Far Cry Source Code Leaks Online

Source code for the original Far Cry, released back in 2004, has popped up online. From a report: Entitled "Far Cry 1.34 Complete", the game's code was uploaded to the internet archive site Archive.org at the end of June, as highlighted by well-known modder Vinicius Medeiros It's unclear if the code includes any subsequent patches -- although the .34 part of the 1.34 title certainly suggests so -- and some commenters who've presumably downloaded and run the code believe the code is "not complete, but close."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The G07 Kid

I spent much of this weekend digging in on  some Electrohome G07 monitor chassis repair. I have a bunch of games in the bavacade that use this monitor chassis to power the glorious CRT tubes for these 1980s miracles.

All told I have at least 7 cabinets that have a G07 chassis. There may be more, but I’m not sure what chassis all my cocktails are using given I never checked, and there are four total: Rally-X, Pleaides, Galaxian, and Moon Cresta.* Along with the Wells Gardner K4600 (at least 6 cabinets have this chassis) the G07 is the most common in the bavacade. That means part of making this hobby sustainable is figuring out how to work on these models given chassis repairs are a big part of keeping games online. I’ve slowly been getting better, but I remain very much an amateur. But even hacks like me have their moments, and this week was one of them. I got two of the three non-working G07s running again, leaving me with just one non-working chassis that I can use as a donor chassis for parts given all the games with G07s are now fully operational. YES!

Trusting the process means a lot of troubleshooting, and this weekend I was pretty happy to have committed a bit more and pushing myself to do more extensive diagnostic testing of the various components for things like resistance readings, diode readings, checking if transistors are good, voltage test points, etc. All of this was Greek to me just a couple of years ago, so starting to get my head around this basic troubleshooting before replacing anything is long overdue and pretty rewarding.

I already talked about the first successful G07 repair this week in my “bavacade Repair log from 6-29-2023,” noting “I was able to repair the Condor G07 chassis that was dead by doing a cap kit, swapping out a new B+ filter cap as well as a horizontal width coil.” The cap kit was done almost a year ago, but I never got it working. Turns out the recent replacement of the B+ filter cap is what brought it back to life. The horizontal width coil was broken, so I soldered a newer one off one of the other two non-working G07 chassis, figuring better to replace the broken one while the board was out. When I re-installed the chassis in Condor it worked, but there was a slight undulation that was annoying me. So, as a test, I tried it in Robotron and the waviness was gone and it worked perfectly, so that’s where it lives right now.

This means I needed to repair one of the other two chassis for Condor, and then I was golden. The two G07 chassis I had both blew the F901 fuses (2.25 AMP @ 250V ) next to the B+ capacitor, which is the biggest capacitor on the board. After discharging the B+ filter,† I replaced the fuses, which needed to be soldered in, and then tested the G07 that came from Pole Position (I defaulted to this one because I had desoldered the horizontal width coil from the other chassis for the first fix). Initially I thought the Pole Position chassis had an issue with the flyback and/or the horizontal output transistor (HOT) given the symptoms when it originally occurred a few weeks back. But after re-soldering the fuse and re-installing in Robotron to confirm as much, there was a total vertical collapse of the heart

That’s a new one, but I’ve read about it on forum posts innumerable times. I figured I’d have to deal with it sooner or later, so I embraced the challenge to broaden my experience—learning is painful! OK, so the first thing I did was look at some of the basic troubleshooting for this, and from what I read it is possibly linked to a few different things, such as an open circuit somewhere, which requires testing each resistor in the 400 series circuit to ensure there are no infinite (OL) ohm readings. It’s also been linked to the x401 and/or X402 trasnsitors, so you wanna check the values there. I’ve read a few cases where the IC501 chip was bad and needs to be replaced, but that seems less likely. That said, the following G07 repair video did have that issue, and it does a great job walking you through common troubleshooting as well as demonstrating how to test the transistors, which was very helpful:

