Post an album you've listened to 100+ times.

Teenage me was not a very good writer, but darn it, he had fun.

Box #3 in the collection is Lane Mastodon vs. The Blubbermen (1988). This is a WEIRD one; Infocom, who made text adventures, branching out into what could be called the first western visual novel ever made. It plays out like a long cinematic, but you can branch to other character's POVs.

Had a blast playing through Penny larceny and then doing a podcast interview last night with @neka-kohai.bsky.social but wow is my throat raw today. I mean there are days where I barely say any words aloud which aren't directed to Siri. Chatting away for five hours kind of wonks me.

Box #2 in my collection is Pinball Construction Set (1982). It's exactly what it says on the tin! A simple tool for creating 8-bit micro computer pinball games. Also my first introduction to the idea that a game can make other games. I would seek construction set type games for the rest of my life.

My boxed PC game collection is complete! All of these games helped me become the game designer I am today, so I'm gonna go through and post one box a day and highlight some details. Lessons learned, things best left behind, the works. Today's box is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1985).

I'm really tempted by Mina the Hollower but have traditionally been absolute garbage at old school, reflex heavy, fast reaction action chaos games with no difficulty settings and a perpetual demand to git gud. I love the aesthetics & atmosphere but know I'd be smashing my face into the skill wall.

Reminder that Klingons say TRANS RIGHTS BRING HONOR TO YOUR HOUSE

Happy Pride month, from VGAPride and my 60mhz Pentium running MS-DOS.

And it's now Pride Month. I predict a sharp decrease in Rainbow Capitalism this year out of fear of reprisal, which sucks. Yes, Rainbow Capitalism normally is ass, but it's at least an indirect indicator of public acceptance -- and that's a good thing. It shows we matter enough to be marketed to.

Got to the Very Special Episode of Kim Possible about disability. It's a good representation of the internal panic well-intentioned people go through that leads to ableism. It is frustrating that the disabled character required less than zero accommodations, however. That's overcorrecting.

Update: Won the really good copy of it, got outbid on the crappier copy. I am saved! I'm gonna do a big thread when I've got all my boxes on the shelf to go into detail on what I've got and what it means to me. Maybe inna week.

Playing retro computer games can be tricky. For the 1980s It's SO hard decide the definitive version of a game. The lead platforms were Commodore 64 (great sound, good color, but slow CPU and horrible chunky wide pixels) and PC (barely any sound, bad color, but fast CPU high resolution).

Hop into express lane!🚌💨 Desert Bus Express is back with a 24 hour marathon starting June 20th at 4pm PDT. This time we're raising money for Qmunity.ca, Vancouver based charity working to improve queer, trans, and Two-Spirit lives through services, connection, and leadership. More info soon!

BALLOON FIGHT NINTENDO 1986 NES

I have never and I will never use AI to write anything. This man is a liar. People who use AI aren't writers, they are boring, corrupt theives. Writers don't use ai!!

Disability means spending half your day idly because you have a doctor's appointment coming up and have anxiety, spend 5 minutes in deep discomfort in a padded chair, then crash out and spend the rest of the night watching cartoons to chill out. That's my day. That's how my day is going.

As an anthropologist, I endorse this message!

Me: Disco Elysium is amazing but so confusing and hard to follow, maybe I'll try this Esoteric Ebb which is supposed to be the diet soda of that genre Me an hour later: Oh right I'm also incredibly bad at remembering made-up fantasy names and huge loredumps (and also the keyboard controls are jank)

Me, realizing I've put two bids down on two different copies of Monkey Island and may end up winning and overpaying for both as a result: Fuck

So, @edzitron.com ate his Wheatties this morning

I'm at the scene in my game where I break down a point by point objection to AI and thinking "If I write a bunch about this the game may not age well when the bubble pops" and also thinking "If this ages badly that's a problem I WANT to have"

I feel like I poured today down the drain. I watched the end of the grand sumo basho and combo breaker streetfighter 6 top eight, but that's it, just lying there watching. I get really restless when I'm just motionless and staring. Like I should start second screening it but nothing really appealed.

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

More Lukewarm Outdated Movie Takes! The Minecraft movie is sub-mid. I'm impressed by the way they visually depict a pixel art game, but that's the only good thing about this. The story is crap, characters are useless, plot holes a-plenty, it's just absolutely empty. Watch the Lego movie instead.

If you see this post an anime you love #animesky

Trying to finally watch some of those movies on my backlog. I'm retired, I should be using that time to actually try new things. Took into two documentaries. I'm a little uncomfortable with this genre because I've seen so much manipulation of facts in favor of narrative. King of Kong burned me bad.

