iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 7h

the spellchecker doth protest too much, methinks

a cropped screenshot of libreoffice writer, where the spellchecker suggests that in the sentence fragment "abrahamic or otherwise", the word "abrahamic" be changed to "abracadabra"

SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 07/10/2026

today's thrifting post is proof that even 15 years later, one can experience the disappointment of windows phone as if it were brand new herzogzwei.neocities.org/thrifting/te...

a photo of a microsoft kin one smartphone, with the screen pushed upwards to reveal the built-in rudimentary QWERTY keyboard. a micro USB cable is plugged into the side of it to charge the battery, which the screen says is charged to 40%

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Daniel Dockery @dandock.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Today would've been the sixty-fifth birthday of Yu-Gi-Oh! creator Kazuki Takahashi. It tends to get swallowed up in the enormous franchise it became, but I truly believe that his original manga can provide a valuable lesson to artists about process and work and improvement over time.

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 05/10/2026

today's gonna be a "first day back to work after a week of PTO" kind of day

the still from sonatine of beat takeshi smiling while holding a revolver to the side of his own head

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 03/10/2026

fall is in season, time to go on a #RandomGameSaturday holiday

a complete copy of aquanaut's holiday for the original playstation. the box art is a deep underwater scene, with fish dimly lit in the background. the text "AQUANAUT'S HOLIDAY" is imposed over a semi-transparent blue circle containing the japanese title for the same game

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 03/10/2026

i need to get back on the path to $100k, a three year gap is Way Too Long

a CRT photo of my crazy taxi 1 arcade map on default rules high scores. the highest and most recent leaderboard entry was $67,906.67 with B.D. Joe on bicycle, dated september 27th 2023

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 02/10/2026

the end reminds me of seeing really out-there stuff on OG iron chef, only someone with a complete understanding of fundamentals would confidently make tomato gelato well written, i see a lot of passion in trying to find that hypothetical tomato gelato (also the JS implementation was clever lol)

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LAKESPIRIT @lakespirit.love · 02/10/2026

lakespirit.love/posts/2026-1... NEW ARTICLE!! STREETS OF RAGE 2, FINAL FIGHT, THE FLOOR, THE CEILING LETS TALK BEAT EM UP FUNDAMENTALS i establish a basis thru the latter, and get into the nuances thru the former. its a long one!! intended to inspire curiosity

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Nothing Doing @nothingdoingcomic.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Nothing Doing no. 67

p1: Autumn is stewing on the couch next to a nonchalant but pleased Summer. Autumn is also wearing an extremely tall hat that reads “I got divorced at Slick Eddy’s Legal Hut and all I got was this sexy hat and also divorced.”
p2: Autumn snaps, Summer smirks. Autumn: The whole POINT is that it’s not true, you just don’t get it! Summer: Whatever you say. Poser

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pang @birthbydrip.neocities.org · 29/09/2026

a late one for you tonight... monkey ball is one of the most elegantly designed precision arcade games ever made, a game that takes a design staff primed on racers and lets them create economic geometry puzzles, only building towards alien grandeur in their structures at the end. link below!

first few paragraphs: Sega was the master of exaggerated, nuanced physics engines, and Monkey Ball fits that mold to a T. There’s three stylistic inaccuracies that sew Monkey Ball’s unique physics together:

Friction is present as a constant inhibiting force, but in a sense this helps hold the monkey on downward slopes. This gives Monkey Ball a “sticky” quality.

Collisions can and often do pop the monkey up in the air, where speed is uncapped. This, and the fact that the collisions seem relatively elastic,1 make collisions actually a boon for gaining speed rather than a total obstacle.

It’s a common misconception that Monkey Ball has the player control the tilt of the stage, letting the monkey freely roll throughout it. Instead, the player is actually controlling the direction of gravity, offering very similar effects to stage-tilting while also providing essential air control to the monkey.

The three of these combined make Monkey Ball an intuitive, forgiving engine that encourages aggressive play.2 Speed gains are always at the player’s fingertips and rely heavily on environmental awareness. With that intrinsic concentration in the engine, the stage design can then follow suit. Monkey Ball’s stages are focused and brief; many stages have a max time limit of only 30 seconds, intend for you to beat them in less than half of that, and have a theoretical lower bound of only a couple seconds. While the stages are static and encourage memorization, the short length and nuanced physics put the micro-movements front-and-center in comparison to broader routing, and this creates its own form of complexity-oriented dynamism for those who can’t memorize frame-perfect input strings.

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 26/09/2026

also i have now learned that the unknown mod chip in that for parts playstation is, at the very least, a region bypass. neat!

a CRT photo of the mahjong: simple 1500 series volume 1 for playstation. the player just finished a 7 pairs hand for 3200 points

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 26/09/2026

it was a real mahjong day at the game store today

a bunch of video games on a table. included are loose famicom cartridges for mahjong, 4 nin uchi mahjong, golf, and pinball, a boxed copy of the mahjong: simple 1500 series volume 1, a loose game boy cart for tennis, and a loose DS cart for sonic rush adventure

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 26/09/2026

one day i will play command and conquer... i have a loose plan to do a review series leading backwards to herzog zwei from like. starcraft > warcraft > command and conquer(s) > MD dune > MSX herzog > herzog zwei one day...

