iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

"Brian!" "Yeah, boss?" "What theme should we go for the latest OPMUK demo disc?" "How about... Comic Sans and pulsating bio-horror as something threatens to burst out and unleash a NEW PLAGUE UPON ALL THE LANDS!" "I-Uh, Brilliant."

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Venturing once more into Windows 3.1 territory to refresh my memory on a Sierra On-Line game I'd completely forgotten about: Shivers! Will be a little delve thread, starting off with a look at the demos that got installed alongside it. I always remember seeing Torin's Passage in Sierra brochures.

A snap of Win 3.1 windows open, with a Sierra program group and various little icons for games, demos, and utils.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

I love catching glimpses of earlier VR tech, and media from 1992-94 is a rich resource for it, as there was a major push to introduce it then. Here, in a 1992 episode of Computer Chronicles, we get a peek at one of the VR headsets and the glove input devices used for with it. #VideoBytes

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RPG towns @rpgtowns.bsky.social · 10h

PaxLair Ultima Online September 24, 1997 Origin Systems

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A large castle with a fountain and two dead trees in front. A plaque above the doorway reads "Proclamation of distinction by his royal majesty Lord British".

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A garden and a monument of female and male figured. A monument made of dark rock pillars with two bells at the top. Benches next to the monuments.

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Lone player stands in the towns small arena. Tall yellow walls surround a patch of grass.

Screenshot by reddit user MicroPlanet
A temple on top of a medieval castle or maybe on the second floor.

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Videogame Beaches🏳️‍⚧️ @videogamebeach.bsky.social · 7h

Planet of the Humans (Ape Escape 3, PS2, SIE Japan Studio, 2005)

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

An impeccable tomboy fit: Patlabor's Noa Izumi. 💜 Grabbed from an old anime archive of pics I downloaded many years ago. I believe it's from an artbook gallery.

An illustration of Noa in scarlet red shorts, white tee, and matching jacket, and her usual mop of short brown hair. She's running a hand through her hair with a cocky glance at the viewer. The tomboy/enby vibes are, well, woof. <3

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 11h

With Majora's Mask complete, and inspired by the recent 30th anniversary, we've kicked off crossing off a Sega gap in our play history: Sakura Wars!

A crt TV screenshot of Sakura Wars Saturn titlescreen

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

May I suggest for the next Ridge Racer mascot? 🩷 📺: Can Can Bunny, Cocktail Soft, 1989 (PC-88)

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Flying in on Legendary Wings 🎶 📺: Thunder Force V, Technosoft, Sega Saturn, 1997

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Me to fan artwork of hot characters in games and franchises I don't play

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 15h

Before Portal, there was, well, Portal. Activision's 1986 'computer novel' is one of the examples of the kind of entertainment software being developed for the Commodore Amiga in its first year. High concept, artsy, and tapping into the creativity-focused marketing for the computer.

A scan of the box from Mobygames, with an almost completely glossy black cover and the worlds PORTAL and the computer novel tagline at the top. Ghost-like faces can be seen at the bottom of the cover. In the upper centre: an evocative premise.

Homer, A Biological Computer. The Final Link to the Past and the Only Conduit to the Future. But Homer is dying and access grows weaker moment by moment. Will you discover where everyone has gone or will to the doorway to humanity close forever, leaving you totally alone?

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

PS2 pre-rendered backgrounds, my beloved <3

A capture from one our PS2s of the prologue chapter in Zanarkand with huge statues flanking a huge door surrounded by blitzball fans.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The art of photoplay and capturing game screenshots in the 80s. Game mags had various ways of taking screenshot, from hooded cones to block light to early hardware capture devices. Sometimes though, you just had to have a friend hold up the TV at *just* the right angle. 📖: Your Sinclair, Dec '87

A photo of a page from the issue with a black and white printed image of two young writers invited onto the YS offices. One of them is holding up a longish lens film camera and pointing it at a screen while the other holds up a small crt at an angle with a game on it

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

We're inbound for a fresh visit to the world of Apple Macintosh CD-ROM multimedia Gunpla with Bandai's Gundam Shop, Volume 2 (1996) I showcased some of Volume 1 last year, and this is much the same, though updated to include Gundam Wing. It's still such a sweet thing explore.

