kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion in ~games
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre (edited )LinkHere's my bingo card! I'm using the Form category list, with all of them checked (my backlog is big enough that I'm confident I can fill in any square no matter what I end up getting). I'm using a...Here's my bingo card! I'm using the
Formcategory list, with all of them checked (my backlog is big enough that I'm confident I can fill in any square no matter what I end up getting). I'm using a seeded card:This text is my cloud save.Mode: Custom Bingo! Finished 0/25 Indoor sports Exploration FPS Physics Battle royale Summer sports Fighting Bullet heaven 3D platformer Bullet hell Shop keeper Creature collector ★ Wildcard Runner Score attack City builder Time attack Mystery/investigation Time management Twin-stick shooter Base building Rhythm Typing Puzzle platformer Management I'm genuinely quite happy with this card! My main concern was slotting in the CGA games,
but 4 out of 5 are easy to get. There's a doubling up on Rhythm (PaRappa and Vib-Ribbon) and Runner (Vib-Ribbon and Pepsiman), but I can resolve those collisions by using the wildcard space.I'm wrong! 3 out of 5 are easy to slot, 1 can go to the wildcard, and 1 will have to surprise me with its genre.When I'm not playing CGA games this month, I'll be emulating console/handheld titles, selecting randomly from among Steam tags, and playing pre-installed non-Steam games I have in the form of GOG/Epic/freeware/abandonware games.
I'll also be almost exclusively targeting games that are beatable in under 5 hours. The fun of Backlog Burner for me is trying out lots of different games, rather than diving into one deeply, so I'm going for short games and the fun that I have with trying them out and hopping between them.
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Comment on November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion in ~games
kfwyre LinkPinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: the event has begun! Notification List @1338 @BeardyHat @CannibalisticApple @dannydotcafe @deathinactthree @Durinthal @J-Chiptunator...Pinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: the event has begun!
Notification List
@1338
@BeardyHat
@CannibalisticApple
@dannydotcafe
@deathinactthree
@Durinthal
@J-Chiptunator
@JCPhoenix
@knocklessmonster
@Pistos
@sotix
@sparksbet
@Wes
@ZeroGeeIf you would like to be removed from/added to the list, let me know either here or by PM.
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November 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion
The blaze has officially ignited! The November 2025 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play. Quicklink: Backlog Bingo Etiquette: It is fine to make...
The blaze has officially ignited!
The November 2025 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.
- Quicklink: Backlog Bingo
Etiquette:
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It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.
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It is also fine to respond to your own posts.
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If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.
Gameplay guidelines:
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Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.
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Playing Bingo is optional and not required.
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You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.
Backlog Burner FAQ
What exactly is the Backlog Burner?
Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.
It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.
You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.
How do I participate?
- Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
- Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.
That's it!
Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.
Do I need to finish the games that I play?
Nope! Not at all.
There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.
Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!
Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?
Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered
noise-- it's considered valuable participation in the event!
Backlog Bingo FAQ
Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.
I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?
If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the
Settingsbutton in the header to access your card settings. Then click theResetbutton, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.Where is my data stored?
All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on
wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.
What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?
In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.
In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill
You got it on sale,A solo-dev project, andHas romanceable charactersall at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.What is the star space in the middle?
That is the "wildcard" or "free space."
In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!
In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.
The new
Freelist defaults to having this space turned off. Because you already have full freedom in how you fill the squares, having a free space is redundant (though if you miss it or just like the aesthetics, you can certainly turn it back on!).Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?
Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!
If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!
11 votes -
Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
kfwyre Link ParentThose look great! Love the mix of colors and the shimmer.Those look great! Love the mix of colors and the shimmer.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure Schedule: September 2025 - March 2026 in ~games
kfwyre LinkShameless Cross-Promotion November's upcoming Arcade Special pairs perfectly with November's Backlog Burner event. If you're planning on playing the "PlayStation WHAT?" collection, consider making...Shameless Cross-Promotion
November's upcoming Arcade Special pairs perfectly with November's Backlog Burner event.
If you're planning on playing the "PlayStation WHAT?" collection, consider making a Bingo card or knocking some other games off your to-play list. We'd love to have any of you fine folks here join us over there for the month as well!
