Hey! You wanna know why we're here? Go read this. It's because Sony UK's marketing department misappropriated £100k for random campaigns they couldn't possibly get in front of higher execs in time, which they used to make cardboard flyers saying the PS1 was "more powerful than god" and had perforations in the perfect size to roll up as roaches for people to toke up in the Playstation room at your local club. Yeah, baby.

They also mention the same T-Rex that Rodney Greenblat saw! That had to have been one rad fucking dinosaur. Anyway.

We've had more than our fill of rapping, bunnies, crises, electric shocks, and Pepsi this month. Outside the novelty, why do these crazy-ass games matter? WELL:

• It's great upheaval! CDs weren't just a major shift in storage, but production and cost. CDs took something like a week to order instead of two or three months. Imagine you have an extra eight weeks or so to develop an idea and put it in front of an exec, and they're not spending buckets on the cartridges. Why not accept those ideas? Why not take the risks? We're not quite at the indie boom and the internet, but it was certainly quite a step in development and risk-taking for the end product.

• Fuckin' money! Much like Nintendo's infamous war chest, Sony firmly planted themselves at the top of the pole for a long while. All this speed meant that - per GamePro's approximation in 1997 - there were 400 PlayStation games were in development by the end of 1996, whereas the Saturn had ~200 and the N64 had ~60. That variety lead to something like a 4-game attach rate to people buying a PS1 console, and the games themselves cost less because the CDs were cheaper. I was an N64 kid, but those cartridges were expensive. (Plus all the rando peripherals - the transfer pak? Expansion pak? The VMU for Hey You Pikachu!? Jesus, my parents were good to me.) The PS1 probably gave people leeway to take a buying risk on a zany idea. Even from more conservative spenders, it had to have been way more appealing to anyone on the fence.

• Music games! We had two here, and the Playstation was the home of Bemani for quite a while. Not much question why for the developer of the Walkman...

• That T-Rex! Golly!

• Age! Mascots and color grabbed kids, but kids aren't necessarily attracted to cool vector line art and an outlet for enormous CD collections. (They also, hopefully, weren't rolling too many joints at the club?) There was plenty of room to attract kids with Spyro or Crash - why not push the median age up at the same time? One study estimated that the "average gamer" was something like a 30 y/o woman in the 00s; nudging that number up and broadening the appeal had a lot to do with Sony's aggressive marketing. Another neat idea I saw mentioned was that the number of extreme sports games being produced gave video games another angle as a sort of lifestyle machine; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater itself was just as skate-punk as its people and bands. It sounds like a lofty thought, but THPS2 got me to pick up a skateboard, sooo...

• Finally, Japan! Obviously the 80's and early 90's brought so many mascots and characters out of Japan with enduring appeal, like Mario and Sonic, but their impact was very often with localization or marketing crews adapting that. Here we have stuff that's very distinctly Japanese making its way over here, rather than getting edited in trepidation over the original idea attaching. Why not? Throw a couple CDs our way, see what sticks.

And as a reminder, we're only scratching the surface! This console is a trove. I wanted to wait until the Remove thread to discuss more games, so the biggest one I'd leave everyone with is LSD: Dream Emulator, which is as much an art installation as it is a "game". You wander around randomized environments and "wake up" after 10 minutes or by being killed by things like lions, cars, or giant dudes coated in kanji characters. It's pretty fucking weird, and it was a fairly obvious point of growth from other projects like Yume Nikki, itself a springboard for dozens of ideas in games like Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale. More recent popular projects like hypnagogia 催眠術 and Ena: Dream BBQ have obvious lineage - the former was from an LSD-themed game jam!

There are SO many others. Gaball Screen, a shoe-flying simulator (??) released by a music label where you collect music videos produced by Tetsuya Komuro. There's Heart of Darkness, a puzzle-platformer and influence for contemporary "gore game" horror titles. Its greatest puzzle is perhaps its absolutely baffling E rating! And No One Can Stop Mr. Domino... Really? No one?? Who possibly can???

