Io Black

YouTube video by Sabin Balasa Animation Films Sabin Balasa - The Phoenix Bird (1968)

Marking the return of spooky season in my usual manner: by binging creeptacular Soviet Bloc animation.

Hearty congrats to our favorite Canuck comic compadres on reaching another big milestone! If you're not already a paid-up member of Team Sand, consider this your nudge to get with the program.

One unfortunate early adopter did a deep dive on this stinker. Turns out “550 pages packed with detailed writing” translates to ”endless, rambling personal anecdotes, swiped quotes, and a highly essential discussion about why Chrono Trigger is actually a Final Fantasy.” Three years well spent, guy.

My bad - it’s actually two beat-‘em-ups, so almost 10% of this totally comprehensive chronicle’s RPG coverage is devoted to two middling Capcom belt-scrollers with fantasy theming. Small wonder Mr. Mage is such a highly respected game researcher.

Not any more - he seems to have nuked his account as soon as people started pulling up the receipts on his past behavior.

As others point out, it's also pretty ballsy to call a book "The Definitive Book of SNES RPGs" when it only focuses on games released in the US - one of which is a beat-'em up.

Welp, looks like imAI now fully replicates the entirety of the human experience. We had a pretty good run, all things considered.

A complex figure of a mech wearing a cloak. It holds a heavy blade on a shoulder, and has a very thin and tall head accompanied by a tall shoulder pad. The other hand is held in front, and the pilot is sitting on it while poking out from under the mech's cloak.

View from the right side of the front. The cloak partially covering the pilot can be seen - sandy beige, with simple geometric patterns in red and blue. The pilot is dressed in fluffy blue clothes, and has a partially rolled cape over the shoulder, as well as a headscarf - both in yellowish beige.

View from the right side of the back. The blade rests on a simple metal shoulder. There are some trinkets hanging below.

View from the left side of the back. More trinkets, and more cape.

And now,, to something completely different: a 15mm scale mech inspired by Wares Blade.
#miniaturepainting #kitbash #15mmscale #inq28

I’ll admit, ”No Sympathy“ has been running a lot through my head these last nine months.

Happy TekDay, y’all.

Undersong, my Hollow Knight(?!)-inspired tabletop RPG, is out now on Itch and in a shockingly responsible move, I wrote about how it came about over on my blog:

hotline.roshirai.com/designer-dia...

If it turns out half as slick as Break!!, I'll be well pleased. Thanks for your support!

The final English rulebook will go even further than this: we're not just overhauling the original text for greater clarity, but also including rules, explanations, and errata that didn't make the cut back in '94, giving readers the best possible version of this under-the-radar classic.

The cover of Wares Blade: The Renewal RPG book, released in 1994. A group of adventurers in fantasy garb are assembled in a cluster in front of one of the game's signature Ryude mecha.

The LionWing release will be a more substantial animal than this, mind - The Renewal, the updated core rulebook we're using as the basis for our localization, pulled in a smörgåsbord of content from the RPG's myriad boxed sets, including literally hundreds of additional abilities.

While the English edition of Wares Blade is still deep in the vagaries of production, Entropic Dreams - for my money one of the best expat voices on analog gaming in Japan - just posted a nice breakdown of the original 1989 Starter Set.

I also find myself more inclined to buy something lean and focused I can work my way through in a few days, as opposed to some open-world chungus that expects you to spend 100 hours poking around for asinine collectibles. Boomer shooters are kind of ideal for this: blow stuff up, move on.

At this point, if something new and shiny hits or a title gets a tasty-looking discount, I just ask myself: am I excited enough about this game that I will play it the second I purchase it? If the answer isn't a clear "yes," then I move on. After all, the next discount's always around the corner.

100% with you on this one. I don't think I've engaged with any game released in either 2025 or 2024 simply because I've got a decade-plus of backlog left to crunch through. Sure, Baldur's Gate 3 and Expedition 33 look great, but I haven't even managed to get around to, say, Disco Elysium yet.