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
kfwyre Link ParentYou're under no obligation to post everything you've written. In fact, you don't even have to post ANYTHING you've written! Tildes is a privacy-respecting site, and that extends to Timasomo. It's...You're under no obligation to post everything you've written. In fact, you don't even have to post ANYTHING you've written! Tildes is a privacy-respecting site, and that extends to Timasomo. It's entirely up to you how much, if anything, you're willing to share. If you just want to talk about what you've written as your showcase piece, rather than share any writing directly, that's 100% fine.
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Comment on Every trans suicide is a murder by those in power in ~lgbt
kfwyre (edited )LinkThat goes for everyone here too. You are valued and appreciated, and there are many of us that feel that way.She closed with a simple plea to the packed audience: “Know that there are people in your community who are here for you and care about you.”
That goes for everyone here too. You are valued and appreciated, and there are many of us that feel that way.
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Comment on Announcing the Backlog Burner event for November 2025: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month! in ~games
kfwyre (edited )LinkI'll be playing Bingo once again, using the new Form list this time. Because I infamously deleted my card TWICE last year, I'll be using a seed for my card so I can regenerate if it needed. The...I'll be playing Bingo once again, using the new
Formlist this time.Because I infamously deleted my card TWICE last year, I'll be using a seed for my card so I can regenerate if it needed. The seed?
This text is my cloud save.If anyone wants to play the same card as me, feel free to use it too!
I have four different gaming fronts I plan to explore this month:
- Steam games that are 5 hours or less to beat
- Non-Steam games I have currently installed (freeware, stuff from GOG/Epic/Flathub, abandonware)
- VR games
- Emulated console games
I'm hoping to get a good mix of all of these on to my card this time around (a departure from May where I restricted myself to ENTIRELY Playdate games).
For the Steam games, I plan to use the DeckFilter app to randomly choose things by playtime (<5 hours) and genre for me. Nearly every time we've done a Backlog Burner, I've played a longer game that I've thoroughly enjoyed, but I've ended up setting it aside temporarily to play more games for the event and then never coming back to finish it. I figure the other 10 months of the year can be for longer games -- Backlog Burner is where I have fun trying out a lot of smaller ones.
The non-Steam games I have installed are a lot more limited than my rather expansive Steam library, so it'll really depend on which categories I get for my card and whether I have things that fit.
VR can also be a bit limited in terms of genre, so it's in a similar spot. I do have a decent amount of unplayed VR games though, so I don't think it'll be too hard to fit some in.
Finally, I set up a whole beautiful emulation frontier with RetroDECK, including PERSONALLY curated game collections for any console I have ever even considered playing. Do I regularly dive into this? Of course not! The fun of emulation is always in setting it up, right? That said, I'm hoping to turn the tide this Backlog Burner and get into a few, which will be very easy to do given that I'll also be playing CGA's "PlayStation WHAT?" collection this month.
As always, I'm incredibly excited for another Backlog Burner, and, as always, big thanks to my copilot @Wes who helps make this event awesome!
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Comment on CGA-2025-10 🕹️⏰ 🗺️ 🐸 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Chrono Trigger in ~games
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Comment on Announcing the Backlog Burner event for November 2025: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month! in ~games
kfwyre LinkHey May 2025 Backlog Burner participants! I'm pinging you to let you know that our November 2025 event is right around the corner. This is a one-time ping, as I'll be starting a new notification...Hey May 2025 Backlog Burner participants! I'm pinging you to let you know that our November 2025 event is right around the corner.
This is a one-time ping, as I'll be starting a new notification list for the new event with this topic. Anyone commenting in this topic will be added to the list. If you want to be included in the new notification list, simply comment in this topic or reply to this.
If you do not want to be included in the notification list for the event, you don't need to do anything.
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Announcing the Backlog Burner event for November 2025: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month!
It's almost time... ...for another Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason). The Backlog Burner for November 2025...
It's almost time...
...for another Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason).
The Backlog Burner for November 2025 will officially begin in two days on November 1st.
If you're new to the Backlog Burner, check out our previous events to get an idea of what's going on:
Backlog Bingo is back (of course) and better than ever!
If you participated last time, clear your old card and start fresh with a new one. If you're new to the event, click the link above to generate your card (if you want to -- playing a bingo card is NOT required to participate).
