Boojum's recent activity

  1. Comment on The most important RPG nobody talks about (Ultima) in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    By the way, for anyone who enjoys the old Ultima games, let me highly recommend Moonring! It's a completely free-to-play* love letter to the old Ultima-type games from a solo dev, retro in style...

    By the way, for anyone who enjoys the old Ultima games, let me highly recommend Moonring!

    It's a completely free-to-play* love letter to the old Ultima-type games from a solo dev, retro in style but with some modern touches. The dev's stated goal was for it to basically feel like those games but as you think you remember them moreso than the way they actually were.

    * There's now a $5 DLC, a 100 floor mega-dungeon, that was added mainly to serve as a tip jar.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 voting topic in ~games

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    As of this moment, a bit more than half way through the voting period and now with the votes seemingly quiescent, here's how the current tally stands. Feel free to consider this if you haven't...

    As of this moment, a bit more than half way through the voting period and now with the votes seemingly quiescent, here's how the current tally stands. Feel free to consider this if you haven't voted yet or might want to adjust your vote. (C'monnnnn Ys Origin! :-)

    Edit: Updated to reflect current tallies as-of-this-edit

    Rank Game Roll. Votes Total
    #1 Mother 3 11 33 44 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #2 Spooky Mansion Adventures 4 33 37 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #3 Crystalis 10 21 31 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #4 The Genesis of Treasure 5 24 29 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #5 Back in a Flash 5 23 28 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #5 Resident Evil (REmake) 8 20 28 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #5 StarCraft 0 28 28 ⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    ―― ―― ↑ Winners ―― ↓ Rollovers ―― ―― ―― ―― ――
    #8 Sonic the 3D Hedgehog 0 26 26 ⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #8 The Grue That Binds 13 13 26 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #10 Another World 6 18 24 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #10 Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 8 16 24 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #12 Tetris 11 10 21 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #13 Descent 5 15 20 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    ―― ―― ↑ Rollovers ―― ↓ Cut ―― ―― ―― ―― ――
    #14 Ys Origin 0 17 17 ⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #15 Ratchet & Clank 0 15 15 ⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #16 Beneath a Steel Sky 4 6 10 ⬞⬞⬞⬞⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #17 Wizball 0 9 9 ⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝⬝
    #18 Donkey Kong 64 0 4 4 ⬝⬝⬝⬝
    6 votes

  3. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 voting topic in ~games

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link
    Another World (5) Crystalis (5) The Genesis of Treasure (5) Ys Origin (5)

    Another World (5)
    Crystalis (5)
    The Genesis of Treasure (5)
    Ys Origin (5)

  4. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 voting topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    There were three games built on the Napishtim Engine; Ys Origin was the third and last.

    There were three games built on the Napishtim Engine; Ys Origin was the third and last.

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 lobbying topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Yeah, Oath is a absolutely great game too, and I definitely considered it. But I did have a couple of reasons for picking Origin over it instead specifically for CGA purposes: Being so linear,...

    Yeah, Oath is a absolutely great game too, and I definitely considered it. But I did have a couple of reasons for picking Origin over it instead specifically for CGA purposes:

    • Being so linear, it's very easy to check your progress: just open your map and see how high you are in the tower. That way, if someone's just not feeling into the game, they can judge for themselves at what point they feel like they've given it an honest try. And for anyone who does want to finish, they'll have a pretty good idea how much of the game is left to go without needing to consult walkthroughs that might spoil things more than desired. If the map shows you as midway up the tower, yeah, it's probably pretty obvious that you're probably about midway through the game. (Sure, you can look at the Oath overworld map and see which parts you've been to and which you haven't but can guess you will be going to; but it's still not as direct.)
    • Multiple player characters with different play styles mean a bit better chance of someone from the CGA audience finding one they like. Go a couple of floors up and finding Yunica's smashing things up with her axe just isn't your thing? Start over try Hugo and see if you like machine-gunning demons better. The Adol games are a bit more one-note in that respect.
    • Since it's designed with the idea that you might do a run with each of the player characters, the total time for a run with each is considerably shorter than I recall the Adol games being. That means that someone could do a run with just one of them, get a satisfying ending, and decide they'd had their fill and move on with no regrets. Whereas they'd probably still working their way through Oath by that point.
    • And yes, Adol Christen the Red is a fantastic badass normal, unchosen one serial-heartbreaker protagonist who's weirdly unlucky on ships. And Dogi the Wall-Crusher is a great supporting character. But they've also had a lot of games and therefore accumulated backstory across the series. Whereas Origin as a distant prequel with mostly blank-slate characters should be, I think, easier for someone who hasn't played Ys before to jump right into.

