https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x4RiSeoZpu4PvdutJXvGiweArBptl6_r/view?usp=sharing - Uma… Musume? Yeah, sure, I'm playing that right now…
This is a remake of a 2000s board game, and while the original designs do have some charm, I definitely prefer the children's-book art style over the original's standard high fantasy RPG theme.
Recently I surveyed my most common Windows programs to sort out what exactly the F keys did in each, and I'm a little dismayed to report…… F9 doesn't have a real use?? Unlike its popular counterparts F1-Help and F5-Refresh, F9 is always some misc menu item, if anything at all.
I also find it a little amusing that the once-humble F11 has single-handedly claimed "fullscreen" almost entirely off the strength of Chrome and Electron shells.
The first ever "boss runback" in videogames was when Super Mario Bros. 1 didn't include midway checkpoints in the castles.
Still… the 10th anniversary of Undertale was yesterday, and I sent a few thoughts to a few people about what that game means to me 10 years on. Then I remembered I have a blog I could paste those sentences into.
So here, then, is my short UT reflection:
https://fairysvoice.net/blog/Undertale_10th_anniversary_reflection/
Wow, have I been incapable of accomplishing anything for the past month.
A huge and emotionally exhausting long-term event has started to finally unfold in my day-to-day life, but even before that, I've been demotivated into plain mental immobility.
Deltarune Chapter 1 (2018)
Anyway, what else… I've been playing the full version of Öoo. What I'll say is that it has the smuggest dead ends I've seen in any game ever. The sort of dead ends that level designers wax lyrical about years later. Genre-defining dead ends.
It's also a game that feels like it's trying to use the standard Metroidvania map screen to its maximum mechanical potential. Like it has a need to fully justify the exorbitance of a map screen after the game's predecessor (ElecHead) went perfectly well without it.
As one with not too small a connection to indie game and int-fiction creation, that defeat really got me in the gut.
Still, seeing people still fighting back even right now is giving me some heart. If you're one who's still raising your own ruckus about it, I'm very thankful.
I've been feeling rather depressed for the past week or so, so much that I haven't been able to string a single tweet together.
There are a few reasons, but the payment processor vs itchio debacle, and the shadow it casts over the future of the net itself, is high among them.
No one tell him
Nintendo just released a balance patch for Super Mario World (1991). Here's what's in it:
• Mask Koopa disguises improved
• Keyhole exits now make the THX noise when they expand
• Ludwig von Koopa's castle does 20% more damage to the hillside when it rockets into it
Papyrus: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THOSE OTHER PRESSES ARE REQUIRED?!"
Papyrus: "AH YES. THE KONAMI CODE. THE SECRET OF ULTIMATE GAMING POWER! I REMEMBER IT LIKE MY PHONE NUMBER!
'UP'.
EVERY TRUE GAMER KNOWS!"
I think it's cute how Nintendo is fond of having you shoot through the air at high speed between different platforms, and inventing new ways to do it. In Galaxy it's the launch stars, in 3D World it's glass pipes, in Odyssey it's power cables, in Bananza it's monorail minecarts.
My only other opinion is that setting it fully underground and then making basically all the areas be floating islands beneath bright artificial skies feels, hmm, like a striking lack of faith in the whole concept.
I watched a longplay of Bananza to see what it's actually like, and by far the most entertaining part was the longplayer having the girl wear this freaking get-up for all the serious endgame cutscenes.
I find it a little funny that frictionless "ice-block-pushing puzzles" are now sufficiently normalised as a standard videogame puzzle that they appear in two Deltarune chapters and one ENA Dream BBQ chapter and none of them actually use ice
I didn't watch too much, but the GDQ runs that I liked this time in terms of clean execution were the RayForce run and the Mario Odyssey run.
The Blue Prince run was also OK as entertainment but I don't play or especially like the game itself.
This one seems simple enough that I suspect it's already been done, but I'm not familiar enough with parser IF esoterica.