New Category List
We've got Flux for those of you that like to get specific with their cards.
We've got Flow for those of you that like a bit of wiggle room.
We've got Free for those of you that take the "anything goes" approach.And now, our newest addition: Form
This set is a list of genres, letting you fill your bingo card with
God game,Tactical RPG,Visual noveland 89 other choices! Go for the bingo of your choice, as long as your backlog has the game types to fulfill it...New Site Features
u/Wes, coding wizard that he is, has added some incredible new features to the site:
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AI Integration: Why rely on a boring set of predetermined, carefully curated, energy efficient categories when you can instead harness the unlimited cognitive power and water usage of an AI? Use Bingie, our new Bingo companion. It can not only set up a card to your liking, but it can actually play the games for you! Trained on millions of hours of League of Legends matches, Bingie is ready to smugly gloat when it wins for you and get shockingly, offensively salty when it loses. Why game yourself this month? Have Bingie do it for you.
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Blockchain Babies: Think Beanie Babies, but digital. No, even digitaler than that. We've decided to extend you an exclusive offer to join us on this journey. Just let us know how many Blockchain Babies we can put you down for. Our initial offer begins with a limited edition of our most popular baby: Doomscrolling Dolphin! You'd better rush if you still want to get in on the ground floor of this growing empire. Blockchain Babies: they put the fun in non-fungible.
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Deception: What do you do when the site is already beautifully functional and it doesn't need any updates? You lie about it in hopes of attracting investment money by using key buzzwords like "AI integration" and "blockchain." We've incorporated these lies directly into our changelog by leveraging cross-functional bandwidth to verify ecosystem stability and ensure stakeholder alignment. Our holistic ideation sessions empower dynamic pivoting and scalable content delivery to future-proof our market positioning while streamlining KPIs and deliverables.
Backlog Bingo: we blackout the competition.
In all seriousness, Wes didn't need to do much with the site because it's already pretty much perfect! No major updates this time, but everything from last time is still there. It's still wonderfully functional, and still completely private! All data is stored only on your device.
Of course, with that in mind, I'll be using another seeded card this time, on the off chance that I end up wiping my computer again.
Shameless Cross-Promotion
ATTENTION ALL CGA PARTICIPANTS: The Backlog Burner event and our Colossal Game Adventure are not only cross-compatible, they are in fact symbiotic. CGA puts games on your backlog; BB takes them away! Beautiful? Or devious...
This month CGA is having its first Arcade Special with a collection of five different PlayStation oddities.
Hmmm, five games all together? That seems like the perfect lineup for a Bingo (if you get lucky with your card, that is). It's almost like it's the perfect time for CGA folks to hop on the Backlog Burner train! :D
Notification List
If you are interested in participating in the Backlog Burner, please comment in this topic. Anyone commenting/replying here will automatically be added to a notification list for the Backlog Burner, unless you specify otherwise.
Start Planning (or Playing)
Technically the event starts in two days, so you have time to roll your cards (if you're playing Bingo) and plan out what you'd like to play for the month. That said, if you're eager to jump right in, and start early, I certainly won't stop you!
Let's get ready to burn through these backlogs!
Backlog Burner FAQ
What exactly is the Backlog Burner?
Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.
It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.
You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.
How do I participate?
- Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
- Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.
That's it!
Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.
Do I need to finish the games that I play?
Nope! Not at all.
There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.
Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!
Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?
Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered
noise-- it's considered valuable participation in the event!
Backlog Bingo FAQ
Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.
I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?
If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the
Settingsbutton in the header to access your card settings. Then click theResetbutton, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.Where is my data stored?
All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on
wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.
What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?
In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.
In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill
You got it on sale,A solo-dev project, andHas romanceable charactersall at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.What is the star space in the middle?
That is the "wildcard" or "free space."
In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!
In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.
The new
Freelist defaults to having this space turned off. Because you already have full freedom in how you fill the squares, having a free space is redundant (though if you miss it or just like the aesthetics, you can certainly turn it back on!).Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?
Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!
If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!
22 votes -
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
kfwyre Link ParentThe Showcase starts on the 5th, but it remains open! We’ve had people submit projects days and even weeks afterwards.The Showcase starts on the 5th, but it remains open! We’ve had people submit projects days and even weeks afterwards.