    Basically, I was trying to consider it from the point of view of someone with limited time who might never have played an Ys game. And from that perspective, I think Origin might be the easier one to start with from that generation of Ys games. (I'll also confess that it was my first Falcom game and the one that got me hooked on the Ys series and Falcom in general - so at least for me, it did the trick!)

    Music? Yeah, Origin is great, but I'll hand it to Oath for an even better overall soundtrack. So many good ones there! (Probably my favorite complete soundtrack of the Ys series.)

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 lobbying topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    Ys Origin I'll reiterate what I said when nominating it: And I'll expand on that and add that I think it's a series that tends to get overshadowed by Zelda, but stands well on its own....

    Ys Origin

    I'll reiterate what I said when nominating it:

    A fun action-adventure RPG from 2006, now with modern ports on PC/Switch/PS4/PSV/XBO ($5 on Steam currently). Especially once the series went 3D, Ys makes for an interesting counterpoint to the Zelda series in that it's all about speed! It feels kind of like an arcade game meets Zelda in that it rewards you for aggressively chaining from one pack of enemies to the next and mowing them down as quickly as possible, while rocking out to up-tempo music and arcade-like sound effects.

    Origin is a nice entry point for the series in that it's a distant prequel, and it's relatively short and linear (so not too much of a commitment). You start at a base camp at the entrance to an enormous demonic tower and try to make your way through the different sections to the top. And if you finish early in the month, there are multiple playable characters, each with a very different play style and a slightly different story for their route.

    And I'll expand on that and add that I think it's a series that tends to get overshadowed by Zelda, but stands well on its own. Additionally, I think Ys Origin is perhaps the best entry point to the series: it's a fast and aggressive solo hack-and-slash dungeon crawl through a gigantic 25 floor demonic tower. There are NPCs and levels, typical of RPGs, yes, but it doesn't dwell too much on the dialogue, levels mainly just help you kill faster and more easily and survive longer (conversely, you can get away with underleveling if your reflexes are good), and you won't be spending much time on menu and equipment screens at all. With a fast and fluid core gameplay loop, I'd call it more of an arcade game in an ARPG's clothing, with an energetic sound track to match.

    A full run of it with a single character tends to clock in at about 10ish hours, so it's not a big time commitment and doesn't overstay its welcome. And there are three playable characters if you feel like you want still more (the third - whose run is canon - is revealed and unlocks after finishing with either of the first two).

    Speaking of the playable characters they all play rather differently. Of the initial two that you can choose from, Yunica is your classic melee character. She has no innate magical skill but she more than makes up for it with for it with grit, heart, and a giant battle axe:

    "I may be a mouse compared to you when it comes to enchantments... but I'm the buffest, meanest mouse you'll ever see!"

    The other initially unlocked character, Hugo, is a more enigmatic staff-wielding young mage. With a pair of magical orbs floating over his shoulders, his primary attack kind of looks like a dual plasma cannon (and on top of that he can charge up to melt things with a glorious pair of fiery twin death rays for a few seconds), making for a more ranged play style that feels almost more like a shoot 'em up.

    Anyway, here's a nice review, though - fair warning - it's quite spoilery.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 nominations topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    Nomination: Ys Origin A fun action-adventure RPG from 2006, now with modern ports on PC/Switch/PS4/PSV/XBO ($5 on Steam currently). Especially once the series went 3D, Ys makes for an interesting...

    Nomination: Ys Origin

    A fun action-adventure RPG from 2006, now with modern ports on PC/Switch/PS4/PSV/XBO ($5 on Steam currently). Especially once the series went 3D, Ys makes for an interesting counterpoint to the Zelda series in that it's all about speed! It feels kind of like an arcade game meets Zelda in that it rewards you for aggressively chaining from one pack of enemies to the next and mowing them down as quickly as possible, while rocking out to up-tempo music and arcade-like sound effects.

    Origin is a nice entry point for the series in that it's a distant prequel, and it's relatively short and linear (so not too much of a commitment). You start at a base camp at the entrance to an enormous demonic tower and try to make your way through the different sections to the top. And if you finish early in the month, there are multiple playable characters, each with a very different play style and a slightly different story for their route.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on What's a show you love that's from before your time? in ~tv

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Nick-at-Night fan? "That's the second biggest <X> I've ever seen!"