Game idea: text adventure with "magic word" puzzles like XYZZY that you solve by typing the words – but the words collide with basic commands (e.g. "Magic word WEST") and you have to disable the command to use the word (e.g you can't say WEST unless you lock the door to the west)
Thinking about how the fundamental motivation for nearly all Deltarune darkners is "to be useful to lightners" – which even extends, tragically, to Ralsei – and that Rouxls Kaard's motivation is a perversion of that ideal, twisted into "to be useful to the strongest darkners".
Taken aback upon discovering just today that the creepy PlayStation 2 launch ads I remember from my teenhood were apparently directed by David Lynch.
I mean, it explains everything about them, but…
I took this Deltarune screenshot because I thought it might part of yet another brain-noogieing puzzle, but as soon as I did, I realised that if I was making this, I would have added a crease in the ground that makes the whole picture look like buttcheeks.
Watching a Netrunner metagame review
Imagining how much disk space YouTube could save if it just pre-sped all the deep dive documentary videos to 2x speed and made that the only viewing option in the first place
The ashtray from Control is in the corner, Sin Man's Betterifying machine from Betterified VI is being used as a mood lamp,
Tricking out my room with a Dark Fountain from Deltarune, a Smoke Machine from ENA Dream BBQ, the Mani-Mani Statue from EarthBound and the planetarium projector from Revolutionary Girl Utena to see if I can stack four surrealist fantasy worlds at once
OK, listen, I'm going to stick my neck out here and let loose with my own Deltarune theory. Rolling up my sleeves and putting my dignity on the line. Everyone get ready. Here it comes.
Chapter 3 is named "Late Night" because the knight is late
Just spent six hours doing nothing but reading Deltarune theorycrafting forum posts. This thread still has 39 more pages left.
Watching Netrunner
Thinking about how this one line in Deltarune is to me the quintessential Toby Fox flavour text joke
Deltarune chapter 3+4 playthrough screenshot favourites
Like, putting aside scenes and environments in the 2025 chapters… an interior like this is already heavily "letterboxed", and making it 16:9, so that you end up seeing all of both rooms instead of one, would be painful. The rooms would have to become caverns to make up for it.
Playing Deltarune and looking at it makes me think "Thank god this is still in 4:3"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bniNdxkx77k – Listened to this because a wiki page for ENA Dream BBQ said that one particularly memorable track from the game was a heavy stylistic takeoff of it… I like that track, and honestly this whole album feels like ten longer versions of it, so I'm happy ^_^
It's really amusing that the Mario Kart World soundtrack is the Kirby And The Rainbow Curse soundtrack of the Mario series, complete with most of the deep-cut retro remixes being surf rock.
Well, that's chapter 1 and 2 revisited. Now to head to bed to make sure I'm nice and well rested in 10 minutes from now
Most memorable is the scene where the tyrannical King finishes a handsome self-portrait, and then that ideal version of himself steps out of the painting, throws him to his demise, and then just is the King from then on. The mortal man replaced by his own propaganda.
Having watched the 'inferior' dub, I will say the film itself does live up to the praise… despite being ostensibly a Hans Christian Anderson adaptation, the worldbuilding is quite good, with visual motifs and themes that connect it to expressionistic art and film of the 30s.
(Reader, it is in a non-digitised archive and not "lost media")
Read an article about how the "unfinished" 1952 version of the animation La Bergère et le Ramoneur was a huge influence on Hayao Miyazaki, and also that the English dub doesn't have all the scenes, so I searched for the French original, and the first result was /r/lostmedia
I know a lot of people look down on chapter 1 as being slow and hokey compared to all the later chapters, but playing it back, a lot of things still make me smile and remind me how excited I was when I played it in 2018.
(Most of those things are in the Light World, though…)
REALISING I'M GOING TO HAVE TO TRASH THE SAVEFILE I HAD LINED UP FOR THE NEW CHAPTER AND START OVER BECAUSE I DIDN'T NAME ONION THIS
This game has a Sadie Hawkins Day joke? …I mean, I probably already knew that, at some point, but still, this is such a lowkey huge geographic-generational thumbtack to pin this game's world with.