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 26/09/2026

it's a burning hot 2-for-1 #RandomGameSaturday with unneccessarily big boxes when i thrifted this, it had the soundtrack and two copies of the base game... it's missing the firestorm expansion, but that can be our little secret

a big box copy of the command and conquer: tiberian sun firepower combo, containing the base game, the firestorm expansion pack, and a CD copy of the soundtrack

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D.J. Tatsujin ➡️ www.gemubaka.com @djtatsujin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The September 2026 update to the "Worst of the SEGA Dreamcast" has been published on GemuBaka - 14 new sources of Dreamcast game reviews, this time with Japanese publications, gives us a new top 10. However, Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000 gains its biggest lead so far. gemubaka.com/2026/09/19/s...

gemubaka.com

September 2026 results for the Worst of the Dreamcast

Thanks to SEGA Retro, Japanese publications are among the 14 new sources added to the Worst of the Dreamcast ranking. A familiar face remains at the top (bottom?) of the stack, but regional prefere…

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 28/09/2025

felt inspired

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 25/09/2026

hey, everyone has to scatt the dog pill once in a while

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 24/09/2026

i like my main posts to meet some nebulous quality threshold / have a "grander point" but also only 10% of what i play grips me enough to meet said threshold that means the other 90% stays in the dark until this life-consuming catalog effort is done that i can only hope people will give a chance to

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 24/09/2026

i periodically wonder if i should post my reviews to backloggd so as to not floodgate my website but then i think about the possibility of my self-described tendency to ramble being called paragraph-slop and how my fragile heart would shatter into a million pieces if that happened and go "eh"

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 23/09/2026

i've seen people compare this to revenge of shinobi, and while the enemy and locale design raises it a bit, it's sole standout factor never really gets as weird as i'd enjoy this kind of thing to be so i don't think it reaches that level also my copy had a naked lady at the end. good to know!

a CRT photo of mystic defender on sega genesis. a completely naked lady with long flowing blonde hair down past her waist (but without nipples... or a face) is descending from a pitch black sky, with a large moon viewable in the distance

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 23/09/2026

beat mystic defender. for a holiday game 4 months after the genesis came out in the USA, it's fiiiine i guessssss it had some good ideas with it's level layouts and various magic weapons, but the starting weapon being the best weapon in 90% of situations isn't good in the long run

part of the ending screen to mystic defender on sega genesis. a simplistic pixel art scene of a blue sky, some clouds, green hills, and a lake is positioned above the text "CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETING THIS GAME."

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 21/09/2026

i like there being more than four downs based on the ball temperature increasing until it explodes because i can sack the QB so rapidly that they explode into pieces and force a fumble lol

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 21/09/2026

it finally happened, i have tried an american football video game for the first time with serious intent and am having fun granted it is the MD version of cyberball, so it's very arcade-y but it still counts on some level

a shitty CRT picture of cyberball for the sega genesis. a pass was just completed by the player team for a 30-ish yard drive before the wide receiver got stopped at the 10 yard line

the final score of a game of cyberball on genesis. the "boston riots" beat the "philadelphia guns" 35-12

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pang @birthbydrip.neocities.org · 20/09/2026

to wrap up my trio of klonoa articles for this year, I've got a look at empire of dreams, another valiant effort by the now production jobbers to keep a namco series trucking. the results actually sets a new standard for klonoa puzzling, and you can read about how in the link below!

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 20/09/2026

i like my little collection of lighters i've amassed from mostly garage sales and flea markets, they're usually cheap to purchase and easy to fix

a pile of lighters on a table, arranged in three rows. the top row is, from left to right, a red / gold colibri butane 5mm card lighter, a red / gold jehvani butane lighter, a silver slimline butane lighter with a butterfly on it (and no brandname...), a silver / gold flamex camaro, a somewhat rusty imco triplex, a white zippo with a joker playing card design, and a silver hi-lite that reads "we serve a smile with a cup of coffee, joe's cafe, desoto, missouri". the second row is a regens rocket squeeze lighter, a windguard with a decal of a man in a huge hat smoking a joint and the text "PANAMA RED 1972", a champ lighter with a decal for heineken, a solid brass zippo with the name "george" engraved on it, and a my-lite with a decal of a red ankh shape enclosed in a white oval on a red background. the third row is a silver ronson typhoon, a park lighter with a decal saying "we sell kodak products", a brass liftarm lighter whose engraved maker name is so worn i can't read it, a gold storm queen with a rocky turquoise strip around the outer case, and a continental lighter advertising l&m cigarettes in it's box

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 18/09/2026

new review posted to the Web Site, on lurruna: the island of towering automatons! i really needed a game like this to knock me out of a bit of burnout with games in general. it helps that lurruna is concise, challenging, and rewarding in all the right ways! herzogzwei.neocities.org/reviews/lurr...

