iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Did you get to see an inexplicable surplus of cuddly Bullies or is that a South Pier special

A photo of a claw machine that, for reasons that are completely unknown to me, is entirely stocked with plush toys of Bully, the mascot from 80s British game show, Bullseye. Are they specifically aiming for "kids whose parents just kinda leave the TV on Challenge at all times" as a demographic? Is the Bullseye license just that cheap?

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I love testing for weird hyperspecific edge cases, it's my single favorite thing in gamedev #gamedev #indiedev

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Did you know you can just say things on the Internet. It's painfully easy to just lie and say shit like "the Tower of Druaga is a clone of Gauntlet" online

A screenshot of a YouTube video titled "Gauntlet Knockoffs, Clones, and Copies (HD) - Arcade Game Clones", uploaded by a channel called "Arcade Advantage". Of the four non-Gauntlet titles featured, one came out an entire year before said game (Tower of Druaga), one has nothing to do with Gauntlet other than being top-down (Magical Crystals), and the other two are "okay I can somewhat see where you're coming from with this one" (Shackled and Alien Syndrome).

This channel ultimately stopped uploading videos altogether in January of 2024.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In the second thread, I noted they had a CD-i in the glass case where they mostly kept console devkits. This time around, they had yet another CD-i set up and fully ready to be played by any unsuspecting schmuck (i.e. me).

A gameplay photo from Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon; pictured, Princess Zelda doing the duck walk. Not pictured: any of the bastards who immediately assault you from every angle, frame one, or the grimace present on my face when I suddenly remembered that the Zelda CD-i platformers use "up" for jump and button 2 for opening doors.

A photo of the opening cutscene from Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Actually seeing these in person, seeing them played back on an actual CD-i after years of almost-exclusively seeing them in chopped-up YouTube video form, was a delightfully surreal experience.

A photo of the shopkeep from Zelda: WoG making both a weird expression and gesture; I don't think this guy actually has an official name, right? Both independently-run Zelda wikis solely refer to him as "Merchant" and "Ushrom" is an ancient fan nickname that I'm not entirely sure anybody uses anymore.

A photo of the case for the Philips CD-i game, Kether; haven't played this one but I'm aware it's supposed to be one of the officially-decreed Good CD-i Games, or at least one of the more interesting releases.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Their Master System has an Everdrive or similar SD-based multicart, which obviously meant I had to play all the Classics™. Also SMS Aladdin, which is genuinely very well-made but isn't quite as funny an option as these

A photo of the title screen for ALF on the SEGA Master System, as displayed on some model of Sony Trinitron. This one worked about as well as you could possibly want SMS ALF to run at 50hz, which honestly surprised me.
Also of note: after dying to the bats, I very quickly realised that the reset button on the console was jammed. I assume the console physically breaking in real-time was also a direct result of playing ALF.

A photo of the first level from Ferias Frustradas do Pica-Pau (Woody Woodpecker's Frustrating Vacation). After I briefly left the table, some completely unsuspecting lady accidentally loaded up this game using whatever mechanic the Everdrive has to make that occur. Poor soul.

A photo of the "FRED MUST PAINT THE WALL" screen from the Master System Flintstones game.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

As far as the Dizzy series and its spin-offs go, Bubble Dizzy is just kinda whatever, I guess; it's competently made but I felt like I already had my fill about four levels in. In terms of spin-offs it's better than Dizzy Tetris but maybe not as good as Dizzy Pengo

A photo of a Commodore 1901 monitor, displaying the title screen for the C64 version of Bubble Dizzy.

A photo I took upon clearing a level of Bubble Dizzy; the Dizzy sprite in this one is notable as it's probably the most Kirby-adjacent Dizzy has ever looked, compared to his appearance in literally every single other game, in which he either has the face of a weird doll or somebody who's just barely holding it together and is about to crack at any given second.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Briefly went back today, maybe didn't spend quite as much time as I wanted to (no Do! run today) but I still got a good few hours in (🧵) (also #art I guess)

A ludicrously scuffed, albeit still recognisable drawing of Clip, as drawn in Windows 3.1's Paintbrush application.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Please, my Mareep, it has never eaten food in its life #art #fanart

A sketch of Clip standing behind a wooden fence, looking upon his Mareep, who has never subsisted on anything in its life despite lying directly next to a pile consisting of candy, with utter despair.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Officially speaking the Mr. Driller blocks do actually taste of human food, it's just that they are indeed inedible by humans

