iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

We had to stop The Ninth Jedi partway through the first episode because the fact that going evil magically turns your lightsaber red in the new Disney canon was officially a bridge too far for her.

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My former superfan wife went through almost exactly the same trajectory, except she clocked The Force Awakens as a bad Xerox of A New Hope from the outset and has even less tolerance for Disney-era SW product than I do.

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After that, the carnival of franchise key-jangling and humiliatingly terrible narrative choices that was RoS almost felt like a mercy killing, like JJ Abrams firmly underlining that it was officially OK to just write the entire project off and move on.

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By the time Palpatine Somehow Returned, my affection for the franchise was fairweather at best. Even The Last Jedi already had enough stupid bits to sour me on the Sequel Trilogy - much as I like Rian Johnson's other work, "spaceships that run out of fuel suddenly stop moving" is nadir-level idiocy.

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I'll happily acknowledge that the Prequels at least had ideas to call its own, even if those ideas were let down by lousy scripting and questionable acting. But my antipathy towards TPM was vastly amplified by the fact that the Star Wars media machine went all in on it to the detriment of the rest.

I still occasionally dip into SW media here and there - my willingness to do so being directly proportional to how much it acknowledges the Prequels as legitimate, which is why I won't touch Zero Company - but that particular one-two punch eviscerated any genuine bond I ever had with the franchise.

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If you wanted to stay out of the rancid Prequel milieu, the only major alternative was the New Jedi Order and its big, dumb galactic bio-goth invasion, or the Knights of the Old Republic games, which removed anything remotely interesting about their source material with outright surgical precision.

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Suddenly, LucasArts went from genre-pushing standouts like X-Wing and Dark Forces to crud like Jedi Power Battles and Super Bombad Racing. Dark Horse dropped post-Original Trilogy comics in favor of gems like a six-issue series devoted to the adventures of polygamist Jedi Conehead Ki-Adi-Mundi.

WebDesignMuseum @webdesignmuseum.org · 21/09/2026

I admire your ability to keep any fandom going after The Phantom Menace hit. The movie being a full-on Grade-A clinker was bad enough, but it also pulled the entire Star Wars media ecosystem right down into the pit with it.

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Reposted by Io Black

In 2001, we really thought this was what the future of web design would look like.

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Neat, meditative little curio from graphic design power couple Saul and Elaine Bass, riffing off a 1946 short story by Ray Bradbury with '80s genre flick grain and grit.

youtube.com

Quest 1984

YouTube video by Victor

Unfortunately, with Tama Yutaka dead, Tsukuda Hobby defunct, and Bandai very happy to leave its ill-fated RPG ventures deep in the memory hole, it's unlikely that there'll ever be a definitive answer.

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The case for Space Cobra being first is likely the most convincing - in 2016, Takanashi claimed that the RPG was already in development in the summer of 1982 and took about 3 to 4 months to write - but all three titles released in close enough succession to muddy the waters of recollection.

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...this still leaves a fair bit of ambiguity about what shipped when. I would probably assume that Enterprise and Crusher Joe were out by March '83 and the mismatched product codes were due to Tsukuda Hobby having submitted the ad back in January/February, but that's obviously just conjecture.

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A piece in Simulator 4 (April '83) stated that Crusher Joe had been released, and Tactics Issue 9 (May '83) advertised both games with their final product codes. Unfortunately, given the lead times in magazine production and the fact that both Tactics and Simulator had a two-month cadence...

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Enterprise was already being promoted as in development in Issue 7 of Tactics (dated January 1983) and included alongside Crusher Joe in a Tsukuda Hobby product list in Issue 8 (March '83), but the product codes given don't match the final releases, suggesting this was still pre-release publicity.

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...based on the same Simulator article Makoto Yokokawa cites in the thread you linked, as well as Takanashi's recollections about Space Cobra missing its intended '82 ship date and being delayed into the new year. That said, Takanashi cautions that his memory isn't 100% reliable on that topic.

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The exact order those games released in has been surprisingly difficult to pin down. CompNodes' The Unhistory of Paranoia (パラノイア非史1984-2016) has it as Space Cobra, Enterprise, Crusher Joe, citing a piece published in Issue 13 of Simulator. Space Cobra is pegged with a January/February '83 release...

Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Since Japan didn't have much of a tabletop scene at the time, Enterprise's designer, Tama Yutaka, built it to be an introductory title for "super-beginners." Unfortunately, it didn't sell terribly well and ended up as little more than a footnote in the Japanese RPG chronology.

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

As for Enterprise, it takes a lot of pretty obvious design cues from OD&D, including an alignment system that keeps Good and Evil but replaces Lawful and Chaotic with "Logical" and "Emotional." Star Trek RPG historian Robert St. John has a complete fan translation available on his personal website:

robertsaintjohn.com

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Kind of. Bandai's Space Cobra: Final Weapon arguably predated it, as it was originally slated for a release in late 1982 (broadly aligning it with the TV anime it was based on) but missed that window due to production issues - at least according to its author, Shunichi Takanashi.

