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Xandot Oaster

@xandotoaster.bsky.social
122 followers 253 following 322 posts

(He/They) Scrabble for the Sony Playstation is genuinely an extremely fun speedrun, and I feel sad that more people don't appreciate that

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Puppy Truck! @puppytruck.dog · 01/10/2026
Did you hear the news? You can play the Puppy Truck demo on Steam RIGHT NOW It's getting rave reviews such as: "This is a real video game" and "It has a deeper storyline than the show Chernobyl" Pretty good! 🐕 midnighte.rs/puppytruck-steam
midnighte.rs
Puppy Truck on Steam
Puppy Truck is a puzzle-packed 3D platforming adventure about a tiny truck with the heart of a puppy! Explore Grandma’s eclectic house, filled with contraptions, challenges, and surprises as you race ...
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
For the record, I ended up doing Chuck Berry's first album for #500 I've listened to a bunch of individual "origin of rock" songs over the years, but the earliest rock album on this spreadsheet was from The Beach Boys, and something felt wrong about that, lol
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Videogame Beaches🏳️‍⚧️ @videogamebeach.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Caliko Coast (Double Shake [Demo], PC, Rightstick Studios, TBA)
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Ink 🐻💾 @inkuoh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Hitman Throw
Alt: Gif: agent 47 throws briefcase towards jetski user but due game bugs or coding quirk, the briefase keeps tailing the jetski user despite going at circles and at high speeds.
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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
New Post: Why I Love AI Next month it'll be twenty years since I went to university, learned to program, and studied AI. I wrote about why I loved it, why I still love it, and why, unfortunately, it no longer exists. www.possibilityspace.org/blog/posts/i...
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I keep track of every album I listen to, and I noticed today that the next one will be number 500 It kind of snuck up on me, and I'm not sure if I want to listen to some "important" album I've missed, or try to fill a genre hole, or just listen to literally anything from 2026. Open to suggestions!
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WumpaGem @wumpagem.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Fine, I'll do it myself.
backloggd.com
'Game Recomps That Aren't Vibe-Coded' a list of games by WumpaGem | Backloggd
With the sheer abundance of game recompilations built with generative AI tools getting unwarranted attention from clickbait news outlets I felt we need some kind of curated database of recompilations ...
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InnerSpiral (the scary version) @innerspiral.lol · 15/09/2026
What happens when a game explains too much, and what do we gain when it leaves something unresolved? #blog #gaming
innerspiral.lol
The Gaps We Leave
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かねこともみ @kotomoe.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
🕺🐶✨
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I got to play a demo for this the other day, and oh my god it's so cute and I can't wait to play the finished game store.steampowered.com/app/4950640/...
store.steampowered.com
Serious Bigness on Steam
You’re a tiny kaiju dreaming of becoming a titan! Topple everything from dominoes to skyscrapers in a fully physics-driven world to grow big, seriously big! But move fast: kaiju are sleepy creatures a...
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Iain Mew @superchartisland.com · 31/08/2026
Over the summer, I've written histories of 13 computer games which reached #1 in the UK charts during 1987: superchartisland.com/timeline/#1987 Here is a thread on what the British public was buying that year, with links
An edited screenshot of Barbarian for the ZX Spectrum. A goblin carries away a headless body.

Barbarian
Palace
1987
Various
Gallup combined #1
W/E 13 June 1987An edited screenshot of The Last Ninja for the Commodore 64. A ninja stands near a canal with stepping stones.

The Last Ninja
System 3
1987
Commodore 64

Gallup combined #1
W/E 20 June 1987An edited screenshot of Grand Prix Simulator for Amstrad CPC. A top down view of a twisting racing track, with art of two F1 cars at the top (a McLaren and a Ferrari)

Grand Prix Simulator
Code Masters
1987
Various

#1 in Gallup combined
W/E 03 October 1987  An edited screenshot of Out Run for Atari ST. A red Ferrari drives along a road with water on one side and palm trees on the other, under a blue blue sky.

Out Run
U.S. Gold
1987
Various
#1 combined
W/E 12 Dec 1987
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Iain Mew @superchartisland.com · 30/08/2026
The way Sinclair User put these two games in the same title box for their review made them sound like a more interesting third thing
A pair of reviews of Llainlan Software games from the April 1985 Sinclair User. They have been covered together, with the result that the title reads 'Falklands Crisis BMX Trials'.

