Poetry : [T]races

Juli sejauh ini telah menjadi bulan yang relatif sibuk bagi massa Genshiken ITB, terlebih dengan semakin mendekatnya OHU 2014 dan simulasi OSKM 2014 - meskipun demikian, jangan khawatir! Kami tetap siap menyajikan konten-konten baru nan inspiratif yang akan menggugah pikiran Anda, yang selama ini tersimpan rapi dalam berkas literatur kami.

[T]races - sebuah puisi karya Lisa Santika Onggrid // requiem - adalah karya penuh pemikiran pilihan kami pada kesempatan ini. Awalnya karya ini dimaksudkan sebagai konten untuk 'kelahiran kembali' GenMagz - Genshiken ITB Magazine - yang kini berstatus mati suri walau sempat berjaya di dunia maya kala itu (ref : Mysterious Affair At Styles), namun setelah berbicara dengan sang kreator puisi (yang notabene juga adalah pemimpin redaksi GenMagz saat ini) tercapailah kesepakatan agar puisi ini turut terpublikasi luas di blog ini.

...dan seperti biasa, kami turut melampirkan detail teknis mengenai karya terkait dalam post utama :

• Judul : [T]races
• Pengarang : Lisa Santika Onggrid // requiem

Yah, begitulah. Banyak kejutan yang siap untuk ditampilkan pada GenMagz nanti, yang telah kami atur apik sedemikian rupa secara internal. Dan satu hal terakhir, last but not least - GenMagz kala ini masih menerima entri-entri karya, baik itu ilustrasi, review karya, ataupun lainnya! Bagi massa Genshiken ITB yang merasa tertantang, entri dapat dikirimkan ke alamat e-mail genshikengenmagz@gmail.com.

UPDATE (4/08) : Kami baru saja mendapat informasi bahwa puisi ini merupakan sepucuk bagian dari proyek antologi puisi pribadi berjudul serupa ([T]races).

Selamat membaca!

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Footsteps on the sand
faded against time

Eternity, your fingers gliding to engrave
Down to the dot in quaint letterings, that young face forlorn
'Cause I'm too big for castles,' you said in voice only too solemn
'Built a snow fort in winter--watched it melted.'

A twinkle in the sky has the path we walked on the shore of yore

'Built a snow fort in winter--watched it melted.'
Cacophony was the crashing waves in the air where raindrops
Dripping down the frosted glasspanes where you trace mirages of days past
Echoes of laughter filling in the silence

Footsteps on the sand
faded against time

Genshiken ITB : 2005 ~ 2014

Say, we named ourself  'Genshiken Story' not for a void reason.

Aside from our primary task to deliver the best out from Genshiken ITB's story department, it's somewhat our 'responsibility' as well to pass on the stories behind this very unit to the masses. And yes - we've been aware of it from the very beginning. The time for this will come soon enough, indeed.

We ourselves doesn't really have many words on our mind right now - let the video above speak by itself. We'd leave you instead with the video's semi-official description (read : propaganda) that we've been using around on our mission to spread the video throughout our internal forum and the social medias :

'Inilah video yang menggambarkan perjalanan UKM Genshiken ITB, yang tersusun atas dokumentasi-dokumentasi pilihan yang tersedia sejak masa primordial Genshiken ITB hingga dokumentasi terkini yang diracik khusus dalam rangka Dies Natalis ke-9 Genshiken. Tanpa perlu banyak berkata-kata, rekoleksi foto dan video yang terangkum dalam suatu kolase konektif ini akan banyak bercerita mengenai pengembaraan sembilan tahun Genshiken ITB yang diwarnai beragam hal-hal atraktif.

Tak mudah memang merangkum kenangan yang terjalin selama sembilan tahun dalam sembilan menit nan singkat, ya. Saya memang tidak terlibat langsung dalam awal berdirinya kelompok studi ini, namun selama dan setelah melakukan proses penyuntingan secara tak langsung saya merasa terkoneksi - merasakan semangat dan aura positif para pendiri unit ini, para pendahulu, para pengurus yang kini bertugas, dan para penerus.

