Savaged Regime
@lazygecko.bsky.social
I always had a good guess that it was absurd degrees of duplicate assets that was mainly responsible for the bloated file size of modern games, rather than just blaming it on fidelity. To see just how much is saved from eschewing this industry practice is quite telling.
December 2, 2025 at 4:31 PM
I always had a good guess that it was absurd degrees of duplicate assets that was mainly responsible for the bloated file size of modern games, rather than just blaming it on fidelity. To see just how much is saved from eschewing this industry practice is quite telling.
The original arcade cabinet uses simple discrete analog synths for each sound effect, which is an insanely cool pre-digital solution. You could likely make some digital analog emulation to reproduce the audio since the schematics are in the manual which has been archived.
November 28, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The original arcade cabinet uses simple discrete analog synths for each sound effect, which is an insanely cool pre-digital solution. You could likely make some digital analog emulation to reproduce the audio since the schematics are in the manual which has been archived.
Magical Girl Slasher feels like an untapped niche
November 27, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Magical Girl Slasher feels like an untapped niche
Certified HUH moment
November 27, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Certified HUH moment
After the first 5 years or so, seasoned Japanese devs converged around 2 main aesthetics that worked best on NES: Cutesy chibi characters with bright colors and room for facial expression, or grimdark as fuck noir shadowed graphics with more realistically proportioned faceless characters.
November 26, 2025 at 9:48 PM
After the first 5 years or so, seasoned Japanese devs converged around 2 main aesthetics that worked best on NES: Cutesy chibi characters with bright colors and room for facial expression, or grimdark as fuck noir shadowed graphics with more realistically proportioned faceless characters.
I find the first wave of GB titles to be fascinating when devs were still feeling out the hardware and those games feel markedly different from later ones. I kinda preferred it when they aimed for smaller graphics with more screen estate instead of the cramped size with large sprites later on.
November 25, 2025 at 5:53 PM
I find the first wave of GB titles to be fascinating when devs were still feeling out the hardware and those games feel markedly different from later ones. I kinda preferred it when they aimed for smaller graphics with more screen estate instead of the cramped size with large sprites later on.
My mind still defaults to assuming this was a decision driven by some technical issue they were having, since it was still the early days of the Game Boy and people weren't experienced with the architecture yet.
November 25, 2025 at 5:53 PM
My mind still defaults to assuming this was a decision driven by some technical issue they were having, since it was still the early days of the Game Boy and people weren't experienced with the architecture yet.
Funny part is how an interview with the JP composers decades later revealed they didn't even know the music had been replaced until the interviewer told them, and they were pretty pissed since they put so much effort into it and had it done at one of the most prestigious production studios in Japan.
November 25, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Funny part is how an interview with the JP composers decades later revealed they didn't even know the music had been replaced until the interviewer told them, and they were pretty pissed since they put so much effort into it and had it done at one of the most prestigious production studios in Japan.
Late decision by management/marketing who had also just set up a multimedia studio at SoA. Likely also influenced by dance music being largely ostracized in the US mainstream at the time, and SoA were a lot more branding-conscious about how they wanted to portray Sonic.
November 25, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Late decision by management/marketing who had also just set up a multimedia studio at SoA. Likely also influenced by dance music being largely ostracized in the US mainstream at the time, and SoA were a lot more branding-conscious about how they wanted to portray Sonic.
Trying to wrap my head around these themes being arranged by Haim Saban.
November 23, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Trying to wrap my head around these themes being arranged by Haim Saban.
I always thought this aesthetic was called Kirbytech. The article says Greebles was coined by Lucas during the production of Star Wars, which would be after Jack Kirby started drawing these kinds of elaborate machine embellishments.
November 23, 2025 at 9:37 PM
I always thought this aesthetic was called Kirbytech. The article says Greebles was coined by Lucas during the production of Star Wars, which would be after Jack Kirby started drawing these kinds of elaborate machine embellishments.
This is something FM can do very effectively, but it was kind of a moot advantage when hardly anyone bothered to take advantage of such nuanced programming at the time. Guess it was just not part of the zeitgeist. I always make sure to leverage this for more expressive performances.
November 22, 2025 at 10:30 PM
This is something FM can do very effectively, but it was kind of a moot advantage when hardly anyone bothered to take advantage of such nuanced programming at the time. Guess it was just not part of the zeitgeist. I always make sure to leverage this for more expressive performances.
It can reproduce instruments superficially, but the main bottleneck is the low RAM necessitating very short looped samples with no life or texture to them. There's no room to convey natural decays or swelling, like a sustained guitar gradually settling into a different set of harmonics.
November 22, 2025 at 10:30 PM
It can reproduce instruments superficially, but the main bottleneck is the low RAM necessitating very short looped samples with no life or texture to them. There's no room to convey natural decays or swelling, like a sustained guitar gradually settling into a different set of harmonics.
Guess that's true in that there wasn't a robust pipeline from hobbyist computer musician to professional dev. Having computers with integrated sound hardware was an important ingredient in fostering those amateur scenes.
November 22, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Guess that's true in that there wasn't a robust pipeline from hobbyist computer musician to professional dev. Having computers with integrated sound hardware was an important ingredient in fostering those amateur scenes.
I think it shows an interesting cultural divide between US dev culture with the rest of the world at the time. US composers largely deferred to third party middleware solutions. EU composers were usually coders themselves, and JP was a mix of that and composers relying on sound coders to arrange.
November 22, 2025 at 9:02 PM
I think it shows an interesting cultural divide between US dev culture with the rest of the world at the time. US composers largely deferred to third party middleware solutions. EU composers were usually coders themselves, and JP was a mix of that and composers relying on sound coders to arrange.
Good example of a GEMS score where a lot of care is taken into the programming and sound design is Demolition Man which uses a lot of different articulation variations for guitars making for much more expressive and dynamic sequencing.
November 22, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Good example of a GEMS score where a lot of care is taken into the programming and sound design is Demolition Man which uses a lot of different articulation variations for guitars making for much more expressive and dynamic sequencing.
There are better ways of conveying the public stigma for the soundtracks using GEMS than this which is just false. The plain reason is simply that GEMS greatly lowered the barrier of entry for American composers who were largely uninterested in dealing with the technical nitty gritty at the time.
November 22, 2025 at 8:53 PM
There are better ways of conveying the public stigma for the soundtracks using GEMS than this which is just false. The plain reason is simply that GEMS greatly lowered the barrier of entry for American composers who were largely uninterested in dealing with the technical nitty gritty at the time.
This kind of stuff is exceedingly common in soundtracks where composers are expected to churn out full scores on very short notice. They'll pick their battles on where the brunt of bespoke writing goes.
November 21, 2025 at 3:25 PM
This kind of stuff is exceedingly common in soundtracks where composers are expected to churn out full scores on very short notice. They'll pick their battles on where the brunt of bespoke writing goes.
You can probably count on the convenience of youtube embeds with timestamps disappearing.
November 20, 2025 at 3:57 PM
You can probably count on the convenience of youtube embeds with timestamps disappearing.
Saw this archived video promoting Acclaim's mocap tech which was apparently pretty ahead of the curve at the time in the mid 90s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGwY...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGwY...
gen16.com Acclaim motion capture studio making of
YouTube video by gen16com
www.youtube.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Saw this archived video promoting Acclaim's mocap tech which was apparently pretty ahead of the curve at the time in the mid 90s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGwY...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGwY...