@blueribbs.bsky.social and their magic bikini comic.

@gohbilly.bsky.social presents the babies (from the Babalities) of Mortal Kombat:

@shcontest.bsky.social, the account of the yearly Sonic Hacking Contest, and their thread of winners and honorable mentions of the 2025 contest.

@katch.bluesky.social enjoyed Aiden Moher’s book on JRPGs, Fight, Might, Items.

@edwardodell.bsky.social made a post that’s only very slightly game-related, but is hilarious, imagining if Orson Welles found out about Dragonball-Z:

@johnlearned.bsky.social links to shmuplations’ translation of an archive of Hideo Yoshizawa tweets about NES Ninja Gaiden.

@gamehistoryorg.bsky.org presents unused voice lines from MLB Slugfest 20-03 that were rejected by Major League Baseball.

@raycarrot.bsky.social explains how Rayman’s password system works.

@tykenn.games is working on a project called “Trees Hate You,” and, well, see for yourself.

@jongraywb.bsky.social found a hilarious and tragic caption to someone in a Kirby suit on the news.

@thinkygames gave us a talk by Patrick Traynor, creator of the mindtwisting puzzle game Patrick’s Parabox, and how that game was programmed. Hey, I kind of know him!

@historyofhyrule.com, a great account generally, presents the originals of some of the Legend of Zelda manual artwork.

@skeet.bets calls out one of the more evocative Dwarf Fortress bug reports:

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social notes one of the most significant problems with virtual pinball tables.

@kekeflipnote.bsky.social, a.k.a. Kekeflipnote, a popular artist who uses Nintendo’s DSi Flipnote app as their medium, posts Kirby’s reaction to a photo of a highly questionable part of Kirby-licensed fuzzy slippers.

@spacecoyote.com, a.k.a. Nina Matsumoto, shows off her Undertale artwork for the cover of Famitsu!

@castpixel.bsky.social‬ has great mockup pixel artwork for a fictional Gameboy Pac-Quest game, starring “Pac-Girl,” who seems to be intended to be a younger Ms. Pac-Man:

videogameesoterica.bsky.social notes that a fan translation of SEGAGAGA, one of the last official Dreamcast games and a weird and hilarious museum of Sega content, is nearing completion.

kriswolfhe.art (Bluesky) reminds us that, whatever the game’s faults might have been, judging by how the title character was drawn, the character artist for the Grinch GBC game was suspiciously into his subject.

fluffcopter.bsky.social, on a weird interaction in Caves of Qud that I’m not sure if they’re kidding about or not. They “poured warm static on my dog, it turned into a dromad trader that comes with guards and items. They are all my dog, the whole trade party and merchandise. I convinced my dog to sell me my dog for free while my dog, my dog, my dog and my dog were standing guard.”

chrisdeleon.bsky.social warns us not to lose faith in Santa Claus, or he’ll turn into a monster:

And, most recently, almondsquirrel.bsky.social reminds us that Disney Solitaire, a game with dark patterns, real money transactions and lootboxes, is PEGI rated 3+, while Balatro has none of that, but is rated 18+ because of its nebulous Poker theming.

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Public enthusiasm for it has ebbed and flowed over that time, but even last year 65 people are recorded as having completed the challenge. And every time there are a few games that are hugely interesting! A rating system helps to reveal those games that might be particularly interesting.

If you’d like to participate this year, well, you just can, they’re clear that you don’t need their permission and there is no real prize for doing it. But if you want to participate during the official period of the challenge, this year it’ll start on March 3rd. We have a reminder post here on Set Side B ready to roll out the day before it begins, so keep watching our pages for it!

Here is a brief look at the highest-reated 7DRL games that made it last time:

First: Mercury Salvage is a graphical roguelike about cleaning out derelict spaceships.

Second: The Mage’s Student is a deck-building roguelike centered around magic, and has to do with fighting off ” the many creatures guarding the Newt-Core and the Transformative Cricket…”

Third: Death Stranding RL is, as should be obvious, based on Hideo Kojima’s game. It has an interesting look for a console-based game.

Fo(u)rth: Torshavn: The Fae Forest is a console roguelike written in the eclectic language Forth.

Fifth: In Orcish Fury, you’re an orc berzerker out for revenge. It’s playable in-browser.

Sixth: Greedy Rogue is also playable in browser, in it you’re a rogue rading a dragon’s lair while the dragon is out.

Seventh: Depths of Greed has you trying to get a cure for your daughter’s illness, akin to Larn. You’re a shopkeeper who goes to the nearby dungeon to try to find a cure, bargaining with the monsters.

Eighth: Grove Climbers has an interesting look to it, it’s team based and has (collective) you climbing a huge tree.

Ninth: Join Me In Dystopia, Pirate! is a randomly-generated top-down shooter.

Tenth: In Maneuver Ability, you don’t directly damage enemies, but can push them, which stuns them for one turn.

Eleventh: Running Around Dressless (in a Nascent Territory Full of R[something] Monsters) is vaguely NSFW (in a very tiny pixel art way), and it playable in browser. The R-word in the title changes randomly. I’m not quite sure how to play it honestly, it’s not a typical trading-blows game definitely.

And twelvth, SpelunkyRL, we posted about last year!

There’s many more than that, limiting it at 12 is rather arbitrary. If you have the time and interest to spare you should have a look!

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Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter: 22 Games To Look Forward To In 2022. They are: The Garden Path, Venba, Citizen Sleeper, Call Me Cera, Dordogne, Serial Cleaners, Frank And Drake, Chinatown Detective Agency, Spirit Swap: Lowfi Beats To Match-3 To, Mothmen 1966, A Shiba Story, Validate: Struggling Singles In Your Area, Super Space Club, She Dreams Elsewhere, Hindsight, Norco, Terra Nil, Card Shark, Bear And Breakfast, Afterlove EP, Silt, and Thirsty Suitors. Descriptions and videos are in the article!

Looking back over their history, and forward to that Metaverse thing Zuckerberg things is something new and ground breaking, is Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse. That’s from an Atlantic newsletter. You might be interested in New World Notes, a long-running blog covering Second Life. They linked to an old Daily Show with Jon Stewart piece “covering” Second Life.

Group recreates New York City in Minecraft, part of a project to reconstruct the whole damn world.

Polygon’s Ben Betoli looks into the Playdate‘s crank control.

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Jeremy Parish’s NES Works looks at Robot Block (the original R.O.B. game in Japan), Geimos and 10-Yard Fight

Hardcore Gaming 101 covers No One Lives Forever: The original – The sequel – Contact J.A.C.K.

Simon Carless’s Game Discoverability Newsletter takes a look at game ownership stats uncovered from a survey of 5,000 Switch owners

And for bargain hunters, GOG is having a sale on indie games, up until the 18th.

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