Cookies N' Creme Oreos

Thank You Scientist

Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist is the gift that keeps on giving, and yesterday it introduced me to Thank You Scientist. This seven course dinner of a crossover prog rock band uses strings, saxophones, and brass to fill out their sound.

Source: Thank You Scientist via Spotify

RetroAchievements for Romhacks

RetroAchievements adds Xbox 360-style achievement hunting and leaderboards to thousands of classic games and romhacks. Uncommon games often have romhacks that work with RetroAchievements. Check Romhacking.net for patches you can apply with utilities like Floating IPS. I’ve already recommended Rockman 4 Minus Infinity but it also has RetroAchievements.

Dynamite Headdy delocalization by M.I.J.E.T. (RetroAchievements) The localization we got here removed most of the dialogue, added American pop culture references, and made the annoying tower boss fight four times as long. This fan translation doesn’t do any of that. Go collect those secret bonus points.

Pulseman translation by M.I.J.E.T. (RetroAchievements) My favorite game on Sega Channel had you build up static electricity and then discharge it to attack and move around. Most of the team that made it went on to make Pokémon Red and Blue.

Super Mario Land DX by toruzz (RetroAchievements) Also Super Mario Land 2 DX by toruzz (RetroAchievements) Super Mario Land is the first game I ever beat and a fine place to get started with romhacks. This turns Super Mario Land and its sequel into Game Boy Color games with some graphics redrawn for better visibility. The RetroAchievements add some nice challenges to keep things fresh.

Extra Mario Bros. by ATA (RetroAchievements) This romhack gives Mario a dose of Metroid-like exploration with collecting keys and permanent upgrades to reach new places. It’s still Super Mario Bros., so the screen only scrolls to the right.

Umihara Kawase translation by satsu (RetroAchievements) A new Umihara Kawase game just came out and I’m afraid to start it because I get hooked on these games for a long time. We’ve got a wedding to plan! The original game’s RetroAchievements keep track of every door and backpack you’ve reached, so try to get them all.

Source: RetroAchievements, Romhacking.net, and My Life in Gaming

Vadim Makhorov – Hong Kong Rooftopping at Night

No, this isn’t from a video game! This is a photo from a rooftop in Hong Kong’s Wanchai neighborhood overlooking Causeway Bay and Happy Valley. Rooftoppers Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov took several trips to Hong Kong scaling skyscrapers, taking pictures, and even hacking a huge billboard.

Source: 55.jpg via Hong Kong | ontheroofs and What's up Hong Kong? – YouTube via ontheroofs, both via TwistedSifter’s outstanding Picture of the Day feed, and information from comments on Vadim Makhorov’s Facebook

Automatic

Well, this is neat. For years, we’ve seen OBD-II scanners that can read Check Engine light codes from your car at home, but Automatic goes much further by working this into a smartphone app. Automatic constantly monitors your fuel consumption, speed, and trip data while you drive and offers up tips to improve your driving style and use less fuel. If it detects an accident, it can even call the authorities for you.

Source: Automatic – Your Smart Driving Assistant via Wired

Keiichi Matsuda – Hyper-Reality

Oh no, is this how augmented reality will end up? Graphic designer Keiichi Matsuda imagines Medellin, Colombia with a glitchy layer of graphics, apps, and ads covering it from top to bottom. These things are fine on my phone because they go away when I put my phone away. With augmented reality, there’s no escape.

Source: Hyper-Reality via TwistedSifter

My Pandora Radio Stations

Pandora is still the best at finding music that is musically similar to other tracks you like. With a little patience and a little luck, it’s possible to train Pandora to hit all the right notes. I listen to a lot of different music so I have a list of stations for whatever I feel like at the moment.