A clipping from an official interview with the lead team behind Mr. Driller, originally published in Arcadia vol. 3 (April 30th, 2000) and translated into English by @itsfantasticac.bsky.social.
"– Some of the blocks in-game look like food, but what do they taste like?
(Kaori) Shinzozaki: Please see this table.
[Blue - Mousse with sauce
Red - Blueberry
Yellow - Strawberry
Green - Lemon
X blocks - Chocolate
Blocks with holes on two-color stages - Cheese
Yellow hole blocks - Lemon Cheese
Green hole blocks - Melon Cheese
Bubbly blocks - Candy Drops
Spiral blocks - Whipped Cream
Cake Bocks - Sponge Cake Topped with Fresh Cream]
– Can Susumu-kun eat them?
Shinozaki: He cannot.
(Yasuhito) Nagaoka: If people could eat them, I think world hunger would be solved (laughs)."
(http://itsfantastic.moe/mr-driller-developer-roundtable/)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Happy birthday @gpool.bsky.social here's a drawing from the Magma session you did for your affiliate anniversary that I totally forgot to post by itself until now #art #fanart #GPIllustrated

A loose sketch of G-Pool giving a peace sign.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Happy Fat Uncle Calnot day to all who celebrate

A listing for a bootleg release of the Famicom port of Karnov, taken from the 1990 Whirlwind Manu product catalog.
"CARNOV
Na Mu Koe, October of 1987, Y4,900.-, Cartridge
It's a horizontal screen scrolling action game which major role is the fat Uncle Calnot. The player uses the informations in cartridge to proceed.

O Good background music, bald-headed major role
(Uncle Calnot has a relative - Cherunot.)"
(https://archive.org/details/whirlwind-manu-catalog-reprint)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Encountered these two incredibly dubious, unsourced claims on the JP Wikipedia article for Universal's Galaxy Wars, which were inserted by a sockpuppet account in 2011 and have gone completely unquestioned for a decade and a half. This is the exact shit I started @universalfacts.bsky.social for

A paragraph from the jp.wikipedia.org article for the 1979 Universal arcade game, Galaxy Wars. The last sentence makes the completely unsourced claim that Taito distributed Galaxy Wars as part of a settlement with Universal after the latter was included in a lawsuit involving multiple manufacturers of Space Invaders clones, including Cosmic Monsters. This seems possible, but unlikely; I could not immediately find any mention of a Space Invaders clone-related lawsuit dating back to 1979 in any Japanese sources, and if this alleged lawsuit did occur, it did not appear to prevent Cosmic Monsters units from being sold either in or outside Japan in any way. The most charitable explanation I can think of is that this is a misremembered account of the 1982 "Space Invaders Part II case", which, while also involving unauthorised duplication of the SI code, did not name Universal as a defendant.
(https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ギャラクシーウォーズ)

Another brief paragraph from the jp.wikipedia.org page for Galaxy Wars, describing Nintendo's clone of the game, Space Launcher. This makes the unsourced claim that Space Launcher displays a "(C) UNIVERSAL" credit during its attract mode, which is simply factually untrue as seen in both MAME and the handful of direct PCB recordings available on YouTube.
Both of these unsourced claims come from a single 2011 revision by "Chun-Li", a sockpuppet account for another user.
(https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ギャラクシーウォーズ)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Slightly disappointed this ad doesn't include maybe the single funniest series of bullet points I've ever seen

A cropped image taken from an advertisement/press release for the unreleased NES game, Drac's Night Out.
"Powerful theme:
-Dracula theme provides instant recognition; several new movies in 1991 will feature Dracula
-Drac wears hot athletic shoes, THE PUMP™ by Reebok®, that give him special powers"

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Love to draw when I'm vaguely tired at 4:30AM like some sort of absolute madman #art #fanart #arcadegames #LadyBug

A sketch of the eponymous Lady Bug from the 1981 Universal arcade game.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The disconnected platforms and diet primarily consisting of random fruit I don't think are a total dealbreaker, but I don't think it's possible for any human being to listen to nothing but 10-second music loops that sound like they're being played off those Happy Meal music players 24/7

A screenshot of the 1992 Comad arcade game, Super Duck.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

BEST AND UNIQUE PUZZLE GAME OF THE YEAR

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

if u see this, we implore u to post a pic from whatever device ur using without explanation

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Completely out-of-the-blue question that came to mind during last night's @bghof.com stream: what song are these three video games, all of which were developed and released primarily in South Korea around 1991-92, riffing on?