May this video confers you all with positive vibes.'

Happy watching. An exclusive, unreleased-before poetry has been planned for our release in the near-distant future, though.

- Nivalyx

Review : Dusk's Secret

Apologize for our recent inactivity! Well, real life stuffs kept on coming every here and there, which amounts negatively to our free time. Worry not, though! As our 'token of apology', we'd like to deliver something that we haven't done for a while - a peek at a visual novel project!

...speaking of which, we haven't wrote anything about an external visual novel, have we? Well, it's about time - yes. Please welcome Litto & Tobi - Dusk's Secret, which is the very first digital work of a newcomer independent game developer entity named Littobi Visual. Beforehand, we'd like to inform that this very post on our blog is made possible thanks to Elma Nandira // rikukiko, which (somehow) serves as a connection between us and them. Established a year ago, this newborn circle had produced contents not only limited to games - some interesting short stories are also available to read on their Facebook page.

And, uh, yeah - much less, that's the background behind the working team. Onwards to the main point, how was the game, then?


Comedic atmosphere is laden in this blitz-quick visual novel, which somehow works well with the heartwarming string melodies that accompanies the main scenes. At the main menu there were no hint at all that the take on this visual novel would be a comedic one, though - it's a pleasant experience discovering the somehow clandestine connection between one funny dialogue and another. Take this one (which is one of our favorite punchline), for example:

Some of them were even frustrated and did extreme thing : jumping from a 200-floor building. Oh My God.
However, they amazingly survived...

It makes you wonder 'What will happen next/how could it be possible', doesn't it? Well, just seconds later, a twist of fate happened.

...because they were just jumping in place.

Not an entirely new joke, we know - but in the gameplay, it's perfectly timed. It's more than enough to make us elicit a smile, in the end. There are more comedic punchlines later in the game though, but it's best for us not to spoil things out too early and let everyone out there interested to seek out and explore this surreal, out-of-the-box dimension by him/herself.

The biggest surprise, after all, though - is the ending. This game effectively applies the 'less is more' principle by using a 'magical' three-letter word as their ending statement. It's majestically hilarious, really.


Still, there's still a lot of spots for improvement that this game can fulfill. One of the most noticeable 'downfall' of this game is - undoubtedly - the lack of the main menu theme song. We personally visualize that an happy ambient loop music (a Newgrounds song perhaps?) would do best in providing an enrichment to the current cheery, pastel-color-templated main menu screen. Some more proofread may be proven worthy for this game, as there are still some minor grammatical and punctuation error(s) but overall we're satisfied with the choice of words used. Not to mention that the illustration and (mainly) the background images can still be greatly improved, though.

What should we say as our final words toward this short game, then? It's simple, relaxing, entertaining, mind-bending... Well, as their primordial game project, it's not that groundbreakingly exceptional but still it's pleasing enough to play/read. People who are interested in trying out the game can assess the download link through their official Facebook page, to whom it may concern. And yes - there are various interesting trivial facts about the world of visual novel on their page as well, which is also worth checking.

- Nivalyx

Poetry : HYPE

Tak terasa, semilir angin khas bulan Juni telah menyua kita semua. Menjelang berakhirnya paruh pertama tahun 2014 ini, saatnya kami memayungi karya-karya baru dalam gemerlap cahaya!

Puisi di bawah ini lahir dari sesuatu yang sudah sangat tidak asing di kalangan anggota-anggota Genshiken ITB - randomness. Ya, sang kreator - Karina R. // Riesling - mendapat ilham akan penciptaan puisi ini dari hasil mencoret-coret secarik kertas tanpa tujuan dalam kendaraan travel yang ditumpanginya tempo hari. Bukti konkrit bahwa inspirasi bisa hinggap di mana dan kapan saja!

