Ahh yes, definitely. I should have said that isn’t strictly a traditional shmup. Bangai O definitely has many elements of shmups, but the level design and many of the mechanics are quite unique to it.

I actually played a bunch of that Star Wars vector arcade game at my local bowling alley. Yes, I am old…

Starfox never did it for me like Space Harrier. I’m not sure why. The primitive 3D maybe. Space Harrier creature design is just plain bizarre and intriguing.

I love Space Harrier. There are a handful of other third-person, on-rails shooters (Sin and Punishment), but nothing recent that I’m aware of.

Also, Bangai O on Nintendo DS is insanely fun. I can’t think of any other games where slowdown is a necessary mechanic.

Whoa! That’s crazy! I had no idea. I just tried to take a picture of the moon with my phone since someone told me my phone could do it. Hmm. I’ve taken a few. I should compare.

I’d be impressed considering I took that picture myself. I’m sure there’s some filter stuff going on that the camera app isn’t entirely transparent about, though.

I am not a Samsung fanboy by any means, but there’s no denying the cameras are fantastic: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4JwmReBsskSYNfzF9 was taken with a Galaxy s23 Ultra.

Oh ho. After some responses to this that Samsung was faking these, I went through some of my moon photos, and it certainly does look like there’s a little more than just filtering going on. I added two images that I took back-to-back to the album. You can see that in one, the phone didn’t recognize the moon as the moon because I didn’t get enough of it in frame. What is in the frame is completely washed out with little detail. The one where it did recognize it, the detail is almost absurd. Sheesh! Disappointing. I might just go third-party camera app. Who knows what this thing is doing to my pictures.

Pop quiz: four of the top five most anticipated games are Doom, Gears of War, Perfect Dark, and Assassin’s Creed: what year is it?

Getting Cicret Bracelet vibes from this one.

Ehh. What’s the average age around here? I’m guessing it wasn’t the youth that migrated from Reddit.

I’m (well, I like to think I’m) a very stable person, and it freaked me right out.

More people should code Csound. Doesn’t matter if you’re musically inclined or not. Just do it. Make weird noises. Have fun!

Yeah, I didn’t say I trust them to do it right, just that it could be done tastefully.

Good thing I haven’t bought a game from a big name studio since, uhh, does Elden Ring count?

Anyone remember the early Windows 10 update that booted back up with a black screen that said “Don’t Panic”?

That was the most panic inducing moment I’ve ever had with any PC.

If they’d just be smart about it. Make the ads in-game. Like a Nike poster on a wall or a can of Pepsi on a table or something. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Making them the entire focus - however brief - just makes me hate them immeasurably.

If I made 3 cents a stream, I’d have a quarter of a million…

Not sure I’d use one of the most iconic sexy lead singers in history as an example. No matter much how much he looks like shit now.

Yep.

Another one of my most popular tracks is an atonal hour-and-twenty-minutes of cubic spline curves, granular synthesis, and other assorted noises I programmed in Csound.

I’m in a similar boat, but I never feel fully satisfied to release a song (probably cuz I am a hobbyist and I suck lol).

There’s never a better time to put yourself out there! I resisted it for twenty years. My most “successful” release is one of my least polished tracks. I recorded it just out of university on a Pentium with a stolen microphone, pirated software, a freebie guitar, and a ZOOM 505. It’s got 4 million listens and is responsible for half my income. By comparison, I’ve released stuff that I think sounds like it was professionally recorded in a studio that no one listens to.