perhaps the most egregious thing that happened with the Future Class was when The Game Awards took money from Old Spice in the name of the FC & simply... pocketed it it wasn't used to fund Future Class initiatives, it wasn't used to help lift marginalised developers they just profited from us

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 32 Nia Archives - Silence is Loud (2024, UK) youtu.be/tHxEQ1oaYig?... The inverse of "Super Shy" - a shifting energising racket that serves to emphasise the stillness and poise at its centre

If you're wondering how this will go Square Enix handed off their mobile Octopath game to NetEase who immediately started using ChatGPT to translate everything resulting in text like this. When players complained they started asking fans to fix their translations in exchange for in-game currency

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 31 Ryutist - 君の胸に, Gunshot [Kimi no Mune ni Gunshot] (2024, Japan) www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-K... Gorgeous pastoral meets Knife-sharp electronica to bewitching effect

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 30 Nailah Hunter - Strange Delights (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4wK... Rich and dreamy mystical indie folk with a nod to the best bit of Joe Hisaishi's Spirited Away soundtrack

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 29 Babymint - 2023: BBMeme Odyssey (2023, Taiwan) www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9o... Thus memed Zarathustra

There were not many UK #1 games in 1985 thanks to Soft Aid and The Way of the Exploding Fist taking up more than half of the year between them. So I thought I'd have a look at the set of games that stopped at #2 behind them... (thread)

Fascinating thread on the responses to the game Raid Over Moscow in Finland, which were rather more serious than the protests in the UK. (and which led to it being Finland's bestselling computer game of 1985)

With adventure games specifically, the idea that adventure games are a "dead genre" is almost baked into the received narrative about adventure games to the point of distracting people from the fact that more adventure games are coming out now than ever were in the 90s

Ha, I remember trying this on my Amstrad CPC 464... and the disappointment once I slowly realized it isn't about the movie Alien. (Which had a Finnish subtitle "Eighth Passenger"; hence my confusion.

There were not many UK #1 games in 1985 thanks to Soft Aid and The Way of the Exploding Fist taking up more than half of the year between them. So I thought I'd have a look at the set of games that stopped at #2 behind them... (thread)

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 28 Olivia Rodrigo - Bad Idea Right? (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj9q... Well-harnessed chaos with a great combination of musical and lyrical punchlines

In 1921, acclaimed author Robert E. Sherwood declared that a film he reviewed was the world's worst movie. Cinematographer Byron Haskin said it was the most awful thing Hollywood ever made. It made Avengers: Endgame money. This is that movie. moviessilently.com/2025/11/02/m...

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 27 Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW8V... A breakup song via a doll's existential crisis, all the more effective for being sung by someone whose usual vocal style is lightness but whose every breath is suddenly audibly heavy

So, today I'm announcing a new book project... and doing a call for papers: crpgbook.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/t... It's an anthology of video game history outside the usual US perspective - an accessible & exciting panorama of different realities - and I'll pay 300 USD per article. Please share :)

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 26 BONUS - 11 points NewJeans - Super Shy (2023, Korea) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArmD... A propulsive pop song wrapped in a blanket of softness and stillness. Made me stop and smile the first time and still does

1982 was very early for Japanese adventure games, with only a small number of releases. Takara Building Adventure thus is one of the earliest adventure games in Japanese, but it was not generally available... ...until today. Includes some unexpected history! bluerenga.blog/2025/10/29/t...

#TheTwen2ie5 Honourable Mention 5 Little Simz - Introvert (2021, UK) youtu.be/hxfGQ2AJHGk?...

#TheTwen2ie5 Honourable Mention 4 Mitski - My Love Mine All Mine (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx4k...

Forever charmed by Monkey Island II's iMUSE implementation, Lucasfilm/Arts' sound engine for smoothly and naturally transitioning from the musical beats and moods of one screen to another. It's something you lose out on in the CD audio based re-releases of this, Dark Forces, and X-Wing/Tie Fighter.

Come watch my very long video about Taito games on the PS1, every single one in fact! Can you believe how much Bub and Bob you're about to see? Bubble Dragon fans come through! A Look at EVERY Taito PS1 Game is out now!!! Likes and shares greatly appreciated as always <3 youtu.be/DtAKHQhVV98?...

