Ancient dragon lairs are inferred from clusters of fire-regenerative shrub species in otherwise temperate climates. Though they are long gone, the gardens their fires sowed remain.
"Good night, and remember: when you're trying to do housework and a wizard summons you into a magical battle with ettins and wyverns, just play it safe and use humanity's signature moves: shouting "what's that behind you?!", and the kick to the shins."
I like this because it feels like a fundamental abstract arcade game concept, like a lost competitor to Qix or its ilk – similar to another Mac game, GravityBalls (https://obscuritory.com/action/gravity-balls/). Both have inspired web games of mine.
Here's a GIF of Frequon Invaders (http://www.blonzonics.us/games/frequon-invaders) a game whose original Mac version I liked a lot, which I won't be posting on my videogame GIF tumblr because this file is 4MB.
I just found that the uploader of the 30 Dots compilation has added a link in its description to this WIP version with no intertitles. This is much more ideal, so I can recommend it (and future versions) as one of my favourite comedy animations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkOW6-BPWYc
When you arbitrarily start feeling your neck and discover a muscle you never knew you had that instantly hurts the moment you touch it, that's called a "Grown-Up's Easter Egg", and it's a surprise gift from your body, who love you.
The relentless march of time leaves nothing unscathed
#TIL (which stands for "Today I Learned") that there's large numbers of insect species that, as adults, don't eat anything at all? They simply eat as larvae, and pupate to adulthood, and then about a week later they die of completely unavoidable starvation. The end.
"Some people ask me the secret to my wealth. Well, dear reader, now that you've read my whole biography, I'll tell you: every time someone asked me to pick a number between 1 and 10, I always picked 10. The reason? It's the biggest! Always do that, and you can be as rich as me!"
While dissociating through making dinner, you realise you don't actually want whatever it is you're making, but you're darned if you're going to interrupt this precious momentum.
"Hey guys, my name's Cool Ass Review Channel."
*holds up DVD case with photocopied Simon's Quest boxart stuck on*
"This game is so bad, real life is breaking."
*loud scare chord as Donkey Kong 64 poster falls off wall*
"Save me from Cat Hulu."
Low Dribble (2 mana)
If the karaoke screen's subtitles feature a bouncing ball, and the ball bounces on a single syllable more than twice, gain 3 life.
Note: since it is not legal to play cards in karaoke, you must sing the incantation for this spell during instrumental breaks.
Dazzling Floor Wax (3 mana)
All black squares are now white (all white-square bishops can move in 8 directions, and all black-square bishops are immobile).
"Agh! My eyes!"
Note: because it is not legal to play cards in Chess, players are required to cast this spell in real life.
Accidentally piping your grep output to extremelynonstdout, causing your computer to send out gloved robotic arms to crank a jack-in-the-box that, on opening, launches the text as a series of colourful streamers, one for each line.
While on a road trip through the codebase, your car breaks down in a small backwater town of imperative code, and your attempts at asking for help reveal some huge, shadowy shared state is controlling every line you meet.
The latest scientific consensus is that the Earth is barely still turning; however, most people currently alive will not live to see the sun finally set, and only our great-great-grandchildren will see the first glimmer of sunrise.
Company's viral "When did YOU realise this was Hell World?" campaign hastily reworked to "When did YOU have a "This is Hell World" moment?" after concerns that acknowledging the world's Hell World status wasn't conducive to retail growth.
Unsatisfied with writing WIMP interfaces in Javascript, humanity's hunger for stronger and stronger web apps led to the final step into the abyss: writing full MVC frameworks in WebGL shaders.
Highly opinionated image utility found to be using the alpha channel to store long-winded screeds about how decoding pngcrush-compressed PNGs gives it a header-ache.
"Alright kids, last stop. Unless your tickets somehow cover the final leg of this route, it's time to get out–"
*the kids produce the Super Onyx Unlimited Hell Bus Pass*
"Oh… oh. Well, in your seats, then."
*the bus pulls out from the stop and accelerates directly into a chasm*
Slimes trying to console their creator after her funding is withdrawn, using unconvincing sleight-of-hand to convince her that they can devour all forms of matter and self-replicate.
"Each apple – if it even is an apple – that falls from the tree – if it even is a tree – can grant you a single fact – if facts they really are – when you eat them – if that really is your mouth."
"Those warnings to bring a slip of paper with all your good memories written on it, and how you must never, EVER lose it? Yeah, sounds like a low priority compared to tools or clothing, but without it, you WON'T be able to dig them out of your mind again. Trust me. You won't."