"Both games are awful. Llainlan Software can be avoided at Pontyberem, Llanelli, Dyfed."
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WombleScrabble @womblescrabble.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Big article worth reading by Michael Baron about Scrabble & Scrabble Words - Present, Past & Future www.michaelbaronphd.com/articles/scr...
michaelbaronphd.com
Article | Michael Baron, Ph.D.
Article by Michael Baron, Ph.D.
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Aulet 🍂 @aulet.es · 26/08/2026
"LibreOffice 26.8 contains no generative AI features. Documents are not transmitted to remote services for processing, and no component of the suite requires network access to function. This is a deliberate position."
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Sheep Daily 🐑 @sheepdaily.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
❁
A small white lamb resting in a grassy field filled with small white flowers, tilting their head back at the sky. Photo via Pinterest
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
“your ideal childhood. what picture of concerned work. i can let you hold it.” — #fridgle 2 fridgle.net
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
This 30 seconds of this movie from a hundred years ago needs to be talked about more (timestamped to 13:53, in case the video embed doesn't work right) youtu.be/KmL-GvsbrTU?...
youtu.be
Charley Bowers - Now You Tell One (1926)
YouTube video by Leweegie1960
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
This 30 seconds of this movie from a hundred years ago needs to be talked about more (timestamped to 13:53, in case the video embed doesn't work right) youtu.be/KmL-GvsbrTU?...
youtu.be
Charley Bowers - Now You Tell One (1926)
YouTube video by Leweegie1960
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dave @gloomfather.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
yeah man "woke 1" sucked ass. I "woke 1" morning from uneasy dreams to find myself transformed into a giant insect
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gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I had an absolutely delightful time catching up with Orry Swift, a Houston-area native and accounting professor at Lamar University who is one of the top players in competitive Scrabble. We talked about his heartbreaking loss at this year's finals and why he won't quit: www.chron.com/culture/arti...
chron.com
It's a matter of when, not if, this Texas man conquers competitive Scrabble
"If anything, the loss just made me more motivated."
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Muzgrob @muzgrob.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Give this a look. It's a great bestiary for Shadowdark! Forgotten Foes for Shadowdark RPG: 250+ Classic Foes Reborn, via @Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/mer...
kickstarter.com
Forgotten Foes for Shadowdark RPG: 250+ Classic Foes Reborn
Hundreds of classic monsters brought to life with evocative art for Shadowdark RPG.
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My Abandonware @myabandonware.com · 04/08/2026
New release: Scrabble (2008 - iPod Classic) - www.myabandonware.com/game/scrabble… #abandonware
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maybe: annie rauwerda @annierau.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
starting a collection of quotes like this
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Metanet Software Inc. @metanetsoftware.com · 23/07/2026
Want to get a sneak peak at N PLUS INFINITY TIMES TWO, specifically the brand new (and "wicked awesome") Team Tag mode? Tune in to twitch tomorrow at 3pm where we'll be playing with members of the N++ Racing League (which I guess we need a new name for...)! :D m.twitch.tv/metanet_soft...
m.twitch.tv
Twitch
Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers.
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Gro-Tsen @gro-tsen.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Let me expand upon this 🔽 and say something about AIs, mathematics, proofs, conjectures, problem-solving, goalposts, paperclips, genii and, more importantly, Campbell/Goodhart's law. 🧵⤵️ •1/38
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Kujira no Hara - OUT NOW on Steam @kujiranohara.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
After 18 years of development I released my FREE #Zelda #MinishCap fangame 🐳Kujira no Hara🐳on Steam! store.steampowered.com/app/4119110/... It may be a bit amateurish but it has been made with love. No generative AI was used. I had to learn #pixelart and music composition. I hope you'll like it ❤️
store.steampowered.com
Kujira no Hara on Steam
A funny puzzle-focused Zelda-like about Vikings trapped in a whale! It's 50 hours long and has 7 dungeons.
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John Chew @poslfit.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
At the NASPA Scrabble Players Championship, the morning staff huddle conversation turned to the scorigami of competitive Scrabble. Here's a heat map showing how often each combination of winning and losing score has occurred in the known history of our game.
A square heat map with values ranging from 0 to 70 shows a cluster of tournament scores mostly around 350-400 extending out to about 200-600.