I’ve really enjoyed Iain’s deeply researched pieces, full of historical context, and glad for their specifically British focus. If you like a proper breadth of video game history his work has rapidly become essential!

#TheTwen2ie5 Honourable Mention 3 Parannoul - Insomnia (2022, Korea) www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uoq...

Over the last two months on my blog, I've written about the history of each of the nine computer games to reach #1 in UK sales charts during 1985. Here is a thread with links to those posts, plus one thing I learned for each of them www.superchartisland.com

"A rushed game is forever bad, but a delayed game is really boring" - Tony Pomfret

Over the last two months on my blog, I've written about the history of each of the nine computer games to reach #1 in UK sales charts during 1985. Here is a thread with links to those posts, plus one thing I learned for each of them www.superchartisland.com

Super Metroid's music is crucial to the game's unsettling, hostile atmosphere--and especially the way that soundtrack uses silence, @midimyers.com writes. www.endlessmode.com/video-games/...

This week: 31 terrifying picks on haunted houses, costumes, Blue Prince, cozy games, friction, media literacy, and much, much more: critical-distance.com/2025/10/26/o...

#TheTwen2ie5 Honourable Mention 2 Japanese Breakfast - Be Sweet (2021, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zfc...

LIE DOWN ON SAND TO MANIPULATE RNG IS BONKERS what an insane video

#TheTwen2ie5 Honourable Mention 1 Austra - Anywayz (2020, Canada) www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlcq...

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 25 BONUS - 11 points Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlPN... "You wish you were special but you're a creep" is a terrific chorus concept and the way the song builds up momentum is awesome

ICYMI, my post this week was on 1985's Christmas #1, Ocean's official game of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II. Read about: - the biro scrawls of Rambo, trees and weapons that went into planning it - another memorable soundtrack - how Ocean advertised a game they didn't end up releasing (again)

Listening to the last song on the new Tame Impala album and someone has definitely been listening to "Somewhere Near Marseilles"

ICYMI, my post this week was on 1985's Christmas #1, Ocean's official game of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II. Read about: - the biro scrawls of Rambo, trees and weapons that went into planning it - another memorable soundtrack - how Ocean advertised a game they didn't end up releasing (again)

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 24 The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters (2023, UK) www.youtube.com/watch?v=pETz... The Hot Puppies revival starts here

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 23 Yoasobi - Idol (2023, Japan) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRtd... A baroque pop song for an anime about a troubled pop star, which hits with intense outsized energy and outgrew its context entirely (620 million views!)

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 22 PinkPantheress ft. Ice Spice - Boy's a Liar Pt. 2 (2023, UK/USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofto... Surely the song to have inspired the most other songs on my list, and no wonder. It's so full of pleasurable sounds.

👨‍💻 Really enjoyed the narrative through-line here, with opening references to the OG ”First Blood” novel and deftly winding in the previous “Commando” article, which I recently read, connecting the two pieces into a larger whole. 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 21 Caroline Rose - Miami (2023, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mqV... Cathartic break-up song with peak quiet/loud dynamics to go with its raw/knowing spiral

When Ocean lost out on the home computer rights to Commando, they came up with a very Ocean solution. It was to make essentially the same game with a movie licence, and it worked. New post on Rambo: First Blood Part II for the Spectrum and C64: www.superchartisland.com/rambo-first-blood-part-ii

When Ocean lost out on the home computer rights to Commando, they came up with a very Ocean solution. It was to make essentially the same game with a movie licence, and it worked. New post on Rambo: First Blood Part II for the Spectrum and C64: www.superchartisland.com/rambo-first-blood-part-ii

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 20 Raye ft. 070 Shake - Escapism (2022, UK/USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dll6... A night out as an emotional and musical odyssey. And a #1 hit!

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 19 Sobs - Friday Night (2025*, Singapore) www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yNe... Sparkling power-pop about a bad Friday, elevated further by a sugar rush electro coda. *2025 single but posting sooner because it's from a 2022 album

Happy to report that even in the 23rd Century music CDs, music shops, Yuna, and the Glorious Hudson Bee are still a thing:

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 18 Perfume - Spinning World (2022, Japan) www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27F... Pop group of the century bring the Casino Night Zone funk

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 17 Sudan Archives - Selfish Soul (2022, USA) www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaY8... Relentlessly inventive assertion of self, powerful and fun