HYPE - itulah judul puisi hasil curahan imajinasi Riesling kali ini. Sebuah kata empat huruf, yang didefisikan oleh Concise Oxford English Dictionary (11th Edition) sebagai 'extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion'. Atau 'a deception or hoax', sebuah definisi alternatif yang tak secerah makna utamanya. Kami di sini tak mendalami etimologi kata, namun menarik menelisik fakta bahwa suatu kata dapat berarti jamak yang saling kontras satu sama lain.

Belakangan diketahui bahwa Riesling sendiri berencana menggubah lagu bersama dengan B. Akhfiya berdasarkan puisi di bawah ini. Ya - sebuah alunan melodi. Time to get hyped! ...anyway, berikut adalah detail teknis terkait puisi yang akan kami persembahkan:

• Judul : HYPE
• Pengarang : Karina R. // Riesling

As always - selamat membaca, dan selamat larut dalam alunan kata-kata indah berikut!

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Hype is what I feel when I think of you
Heartbeat ran faster
Breathing became shorter
And joy from who-knows-where overflowed my chest

I should tell you about this complication
but fear wins over my determination
What if I chase you away with this emotion?
Will there ever be an answer for that one question?

Dear God, I can hear his voice everywhere
But never once it said the words I long to hear
Oh Lord, it hurts, my voice will never reach him there
But I can't get rid of this hype whenever he is near

Hype is what I feel when I think of you
Adrenaline rushes
I'd begin to feel restless
It kind of hurt a little wishing you were here

Dear God, I can hear his voice everywhere
But never once it said the words I long to hear
Oh Lord, it hurts, my voice will never reach him there
But I can't get rid of this hype whenever he is near

And I can't get rid of this hype even though you're far away
'Cause near or far, you're in my heart anyway

News Glimpse - May 2014

Well, first and foremost, holiday season is fast arriving, so (obligatory) happy holidays to everyone from us! May this holiday season be a great one (:

Speaking aside, there's one major consequence regarding this holiday season, though : The vast decrease of Genshiken ITB members' activity. For us - Genshiken Story - this is no exception, sadly. Worry not, though - we've compiled several exciting things around in a short glimpse of news. Feel free to take a look!

• The 'You can (not) paham project' that we mentioned just underwent a major tweak - the project is now currently under chrovide's lead (whose real name is still not possible for us to disclose), has been renamed into Heavy Inversion, and - most importantly - has received a new logo. Although the designer himself, Maulana Mahardika // raika4freedom stated that 'the logo may subject to change', it's still possible for us to share the temporary design, so... yep - here it is:
  
  
  
• Apparently there are some story-based contents (guest reviews, even) posted on the old, abandoned Genshiken ITB website (most notably this one) - it's still unclear at this point whether we are allowed to re-post the content here or not, though. In the meantime, feel free to toy around the old Genshiken ITB website!
• The once-delayed Pen-Gen finally came into reality earlier today at SDN Lanuma Husein Sastranegara. How it went in general was more or less similar to the contains of our earlier post (no bombshells or anything), with Bima S. // ntLKM and Lisa S. Onggrid // requiem representing Genshiken ITB on the story post (I was stationed on the movie outpost myself, though, sharing stuffs about digital video editing and else). Here's a sneak peek of how this morning's event went:
  
  
  The activities done back then varies with each outpost, but for the story post specifically we did a short Chronicle of Budi-like story (a chain story where each person is only allowed to write two consecutive sentences at max, in this case) and - furthermore - we also asked the children (from Safeducation) to create a short story based on a random sequence of chosen illustrations.
  
  And, ah, yes! That was a joyful experience to everyone involved. We initially planned to create a full-length article on this, but the assigned commander-in-chief - Yusuf A. // KIRAfollower - asked us personally not to. Several more pictures are available to view on Genshiken ITB's Facebook Page, though - feel free to head there!

