Now (Finally) Exporting ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL

Well, ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL (1994) is exporting.

I have waited too long a time to type that sentence. I originally finished my final-final editing pass over two weeks ago. (Of course, there was a third "final" editing pass, par for the course being what it is in the editing trade, though we needn't count that one for this specific argument's sake.) No matter how much of my life I let this particular trade eat up, it always manages to surprise me with the bottom-heft of its workflow. As a video game developer I am perhaps overly fond of the self-generated pseudo-maxim "the last two percent of the work takes ninety-eight percent of the time," though really, who cares enough to perform those calculations for confirmatory reasons? As for this Tokimeki Memorial video, I don't know if it was ninety-eight percent of the time, though it sure did feel something like it.

Well, it's done now.

I mean, to clarify, it was "done" two weeks ago, when I finished my sixth and final editing pass and I yelled inside my skull "it's done!" The past two weeks have just been me sitting and yelling at a thing that's Literally Done, asking it why it's not exported in a single file able to be uploaded onto YouTube already.

Though today, in addition to having been "done" for two weeks, it's also exporting, which makes me feel like yes, it's "done."

I nebulously circle any abrupt clarifying attempt: the phrase "who knows?" identically answers your many questions. If you've ever wrestled with any computer program whose literal Whole Thing is that it shows you a "preview" of what your final product Might Look Like, you may have let the notion strangle you a couple times that past a certain point it's Not Up To You. So it was with ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL. We shot this with Big Cameras, the kind they use to bullseye Hobbits back home down under in New Zealand. Adobe Premiere knows what to do with these files In Theory, though sometimes theory doesn't cut it.

I won't bore you with the tinier details, though suffice it to say I've had to stay within ten feet of this computer for the duration of the rendering process. I'd hoped that after working more or less 180 consecutive hours on editing this thing I'd be able to click "render" and go for a walk in lovely Central Park or even down Broadway. Going on four months we've lived in this well-located new apartment, and I've spent one entire hot-cold-gradient's-worth of year-time wristpainfully squinting in the dark at tiny colorful rectangles. With this, my (if not Biggest, then certainly) most complicated video yet, the estimated rendering time for each individual segment sat in at around nine hours. Perfect for taking a healthy stroll!

Not so, my friends: the supermarket literally downstairs is about as far as this whiny baby will let me venture before it fills its silicon diaper with loose megabits. If you knew nothing of computers and asked me (for whatever unearthly reason) "What's Adobe Premiere?" I'd promptly today answer "It crashes." If you knew a little bit about computers I'd further explain that it's Not Nice about the precise *way* it crashes. I confess: I lost three whole workdays to my hubris: I clicked "render," internal-clocked Premiere's stingy, gargantuan (and thus somehow believable) estimate of "uhhh nine hours? idk", and then wheeled my Steelcase Gesture chair over to its station in front of the television so as to continue "research" for The Next Thing, thinking that I could trust this Big Boy PC to respect the cleanliness of its own pants. I'd wheel back after, I don't know--four hours? And find the program locked up. If only it'd turn the fans off, or sound an alarm, when something went wildly wrong!

I'm not exactly working with a Baby Station over here. It's got a 3950x and a 2080ti and 64 gigabytes of RAM. Nonetheless, fond of the efficiency raw power grants, I'd spent the past few months gathering together PC components like Erdrick heirlooms, with the grand idea of putting together a machine that can handle Cyberpunk 2077 at its loudest settings. I'd considered myself slightly ridiculous for purchasing, for example, 128 gigabytes of DDR4-4000 RAM. However the ordeal of the past two weeks has opened my eyes to the ultimate possibility that for the task I ask ridiculousness does not exist. Adobe Premiere, for example, knows exactly what to do (or, should I say, what it thinks it can do) with 64 gigabytes of RAM. I'm sure it and its best friend Adobe After Effects will have no trouble lickin their lips at the prospect of 128.