I'm in that weird phase of game development where every day I'm adding new user interface and mini game junk to avoid writing too much and burning out. Contracted art assets are coming in later, but here I am cranking on Photoshop anyway doing every other little thing I can to make this look nice.

Saw Buffet Infinity today. It's not bad, I'm not unhappy I saw it, but I've seen the same concept done with more authentic presentation and tighter storytelling quite a few times already. If you're looking for good analog fiction, horror or otherwise: local 58, LoadingReadyRun's CFUT, and Blippo+.

this is a masterpiece

So it turns out if you go cybernetic in Stellaris, then there's a risk that your species will invent the War Thunder forums.

I've written 19k words in 21 days. Not a bad start for this game.

It began with the forging of the Great Genders. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest, fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords. And nine genders were gifted to the race of men who above all else desire power. But they were all of them deceived, for another gender was made. In the f

Made the mistake of going on YouTube to look up a specific moment I remember from Mixtape. Like 80% of the videos about this game are angry ranting about slop and diversity and other fun interpretations. If I live in a bubble, it's a bubble of people who don't actively rage farm. I like it in here.

Some nights, even after multiple affirming events, I get that little brain gremlin that says: hey. Hey. You're a failure. You know you're a failure, right? You made ONE game people liked and that's it. Gotta resume grinding on the next game tomorrow, anyway. Just crossed fingers and hope.

Taking step to properly decorate my bedroom. For years it had a Back Storage Room aesthetic but since my disability ramped and I'm spending most of my day in here, I need it to feel more empowering and inspiring than "basic white walls and stacks of junk that had nowhere else to be."

When the ancient Romans believed that Britain was a strange and terrifying land full of ungodly barbarian magics, this is what they were thinking of

I'm getting a shocking amount done on my new game, creating animations and interfaces every day. I do worry though that now I've replaced my nagging guilt about not working on a game with a hyperfixation about working on the game all the time. But I don't wanna lose momentum again.

The cool thing about writing is that once you make it through the part that makes you wanna kill yourself, you actually feel pretty great about your ability to make art 👍

Update: Yeah, Mixtape definitely works. Rather than being an exercise in empty nostalgia, it's an exercise in the purpose of nostalgia as a reflection point in life. Highly recommended, provided you're not one of those killjoys who whines about things being or not being a game.

Anubis opens my steam library, winces, and reaches for the big feather.

Started playing Mixtape. My view quickly slid from "oh my God these kids are no nothing doofuses with terrible life priorities" to "oh my God these kids are still capable of wonder and everything feels so heightened because they haven't had their souls smashed into paste by the world yet."

Don’t believe everything you hear about razor sharp RGB in arcades. I’ve been told by Mortal Kombat devs that they leveraged CRT blending for the title’s visuals. Similarly don’t believe folks who cry “false nostalgia” at pixels, because there are lots of examples of blocky little sprites as well.

Barista made reference to “it’s like when you hop in a mosh pit” and I said, “It shouldn’t shock you from looking at me to hear that I’ve never been in a mosh pit.” He paused for a sec, looked me over, and said, “Well it’s the same at Ska shows” and that’s the most devastating read I’ve ever had.

I was on an absolute game development rampage today, getting so much stuff done. I choose to "blame" these boxed retro PC games I've got hanging up next to my bed now. I'm finally making this bedroom into something other than a blank storage closet and the quirky game energy radiates nicely.

Today on "Disabled Game Developer," trying to use image search to figure out how people sit at a diner counter. Like, where does the edge of the counter impact their torso? I don't know! I've literally never done that because I can't sit in normal chairs! I have no lived experiences of this!

Yes, I made a game interface entirely out of standard ASCII symbols with ANSI coloring. Yes I did it entirely in Photoshop. Yes I split every color layer up to give it its own soft phosphorus glow. Yes it's a ridiculously niche and ancient aesthetic. No I am not taking questions at this time

Chipping away at the user interface and overall game design for my new project. I haven't dug heavily into the writing yet but I have been planning who these people are. Just cross my fingers and hope it works as a story. I'm never a good critic with my own work; it's all barely acceptable to me.

Me: Oh hey someone on this podcast just mentioned Sunshine, I heard that was good, I think I'll rent it on impulse and watch it Me later: That was pretty mediocre maybe I was thinking of Solaris whoops

Lately I've been watching some relatively quirky travel channels on YouTube. I've never enjoyed travel because the discomfort and logistics are perpetually tilted against the disabled, but I love the pure ideal of /existing/ in a place. Feeling it. The still presence of everything around you.