We are up for another round of nominations for Colossal Game Adventure, Tildes' very own retro video game club!

These nominations will form the ballot for the next round of voting, in which will we choose the next SIX games to play after we finish Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 this month.

Nominations for CGA do not start fresh each time. We rollover the top 50% of nominations from the previous round, and we decay their vote totals by 70%. So, many of the previously nominated games are still eligible to win in the upcoming voting.

Procedural Details

• Nominations will be open for 96 hours (4 days) from the time of this posting.

• Anyone can nominate. You do not have to have previously taken part in CGA in order to participate.

• Anyone nominating in this topic will be added to the CGA notification list if they're not already on there (unless you request otherwise).

• There is no hard definition for "retro." Choose whatever you feel fits that label.

• Games that have been nominated in the past but were cut are still eligible for nomination again. They do not get "locked out" of CGA.

Nomination Process

Everyone has the ability to take one (and ONLY one) official action for the nominations topic.

EITHER: Boost a rolled-over title.

• This will add 3 points to the title's rollover points from the previous round.
• You will also be able to add points to the game during the voting round.
• The purpose of this is to limit new nominations if there are games already in the list that strongly interest you.

OR: Nominate a new title.

• This will add a new game/arcade special to the ballot.
• An Arcade Special is a group of shorter/smaller games meant to be played together.
• Any new title starts at 0 points.

Nomination Formatting

Please do the following:

Bold your action (boosting/nominating).

If nominating, please link to your title on MobyGames. (You do not need to do this for boosting since the links are already in the list.)

Examples:

Boosting a game:

• Boost: Lode Runner

Nominating a game:

• Nomination: Portal 2

Nominating an Arcade Special:

• Nomination: Windows in the 90s
  Minesweeper
  Chip's Challenge
  JezzBall

It is recommended (but not required) that you share why you are nominating/boosting a particular game as well.

Rollover Titles

(inspired by a deleted post. I'll respect the user and just make this a generic topic.)

What was the hardest part about growing up into an independent adult for you? Was there some advice or mental Eureka! moment that gave you a big boost?

Affordability and employment are at a crisis level for our youth these days. Want to share some hardships you experienced, or big hurdle you had to navigate out of, as a way to encourage others that things will get better?

Not necessarily new, could be old but you simply haven't watched before.

Simply curious about everyone's habits. Like for me, I know about the dedicated databases but in practice, I just stumble upon whatever the algorithm decides to show and if the art looks eye-catching I'll give it a shot.

I've only watched the 1995 movie before, so it was a pleasant surprise this closer adaptation turned out to be straight crime drama with dense political intrigues and social commentary. The world feels more detailed and not just backdrop for philosophical musing, and so the questions being raised are more multi-faceted.

A particular highlight for me is the child-trafficking /ghost dubbing subplot. Not only does it further blur the lines between artificial and organic intelligence, but does so in a way that put more emphasis on the ethical dimension and not leaving it abstract.

Another example is her court statement questioning whether her shooting the kid or whoever brainwashed him in the first place should be more responsible for his death. The philosophical question is whether the death of a person should be marked when their mind or their body ceased to function, but the context of this being a defense for police unlawful killing gave me second thoughts.

Major's more lively characterization here also makes for an interesting contrast especially regarding her final act. In the 1995 version, she was morose since the beginning and just generally passive overall, so I interpreted her merging with the Puppet Master as due to being coerced, or her not very attached to living to begin with and so this is akin to a suicide on her part.

However, this version of Major is sexually active and enjoys indulging in life many pleasures. Crucially, merging (which was heavily implied to be analogous to digital procreation) was her choice, which makes that final decision more as embracing the call to adventure and choosing to enjoy new experiences, hence more life affirming.

Most of the political conspiracies went over my head though so if anyone can help explaining that side of the plot to me that would be great.

First, thanks to Tildoes in the previous Graphene thread for being the push I needed to ditch stock Android. 90% of my experience with it has been positive.

Where I'm left with questions is about how the system impacts device performance, internet speed and the apps themselves.

1. I'm running a Pixel 7 and unable to determine whether delayed swipes, app load times or crashing is more of an old phone issue, that Graphene is still relatively new, or something else.

2. Internet speeds, even on a 1 Gbps home network or a wireless one can be intermittent, stuttery and slow. While the catastrophist/news reader in me defaults to incoming mobile network collapse, the obvious answer is something else. Do you have this issue with your Graphene install?

3. I've created a user account with Google Play and one without (I have Aurora store there), and despite installing MicroG via ReVanced Manager, some streaming apps still don't work. Some of those being ReVanced YouTube distros. Any suggestions? Is this just par for the course? (Edit* added Revanced, not Vanced)

While I'm comfortable booting former apps from Firefox shortcuts, I'm looking to. Learn whether there's an easier way to do this.

Also, please just share your Graphene journey. How do you like it?? Do you feel so cool now??

Thanks!

My parents are doing an interstate move in a few weeks, and I want to get them a gps tracker that they can put in a box to help them track their stuff. The main goal is to provide them their own data if they get into the situation where the carrier and the trucking company are blaming each other for not knowing where their stuff is.

Tracki, Ameriloc, and LandSeaAir seem to be the big names, but there's very little signal and not much independent information. Also a ton of products on amazon in the <$30 range that seem indistinguishable.

Even several hundred dollars in cost is not a deal breaker here, considering the issue of their stuff, but I didn't really find a clearly better expensive option.

Whatever I get, I also plan to get two airtags as backup. Maybe that's enough by itself, but I like the idea of having an active option, even though I know they could all fail for different reasons.

Has anyone used one, and if so, what was your experience? What would you recommend using or avoiding?

Moving right along myself.

Links with more information for anyone undecided: LibraryThing:StoryGraph

Content Warnings based on user submissions from StoryGraph.

Plot summary of the previous work in the series (From Russia, with Love) from Wikipedia.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Family league was foiled, so couple of us are just looking for randoms to help fill out a Yahoo league. There was a few members active on here during the season last year so figured there might be some interest.

Was originally thinking of solely a Tildes fantasy football league but don't think there's enough people for that lol

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?

Tildos, I have a problem.

So, my wife is a huge film buff. However, there is one movie that she had repeatedly rented from Hollywood Video sometime in the early 00's that she has been unable to recall or find, despite all advances in search engine technology.

This would be filed under the 'formative pre/early teen latchkey girl sexual awakening' moments. So she can't really remember much beyond the favorite sex scene, and even then details are scarce. Can crowdsourcing solve what 15+ years of searching has not?

Fragments discovered so far list:

• Not pornography. Probably legitimate film, not skinemax.
• Scifi/fantasy of some sort. Costumes described as "waterworldesq, but not waterworld."
• Scene probably takes place in a desert
• She is sleeping with some other dude's friend
• Missionary. He's loud, and at one point she bites his nipple.

I know. Not much to go one, especially since almost all remembered details highly overlap with porn results.

Other films that have already been well worn by this point:

• Tank Girl
• Waterworld
• The Fifth Element
• Barbarella

Edit: After 2 weeks, @myrrh solves our mystery

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.

I'm in the midst of wedding planning and would like to hear your experiences, as I have only been to one wedding.

I'm curious about if you've picked up on any unique considerations that went into the structural/event design as well as the emotional takeaway from attending the event:

What made that wedding distinct from the others?
What aspects of the wedding did you find thoughtful and memorable?
How did that wedding make you feel as a guest?
How do you want to feel as a guest at a wedding?

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.