05/06/2025
LIVELY INTERNET THEORY - May 2025
Hello! Welcome to the May edition of LIVELY INTERNET THEORY. It's a kind of continuation of one of my first posts on here, so this will be dedicated to showing off all the amazing ways you can waste your time on the internet. (Put seriously: I want to compile all the sweet stuff people make and share online!)
I kind of already have the Hoarde for cataloging lots of cool stuff I find online, but these posts will provide a space for more of a real-time update for things and a bit more space for me to gush about different things.
Without further ado, here's why the internet's not dead this spring! B)
The lineage of certain horses
One of the stranger developments on Twitter recently is the Horse Race Tests phenomenon. (See the page of @snakesandrews for all of the original content.) There's either a monumental amount of stuff to unpack or perhaps nothing at all. If you've been following it and the fan content it's spawned since its beginning, you'll know what I mean.
I'll leave any serious analysis of it all to someone else. What I find more interesting is its pedigree. There's an interview with the creator of HRT where he outlines ideas and inspirations that led to its creation. Many will of course find the origins of Andrews' work in simplistic game-making software inspiring to get him where he's at today - don't get down if you want to make something but find you can't instantly churn out the next Final Fantasy game or anything!
Jovial Merryment: the visage of a national menace.
While the article about Andrews and his creations is fun enough, two other entities linked therein caught my eye. First there's the Glorious Trainwrecks site which, by its own description, seeks to bring "back the spirit of postcardware, circa 1993. It's about throwing a bunch of random crap into your game and keeping whatever sticks. About bringing back a time when you didn't care so much about "production values", as much as ripping sound samples from your favourite television shows to use in your game, or animating pictures of yourself making goofy faces on your webcam." Take a look at the site!
Then there's Wonderville, an actual place in New York. If I could just point out one page on here, it's this year-end recap page that I read. It's a magical-sounding place dedicated to indie arcade games. Being dedicated to indie games is already fine and dandy, but if you take a look at their site, you'll realize that the "arcade" part includes EVERYTHING about the arcade game - including controls, cabinet, etc... wow!
Again, I found all this and more just from this one interview, lol. Let it be known: jojo2k is your one-stop shop for internet rabbitholes ;P Nothing quite like getting some behind the scenes of cool stuff and seeing everything that led to something's creation. We're all such complex amalgamations of so many ideas, things and people...
I'm not going to even try and categorize this
Me and this other friend call one another up every now and then to see what's up. Interestingly enough, his latest job has led him to an encounter with a member of the Disney family. Yes, THAT Disney family. And this one member of the Disney family has certainly realized the weight of recording some of the history of his kin and so made a website to do so.
So I present... this.
While the CONTENT is nowhere near as unhinged as, say, the original Time Cube site, the formatting of this Disney history site immediately reminded me of that... But uh yeah just go read this. I feel like more people need to see this lol. Just an interesting website! A recently made site with no ads, untouched by the influence of modern web design, sustained just by a guy wanting to keep some family stories alive. Though that family name just happens to be a household one.
Wii Link
If you're around my nondescript age, you may be nostalgic for the Wii right about now. Thankfully, a very talented team has put together a replacement backend for many of the Wii's online services. Check out Wii Link!
Unlike other similar revival projects that can feel hacky and poorly thought out, Wii Link has been running for some time now and has only improved over time. While the installation may feel hacky, the end product does not. Unlike other things like this, you're very unlikely to accidentally find something that wasn't considered and doesn't work. Forecast channel, news channel, Check Mii Out channel, even the message board... it's pretty much all there. If you have a DS system on hand, yes, you can download demos from the Nintendo Channel to your system. Wowza.
And of course, most importantly, the previously Japan-exclusive Food Channel works in the USA and Canada. Once I finished setting up Wii Link myself, you KNOW what the first thing I did was.
All this can be paired with things like wiimmfi for online play in games, too. Have fun online with your Wii!! (Or, hell, even just on the Dolphin emulator on your computer/device!)
Oh, and while I had the Wii U back out again, I had to make sure my site was Nintendo web browser compliant ;) It totally is! As long as you don't try and use the radio at least :S
The continuing rise of non-brain-dead gaming journalists
With some gaming journalists failing basic tasks of hand-eye coordination (example 1, example 2), you may wonder if sensible coverage of this medium is dead and gone. (Well, as long as kotaku is still around, it may very well be.) But there are some cool people trying to be sane and stimulating off elsewhere!
First off, Tim Rogers uploaded a review of L.A. Noire. (Yes, that video is 9 hours long. If you want something a bit shorter, go watch his 6 hour review of a Japanese-kid-summer-simulator PS2 game.) These videos are unironically great. If you can spare the time, give them a watch and perhaps you'll come away with a new appreciation of how games and really ANYTHING can shape and affect us. I'll still be one of the first to admit that the videos could still probably be trimmed down a bit more. Still peak tho.
On the written side, go check out Hey Poor Player. You could probably make them one of your main sources for gaming news since they cover newer as well as retro stuff. Fun tibdit: the guy Josh who writes on here was involved with operation rainfall!
And I'll always take an opportunity to plug Read Only Memo. In late April they released a writeup of the Sakura Wars 2 English translation that's come out recently. Go read it!!
Oh and deltarune comes out in less than a month as of writing so that's cool too I guess.
*screams silently to self giddily*
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