Ferries and other ocean-going vessels seem to be a rich source of arcade memories... I remember lurking around the sit down Galaxians cabinet on the Bowness to Ambleside ferry on more than one occasion.
In the interests of good comparison science, it's worth mentioning that a couple of platforms also got homebrew ports...
Over on the Atari 8-bit platforms, we have "Gacek", a kind of unbranded version of Bomb Jack. It's really good, and really pushes the old Atari's to their limits. Varied sprites and colourful backdrops, and a range of music throughout the levels. It feels really good to play as well.
There are oddities though - like the way it plays the theme from Gradius/Nemesis on the high score table. And the way it doesn't mention Bomb Jack at all (understandable, given its homebrew nature). So it's not so much Bomb Jack as Bomb Jack-ish. But it's still very good!
The venerable Colecovision also got a homebrew version, this time staying truer to the original. It's also very good, and looks way better than a 1982 console has any right to. Control is fluid and fast, and the music is catchy and not annoying.
The bomb sprites are a bit large however, and the game tends to be a bit on the easy side, given there are fewer enemies on screen. But it's still a tremendous achievement.
I recently switched from Chrome to Firefox as part of an ongoing de-Google effort... and, honestly, I found it fairly easy. The two things I missed and found solutions for were:
Profiles - I just use the built in profiles with the Profile Switcher extension
Casting to Chromecast - I use the fx_cast extension and actually find it more reliable than Chrome's casting!
Other than those, I've found it to be a very comfortable, familiar experience.
I use it for work. Other than having to think for a second to find weirdly hidden menu items, it's fine. At least for my purposes, as a .NET dev. One thing I love about it is Windows Sandbox... really wish Linux would could up something similar.
Yeah, it's weird. I'd been trying it on and off since 1997, and always bounced off because of some annoyance or other. Now... nothing. It's very low friction.
It's interesting how far Linux desktop has progressed recently... I don't hate Windows, in fact I think it's a great OS for most purposes. But I happened to try Linux Mint a few years ago in a fit of pique about being excluded from the Win11 upgrade for spurious reasons... and it just kind of stuck.
Two years later and I am full on Linux now. Don't even have a Windows partition (though I do keep a VM). And I'm about to buy a new laptop that I intend to buy without an OS, it will never be touched by Windows, there's just no need.
For my purposes, Linux does everything now. OS, software, the games I want to play... I never even think about it. Also, everywhere I look, I see Linux - my Steamdeck, my MiSTer, my Pis, my Miyoo Mini. It's everywhere...
I'm endlessly fascinated by game room pics and tours :)
Do you find that you play physical systems still? I've mostly replaced all of mine with a MiSTer FGPA, and I don't really miss the overloaded power sockets and scart switchers. I still keep the games on display though, because sometimes I get just as much nostalgic buzz from looking at them as I do playing them.
Well, my problem is partly that I play docked, so every issue is magnified up to 50 inches... so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
I managed to get it to run at a fairly stable 30fps, but the settings were so low that everything looked pretty muddy and basic. You can turn off the FSR to get it to look less blurry at 800p, but it still looked pretty bad. Generally, everything just looked a bit unstable, you know? Hair was pixelated, lines were jaggy everything felt jumpy and gritty. I'm sure it would look better on the SD screen itself.
I also read that Act 3 onwards takes a further hit to performance... so at that point I decided to cut my losses. Shame... it's the first game where I've genuinely felt the SD isn't up to it.
I'm looking forward to it! I bought it on Steamdeck, but had to refund because I couldn't get it to run decently... felt I would be doing it a disservice with all the compromises. So I'm not waiting for the PS5 release...
Pretty good. It's my default morning scroll, at least.
I've got a lot more comfortable with it since using Alexandrite on desktop and Sync on mobile.
The only thing really missing at the moment is content. It tends to be good for the high profile stuff, but a bit lacking for the niche stuff. I still sneak back to the other place on occasion to catch up on smaller communities... hopefully that will come with time.
As a diehard desktop user, I seldom use mobile clients other than for brief looks. However, just got back from a week long holiday where I used Sync exclusively for my morning scroll - and it was was brilliant!
My one remaining quibble is with the way that links in comments are inexplicably a couple of font sizes bigger than surrounding text. Anyone found a setting to change that?
Great stuff! I've been using Alexandrite for the last few weeks and it's become my default UI. I love that you can pin the navigation bar open and favourite communities (click on the icon to star it).
You know, I've been using Mastodon for 10 months and I'd never noticed the Explore link! My interface even has the fresh, dismissable help text at the top of that column! :D
I did a much smaller comparison over on Mastodon a few months back: https://mastodonapp.uk/@davetansley/109767977707445539
It's one of my favourite games from that era, so I'll maybe expand it and post here.