the insistence that we become reliant on AI as quickly and in as many areas as possible frequently reminds me of Stanislav Petrov, a man who prevented a catastrophe by looking at the output of a system (considered smarter than human beings!) insisting he initiate a nuclear response, and going "nah"

New WGBZ piece is about Meldac's redux of Heiankyo Alien, a game as historically significant as it is exciting. This has been my favorite discovery of this Game Boy journey thus far. Dig this. wackgameboy.zone/2026/02/16/h...

the game may be a bit dodgy performance-wise, but there is literally no part of High on Life 2 that hasn't impressed if not blown me away. strong recommendation once patches hit this game may legitimately be an all-timer for me, which is crazy because it's a sequel to fucking High on Life

hey do you want to see the coolest Game Boy doodad you almost certainly haven't used

for the 25th game I've covered on the zone, I completed...that game the weird kid in class owned? or was it your distant cousin? what was it called again? wackgameboy.zone/2026/02/13/t...

this is why I keep saying that the concept of a "gateway" game, ugly associations/implications aside, is ridiculous on its face and a bit insulting if someone's genuinely interested in learning a game for whatever reason? they're gonna learn that game! people are smart!

normal, well adjusted people: wow this year is amazing! nioh 3! DQ7! omeo is a dead man! new resi soon! me: hehehe high on life 2 in a day baybeeeee

post hot fire youtu.be/vXjHO6rc3s4?...

Today on the Wack Game Boy Zone it-oh. Ohhhhh no. No no no. Please, no. Why did you do this, Jaleco? wackgameboy.zone/2026/02/05/i...

New post on the WGBZ! It's Yakuman, a Mahjong implementation (yay!) that only plays 2p (boo!), and is still better than Battletoads. wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/30/y...

imagine being so odious that you managed to do tangible brand damage to the Dice Tower Kirk is a hilarious line in the sand bc it forces people like Sam to type sentences about how tasty boots are while they proceed to step on the rake again and again in full view of god and everyone

Play to Z announced an upcoming game and I can't help but suspect a significant amount of AI was involved between a cover with the game's own title spelled wrong, some wonky art, and a summary that looks like it was pasted directly out of GPT complete with emoji'd bullet points

FBC: Firebreak (@remedygames.com) recently had a free weekend on Steam, and our group enjoyed it so much that we bought 5 copies. I can't speak for how the game was on launch - I wasn't there! - but I can say that I'm excited to hit the showers with my coworkers again. pixeldie.com/2026/01/28/i...

A drum worth beating. However much the bottom may have fell out of funding games criticism and non-enthusiast coverage in general, it’s still important to recognize what separated the real deal outlets (firewalls between preview/news coverage and reviews, etc) and influencer coverage.

I recently saw an ex-reviewer for the Dice Tower state that he/they were releasing reviews based on individual plays of new games, as in they would play games exactly once and record if you ever doubted what the purpose of most board game coverage was, that should give you an indication!

New zone post! It's about Boxxle - pure, unadulterated Sokoban with a cover that'll give you nightmares. I kind of hate its guts! wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/26/b...

gonna pitch a movie about a young influencer struggling to find an audience and title it "Are You There Chat? It's Me, Margaret."

Pine Creek's pitch is my exact kind of thing - indie horror on the Game Boy! - but the execution fumbles at every step, particularly in the treatment of its subject matter. wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/22/p...

Click to remember the year's biggest unforced errors, stay for Microsoft getting deservedly dismantled.

New post on the zone! I played Castlevania: The Adventure, widely considered to be one of if not the worst 'Vanias Konami ever released. I can confirm that it's definitely not great! ...so why did I beat it twice? wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/19/c...

Got a double feature for y'all today. Don't thank me, these ports of Marble Madness play like comorbid diagnoses. At least we got a new solid floor for the list, right? It's not going to get worse? wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/16/m...

The Networks: Primetime (@gil.hova.net, @allplay.bsky.social) is a new edition of one of the very best drafting games. This season is sharper, wittier, faster, and fully deserving of a return to the limelight. pixeldie.com/2026/01/14/t...

Got a couple of pieces going up across different sites today! First is a new Wack Game Boy Zone entry for the excellent Revenge of the 'Gator. I should have known better than to doubt HAL Labs, they knew ball. wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/14/r...

if you can believe it, this cost me a whole $0!

huge W but also of course they did, if a single Tyranid had a spine out of place the fanbase would send a strike team to Nottingham

I'm officially qualified to talk about the silly Gator pinball game

New Game Boy writeup! It's Baseball! I try to grade launch titles on a curve, but that's hard when they feel like I'm running through soup. wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/11/b...

