What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
I was gifted a set of tarot cards last year, and found myself quite stunned at how well they seemed to work. The cards led me slowly toward witchcraft as a broader area of investigation and study, and I find myself quite keen to take on the mantle of “witch.”
That said, I have no earthly idea where to begin practising. There are no covens (that I am aware of) in my area to learn from, so I guess that means it’s books and online resources for me!
Are any of my fellow Tilderen witches? How did you get started, and what do you recommend I do as a complete beginner?
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
Hey, wanna listen to some tunes? throws a tape at your head, causing Out With The Old to play
Legends come in many forms. For some, it's charting unknown space in a wildly complicated ship. For others, it's carving their own path as a pirate on uncharted seas. And for many gamers, it's stopping every "big bad" you can think of: chaotic embodiments, pantheons of mythic gods, egocentric wizards, and so on.
But this month, we're not chasing cosmic threats or fantasy epics. We're hitting the skatepark to prove our mad boarding skills, with Tony Hawk himself as the centerpiece.
He's the same guy who landed the first-ever documented legendary 900° aerial spin in competition on June 27, 1999, popping it out of a half-pipe in a single leap. He'd later land two more 900s in the 2010s, get credited with inventing 88 named tricks, and appeared in countless videos, films, and TV shows, both as a skater and as himself.
Just ten days ago, the second and final day of Vert Alert, his own vertical skateboarding competition in Salt Lake City has wrapped up. That pedigree is exactly what backs the entire Tony Hawk's franchise, especially the first four Pro Skater games and the gloriously unhinged Underground series.
Pro Skater 1 took the bare-bones fundamentals of real-world skate tricking and mapped them onto a video game blueprint. Suddenly, you could chase mastery without wrecking your body through endless falls.
The core loop has you choose a skater and board from a roster, each with different tricks and stats that shape your playstyle. Then, drop into one of several skate parks to chain stunts for big scores and complete literal fetch-style goals within a tight time limit.
Our CGA Game of the Month, Pro Skater 2, expands and refines that foundation in almost every way, including:
The one big mechanical piece still missing? Reverts to chain aerials into each other. That wouldn't arrive until Pro Skater 3, and is finally addressed in the 2020 remake, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, which also folds in various gameplay tweaks from later entries up through Underground 1.
When I was a kid, I vaguely remember seeing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 everywhere: for sale and rent in every store, featured in strategy and tips magazines, and even in those massive Sears holiday catalogs. We also had friends who were always messing around on real skateboards.
All of that eventually convinced my brother to rent Pro Skater 3 on GameCube. We both took turns with it. We loved how addictive and technical the gameplay loop was, but we didn't end up buying it, or any of the sequels, because we assumed it would be a short, shallow experience that wouldn't stay relevant.
We were wrong.
In 2004, our parents bought us a PS2 copy of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 instead of renting. That game blew us away: twice as many intricate, unique levels, plus new gameplay elements layered on top of the already addictive core.
A few months later, I beat both Story and Classic modes, which unlocked a set of hidden characters. The most shocking (and hilarious) one is tied to a movie finally coming out in 2027, an icon of the 2000s both commercially and as a meme.
The fun didn't stop there. I accidentally discovered a bunch of out-of-bounds glitches thanks to weirdly programmed boundaries (the Los Angeles level sticks out in my mind; I loved those rebounding invisible walls I could endlessly jump off). I also managed to clip Player 1's position marker into odd places in Create-a-Goal mode. We felt like we were game developers, which might be what inspired my brother to pursue a career in the video game industry. Good times.
Fun fact: at one point, he even helped debug the then-upcoming Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5. Many of the bugs he found and documented still made it into the critically panned final release, because the game had to ship before the licensing deal between Activision and Tony Hawk expired at the end of 2015. And it barely had any development time… Yikes!