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Comment on CGA-2025-10 🕹️⏰ 🗺️ 🐸 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Chrono Trigger in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentHas too much Backlog Burner planning made us meld minds? Or did I travel back in time to plant the idea for this sentence in your head? Maybe the game really was made by a contemporary studio that...I almost made the exact same comment, word-for-word. It was in my first draft!
Has too much Backlog Burner planning made us meld minds? Or did I travel back in time to plant the idea for this sentence in your head? Maybe the game really was made by a contemporary studio that used the Epoch to then release it back in 1995. There are so many possibilities!
Also, I'm just now realizing that the perfect Remove Cartridge topic text for this would have been something that I could change each time someone posted a top-level comment to mimic the game's whole go-back-in-time-to-change-the-present motif.
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
kfwyre LinkI haven't been updating in these topics because I haven't had much to share, but I'm happy to report that I have now actually written some things! Nothing is finished yet, and I've got a lot more...I haven't been updating in these topics because I haven't had much to share, but I'm happy to report that I have now actually written some things! Nothing is finished yet, and I've got a lot more writing and editing to do, but I'll hopefully have a few blog posts to share when this is all done.
Also, now that I've finished Chrono Trigger for CGA I can really hone in. That plus being deadline motivated will hopefully make for a productive home stretch for me.
Good luck to everyone here! I haven't responded to nearly as many of everyone's posts as I would have liked to, but know that I've genuinely loved reading all your updates. We have some INCREDIBLE projects lined up this year!
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Comment on Timasomo 2025: Final Updates in ~creative.timasomo
kfwyre LinkPinging all Timasomo participants/conversationalists: here’s our last update topic. Next week is the Showcase! You will get one final ping from me when it goes live. Notification List @ali @Amarok...Pinging all Timasomo participants/conversationalists: here’s our last update topic. Next week is the Showcase! You will get one final ping from me when it goes live.
Notification List
@ali
@Amarok
@aphoenix
@Areldyb
@arqalite
@Banazir
@bendvis
@boxer_dogs_dance
@Bullmaestro
@CannibalisticApple
@chocobean
@chosenamewhendrunk
@crialpaca
@davek804
@delphi
@dhcrazy333
@em-dash
@Evie
@Falcon79
@faye_luna
@feanne
@Fearghal
@first-must-burn
@fnulare
@Habituallytired
@IsildursBane
@Kraetzin
@longwave
@lou
@mat
@patience_limited
@Pavouk106
@RheingoldRiver
@scrambo
@sorkceror
@Tardigrade
@TheRtRevKaiser
@TheWhetherMan
@Tmbreen
@TonesTones
@Tygrak
@tyrny
@unkz
@Weldawadyathink
@WrathOfTheHydra
@wysiwyg
@zixx -
Timasomo 2025: Final Updates
Important Upcoming Date: Timasomo Showcase Thread -- Wednesday, November 5 (one week away!) Technically all work should be finished before November 1st (but don’t worry, it’s not enforced 😉)....
Important Upcoming Date:
- Timasomo Showcase Thread -- Wednesday, November 5 (one week away!)
Technically all work should be finished before November 1st (but don’t worry, it’s not enforced 😉).
November 1-4 are for putting finishing touches on the project to ready it for the showcase.
To get a feel for what the Showcase will look like and how to prep your project, check out past ones:
Update us on your progress so far!
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What did/didn't you get done this week?
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Anything go according to plan?
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Anything go off the rails?
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Any successes or struggles to share?
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Do you need feedback or help on anything?
This is your topic to share anything and everything you want about what you’ve made so far.
17 votes -
Comment on CGA-2025-10 🕹️⏰ 🗺️ 🐸 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Chrono Trigger in ~games
kfwyre (edited )LinkI did it! Chrono Trigger is complete! I'm not a huge JRPG person. I loved Final Fantasy VII growing up, liked Final Fantasy VIII (okay, maybe I just liked Triple Triad) and then pretty much moved...I did it! Chrono Trigger is complete!