I'm going to replay Deltarune in preparation for the big day, and every time a line of dialogue that I don't remember appears, I'm going to post it in this thread
In Donkey Kong Bananza™, you'll be shocked by a surprise team-up between DK and the most unlikely of characters… none other than Muddy Mole from Mole Mania for the Game Boy! The two brown beasts combine their digging skills to mine the Golden Bananas and the Crystal Cabbages!
The degree to which this really is just "ElecHead 2" musically and mechanically is kind of cute, although the central mechanic is pretty distinct and (insofar as the demo) emphasies a lot more slow planning and tense execution.
https://namatakahashi.itch.io/oo – Playing the öoo demo. It took 35 years, but humanity has one-upped the Yoshi bongos in Super Mario World.
Just started up a clean new file of Betterified VI: Bestified and within about 3 minutes I'd already found a new area I'd never seen before in my entire previous playthrough
Also thinking about how you essentially need a downloader like yt-dlp, and an MP4 video player that can zoom to "100%" to even watch it in this resolution at all.
Was watching "Can't Beat Airman (Team Neko-kan version)" from 2007 (https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm542936), and thinking about how good the pixel art looks when it isn't being stretched from 360p into a goopy artifact mess by uncaring video hosts.
I was worried reading through Blue Prince forum threads would make me want to play the game, but all of them are like "Finally got the Atrium", "Can't figure out the Scullery", "Spoilers for the Boudoir", "the Inglenook is blowing my mind", "Anyone else got the Vomitorium"
More of the best of Wikipedia image captions
About as funny as when hard mode of Kirby's Dream Land causes the gentle falling foreground stars in level 4 to inexplicably do damage as well.
"What if the purely visual glowy sparks in this joke boss fight in the first level actually did damage though" in Dynamite Headdy is such a funny US localisation difficulty increase decision.
I JUST HAD TO DIG UP ONE SPECIFIC FILE FROM A HARD DRIVE FROM 2019 NOOOOOOOOOOO
People playing on emulator years after the release won't understand what it was really like at the time, but those of us who played it as children know the truth: Super Mario Land 1 really is Mario's blurriest adventure ever.
Highlights spotted on the upcoming Summer Games Done Quick roster
Well, it happened. I actually needed to go back to a full HD monthly backup from 2022 in order to retrieve one specific file, thus justifying keeping it around for the rest of my life.
Watching some Smash Bros.
I've been playing the new Netrunner set for eleventy-twelve hours since it came out yesterday, and now I'm all worn out
The Internet Archive reader for this paginates the scanned pages incorrectly, so the descriptions are for the NEXT illustration, not the displayed one, and now I'm thinking that having descriptions turn out to actually be off by 1 on purpose would be a HUGE puzzle book twist.
Me when I scroll your profile page
God, the post-lawsuit (not this suit, the previous suit) situation with Internet Archive is so painful. I found three copies of Maze: Solve The World's Most Challenging Puzzle on there. Two of them were prohibited from lending, but ONE arbitrarily wasn't.
OK, I'll admit it, I was this close to almost being sorta interested in Blue Prince. Then I realised I could instead get baffled by the predecessor, the muse, the original.
Honestly the ENA Dream BBQ world is just the Homestar Runner world but where Teen Girl Squad and the 20X6 characters and the like are just part of the same world instead of being in-universe fiction.
Just today seen two different posts from people who read spoilers about what the postgame of Blue Prince is like, and who promptly lost all desire to ever play it ever again, while simultaneously strongly recommending it.
Biggest surprise recontextualisation of out-of-context SNES assets I encountered while playing Betterified VI wasn't any of the actual jokes, but simply the realisation that the glass tube shatter noise from Super Metroid is actually juicy as hell.
I mean, I *could* pay $40 for Blue Prince, oooooooor I could pay $15 for the ebook version of the webcomic A House Divided and get the "plucky heir explores infinite shifting chaos mansion" concept but significantly wackier
Website called howlongtoboat which lists the time in a game until the first appearance of a boat. It immediately erupts into chaos over whether rafts count
Puyos are the Madou world's slimes… so that means garbage puyos… are metal slimes.
