Today I had lunch with my students at the cafeteria, and one of them was convincing the others to drink a mix of ice coffee and orange juice in the drink bar. I admire the creativity, but that's kinda cursed, even for me.

Thinking about how my brain sometimes forgets the name of a person that I said out loud just 10 minutes ago, and sometimes remembers the jingle of a shop that I have never actually used, but heard on a commercial over 30 years ago...

Discord Question: Recently I've been receiving notification when one specific person in my friend list updates their status. This is quite annoying, lol. I don't think I'm receiving updates from anyone else, but I can't find anything that sets that person apart from the others. Does anyone […]

Today I went to a "Capcom history and gamedev" exhibit at a museum in Tokyo. It was quite fun. Of course they had the bizarre US Megaman box art, but also a lot of interesting exhibits about gamedev techniques. The ticket was a bit too pricey, though. More on […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Today I came across that old adage while reading a book: "True Irony is that Alanis' song does not contain any examples of irony." Like raaaiiaaaaiiinnn.... 🌧️ 💒 🌧️

[jppol] On my morning commute, LDP, JCP and a third party I didn't recognize were canvassing at Tsukuba station. I guess the races have started! LDP was wearing bright orange, which made me think they were sanseito at first. JCP had a large placard bashing Trump for attacking Venezuela, and […]

[Media that mentions suicide] I'm watching now "This monster wants to eat me" (私を食べたい人でなし)。A story of a girl who lives with depression and suicidal ideation, and a monster in human form who wants to eat her. Did not have any expectations going in, but I'm enjoying it a surprising amount. Just […]

[jppol, sanseito] Takaichi announces lower house election for next month. I guess that explains why Sanseito was planfeteering every day since the new year at Tsukuba station...

Halls of #ardenvul, session 23. First session of the year. After much, much, much deliberation and crying and shuffling of feet, the party decides to use the wish ring they found in the Goblin Market to remove the great curse Thoth had placed on them. They took some R&R time in Gosterwick to […]

The silence in Fedi is deafening.

Thanks for @mtrc reminding me, I got started with Genuary. Day 1 was a nice and easy warmup (and made me use rrect for the first time). Day 2 was a bit harder, and I decided to cut a lot of corners. As an extra bit of challenge, I'm making a single pico8 cart […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

[pt-br meme] I don't know why, buy I find this funnier than it has any right to be.

It’s always a nice feeling seeing somebody on the train playing a game I’ve worked on. But it’s an even better feeling stumbling across online erotic fan art of characters from a game I’ve worked on. Really makes my job feel meaningful. #gamedev

RE: https://wandering.shop/@susankayequinn/115752796876142030 Nice article interviewing several game concept artists about their views on GenAI for concept art. My favorite quote: “one of the main ways artists get hired are studios looking for art references,” after which “they find us and […]

More #pico8 advent games! The music in the schmup was pretty good! The "black jack balatro" was also interesting. You can play them all here: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=153178

Halls of #ardenvul , session 22. For the last session of the year, the party heads back to the surface and then to Gosterwick, after learning that Thoth laid a heavy curse at them. The temple of Mitra does it best, but they can't easily remove their curse. They propose petitioning the god […]

I used to snark on people using Brave, because it was a try-hard browser developed by a crypto enthusiast. But Firefox is not so different now, is it? 😥 I hate the enshittification of everything. Mozilla's new CEO: "[Firefox] will evolve into a modern AI browser"; "Our work must advance our […]

Games have been a huge part of my life since I was very little. And yet, when joining conversations online about the history of gaming, it always felt very alien for me. This article about how the history of games is different around the world illustrates this very well […]

A friend asked for a list of mastodon instances. Anyone has a favorite list they go to in this situation? I know of joinmastodon.org/servers, but there are some weird choices there, so I wonder if there are other, more curated, lists.

Three more little games this Sunday on #pico8 's advent calendar. A cute snake game, a hell platformer, and a nice set of sokoban levels! You can play the pico8 advent calendar on the link below: lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=153178 Each of the games will take […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

How about a good dose of tiny #pico8 games for your weekend? Every year, the folks at the pico-8 bbs put together an "Advent Calendar", revealing one fun, tiny cart every day. You can play it here: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=153178 Help a cat climb […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

RE: https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/115700943703010093 This is a really amazing video, of a non-technical take on the AI hype. Worth of your 20 minutes (only 20 minutes!) spent watching it. My favorite quote: "The problem with the extinction argument is that there is no clear, actionable […]

This week I was re-watching Stranger Things S1, and it got me thinking about how the 70ies, the 80ies, and the 90ies all have a recognizable "look" for me, but from 2000 to 2025 it all kinda merges in a blur. I'm happy to concede that this is mostly because of my own social isolation, so my […]

