iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

IMO it's an example of what Ron Gilbert calls a "backwards puzzle" as pretty much every element to solve the entire puzzle has been found before you have the context to solve it. IMO it's just much easier to miss a complex solution under your nose than a simple one

Backwards Puzzles

The backwards puzzle is probably the one thing that bugs me more than anything else about adventure games. I have created my share of them; and as with most design flaws, it’s easier to leave them in than to redesign them. The backwards puzzle occurs when the solution is found before the problem. Ideally, the crevice should be found before the rope that allows the player to descend. What this does in the player’s mind is set up a challenge. He knows he need to get down the crevice, but there is no route. Now the player has a task in mind as he continues to search. When a rope is spotted, a light goes on in his head and the puzzle falls into place. For a player, when the design works, there is nothing like that experience.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 05/10/2026

you know what, the 9 albums thing is quite cool I'm gonna share mine as I don't think I've done one of those (done the 9 games one like a billion times)

9 albums arranged in a 3x3 format

Songs in the key of life by Stevie Wonder, A night at the Opera by Queen, Emergency on Planet Earth by Jamiroquai, Thousand Knives by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Solid State Survivor by Yellow Magic Orchestra, Discovery by Daft Punk, Time by Louis Cole, Thrill of the Arts by Vulfpeck, Choose your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote

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Ash @fishyash.com · 03/10/2026

Here's me somehow no missing stage 4 on a run despite never getting it in while practicing, it was on stream so there's running commentary lol

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Ash @fishyash.com · 02/10/2026

Also in case you think this was some baseless assertion from Jacob, this is literally from the person who outed the whole thing again I don't care what happens to Jacob, so this doesn't really reflect my opinion on the situation. whatever social consequences he receives are none of my business

from mk @handslikevap0r on twitter:

i apologize for overstepping a boundary of posting about someone else's traumatic experience with sexual assault. it was not my place to do that. it was never my intention for my posts to go beyond my standard audience, but that was a careless assumption on my part.

i believe in accountability and i do believe people possess the ability to learn from their mistakes and change their behaviors. i don't want to ruin someone's career or life over something they did 10 years ago that they are actively working on healing from.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 01/10/2026

... don't give me hope... please...

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Ash @fishyash.com · 26/09/2026

All is right with the world again

Screenshot of snakebird. A "Well done!" with celebratory fireworks is shown in front of a snowy backdrop

World map of snakebird, levels 0-45 are all marked in gold for completion, with ⭐️1 being marked in gold while ⭐️2-6 are not

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Ash @fishyash.com · 26/09/2026

Look at this... disgusting

World map of snakebird that lets you choose a level. It is filled with numbered gold stars, levels 1-43 and 45 are golden, marked as complete while 44 is marked in blue, not yet complete.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 24/09/2026

TBH this clip alone changed the way I engaged with stories in general lol

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Ash @fishyash.com · 22/09/2026

Gave Dungeon Hack a go, it's actually really fun but I gotta figure out how to change the controls lmao cause the numpad controls do not work on my keyboard lmao

Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Computer Game
Forgotten Realms
Dungeon Hack

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Ash @fishyash.com · 21/09/2026

I remembered. Happy 21st of September to all who celebrate, I bring my yearly tradition to the world.

44624

Ash @fishyash.com · 21/09/2026

Friendly reminder that Duolingo was initially concieved to trick people into translating articles for free, which they later used as training data for MTL algorithms. Duolingo's primary purpose has NEVER been about teaching you a language, even from the start! slate.com/technology/2...

If it doesn’t charge users and, so far, doesn’t serve them any ads, how does Duolingo make money? It tricks you into working as an unpaid translation service. At the end of some lessons, Duolingo will ask you if you want to practice by translating a real-world document. Which will turn out to be, say, a BuzzFeed article. By melding together enough stabs at this task from high-level Duolingo users, the app can render a surprisingly accurate translation. Which is worth good money. So far, Duolingo has contracts with BuzzFeed and CNN to translate stories from English into languages such as Spanish, French, and Portuguese. This service is already earning Duolingo hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but von Ahn predicts he will be adding a raft of new clients soon. “The language translations market is huge,” he says. “It’s a $30 billion per year market.”

2227081664

Ash @fishyash.com · 21/09/2026

#STGSummer is still not over... astronomically speaking anyway

When does astronomical autumn begin?