So when you finish a round with hundreds of garbage puyos left onscreen…… you're wasting millions upon millions of potential EXP (°Д°; )
Gray from Void Stranger painstakingly assembling a brand by rearranging tiles for five minutes, and then jumping into the hole and discovering it's a one-foot-deep painted black floor.
Tetris The Grand Master 4's backgrounds look so much like super-saturated Touhou UI backgrounds. It's unreal. I can see a TGM4 background and immediately think of a Touhou game that it resembles.
"Daddy longlegs" has to be the most old English name for an animal that is mysteriously still widely in use. The Robin Redbreast of spiders.
Rather old text file on my HD… This was an idea for an Undertale fangame that was a falling-block Puyo-like. The main gimmick was that the single-player CPU roster consists of characters no one particularly likes (with 3 exceptions).
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2422440157 – April Fools being celebrated with the world's first and potentially last tournament for Mario & Yoshi
Soon… this tweet will become real… https://x.com/OpraZebb/status/1442611018220417027
Funny bit of Netrunner "symmetry" that I've liked ever since learning about it is how runners have a neutral economy card called "VoicePAD", a phone for taking jobs, but the equivalent card on the corps' side is "PAD Campaign", an advertisement for that same phone.
I tried the original Rhythm Tengoku "rhythm sense tester" for the first time in 5+ years, and the resulting line looked like a Richter 7 seismograph… u_u''''''''''''''''''''
Scientifically accurate truecolour space-telescope footage of me logging out every night
God I hope this one in particular sticks the landing
Well, this ruled. That's really all there is to say on the matter.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2741670/MINDWAVE_Demo/ - Now playing MINDWAVE (demo)
Playing Betterified VI and ENA essentially back-to-back has ruined my taste in games. Just now I started another game, and IMMEDIATELY something expected and logical happened : (
After crawling all over this game like a sack of termites… I'm actually getting worried about whether they can maintain this quantity of sheer work for another 3-to-5 chapters >_>'
…Which is kind of nutty to think for a 2-hour game, but, they WILL only get bigger from here…
🌚"AAA could never make ENA because they lack the courage to present the player with this much surrealism."
🌝"AAA could never make ENA because they lack the courage to have most of its secret areas contain nothing but a view to another area you literally cannot enter."
The 3D styles and environments are also pretty consistent, with most of the variation being in textures (low-res low-color-depth PS1-style, cel-shading, and modern styles).
All in all, the game's art direction has a lot more focus than may seem from its initial eccentricity.
Despite being a "clash of artstyles" indie game, I think what makes ENA work for me is how selective the art styles are - the 2D anim styles are pretty similar to each other despite being from different decades, and there's no photocollage or claymation or pixel art mixed in.
Reaction image that will be on every social media site for months once more people play this
This quest HUD animation is really good
Despite this game's ostensible point-and-click-adventure basis, the fact that it has multiple routes to the end and quite a good number of missable NPCs and dialogue in general feels like a pleasant departure from the usual linear expectations of the genre.
Favourite room in the game
I saw this and immedately thought of the NeXT logo
I wonder if it will be easier to get a bead on what this is "about" and where its heart is at, as the series progresses (this being only "chapter 1"), but as of now, there isn't quite that much to go on. (Contrast with, say, Anodyne 2's more focused imagery during its earlygame.)
One issue, though, is that so far it feels narratively/characteristically weaker than that, mainly due to most of the NPCs, and especially ENA herself, being duplicitous and enigmatic… her more grounded and relatable foil, Froggy, doesn't get that much screen time, either.
So far it and the predecessor toons I checked afterward have the tone of… the same kind of playful surrealism seen in stuff like the Adventure Time pilot (not just in world design but also toying with language), but taken to a further, stylistically denser level.
I like this guy a lot.
Been playing "ENA: Dream BBQ", an adaptation/"reboot" of a cartoon series "ENA" from Newgrounds.
