Flames flicker as the once mighty Orient Express lies on its side in pieces, bodies in cartoonishly thuggish costumes scattered all around. After a long three days full of murder, deception, concerts and romance, its final journey has come to a fiery end.

From the inferno, a single figure emerges in a scorched trench coat, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. He brushes off the coat with one hand and smoothly extends the other, and a solid gold bird swoops down from the sky to perch on it. Red flames flicker along its wings and back, but his sleeve remains perfectly untouched.

He walks away from the burning wreckage, arm still outstretched with gleaming golden bird atop it. Sunglasses descend from the sky and land squarely on his nose. A second smaller pair studded with jewels descends and lands on the bird's beak, managing to somehow look cool instead of ridiculous.

“Time to kick some Nazi ass,” the man declares, and the bird caws.

The train explodes behind them and the air reverberates with a “Yeeeaaaahhhh!”

Note: the above scene may not be 100% accurate or canon.

So concludes the first leg of the Colossal Game Adventure!

We hope you enjoyed your time aboard The Last Express. For anyone who missed the initial boarding period... Well uh, luckily this game involves rewinding time, so you can just rewind here to the Insert Cartridge topic when the train was intact. Feel free to post there if you're just starting the game, or you can post here after finishing even if you're only finding these topics months later.

That said, presumably most of you boarded earlier and had a chance to play the game. As such, this post will not require spoilers to be hidden in dropdown blocks. So if you don't want to be spoiled, please adjust your clock and rewind to the previous post.

Use this post to share final thoughts and impressions, post fun little secrets or easter eggs you found, ask questions if you had to abort your playthrough for whatever reason, link video clips, discuss if you completed any of the meta challenges, etc. Or you can share and express admiration for the very nice official Colossal Game Adventure splash screen made by @Boojum which I meant to link last time on "Press Start", but accidentally pasted the wrong link. I have since fixed it, but that was two nights ago so you probably haven't seen it. And dang it this splash screen is too awesome to go unappreciated!!

Otherwise, we can consider this leg of the journey to be complete. That said, the adventure is only just beginning! Wouldn't be a Colossal Game Adventure with only one game, now would it? You can find the current schedule here. Our next destination will be Chrono Trigger with @ali stepping up as the next host. As for me, my time as conductor has come to an end and I will be joining you all as passengers.

If you intend to continue this journey, you can just grab your luggage from the—uh... *glances at the flaming wreckage* ...Well hey, it'll be a little easier to travel without all that extra weight, right?

Onwards to Chrono Trigger!

THE END

> CONTINUE?

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like jimmy kimmel, captcha and balatro. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was a superfan.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

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!

Hi! I'm looking for some fun and interesting casual puzzle games. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are:

• Sudoku
• Nonogram - like the recent Every 5x5 Nonogram or Picross.
• Tetris - Apotris on GBA is great!
• A few from the Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
• Sokoban
• Catrap on Gameboy, a bit similar to Sokoban
• Dragonsweeper and Mamono Sweeper that people recommended here a while ago.
• Chip's Challenge - Lexy's Labyrinth is a browser-based reimplementation.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

Schedule

There was a three-way tie for 5th, so instead of scheduling the next 6 months, I scheduled 7. Bonus month!

@CannibalisticApple will be hosting her nomination, The Last Express, for our first month. If you're interested in hosting a month, see the Hosting section below.

Also, I selfishly scheduled PlayStation WHAT? during the Backlog Burner so I can use those games in my Bingo Card. :D

For the rest, I tried to create variety in the schedule so that we weren't playing the same systems or genres back-to-back.

Discussion Topics

Each month will have two discussion topics:

• "Insert Cartridge" - 1st of the month
• "Remove Cartridge" - 20th of the month

Insert Cartridge topics are primarily for getting the game set up and running. Remove Cartridge topics are primarily for reflecting on the game once you've played it. However, the game itself and anything else related to it can be discussed in either one.

Hosting

Each month, the discussion topics will be posted by a different "host" who will act as the emcee for that month.

Hosting is not required, but it is encouraged that people host months for games that they are either already very familiar with or that they are strongly interested in playing.

People who nominated a game will be given preference for hosting, otherwise it will be given to whomever claims it first.

If you would like to host a month, let me know which one and I will add you to the schedule.

Before your month begins, I will send you a "Hosting Package" featuring templates that you can edit to your liking.

If no one claims a month, I will host it as a fallback.

Voting Results

The top 6 games from the voting round were chosen to be played.

Of the remaining games:

• The top 50% will advance to the next round. They will start the next round with a base score of 70% of their vote totals.
• The bottom 50% will be removed from the list.

Removed games will be able to be re-nominated in future rounds if someone chooses to do so.

I'm wanting to automate a thing on my android phone.

I would like to activate and deactivate alarms based on calendar events (by keywords in their name or description).

