Out of nowhere, my nephew just asked, “Do you think Pavlov thought about feeding his dog every time he heard a bell ring?” and now I’m going to be haunted by this question Feeling a little existential dismay this morning to realize that he casually came up with better tweet material than anything I've managed post on here for nearly as long as he's been alive

April’s box art thread begins here with Jaleco and UPL’s Ninja-Kun: Majou no Bouken. While this game never made its way to the U.S., the arcade sequel was released here as Ninja-Kid. So this one’s title, I guess, could be translated as “Ninja-Kid: Adventure of the Devil Castle.” If the “Majou/Devil Castle” part of the name calls to mind Castlevania, well, don’t get your hopes up. This is a simpler, less interesting game—not quite a single-screen arcade title, but close. You play as a little ninja who has to leap up and down a mountainside.

New month, new box art thread. I'm gonna kick off this month with that Pac-Man box again, because it's so good. Look how happy he is. How can you not love this. How?? Are you made of stone? My god.

Previous threads:

Jan. |

https://twitter.com/gamespite/status/1345124484408373249

Feb. |

https://twitter.com/gamespite/status/1356265639720136705

Namco’s third Famicom release (you can tell by the number in the corner) was Xevious, a shooter that never picked up much traction in the U.S. Players loved it in Japan, though; it would be one of the single most widely imitated game concepts of the mid ‘80s over there.

New month, fresh box art thread:

I love Sega Flipper’s box art. It’s so vivid, spicing up a staid genre with visuals that capture the energetic flash of a real pinball table via crisp comic book-style art enhanced by some spot airbrushing for the reflective chrome of the ball. Just a stunning illustration. As for the game itself? Well, it’s OK. This was one of the earliest proper interpretations of pinball in video game form; before this, they tended to be more like shooters or Breakout clones (see: Namco’s Gee Bee). Sega Flipper is actual pinball.

Instagram's Twitter integration has become terrible (no doubt by design), so I guess I need to handle crossposts for my little 2021 project manually.

But anyway: I’m going to try posting the classic game sets I've photographed for Video Works daily here throughout the year. My project goes back to July 15, 1983 with the launch of Nintendo’s Famicom and Sega’s SG-1000 in Japan—the birth of the present-day games medium, for most intents and purposes. And what more appropriate lead off here than THE big game release that day: Nintendo’s Donkey Kong

I've continued my least-beloved Works project of all this week, with another episode looking at Sega's Game Gear. Now with 100% more bizarrely mis-marketed Wonder Boy games! The replies to this episode are making me feel a lot better about myself for not realizing the secret truth of Revenge of Drancon's actual identity until recently. Clearly I am not alone.

Looks like it’s time to resume... GUNDAUTUMN. Might rewatch the movies as a refresher before taking another crack at Zeta.

Also: Should I bother with ZZ/V/Unicorn? So, I’ve determined that Zeta Gundam is cursed. My Gundautumn effort last year stalled out midway through Zeta when I contracted a severe case of shingles, which got into my eye and would have blinded me if we hadn’t caught it in time. Once I recovered, I decided to switch tracks

Found some unexpected treasures Wow, these hand drawn dungeon maps have become fused into the glue binding of the Tron Bonne guide after 20 years

It’s been slow going, but we’re gradually phasing out the boring, default, light grey walls in our living spaces.

(The old stuff was called “agreeable grey,” which underscores the fact that it is truly the centrist Democrat of house paint.) I’m happy we waited until the arrival of autumn for this. It’s nice to be able to open the windows for ventilation without melting the furniture

Finally, a console that allows you to buzz in the guests at your front door

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1303152912000937986

“Welcome to Xbox, may I take your order?”