herzogzwei.neocities.org

Lurruna: The Island of Towering Automatons / herzogzwei

A Real Blast

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 18/09/2026

herzogzwei.neocities.org

Lurruna: The Island of Towering Automatons / herzogzwei

A Real Blast

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 18/09/2026

work can eat the big one for cutting my hybrid days, but at least there's nearby arcade games for my lunch break i've never tried robotron 2084 before, but i can tell it's a Good One because it whoops my ass in like 90 seconds but i keep coming back for more...

a photo of a robotron 2084 arcade cabinet. a game just ended with a score of 53150, entered into the high score table with the initials "HI"

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 18/09/2026

it finally happened, after reading how "common" it is, i found a ps1 with a mod chip in it i cannot figure out what it does or if it works lmao, all i can get it to do with a burned disc is boot to the SCEA screen which it then hangs on

an original playstation, turned on and with a controller plugged in. a piece of tape is taped to the disc lid that reads "FOR PARTS OR REPAIR, NO POWER"

the underside of the same playstation's PU8 motherboard, zoomed in and cropped to a mod chip that was installed on the board. the chip in question is a microchip 12C508A, with 4 wires soldered to it that are routed to various places on the board

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 17/09/2026

today's thrifting post really should've been posted on 9/11, but i forgot herzogzwei.neocities.org/thrifting/wa...

the front cover of a book of 'george w. bush out of office countdown postcards'. the cover is a cropped photo of george w. bush holding a microphone and laughing against a colored stripe background, with extra text reading 'Hang in there, it's almost over! The reckless rhetoric and daring doublespeak of our 43rd president on 24 hilariously harrowing postcards'

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 17/09/2026

not to mention (i think) thrift flipping fucks the macro-level economy when it raises the price of second-hand goods with "i know what i have"-isms but also the act of scanning UPCs and reading the screen over and over can't be much different than slot machine zombies absently tapping the screen

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 17/09/2026

i feel like society failed when there exists roving groups of seniors with phones and IR scanners strapped to their arms, going to thrift shops and scanning every DVD, CD, and book UPC to see if it's worth flipping yall should be at home with social securities watching archie bunkers place reruns

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 17/09/2026

when i played PSO V2 on dreamcast i thought the enemy behavior meshed well with the limited hotbar options on the stock controller it made for tense moments in navigating menus and not getting boxed in simultaneously since i couldn't fit every action i could practically use on 6 buttons

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Gabriel Jones @pepsimanvsjoe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Today's look is at Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - Artoria Edition. pepsimanvsjoe.blogspot.com/2026/09/2026... (I can't think of anything to add) #retrogaming #capcom #snes

pepsimanvsjoe.blogspot.com

2026 Special - Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts - Artoria Edition

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 15/09/2026

welcome to super fucking piss world, i guess

a CRT photo over RF of the super mario world attract demo, but all the colors are wrong. the bushes and yoshi are red, the soil is green, mario is green, and the background is a very off-putting green-ish yellow

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 14/09/2026

i just got their new album a few days ago cause my local store got CD copies in after only having vinyls for months it's good! it grew on me faster than tomorrow's harvest did and all the implementations of vocal samples added a lot imo

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 13/09/2026

also trying to high score CT2's DLC map for small apple (the one that isn't only groups of mimes) whooped my ass into needing a break from playing lol that can be a nightmare if you mess up a one-time jump or take the wrong passengers that are guaranteed time losses, it's fun to do cleanly though

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 13/09/2026

i actually do need to get back into crazy taxi 1 so i can get to $100,000... i need to learn the patterns better and not keep going in circles around the 2nd half of the loop and draining all my time

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ziad 🇱🇧 @ziaddd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

was asked about my lack of interest in discussing crazy taxi world tour again earlier today, and i'm like... the fact y'all are not putting that time into crazy taxi 1 instead shows you're more interested in zeitgeist discourse FOMO than game design

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HPRshredder @hprshredder.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

youtu.be/SSi7cKvyQ3w Just sharing this again because it's close to 20k and it would make me happy to hit it.

youtu.be

This Game Will Give You Nightmares

YouTube video by HPRshredder

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 12/09/2026

i've tried so many times to beat the TG16 version with the default credit count since i've done the master system version that has a cheat for infinite continues i do fine up to stage 4 which then beats the shit out of me and takes all my lunch money lmao

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SaltMarsh @herzogzwei.neocities.org · 12/09/2026

enjoy a #RandomGameSaturday with what is probably the type of all time

the hucard, jewel case, and manual for r-type on the turbografx-16. the manual art is a stylized drawing of a setpiece in the first stage with the player's ship flying between two mechnical arm-looking extrustions. the hucard is simply the cyan text "r-type" in the turbografx tradedress font on a solid maroon background

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lex luddy needs a nap @lexluddy.xyz · 10/09/2026

Some more Gamescom reporting from me. When pushed to elaborate on what using Generative AI "as part of the ideation process" meant for those unfamiliar with the process, the Crazy Taxi series creator told me, "Today I would like to talk about Crazy Taxi: World Tour, and the time is limited."

shacknews.com

Crazy Taxi series creator does not want to discuss what World Tour's AI usage entails

When pushed for details, Kenji Kanno stated, 'Today I would like to talk about Crazy Taxi: World Tour and the time is limited.'

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