Kind of an awkward title, but I'm talking about settings for your phone, your OS, your coffee maker, etc.

With all the tech in our lives, and with so many devices and software having quite a robust set of options for how they work, it's easy for us to not even know that something is available. How many cool things are we missing out on if we're just accepting the defaults?

So, what's a setting, on anything you have or use regularly, that you recommend to others?

What makes it so worthwhile?

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.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Baku City Circuit
September 19-21, 2025

Next race:

Singapore Grand Prix
Marina Bay Street Circuit
October 3-5, 2025

I’m calling a “sore thumb” lyric a bad line (or lines) in an otherwise good, well-written song. Something that sticks out like, well, a sore thumb.

It’s something that’s bad enough to be noteworthy, potentially even bad enough to ruin the entire song if it’s really potent. It is, of course, also entirely a matter of personal taste and preference. One person’s “sore thumb” lyric might be another person’s highlight.

Of note: it’s not a sore thumb lyric if you don’t like the song or think it’s poorly written in the first place. The point of the topic isn’t to highlight bad songwriting but to highlight misfires in otherwise good songwriting.

What are some examples of these lines in songs you like?

Explain why they stick out like a sore thumb for you personally.

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.

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?

Introduction

July, 1914. Paris.

Tensions are high all around the European continent. A long-growing discontent has reached a sharp peak not even a full month earlier with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In the midst of these ever-uneasy days, a young American doctor by the name of Robert Cath gets a sudden invitation from his best friend, urging him to join him on the now-legendary Orient Express.

As he boards the train, he cannot predict the chaos that will follow. Luxurious as the train may be, this will not be an idyllic trip, but the scene of a murder. Blood will be shed, conspiracies will unfold, secrets will be revealed and romance will have a chance to blossom. With the official beginning of the Great War only a matter of days away, he may be the last passenger to step aboard what will be...

The Last Express

Welcome everyone to the first month of the Colossal Game Adventure! I am sure most people reading this will know the details already given the activity on the setup threads. Just to reiterate though, the Colossal Gaming Adventure is a monthly event where we will be playing through older games together. While @kfwyre organized the voting and nomination phases, each month will have a different host. We have seven months' worth of games already scheduled through March 2026, and I have the honor of being the conductor for the inaugural round!

As you saw above, our first leg of this grand journey will have us board The Last Express, a 1997 adventure game about a mystery on the Orient Express. I myself have not played it yet and will be experiencing it for the first time with most people here, because this game seems to be the poster child for hidden gems. A game that received critical acclaim and praise from critics and players alike, and clearly a work with serious passion and effort, but according to Wikipedia it sold only 100,000 copies on its initial release.

Luckily for us, one of those 100,000 copies belongs to kfwyre, who brought it to my attention with this passionate recommendation back in May. That link has some mild spoilers for the very beginning of the game, so you may not want to read it, but here's the key takeaway that made this game so interesting: this game plays out in real time. As you explore the train, characters will go about their set routines and events will unfold off screen regardless of you being present to witness them. These events can set up unknown domino effects that will impact you, and your own choices can also have unforeseen consequences that won't come into play until much later.

To that end, don't be discouraged by failure. Many adventure games of this era rely on trial and error but in this game failure is particularly integrated into the gameplay. Someone might somehow get the luckiest run ever and manage to complete the game on their very first playthrough without ever encountering a fail state, but ultimately, this game will call for a bit of patience. And maybe guides if you have the original version or the hints don't help. Which I personally think is pretty neat. Doesn't get much more classic/retro than looking up walkthroughs on GameFAQs!

So all aboard The Last Express, and enjoy the ride.

Game Information

Versions: Original Release and DotEmu/Gold Edition. The DotEmu version is a re-release which has additional features such as hints and tutorials, which may make it easier.

Platforms: Windows, MacOS, MS-DOS, iOS, Android

Genre(s): Adventure, Mystery, Point-and-Click

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• GOG, Original: The original 1997 release, in all its 1990’s glory for purists. (Also may come with some extras like a soundtrack and "making of" from a 2011 Collector’s Edition published by DotEmu, but which is now wiped from the internet...?)
• Steam, Gold Edition: The remake/remaster released by DotEmu with added hints and tutorials, as well as interface tweaks. (Note: while it lists macOS, the game is 32-bit, which is unsupported by any macOS versions beyond 10.14 Mojave.) This version is on sale for only 11 more hours at the time of this topic being posted!! An extreme time crunch for sure, so if you see this message, now's the time to buy it!!
• iOS (Apple App Store) and Android (Google Play Store). These ports are also by DotEmu and predate the Gold Edition.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

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>

FAQ

With all the pleasantries out of the way...

> PRESS START

(Credit to @Boojum for the splash screen. It's too awesome not to include!)