If I had to guess at what time computers "became boring", then I'd say it's probably the moment when fixed-specs 8- and 16-bit home computers got replaced with easily-upgradable "IBM compatibles" and when multitasking became a common thing. (I was born after that, so what follows below may not be 100% accurate.)

On a computer like a C64 or a Speccy, the software developer has access to all of the hardware directly, and can easily grasp what it can do. There's no other tasks to care about, no chance to screw things up that can't be fixed by turning the machine off and on again, and since typically each program was stored on its own disk or tape, there was way less opportunity for viruses or malware to spread.

The operating system, and any piece of software, were small and simple enough that a single developer or a small team can disassemble them and figure out all the functionality in a reasonable amount of time.

Multitasking environments (as well as the ability to easily upgrade) have made everything a lot riskier. You can no longer directly access the hardware (or even be 100% certain that a specific piece of hardware exists), so drivers and APIs were necessary. Everything is stored on a single disk, so now there's way more opportunity for malware to screw things up. The internet made things even more risky, since now a computer also has to be protected from before-impossible threats as well. (Though I think the internet is a still good thing.) And with higher and higher expectations (supporting various types of hardware, kinds of computers, methods of control, etc.), software has grown to a size where trying to make a zero-vulnerability program is not just very hard, but impossible.

This means more security measures (which adds extra complexity), more limitations on what the user or the developer can do, and a way stricter approach to things in general.

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Originally posted by rokken

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Just played the first zone of a hack that fixes a few issues in Somari and replaces him with Sonic. Even the patches don't help it become fun. The enemy placement is especially atrocious.

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The problem with Hummer Team's games is that they haven't figured out fractional pixel speed. It's okay enough with Aladdin, where the character basically has two movement speeds and that's okay. It's tolerable with Super Mario World. But trying to do a Sonic game where the character can only move at 1/2/3/4... pixels per frame is just awful.

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Originally posted by Kawaii-e

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Finally enough confidence to show myself ^^

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cutie confirmed!-


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The Columns III soundtrack. Has quite a bit of range for a simple puzzle game...

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gao

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Changed my layout a bit. The font is a bit larger, and the sidebar is now changed into a top-bar.

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"Valhalleluja" by Nanowar of Steel.

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After finding out that one of Doom's level designers, Sandy Petersen, has made transphobic comments on Twitter, I decided to, as a joke, make a wad that replaces all of his maps from Doom II with their Freedoom: Phase 2 equivalents.

Turns out, while his maps are frequently considered to be mediocre, he also made a lot of them (17 out of 32, actually, in DOOM II), including both the iconic MAP01 and the final MAP30.

Also, Freedoom doesn't just replace every single asset in Doom 1 and 2, but also has assets needed for WADs dependent on Final Doom (TNT and Plutonia's custom textures) and a bunch of its own additional ones (most notably, it has rotations for monster sprites that were missing in the Doom IWADs, and a bunch of its own textures). Thanks to DeuTex's testing tools, I was able to find and remove all the unneeded textures and leave a small WAD that only has the new maps and the textures required for these maps.

I also decided to make a new Sandy-less CREDIT picture that uses Freedoom fonts and assets.





Download: https://devurandom.xyz/doom/desandy.zip

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Freedoom is a pretty neat thing, even if some of its graphics and sounds are kinda meh.

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Ooh, neat! Given that it was sold alongside the Arduboy, I was expecting it to use the same 4-channel PSG thing that the Arduboy libraries provide...

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I didn't aim to imitate a 2000s design on my website, I was more trying to do my own thing, but I have a low-specs version that's supposed to be browsable on a Sega Dreamcast. (Which is also why I moved from Neocities to self-hosting -- Neocities forces HTTPS all the time, and none of the Dreamcast web browsers support it.)

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Been playing through Desert Golfing, tho I have to warn you, it spawns an impossible map and softlocks once you beat 10000 holes.

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Seems like it's an impressive find, and somebody is already writing the TCRF article on it!

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Originally posted by Kazinsal

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it is new layout day for me!

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Neat effect! I went with something way simpler, namely, mentioned the "Terminus" font among other monospaced fonts (it's really good for terminals on Linux), and made it so that bold and italic are rendered in different colors. (Kinda inspired by Phoenix Wright, I guess...)

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