Having looked up the recent gaming controversy, I'm quite liking that the most important feature of NVidia's "Move the brightness & contrast sliders up 50% & make all strong female leads look like Barbie" tech is that "you can turn it off".

(It's a terrible game, but at least now folks can play the whole thing :) )

Thanks to @kevedwardsretro.bsky.social & his 3" disk recovery skills, some emulator shots of things that have not been seen for 36 years... The "B" side, which was missing on the release version, of Amstrad 6128 NY Warriors. (Will get these to @gamesthatwerent.com / @xyphoe.bsky.social in a bit)

R. Fred Williams' old 3" game development disks, batch 2, have now been archived. These are on their way back to Fred so he can go through the contents. They contain a mix of development source code, utilities and binary game images. The big find so far is the lost side 'B' of Amstrad NY Warriors.

<Bowl-of-petunias line> Grief, the state of this industry… www.gamesindustry.biz/uk-co-develo... I’m not in the “at risk” list this time, but a lot of good folks are.

By the time I got involved with Speccy games ('89), the joystick-FUDLR (fire up down left right) reading code was copy-pasted from game to game in pure faith, because we didn't actually have the hardware to test it. I'd guess 3 was "Fuller".

(It's under "Settings->Languages", BTW)

Ensnowment 2026 - 5 inches Friday morning, today all sorts of compacted ice rather than actual thawing/slush.

2026 beginning of the year cleaning up files on my PC and found this one a friend send me when working on some code. Every developer can relate. #solodev #indiedev #development

Ugh, there are far too many people (including videogames people who should know better) conflating AI (good fun thing) with GenAI (evil bad art stealy thing) So let's recap the story (which I'm pretty sure I've told to lots of youse already) about Fuzion Frenzy's fireworks game.

The actual report that folks are posting GI.Biz's take on:- www.bcg.com/publications... Right at the start, its first "key takeaway": "Generative AI will power innovative gaming experiences." Whch suggests that they don't know what GenAI is.

Looks like pad 31 at Baikonur (Where Soyuz/Progress rockets head off to the ISS from these days) has had a bit of a catastrophe. (Okay, Russia = baddies at the mo, but space cooperation's one of the remaining good things)

Departing collegue's asked for a boost for one of his Lego Ideas things, & it'd be rude not to give it a vote, really... beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

For whatever reason, the Switch asked for a 2FA code, and made me realise "perhaps I'd better move those onto the new phone" (I'd only shifted the work one when I got it). Interesting pair of emails from the other place (I guess the guys who knew how to find-in-files were among those let go)

Day in Cambride at @computinghistory.org.uk 's gaming event - Included a nice natter with @kevedwardsretro.bsky.social & @breakintoprogram.co.uk about 3" disk recovery, Tatung Einstein as a dev machine, and the general 1990's Manchester dev scene :)

Fixed now! But... (a) Um... How *long* has this "symmetrical with a teensy ridge on one side" dial been set to around 9 (niche settings like sportswear) rather than around 1 (whites, coloureds)? (b) Who designs this stuff and never thinks "make it pointy at one end, and maybe make the ridge black?

This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".

Look at this beautiful data visualization by a man named Colin

Hoping my friends up north are coping, and are able to spend some time studying the migratory patterns of the common garden trampoline.

When I think about the stupid mistakes LLMs make with words sometimes, (cf. the strawberry problem, fabricating quotations, or mixing up terms etc.), there's a well-known Old English riddle that comes to mind. It's more than 1,000 years old but I think it has something to tell us about AI... 🧵

RIP Tom Lehrer. Essential knowledge when viewing Pointless:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3...

Fires up steam. Checks if game is already in the list of shame. It is. Closes steam.

Hello Brighton!

Drop someone BESPECTACLED

Here are my old #bassplayerproblems memes, which are as relevant now as they always were*. Especially for female bass players. And for metal bass players. You know it's true. #bass #bassplayer #bassist #girlbassist *marginally

Quantum Witch is out now! It's a choose-your-own-adventure where choice matters (no, it REALLY does, to an alarming degree!) and there are multiple stories to unlock as you replay it. I hope you enjoy it ❤️ store.steampowered.com/app/3100650/... www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV7N...

2025 Bees-on-Lavender is now open for buzziness. #bees #lavender

Why should you be interested in Quantum Witch? Here's what folk have been saying! "One of the most choice-heavy games I've ever seen." - Oliver Brandt, Newsweek "This is some of the sharpest wittiest writing I’ve experienced in a hot minute, and I loved every second of it." - The Geekly Grind

I know I've got a few fans of the fillum following, so: Local Hero: BBC Radio 4 version www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Updated to modern times a bit... No mobile reception, f'rinstance. Yes, the phone box is still there :) If you know the film, prepare for some curveballs :) #LocalHero #radio

I know how to adjust the clock on the microwave. This is my superpower.

Yay! Apparently I still have a job for some reason! (Grief, this industry's a mess at the moment)

Were you looking for a documentary covering Nazi Bovril-powered flying saucers? If so, here it is:-

Vader: <strangles> I find your lack of faith disturbing. Tarkin: Enough of this! Vader: release him. Vader: As you wish. #starwars #theprincessbride

Login. Enter username: Enter Password: "Incorrect Password" Retry Password: "Incorrect Password" (Ok, let's try "forgot password") Receive email. Enter emailed code. Enter Password: "Your password cannot be the same as the current password"

Obligatory "there has been an ensnowment" photopiccies... (Also, someone's stolen the sky)

So yeah, that other place is dead to me now. Hello Bsky! I'm a solo indie game developer, with a retro styled, narrative driven pixel adventure coming out next June! Sound interesting? Let folk know I'm here!😅😅😂😭

If you see this, post a robot.

What got you into #gamedev?

A talky thing wot I did back in June, "Aggressive bug hunting: Setting traps. Changing rules. Lighting fires" is available to the public now (along with a bunch of other good stuff) www.youtube.com/watch?v=50TN...

Most chatter about this is over there on Mastodon, so here's a link for friends who are here... www.theguardian.com/games/articl...

If you've still got a birdsite account... Settings and privacy -> Privacy and safety -> Grok (only works on the website, not the app) and consider turning off (new & defaults-on) "Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning"

The white is open for buzziness...

Magicland Dizzy. "Tool assisted run", so a bit of AI going on, but all legit. OMG, the exploits. Bypassing the ghosts... Skipping Denzil... Abusing the Genie... Fast-forwarding in & out of Hell... tasvideos.org/8892S

Clicky Mc Clickface is a fun build. Includes a button that does a noisy thing, which is always good :)

Shoutymusic plug for t'niece & partner (video & drums, respectively):- www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Nu...

Massive pedantry time: Dear Microsoft / Todd Howard: The callback to the original's genuinely appreciated, but get the font right plz :)

Work teams footlong-sandwich chat reminded me of the fact (thx Douglas Adams) that the speed of light is, near as damnit, one foot per nanosecond. IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO REMEMBER!

Well, that certainly went places... www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpNt...

Stanley was looking for the Sumo Sheffield Christmas Party. He decided to turn left. (Nice to meet lots of people, again & for the first time :) )

Off we go to London...