I tested the transistors, and they were both reading at .570, which seems normal. I then tested all the 400 series resistors and some were lower than the specs, but none were open, so not sure they are the issue. I also compared the results on a working G07 and they were fairly similar, here are the results I got for this chassis:

FR401: 69 Ohm
R401: 99 Ohm
R402: 18K Ohm
R403: 3.3K Ohm
R404: 4K Ohm
R405: 12K Ohm
R406: Vertical linearity trim pot
R407: 4.2K Ohm
R408: vertical Height trim pot
R409: 51 Ohm
R410: 6.4 Ohm
R411: 13K Ohm
R412: 13.5K Ohm
R413: 580 Ohm
R414: 3.1K Ohm
R415: 2.6K Ohm
R416: 8K Ohm
R417: 67 Ohm
R418: 1.3K Ohm
R419: 1.9K Ohm
R420: 6.6 Ohm
R421: 5.5K Ohm
R423: 2.4 K Ohm

Some of the readings are low, particularly for R404, R411, R412, R416, R417,R421, and R423, but I got similar low values for another chassis that works just fine, so I “resisted” replacing any resistors just yet given I didn’t find any open circuits, just issues with value range (assuming a low resistor value would not cause the total collapse, but I’m not positive on this). The next test would be the IC501 chip, but I was not entirely sure how to test this chip, still a blindspot for me, and I don’t have a spare regardless, so I let that sit.

There could also be an issue with soldering joints at the yoke connectors on the board but the solder was fine, but still might reflow those. Beyond that, I tested the resistors for R406 and R408 which adjust the vertical height and linearity, and they adjusting values accordingly, so I was hitting a brick wall. I even checked the diodes in the 400 circuit, but all seemed good.

At this point I decided to step away from the Pole Position chassis, and turn to the other one that wasn’t working. First thing was desolder the horizontal width coil from the chassis I just abandoned and solder it to this one. I already added the new F901 fuse, so with the width coil added and the fuse in I tested it out. The last time it had not powered on at all, whereas this time it powered on and immediately there was smoke coming out of the flyback. It had blown. This, oddly, was very reassuring because at least I knew exactly where the issue was, and I also had an extra flyback that worked. So, I replaced the flyback and tested the game again and voilà this time it worked perfectly, whew! All the work on the other one with no results but a lot of learning, and this one was a simple replacement part swap, I’ll take it every time.

I need another width coil and a working flyback, but once I have them I might even take another shot at the last non-working G07, but given no games are effected I can finally move on to the last chassis repair I need to do, the K4600 for the Centuri Challenger, so until then!

_____________________________________

*I’ve yet to dismantle a cocktail cabinet, but that task will probably be coming soon given some work needed on my Pleiades cocktail cabinet, I don’t trust the adjustable metal legs on that game and want to get them properly lubricated and adjust with the write screws.

† Capacitors are designed to hold a charge, and when you blow the F901 fuse that charge has nowhere to go, which makes these big capacitor dangerous to the touch. Whenever removing this board do not grab it from underneath before discharging the G07 cap. You can do this by using an insulated screw driver that is connected to a ground via an alligator clip to ensure the charge has somewhere to go. To ground it, make sure the screw driver touches the + and – posts, read more on this on the KLOV forums here.

The Cryptic Crossword: Sunday, July 2, 2023

Land Ina Garten transformed (9).

bavacade Repair Log 6-29-2023

This is just a quick update to document some of the work happening recently in the bavacade. It has a been a bit of catch as catch can given how busy the last month has been with the Reclaim open conference the and coming virtual event in July. That said, I’ve been sneaking in work here and there in the mornings, and as usual it adds up. I already blogged about the Yie-Ar Kung-fu custom cabinet project, and will be a summer long endeavor, but it’s very exciting. I also documented some of my work a couple of week’s ago testing various parts I bought in the US in the “Arcade Therapy” post, so things are definitely moving along.