A screencap of the rendered/digitized photo mix of a wooden floorboard and white wall first floor room with Gunpla kits in piles on the wall, and Haro on the counter. UI elements for navigation frame it

An entry for the XXXG-01W Wing Gundam, with a photo of a completed and posed Gunpla, and info like cost and scale, in this case 1/100th. Manual, package, and concept art can be selected

A HiZack mobile suit, this one rotatable

One of the diaroama shocases, this one with Gundam F91 vs Denan-Zon, with both in a mid-battle combat with one another

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

📖 Bytes of Game Ads 📺 One final journey to a virtual museum in 1997 - a Namco Museum. A sweet ad for a lovely series. There'd be a sixth 'encore' release on PS1, but it would foreshadow the future stripping out of the history aspects in favour of a focus on the games in the series going forward.

A Japanese ad for the fifth and final volume of the quintet of NAMCO MUSEUM releases on PS1 that spell out N-A-M-C-O on their covers. Various characters are on display in rendered and illustrated form from Pac-Man to Mappy.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Saturn can produce an entire army of mind-boggling special effects.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Dug up from digital archives: a cute bit of mid-90s CG rendering of an MSX from an old '95 PCMania CDROM.

A 3D render of an MSX microcomputer on a wooden desk in a corner in front of a CRT TV with tapes, cart, and various games on the shelf. A 3 button arcade joystick can be seen next to an Asterix and Obelix poster on the wall.

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Games From The Black Hole @gamesblackhole.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Shared with me on the other site… An arcade cab in Merseyside running all three scenarios of Shining Force III in English… It’s an abomination but I kind of respect it!

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Lainwithtea @lainwithtea.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Im currently running a Sovereign as my Healer in Etrian Odyssey 3 and it's method of healing is staying at full health for a party heal at end of turn This means when a random encounter beans him my heal engine dies meaning Im encouraged to buy potions and use them on him while exploring dungeons

The portrait for my EO3 Sovereign using the alt Base Farmer portrait having Him be dainty redhead in a frilly black dress

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

From the Mark Ferrari Art Slideshow on Commodore Amiga: Dusk falls upon the waterfall haven.

A crt TV screen photo of a fantasy pixel art woodland forest waterfall with lamplit homes built into the side

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"We're the Sega Control Attack Team! D-Don't you dare make fun of our name, baka!" 📖: Night Trap manual, Sega, 1992

A snap of a scan of the manual with stills of the FMV sequences with the Sega Control Attack Team. One of them, the grizzled and moustached commander, scowls sullenly.

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Kelly ♡☆ @kellygoround.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Visual Shock! Speed Shock! Sound Shock! these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The ambient heartbeat of the divine: Populous. The Commodore Amiga and Super Nintendo version both share a more ethereal background ambience for your world-sculpting and divine wrath inflicting experience.

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Jennifer/Aster Unkle 🏳️‍⚧️ @spookycutewitch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The attitude of simply playing everything available to you, regardless of how it was produced or whether it’s even accurate to the real experience, is driving us up the fucking wall. Mindless, uncritical consumption is how we get Palmer Luckey releasing Game Boys built with murder drone parts.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"The Secret Weapon of Manga." If you need fresh proof of just how many otaku called France home during the 2000s anime bubble, then you'll find it in the fact that Garnier sold 'manga look' hair gel. 📖: Anime Land, June 2005

A French ad for Fructis style hair gel with Dragonball or Naruto-aluding edited photo of a dude with a spiky shock of black hair swept to the left and at various angles.