[Eurovision, Genocide at Palestine] Iceland joins Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands in boycotting Eurovision this year over Israeli participation. https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2025/1210/1548288-iceland-joins-eurovision-2026-boycott-over-israel/

Is there in Mastodon / Fediverse or any related software a concept of a "reverse filter"? For example, I want to see posts from acount "Foo" that contain the word "bar", but none of their other posts. I guess it is kinda similar to following tags -- but not exactly the same? If I follow a tag […]

Got myself in the #picotron bandwagon. I'm still not quite sure what's going on, but I made an animated wallpaper. You can download it, or see more, in the link below: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/edit.php?pid=178910

This week I saw three instances of people sharing something, and them taking it back because "it was AI". And it got myself thinking about how "is AI" is now a synonymous to "is fake". (just like "this is a Photoshop" was back in the 90ies) For someone who grew up on scifi stories about AI […]

A few days after finishing Caves of Qud with a very busted mutant, I decided to try again, this time with a True Kin. Will try to play just a little bit each night, and narrate the progress here. Goals for this run is to fill my gills with cybernetics, fully […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Turning up that shitpost dial on my #pico8 presentation slides

TRPG thought of the day: The more time you have, the less prep you do.

The ending of #cavesofqud surprisingly reminds me of the ending of Phantasy Star 2. Now that I think of it, there are a lot of things in CoQ that reminds me of Phantasy Star 2. This is a good thing!

My #cavesofqud game entered its "total silliness" phase, even more than before. (1) I'm going through this large dungeon, full of enemies, flame spewers, crushing traps and industrial ventilators. After almost getting my ally burnt to a crisp, I noticed that I could just... dig a new, safe […]

I'm still playing that many-armed mutant character in #cavesofqud, should be posting about it more here. A few days ago, I found myself in a fungus forest, looking for a fungus genius to help my mutant bear friends. The fungus nerd agreed, but asked me to spread his spores to a robot. Well, it […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@zep/115547732806258989 This is why we can't have nice things 😞

I've been in a bit of a #cavesofqud binge this week. I can semi-reliably clear the early game, and I'm now exploring the mid tiers of the game. My current character has three heads (one of which a fungus) and four arms, shoots webs and can do photosynthesis. It wields four daggers and two […]

The programming intro class today was pretty fun. S: I don't understand, this exercise tells us to use pass the ipynb file as a parameter to this function. Me: Yes... S: But the function reads text files. Not notebook files. Me: Good! Turns out, the notebook is just a text file. S: What? So I […]

A rare interview with the creators of the always-funny, always-brilliant, and *usually*-sexy—or occasionally anti-sexy—OGLAF! Cooper has kept a low profile over the years, but is legitimately one of the very best artists in comics today. Read OGLAF if you're old enough to drive!

Got the #valheim bug again. Set up a server for my friends a few weeks ago. They already beat mother, while I'm still leisurely making my way through the Iron Tier. Gotta build an observation tower to round out this fort, and then try to catch up to them in terms of equipment.

Random thought of the morning: So if OpenAI/Microsoft makes ChatGPT porny in December, what will happen to all those "services" that are just three ChatGPT API calls in a trenchcoat? (I know there will be guardrails against this (maybe?), but it is fun to think about)

[snark about someone using the computer wrong] Some people like to reply mails "inline" - this is the correct way. Some people like to reply mails with "top posting" - this is wrong, but socially acceptable. Today I met a person who used "inline top-posting" -- i.e., they quoted the parts of […]

The train line I cpmmute on has added decorations to its handlebars celebrating its 20 years of operations. I had just moved to Kashiwa for my Master degree when it started operating...

[Japan Politics] So Komeito declared they're not in a coalition with the LDP anymore. It is still a long shot, but there is a chance for the opposition to land a PM if they can organize themselves 🤔 Trying to not get my hopes too high.

When going to an event in Kyoto, it is actually often cheaper to stay at the neighboring cities, and commute to Kyoto by train. I booked a hotel in Kusatsu, right in front of the station, for a third of the price of hotels in Kyoto. (If I had booked directly […] [Original post on wandering.shop]

Yesterday I went to the yearly local fireworks show. Although my city is rather small, the fireworks show is actually super technical and well done. However, this year the fireworks created an unusual amount of smoke which wouldn't dissipate, and blocked over half of the show. It was rather […]

Having a rough day at work, but this made me laugh. #silksong #deltarune (alt-text explains joke)

My game submission for the PICOJAM, "Anxiety Festival", is completed. Play in one of the links below: pico-8 BBS: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=150863 itch.io: https://caranha.itch.io/anxietyfestival #pico8

PICOJAM progress -- a festival for ghosts? #pico8