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Reposted by Io Black

joannes @playthroughline.com · 11/09/2026

"Richie Diniz died doing what he loved: not dying" And with that, @brunodias.dev's Neurocracy story is complete! I think it came together beautifully, both on the pages of Omnipedia and in dialogue with players ❤️ Check it out from the start right here: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/03/Richie_Diniz

A Neurocracy illustration that depicts a press event for the signing of a football player named Richie Diniz, who's holding up a colourful jersey with a satisfied smile. To his right is a tall businessman in a dark suit who looks less pleased to be there

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Reposted by Io Black

Andy Kelly @ultrabrilliant.xyz · 07/09/2026

This book from 2002 is an incredible time capsule of Y2K graphic/web design. Absolute goldmine if you're into that aesthetic, and also a kind of mausoleum for a visually interesting internet that no longer exists. 🔗 archive.org/details/tasc...

The cover of the book TASCHEN'S 1000 FAVORITE WEBSITES. The title is printed in a square font in foil on a yellow background.

Another spread showing various websites.

The title page featuring an illustration of a hyperlink hand cursor made out of large coloured pixels.

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Given the towering backlog of current- and previous gen titles available to crack into, skipping out on making the jump to all-digital machines with €1,000 price tags and fewer exclusives than ever feels like a fairly painless call.

Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

No Law's already being touted as a return to the glory days of cyberpunk immersive sims, which really makes me hope that there's no imAI-related revelations lurking in ambush position further down the promo cycle.

youtube.com

NO LAW — Official Trailer | Gamescom ONL 2026 | 4K

YouTube video by NO LAW

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Good to see you online again.

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I'm endlessly compelled by starry-eyed visionaries trying to give life to modern-day ideas with yesteryear's technology - in this case, a single mainframe, an armada of telex machines, and plenty of forehead sweat.

youtube.com

Why the socialist internet failed

YouTube video by Louped

Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

In terms of frequency, Ty opening commissions is about on par with those multi-planetary alignments heralding the coming of some arcane horror from beyond mortal ken. Crack those wallets open while you can.

joannes @playthroughline.com · 17/08/2026

Reposted by Io Black

"Richie Diniz died doing what he loved: not dying" This brand new Neurocracy story kicks off with the unfortunate passing of a beloved sports icon and longevity influencer 😔 Check it out: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/03/Richie_Diniz (written by @brunodias.dev with art from @netizenses.bsky.social)

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

It is kind of interesting to reflect on how Fujimi Shobo effectively tried to brute-force a transmedia element into GURPS, as it was really the only Western RPG in their lineup that didn't have some kind of crossover component baked in from the start.

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Trust me, very few days go by where I don't actively think about this.

The "Dominos" meme. The starting domino is labeled "Dredging Up Old DeviantArts for Webcomic Inspo," and the ending domino is "Circus Clown Yaoi."

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Reposted by Io Black

David Heredia (Int.) @animeitantei.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

📅 Today is #MoominsDay and Tove Jansson's birthday so, to celebrate, here's a short thread about that time Hayao Miyazaki pissed off the Finnish writer so much that her complaints led to the cancellation of the first Moomin anime. Here we go! #Moomin #ムーミンの日

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

As Kondō explained on Twitter in 2013: "When I was thinking about whether there was something similar to the term "table RPG" or "talking RPG," I remembered the words "table talk." It's an English phrase that means casual conversation around a dinner table or a short speech."

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

While it looks like a corruption of "tabletop RPG" at first blush, that terminology didn't really start gaining traction in Western media until the '90s and - to my knowledge - wasn't widely accepted in the RPG scene before the 2000s. The similarity is more of a happy coincidence than anything else.

Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Kōshi Kondō, who takes credit for coining the term, has said that it emerged from a need to differentiate tabletop RPGs from their better-known computer and video game counterparts back in the late '80s. Since the Western RPG scene hadn't really settled on a descriptor yet, he decided to invent one.

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The only real, halfway streamlined way to make that work in a hard sci-fi context would be with a broader "Presence" attribute, which would be a combination of inherent charisma/intimidation and a numerical signifier of how fancy or impressive your ship and gear are. Still a bit of a faff, mind.

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blackmetronome.bandcamp.com

One more for good measure: though we've never worked together directly, @blackmetronome.blacksky.app's been a firm (and prolific) friend of the comic for about as far back as I can remember. Trapgaze, his first album of hip-hop instrumentals, just hit Bandcamp earlier this year.

Trapgaze, by Black.Metronome

22 track album

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If you dug the Dates & Wires OST (and really, who didn't?), there's a pair of brand-new Ningen tunes up for grabs today.

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joannes @playthroughline.com · 06/08/2026

A handy jump-on point for one of my favorite weird fantasy settings of recent years.

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Reposted by Io Black

The first new Neurocracy story is complete! ...but by no means finished, because every answer just raises further questions 😏 Check out @baroness.bsky.social's full story here: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/04/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum And stay tuned for the next one, coming soon from @brunodias.dev 🙏

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Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It’s not officially licensed yet, but She is Beautiful offers a pacy mash-up of Memento and The Bourne Identity with an added sapphic twist.

Cover of Volume 1 of the She is Beautiful manga, showing main character Kurumi holding a hand up to her face.

Io Black @ioblack.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I'd been eager to use those bonus art spreads included in Wares Blade's Ryude Edition to showcase some of the funkier fan-made designs submitted to RPG Magazine during the '90s, but since that plan got spiked due to rights issues...