Part of why Google has slowly ruined itself over time is, they just can't let a good service be.
Gmail's best form existed ten years ago. If they had just left it in maintenance mode, not completely unstaffed but with minimal new features, it'd still be great. There was also that whole Google+ thing, which the rest of Google *still* hasn't recovered from, first from having it shoehorned and integrated into all of it, then from having it ripped out. (Do we have the + operator back in Search?)

Watched a 1-credit playthrough of Total Carnage. (They finished on their last life!) It's an interesting game. I mean it's definitely not aged well in its depictions, although it's worth noting that its comedy depiction of war dates to the *first* Gulf War, long before 9/11. It wears the fact that it's a successor to Smash TV on its shoulder, including directly referring to it several times. "All Smash TV players should quit now and flee this machine."

Started playing Shiren the Wanderer on Switch. Oh god it's got Sokoban.

It's time for another late night game design brainstorm blather! This idea concerns splitting health into two types, which I call red hearts and blue hearts [thread] Red hearts are real health; if a character runs out, they die, and without magical aid they heal slowly.
Blue hearts are scratches, dents, flesh wounds in the like. They go away after a rest.

This is Slither Loop. The presentation is bare bones, but a lot of graphical flash would just get in the way. #NintendoSwitch The idea is to connect the dots in such a way so that you have only one loop, with no stray line segments. The numbers tell you how many line segments are adjacent to that space.

So, more thinking about my Zelda II-ish combat idea
- You create a character to play with. In the roguelike mode, if they die, they're dead (in career mode at least).
- You decide Strength, Endurance, Agility and Intelligence. Each affects multiple aspects of the character. Particularly, endurance increases mass, which slows you down, but is the only stat that increases health. Strength is the most generally useful, increasing mass, speed and stamina. Agility improves speed and control responsiveness. Intelligence improves responsiveness and luck.

So, I have yet to talk much about the book I have in the current Storybundle (storybundle.com/games), 8-Bit Obituaries. Here is a few words about it.
In the early days of the internet, a popular source of comedy was the Bad Nintendo Game. From seanbaby to Something Awful to the AVGN, many people could find common comedic ground on the awfulness of certain games. Now, I am not here to challenge their assessment so much, as to suggest that, SOME of these games DO contain a kernel of fun within them. Er, bad analogy.