Astronomical autumn begins with the autumn equinox, which usually falls on 22 or 23 September each year. During the equinox, the Sun shines directly above the Earth's equator, resulting in day and night being nearly equal in length across the globe.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 17/09/2026

Managed to solve two particularly nasty snakebird puzzles today. Here's a clip of me realising I fucked up ten thousand moves ago

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Ash @fishyash.com · 13/09/2026

god this puzzle took me FOREVER, on-off over 3 separate play sessions (I usually play it a little bit per day) Snakebird is a seriously good game lol

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Ash @fishyash.com · 12/09/2026

That's fair, I'd say the difficulty goes up probs around world 5 or 6, and then again in world 8. Here's a run of all of world 6 which might be more illustrative (it's been quite nostalgic revisiting the way I used to play SMB1 lmao)

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Ash @fishyash.com · 12/09/2026

yeah the only way around that is to either stay on the ground or memorize the levels. tbh this conversation got me revisiting the slow playstyle and I decided to record a run of how I'd do a level like 2-3 (tons of RNG enemies, there's a hidden 1-UP in 3-1 if you get all the coins here)

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Ash @fishyash.com · 11/09/2026

I decided to try snakebird primer and got this far in about 5 minutes. It felt like a waste of time lol, I was worried about nothing but in another sense it's very skippable unless you find very early snakebird insurmountable (say like puzzle 3/4)

World map of Snakebird primer, where levels 1-7 and 47 are marked as complete with a gold star

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Ash @fishyash.com · 03/09/2026

I have made a fuck ton of bean soup and it's basic but also really good, quite impressed with myself with this one as I can count the amount of times I've cooked with dried beans on one hand

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Ash @fishyash.com · 02/09/2026

When I said most players don't want to improve, it was kinda a hunch but I'm glad that it got so viscerally verified here bsky.app/profile/fish...

The point of this system was specifically to pull players out of the endlessly frustrating ranked grind cycle, which keeps them mashing games in queue in order to earn ranked points that become their status marker within the game (and thus keeps them mashing games when they lose rank in order to restore their status). In this tournament-based progression system, players cannot grind for status; they have to grind for mastery, and play the game with intentionality in order to get better. When they get better, they'll play better in tournaments and win and move up. (Actually, the original version of this system didn't even allow for online tournaments, just offline, using the carrot of progression markers to push players to connect with each other locally; this got shot down immediately, as you might imagine. It would not be popular, but it would deliver far more life-changing experiences to the people who were down for it, and that is ultimately what I'm here for.)

The problem with this system, of course, is that most players out there do not want to play the game in order to get better, they want to play the game and have the game tell them they're getting better. I wanted to break the ranked compulsion loop because I think it only does its players a disservice; it often gives them the illusion of progressing much further than they actually have, and actually hides the real progress they do make, and the way it plays on their frustration and insecurity around the ranking system itself makes them hate the game, the players, and themselves in the process. What I learned from the rounds of feedback I got on this work is that progression systems aren't for the players who are progressing, they're for retaining the players who aren't actually progressing, and that the ranked queue grind is a misery engine that keeps the game's online services alive and populated. The intrinsically-motivated players are going to play anyway, after all, so the job is instead to saturate the extrinsic motivators and retain the players who don't really want to play the game, or at least, not enough to do it without the promise of virtual goodies and ethereal validation. My thinking was that if you don't really want to play the game, then I don't want to give you stuff to convince you to stick around, because if you're not having a good time, it's highly likely the people you're playing with aren't having a good time either, and so we're all better served if you go play something you do like instead. I am told this is not an effective strategy for player retention, but it still makes sense to me as a philosophy for building games that get people to have a good time playing with each other together even if the economic engines aren't dissatisfied enough.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 31/08/2026

remembering why I stopped playing wizardry 3...

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Ash @fishyash.com · 31/08/2026

trying to do some alignment switching in wizardry 3 cause I wanna level up the ninja in the party... I have two good priests that could change and of COURSE it's the shit one that changed first lmao Honestly Dodo having 18s across the board is incredible, could possibly make them into another ninja

Character sheet for Kiwi, level 9 priest with good stats everywhere except for a pathetic piety stat of 7 (main stat for priests)

Character sheet for Dodo, a level 10 priest who has a perfect spread of 18s across the board

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Ash @fishyash.com · 29/08/2026

oh ok then... twitter web viewer is also gone. looks like x the everything app formerly known as twitter are doing my job for me in making sure I don't read anything from there ever tbh accidentally finding this was already a mistake lol

Service discontinued

As of August 28, 2026, this website has been permanently discontinued, following a request from X Corp. All cached content has been deleted.

