I've wished for Arab-made games about Arab mythology for so long, and despite assisting on the project I still can't believe there's one swinging for the fences this hard. House of Hikmah is something very needed in a time where the world would rather erase us. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZTu...

Transfer Point is now available! It’s a point-and-click adventure game about regret, forgiveness, and email. It was made in World Builder, a Mac app from 1986. You can play it free in your web browser. InvisiClues are available if you need a hint! robotspacer.software/transfer-poi... #MARCHintosh

When I was in high school, I was roped into editing the lit mag since I knew how to type. So of course I abused my position and stuck in a poem about Thunder Force V

The Missing People (1982) was technically "published", but it only sold one copy. It was rescued quite recently by the author from an old disk. I give the history behind the author (who I was able to interview) and play through the game. bluerenga.blog/2026/03/22/t...

Packy & Marlon, an SNES mascot platformer where you learn about diabetes through the power of elephants www.hardcoregaming101.net/packy-marlon/

🎉 picoCAD 2 is out! 🥳 Model, texture, and animate - in a single lo-fi, easy to use package.  GIF, GLTF, OBJ, and sprite sheet export.  Available now on Steam and Itch! Check it out! picocad.net Thanks for boosting! ❤️ 🙏

Never mind that DLSS5 nonsense, if you wanna look at cool before/after comparisons of game art, I've got the website for you. samderboo.com/tracing.php

Hello @samderboo.com, this illustration of Kyotaro Nishimura looks like it's lifted from photo. I tried to find but failed and it's bugging the hell out of me. Please take a looksee if such source exits whenever you got completely nothing to do. Thank you!!

I fucking love my job. #sounddesign #gamedev

@samderboo.com Here's one for Tracing the Influence from Idol Hakkenden (NES): Larry King

"The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot" HELL. YES.

"Underrated butts of videogames" [🧵1] Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Ryūkenden/Shadow Warriors Tecmo, 1988, Arcade

Not video games turning players into payers since 1977.

Blind Alley No. 419

@samderboo.com Another potential one for the traces... the Japanese boxart for OG X-COM's PS1 port has what is probably a Rambo trace for the dude on the left, and I swear I've seen the middle dude's pose on something else, but I'm not sure specifically.

Shout out to whoever at Taito was a fan of Boris Vallejo I guess

Draw on the Game Boy and share direct to your phone with a #QRCode! No extra hardware and without the internet. QR-Paint is a small paint program for the #GameBoy with a fun way to export drawings. bbbbbr.itch.io/game-boy-qr-... #GBDK #RetroGaming #PixelArt #GameBoyColor

Sled on a Scarf [Banjo-Kazooie] figure made from paper (bristol paper, cardstock, & sketchbook paper) joints pinned with brass tube and rod automata mechanism and base made from brass rod & 3mm plywood

Our journey into platform adventures before Metroid continues. Can I get my fellow Americans to care about UK computer game history? (If you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded with some Japanese computer games soon.) youtu.be/orrewVQYqzc

And everyone can now read this piece on Softstar's Sword and Fairy 4, an admirably thoughtful RPG that dares to question and then challenge some important narrative pillars of the genre: kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com/2026/02/06/s...

Before being hired by Taito to Chase HQ & go for a kill time in Crime City, Tony Gibson & Raymond Broady starred in their own TV show 'Manhattan Vice', as advertised in Full Throttle

Oh hey. It's me. I'm back. I wanted to talk to all the devs who took the war chest from their popular games (and YouTube careers!) and turned it into a publishing studio to find out what they're doing differently and if its working out for them. Turns out...yeah seems like its going good!

For some reason this article on FDS diving/ghost boob/alien plot twist game Titanic Mystery is getting a lot of hits today! Here's a link - maybe you'll enjoy it too :) kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com/2023/03/31/t...

i really love Fritz Lang, and i rewatched 'Metropolis' and 'Frau im Mond' relatively recently and was overdue for some other revisitings. i'm currently watching 'Die Nibelungen' (1924). which... well if you're like me then 'Die Nibelungen' already has your hackles up.

Proposal for an unreleased simulation game for Famicom and PC Engine called Monkey Trainer / モンキー・トレーナー, dated April 1988. xcancel.com/studiohazuki...

🐴❤️

Oh, this look amazing! store.steampowered.com/app/4285930/... Not only it's a RPG set in modern-day India, exploring their folklore & myths, it's also made by a team of Indians who have a channel of animated videos on Asian history: www.youtube.com/channel/UCpZ...