The stranded ghost train carriage stands unmoving in a century-long stalemate between the passengers fruitlessly attempting to push it down the track, the passengers fruitlessly attempting to push it back toward the living, and those still fiercely occupying the window seats.
They say the last 50 metres to the house is the slowest part of broadband infrastructure, and so it is for the Fiber Labyrinth surrounding Castle Blackspot, which only lets the bravest, keenest packets get in… or out.
Blade of Pentaster
A sword with average combat abilities; however, its enchantment causes all store reviews to have 5 stars regardless of customer satisfaction.
"Fast delivery. ★★★★★" – TheAngrySwordLiker
"Went clean into my foot when I dropped it. ★★★★★" – Anon
Hello friends; recently I heard an anecdote about a faulty hot water heater causing someone to be unexpectedly electrocuted just by touching a faucet, and I know that doozy's going to be on the paranoia pile for at least the next decade.
For those doing Ludum Dare, here's some freebies you can shoehorn into any theme:
• Mentor killed on title screen
• Final battle causes Tunguska event
• Two figures toast the New Year, only to learn they both poisoned each other for their dying father's inheritance… oh irony!
(For those new here, this is an iOS tower defense-ish roguelike I've spruiked before.)
#Imbroglio tweet: I've been trying to get this to work for six hours and it doesn't work and I'm upset, the scandalous Leon exposé
Gods need faith to live. Succubi need sexual pleasure to live. Obviously, the former is a rare variant of the latter. *starts punching in "class God extends" before any force on Earth and Heaven can stop me*
I've been informed that the "struck" suffix in these hashwords is part of some two-bit company's viral campaign, so I'm going to sit here in silence feeling "had" until my brain feeds me enough fondly remembered viddygame music that I forget what I'm doing.
#Mid00sParserInteractiveFictionStruck4
#ClassicMacintoshStruck4
These are: Sluggy Freelance, Delta Thrives, Narbonic, minus. 2 and 4 aren't online anymore outside Archive dot org.
I might have included RPG World and Adventurers! if they were the same comic (which they sort-of were, as I read them in succession and they had a crossover arc).
#WebcomicStruck4 The rule for this tag is that you can only post comics you read in the 00's.
"It's a government agency so critical to Earth's safety, dyed black hair with white highlights is part of the dress code. Their suits and shoes are made of classified dust-repellant fabric, and tailored primarily for somersaulting."
Seminar at the cemetery to teach ghosts how to manifest in TVs and computers WITHOUT those pesky glitches and static and WITH star wipes, kinetic typography and upbeat MIDI keyboard music
The fact that this is in Perspective, a 2012 DigiPen puzzle platformer where a blue silhouette jumps on rectangles, leads me to believe Environmental Storytelling is not planned but grows unbidden, in a manner similar to Aristotlean spontaneous generation.
"Yeah, the Neomonarchists tried to dig up the Old Kings that legend said were beheaded in this orchard. Pulled nothing up but dirt, of course – but that didn't stop them pressing the dirt together, and putting the dirt on some thrones, and giving the dirt the spark of life."
"Uh, is that a sunrise? …I think that's a sunset."
"W-what? You mean, we've been sealed underground for 1200 years, and we STILL can't see daylight for another nine hours?!"
*scrolls down on someone's profile page to read tweets that AREN'T under six hours old* Welcome… to the Deep Web.
Raymarching ants
I need some 16-year-old to make the hyper-literalist point-ignoring fangame of The Beginner's Guide that we're all waiting for, where the Machine is a three-phase boss fight and the flying doors in space are explained as its evil devices.
Your primary coping strategy for your first 30 years was, like most people your age, the unbearably catchy "Just Don't Remember It, Silly" song – a song you now solely associate with every last it instructed you to forget.
Clothing so baggy that your body really does just not exist at all when you wear it – your folds swaying from each gust of wind in unnatural, hollow billows.
Dyson-ring alien bodies, their shadows slicing the once-whole sun into shreds in the sky
Your rival removes her bike helmet, and all you can see above the headlight glare is her foot-long rabbit ears unfurling from her scalp.
You wake up to find your mind's Minister of Happiness has, for the fourth time this week, been forced to resign – but, you are reassured, the latest replacement has hefty qualifications as former Sadness Minister and Panic Minister.