Subscribers: your subscription has been cancelled and refunded — please check your email for details.

Thank you to everyone who used and supported the site.
Dienst eingestellt

Seit dem 28. August 2026 ist diese Website auf Ersuchen von X Corp. dauerhaft eingestellt. Alle zwischengespeicherten Inhalte wurden gelöscht.

Abonnenten: Ihr Abonnement wurde gekündigt und der Betrag erstattet — Einzelheiten finden Sie in Ihrer E-Mail.

Vielen Dank an alle, die die Website genutzt und unterstützt haben.
サービス終了のお知らせ

2026年8月28日をもって、X Corp. からの要請により本サイトの運営を終了いたしました。キャッシュされていたコンテンツはすべて削除しました。

有料プランをご利用の方：ご登録は解除され、返金処理が完了しています。詳細はメールをご確認ください。

ご利用・ご支援いただき、誠にありがとうございました。

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Ash @fishyash.com · 26/08/2026

Are you fucking serious??? This sucks so much. I hope they figure out a way to fight this...

Cease and desist

On 24 August 2026 cease and desist letters have been sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project's repository.

nitter.net is offline and development has stopped for the time being. I'm seeking legal advice and won't be commenting further on the specifics for now.

Thank you to everyone who used, hosted, packaged, donated and contributed to Nitter over the past seven years.
— zedeus, 25 August 2026

On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel.
The service XCancel is stopped until further notice.
We are seeking legal advice and won't share more details for now.
Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel.

130

Ash @fishyash.com · 23/08/2026

Absolutely enjoying the Suemi art once again after a couple months away from Wizardry. Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder...

Screenshot of Wizardry Lyllgamin Saga, in a battle against a dark rider.
A cloaked knight with a horned animal skull is wielding a large sword mid-swing.

050

Ash @fishyash.com · 22/08/2026

omg... at long last... it only too TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF PLAY TIME

Eschatos
OPTION LEVEL UP!
Lv.36
You can now start from stage 5!
YOU TRIED HARD!

020

Ash @fishyash.com · 17/08/2026

Area 19 is definitely the highlight of Eschatos for me. I could probably happily play a whole game worth of this type of enemy wave. Maybe I could just play some space invaders lol

361

Ash @fishyash.com · 16/08/2026

Quickly sharing that I finally got the Eschatos clear before bsky shits the bed again

Eschatos screenshot, original normal difficulty, 10136287 points.
A shot of the earth is shown from space, which has been saved from an alien invasion.

161

Ash @fishyash.com · 16/08/2026

Then I die twice in a row to the actual hard part of the stage (genuinely evil level design here I love it lol) but I've already figured it out why am I sucking again argh

000

Ash @fishyash.com · 16/08/2026

the first run basically felt like actually breaking my leg lmao I have literally never died to this part and I get 2 deaths in a row

010

Ash @fishyash.com · 14/08/2026

I'm reading up on the investigation news, as Farage's win means it resumes *IMMEDIATELY*. I did not know about this part though? Nigel Farage is actually a fucking scumbag for this! Clacton is one of the poorest constituencies in the UK!

One thing the Reform UK leader could have anticipated is the cost. In a constituency with the most deprived neighbourhood in England, the council estimates taxpayers will need to fork out £250,000 for the organisation of this by-election. Reform UK has offered to foot the bill, but that is not allowed under electoral law.

010

Ash @fishyash.com · 13/08/2026

Why is the bsky trending widget so fucking useless... AI should not be hallucinating falsehoods about elections

100

Ash @fishyash.com · 05/08/2026

Super Turbo: Honorable good ol' fashioned street fighter Champion Edition: A twisted game for twisted gamers

010

Ash @fishyash.com · 31/07/2026

I hope you find a way to include this image

030

Ash @fishyash.com · 29/07/2026

Finally got another run on Eschatos where I made it to the final boss. Another score PB (though I'm not really playing for score lol) but with less lives as I threw away so many of them by doing stupid bullshit like this No music for some reason. Just imagine a banger playing in your head

150

Ash @fishyash.com · 27/07/2026

i'm being sexually harassed in katakana english help

FF7 screenshot, Cloud is dressed as a girl and a bunch of guys try to hit on him. The dude speaks with heavy katakana english so I'll transcribe the Japanese instead of translating
「カモンベイベー！」

Tons more katakana english, hopefully TTS just reads it out
「オマエのハートはキュートでタイト
グッドなビートでヒートアップ！」

