enigma: Turnabout Substitution… That was certainly a very popular case, one of the most well known of AA fancases. As for Turnabout Pairs and Two Sides, I take it you quite enjoy the Bad Rune team, then?
NN: I think that BP-Rune make a great team; they both have strengths that compliment each other quite well- I would say that Rune’s skill is likely solid character writing and contradiction construction (though that depends on the case I think), whereas BP is pretty good at creating mysteries and writing them well. The two very clearly know how to play off each other and come up with interesting ideas, too.
Enigma: Yes, they’re certainly my favorite couple on AAO, that’s for sure.
NN: Haha, yeah. I’ve really kind of migrated to the RP section; that’s where practically all my posts are these days. Really, how I got into RPs I find kind of amusing, in that it was basically just a favor. It was back when DR RP was just starting up, and they were desperately looking for somebody to replace Evo, and I happened to be on and volunteered. And then started to RP, and I just ended up having a lot of fun getting to play around with a character and really interact with the other RPers on the site, so I started to join more RPs… until we got to where we are now.
Enigma: Ah, yes. I remember when you first became part of the dar- I mean, RP side of AAO. How time flies. But, it isn’t just RPing, is it? You’ve done some GM work on a few RP’s and forum games to. Such as, DRRP2 or TGDK. Could you tell us about that?
NN: Well, TGDK was definitely a fun experience. IT was fun coming up with character powers and such with Topaz, and helping him create the mystery (though he did most of the heavy lifting in that department). Really the funnest part for me though was the responding to player’s actions- to actually get to see them trying to solve the mystery and put the pieces together; I actually literally stayed up all night with a few people (BP, Kwand, Hersh, Singi, and you I think) just constantly responding to the actions you gave. It was just a blast trying to see you guys figure out the mystery I had the answer to.
As for DRRP2… basically more of the same. Though I contributed a bit more to the design process- mostly helping to set up the rules- I would say that my favorite part has still been responding to people’s actions and playing aroudn in the spoiler tags- I think on some level I just really like helping people, and that kind of plays a part in that. I am excited for when we get a mystery in DRRP2 though, since that’ll be like TGDK, likely only better because there’ll be more players trying to solve it for me to watch and observe.
Enigma: Ah, yes. I’m personally hoping for a seemingly impossible crime on that front. Haha. Now, speaking of RP’s, do you have any personal favorite RP’s? Any personal favorite characters of your own or someone elses?
NN: Let’s see here… well, a thing about me is that I don’t really like having favorites- everything has its own unique qualities and is often good/bad in its own unique way to some degree, so ranking often feels relatively unfair, since I feel like it’s putting a bunch of stuff on a scale that I shouldn’t be putting it on. I’ll give you a couple I like a good deal though.
Honestly, if I had to pick a favorite RP, it would probably be the original DR RP. I just put so much effort into that one, and everybody else clearly put in so much effort, that despite all its faults, it is just an RP I know I’ll always remember, and it is one that I definitely enjoyed being a part of. I suppose the other RP I would probably choose is PokeRP- It’s managed to be quite active and has plenty of interesting characters that I would love to interact with, with a quite effective wild pokemon/trainer battle system that allows for a lot of freestyle roleplaying, which can be quite fun. And I just like pokemon in general, so being able to play as a trainer is fun.
As far as characters are concerned… I really like Uezama from DR RP/JR. He always amuses me and is an interesting character with a good deal of depth to him- I’ve heard that things didn’t really go as planned when it came to character development, but he’s still definitely one of my favorite characters in DR RP. And in PokeRP, I really, really love Isis. She’s fantastically developed, always fun to read, and is just a great character written really really well in my opinion.
Enigma: WHAT!? Erwing’s not on that list!? That’s impossible! But, in all seriousness, I find it hard to disagree. Sleuth and Wolf are just such great writers. Speaking of which, do you see any stand-out/potential new rp characters? Since, Isis and Uezama have been around for a while, haven’t they?
NN: Yeah, they’ve both been around for at least a few months now. As for newer RP characters… well, I feel like the cast of DRRP2 is full of characters that are interesting and could become great. Out of the cast I would probably say that thus far I like Hazuki (GD’s character) and Katsurou (Alnar’s character) the best; they’ve both proven to be consistently entertaining and already seem to have a degree of depth to them. I haven’t really been paying attention to newcomers in other RPs, so I’m not sure exactly what to say on that front (on those that I have been reading, like Erwing, I don’t really have much of a formulated opinion yet, in all honesty)
Enigma: Aheheh… I find it’s better not to have an opinion on Erwing. But the DRRP2 cast really is showing promise. I quite like Teruko, myself.
NN: Well, like RPs, Xat is just kind of something I ended up really getting into that got started on a whim. Kwando basically suggested that I go on Xat sometime just to interact with the commuinty more, and then one day (I think it was in August) I just had some free time and decided to pop in and say hi… and then I just kind of became addicted, I guess.
