Glad you enjoyed your vacation!

I'll be cleaning all weekend for inspection. I'm in the running for a new job, necessitating a home inspection. I'm glad I did some housework and tidying earlier.

I saw Monster Sanctuary was on sale at Humble, so I picked it up for me and the kids to play together. It is my first Game purchase since 2020!

Started playing GoNNER from itch.io. I only did about 30 mins of it so far during a flight but I liked it enough to leave it installed to play with later.

Going to a BBQ and Arcade thing on Saturday. The House of the Dead 2, Confidential Mission and Death Crimson OX are on the request so far. So I already loaded up my laptop with it and a few others are bringing older rail shooters. My group is moving away from VS stuff as that seems to be alienating the newer ppl in our circle.

At that same event we will be having some board games late at night. DC Comics Deck-Building Game: Teen Titans and Monopoly Game of Thrones Board Game, Star Fluxx and some other stuff will be available.

DNF Duel looks good but $49.99...and a Windows only game? I'll check wait to I play it at locals for free.

Yay! My favourite weekly thread!


I play Super Bomberman R Online often, so that's a given for this weekend, the same as it is on any other day.


That aside, my other pick for this weekend is something a bit Bomberman-adjacent but which also scratches my platforming itch - Battle Lode Runner, for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. It's adjacent because Hudson Soft opted to cross-promote their licensed 1984 port of Lode Runner for Nintendo's Famicom console by tying one of their original games to it the following year, which led to Bomberman and Lode Runner being kind of connected for several years, though this became a series of looser abstract references over time after licenses expired and both series went off in different directions.

Released in early 1993, at a point where the licensing still existed but the two series had become separate, Battle Lode Runner leans into the earlier connection, with Bomberman's brother Black Bomberman appearing as the villain (he wasn't an ally at that point in the series' history), and with the Runners' palettes in the single and multi-player modes mirroring those of Bomberman and several of his colour-coded siblings as they appear in the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Bomberman titles. It's a fun spin on both Lode Runner and the style of multi-player gameplay that Hudson Soft was so good at during that era.

Some places list this as a 2007 release, due to the fact that it didn't leave Japan until being released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service (where it was the first formerly-Japan-exclusive title to get its first-ever Western release via the service, thanks partly to this one being entirely in English). I haven't played it since back then and I never finished it at the time, so I'm looking forward to revisiting it!


As a side-note, my picks for last week were Donkey Kong Country 3 - Dixie Kong's Double Trouble for the SNES, and the excellent Bomberland homebrew for the Commodore 64 (which I've posted about previously because it's a free download that offers an emulator-wrapped Linux version), both of which I've since finished.

I have no other plans but gaming this time. It's too hot (we're due all-time-high temperatures in the UK this weekend and going into next week, to the point that there's a health-warning) and I'm not braving the day-star.

Last edited by Pengling on 16 July 2022 at 4:06 am UTC

I've been playing some Project Warlock, quite a fine game. Runs well via Proton and only cost me a whopping 2,53€. On my laptop I'd like to give a pixel adventure game a try, maybe The Dig a Lucasfilm games classic I missed back then. I've also stumbled across an adventure game that looks really fun over on itch.io: Powers in the Basement The author made an announcement on reddit and I'm intrigued by the nice pixel art.

I actually plan to go outside into the searing heat to do some walking and listening to my new audio book, In the garden of beasts by Erik Larson. My skin won't be happy about that. Well, the sun, not the audio book.

Last edited by sourpuz on 17 July 2022 at 12:11 pm UTC

Guess, I should update, the Spouse got Zelda breath of the wild as an end up summer thing. With storms all day. We've been talking turns watching everyone play. It's a lot of fun. Kinda giving me Morrowind or Daggerfall vibes.... But a lot cuter and the puzzles are better/existent.

Quoting: denyasisI'll be cleaning all weekend for inspection. I'm in the running for a new job, necessitating a home inspection. I'm glad I did some housework and tidying earlier.

Good luck on the new job!

Quoting: denyasisBut a lot cuter and the puzzles are better/existent.

I bounced off of Breath of the Wild, but I know a lot of people enjoyed it. My main take away is that they just made Zelda more annoying. Maybe it's better when shared and handed off between a group though.

Quoting: Arcadius-8606Started playing GoNNER from itch.io. I only did about 30 mins of it so far during a flight but I liked it enough to leave it installed to play with later.