Well, yes, that concludes all we wanted to share - nothing major thus far, we can say. All Genshiken ITB divisions are still undergoing a transition between their old and new magistrates though, just for your (probably trivial) information.

Once again, have a joyful holiday from us!

News : You can (not) paham

Don't feel intimidated (or confused) by the post's title - some great things are meant (not) to be understood, no? Say, for example, this song* - it holds the status as one of the finest neurofunk tune out there we know, yet the lyrics make no sense at all. This one, dear readers, is not an exception.

So, uh, well... Hello! This time we'd like to bring an upcoming project from the Genshiken ITB members to the spotlight, and - as the name suggests - thorough understanding on this project isn't required at all.

Let us start our journey to nowhere with the back-story behind this 'madness', which is an interesting one. The inception of this insanity occurs when one of our prolific member, Dewi Nur Fitri // Xerofit51, posted this picture on our internal Facebook group, captioning 'Genshiken ITB : You can (not) paham' in her post:


In case you're wondering, the picture above depicts the female version of the core male members of Genshiken ITB. Yes, you're reading it correctly - which character represents who is better not to told here, though. In short time, thiis picture is proven phenomenal - it spawned an overwhelming 200 comments in just two hours. Needless to say, the counterpart follows soon enough:


Now here comes the interesting part : As the picture above gained increasing popularity over time, Xerofit51 herself decided to progress further, making a visual novel based on this concept. It's right now a work-in-progress, as the VN itself is currently being developed by a small team consisting of Xerofit51 herself, Mentari Adnin M. // meongngng, Maulana Mahardika // raika4freedom, chrovide (an illustrator who prefers her name not to be disclosed), and myself included.

...no, the best thing is still ahead. Although the 'You can (not) paham' is just being there as a placeholder name, a promotional video and some merchandises (such as exclusive cards and - wait for it - dakimakura) are being planned at the moment. At the moment we write this, the theme song of this project is streamable here, and a sample of the upcoming cards is viewable below:


The storyline is relatively simple - several Genshiken ITB members played a 'forbidden' game in the area of Genshiken ITB's secretariat (Star of Destiny?) which caused the male players to turn into a girl (and vice-versa). The involved players are then desperately looking a way to turn them back as is, by... Well, we don't know how though. The project leader (Xerofit51) hasn't told us how she will continue the storyline, and - frankly speaking - although we managed to peek at the script earlier, we didn't pay our full attention on it.

At this point, a question may pop out from your mind : Is it worth to create a VN based on something seemingly unimportant like this? In our opinion, the answer is simple : Considering for what this VN is made, yes - it's worth. It's very worth. Remember the VN Carat - A Genshiken Story that we reviewed on the blog earlier? Yes, this VN is projected to be an 'introductory VN' for the upcoming Genshiken Staff Training (GST) 2014 event. 

...well - it's against our nature to showcase many pictures like this in one post, we know. But, then again, it's quite rare to see a massively ambitious project like this. Potential, yet possibly too enormous to handle. Had this project ran into succession, we'll be having a meaningful feast for sure.

What can we say about this project so far, though? It's a chaos.

A beautiful chaos.

- Nivalyx

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On a side note : Congratulations to Harris K. Yondi // HRRZ for being chosen as the head of Genshiken ITB for the upcoming 2014-2015 academic season! May this season be laden with positive energy and meaningful one under your lead!

*PS : The original song (which is also worth mentioning) is streamable here

GWC : Chocolates!

"Chocolates. Round chocolate. Square chocolate. Dark chocolate. White chocolate. Chocolate cakes. Chocolate bars. Gateau. Coins. Hot chocolate. Not the musical group. This chocolatier sure has a wide selection."

----------------------------

Yap, yap! Kami hadir kembali dengan membawa konten baru - sebuah cerita yang terinspirasi oleh makanan yang disukai sejuta umat. Coklat!