Xat on a whole is just a fun place to be much of the time; there’s typically interesting conversations going on, you get to chat with interesting people, and it’s just a fun way to kill time while learning more about the other users on the site. I definitely feel like the time I spend there is typically well spent.
Enigma: Well said. It was also a major cause for the dwindle in interest in MotM’s though, so I still hate it. :T Even though, I AM on it most of my day…
NN: Well… I live a pretty boring life, in all honesty. Most of my time is spent on the computer- either chatting with friends on Skype, chatting with people on Xat, or watching anime. I’ll then fit in time to do things like schoolwork, and go out for walks/jogs occassionally, but I’m not much of an outdoor person. I’ll also go out to movies every now and again, but I tend to prefer to wait and not have to pay to see them in the theater. Oh, and I’ll take a break from the computer and read books sometimes too. But overall.. nothing exciting. ^_^;
Enigma: Hey, at least you occasionally leave the house! That makes you far more active than I am. XP Speaking of anime, I’d like to hear more about that. How did you get into anime? And just what kind of anime do you like?
NN: Hmm… I got into anime when I was a young kid; the first anime I watched was either Sailor Moon or Pokemon- I don’t really remember. I saw them both when I was around five or six. Then I kind of drifted away from anime for a bit; I didn’t really have any motivation to find shows online (and that would have been much harder when I was, like, 9-10 than it is now), and there wasn’t much anime on TV.
Then, when I was around 13-14, I started watching Adult Swim. And my favorite shows were probably their anime offerings- Inuyasha, Paranoia Agent, Case Closed/Detective Conan, etc. And I got more interested in finding other shows like those, and exploring the medium a bit more. So I started looking around online, and finding more and more shows to watch. And eventually I just became a big fan of the medium as a whole.
As for favorite kinds/genres… I’m not particularly picky. I basically am willing to try everying, because I believe that almost everything at least has the possibility to be good, given the right writer/direction at the helm. If I had to pick genres I tend toward, they’d probably be sci-fi and mystery, though good mystery anime are kind of hard to find. ^_^;
Enigma: Yeah, I totally agree. Case Closed is a good example of a good mystery anime wearing down to a point where it becomes...well, not so good, in my opinion. Do you tend to find that most anime tend to weaken as time goes on? Any in particular you’d say subvert that?
NN: Hmm… I would say that there are definitely a lot of shows that have weaker second halves- Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes (which I actually just watched today) both really suffer from this problem, in my opinion. I’m not sure if it’s a general trend though; that’d be something I’d have to really look through my catalog of watched shows and kind of do a detailed analysis on how many shows fall apart and how many shows don’t. But if it is a common thing, I’d say that it’s likely because writing satisfactory endings to anime can be really hard. You essentially have to wrap all the plot points, character arcs, character relationships, etc. up in a satisfying way, and do all of it without it coming across as really cheap and unfufilling. So writers probably struggle when it comes to both building up to that and being able to actually properly end the shows, which makes the second chunk of the anime more lack-luster. That’s all speculation, though.
Enigma: Mmhm. Well, Chaos;Head was more an unfulfilling 3rd episode onwards than an unfulfilling second half. Ha ha.
NN: Hmm… I’ve never been too big on video games, and these days I’m even less so than I was, say, a couple years ago. But my favorite genre would probably be RPGs, and JRPGs in particular. Overall I just like the strategy required and the need for the ability to adapt to circumstances and think on your feet. I honestly feel like playing those kinds of games has improved me on that front. Also I feel that RPGs often tend to have more of a fully realized story than other genres, but that’s completely subjective and there are plenty of exceptions (Bioshock and Spec Ops: The Line being the first ones that come to mind).
Wait, are we counting Visual novels as games? If so, I tend towards either ones that are probably going to have a good deal of focus on the characters (which tend to be dating sims a good chunk of the time, but often aren’t; it all depends), or VNs with a mystery hook to them. But like with anime, good mystery VNs are...relatively difficult to locate-
Enigma: Ah, I see, I see. Would you happen to be able to reccomend any VN’s for us?
NN: Hmm… well, Tsukihime and Fate/stay night are both enjoyable VNs with a good plot and interesting characterization all around. Clannad is another good one- primarily for its well developed characters; the plot isn’t fantastic but it does its job. Honestly I would probably recommend a good chunk of what Nitroplus has done- Chaos;Head, Saya no Uta, Steins;Gate, etc. All good VNs. I didn’t really like the endings for either but it’s still worth playing Higurashi and Umineko at least once too; they’re enjoyable rides, all in all.