Regardless, I'm looking forward to trying the original PS1 version of Pro Skater 2 for this month's CGA, warts and all. It has the gameplay loop I know and love, and I can get over the fact that I can't walk off my skateboard anymore, something I haven't dealt with since beating American Sk8land on Nintendo DS over a decade ago.
Years of the release: 2000, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2020, 2021
Platforms: PS1, PC, GBC, Dreamcast, Mac OS, GBA, N64, Xbox, Windows Mobile, iPhone, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 1
Genre(s): Action, Sports
Links: Original - Mobygames, Original - Wikipedia
Windows - Mobygames
GBC - Mobygames
GBA - Mobygames
2x - Mobygames, 2x - Wikipedia
1 + 2 - Mobygames, 1 + 2 - Wikipedia
A brief overview at some of the versions:
PS1
Windows
Dreamcast
N64
Xbox (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x)
GBA
GBC
Where to find the game:
The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:
Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:
Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:
It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.
IMPORTANT: Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.
IMPORTANT: Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.
<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>
Spoiler text goes here.
</details>
Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) is Tildes' retro video game club.
Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!
Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.
What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!
It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.
No. Participation is open to all.
There is a Notification List that will get pinged each time a new topic goes up. If you would like to join that list, please PM u/kfwyre.
Each month will have a focus game or games that will guide our discussions. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. The philosophy of CGA is to play in a way that works for you!
This means:
If you have already played a game and want a different experience:
There is no wrong way to participate in CGA, and every different way someone participates will make for more interesting discussions.
Each month the Insert Cartidge topic will be posted on the 1st, while the Remove Cartridge topic will be posted on the 20th.
Nomination and voting topics will happen in March and September (every 6 months).
Schedules are also posted then.
All CGA topics are available using the colossal game adventure tag.
Inserting and removing cartridges are our retro metaphor for starting and stopping a given game or games.
The Insert Cartridge topic happens at the beginning of the month and is primarily about getting the game up and running.
The Remove Cartridge topic happens toward the end of the month and is primarily about people reflecting on the game now that they've played it.
There are no hard restrictions on what has to go in either topic, and each can be used to discuss the game, post updates, ask questions, etc.
Without further ado, let's hit the parks and go buck wild with tricks and stunts!
(Credit to @Boojum for the splash screen. Still rock-and-rolling after a year!)
This is the eighth Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-eighth overall. We are discussing Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. At the end of September we will discuss Dr. No by Ian Fleming.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.
Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 26.2)
Verification site: https://tildes.nore.gg
BlueMap: https://tildes.nore.gg/map/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC
Plugins:
/co inspect)The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.
We recommend you install our mod web-chat so that you can chat while in your web browser. It turns the server into an old-school chat room.
We all know the big-name ones: Dune, 1984, The Martian Chronicles, etc.
What are some sci-fi books that you loved that you never hear about or that won't be making those top-of-all-time lists?
Why do they stand out to you?
What do they do well?
Why do you think they didn't get wider appreciation?
I don't normally give my own examples for my own questions, but for this one I think it'll help with clarity for what I'm trying to get at:
I mentioned recently that we're in a golden age of N64 decompilations/recompilations with several high-profile games getting releases that make them run on modern machines with huge quality of life upgrades, and many more in the works (one for Extreme-G just came out two days ago).
I know that, with everything going on seemingly everywhere in the world right now, it can be difficult to think of things in terms of abundance and prosperity, but I also think there's a lot of it around if we look for it, especially in niche corners.
(Cross-ref: INSERT CARTRIDGE topic)
Thanks to everyone who joined me on playing A Link to the Past this month!
Whether you were playing it very first time or the twentieth time, and whether you were playing vanilla, randomized, or multiplayer randomized (!), I hope you had a good time. I definitely look forward to hearing about everyone's experience, e.g.:
(Personally, I had a blast trying the randomizer for the first time, with oddities like getting the flute for fast travel in the first two minutes while going without a shield for several dungeons, not to mention seeing the quirky changed dialogue and trying to get faster at my runs. I'll definitely be playing the randomizer more in the future.)