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Enbyeon @enbyeon.moe · 28/09/2026

I think the retro community deserves to drown in AI garbage when major voices only share the concern of "Well they might not be maintained, but it's all up to the skill of the individual developer of the decomp" www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYZP...

youtube.com

Recomps and Decomps have taken over Retro Gaming...

YouTube video by Modern Vintage Gamer

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Gaming Hell @sarahssowertty.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The unreleased Bubble Bobble-less version of Puzzle Bobble, Bubble Buster, got its first official release on this Apple Arcade app today and it, uh, doesn't react well when you reach the competition screen at the end! (The answer is 'TAITO...THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN!')

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Asteroids for the '90s demo and club scene: Super Stardust. Developed by Finland-based Bloodhouse Software and released in 1994 for Amiga, Super Stardust is an enhanced version of the original Stardust. Bloodhouse would merge with Terramarque in 1995 to form Housemarque, developers of Returnal.

A crt tv screen photo of Super Stardust, with a vibrant nebula starscape and intricately drawn planet with inscribed purple surface plates and icy blue asteroids overlaid it. A player ship shoots away in the bottom left corner.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

GOTO-ing 10 and printing a good morning to y'all <3 Hope the week ahead treats you kindly. 💜

A photo of our C64C bathed in blue light from the screen in front of it. 10 PRINT "Good morning, bluesky!" is typed out on the basic screen.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Y'all, in 1983 there was a Japanese microcomputer made out of recycled Gundam parts.

An ad for the Bandai RX-78 GUNDAM, a Z80-clone microcomputer that had the misfortune of launching around the same time as the Famicom and so vanished into the mists of history, despite the heavy Gundam themeing and association.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The Record of Lodoss War game for Mega CD (released in 1994) begins (appropriately) with its own pixel art rendition of the opening and the iconic 'Adesso e Fortuna.' 🎶

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A world of possibilities in the quest to build a civilisation that will stand the test of time. Thankfully, guidance is at hand right away. 📺: Civilization, Microprose, 1991 (Amiga version)

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

A living world, an ever-evolving Britannia - and my first MMORPG experience. Splash screen artwork to evoke your excitement at the medieval fantasy adventures that'll unfold - and a race to be the first to off Lord British. 📺: Ultima Online Public Beta (1.2.3), Origin Systems, June 1997

The installation splash screen with fantasy artwork of dragons, castles, and lizardmen, with warriors clashing on cliffs overlooking a city beneath a smoky sky.

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Yuna Noire🏳️‍⚧️ @yunanoire.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Been away at my brother's place for a few days got a chunk of my games moved to my current home Nice to have my PS2 collection back within arms reach :')

A box containing several PS2 games including: Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, Ape Escape 3, Clock Tower 3, Spyro: A Heroes Tale, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, The Sims 2 Castaway, The Legend of Spyro

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Spring '97 in Newtype - Sakura Wars, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Martian Successor Nadesico. A LOT of Nadesico. I wasn't fully aware of just how big Nadesico was in Japan until I started digging into late 90s JPN Newtypes.

A photo of two copies of Newtype from June and July 1997 with Utena and Sakura Wars prominent on both issues.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

When you're a wizard, but you're extremely modest about just how magic you are.

A crt TV photo of the title screen for Slightly Magic for ZX Spectrum. A cartoon wizard, haunting halloween-ey tree, and a plump worried looking dragon and cheshire cat feature.

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Samantha Ferreira Is Back On Her Book Bullshit @sam-animeherald.northsky.social · 27/09/2026

Thirty years ago today, Sakura Wars made its debut on the Sega Saturn. I have a lot to say about this, but honestly, I don't know how to really express it in a way that conveys just how much this series means to me, as a person, and as a fan.

static.klipy.com

Sakura Sakura Shinguji

Alt: Sakura Sakura Shinguji

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Standard Issue Computing @standardissuecomputing.blog · 27/09/2026

dancing with the angels this morning

Ace Combat 6 (Xbox 360, captured on Series X)