Got my flu shot this morning, which means being effectively dead for the next 48 hours in return for not being actually dead this winter. See you all once they roll the stone away from my tomb in a few days Each year, I envy Cat, whose reaction to the flu shot is that her skin is slightly tender around the injection point for a bit. Meanwhile, I'll be laid out, exhausted, with a temperature, for the rest of the week, contemplating the prospect of ripping off the arm they stuck me in

This year, my thoughts have been turning back a lot to the one police encounter I had in college. It was basically nothing, and I’d almost forgotten about it... which is precisely why I keep picking at the memory. It was nothing because I happened to be a white kid.

https://twitter.com/mike_hixenbaugh/status/1300071489799180290

One night I was driving home on a completely empty avenue through a pretty beaten-down part of the city. Suddenly a cop appeared several blocks back, turned on his lights, and came tearing up to pull behind me.

I stumbled across a cache of files from 2009 today, which I assumed had been deleted: Sketches for my abortive pre-Video Works project, which was going to be a series of illustrated A-Z blog-format reviews of NES games, featuring site mascots ToastyFrog and Yukiko. Here's 1943. Soon after I began developing this, I stumbled across Chrontendo and realized video was a much better format for this sort of thing. Of course, I had no video skills whatsoever, so I abandoned the project altogether.

3D Adventures of WorldRunner:

Playing Phantasy Star for the first time and why in GOD’S name is this flying eyeball called an Owl Bear Goddamn it, Phantasy Star

I’ve relocated my stereo setup to my home office until it’s safe to work daily from the actual office. But I have SO MUCH music to choose from I’m experiencing choice paralysis. So I’m coping the only way I know how: creating Content™ as I work my way down the shelf. Here we go: Anderson/Stolt: “The Invention of Knowledge”

Picked this up for the podcast. It’s fine? Jon Anderson doing his Jon Anderson thing while some kid does a respectable late-era Yes impersonation. Kind of... slides right off the brain.

I'm really excited to launch this week's @LimitedRunGames video feature. It's something I've been working on far longer than I've been with LRG, and was made possible with help and resources from @greenlitcontent: Games Behind The Games. The first episode: The premise of this one is pretty straightforward: Explore the inspirations behind great modern games by meeting with their creators and playing/discussing a classic game that helped influence their work.

Today is Virtual Boy's 25th anniversary, and I can think of no better way to celebrate than by rewatching by what is likely the world's most comprehensive retrospective series on the system's library (he said, tooting his own horn): youtube.com/playlist?list=… Oh, wait, I thought of a better way. I should set up my system and host a Gintendo stream tonight. Yeah.

Mr. Driller DrillLand is out today on Switch/Steam. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I had A Moment after downloading it—finally being able to play it in English, 18 years after its debut on GameCube, was amazing. I'm working on a full Video Works piece on it, but for now: This game is not what you might expect if you played the original PS1/GBC Mr. Driller. Yes, that gameplay is present, but it's one of half a dozen different modes that explore the core drilling mechanic in creative ways. I streamed an overview last month:

Seeing this reminded me of the time I pitched the idea a researching/writing/presenting a weekly import gaming mini-roundup for IGN and being told I'm not suited to on-camera work, so I could write the scripts but one of the more photogenic people would read it. That was neat.

https://twitter.com/Teanah/status/1275491588479672320

Just another reason to miss the 1UP Show (R.I.P., died too young). If you knew the topic at hand, the crew wanted you on camera. Man, woman, or (in my case) short nerd with bad fashion sense, it didn't matter so long as you could bring substance to the conversation.

People frequently ask me about my streaming/capture setup, so I'll be posting about all nonsensical contraptions I've put together to get, like, 5% superior quality to just emulating a bunch of stuff.

To start, here's the center section of my home office shelving. This shelving is actually purpose-built for me; @catnguyenphoto commissioned custom built-ins for the office, and I had my side of the shelving built specifically to house my gear. There's a large space for a 20" CRT, and all the shelves have feeder cutouts for cabling, etc.

As of this summer, I'll have been a professional video games writer for 20 years. Of course, most of my work no longer exists outside of the Internet Archive, including my first paid gig: web.archive.org/web/2000110916… It’s weird to think what a different reality I started in... one where content actually had value. Videogames.com offered me $1500 not to write a Chrono Cross guide—just to republish the one I had on GameFAQs. It felt so extravagant I rewrote the whole thing voluntarily