In Kirby Air Riders, your vehicle makes a trail of stars behind you as you drive, and someone else driving through those stars will speed up. So if you make a mistake, you can slingshot yourself ahead with skillful driving. It's cool to see a catch-up mechanic that still requires skill.

Yeah obviously I had to take the opportunity to make my vehicle green

I also finally set up a feature where you can create one item and store a bunch of tile templates in it, instead of one item per tile as previously needed. I noticed there were over 400 items for individual tiles so this should help with that, and should make it easier to share tiles with people.

I also got this footage of me defeating Dyna Blade via the incredible power of running very fast. Rick's special is very fun and is so fast that it's hard to control, but I like that. It's like how going extremely fast with the Grizzco Roller is fun but it's something I get to do every single game.

I did manage to implement a cool synchronization thing though; both consoles synchronize their frame timing and hits come with timing information so both consoles can start the animation at the same time, and reset the battle bar at the same time because the animation finishes at the same time.

I've been chasing down what could be causing synchronization issues in link cable multiplayer for awhile, and I've been so focused on potential issues with the protocol that I forgot to consider "uninitialized variables" and "maybe I'm drawing the current battle bar status incorrectly"

I tried the demo for the sequel and I had significantly more fun with it than the original game. Not sure how much of it is liking the sequel's game design better and how much of it is having less of an issue with skill gaps, but something is making it work out a lot better.

I could probably have each match start with a synchronization process where both consoles turn their screens off and do some sort of handshake before turning them back on, to synchronize frame timing as well as a frame counter. Then I can say "Start the hit animation at frame 10."

I wanted the Game Boy Color version of Petal Crash to have its own merit, where you'd have a reason to specifically play this version past the novelty of it being a Game Boy ROM, and bringing over some of my personal touches from PCO is a fun way to do that. Silly board wall options are one of them.

Making stuff on my own region on my own grid means I'm completely cut off from the Second Life marketplace, *but* I'm totally free to make silly objects out of primitive shapes, and I think that's a really fun kind of aesthetic in itself. I could probably look for 3D models online to import in too.

Plus there's already lots of Minecraft servers run by people I know, and I have one I'm not using. Turns out OpenSimulator isn't that hard to install on a Pi and actually works pretty well, so that's perfect as a novelty home server thing. My own personal not-Second Life region to build on for free.

I think this avatar was made in 2009 and it shows, but I think that makes it look charming. It's entirely made with the built-in primitive shapes, and the game didn't have 3d model uploads yet. I like the implication that Sir Kibble is so dedicated to the role that he showers with his armor on.

So I had to reinstall everything, but at least that means I'm on a newer OS. And there's no longer a bunch of stuff installed that I don't use, or that I tried and didn't work and that I never cleaned up. It does run substantially cooler though and it's faster when it's not constantly throttling.