I'm not a huge JRPG person. I loved Final Fantasy VII growing up, liked Final Fantasy VIII (okay, maybe I just liked Triple Triad) and then pretty much moved away from the genre for the most part. I recently tried to play Final Fantasy IX and thoroughly enjoyed it until I just... didn't anymore. I fell off somewhere around 10 hours or so. JRPGs are not my favorite genre, and their long, meandering stories don't really grip me like I want them to as an adult. When I was a kid I was enthralled with their sprawl, but as an adult it honestly kind of puts me off.
So, if it weren't for CGA, I probably never would have played Chrono Trigger, much less actually finish it. My playthrough, though, is a contradiction:
- Yes, I loved it.
- Yes, I had to force myself to finish it.
How can these both be true? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I liked the game; I liked the characters; I liked the story; I liked the battle system; I liked the music. I have nearly nothing negative to say about it.
But I have to admit that, particularly in the back third or so, I was playing it out of a sense of obligation rather than a driving interest. Maybe it overstayed its welcome with me? Maybe this would happen to any game of this length in a genre I don't particularly love? Who knows.
That said, I don't want my writing here to cast the game in a negative light. The game itself is splendid.
I have no nostalgia for the game, so I was playing it with fresh 2025 eyes and expectations. And, frankly, I'm amazed at how well it's held up. The game honestly feels like it could be a retro-inspired indie darling that released a few years ago. It had a freshness to it that I genuinely didn't expect.
When I put on my 1995 eyes, I'm utterly blown away. This game must have felt SO ahead of its time (pun acknowledged). It was undoubtedly cutting edge. The spell effects were wild, and the few moments the game goes into "3D" (the bike race, the bad ending, the Epoch flying in the credits) must have been utterly stunning on hardware known primarily for 2D sprites. The whole time travel conceit and being able to play with cause and effect was probably SO novel for gaming, which was still nascent and had so many concepts yet to be explored.
I can fully understand and appreciate why this game has the cultural status that it does, especially because, on top of all of those, there is a cast of memorable and lovable characters. My go-to team was:
- Chrono
- Frog
- Ayla
Chrono for obvious reasons; Frog because he has the best character portrait and
runhop animation; and Ayla because she's a badass. I did cycle through the other characters to unlock different techs though, and I wish I could have four characters on a team because I'm particularly partial to Robo as well.Speaking of getting attached to the characters, Chrono's death was like, a mic drop moment for me. I was legitimately shocked and thought they'd fully Aeris'ed him. I 100% believed he was killed off for good. I can't remember how long it was before I realized that there was a way to get him back, but for those 10-20 minutes I was legitimately thinking that the game took one of the biggest swings I'd ever seen in gaming: fully killing off the main protagonist well before the ending.
I thought the game did a great job of balancing the heartfelt and the funny, though that could have been primarily because I was constantly getting serious, knightly dialogue from Frog, and comical, choppy dialogue from Ayla.
There were a few pain points. Towards the end of the game, I started peeking at a guide simply because I wasn't necessarily sure when or where I should be for things, and I didn't feel like running around trying to get hints from people. I also didn't realize you could access the Epoch from The End of Time, so I spent a non-negligible amount of time looking around all the different eras for where I had last parked it after returning to my save after a week of downtime. Let's be honest, who among us hasn't forgotten where and when we left our time machine?
I should also mention that I am one of those insufferable millennials who, having grown up starved for LGBTQ representation, will immediately connect with any character who has even the slightest whiff of queerness. In this game, I was lucky enough to get two!
I had Lucca in my party when I met Ayla. Ayla begins by sizing up Crono, commenting that she likes strong men. She then turns to Lucca and says:
You strong, too.
Ayla like strong person.
Man, woman...both like!Got it. Ayla's a bicon. I stan.
If there was any doubt about whether Ayla meant it just as a friendly, platonic thing, Lucca's response kind of locks that out. I didn't write down what she said, but it was something like "Oh, I'm uh, not like that."
Later, we meet Flea, a mini-boss in Magus's castle who you fight on your way to Ozzie. Your party discusses Flea's gender when meeting them, to which Flea responds:
Man or woman, it's all the same.
Power is beauty, and I'm deliciously strong!Nonbinary villainy. I stan.
Also, it's not exactly queer, but Robo getting a companion in his ending in the future was legitimately heartwarming. Honestly, the whole sequence where it cuts between the different characters as the Epoch flies over was a masterstroke. What a perfect way for the story to sign off.
