iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Neglecting animated series is pretty common on any mainstream list like this, alas. It uh, stands out given my own preferences:

Personal Top 10 Shows of the 2000's: Steven Universe, The Owl House, Baccano, A Place Further Than the Universe, Angel Beats, Russian Doll, Haikyum Taskmaster, The Good Place, Gravity Falls

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"Using the full scale" has been a guiding principle for me since I started ratings things in earnest ~20 years ago. Even rating harsher than most, I currently average a 6.00 — tho it's kinda natural to play more things that are "for you" which bumps that average some. Currently 1832 ratings:

Videogame ratings graph with a bell curve shape, a median of 6.5, and a small number of ratings for over an 8.0 or lower than a 3.5.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

I most-appreciate the direct and personalized emails I get, really makes you feel seen

$Email screenshot reading: Hey {{first_name}}, We’d love to invite you to check out [Game Name Redacted], a tactical strategy game about keeping your Orcs under control before they destroy everything around them. You’ll be getting early access to the upcoming Steam Next Fest demo ahead of its public release.$

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

I'm old enough + have saved enough from my past that I literally do still have an FF8 midi folder, but alas, I wasn't as enthralled by 8 as the others and my love of midis was starting to wane around that point:

File Explorer window showing two FF8 midis

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Context is too complicated and not even that good so I figured no context was the way to go 😅 I have sadly few screenshots from way back... there's this tiny one of a bugged Energy Vortex that looked like a llama (but purple), that I only captured right before it left the screen :P

1998 Ultima Online screenshot: an Energy Vortex spell is bugged to look like a llama

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Feels bad leaving off some of my all-time favorites from this perspective, but e.g. OneShot didn't quite change my life trajectory or understanding of games quite the way these may have:

Final Fantasy 6, Cave Story, Undertale, FTL, Mario Kart 64, Super Meat Boy, Ultima Online, Spelunky, League of Legends

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

I've opted for the Tabbed Ratings Spreadsheet with Comments & Graphs approach myself

Charts and graphs of rated media across videogames, boardgames, tv, movies, books, and more. 3701 total rated entries with an average rating of 6.11.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Relatively? I initially assumed I was supposed to click your avatar which is wrong, but on hover you're one easy click away:

Hovering a picture labeled 'LIVE' on BlueSky shows a pop-up with a "Watch now" button linked to the user's Twitch page

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

I mean, from experience this is absolutely the best way to look like a TV Hacker

An array of computer windows showing various bits of the Assembly code for Final Fantasy 1

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

I've got a few thousand of these, surely that's enough to build a Time Machine?

Hundreds of AOL Free Trial CDs strew across a bed.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Oh that's cute. Rockin' some OG Deckbuilder cred with Dream Quest there I see! Being a decade-long roguelike+variety streamer has definitely distorted mine in a few ways:

A collage of 100s of Steam games played, topped by FTL, Brotato, Factorio, Storybook Brawl, Spelunky, and Slice & Dice.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

A friend gave me this over 20 years ago and I occasionally still use it to literally jot down victories:

POKEY THE PENGUIN'S REAL-LIFE VICTORY NOTEBOOK

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Uh oh, think I turned into the wrong neighborhood

Photo taken from within a car in the middle of the road featuring 3 wild turkeys blocking the way

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Relevant item we sold at a thrift store when I worked at one — Comes in two colors:

Virtual Reality Headset packaging, comes in two colors: Black and Gary.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

...I didn't actually notice there were *three* lego sculptures there until I went back and found this picture I'd taken of sidewalk art at a school

A child's sidewalk chalk art of a sliced-in-half Among Us character

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

I opted to reference the game that was just as special and magical to me a decade prior.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

I was skeptical; my viewers insisted I play Undertale, but I didn't expect to like it very much. But gradually it impressed me more and more, and every single time I played or watched someone else I'd catch something new I'd never seen before, until it simply become my all-time favorite.

A picture of Balrog from Cave Story alongside the text "Undertale reminded my jaded, cynical heart that games can still be magical."

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Those other artists don't appear to have their prints hanging up behind me tho

DarkTwinge streaming with a framed print of a contemplative Vivi and a Crokinole board visible behind him.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

His best tweet was about him playing his own game!

Toby Fox on Twitter, replaying Undertale in 2016: "Why is Onionsan even here. Why did I make this character"

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

There was more than one message around town like this which I haven't really seen before or since:

Sidewalk chalk: "Times may be tough... but you are tougher!"
Smaller to the side: "I am Thank you"

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

While this modification takes a little more work than a simple Hammertime, I would argue it's worth it and we should try to shift our sticker focus in this direction:

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

*20 years ago* I made a card game where Cheese Puns were a literal mechanic, and I even had a card named "Who Moved My Cheese?" purely because the phrase came up when I was researching cheese stuff - I had no idea it was an awful book at the time!

Sample cards from "Romanian Cheese War", including Who Moved My Cheese", Monterey Jacked, Curd Your Enthusiasm, and 'Every Card Contains a Cheese Pun! Awesome Power!'

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Apparently after retiring from vampire-hunting, Simon became a dentist.

An array of dentist tools, with the equipment prominently labeled "Belmont".

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Twitch thinks this is a reasonable limit to suddenly impose apparently

Twitch settings page, Video Storage: Highlights & Uploads
A full red bar next to a count of 8391 hours used out of 100 hours allowed

Storage Full
You can not create Highlights or Upload new content until you free up storage space. Please manage your content before April 19th, 2025 to avoid losing any content.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Anime can be dangerous. I watched Haikyuu and suddenly I want to do physical exercise and my YouTube recommendations look like this:

Screenshot of YouTube video featuring an obscure local volleyball game with only 26 views.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 17/09/2024

The best way to look like a stereotypical hacker is to contribute to an open-source NES randomizer project.

Various programs displaying, editing, and comparing Final Fantasy 1 Assembly Code

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 06/08/2024

I love the layers of culture present even in nonsense memes from 2003. Amusing absurdity on its own, made from an awful LawForKids "educational" comic, featuring the car Putt-Putt from a children's game I hadn't even heard of when I saved this image - yet I competitively speedran it a decade later.

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 04/08/2024

Y'know I could just treat this place like my Xanga "blog" in the early 2000s and only post random meme images. Even better if the images themselves are from the early 2000s and have no explanation:

Arcade cabinet for Sawhorse Detective, the greatest game ever conceived

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DarkTwinge @darktwinge.bsky.social · 27/07/2024

I've realized a *huge* amount of the time I'm spending interacting with Twitter literally just involves me blocking garbage accounts, and maybe I should at least consider using one of the alternatives? So... hi.

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