I lived like this in 2014
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I never knew where this came from. I guess putting a name with it doesn’t make a lot of difference, but looking it up just now led me to this gallery.
(Warning: Some of these photos depict pretty unsanitary conditions.)
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when I look at photos like these I really get one of those visceral snaps that people are a type of animal; warrens, refuse piles, techno-debris, it comes naturally
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the first one made me remember helping my ex’s dad renovate this abandoned house in georgia and it was empty, barnlike, kind of creepy, isolated area, floorboards rotted through or missing, i was ripping out wires room to room, in one i found a desk, and on the desk there was a black dvd slip case…
and inside the black case…
were stacked official cds for simcity 3000, the sims, sim hospital, sim themepark and more…
some say i never left that house…
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https://yachtclubgames.com/2021/06/official-shovel-knight-cameo-list/
Stumbled across this “article” listing the 100+ games that feature Shovel Knight (“article” courtesy of Shovel Knight creators Yacht Club Games).
Does anyone have insider intel on how Shovel Knight of all games became the de facto “indie game mascot”? Is it really just a massive marketing push by Yacht Club Games?
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Character cameos became a big thing around 2012, fueled by an ethos of ‘let’s all try to help each other’ and later a more desperate sense of clinging to each other on scattered driftwood as newly-opened platforms flooded with competition.
I think Shovel Knight has more cameos than Bit Trip guy or odyssey Abe D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die guy because they were a consistent convention presence for years and years and years. These cameo deals happen over drinks at after-parties and Yacht Club was there selling and developing Shovel Knight for something like 5 years.
heck, maybe they still are, I haven’t been to PAX recently
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my brain wants to tell me that i read an interview several years ago about how one of the 4 original members of YCG’s entire job was marketing/promotion, but that seems like my brain is greatly exaggerating or misremembering something. either way, they’ve been very cognizant of their need to promote themselves since even before the initial release of their silly game. those Arby’s and amiibo and Nintendo-publishing-their-game-in-Japan deals certainly did not come without concerted effort on their part.
I think the sprites in Shovel Knight have a lot of character, and the writing helps too. Still don’t really like the game tho.
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definitely feel like there’d be a lot of time capsule fascination in digging through the various 2007-2012 games that had titles like ULTIMATE INDIE ALL STARS BATTLE!! FEATURING ALL YOUR FAVOURITES SUCH AS KLEGG - - ORBO - - KYLE - - THE BALL FROM WITHIN A DEEP FOREST - - AND SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE BY FAN FAVOURITE, ALPHONSE FROM THE HAT MAN TRILOGY and were kind of inscrutable even at the time
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nothing grimmer than
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlchemylabs/dyscourse-survivors-choose-wisely
It will include the likes of Tim Schafer, Edmund McMillen, Phil Tibitoski, Alexander Bruce, Ron Carmel, Robin Hunicke, Ichiro Lambe, Adam Saltsman, Will Stallwood, and Rami Ismail! The best part is that it’s not a stretch goal, or backer-only addition. It will ship in the game because we love you folks.
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i completely forgot about this until now but what makes it even more perfect as an artefact is that now a game about a bunch of indie developers being stranded in a desert and forced to eat each other to survive would probably be rejected for feeling too close to home
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“Hi, my name is Phil Octodad”
“Hi, I’m Alexander Antichamber”
“Greetings boys, I’m Tim Double Fine”
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How Konami’s Warzaid was mostly based on WW2 and other real-life wars but instead of Nazis the enemy army was made out of animated skeletons. Skeletons who wore green helmets, drove tanks and piloted fighter jets
When they injured one of your band of brothers (it was a 4-player lightgun game!) the continue countdown showed sepia photos of the now-dying soldier smiling alongside their wife and children
After all this the final boss must be skellington Hitler, right? No. It’s just a very huge skeleton. You have to shoot its glowing eyes hundreds of times and take cover while it sweep attacks
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Tim Schafer literally sold out to Microsoft.
Like I don’t even hate him for it, it made sense and keeping the lights on for another six or seven years with microsoft money is a fine business choice.
But that is a strained as hell definition of indie.
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This is back in 2013; Double Fine was in the height of its high-output-low-results era, there were a good number of San Francisco indie devs still around them, and Double Fine was shepherding the scene to a large extent, through Day of the Devs, media events they would host around GDC, and eventually their publishing arm. Even post-acquisition, they’re still running Day of the Devs, though with the spread of ‘virtual conferences’ I wouldn’t be surprised if the hero maintaining it decides to find something better to do (I hadn’t realized it but Indie Megabooth lost its chain of succession and shuttered recently - that really blew up after the first few events).
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the youtube channel Bytejacker is like a perfect time capsule of this
they even made a game based off of the Bytejacker personalities, featuring many indie-tastic references to devs at the time
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I try not to look at search warrant photos any more unless I really have to
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idk if any of u have ever heard of or played Learning in Toyland but it was a decidedly average edutainment released in the mid 90s, i played it a lot as a kid and one of the characters is a bee and some of the pixel art of him in the game looked Very Scary to me as a kid
its the little guy in the corner, if you printed out anything from it he’d be in the corner staring at u
id always end up seeing his nose and eyes as a mouth with fangs and his wings as evil eyes
if u need a better look at the inside of my imagination here u go
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