We're left a neat legacy of ideas, experiments, and a time capsule for the advent of the CD-ROM, to those brave enough to dig through the library. Nintendo may leave a creative mark of their on their games, but the marks all over these games are maybe left by the machinery itself. A console that was willing to foster weirdos and prop up their chance to shine? The Playstation was radical.

_{Yo, and that T-Rex tho?}

That concludes this month of our COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURE! I imagine this was a less-accessible month, so for those tenacious enough to get the games running I salute you!

This topic is to share your thoughts on our selection, and weird shit on the Playstation in general:

The good
The bad
The fun
The interesting
What ideas aged well
What ideas were total crap
The things it reminded you of
Other games that belong here
And absolutely anything else!

We've got an extra ten days. so feel free to keep playing or to throw other PS1 curios at the group.

Next month, December 2025, will be The Secret of Monkey Island, hosted by the esteemed u/balooga! Thankfully that should be a MUCH easier game to get running than Vib-Ribbon, so be ready to walk the plank! (For less than twenty bucks!)

Week 4 has begun!

Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!

Quick links:

• Backlog Bingo Site
• Week 1 Discussion and Event Guidelines
• Week 2 Discussion
• Week 3 Discussion

Week 3 Recap

11 participants played 11 bingo cards and moved 40 games out of their backlogs!

There were 3 bingo wins. Congrats to u/dannydotcafe, u/kfwyre, and u/Wes! 🎉

• Nearly 70% of the games played this week had a one or two word title (one = 38%, two = 28%)
• The kitchen was a feature this week, with "knife", "eggs", "coffee", "garbage", and "Pepsi" being mentioned in game titles.
• If you play magnetic poetry with the titles, you can uncover some sage wisdom:

The darkest coffee must fandango.
Literature is irritating; torment.
Die, prodigal robot beasts of the midtown.
Katamari Caravan: stick, room, Tokyo, Sun

Game List:

• Agatha Knife
• Arco
• Arctic Eggs
• Baba Is You
• A Bird Story
• Cassette Beasts
• Children of the Sun
• Coffee Caravan
• Cursorblade
• Darkest Dungeon II
• Death Must Die
• Doki Doki Literature Club!
• Firestarter
• Grim Fandango
• Hacknet
• Inkbound
• Irritating Stick
• Katamari Damacy REROLL
• Lunacid
• Midtown Madness
• Moonlighter
• No Straight Roads
• Paper Beast
• Patron
• Pepsiman
• Planescape: Torment
• Prodigal
• Pushmo
• A Simple Garbage Sorting Game
• Skul: The Hero Slayer
• SOMA
• Starsector
• Super Robot Wars 30
• The Room 4: Old Sins
• Tails of Iron
• Titan Quest
• Tokyo Dark
• Trek to Yomi
• Vib-Ribbon
• Wanderstop

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.

Ive been playing nonstop for the past two weeks basically, took last week off work so I could play. Lvl 67 as of this morning and I’m a little behind my clan mates who are 80s pushing 90s

Thoughts in general? Thoughts on salvaging nerf this am?

Haven’t played in years and think it sounds neat? It is. Bond up and play, sailing is a meta skill so you can lvl up while you level up but watch out for random crates of alcohol in the sea cause while you get xp from sampling…. Sometimes they tele you to the abyss cause Jagex is pro troll

His Christmas present is going to be a custom-built arcade cabinet. The internals are simply a Nintendo Switch, an 8bitdo arcade controller, a computer monitor, and some speakers. Pretty simple stuff!

He has next to zero experience playing video games and I haven't really exposed him to my games either (screen time and all). So, he's probably got about zero coordination when it comes to using controllers or playing platformers, etc. Also, he tends to get very frustrated with himself if he can't do something, causing him to want to give up.

What are some recommendations for Nintendo Switch (1, not 2) games that will ease him into gaming?