I had mentioned it in a previous comment, but the game had a lot of little touches like that which I loved. Like, when I figured out that I could leave Robo back in time to help him plant the forest, I thought that was really clever. And then when you do, you can see him plowing the fields on the world map. It was lovely. Fast-forwarding a few seconds in game time to have Robo so excited to see you again after four hundred years was honestly touching. The game had so many little bits like this throughout it that give it a wonderful richness.
One thing I noticed as I played was clever asset re-use. In fact, the game's entire scope is really a set of (mostly convincing) smoke and mirrors. The world map isn't really that big; it doesn't have too many places to go; and the places you can go are usually only a handful of screens at most. But by changing and remixing these, it makes the game feel substantially bigger than it actually is. I almost wonder if size limitations helped yield the idea of a time-travel story in the first place, because it was an easy way to keep the size of the art down while still allowing for a huge and expansive story.
Admittedly, by the very end of the game, I was quite ready to be done. Lavos has four phases. FOUR. And they aren't easy! After my first accidental Lavos fight that took me a whole hour, I felt considerably more prepared to tackle him once I'd finished the game proper. I went in and defeated Lavos, only to find out that was merely his first form.
I was surprised by his second form, but I scraped by. Home free, right?
Wrong! Form three absolutely wrecked me. I had to grind for a while before I felt ready to try again.
When form three died and a FOURTH form came out, I'll admit I was mildly annoyed. The game broke the Two Health Bars boss rule, and then it broke the Rule of Three boss rule, and who's to say this fourth one isn't actually his final form? Also, it didn't feel like the fourth form, it felt like the fifteenth because the first form had so many different modes in the first place.
Anyway, my annoyance was shortlived. The final fight was great. That music was good, and that piercing scream in the soundtrack was utterly haunting. The vibes were right for a "final" final boss, and, like many of the other battles in the game, the final fight itself was interesting mechanically. Lots of powerful spells thrown your way, and who would have guessed that Lavos wasn't the guy in the middle? (Not me!)
The ending I got was nice. I liked the celebratory spirit and joyousness. A parade! Balloons! Time traveling cats! More games need outright joyful moments like this. It's not something we get a lot in gaming. I mentioned it earlier, but when they took off in the Epoch and it cut between the different characters (especially Robo), I was moved.
I played the Steam version, so I also got an animated cutscene that was similarly joyous. Crono and Marle get married (which felt a little abrupt to me, but I also pretty much never had Marle in my party so I didn't get to see any of their allegedly budding relationship). Ayla and her beau (who I thought was another woman the entire game) also got hitched in a manner befitting Ayla's badassness. And Lucca has a new robot companion and finds a baby in the woods. I loved that she had a new mechanical pal, though the baby was admittedly a touch baffling to me. Either I missed something in the story and this was supposed to be someone I recognized, or maybe it's setting up for the sequel?
Anyway, I'm glad this game got picked for CGA. I know I never would have played it on my own, and I now feel like I have a first-hand grasp of why this game is so beloved to this day. It's got a lot of heart, and it did SO much right, which is all the more noteworthy for when it released and so much of what it tried out was thoroughly uncharted territory in gaming. Truly a classic.
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Comment on DeckFilter: A Steam library companion app in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentThe app offers filters for Unplayed and Unfinished. I’m not sure how it qualifies “unfinished” but if I had to guess, it compares your playtime to the HLTB estimate and includes ones that don’t...The app offers filters for
UnplayedandUnfinished.I’m not sure how it qualifies “unfinished” but if I had to guess, it compares your playtime to the HLTB estimate and includes ones that don’t have parity. Not sure if that’s what you’re looking for though.
You can manually add games to different playlists that you create, after which you can apply filters to those. Though, in creating one just now, I can’t figure out a way to bulk add something to a playlist. I can only add games one-by-one instead of, say, dumping an entire filtered list in there to start. Not too bad if you have a smaller library but doesn’t scale for larger ones.
Of course, that might actually be possible in the app but I simply can’t figure out how.
I pinged everybody who posted in the announcement topic, but you're not obligated to participate at all. That said, we're absolutely happy to have you, BeardyHat!