Yo I love Gonner. In fact this spurred me to see if Gonner2 was out yet on Itch. Sadly it is not on Itch this time but it is on sale on GOG for $3. The sequel has Co-op if you're enjoying the first.

Quoting: sourpuzThe Dig a Lucasfilm games classic I missed back then.

Same, need to add that to my wishlist.

Quoting: PenglingI'm not braving the day-star.

Quoting: sourpuzMy skin won't be happy about that.

I encourage as much sun searing as possible in these summer months...unless it's just miserable. This weekend it's 80F but humidity is 70%.

I'll throw an update in too. Beat Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Fun game but if the remake (remaster?) is just a graphical and engine upgrade it might be a little bland. I'm also afraid of Ubisoft trying to make it Open World Assassin's Creed of Persia with a rewind mechanic. Also the rewind mechanic has not aged well and the ending was silly in a "We'll see you next week for more Prince of Persia adventures, don't touch that dial!" way. The enemy waves have not aged well either. Playing on normal you just grow tired of the same few types of enemies and challenge. Maybe Risk of Rain has spoiled me? Anyways I picked up the sequels at the same time so it's off to those...soon. I like to space out my plays for a series, I'm not as brave as Pengling.

I have also been playing Alwa's Awakening which is something I grabbed a few weeks back for $1 during a sale. Very challenging if you don't have patience some times. I'm loving it, awesome 8-bit adventure game (great music too). Metroidvania-esque map, but mostly straightforward action platformer. Otherwise I picked up Gonner2 and might restart my Resident Evil play through (never played before and want to restart to do better but also I'm afraid this game is kind of designed this way and I might have the same feeling later).

Quoting: PenglingBattle Lode Runner, for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16.

Always with the neat history. I may try to play this for nostalgia too. At least I'll have a trove of classics to page through in the future from these threads if GoL never goes down. I also have never played DKC3, but intended to find a cart for my Super Nintendo in the future.

Last edited by itscalledreality on 17 July 2022 at 7:48 pm UTC

Quoting: itscalledrealityAnyways I picked up the sequels at the same time so it's off to those...soon. I like to space out my plays for a series, I'm not as brave as Pengling.

Hehe, I'm just kind of a focussed sort - I tend to have a couple of "tentpole" games or series as a focus, and the other stuff that I play gets rotated around those. That's just how I've always played computer/video games.

Quoting: itscalledrealityand might restart my Resident Evil play through (never played before and want to restart to do better but also I'm afraid this game is kind of designed this way and I might have the same feeling later).

If you mean the originals (I don't know about the remakes), in spite of how the versions released outside of Japan had their difficulty ratcheted up due to fear of game-rentals, the idea was that you were meant to go for multiple playthroughs, since you get a rank at the end based on how you did and there are often multiple endings too.

Quoting: itscalledrealityAlways with the neat history. I may try to play this for nostalgia too.

I do love the TurboGrafx-16 - it's a pity that it didn't do as well outside of Japan as it deserved. Even worse, NEC were so focussed on trying to make it sell in the US, that they ignored the fact that people in the UK and Europe were absolutely clamouring for the thing - it had a HUGE import following here that was very openly covered (and even advertised) in the UK's multi-format magazines of the time. The PC Engine GT/TurboExpress handheld was such a popular import and was so well-covered that I was in my 20s before I realised that it never actually got an official release here!

I do sometimes wonder how things might've turned out for NEC if they hadn't ignored a market that actively wanted their products to the point of dealing with importing them, which was hyper-expensive to do back then.

Quoting: itscalledrealityI also have never played DKC3, but intended to find a cart for my Super Nintendo in the future.

It's weaker than the other two for sure (it was made by a somewhat different team during a console transition, so that's to be expected), but it's still worth a playthrough! It has issues with odd theming (there's a snowy mountain level in the first world, which is set around a warm tropical fish-filled lake and a sawmill, for example) and random difficulty-spikes (including cheap difficulty here and there, such as throwing something at you out of nowhere right before the end of a stage), but if you know about those going in it's still a good time if you like the first two. It's also got a bunch of really fun one-off stage ideas that never appeared elsewhere in the series, and those are worth seeing.

Last edited by Pengling on 18 July 2022 at 3:49 am UTC

Quoting: itscalledrealityGood luck on the new job!

Thanks! The inspection went well. I think they were impressed. Hopefully I'll hear in the next month or so if I move to the next phase!