Thanks!

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.

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.

Week 2 has begun!

Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!

If you did not participate in Week 1 but want to start this week, that's fine!
Reminder: playing bingo is OPTIONAL.

Quick links:

• Backlog Bingo Site
• Week 1 Discussion and Event Guidelines

Week 1 Recap

12 participants played 11 bingo cards and moved 24 games out of their backlogs!

• 25% of the games played started with the letters P and R
• 13% of the games played have ALL CAPS TITLES
• 21% of the games played have a number in their titles

Game list:

• ANIMAL WELL
• Back 4 Blood
• Cuphead
• Cyber Hook
• Darkenstein 3D
• Fabled Lands
• Gothic II
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Gunpoint
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Hyrule Warriors
• Liberation Maiden
• PAPER BIRDS
• Pistol Whip
• Prodeus
• Proteus
• Rollerdrome
• Rune Factory 4 Special
• Splatoon
• UNLOVED
• Victor Vran
• Wander Stars
• The Witness
• Wizorb

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.

After this Tildes post I was curious about the review scores, Steam Deck compatibility and ProtonDB ratings for the first Digiphile bundle and figured it's worth sharing. I've added two extra columns compared to the Humble Bundle posts:

• Early access because some of these games are "early access" releases.
• All Time Low sourced from isthereanydeal

Digiphile - Return of the Immersive Sim is now available with the following games, grouped by payment tier.

$9 Tier (aprox £6.85, €7.77)

$13 Tier (aprox £9.89, €11.23)

Everything in the $9 tier and the following:

$20 Tier (aprox £15.22, €17.27)

Everything in the $13 tier and the following:

$5 DLC add-on (aprox £3.80, €4.32)

They all sell this as a separate addon for an additional $5:

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play? Should we post other Digiphile bundles or is this a terrible selection compared to Humble Choice?

Product Links:

• Steam Frame (standalone VR headset)
• Steam Controller (gen 2 design)
• Steam Machine (first-party mini PC)

Video Links:

• Official announcement
• Tested hands-on with additional details

Shipping in early 2026. Prices haven't been announced yet.

Hey all I own a pixel 8a if that's relevant and am looking for a controller that is Bluetooth and costs 50 dollars or less on Amazon. I'm not too picky as long as it can hold the phone and is of good quality. Thank you!

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.

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS:

🐶️⚡️🥤🎼😤 PlayStation WHAT? 🎤️🪵🏃🐰🚁

Here are the games:

Parappa the Rapper

Parappa the Rapper 2

Irritating Stick

Pepsiman

Vib-Ribbon

Incredible Crisis

Important

• Yes, these games are weird and rare! But any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

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
Ask what the hell is going on in Incredible Crisis
Get checked for RSI after Irritating Stick

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?
U rappin' good?

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.
Share some sick beats for Vib-Ribbon.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

FAQ

One last parting thought til the 20th when we eject: there are so many games for this system that are completely out of the ordinary. But for now, let's keep the conversation on these until we hit the Eject thread on the 20th! And then I'd suggest we open the floor for more weirdo shit to ricochet off the walls.

I've been learning Godot for the past few months and I'm happy to report that it's been going well. Little by little, things are clicking into place. (I hugely, highly, undoubtedly, recommend GDQuest courses)

I'm ready to start working on a small project to test out my skills, and it's going to be a top down pixel art game.

But to be completely honest, I suck at drawing. I suck at drawing as in, I can make stick figures at best. So forget any fancy software for drawing in general like gimp or photoshop.

What I'm looking for is a software meant for pixel art and that makes my life easy, in both drawing and animating. Bonus points if it allows me to trace (I'm not planning to copy/steal art, but I do need reference points, at least for now)

Do you guys have any recommendations? It can be free or paid. I don't mind paying as long the software is worth it.

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 multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

• It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

• If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

Gameplay guidelines:

• Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

• Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

• 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

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.