020

Ash @fishyash.com · 24/07/2026

Eschatos: Somehow managed to clear my PB on the 3rd boss today lmao Extremely messy run though, was throwing lives away in stage 3 and game over'd very early in stage 4 For comparison, my 2nd best score was on the final boss Score aside I hate moments like this where I feel like I'm getting worse

Ranking score on eschatos, rank 1 has 5.7m on area 17 and rank 2 has 5.4m on area 23

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Ash @fishyash.com · 24/07/2026

How in the world did I even get this label lmao I made like 3 posts yesterday? idk how the maths add up here lol I'm appealing, out of curiosity though the label will obviously go away and it's no big deal. Good news is that I can probably just disregard this label on other users

fishyash.bsky.social
No break greater than 4 hrs yesterday

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Ash @fishyash.com · 21/07/2026

No wizardry tonight but I am finally back to inching my way through playing an RPG in Japanese again

Screenshot of FF7. Barret and Cloud are in a train. A text box in Japanese reads:
"H-haven't you seen the n-news? There's a bomb threat from Avalanche."

030

Ash @fishyash.com · 21/07/2026

I got the same feeling as hitting a new level in an MMO after grinding for hours Just a few more levels... almost hit level cap to play the endgame

ESCHATOS
OPTION LEVEL UP!
Lv.29
You can now start from stage 4!

110

Ash @fishyash.com · 19/07/2026

Finally some good news. It'll probably take a while for them to be imprisoned pending extradition + a trial, but I'm glad they're arrested again. Genuinely hope these fuckers rot in jail forever. The new charges on the CPS website show that they're even more vile than we thought.

CPS decides to prosecute Tate brothers with additional sexual offences
19 July 2026
Press Release Sexual offences National news

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided to bring further charges against brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate in relation to four further victims.

The CPS has decided to prosecute Andrew Tate, 39, with seven further counts of rape, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and 19 additional charges for offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.

The CPS has decided to prosecute Tristan Tate, 38, with one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.

000

Ash @fishyash.com · 13/07/2026

My go-to example for this is the Sonic Adventure games. That camera is going fucking EVERYWHERE while Sonic is speeding along twists and turns and loops, but you are simply holding A Direction (as long as it's not the one that makes sonic stop moving)

020

Ash @fishyash.com · 03/07/2026

It's frustrating because if I knew this from the start I would've started on hard. But to defend their decision to do that, I think the normal difficulty is excellently designed. I'd actually dare say it functions better as an easy mode than the easy difficulty does lol

—Please tell us about the difficulty of the game.

M-KAI: People had said Judgment Silversword was too hard, so at the start of development for Eschatos we added a Normal and Easy mode where things are much easier. So if players clear Normal mode once and feel something is lacking, I would definitely like them to try the Hard mode. From the start I programmed Eschatos with the Hard mode as my base, and the Advanced Hard mode is the one I played the most as well. Hardest mode is unlocked as you play the game, but it contains parts that were done almost half-jokingly, so please don’t worry if you can’t clear it.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 01/07/2026

I'm getting an AMAZING first impression from the anniversary edition! Look at how it compares to the original (which came free with it btw)

7th guest main menu on the 25th anniversary edition, a rather plain looking menu with a house in the background and some candles scattered around the edges of the screen

Original 7th guest main menu, stylized like a ouija board

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Ash @fishyash.com · 01/07/2026

My favourite is the vorpal bunny, look how cute they are! oh btw they also can randomly instakill you

Fight in Wizardry 1 against 4 vorpal bunnies and 6 giant rodents

2185

Ash @fishyash.com · 01/07/2026

I'm glad I'm not the only one who immediately screenshotted them when I came across this. This one is from Llylgamyn Saga on playstation. Same art ofc

Fight in Wizardry 2 against 5 Hippopotami

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Ash @fishyash.com · 23/06/2026

One thing I do actually really like about Wizardry 4's combat system, at least so far, is a sense of catharsis. I am basically able to inflict the same bullshit on these heroes that the monsters were doing on me I'm looking forward to being able to stone and level drain these fuckers in the future

Combat screen of Wizardry 4, against a group of fighters. 5/6 of them are paralyzed.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 19/06/2026

Got a normal clear on Eschatos, this was with continues though. I have at individual moments beaten stages 1, 2 and 3 cleanly at the very least. Hopefully i'll get a clean stage 4. My primary goal is still a 1cc. TBH I wouldn't even bother using continues if it wasn't for the annoying points grind

030