    Nick-at-Night fan?

    "That's the second biggest <X> I've ever seen!"

    1 vote

  9. Comment on That book you remember some details but can't recall the title in ~books

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I had one of those cases of a short story that I'd read in a sci-fi anthology as a kid, had always stuck in my mind, and than I had gone years without being able to find again. A couple months...

    I had one of those cases of a short story that I'd read in a sci-fi anthology as a kid, had always stuck in my mind, and than I had gone years without being able to find again. A couple months ago, I tried a free AI and it was able to find it for me. (It turned out to be Bubbles by David Brin.)

    They also helped me track down another lost anthologized short story that had stuck with me (The Short Ones by Raymond Banks).

    Say what you will of modern LLMs, but they are pretty good at this sort of thing.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    It gets better! By default on most systems, man just pipes the manual page through the less pager to do the actual viewing. The above tip about slash, N, and Shift-N is all less behavior. And you...

    It gets better! By default on most systems, man just pipes the manual page through the less pager to do the actual viewing. The above tip about slash, N, and Shift-N is all less behavior. And you can use less to view any file you like less filename.txt and get that ability to scroll around and search. Or pipe the output of some program to it: find ~ | less

    3 votes

  11. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Suppressing history and alias expansion Replying to my own post with some additional tips that just occurred to me. These two actually were ones that I'd gone many many years of using Unix/Linux...

    Suppressing history and alias expansion

    Replying to my own post with some additional tips that just occurred to me. These two actually were ones that I'd gone many many years of using Unix/Linux without knowing:

    • If you prepend a space before your command, it won't go into your shell history! Good for dangerous commands you don't want to accidentally redo, commands that involve a password or some confidential info, or giant multi-line commands that you don't want bloating the history, etc.
    • If you prepend a backslash before a command, it'll run it without expanding the alias. I have my ps command aliased as alias ps="ps -Heo pid,pcpu,user,rss:7,args" and so ps gives me the fancy aliased version, while \ps gives me the vanilla, unaliased version. Likewise, I have ls redefined with alias ls="ls --color=auto" and so \ls shows me the listing without colors.

    Extended globbing

    And some Zshell tricks that I'm fond of, if you have extended globbing on:

    • You can use <#-#> to match numerical ranges of numbers within filenames. E.g., IMG_<975-1025>.jpg
    • You can append some additional qualifiers in parenthesis to the ends of filenames in globs. These are the two I use the most, but there are many others for things like modification dates, m, and file sizes, L.
      • (/) matches only directories. E.g., *(/) is all subdirectories, *foo*(/) is all subdirectories with foo in their name, etc. Or I can do ls -d ~/*(/) to see a list of just the top-level directories in my home directory.
      • (.) matches only files (i.e., the opposite of the directory filter in most cases).
    • Double stars, **, can match a set of nested subdirectories, producing a recursive scan through an entire subdirectory hierarchy.
    • Oh, and this works in bash and many others too, but in case you didn't know, you can put a list of alternatives in braces: *.{jpg,png,gif,webp}.

    And of course you can combine them, e.g.: photos/year<2018-2022>/**/*vacation*(/) for a contrived example. That would match, say, a subdirectory named photos/year2021/boo/jum/eurovacation/. It's pretty much completely replaced my use of find, especially since it's both more concise and can be plopped right in the middle of a command.

    Shell syntax highlighting

    Oh, and one last one! A while back I discovered zsh-syntax-highlighting (zsh-syntax-highlighting package in Fedora) and added this to the bottom of my .zshrc:

    [ -f /usr/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh ] && source /usr/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh

    I'd been nervous that it might make my shell sluggish, but so far it's been great!

    2 votes

  12. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Hah! Clipboard sharing, huh? If you want to chain together some tips I've mentioned in this topic, you could always do wl-paste | qrencode -t ansi.

    Hah! Clipboard sharing, huh? If you want to chain together some tips I've mentioned in this topic, you could always do wl-paste | qrencode -t ansi.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I never use ! because it always feels a little dangerous to me. I don't want !r matching some rf -rm in my history. Instead, I prefer hitting Ctrl-R and typing some text to search my history,...

    I never use ! because it always feels a little dangerous to me. I don't want !r matching some rf -rm in my history. Instead, I prefer hitting Ctrl-R and typing some text to search my history, since it interactively shows me the matches (with additional taps of Ctrl-R to go further back in history until I find the match I want).