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Random Stranger @randomstranger.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Super Metal Crusher is a PC Engine game all about robot duels! One small problem: you just give the robots stats and watch the game play itself rather than take part in the combat. youtu.be/sXbFRtPsAdE

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Super Metal Crusher (スーパーメタルクラッシャー) - PC Engine Power 318

YouTube video by RndStranger

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퓨̸크̸ Games 'n Junk - Puke @puke.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I got something for you on this #ScanlineSunday. It's Pocket Racers on PSP. Miniature car combat, which obviously got it compared to Micro Machines, but it's more like a worse Re-Volt You race to save your soul, after that guy from Hatred turns you into toy cars. Konami used to make weird stuff

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Getting into the Apple II GS has given me a new source of cute pixel application and game icons.

A crt TV photo of System 16 GUI and four windows open and showing Sierra adventure game icons: Manhunter NY (orb eye), SpaceQuest II (Monitor) Black Cauldron (Classic witch cauldron), LSLLarry (Red hear).

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Rush, rush, rush! How to get online in 1987 in the fastest and cutest way. 📺: LOGiN Magazine, July 1987

A snip from a feature on online connectivity for Japanese computers and the equiment you'll need including RS-232, a 600 baud modem (1200 bps), software on floppy disk, and telephone. All drawn in a cartoonish style with a frantic looking racoon rushing about, modem in hand.

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barleybap @barleybap.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Really nice music. <3 Apparently soundtrack is composed by Takashi Nitta who did stuff like Root Letter: Last Answer, Root Film, and World End Syndrome in more recent years.

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MiracleMoan @miraclemoan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Shiren the Wanderer is such a captivating series of roguelikes / roguelites. Engaging, if odd, mechanics, endearing, oddball characters and such a sense of adventure! 😁 I recommend going in unspoiled at first, and hitting the wikis later. 🕵️‍♀️ Also very cool are the rescue mechanics in later entries! 📡

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星空★lone @hoshizoralone.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

hi new metroid fans i have some stuff that you should read cuz i like it and i want you to read it too vol 1 metroiddatabase.com/old_site/man... vol 2 metroiddatabase.com/old_site/man...

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"Screen-based 2D games are a dead-end; there is simply no comparison to an immersive 3D experience." The death of 2D games is on the horizon, predicts EDGE magazine in December 1993 - a common feeling at the time as FMV, texture-mapped polygonal 3D, and VR became the hot new tech.

The future of the videogame is pretty straightforward.

There are two routes that the videogame can take: 2D images dragged from ROM or CD; and the 3D environment generated in real time.
While the 2D route encompasses real 24bit images, full-motion video, bluescreen, high-definition rendered graphics and so on, you can only explore what is on the disc; you can only visit the places that the artist or camera has visited before you.

3D environments are still visualised in a more basic fashion, but once the world and its contents have been described mathematically, the player can go anywhere he or she wants; there are an infinite number of views to be had.

As the technology advances, so those basic vector graphics give way to polygons with light sourced shading, texture mapping, transparency and so on. And the ultimate experience is to actually wander around that virtual world and interact with it in three dimensions, using stereo eyephones to see the world and motion sensors to track your position.
Screen-based 2D games are a dead end; there is simply no comparison to an immersive 3D experience. It's the difference between being the passenger in a car and actually driving it.

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Lyric 🏳️‍⚧️ @bunbyte.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I made a new video, it would mean alot to me if you checked it out youtu.be/YZpnT9ed_14

youtu.be

I Will Not Let You Slander Gex 1

YouTube video by BunByte

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Kimimi🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com · 27/09/2026

I always enjoyed using it, but coming back to the Game Boy Camera in 2026 felt like a breath of fresh air. The camera's offline simplicity is something to be treasured, a chance to forge a more personal and relaxed relationship with photography: kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com/2026/03/13/g...

kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com

Game Boy Pocket Camera: New looks through an old lens

Digital cameras are now beyond ubiquitous. They’re cute, functional keychains. They’re covered in cartoon characters and sold to children. They’re available in the supermarket for…

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