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Unfortunately none of these compare to what may be the single most confounding video game compilation ever devised by man

A scan of a magazine advertisement for the UK-exclusive SEGA Mega Drive compilation, "Help!", consisting of Sonic 1, Space Harrier II, Krusty's Super Fun House, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and WWF Super WrestleMania.
(https://www.retromags.com/gallery/image/55871-help-a-special-limited-charity-compilation-march-1994-uk/)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Big fan of the ending to this game, which I think may be the absolute closest any officially-sanctioned Popeye work gets to outright showing Popeye and Olive fucking on-screen

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I don't know about y'all but I'm starting to get the impression that I really like bunnysuits or something #bunnyday #バニーの日 #バニーさんの日

A digital drawing of Kyza posing in a bunnysuit, surrounded by sparkles, whilst Clip, dressed in a pink bunny onesie, angrily looks on.

Two drawings of a robot bunnygirl serving drinks within a bar.
(source for bar photo: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-and-red-billiards-tables-with-green-lamps-261043/)

A drawing of Sammy/SA-M1, a robot bunnygirl dressed in a short, black V-neck dress carrying a tray with two glasses of wine, set against a pitch-black background; the entire piece, especially the pose and general stlye of shading, is heavily influenced by a certain work by famed "sexy robot" artist Hajime Sorayama.

A drawing of Clip lying in the middle of a field of wheat at night, feeling the ground with one hand and holding a chocolate egg in the other; it is donning a variant of its traditional jester hat colored in gold and bronze, as well as yellow fingerless arm sleeves, a bunnysuit, and fishnet stockings. A pair of bunny ears above their hat are also present. Next to them is glowing pink text that reads "Have a luscious Easter~".
(source for background photo: https://www.pexels.com/photo/serene-night-sky-over-countryside-with-stars-31632909/)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

New hyperspecific insult just dropped

A cropped screencap of a post from "Arcade Games", a Mastodon bridge account that posts arcade games available to play online on the Internet Archive.
"Go play Pickin' (1983) by Valadon Automation!"

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Once again finding myself inexplicably thinking about Shortstack Prettyboy Mr. Do! #art #fanart #arcadegames #MrDo

Two drawings of Mr. Do! specifically as how he appears in the 2017 pachislo, Duel Dragon Plus; one of him just standing and another of him leaning on top of a slightly more typical, cartoonish Do!, who is in turn filled with pure, unadulterated rage. Between the two drawings is a piece of artwork directly from the machine, featuring Mr. Do! with a rainbow powerball.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Can't believe Atari owns the rights to Stern's entire library and yet they're missing the future trillion-dollar blockbuster directly in front of their eyes

A photo of the cabinet for the 1982 Valadon Automation/Stern-Seeburg arcade game, Bagman (known in its original French as "Le Bagnard"), located inbetween a Ring King and a Ghouls 'n' Ghosts.
(source: arcadestory.it)

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

That one Gary K. Wolf post suddenly reminded me that I think a certain subset of people on this website would genuinely go absolutely feral if they learned about Jessica Rabbit's micro twin sister Joellyn who is identical in every way imaginable except she's six and a half inches tall

The cover artwork for Gary Wolf's "Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?", the official sequel book to the 1988 movie (not the original novel, which is retconned as a nightmare Jessica had). Standing on Eddie's shoulder is Joellyn, Jessica's six 1/2-foot-tall twin sister and also Eddie's love interest.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Tried my hand at rendering chrome, not entirely sure if I pulled it off but whatever #art #robotgirl #bunnygirl

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Once again finding myself thinking about this ad for the combination low-cost N64 devkit/VCD player/ROM loader, the Doctor V64, which may be the single greatest work of advertising known to man

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Ashta made an off-hand comment about how they like when I draw Zoe without adding any color because the purely white face makes her look a bit more clown-like... okay but what if I just straight-up gave her clown makeup lol

Two near-identical drawings of Ms. Do-Little!, one wearing clown makeup and one without; the makeup mostly consists of faint blue highlights above the eyes and cheeks with the exception of dark plus-sign marks across her eyes, similar to her dad's.

An edit of an earlier piece I have previously posted on this site, in which Ms. Do-Little!'s face has once again been altered to feature facepaint.

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🃏 Clip 🃏 @clipthejester.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Shit's melting over here but I still felt the urge to draw something #art #fanart #arcadegames #MrDo #clown

A sketch of Ms. Do-Little! sticking her tongue out and giving a peace sign.

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