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=963004 – The early rooms of Portal 2 had a good visual design contrasting Aperture's fanciful, highly aestheticised geometric environment with mildew and warm lighting, like a spreadsheet was trying to become a cave. This picture is unrelated but it reminded me.
The YouTube video holding on this still frame for 15 seconds while Joplin's The Entertainer played over it was, despite my first impressions, NOT an intended part of this trailer.
The recurring nightmare where your arm's casing falls off and there's a human arm inside, and the rest of your casing falls off, and you can't fit the fingers into your home's lock socket and you freeze to death on your own front porch
Opposite of Oxidants
I don't want to give or receive opinions on matters of the piece or person; to me what should be your main takeaway is just to cease using her deadname and cease consuming the comic from torrents and far-removed reblogs.
http://picturesforsadchildren.com/thepassageofinformationthrougharottingorganicsystem/ – She additionally has this piece consisting of collaged social media comments about her over the past several years (content warning for misgendering on social and systemic levels).
http://picturesforsadchildren.com/dothtml.html – If you want to read the webcomic Pictures For Sad Children again, or for the first time, its archive is available for purchase from its creator.
Look, I know the future of the Homestuck episodic video game is now even more uncertain than ever before, but I'm sure it won't actually be *I abruptly notice that the main character resembles a certain other preteen lesbian* oh nooooooooooo
I was just peeking into the little-mentioned Spelunx And The Caves Of Mr. Seudo, when all of a sudden the gap between Manhole and Myst is filled, turning Cyan's career into a smooth, clear arc.
I guess this one is a bit more special because it's materially suboptimal – using a limited-ammo weapon for something your unlimited-ammo weapon can do – in a way that daunts your basic intuitions about "skilled play".
My favourite part of the Metroid NES speedrun is when they shoot a missile at an extremely blue door, solely because they don't have Long Beam and that's the only way to hit it across the room. It's little moments like this where the tiniest rules in the engine are revealed.
Boy, those direct-to-DVD threequels get a little zany, don't they *it is at this point in the tweet I am gently informed that this is not, in fact, how the original footage goes* Oh……………… https://twitter.com/beesmygod/status/984150476403892224
Well what //I// want to know is when is Bennett Foddy going to remake Jazzuo's true magnum opus, Dildo Tank (feat. duet with @Amon26)
I know I'm different
but,
more importantly,
I know you know I'm different
Pfft, look at the anti-aliasing on this thought balloon… no sense of authenticity for games made in the 80s instead of 1992
When you've scrolled too far in absolutely any Wikipedia article on any subject
Sometimes you get complacent using JS, but then you remember some pre-2009 tidbit like "not only couldn't you pass the arguments object to .apply(), you couldn't even convert it to an array without using .call()" and, well, it reminds you of your insignificance in the vast cosmos
For those wondering if this change was dropped because some library used by 3 million websites for 3 years decided to type-check by arbitrarily probing method names…
Yes, prior to 2009, distinguishing arrays really was the hardest JS problem with the worst solutions imaginable.
Live from the abandoned ECMAScript 4 spec: How To Drop Your SemVer-Versioned Changes From Major-level To Patch-level In Five Simple Words
Meanwhile, back at ornithology,
Here's one: understanding the rules for leaving the base and being picked off, even before the pitch.
As aside, Schulz was committed to never portraying Charlie Brown's opponents such that in this rare close-quarters play he felt obliged to cover half the panel with a dust cloud.
Probably the most committed I have ever been in my life to comprehending a work of fiction was when as a child I researched and taught myself the rules to American baseball solely to understand Peanuts story arc plot points.
Turns out rescuing your friends and classmates from the ominous pocket dimension "where we can be anything we want, just like grownups" is more difficult than your favourite 200 young adult novels about this exact scenario had led you to believe.
Programmers dismayed to discover that ducks are, in fact, distinguishable by means other than appearance and behaviour.
10 years later, You Have To Burn The Rope remains the definitive indie game
If you get all the items in Minit does the title change to Maxit
"It was at that moment that Leon was carried away by a gust of wind, spirited far off into the sky… to this day those mysterious words have echoed in my psyche."
Sometimes I make myself gloomy thinking about how the Super Game Boy / Game Boy Player model of handheld-to-console upscaling is basically dead at Nintendo, replaced with waiting 7 years and then buying Virtual Console versions of games, over and over forever.
Ever think about how somersaults are so common in 8-bit retro games because you only need one sprite that you rotate 90 degrees three times. This was basically the only acrobatic move they could efficiently represent, and I'm glad they at least had that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones#SIT_example_recordings_and_encoding_scheme – For my entire life I've found the three-note telephone error tone extremely unsettling… I strongly associate it with something terrible happening, comparable to death.