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Some fun quotes from this "There are two kinds of games--well-made games and interesting games" "I don't see a future for mainstream games where a massive team slaves over a piece of CG just for the player to watch it once and then be completely done with it." Neat interview, check it out!
Screenshot of interview text, with a highlight on Miyamoto saying, "There are two kinds of games--well-made games and interesting games"Screenshot of interview text, with a highlight on Miyamoto saying, "I don't see a future for mainstream games where a massive team slaves over a piece of CG just for the player to watch it once and then be completely done with it."
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Mare Sheppard @maresheppard.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
This is so cool! 😍
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Iain Mew @superchartisland.com · 13/07/2026
In 1982, a maths teacher in Birmingham set up a company to make educational software, staffed by his former students. Five years later, one of their games hit #1 in the UK sales chart. This is the odd story of how they got from A to B. New post on Run for Gold: www.superchartisland.com/run-for-gold
superchartisland.com
Run for Gold – “Load runners from tape”
In 1980, the British government set up the Microelectronics Education Programme, MEP, with an initial budget of £12 million for four years. It was aimed at schools, and had the dual intention of “e…
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allcitykitty.bsky.social @allcitykitty.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Watch out!
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ondy @ondydev.com · 08/07/2026
the life and death of Mr. Walrus #SpaceCatDX #gamedev
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WombleScrabble @womblescrabble.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Good article from Mags Traynor on Coffeehousing at Scrabble tournaments open.substack.com/pub/magstrea...
open.substack.com
Coffeehousing: The Space Between the Rules
it's a Scrabble thing...
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Tom O @vgtomo.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
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Darryl Mott @gamerstavernshow.com · 28/06/2026
This was how he reacted to notes on HIS films... ...when he was producing and defending another creator's work from the studio's editing scissors, he had a completely different tone like this bit about The Elephant Man. Mel Brooks is the best.
When Paramount Pictures studio executives were shown a cut of this movie, they wanted the opening and closing surrealist sequences to be cut. Executive producer Mel Brooks, according to producer Stuart
Cornfeld, said to them: "We are involved in a business venture. We screened the film for you, to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture. Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives."
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
One of my favorite parts of getting into Scrabble is reading some random bit of text now and getting excited about obscure words like, "Oh my god, 'li' *is* real! Look it's being used right there!"
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Pipeworks @pipeworksstudio.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
The mightiest kaiju have gathered for the ultimate showdown! Let the mayhem and mass destruction begin with Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered, coming November 3rd. 💥 atari.com/products/god...
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Metanet Software Inc. @metanetsoftware.com · 06/06/2026
Want to hear more about why we're making N PLUS INFINITY TIMES TWO, and how we feel about revisiting the N series again? Check out this blog post: www.metanetsoftware.com/2026/to-infi...
screen cap of Britney Spears from the iconic video for "Oops I did it again", with that text on screen as a subtitle, only with Metanet Software's logo pasted over Britney's face (apologies to Britney, we mean no disrespect!)
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Metanet Software Inc. @metanetsoftware.com · 06/06/2026
Announcing N PLUS INFINITY TIMES TWO! Watch this amazing trailer, and then wishlist on Steam (link below): youtu.be/-Jhy9HNs-u0
youtu.be
N PLUS INFINITY TIMES TWO Announce trailer
YouTube video by metanetsoftware
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Liz Bushouse @lizbushouse.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This is a big problem for translators of fiction also, and was a running theme in my series examining the English translations of Suikoden 1. (See: You Can’t Fully Divorce Language From the Real World Context It Was Created In)
lizbushouse.com
Localization Let’s Play: Suikoden 1 – Overview - Elizabeth Bushouse
I have to say, I did not think this project would be nearly this long when I first started it, but...here we are. Since it turned into such a behemoth of a
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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
"Happy" birthday to Superman 64. From our scans of the industry trade magazine Games Business: a brutally honest post-mortem with technical director Rob Stevens. "At the end of the day we had to get it out [...] it just had to go out the door." archive.gamehistory.org/item/f399d99...
Here we talk to Titus technical director Rob Stevens about the publisher's N64 howler Superman. But before we rummage around in this company's misery, two points need to be made.