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    FWIW, Ctrl-t,k,y,a, and e there are all taken from Emacs.

    FWIW, Ctrl-t,k,y,a, and e there are all taken from Emacs.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    wl-copy and wl-paste for the equivalent on Linux (Wayland)! (Also works within WSL on Windows.)

    wl-copy and wl-paste for the equivalent on Linux (Wayland)! (Also works within WSL on Windows.)

    3 votes

  16. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I use this one all the time. I'll add that you can hit it multiple times to bring back your tabs in the reverse-order you closed them in (useful if you quickly close several tabs and change your...

    I use this one all the time. I'll add that you can hit it multiple times to bring back your tabs in the reverse-order you closed them in (useful if you quickly close several tabs and change your mind about one of them).

    5 votes

  17. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link
    Some of these may be well known, but just in case, in most editing applications and windows: Ctrl-Left / Ctrl-Right - move a whole word to the left or right Ctrl-Home / Ctrl-End - skip to start or...

    Some of these may be well known, but just in case, in most editing applications and windows:

    • Ctrl-Left / Ctrl-Right - move a whole word to the left or right
    • Ctrl-Home / Ctrl-End - skip to start or end of the document

    And most importantly: hold down Shift while tapping any of the other cursor motion keys or combos to start a text selection or change one. Then you can do Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C to cut or copy it, or Ctrl-V to replace it with a paste from the clipboard. Or just start typing to replace the selection with some whole new text.

    Oh, and here's a couple of other handy ones:

    • On Linux, you can generally do ifconfig to see your machines network address (usually local, right after where it says inet). Then, assuming you have Python installed, you can do python -m http.server 8000 to spin up a little webserver that just serves the contents of the current directory you started it. Go to another machine on your network, point a browser at http://a.b.c.d:8000/ (where a.b.c.d was the address that ifconfig showed, and note the http and not https), and you can easily direct copy files between machines over your network. Or use wget -r http://a.b.c.d:8000/ to batch download the contents of the directory. (On Android, I'll often use the Share option to send a few photos to Termux, then do the ifconfig/http.server trick in a Termux shell to locally serve them from my phone to my desktop over wifi.)
    • Want to quickly send a URL or other snippet of text from your computer to your phone? Install qrencode from your package manager and then run qrencode -t ansi https://tildes.net or such.
    11 votes

  18. Comment on What are your "how on earth did I not learn this sooner" tech moments? in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    And in apps where those work, CTRL/CMD + X to cut. Hint: look at where X (cut), C (copy), and V (paste) are on a typical keyboard.

    And in apps where those work, CTRL/CMD + X to cut.

    Hint: look at where X (cut), C (copy), and V (paste) are on a typical keyboard.

    4 votes

  19. CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

    ~games Text 241 words
    Warning: this post may contain spoilers

    (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.:

    • How do you think it held up for a nearly 35 year old game?
    • How do you like this style vs. the newer franchise entries?
    • Would you likely play it again?
    • Did you 100% it and find every last heart piece for a full health bar?
    • Any particularly tough puzzles or fights that stood out to you?
    • Did you have to resort to any hints or guides?
    • If you did a randomizer, what was the craziest thing you encountered?
    • Who was your favorite NPC?

    (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.

    24 votes

  20. Comment on Who likes GTA? in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    Like you, I've personally never gotten into GTA. Thinking it over, I wonder if the issue for me is that it's just a little too close to everyday real life? I spend enough time driving around in...

    Like you, I've personally never gotten into GTA.

    Thinking it over, I wonder if the issue for me is that it's just a little too close to everyday real life? I spend enough time driving around in the city in which I live for real, and there's a significant enough level of drugs, crime, and violence here, as well as homelessness. People in my neighborhood living broken lives...

    I'm not against violence in games - I co-led a UT instagib CTF clan in my younger days, for Pete's sake! And I've played plenty of violent games. But as I mull it over, either all the violent games that I've played have either had fantastic settings, or on the occasion that they involve modern real-world mundane settings, it's abstracted out in some fashion. In general, I think one of the things I enjoy the most about video games beyond the challenge is the escapism, and GTA just looks a little too close to home for my tastes.

    Perhaps I'm missing out a great series by not bothering with GTA. But I'm sitting on a Steam backlog big enough to last me for years if not decades, so I'm not too worried about missing out.

    2 votes