There are, though. The endless firehose of low-effort content being pumped out by AI sloperators and cynical grifters has absolutely tanked the user discovery process on many major content platforms and relentlessly crowds out legitimate creators.

YouTube video by Alex Newman X-Files 7x13b First person Shooter [Promo]

I dunno. I think there might be some competition down the line.

A final dose of Neurocracy for anybody already missing those weekly Omnipedia content drops - I know I am.

On the plus side, it did remind me that I still need to finish my Revision playthrough, so there's that.

Dibs on “flowing jave,” the best possible kind of jave.

The back of a jewel case containing a dodgy copy of Quake 3 Arena, declaring: “Quake 3 Arena sets new standards in PC gaiming with some of the man amazing graphics and hardcore multi-player action ever seen. With new power weapons along with some of the old classics, you can lay waste to the battlefield as you strive to be #1 Game Features: •Completely new graphics engine developed by ID Software using the intest technology to achieve both smooth and curved surfaces, realistic textures and enviromental effects such as for and flowing jave just to name a favaruot. * 3 Different player classes to choose from Light, Medium, and Heaven all with their own strengths and weakness including armor protection and player speed. * A deadly arsenal of weapons ranging from shotguns, to rocket launchers, lightning guns to flame throwers, and even the dreaded BFG. Choose the right weapon for the right situation, and you just migth survive. • A vast array of items to help you stay alive. With health kits and body armor to better shield you, along with the feared "Quad Damage", with which you can cause havok upon your faces. *State of the Art Enemy Intelligent Play against computer bots and if you have what it takes to defeat these deadly drones. * Full support for 3d Accelerators including 3dix: 3aNewt OpenGL at Direct 3d, however Quake 3 is optimized for the VooDoo 3 line of accelerator cards.”

I’ll ‘fess up - half of the reason I‘ve hung onto some of the less legitimate chunks of my game collection is to remind myself of a time when deranged, wildly inaccurate media summaries were the province of flesh-and-blood humans, not burning piles of VC cash.

YouTube video by Akuma Kira Lofi Lunacid - beats to relax/study to

I probably shouldn't forgo the chance to plug the soundtrack while I'm at it. Sparse and dreamy, it feels wholly at odds with Lunacid's dark fantasy leanings - and is all the better for it.

Save 30% on Lunacid on Steam Cast into the Great Well, unwanted by the world above. You delve the dark in search of the Old One, your last salvation. Lunacid is a dark fantasy dungeon crawler inspired by Shadow Tower and King’s F...

As it happens, the game's also currently running at 30% off on Steam for the next 25-odd hours.

Screenshot from Lunacid, showing a first-person perspective of a violet-tinged gothic hallway illuminated by massive glass windows. A red-eyed Vampire Thrall approaches the player, about to catch a faceful of sword.

Screenshot from Lunacid showing the character Daedalus, a ragged-looking gray-skinned man with an ornate blindfold, sitting on a carpet in the midst of a library. Stacks and shelves of books can be seen in the distance.

Screenshot from Lunacid showing a Centaur - a decayed-looking giraffe creature with two tendrils emerging from its shapeless head - squatting in the midst of a stone corridor, about to be properly smitten.

Screenshot from Lunacid showing Clive the friendly skeleton knocking back a few health potions at the local alchemist's bar.

Spent the weekend with Lunacid, @akumakira.bsky.social's vaporwave-tinged celebration of all things King's Field. It's a less punishing affair than your typical Soulslike, but neatly replicates From's blend of compelling exploration and cryptic puzzles while still finding room for its own quirks.

Very cool!

No prizes for guessing who authored all the future-Russia stuff in Seasons 1 and 2.

8 hours left and still going strong!

And that's a wrap on Season 3! A tad bittersweet to be closing out both of my big creative projects for the summer in the same week, but it's been a great run regardless.

Huge thanks to Joannes for letting me be a part of the Omnipedia team these past four years - it's an experience I'll treasure.