Next month, we'll be taking a break from our recent sword-and-sorcery run (Castlevania -> Lufia 2 -> Zelda), with u/J-Chiptunator hosting Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 as the final game in this season of CGA.
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
The internet is loaded with clickbaity articles like these (note: I specifically made these up, so apologies if any sound interesting). They were already somewhat low effort content, but they've gotten far worse in the age of AI.
As such, I thought it might be cool if we could make our own hand-crafted, artisan, bespoke humanslop ones here. You know, for fun.
Be as serious or as nonsensical as you like. Be as generic ("top games of 2025") or as specific ("games that kfwyre spent more time setting up than playing") as you want. Create the video game listicle of your dreams, with as little or as much clickbaitiness as you like.
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
I'm attempting to make a font for a little kids book I'm working on and realized I don't know anything about the "theory" of font making. I feel like the choices I'm making aren't adequately reflecting the feeling I'm going for.
Has anyone attempted to make their own font? Are there any guides or materials you suggest looking at? If you're up for it I'd love if you could share it and talk about your process! Looking for a combination of guidance and inspiration!!
Cheers!
What I've had so far:
Yaeji - Waking Up Down (2020)
https://youtu.be/pNNf4I1dc_U
Diverseddie - Sparkling Clean (2020)
https://youtu.be/6UwAjJLxwMU
Game Changer Improv Karaoke - To-do List by The Supremes (2022)
https://youtu.be/z4uAd1g9BKs
Looking for more to make a playlist to keep myself entertained when doing tasks. No limits on genres or languages!
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
Linux has certainly come a long way, but it's also got room to grow.
Importantly, I ask this NOT to have people dunk on Linux or to start arguments about different aspects of it, but I do so to start a conversation about what could be better/smoother/easier. I love Linux and love that it just keeps getting better, day after day and year after year. The idea of highlighting where it could continue to grow in the future is exciting to me.
I love gaming and I love lots of different genres of games. Yet somehow I can’t get into gta. I’ve tried. I played it a couple of times. I looked at the extended gameplay reveal. Yet, it doesn’t seem to click.
Now that’s all perfectly fine. Not everyone has to like everything. But because it’s such a huge game in terms of people playing it, I am really curious.
Is there anyone here who does love playing gta? And do you mind sharing what you love about it?
I don’t want to argue or convince or be convinced. Just really interested in learning about your perspective!
Is it static, or does it change?
How does that feel to you?
How does it play out in your day-to-day life?
What thoughts do you have about rigidity/fluidity in general?
(As always, I'm using LGBT as an umbrella term here, so this question applies to anyone with minority gender, sexual, or romantic identities)
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
And why do you still keep it?
I've been assuming that this is fairly apparent since nothing significant has changed here in years now, but I suppose it's best to be explicit.
There is no intention to do anything like:
Or anything else of a similar level. The site has basically been in "minimum maintenance mode" for a long time, and I do not plan to start investing more time in it or otherwise trying to reinvigorate or reinvent it. I recognize that a lot of information and documentation on the site does not reflect this, but almost all of it was written aspirationally nearly 10 years ago, and those aspirations failed. To be clear, I definitely don't consider Tildes a failure—I'm proud and happy that we were able to create a small community that people (mostly) like being a part of. I enjoyed building it, and it's great that the community has managed to sustain itself for so long, but it's not the same as the goal that most of that writing had in mind. I should remove or update a lot of it, but there are very few new users and almost everyone here already knows how things work.
I'm certainly happy to continue keeping Tildes running while people want to keep hanging out here, but you should only do that if you are satisfied with the state of the site. If you are unhappy with Tildes' current functionality, structure, design, userbase, culture, or any other major aspect, you should probably look for a different community (or start one, anyone can!). You should not pin your hopes on any major changes happening here.