With David Rosen's death, bad information about Sega as a company is starting to re-emerge across the internet. I will try to give a very condensed version of the Sega corporate shenanigans here as to clear some of the air. 🧵

Boy, I tell ya. #pixelart

Bonus for all Patrons - The Guide to Retro Anime, a 90 page preview of a book we've been working on for quite some time www.patreon.com/posts/147339...

Oh this page rules. The compositing work is great. I got one for you. This billboard in Jet Set Radio, which includes this earlier version in the files, which traces its inspo to this promo art for The New Batman Adventures. tcrf.net/Jet_Grind_Ra...

@samderboo.com Here's one for you, immediately clocked one. Maybe someone can pick out the other two? Source is a Rick Rude WCW promo photo from 1992.

Neat discovery by @downchasm.bsky.social: Homage(?) to Crosby, Stills & Nash in Fatal Fury's Duck King Stage #TracingTheInfluence samderboo.com/tracing.php?...

Here's a quick one cause I already had these guys lying around: Metal Morph for the SNES. Another one where the center figure is still a mystery. #TracingTheInfluence samderboo.com/tracing.php?...

There's this company called Domikey that makes exchangable keycaps and they have a design with a key labeled POOR GUY (no idea what the Chinese characters say)

For years I wondered what the dead boss in Monster Party for NES was meant to be. The manual says it's a giant spider. Except it's not. It looks like a lizard. Well, today I stumbled upon this: bogleech.com/halloween/ha... The 1980s Gegebo Majuu (ゲゲボ魔獣) toy figurines by Bandai.

Cowards demand games be given 100% exact translations even if it means all context & nuance is lost on a non-native audience I simply demand that Taito writes all video games

Entry no. 50 in the (new) #TracingTheInfluence database comes from the same publisher as yesterday's Thunder Boy and unsurprisingly goes back to the Frank Frazetta well. This one seems like it's painted a bit more free-handy though, at least with the female character. samderboo.com/tracing.php?...

Last night, I showed off the really impressive "G-Zero" for the #Sega Genesis, which featured Mode-7-like #SNES visuals Today, I want to show you another demo from 2022, with a similar goal. But this time for the #NES "Kart Racer '86" blackbirddev.itch.io/mariokart86 #retro #homebrew #retrogaming

Merry Christmas! If you'd like to spend 45 minutes celebrating video game history with me, we're about to debut The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System. I worked on his ALL YEAR, and I genuinely think it will reshape how we all think about the system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvp...

I also added a randomizer to the #TracingTheInfluence page now! Each time you open this link (or press the "Random pick" button), it takes you to a different entry: samderboo.com/tracing.php?...

Thunder Boy takes from a lot of different Frazetta paintings (and probably other sources) as well, but luckily for me a lot of them are repetitions of things I already cut out. #TracingTheInfluence samderboo.com/tracing.php?...

Getting nearer to unveiling my #pixelart secret santa piece for this year 🤫 In the meantime here's what 2022, 23 and 24 looked like!

New images for my Video Game Forklift Museum: Pit-Fighter (taking the spot of the oldest game on the list - wonder if I'll ever find an '80s forklift) and Cyberpunk 2077. samderboo.com/forklifts.php

Fuck you people. Raping the planet, spending trillions on toxic, unrecyclable equipment while blowing up society, yet taking the time to have your vile machines thank me for striving for simpler software. Just fuck you. Fuck you all. I can't remember the last time I was this angry.

This one took a while cause it combines so many Frazetta paintings across multiple screens, but my page for the fantasy strategy game Duel is up now: samderboo.com/tracing.php?... Only the guy in the center is from a Spanish mag called Cimoc - doubt that's the direct influence. #TracingTheInfluence

I think I'm gonna belt out screenshots like this one every time I catch wind of genre-name discourse on my feed, because y'all aren't ready for how *I* categorize my games

Terror at 20,000 Feet

Oh my, kinda major breakthrough on this: The guy getting hit, the kneeling woman and the guy getting lifted up on the Ikari III cover (two quotes down) are all from this black-and-white drawing by Frank Frazetta! Gonna make comparisons for #TracingTheInfluence when I have some time.

Dunno about the main poses here, but the guy getting his head kicked in to the left is a frequently imitated pose (pictured: Duel, center panel) and the kneeling woman at least also appears on the cover of Thunder Boy. Both are heavily associated with Frazetta, but I haven't found either original.