Category: Otaku

The Tiny Arcade

  • February 11, 2018

Bernard gave me this for Christmas:

It’s a tiny arcade machine. Better yet it’s a kit that needs to be assembled! Here’s what it looked like out of the box:

The critical components are indeed tiny, and fit easily into the palm of my hand:

Here’s the screen being tested:

Assembly of the case was tricky but not difficult, and I actually had more trouble affixing the super-adhesive ‘cabinet art’. Once finished, it’s tiny (about 8 cm tall) and very impressive:

The back is open to access the electronics, which include on/off switches, a plug to charge the battery and a micro SD card port:

The unit runs off an arduino-derived chip (I believe), and supports a tiny OLED screen that is very sharp and bright. There’s several basic games included but to be honest most are little more than tech demos. Amongst clones of Flappy Bird, Tetris, Space Invaders and even R-Type there is however a charming little roguelike by a Japanese dev:

Bernard has one too and wanted to compete on some games. Like a cur he hasn’t submitted scores yet so here’s some for him to aim at:

(To be honest these were just my scores for one game of each)

Anyway I’m very impressed with this thing. It’s completely open so I could in theory write my own game for it. Wouldn’t that be fun?

The Stamp Collector (Final Part)

  • December 23, 2017

This series turned out longer and more work than anticipated but as we all know, all good things must come to an end.

The largest portion of my stamp ‘collection’ is still affixed to the hundreds of postcards I have stored together in a box. From all over the world and spanning over twenty years, these contain a fascinating selection of stamps and cancellations.

The New Zealand stamps on the postcards sent by Bernard were quite special and varied, but I also like the mini airmail stamp attached to the Swiss stamp and the (very unique!) Death Valley cancellation.

There’s those Star Wars stamps attached to a postcard I sent from Hawaii a decade ago. There’s the only postcard I ever received from Italy (and boring at that) followed by an example of my creative stamping from England.

Those were both from Oz last year, and you may have seen these on your cards? Australia seems to have doubled down on large and lavish animal stamps these past years, and I always seek them out to include them on postcards.

In fact I’ve got no problem whatsoever eating up large portions of the back of a postcard with lovely stamps…. like this:

Which is another specimen I sent KLS last year. I’ve done the above several times over the years, but this one may be my masterpiece!

One thing I’ve learned doing research for this series is that while collectors prefer stamps to be as pristine as possible, there are certain stamps that are more collectible if they had been used for postage. This is why I particularly like the ones attached to my postcards, since they were used to mail stuff to me!

In a few days I’m off to Australia again. This time, when you get your postcards, spare a moment to appreciate the stamps. It’s likely I put as much thought into them as I did the card itself or even what I wrote on it.

I hope you found this series interesting. I ended up much farther down the rabbit hole than I ever expected, and at times even I couldn’t see light, but I’m glad I’m out now and can move on with the usual topics 🙂

  • Posted in Art
  • Robert

2017 In Games

  • December 19, 2017

You know you’ve been waiting for it, and here it is: the annual summary of my game purchases!

I won’t dance around the facts: 2017 was a ‘down year’ for game spending. I bought only 40 games in 2017, spending a total of $1291. This is the smallest amount of total purchases since 2012, and the smallest amount spend since 1994! Results like this threaten an existential crisis: am I still a gamer?

Of course I am! And we’ll get to that in a little bit, but first here are the pie charts everyone loves. First the games purchased; % by system:

And next the % breakdown by dollars spent:

(Yes I know the fonts are illegibly tiny; click on each for a bigger version.)

The pertinent points:
– I bought games for a few ‘dead systems’ this year: the DS, PSP and NES
– While I still bought Vita games, I bought less than half last year (10 vs 28). This is unsurprising; Sony declared this a ‘legacy system’ a couple of years ago now…
– The Nintendo Switch enter the charts! I bought one game….. but don’t have a Switch yet 😉

As far as overall gaming comments I don’t feel like I’m playing less than ever. I still play Puzzle & Dragons (and am coming up on 1700 consecutive days of logging in) and still enjoy it, and I still have a backlog of (good!) Vita RPGs that are unopened and should last me for years. But I have been playing less console gaming, and certainly spending less on consoles overall. The switch appeals to me for this reason, since I envisage myself more likely to play the games on the system in portable mode than on the TV.

On to my top games of the year, as usual sorted by system. Given the scant purchases for some systems I’ll only tackle the three major ones this time:

Toukiden 2 (PS Vita)

This is a Monster Hunter clone set in feudal Japan with crazy bosses and an emphasis on over-the-top attacks and destructible body parts (on the beasts). It’s an improvement on the already-great Vita original and I played it to death for a couple of months back in late Spring this year. In my opinion, one of the all-time best Vita games.

Monster Hunter Stories (3DS)

This is a pokemon-like game set in the MH world that was much, much better than I thought it would be. I played it like a fiend, only putting it down about 120 hours later. It had fantastic graphics and a great story but above all the gameplay loop was loads of fun and as a (insane) MH fan the appeal of the world was top-notch. Recommended.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Wii U)

You know how you’ve read/seen countless times that this game is one of (if not THE) best ever made and it’s so good it’s better than real life? Yep, it’s all true. This is the definition of a magnum opus, and a game that will be spoken about for generations to come. Easily the game of the year for me, and worth buying a Wii U/Switch just to play. (This is also likely the last Wii U game I will ever buy, and it’s certainly a worthy title for the system to retire on.)

I’m doing this a little early this year, especially since I have a inkling what’s under the tree for me and specifically that one of those ‘whats’ may even give Zelda a run for it’s money in the masterpiece stakes. Oh well, you’ll have to wait until this time next year to find out 🙂