Metal Mash-Up – updated off and on since 2005 with all the kinds of metal I like Expert Mode – prog rock and guitar solos that would be difficult in Guitar Hero Fun – a catch-all for punk rock, nerd rock, electropop, and much more Electronic Skill – hard EDM and industrial you’d hear in frag videos Chippy Jams – chiptunes, game soundtracks, and other tracker-sounding music Sequencer Beats – DJ grooves and hip hop instrumentals for chillin’ and Marvel Lyrical Hip Hop – only real MCs and classics, no repetitive radio-friendly rap here Wheel of Pandora – randomly plays any genre on Pandora; use in shuffles! Hitstun’s QuickMix (autoplay) – all of the stations above shuffled together

I'm aware I've got a couple stations reversed in the bottom row. You know, I almost didn't put an image in this post, but it would have looked way out of place for a post to not have a featured image. My one extension that grabs YouTube video thumbnails probably would have put that Quake 3 video's preview image in there, but this post isn’t about Quake 3.

Source: Pandora Radio

PiNe – Runaway

Of course there's floating stuff. You know how long I've resisted posting all these "Floating Pine" images? This is as close as I'll let it get.

Source: PiNe – Runaway via Pixiv

Runaway

地球から家出したい

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity isn’t just the best romhack ever made. It’s superior to the NES Mega Man games in every way. Puresabe just released v1.00 a few days ago, and what it does to Mega Man 4 is ridiculous. This features redesigned stages, bosses, and weapons, tons of new music, autosaves, 8-way scrolling, difficulty options, a time attack, and multiple boss rush modes, and that’s just the start. JDetan and I call this the real Mega Man 4, and the other one just a beta.

It's a romhack, but I actually own a Famicom cartridge of this. It's only version v0.02, same as the video I linked above, but it has that delightful Engrish language setting. "This amplifies cruelty." "Ouch! Stop beating!" "Drills pierces everything." Sadly, this doesn't work on a Retron 5 or any other Famiclone; only a real Famicom can play it.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/rockman4mi/ via JDetan; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pEt_A_13es via browsing YouTube for a R4MI video that fights two secret bosses, even though it’s an old version; also my photo of the R4MI repro cart that I bought from Warp Zone

DemizuPosuka

It’s hard to keep up with people who post a lot. This maniac, DemizuPosuka, posts something new to pixiv three times a week. Each one looks like the cover of an indie comic book. I have no idea what most of these are called, even with Google Translate’s help.

Update: Whoa, Columbus’s resident Dr. Mario prodigy Katie provided translations in the Facebook comments. I didn’t expect that! Thank you!

Pretty sure I heard it’s around here somewhere…  (確かこのあたりと聞いたけれども)

I love it when stuff messes with gravity. Reverse gravity is fantasy enough that you'll never see it in real life, but simple enough that you can understand how things interact with it. Patema Inverted plays with reverse gravity non-stop. You should watch it.

Necessary evil and unnecessary conscience (必要悪といらない良心)

There's big cars, and then there's big enough to crush buildings and take a direct hit from the moon. NASA has that one colossal truck that carries rockets from the hangar to the launchpad. I think that's as close as we get.

What? We eating pumpkin again?! (「えっまたカボチャ食べるの」)

Here's a good desktop wallpaper. Animals and monsters, just chillin' and eating dinner. I'm cool with this. If this was a Mystery Dungeon game, that witch girl would have just picked a fight with the entire room.

10pm at an old book shop (古書店の午後十時)

Never under-estimate a pop-up book. Ashens reviewed one called Inside the Personal Computer that has a full desktop PC with a couple moving parts. I'd link to that video, but a link's title text can't have its own links. That would break the Internet. (But on Tumblr, I can link you to that Ashens video.)

Goodbye world (さよなら世界)

You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Sometimes things don't end well for DemizuPosuka's subjects. At least this one isn't about to be eaten by a monster.

Source: DemizuPosuka via PixivRss several times, translations from Katie on Facebook

Masahiro Ikariko – Theme of Solid Snake

30-Day Video Game Music Challenge (Super Hard Mode) Day 3: 8-Bit music From Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX2 + MSX-AUDIO, July 20, 1990)

Happy 30th anniversary to Metal Gear 2! Not to be confused with Metal Gear Solid 2, though this is where Metal Gear Solid’s famous sneaking mechanics came from.

Source: YouTube, challenge by OverClocked ReMix I think?, via NintendoCapriSun