“Mail Order Monsters,” which came out in the 8-bit era (mine was C64). Basically, you started out with a “base monster,” like plant, insect, reptile, etc. Then you battled someone else’s. The winner got some money, which could be used to upgrade your monster with abilities, extra limbs, and so on. You could save your monster on a floppy disk and battle on someone else’s system.
My love affair ended when a friend figured out how to hack that data file on the floppy and make an invincible monster
Given the amount of videos on these games you’d think they were super popular and well known, but when they were brand new nobody knew about 'em. To this day, I rarely find anyone who actually played them when they were first launched on an actual DOS computer and not through GOG and DOSBox.
Even today, it’s rare that I run into people who know how awesome they are. They had it all; bitchin’ graphics, insane action, amazing FMV with actual acting and costumes… Other than the controls, they still hold up today.
As someone who back then experienced symbian java/java games on my father’ and brother’ phone, I partially agree. For some reason back in 2010-2012, here on Indonesia, cheap Symbian based phone are booming. You can buy a cheap symbian phone with preloaded mp3s and some java .jar games from local phone booth. For me personally I played those java games on my brother Nokia E63 (which is fun) or my father’ Sony Ericson phone (forgot which model). Java games solely responsible for me to discover Gameloft that made those knockoff mobile games (but fun given how simple it was back then).
EDIT: Perhaps due to difference how regional tecnoloical advancement back then but here earliest I got more modern phone was in 2013 when I got my own Lenovo A369i which running Android Jelly Bean. Learn myself how to root my phone to gain more of my system (back then I was first year of Middle School). Symbian phones was one of mobile era that I fond of because it was very close to my memory of being a kid.
On similar topic, Blackberry based phone was big here in Indonesia when most of higher class use Blackberry Messenger as form of chatting, never had myself a Blackberry due to how expensive they were on Indonesia
There was this PC FMV game back in the early 90’s where there’s this woman doing all kinds of things that gets herself killed and all you do is flip the right switches at the right time and enter 3 digit codes.
One of the earlier games I had on a CD-ROM. Back then it wasn’t a disc tray. You eject an entire disc jewelcase-like thing and put your cd inside the case and shove it back in like a floppy disk.
Core memory unlocked: My elementary school only had one caddy, so you had to take the disk out of the jewel case, pop it in the caddy, then pop that whole contraption into the disk drive.
There was this PC FMV game back in the early 90’s where there’s this woman doing all kinds of things that gets herself killed and all you do is flip the right switches at the right time and enter 3 digit codes.
Back in the heyday of flash videos and before youtube, there was a clerks spoof featuring marvel comics heroes that I remember as being enjoyable, clever, and ultimately just a good tribute/ripoff of the source material. I have no idea how to find that again.
Clonk rage was a game that I wished got a new one, it was basically lemmings x worms x teraria where you would gather resources and avoid danger while trying to kill all your opponents clonks… so many memories of playing it multiplayer… it got open sourced a while ago, (open clonk) if your interested
I’m still bummed that the band Splashdown was screwed over by the music industry. They were too jazz for pop fans and too pop for jazz fans but had an amazing sound and a brilliant vocalist in Melissa Kaplan. They released a couple EPs and a brief album (Stars & Garters) before their major label debut Blueshift was permanently shelved.
They posted a goodbye collection of demos & b-sides before dissolving into Universal Hall Pass, Freezepop, and Anarchy Club.
There’s also the Pine Salad Productions fan-dub of a few Dirty Pair and Macross episodes from the late-80s, I think? I had a 5th gen VHS of a few (“The Dirty Pair Does Dishes” was one). Insane dubs that were absurd and utterly unrelated to the actual plots or even characters. I thought they were hysterical when I was a young edgy person.
A friend found “remastered” versions a few years ago and…the humour has not aged well, to put it mildly. Watch at your own risk. Glad I’m no longer edgy I suppose.
I was literally thinking, splashdown would probably fit this threads theme well when I came to your post. I’m glad I’m not the only one who knows they existed.
The band is definitely greater than the sum of their (also exceptionally good) parts. I am saddened to hear about Adam’s health issues but selfishly delighted they’re back together and planning new releases.
When the band was dissolving after the Blueshift fiasco and Adam shut down the Castle Von Buhler label, I emailed him asking if there was any hope Blueshift would see the light of day. He apologised and said no. A week later, the Stars & Garters CD and a CD-R of Blueshift mysteriously landed in my mailbox. With no band, he had zero reason to pander to a fan base. He’s just a good person.
This is an odd one. Deep Africa is an episode from an obscure series called Inflated, which came out some 20 years ago. I remember someone at a party having a VHS of it.
It features blowup dolls as the main characters. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen it, probably hasn’t aged well, but I remember aspects of it being funny, if not absurd.
Music from two bands in the DC area from the 90s. Testicular Momentum and Scooter Trash. Searchs for these bands are more likely to turn up results for testicular torsion or scooter rentals in Washington than the bands.
Testicular Momentum is proper original industrial music from before Nine Inch Nails stole the name for a pop music sub genre.
Scooter Trash is hard rock. The kind of music that’s suitable for hearing if you’re drunk in a loud bar.
Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio. Try and grow a city-state by strategically distributing resources. Poor distribution results in death by famine, disease or invasion. Good distribution keep state growing and eventually become king to win the game. I played it on a Commodore PET.
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