Again, I'll spare you the more technical details, both because they're boring and because if properly composed I have confidence an explanation of them might win me some kind of detectiving award. Suffice it for here to say I trouble-shot this thing full of Swiss Cheese holes and walked away with two extremely scientific conclusions: that This Thing Be Cursed, and that rendering no more than four minutes of each timeline at any given time was the only workflow that presented me any specter of safety. If you've seen one of these videos before (I'd presume that's everyone reading this, though I've also received enough emails in my life to know that no presumption of mine goes ever unbroken) you know that four minutes is, as a doctor might say, "Not A Lot." Throw into the bargain These Hobbit Cameras' particularly prickly sticklerism and you're looking at two-hour bursts per four-minute renders. I want you to remember this math when you look at the timestamp on the final video.

(Here I kindly ask any video production professionals in the audience to refrain from asking technical details or (god forbid!) offering assistance. Politely: I am tired at this point, and I've learned enough about this exact project to know that what I'm doing might as well come from a different planet from what anyone else is doing.)

During said two-hour bursts I set my PC to not sleep--the better to spy the progress--and sat pressed against my television in my fancy chair playing (uh oh) The Dreaded Console Versions of Cyberpunk 2077, generously provided to me by two viewers what dwell within the development beastbelly of CD Projekt Red. I figure, I can't talk about this game without talking asking What's The Deal With The Console Versions? It pleases me to say: I now know enough to smoothly address that elephant right out the window. Also, yes, I did somewhere during this process remember to palpate a Christmas. (Mimsy got me excellent pajamas! I'm wearing them right now. I always wanted the sort of pajamas that make me look like I own a Big House In The Country. Give me the symptom and keep the disease, I say.)

In summary, in response to many of you-all's question "Are You Going To Talk About The Bugs?": no? Bugs are boring. Though yes, I will talk about *talking about* the bugs. Besides, I've talked about Adobe Premiere bugs quite enough in this "blog post" to exhaust certainly even my own interest in discussing them in light of a video game. Because I'm sorry to say it: bugs are less interesting, to me, than a lot of the other aspects of a video game. So: I will talk about Talking About the bugs, and I hope the manner I have devised in which to do so will please you. I certainly think it's hilarious, though on the other hand why would I do it if I didn't?

So, let this post right here stand in both as a preview of our next video--Cyberpunk 2077--and a technical postscript for the Tokimeki Memorial video. Which, as you will see *definitely* before the end of this unholy year of 2020, has a *lot* more to do with Cyberpunk 2077 than you might at first have imagined it would. Feel free to begin speculating about what I mean by that in the comments. I will confirm or deny nothing.

While I'm here, let me reiterate the answer I've offered a particular question at least a hundred times in these past months: No, you do not need to have played Tokimeki Memorial in order to enjoy my review. My review features a healthy "explainer" portion for unacquainted viewers. In fact, said portion might even be The Main Portion of the review. When I started this project, I hoped that I'd have an opportunity to learn about some games I personally lacked knowledge of. That's what I sought to do with this Tokimeki Memorial review. Because to be honest I knew relatively little about dating simulations before I started the research for this. Today I wouldn't dare call myself an expert. In fact, I might even be more lost than I was at the outset. One declaration I can make with certainty: I got REAL GOOD at making this exact video about Tokimeki Memorial while making this exact video about Tokimeki Memorial. Consider that a taste of the review to come (estimated export time . . . eight hours and fifty minutes . . . lord).

After this thing exports it has to go through YouTube's necromantic "processing" algorithm, about which I can only meekly say I have "optimized" the video encoding to better navigate this phantom gauntlet, though again, what we're doing over here at Action Button seems to stress YouTube Dot Com's grasp on reality as handily as it stretches the definition of "video game review," so all I can say for sure I "know" is "Who Knows?"