Enigma: But no RGD? You’ve made a Kwando very upset. Hahaha. Also, what is this Higurashi thing? I’ve never heard of it. :3
NN: On a whole, Ace Attorney has kind of been a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the original game, though certain portions of it bugged me (the pacing on Case 5, for instance, was absolutely horrendous). I know that I’m basically the only one, but I enjoyed Justice for All a good deal- I thought that 2-2 and 2-4 were both quite good cases, even though they did have their flaws. Trials and Tributions was quite, quite good as well, although I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as some people did. I’m not positive why; I think it’s that I didn’t feel like Godot was as good a prosecutor as Manfred, Edgeworth, or even Franziska. So that hurt the game a bit. The cases were all good though, and it was definitely a fun game.
It kind of depends on what mood I’m in when it comes to my opinion on AJ. I did enjoy some of the cases, (4-1 was pretty good, and 4-2 wasn’t bad either) but others I simply either found deeply flawed (4-3) or felt just kind of ended up falling apart (4-4. It was SUCH A GOOD IDEA too.). So AJ is kind of a mixed bag for me.
DD… Well, I’ve ranted about DD on Xat before; I feel like the mysteries were all at least competent (The second and third cases having particularly solid mysteries), but I felt like the overlaying plot was relatively predictable and flawed, the added mechanics to need a good deal more polishing, and I just didn’t like Athena all that much. Which kind of ends up resulting in a work that I’m not terribly fond of.
So, just a quick tl;dr- I think that Ace Attorney can be a good series and has definitely had good games, but has slipped a bit; particularly with its latest installment. And I’m hoping that the next AA games can kind of recapture the quality of the earlier ones.
NN: Hmm… that’s a tricky one. I suppose my philosophy on life is that my job while alive is to maximize the happiness of both myself and the people around me; basically, anything I can do to help others and make their lives better I should do, while still doing all that I can to make this life as productive and satisfying for myself as possible. Basically, my goal is to both enjoy life and try to make it a better place before I die; a place where more and more people can be satisfied with the way their living, and hopefully leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Enigma: That’s a really nice philosophy to have! It’s similar to utilitarianism, isn’t it? Or am I confused with something else… Hm. Now, let’s see what else is on this “totally real and not made up” list of questions to ask…
NN: Hmmm. Like with anime, this kind of goes back to when I was a young kid. I used to love reading Agatha Christie. I would get as many of her books as possible, and read them all; often multiple times. I still have a good collection of her work on my bookshelves. I can’t really recall exactly what prompted me to expand to other writers- I think I just looked online for “good mysteries” after I eventually got bored of reading Christie, but was still interested in the genre. And that lead me to reading books by Queen, van Dine, some of Carr, etc. Basically, it was just me finding one author I really liked and then jumping off from there to other ones that I found out about. Nothing particularly exciting, I’m afraid.
Enigma: Haha. I have a similar story, though I was more of a Doyle fan myself. Now… Would you mind if I asked you two questions purely out of my own personal interest? Kind of… an Enigma picks section?
NN: Sure, go ahead.
NN: Now that is a great question… and I kind of wish I really remembered the answer myself. I came up with the name when I was like… 10 or so? I think it was just one that I thought was memorable and catchy, and ran with it for a while; it becoming the penhandle for pretty much all the sites I visited. I also did used to be a far darker person than I am now, so that may have played in a role in it. Who knows?
Enigma: I see, I see. It probably helped that it has Added Alliterative Appeal, right? Now, for my next, and probably final question… You’re probably one of the only people I’ve seen who will make legit theories about a crackfic! Can you give us a little about that?
NN: Oh, I think I remember what you mean; it was that crackfic you made like, a year back, right? Well, it’s probably a combination of really not having much better to do and really enjoying trying to solve puzzles. So basically any puzzle that I can find I’ll at least take a stab at, even if the material isn’t meant to be taken all that seriously. (Which, of course, means that I’m wrong more often than not, but it’s still fun to try and predict what’ll happen regardless.)
Enigma: An avid puzzle/mystery solver. Well, you certainly are a fitting member of this site, then. Haha.
NN: Nothing in particular. I’d just like to say that, again, I’m honored to be chosen, and to everybody reading, I hope that my answers were at least interesting to you. ^_^;
Enigma: Alright, well, that’s all we have time for today! Thank you to everyone reading, as well. We’ll be back next month with a new MotM. And by next month I mean “sometime next month I guess” judging from the delays. Welp. Good day everyone! Have a wonderful time of day!
NN: Bye all. Have a good day/night/whatever.
---MotM April 2014: Fin---
So, that was our second installment of the community run/season 3 of Member of the Month. I hope you enjoyed it. As you may have noticed, we've tweaked the format a bit since our "pilot" so that it's more aesthetically pleasing and fits in with the suggestions that were made. Also, you may have noticed that I was the one running this interview again. Dave has decided that he wouldn't be running the interviews due to his own reasons. In any case, feel free to ask questions for our MotM or leave feedback and thoughts on the current season so we can better improve your experience. Also, all credit for the magical girl Rika image at the top of the page goes to this person and credit for... transparenting it or something(?) goes to AzusaCaky on deviantart. Thank you for your time.
~The New MotM Team