Meet'N'Handshake Kingdom

I don't think we give Capcom enough grief for giving MvC Infinite one of the most illegal-looking character select screens in all of fighting gamedom

New WGBZ piece, this time on the GB Battletoads that's a completely different game from its NES namesake. It's kind of a technical marvel for the time! I still can't stand Battletoads! wackgameboy.zone/2026/01/08/b...

appreciate the suggestion WordPress, but I think I'm good

you know what, this is as good an opportunity as any I have a new website! It's the Wack Game Boy Zone! I'll be talking and ranking Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, from black & green to brand new indie releases. I've got more pieces in the hopper for upload, but it's live now! wackgameboy.zone

every piece of music composed by Koichi Sugiyama. his work is inextricable from Dragon Quest and genuinely incredible, but that doesn't mean the dude's views were in any way defensible

Pixel Die has received numerous paid offers over the years ranging from invasive ad schemes to full on buyouts, not bc any of them care about our output, but purely bc we have decent viewer metrics and they want 'em nope! no thanks! I would sooner light what we've made ablaze than sign it over

pulled over at a traffic stop, the cop put this device in my hands and said I cannot leave until I hit a specific score in Zoop @weatherby.bsky.social help how do I Zoop hard enough

tired: n64 good wired: n64 bad inspired: n64 bad, and that's what makes it good

then: Killer 7, yes I was always like this now: look I stand by Killer 7 as probably the best thing Suda will ever make but there's an argument for Mario Superstar Baseball

normally I forget about Random Game Saturday, but I just finished boxing a ton of games to sell so why not show off one I'm keeping? Custom Robo V2! an incredibly cool battle system that I've enjoyed every iteration of. I should prob try the translation patch but I hear it's crash-prone

The Pixel Die 2025 best-ofs are up! I guarantee we've got some unexpected pulls here. We've reached a new record in our readership stats for another consecutive year and could not be more grateful. Looking forward to 2026, despite all good sense! pixeldie.com/2025/12/27/t...

play Dungeon Encounters you cowards! it's the best one of these in eons and you can get it for pennies

there is no ongoing series with a better sense of style than of the Devil

classy move by @pearacidicgames.com and @gumpyfunction.bsky.social making their game available in more places than its physical publisher hoping to see more indie game boy devs follow suit! it's an exciting space that deserves more positive coverage

me: haha it would be funny if I "reviewed" all of the OutRun games based entirely on how good their version of Magical Sound Shower is and posted them at the same time to flood people's feeds with OutRuns me a couple days later: why the fuck am I getting so many notifications

the upside of the unfortunate game boy news is I started playing one of @icemutt.bsky.social's childhood RPGs (Azure Dreams) and woah this is incredibly cool! part Mystery Dungeon, part Pokemon because of it was the 90s, part Dragon Warrior Monsters, all surprisingly compatible with each other

Related, we've been boycotting Xbox for several months and the only pre-scheduled Pixel Die article that's mentioned them since was updated accordingly. I've also signed the No Games for Genocide pledge today. I'd encourage other folks to read and consider their positions. nogamesforgenocide.com

seen some nostalgia discourse floating around the website I am broadly anti-"everything was better when I was younger" nostalgia, but I have sympathy for the "I liked the pre-internet landscape more" variant playing more indie games over stuff with battlepasses helps but it isn't a true fix

alright I've got a pitch for you a small, semi-regular game zine that's a collection of 1-page essays, but not reviews/previews the writer picks any game they please and produces the essay that essay is then given to an artist who produces a related/inspired piece for the second page

I was braced for the D&D freaks to get extremely upset at Divinity not coddling them with legions of sycophant NPCs telling them how cool and fuckable they are, but I was not prepared for them to be mad at Larian for entirely justifiable reasons before the game is even out

deleted the hardware ethics thread (though I stand by it) bc: 1) I was going off half-cocked and sleep deprived, I would like to write it better 2) I want to take the big dogs to task even more than the relatively small ops I noted I am going to say So Many Words about Microsoft and its ilk

I must amend my previous best-ofs on account of the Skate Story ost going absolutely ridiculous