When it's up and processed in HD, I'll set it to live. I don't think I should do a premiere for this one--for reasons that I don't want to spoil just yet--though perhaps residents of the Action Button Goblin Bunker over at Discord Dot GG Slash Action Button will arrange a nice viewing party.

I'd like to let the video speak for itself when Adobe Premiere and YouTube deem it rightful to do so, though for here, let me say broadly that this video resulted from a slightly longer process than usual. In truth, I've been working on it since I started working on The Final Fantasy VII Remake review. This is the biggest and most important video yet on this channel, and I dare say it's my favorite piece of "criticism" I've ever made. I view it as a sort of miniseries of itself, and to me it feels as complicated as the Final Fantasy VII translation series (Let's Mosey: A Slow Translation Of Final Fantasy VII) that led many of you to discover my work. I hope you'll all consider it a spiritual sequel of sorts to that series.

Anyway, I feel as though if I say one more more-specific word about it it'd convince Adobe Media Encoder to spitefully crash, so I dare not continue. 

I had hoped to have the video uploaded before Christmas, though what with the state of the world right now, I figure: let's all do All Twelve Days this year. Five Golden Rings, Three French Hens, et cetera. Maids a-milking! Why not. Lords a-leaping! I love those guys. Two Turtle Doves, Four Hummingbirds. Let's get everybody and everybird in there. This video will launch on one of the days of Christmas. As for which one: look at the world right now. It doesn't matter which day of Christmas it is, as long as it's Christmas. (Also as long as it's before January first. This is the most 2020 video possible and it'd be horror for something so boring as numerology to stop it from achieving its peak.)

Now that I significantly stretched all of your attention spans hopefully to near the breaking point I'd like to direct you to shop dot Action Button dot net, where you can find an item to purchase at your leisure. I more loudly tout this item deep within the depths of my upcoming video, though I figure Patreon patrons deserve to know its existence early. I strive to make as relatively little spectacle of it possible here within this post because, well, who wants to wear an article of clothing that's easy to find? (I promise not to tweet-blast my own merch until, let's say, ten of you Discord-DM me pics of yourself possessing the item.) On the other hand, I'm forking over a big boy percentage of the sales of this thing to the incredible individual who did the design, so I can't in good faith keep it "secret." So this is what a compromise between "secret" and "advertisement" looks like from me. 

Furthermore: whoa! Our website is definitely real and it's definitely happening soon. I have received many . . . let's call them Concerned Messages from backers ("Former" Backers, actually . . .) who insist that this renewed, incredible, ridiculous, fancy New Action Button Dot Net is a figment of my imagination. I kindly direct any such doubters to look at these god darn videos I make, man. I take my time with this stuff because, I don't know. Man, look what this stuff looks like when I take my time with it. Just let me keep taking my time with my website. I've got Top People on it. You might literally die when you look at it, so let's not be in any hurry to get there.

The export continues to chug away as I sit here typing. I hesitate to say goodbye. I feel as though the instant I say "See you all soon," the export is going to lock up. I feel like I should continue typing until the export is finished. This superstition befits a baseball pitcher. A pitcher-befitting superstition on Christmas portends the unspeakable. I must back away from the delicious popcorn-friction of my keyboard and resume the yuletime activities at any cost. Perhaps me and my fellow Heck-Truckers Michael Kerwin and Brent Porter will continue our playthrough of the Gears of War 3 campaign? Or maybe I'll play Demon's Souls? Probably I'll play Cyberpunk 2077. Or maybe all three?

In summary: the new video is 101% done. You will absolutely see it soon. Technical difficulties slowed the export process to a multi-halt. It is smoothly being born right this moment and will debut definitely before this year ends.  The new computer I will build (tomorrow???) suddenly looks a magnitude's-breadth less ridiculous than it did at first, on paper, months ago. Cyberpunk 2077 research is going well. Our website is going good places and we will have a piece of Backer-Exclusive Merch available very soon! Nothing else exciting was announced at all within this post.

See you all soon!