It's funny that I looked at these for like 1 second and my mind immediately detected which game had influenced this, perfectly preparing myself for what would come next.
The gen-AI "Ghibli style" thing annoys me on a personal level because in my 20s I would occasionally fantasise about having "Ghibli-stylising glasses" as a kind of magical item, and now it feels like the world is throwing my past childish ideas back in my face.
Was I a nincompoop? In retrospect, the fixation on *specifically* that one studio's style stands out as the fundamental flaw, as that same narrow focus on its brand cachet is now being exploited to debase and commodify it from under itself.
OK. Look. I know it's effective, but we really need more analogies than just "the Library of Alexandria" whenever an internet service deletes everyone's content. It's happening so much now, and they can't all be ancient scroll repositories. We're getting burnt library fatigue.
I love how Betterified VI and Void Stranger both have codes hidden in plain sight in their respective trailers that take you to funny rooms when you figure out how to input them in the actual game
Always wanted to win by doing this
Watching Mario Maker troll levels (source: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2415237876)
Watching Mario Maker troll levels (source: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2415237876)
I should be less hard on myself. I'm an interesting person with a wealth of knowledge. For example, I know that the room "Edge Games" in VVVVVV is a reference to the late-00's trademark trolling of the company Edge Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games#Trademark_disputes That's a valuable fact, right
Testing Bluesky >1min video upload with my cross-poster script
Surprisingly funny Wikipedia image aspect ratio
I think it's underrated how the tortoise section in Carnival Of The Animals is just Very Slow Can Can. An extremely specific mental image is being invoked here.
It's cracking me up that ffmpeg can just play NSFs and SPCs and other console game rips now. They became real file formats.
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=143951 – Rolled a random MODArchive track and hit paydirt first try LET'S GO
EMBARRASSING NEWS FOR ME: I just discovered that one of my favourite mod tracks that I've listened to for the past 12 years is actually a cover of a British instrumental pop hit from the 80s >_>'
GOOD NEWS FOR ME: The original track in question is a succulent 10 minutes long……
Every so often my interest in the card game "Arkham Horror" spikes up when I am reminded that it's not Batman themed, only for it to putter out again when I'm also reminded it's Cthulhu-themed
*comes across this line of code in my codebase again* It's efficient Javascript
• Finally… I actually do like that this has Runeterra's "interleaved turns" aspect, where each "click" is followed by an opponent's "click". That was always the most innovative aspect of Runeterra.
• Also… this being "symmetrical Netrunner" feels like an admission that most of Netrunner's fun comes from being the runner. Thing is, I like Netrunner's asymmetry and two deck types a LOT, just for what it does for flavour, and how focused both decks can be at conveying it.
This compression is obviously designed to give a lot more autonomy from a low amount of cards (deck size is only 35) and having "agendas" be implicitly self-protecting is definitely desirable… but, it means a lot of the meaning of each card type is pretty blunted and muddied.
• The flavour does not feel as smooth or resonant as in Netrunner. While the concept of characters gathering political power in a faction-fractured city is OK, it doesn't really explain how the "runner" also manages their districts like a "corp", or sell the stakes of a game.
https://earthbornegames.com/wp-content/uploads/HWA000-Preview-Quick-Start-1-2048x1583.webp – Been reading about an in-progress card game with Netrunner inspiration called Aidalon… my first-look reactions are…
• There's a LOT of role compression for cards… each zone is a "central server" but can ALSO have multiple asset-like cards… most installables have effects, but can ALSO be tapped for resources… "agendas" must be trashed to be stolen and serve as both "ice" and "asset"…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWRvWxnp1Do - Betterified VI used this music track in one of the levels, which is NOT from a videogame but an actual indie CD, and now I'm listening to the whole CD and its predecessors just off this basis.
