The internet is filled with things. Here are some of them.
#games
2024
Human Revolution - Purity First2024 Sep 9
Thirteen years ago an ad was published to sell a video game called Deus Ex. But unlike most ads, this one is strangely prescient and uniquely horrifying, and feels only more and more so with each passing year.
Color Boop2024 Jul 21
From the same creator as the last post, poking around his website, I found this simple, fun, mesmerizing "Color Boop" game he created. You click on the screen to boop the colors. I'm currently on challenge 52.
Non-Euclidean Doom: what happens to a game when pi is not pi2024 May 29
Can a game rendering engine render a world where pi is not equal to 3.1415etc? Turns out, the answer is "sometimes." What does it look like? How do things interact when the shortest path between two objects is no longer a straight line?
The Space Quest II Master Disk Blunder2024 May 24
Or the time that Sierra On-Line accidentally sent their game engine source code to all their customers, back in 1988, and nobody realized until 2016.
here lies andy; peperony and chease2024 Apr 3
Oregon Trail is basically the most perfect game ever created. It's got a dramatic story (you're striking out west to make your fortune!) thrilling violence (characters break their bones and die of preventable diseases on the regular) and a gritty climax (caulking your wagon and floating it through The Dalles). It also lets you leave tombstones behind for members of your party who die along the trail. As in, permanently leave tombstones, so that any subsequent player of that copy of the game can visit and read that tombstone.
When, years later, someone ripped an Oregon Trail ROM and put it online, it included one such tombstone from a party member who passed early in the game, essentially guaranteeing that every single person who's played Oregon Trail in the last twenty years has encountered it. And what's on that tombstone is the most perfectly 90s thing ever: a horribly-spelled reference to a 1995 TV commercial for Tombstone frozen pizzas.
Ziggurat Vertigo2024 Mar 25
The reality-bending Ziggurat Vertigo level from 1996's Quake lives on as the most memorable environment from the game, and this linked article explains how it achieved this feat, showcasing what the groundbreaking engine was truly capable of and demonstrating how old-fashioned were Quake's competitors.
Mines of Titan2024 Mar 12
When I was a somewhere around ten years old (in 1992) a friend of mine's parents had some PCs set up at their house ostensibly for work – connected to printers that printed onto sheets of ruby – but also with early video games. At my house we had graphical games thanks to Nintendo and a Macintosh SE but nothing like the weird and imaginative DOS-based text-only/text-heavy games such as this one, the one I remember most fondly: Mines of Titan. You can now of course play all these games free in a web browser, although don't make the mistake of thinking that a game being old meaning that it is easy. I recommend using the walkthrough to get you started.
Happy 33rd Birthday, Lemmings!2024 Feb 16
Count me amongst those who fondly remember the hundreds of hours spent playing Lemmings as a kid. This linked article is just nostalgia, collecting art and clips and interviews and trivia. But what's so important about its 33rd birthday? That is left unexplained.
This Journalist Recreated Gran Turismo Photos in Real Life and Can’t Tell the Difference2024 Jan 26
This is an interesting take because while the headline claims the article's about photography, it's not. The author gets pensive about the ever-changing city and how different times of day make downtown Los Angeles into a completely different beast. It's a fascinating piece, really.
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games2023 Jul 10
Unlike movies, books, audio recordings, and pretty much everything else, video games once they pass from publication are no longer easy to experience. This places the vast majority video games ever made out of reach of almost everyone. As video games are undeniably a part of our culture, this blindness to the past damages us and should be corrected.
Roll or Don't2023 Jun 7
Another simple browser-based game, this one a game of chance and chicken based on rolling dice. Can you find a strategy for success?
Sedecordle2023 Jun 5
Wordle, but with 16 simultaneous words and 21 tries. Not as hard as it at first seems, once you get the hang of it. I like to start with the words "IMAGE" and "PROUD", although any two five-letter words with completely different letters are a strong start.
Battleships2023 Jun 1
This is a fun "mindless" puzzle game you can play right in your browser, a interesting diversion during what the author claims to be podcasts, but which we really know to be conference calls.
MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod2023 May 20
Every once in a while, video games are able to transcend into something far more than their reputation would ever predict. This video documents one such case, found in especially unlikely place – a mod for a 30-year-old first person shooter, Doom.
Thirteen years ago an ad was published to sell a video game called Deus Ex. But unlike most ads, this one is strangely prescient and uniquely horrifying, and feels only more and more so with each passing year.