...tertarik untuk langsung membaca? Tunggu dulu, karena pertama-tama kami akan menyampaikan beberapa berita terkait Genshiken Story. Yah, mungkin foto di bawah ini sudah cukup menggambarkan apa yang ingin kami sampaikan:


Menjelang akhir masa kepengurusannya, Rakaputra P. // Rheine (selaku ketua Genshiken Story periode 2013-2014) mengajak segenap kru Genshiken Story untuk makan-makan bersama seraya mengakrabkan diri antar anggota di restoran Warung Pasta. Sebuah kejutan yang tak terduga memang, mengingat publikasi baru gencar dilaksanakan beberapa jam sebelum acara berlangsung (tambah lagi seluruh biaya yang dikeluarkan ditanggung oleh sang ketua sendiri!)

Acara ini sendiri lebih difokuskan untuk bersenang-senang dan melancarkan regenerasi anggota, mengingat pemegang tahta tertinggi Genshiken Story periode 2014-2015 telah terpilih (yakni Zakaria S. Laksmana // Nivalyx, apabila tidak ada halangan). Topik perbincangan utama kala itu adalah program kerja Genshiken Story dahulu, sekarang, dan akan datang (meskipun topik-topik ringan lainnya seringkali terceletuk oleh anggota-anggota yang hadir)

Oh, dan *kembali ke topik utama* ada yang memesan minuman coklat pada pertemuan ini! Coklat... Err, yah, tanpa panjang lebar lagi, berikut detail teknis terkait cerita pendek ini:

• Judul : Chocolates
• Event : Genshiken Writing Challenge XIII (Open Santa)
• Pengarang : Caesar Adiputra Sutrisna

Penelitian telah membuktikan bahwa coklat dapat menghilangkan stres - semoga cerita berikut ini dapat membawa efek yang sama. Selamat membaca!

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“Welcome!”

A tall, well-looking man greeted me from over the counter. I come closer and take a glance at the store’s display glass.

“What can I help with? Perhaps you would be interested in our…”

Chocolates. Round chocolate. Square chocolate. Dark chocolate. White chocolate. Chocolate cakes. Chocolate bars. Gateau. Coins. Hot chocolate. Not the musical group. This chocolatier sure has a wide selection.

“Why chocolate?”

The man seems confused at the suddenness of the question.

But then his dark chocolatier eyes shone ablaze.

“Now that is an interesting question.”

“Why NOT chocolate?” he replies.

“Did you know that the word chocolate comes from the Aztec language?”

“Chocolate, you see, is a gift from the gods themselves. The Aztecs, they really dug the thing. They drank it, traded it with it, probably even smothered themselves with the stuff. The Europeans then got in on the party and went crazy with the stuff. Probably the reason they drove off the Aztecs in the first place, so they can get their greedy hands on it all to themselves.”

“But not for long, because chocolate is a gift for all mankind. Wars were fought over it, and wars ended because of it.”

“Franz Ferdinand tried keeping all the chocolate to himself. People didn’t like it. Then there’s the thing with Tesla, Elvis, and…” he goes on and on. “…chocolate makes you happy! Chocolate is love! Chocolate is life! It is THE raison d’etre, the salt of the earth, the vivre itself! It’s…”

“The way you’re describing it, I wonder why the whole world hasn’t revolved around it yet.”

“Oh, but it will, soon. That thing called BitCoin?”

“Obsolete. Digital chocolate BiteCoins are the new thing.”

Really.

“Well then, how much will these analog chocolate coins cost me?”

He leans behind the counter and grabs a shovelful of coins and drops it in a paper bag.

“10 dollars.”

I grab my wallet and drop the cash.

“Thank you, come again!”

---

I step out of the store, chocolate coins in hand.  I’ve seen enough.

“Sheesh. If I had known it was going to be this popular, I should have patented the damn thing.”

“Now I know how Prometheus feels…”

That day, people around the shopping arcade said they witnessed a feathered serpent that rose up to the sky and then disappeared.