Infracted at the Netrunner tournament for waiting for my opponents to say "I run HQ" and immediately replying with "Gesundheit"
Some Guy In Australia In The Late 1930s: "Listen. Things might look bad now, but I have an idea. Hear me out. What if we simply ask the cane toads to eat the rabbits"
Making continues super hard to get is one thing but "What if the two least interesting bosses in the game took twice as long" is a 90s localisation decision that will never cease to amaze
No joke, for years this game's reputation has been poisoned for me because of the last boss
I actually decided to look at this table (for Dynamite Headdy) for the first time ever and these rows are SCREAM-INDUCING
Lighting up all my neurons from hearing the orchestra hit sample in this track
• The large number of SMBX powerups/characters that are used once but can be taken between levels, plus a handful of codes that do things like transform enemies or spawn barrel cannons, gives it a delightful hint of open-world freedom to solve its levels with different tools.
• A great number of the "betterfications" encourage the player to take the level at speed to escape some mischievous effect, and whose humour is accentuated by doing so… leaning very satisfyingly into traditional Mario platforming strengths.
Betterified VI impressions:
• Good difficulty curve – bosses are pretty long but ultimately fair (with powerups)
• Humour mostly hits well even if you haven't played even 1 of the… *checks list* …16 other SMBX worlds whose levels are being parodied in this game
However, I have caught wind that this game has "multiple routes", and I'm actually on the precipice of trying another one out………
My mind: "The JP version is better because this thing gatekeeps, gaslights, AND is a girlb–"
Me: "OK buddy, I think it's time for a nap."
Also I just loaded up the intro for the first time in a decade and only noticed all the bosses are right here… there's Baby Face, the dog, Spinny, the puppet boss, the one you never meet…
One on the right is a bit tricky, but consulting the Japanese version might give a lead…
Was trying to remember which Dynamite Headdy boss a certain music track was from, and my brain helpfully came up with "the puppet boss". Buddy ol' pal that's all of them
It's funny every time
Betterified VI continues
Today's Betterified VI screenshot haul
Playing some more Betterified
I *really* like the gimmick and overall design of this level. Legitimately very compelling modern platformer level.
Today's Betterified VI screenshot haul
All the levels in this one have some little gimmick that never appears elsewhere and ranges from silly to incredible
Unfortunately this game is mostly just a combat TCG, and moreover heavily involves die rolls. I have no interest in dice-based card games. Anyway, now I shall randomly access a card from the Corp's hand
*Netrunner player voice* Mood
Decided to look up the Star Wars TCG to see what its rules are like. *Netrunner player voice* Paws are called pops
Idea I had for a Netrunner April Fools event is "Errata Standard", where they issue ridiculous "errata" for recent banned cards.
Tributary: "The first time each turn a run *ends*,"
Cyberdex Sandbox: "The *second* time each turn you purge virus counters,"
Endurance: 10 influence
Yeah, that's right… sub 1…
Tragedy: tuning in to a B3313 first-play stream only to discover that the streamer is trying to get all the stars
The cycle of life continues: I decide I want to play a reasonable, moderate amount of Puyo Puyo, I re-download mame.exe, then four and a half hours pass, and I, with resignation, quickly delete it and empty the Recycle Bin.
Bluesky please
Leons everywhere LOVE it when they're listening to MODArchive on shuffle, hear a funky retro synth track, think "whoa, what's this nugget called?", open the playlist, and find out its name is
Today's browser Wikipedia URL autocomplete rankings
I liked the virtual-pet-themed animations for last month's RTA In Japan…
I like how Strange Memories of Death is the Megalovania of Gimmick!, except instead of being for a super hidden badass event that most people won't realise is even in the game, it really is just actually not in the game
The true underappreciated genius of Micronics is adding load times to cartridge games
Was just sitting idly by myself when I suddenly thought "There's NO WAY the death animation in Super Pitfall by Micronics was as garbage as I remember it being when I opened the ROM for 10 minutes in the late 2000s"
I know "good" Minesweeper games that don't produce 50/50s exist now but, the thing is, whenever I remember that Minesweeper is themed around landmines, I'm like, uhhhhhh
Going to make a "unusual vox samples as backing instruments" MODArchive playlist, which only has these three tracks:
- https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=62159
- https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=144187
- https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_player&query=163053
"If you stick your nose into a running vacuum cleaner nozzle, you can smell the void."