(1) Most of us are big enough to admit that we've all screwed up somewhere along the line. But not everyone is big enough to come right out and talk about individual, painful examples.
(2) We contacted a broad cross-section of the industry for this feature. In some cases we mentioned that we wanted to talk about certain individual stinkers. Of these companies, only Titus felt able to grant an interview.

GAMES BUSINESS: One game that has come up is Superman for the Nintendo 64. Were you involved in that product?

ROB STEVENS: Minimally. I should have been more involved, which is maybe why it didn't turn out so well.

GB: Did you know it would get slammed at review level?

RS: Yes.

GB: So why not stick at it at group level and try to get it right?

RS: We already had been sitting on it for about three years in development, and it was pretty much a disaster from start to finish.

GB: So what was the problem?

RS: Lots of stuff. I don't want to air our dirty laundry in public, but there were management problems, organizational problems, and inexperienced programmers.

GB: How much power do you have to say to the bosses, "This isn't good enough"?

RS: It depends on the game and the circumstances. For example, with Superman, there was no power whatsoever. It was going to go out and that was it.

GB: Did you get a lot of bad feedback from consumers who bought it?

RS: I'm kind of divorced from that to a certain extent, but we did get a lot of customers kicking and screaming.

[article continues from here, longer than alt text can support]
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Metanet Software Inc. @metanetsoftware.com · 29/05/2026
;) ;) ;)
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
I know that YouTube's algorithm doesn't even work, because the best Scrabble player in the world, who is notoriously reserved and never does interviews, *did* and interview, and it didn't end up in my recommendations for over a week! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpob...
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Iain Mew @superchartisland.com · 18/05/2026
Over the last six months, I've written histories of the 26 games to have reached #1 in the UK charts during 1986: superchartisland.com/timeline/#1986 Here is a thread on what I learned, with links to each post!
An edited screenshot of Batman for Spectrum, with text showing the details of the game.

Batman
Ocean
1986
Spectrum/CPC

#1 Gallup combined
W/E 03 May 1986An edited screenshot of Thrust for Commodore 64, with text showing the details of the game.

Thrust
Firebird
1986
Commodore 64

Combined No. 1
W.E. 10 May 1986An edited screenshot of Ghosts'n Goblins for Spectrum, with text showing the details of the game.

Ghosts'n Goblins
Elite
1986
Various

#1 in Gallup combined
W/E 21 June 1986An edited screenshot of Fist II for C64, with text showing the details of the game.

Fist II: The Legend Continues
Melbourne House
1986
Commodore 64

Gallup combined #1
W/E 10 October 1986
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Anthony Clark @nedroid.com · 13/05/2026
GUY EATING CANDY: this candy reminds me of something…

GUY (looks at bag, sees it is labeled “Werther’s Derivative”): oh
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Iain Mew @superchartisland.com · 11/05/2026
Gauntlet's 4-player dungeon action was a hit for Atari at the arcade, and U.S. Gold on home computers. Several similar games set off suggestions of copying. But when is a clone not a clone? New post on Gauntlet, Dandy, Druid, a different Dandy, and more... www.superchartisland.com/gauntlet
superchartisland.com
Gauntlet – “You have found a treasure room”
The August 1987 issue of Spectrum magazine Crash brought back an old feature “after almost three years in the cupboard”: the comparison test. The first one of these had been way back in the second …
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
I was watching the latest Technology Connextras video, and youtube messed up and loaded the comments from a Tom Waits song I was listening to earlier
Screenshot of a youtube video about minivans with comments completely unrelated to the video, such as "If this ain't played at my funeral I ain't going"
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Chardcore @charware.dev · 05/05/2026
Imagine doing 6000 speedruns and thousands of WR and numerous TAS' and your career is reduced to "American Idol GBA and wet bandits"
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Xandot Oaster @xandotoaster.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Game design question Let's say you control a 2D character with the shoulder buttons. Each button moves the character diagonally, but by holding two buttons you can move in cardinal directions. LB + LT = left. RB + RT = right. The question is, which buttons should move you up? Bumpers or triggers?
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Extremely OK Games @exokgames.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
City of None is an upcoming adventure game published by Extremely OK Games! Check it out on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3189450/...
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