Tuesday, June 17, 2025

This is the fifty-ninth installment of West Wind, your daily drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season. June is Accordion Awareness Month, so increase your awareness by listening to some of my favorite artists and soundtracks! Find any you’ve missed in this easily navigable index.

Did you really think that ALL of the songs I share would be from video games? I could certainly do that, but there’s so much wonderful accordion music out there in the world that I don’t need to. Myron Floren was a famous accordionist (clearly), a regular on the Lawrence Welk show, but that was a bit before my time. What was just at my time was Riders Radio Theater, where he guest-starred on one episode from all the way back in 1991. You can listen to that zany action too through the magic of the internet, if you’d like. You’ll have to open the post in your browser for that.

Shovel Knight is one of our family’s favorite games, not only because it can be played on our offline handheld device, but also because it’s one of the best games ever made. The kids have been enjoying the Showdown battle mode lately, and I noticed something the last time I was playing through the stage above. It’s a moving level, so the screen scrolls to the left constantly, meaning you not only have to deal with your opponent but also the environment. Those small airships appear in random places, and you have to hop across each one. Of course, if you fall, you lose a life. Shield Knight (below) and King Knight (above) are very mobile, so when playing as them, the hazards are less hazardous, but the programming seems to have a different mindset.

During one match similar to the one pictured above, the CPU-controlled character was on a platform at the left edge of the screen, which was shrinking rapidly and about to fall into the void. It didn’t try to jump or air-dash across to the next one, though, it simply stood still until it fell off. I realized that is one of the big differences between a human and a computer program, one that will possibly save us when it comes to the AI apocalypse.

A human player would have tried to make the jump. Even if they failed, it’s better to attempt it than to just stand there and lose a life. Programmed decision systems like the ones used in games usually plan out every possible action that they can take, factor in the responses from their opponent, then score each one and decide which is the best option. Chess is a classic example of this, and one that needs to be limited in the number of steps the computer will plot out, otherwise it would take hours calculating the next 1,000 years of chess games.

We don’t act that way, though. We make decisions based on feelings, emotions, thoughts, and ideas, and often do things that seem irrational or would score low on a cost-benefit analysis, simply because they “feel right.” We also have the grace of God helping to guide us through such situations, an advantage that computers don’t have. We have faith that things will turn out even if it doesn’t calculate that they should, and we have hope that keeps us going through those trials and adversity.

So, try the jump. Make the attempt, even if it isn’t guaranteed. And, enjoy the day!