Bold of you to label it "AI powered" when AI is mainly famous for consuming power
Sandwiches, invented for easy consumption during long nights of cards, are credited as the first ever "gamer fuel"
Trading card game rules text writers need to band together and spearhead the invention of a new word or grammatical form that means "X, minus 1 for each Y", so that they don't have to suffer anymore.
Once again I am learning things about 2D Fighter Maker. These diagrams are from a tutorial about making your own custom HUD meter.
OK, look, it's very simple. If your puzzle game has a daily mode, there should NOT be more than 3 seconds of unskippable publisher logos whenever you launch the .exe. It's as easy as that.
For decades, shmup nerds have said autofire is too good, and that "mashing is a skill". Well, I played the new ChoRenSha 68K update with autofire on, and in 9 minutes I got a 2-ALL. That settles it once, and for all: it's time to ban Minecraft Steve in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
In both games, your decks tend to have a ramshakle selection of econ cards that fit together in non-obvious ways, but in Netrunner these "gamey" cards feel like they speak to the complexity of getting by in its world, or of the labyrinthine esoterica of future corporate finance.
Another thought about Netrunner vs MTG… The parts of both games which involve gaming the economy - spending cash to get it back, weaving a web of discounts, limited-use currency, and drip econ across the game - makes way more sense in Netrunner's capitalist dystopia than in MTG.
Reminded how one of the most weirdly specific references in Moon Remix RPG Adventure isn't to any particular Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game (of which there are a few) but rather that the enemy ship from Xevious shows up in one of the minigames
Final reminder (and also the first one, I guess) that if you want any effortposts from "Cohost Dot Org", you've got a couple of minutes - the website's blinking like a videogame item drop, so make sure you aren't caught walking toward nothing.
Reading about mahjong on Wikipedia and feeling both annoyed and amused that bad English translations make it appear way more highbrow than it actually is - the symbols are cast as bamboo and dragons, when originally they either meant piles of coins, or increased gambling payouts.
Just saw a post about an Uno clone on Steam called "Shedding Card", and I was hoping it would play into the pun by being cat-themed, but,
One Lok note… The game states every mechanic is playable on paper, as printed puzzles, *except* for the pushable blocks. All of those are exclusive to one videogame-themed world - which I'll admit is finally an actual meaningful use of "retro aesthetic" for a secret area.
Wall clock time is just better than regular real time. The time feels richer if it's grown fresh on the wall.
That one scene in Undertale where Papyrus sees the human and does like 50 double-takes in a row, accelerating up to 1 per frame, is only a slight parody of SNES RPG cutscenes.
Oh, I get it… he's called Geno because his blue outfit is actually made from denim /jeans/… well punned, Square
Watching a Super Mario Bros. 2 (J) speedrun and fondly remembering how the wind effect is so indistinct that as a child I thought the console was breaking. Which says something considering I was playing the Super NES version.
I just noticed the purple faces in the Mooncat title screen GOD DAMNIT
Thinking about the stylistically anachronistic tree at the surviving end of the Bayeux Tapestry that scholars suspect was edited in (along with other edits) during the 1800s
The other cool thing you can do is discover secret words, or later words in advance. You mostly do this by just dragging random lines along some of the puzzles, which is… fun? But not exactly a bolt of revelation compared to some other games' discoverable secret abilities.
Most of the whimsy in the game is in clicking on stuff in the map screens… although I'll gracefully admit that they do use a pleasant array of freesounds for this purely incidental feature.
I've been playing LOK (https://draknek.itch.io/lok-digital)… it's a word-search-like game where you can only find specific made-up words (like "LOK") that each have some magic effect on the board once found.
It's not that bad, but…
To me it's got the usual "thinky puzzle game" problem where the intended tone is playful, saccharine and child-like (the titular LOKs) but the actual artistry (like the colour scheme) is so washed-out and inert that it can only appeal to adults.
Reading Wikipedia
"Okay. I think I've found enough invisible cats to do the thing." –me playing Void Stranger out of context