If you have dolls,
but you don't have a dollhouse,
then your own house
is a dollhouse.
"These," *slowly turns wheel of vault door* "are the SI prototypes of units deemed too dangerous for humanity to use… but now that the virus has infected so many physical constants…" *door swings open* "our only ray of hope must travel in squarmphs-per-flblblblbllp."
Unsubscribing from Refreshment Awesome as your apartment's water provider after "version 2.whoa" of its "food-replacing nutrients" causes your kitchen sink's s-bend water to turn sentient and start pushing out the plug because it's too dark.
Continent Cutter
A sword strong enough to cut continents.
However, after one cut, it requires 10 years of sharpening, 50 rose-petal baths, and 60 days of resting on a silk pillow while smooth jazz and lossless summer rain recordings are played to it.
"Must-have!" – Sword Monthly
Rescuing your favourite teachers from the interdimensional sorcerer who's taken over your combination high school and interdimensional sorcerer soul prison, only to find that killing the interdimensional sorcerer has forced the school to close from unprofitability.
I feel like this is perhaps analogous to print comics transcluding typewritten letters or book pages – another case of machine-made reality intruding into the medium of the art. I don't think I see hand-lettered "typewritten" text that often.
This is kind of a strange situation because not only is social UI a part of reality that exists in the same "medium" (computer pixels) as the comic page, it's also comic-like: elements are drawn with clean lines, chat programs evokespeech balloons, posts are partitioned text, etc
In a hand-drawn digitally-drawn comic, when depicting a scene that takes place largely on social media UI, the UI should be:
The next Games Done Quick game list is out and this is it, there's only two games, anything else you see is just filler
Additional data-point for the preceding tweet, courtesy of the Kirby mobage
"People who bemoan copyright should just invent their own characters" No, you fools, it's about games not being able to auto-play the Chicken Dance if they detect you rapidly ducking over and over while waiting for doors to open
Well, worrying about the Homestuck IP's future isn't getting me anywhere. I guess I'll catch up on Neokosmos.
*I immediately discover that Neokosmos was discontinued four months ago*
Ah… well, no ti me lik e t he pres ent,
My new character design theory is that is that a design is good if they're wearing clothes while it's extremely non-obvious how they put the clothes on in the first place https://twitter.com/SplatoonJP/status/981365452088647681
What I want to know is why Aonuma and Miyamoto were onstage to receive that so-called GotY award last year instead of just the person who designed Stasis https://twitter.com/narcissawright/status/979669586059538433
I kinda wish someone would go to this, receive the official Strong Bad WarioWare games onto a flash cart, then dump the save files online. Lord knows this is all we've got to replace Nintendo WFC in 2018. https://twitter.com/StrongBadActual/status/981355991714410496
Does anyone even know who composed the Wii Shop Channel and Mii Channel music, given that everyone's putting them in viral videos for amusing juxtaposition?
I don't think Wii firmware has a credits screen you can just type into MobyGames.
I for one tip my bare head at the new owners of Homestuck, VIZ Media's innovative observation, "Homestuck is just a listicle, right" https://twitter.com/webbedspace/status/981117963343355904
AIUI this is created by typing the string "qawsedrftgyhujikolp" (which is "qwertyuiop" and "asdfghjkl" interleaved) using a standard input system that converts certain syllables to hiragana (q = く, a = ぁ, se = せ, hu ("fu") = ふ, ji = じ, ko = こ).
#TIL
Oh my god
• Almost no language standards permit a valid program, when processing an "if" statement, to either "take a third option" or "forge its own destiny".
• CPUs raised to temperatures "hotter than the sun" will have greatly hindered performance, not "the intelligence of God".
PROGRAMMING MISCONCEPTIONS IN MOVIES
• Programmers do not start naming variables in mIxEd cAsE or ending them with "HAHAHA" when they get "function fever".
• Reading a recursive function is not "like staring into a vortex to Hell".
CHOOSE YOUR 2018 DEEP CUT
Mario receiving a costume that only appeared in print ads for the Satellaview
VS
The butterfly that landed on Kirby's face in the previous four games is a boss now
The following tweet contains spoilers for the videogame Kirby Star Allies:
The infinite expanse at the end of the song: if you wait until this incidental track from Kirby's Adventure has played out, you can listen to a nice bare percussion line for as long as you like.