#obscuritory

[lemmingsdiary]

Two tribes down. Any State-of-the-Lemmings-2 thoughts? It seems like there's a lot of trailblazer levels and fewer puzzles that involve mechanical quirks.

The myriad of new skills makes the puzzles feel a lot more varied and truth be told I’m enjoying Lemmings 2 a lot more than the originals so far.  Even though the puzzles that used mechanical quirks were certainly interesting in the original games, I can’t say I miss them.  As much as Lemmings holds up today as far as puzzle games go, those weird levels make it really hard to recommend Lemmings to younger or newer players.  Meanwhile I feel like I could recommend Lemmings 2 to anybody, whereas if I were to recommend Lemmings+ONML to people I’d have to add in a big “keep in mind this game is 26 years old and etc etc etc”

[obscuritory]

How y'all doing? It's fun to be back on Tumblr and have something to share daily again for a while. Even though I've been quiet here, I'm still going full-speed on game history/preservation all the time in my work now!

A lot of this has been happening so fast that I don't think I'm even registering some of it? This summer, I got to head up to Cyan's headquarters as part of the big Myst preservation project, and that was just... surreal as hell.

And I didn't even talk about the big study I wrote this summer! I was on NPR talking about game preservation! What the hell! (I saw there was a big 4k+ notes post someone else did about the study, so I decided to just leave that one be and not jump in there.)

It's all come a long way since I was posting screenshots of weird DOS games on here like a decade ago! So much more to share here over this month, but I repeat: how y'all doing?

[obscuritory]

We raised $4420.69 for Trans Lifeline!!! Unbelievable! Thank you so much for your support!

[obscuritory]

A reminder! In just 12 days, it's gonna be time for the All-Day Tea Party Spooktacular for Trans Rights 2020! I'll be playing weird old games all day on Halloween, starting at 10am EDT, to raise money for Trans Lifeline! And against my best interests, if we raise enough money, I’ll be subjecting myself to gross novelty sodas.

Follow me on Twitch to get a notification when the event starts on October 31st! https://www.twitch.tv/obscuritory

[obscuritory]

In the CD-ROM era, there were a lot of surreal adventure games, but there’s very few as boldly surreal as Obsidian by Rocket Science Games from 1997.

The game takes place inside a mysterious mountain-like structure called Obsidian. But this is no ordinary mountain. When a team of scientists become trapped in Obsidian, they discover that it actually contains a recreation of their nightmares!

There’s a complicated reason why Obsidian exists, and as you progress through the game, you start to realize that this is a hell humanity has created for itself. Beyond simply being a beautiful and engaging adventure game, it also explores questions about the ethics of artificial intelligence – and the consequences when you try to move fast and break stuff.

This is really a remarkable game. If you like surreal adventure games, play Obsidian if you can.

Obsidian (read on The Obscuritory)

As you descend further into Obsidian, it begins to stretch the rules of reality, if not obliterating them. The colorful language of dreams weaves in and out through fragments of mundane scenery; gravity warps and bends, and mysterious doorways lead between worlds as if they’re interdimensional portals. The world is extraordinarily realized, propulsive and haunting and constantly eager to reveal what’s around the next fold in the universe.

At first, the game seems like it’s going be a dark ecological thriller. Then it suddenly suddenly shifts in tone to being a surreal comedy for the next three hours instead. But aren’t dreams unpredictable too? Sometimes they don’t make sense until you wake up on the other side. Obsidian plays its hand slowly, and as bleak as this sounds, it turns into a cautionary tale about following your dreams if you don’t know where they’ll lead you.

[obscuritory]

It’s that time of year again… with a twist!

This Halloween, I’m hosting the All-Day Tea Party Spooktacular for Trans Rights 2020, a livestream marathon to raise money for Trans Lifeline!

Trans Lifeline is a non-profit organization that provides microgrants and support services for trans people in North America. I’m excited to raise money for them as part of their Trans Heart October charity drive.

Last year we blew past our ambitious stretch goal of $1000, so this year, I’m setting the goal at $1250! It’s a bit lower than the total we raised last time, but with finances tighter during the pandemic, I want to make sure it’s a goal we can reach. And if we hit the goal, we can keep going!

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I’m gonna go all out making this stream spooky as hell. Content hasn’t been decided yet, but as with every year, in the spirit of this blog, we’ll be playing weird old games and software. We’ll definitely play some old horror games. Plus, look forward to more donation incentives, which may involve strange novelty sodas.

And as always, I’ll be drinking plenty of tea and taking breaks! Even though this is a marathon stream, I want to be sure we’re taking care of ourselves. Bring your own tea! Maybe something fall-y. I should probably get pumpkin spice tea, right?

The stream starts on October 31 at 10am EDT and will go as long as I’m feeling up for it. Streaming more often has helped me build up my endurance, so maybe we’ll get closer to that fabled 24-hour stream this time? Who knows!

See you on Halloween at twitch.tv/obscuritory… if you dare!

[obscuritory]

Hi!

It’s been a while! I’ve been pretty inactive on Tumblr since the summer, which was a conscious decision. The SimRefinery thing was huge, and with all the attention it was getting, I needed to pause and reset some stuff in my life. Queuing up daily content on Tumblr was taking up a lot of energy, and with everything in the world kinda broken this year, I’ve needed to reserve more time for myself.

I’m still here though! I’m getting more writing done on The Obscuritory blog, with new articles on Tuesdays (not every week, but always Tuesdays). I’m also active on Twitter at @itstheshadsy, tweeting about weird old games and history.

(I’m gonna have an announcement about the annual charity marathon pretty soon too... stay tuned.)

I want to come back to Tumblr in some form because I really enjoy the community here, but I need to figure out how to do it in a way that’s more sustainable for me. But I wanted to check in and say hello, and I hope everyone is doing okay!

[obscuritory]

Hi! I’ve been really inactive on here for the last month or so. I’ll be back in a little bit, but I did want to mention that I’m still doing Saturday streaming during the stay-at-home period!

For today’s stream, I’m playing a couple educational games set in museums! I haven’t really played these before, so we’ll be learning about them together. Stop by!

twitch.tv/obscuritory