Arcade Therapy

More recently I have been testing some spare boards I have, namely a spare Make Trax board as well as spare Super Cobra board. This was also part of my attempt to start organizing all my parts and spares in the basement and get some semblance of order. I find testing and labeling when things worked saves me a ton of time, and some of the metadata on the boxes noted that these boards were questions marks. Also, I was looking to test a Crush Roller board in Make Trax I was sure I’d bought and brought to Italy over, but turns out I am either delusional or simply left it in Fredericksburg. Either way, because I’m obsessed I bought another Crush Roller board I found for a decent price in Germany along with a spare Moon Cresta board. The latter board is for the cocktail cabinet in Zach Davis is minding for me in Portland, Oregon, and I want to install and test the high score save kit on this one before shipping it back once I am in New Orleans next month.

Anyway, back to the spare Make Trax and Super Cobra boards. The Make Trax spare works, but the sound is noisy. It’s as if the sound pot is not working correctly and there it is too loud and scratchy, so will need to track that down a new potentiometer (pot) and see if tracing the audio gives me any insight. This board will be the first real PCB work (besides my botched Stargate repair attempts) I’ve attempted in earnest, and I’m hopeful it’s the start of some basic board work.

If it goes well, the second project will be Super Cobra, which has an issue with the high score save kit. There are weird special characters in the high score save (HSS) kit and free play is not working. When I substituted the original roms—this board has several ROMs removed given they are programmed on the HSS kit—and Z80 chip from the working board the special characters went away. That said, there was then a strange rebooting issue with the game that did not happen with HSS kit in, so I’m going to buy new chips and  burn the Super Cobra roms (a first for me). After that, I’ll try to track down the random rebooting issue, which is definitely an issue I can isolate to that board, should be fun!

As far as other work, I am making headway on monitor chassis repair. I had the spare Hanterex Polo in Cheyenne sent in for diagnosis given the original is stuck in the US on what’s shaping up to be an almost a 6-month wait, which I’m not thrilled about. I’ll keep pushing on the US repair, but in the meantime if the spare board is fixed here in Italy I can finally get this game back online. If that happens, then I’m just one G07 chassis and one K4600 chassis away from having everything running. I was able to repair the Condor G07 chassis that was dead by doing a cap kit, swapping out a new B+ filter cap as well as a horizontal width coil, and the chassis is working pretty well, but there’s a slight undulating wave that Tommaso tells me is good enough, but it’s annoying me, so I do think I need to replace all the adjustment pots, especially for vertical linearity and vertical hold.

In fact, I was certain I bought spare G07 pots, but I can’t find them for the life of me (part of the quest for order undertaken this week), so I’ve been parting out one of my extra, non-working G07 chassis. I’m also waiting on some 1.25 AMP fuses that should come today to try and get the chassis that came out of Pole Position working again. I think this chassis has either a bad flyback or a bad voltage regulator given there has been a recent cap kit done already. I might also need to swap the B+ filter cap. If that works, it will be put in Robotron, which leaves only the K4600 chassis for Challenger (I put Challenger‘s 4600 into Venture to get that game up and running) to repair. I’m not sure what is up there cause I swapped flyback and there was a recent cap kit, so a bit perplexed, but hopefully we some poking around and testing that will be the final piece of the puzzle. This is where the chorus sings, “Hope springs eternal in the bava heart.”

Finally, I have the Make Trax cabinet totally stripped and with Alberto to add wheels because every game will be on wheels sooner than later in the bavacade. The cabinet, overall, is close to mint save the control panel overlay which cracking. When Tim and I were getting Reclaim Arcade up and running I came across an original control panel overlay for this game and snagged it, it was one of the things that came over with the container so I asked Alberto iof he could remove the old one and add this one, and as he says to everything, “No problem!” He’s the best! He removed the old one, which by all accounts from Tim is a totally nightmare, and got it sanded and cleaned up.

After that, he put on the new overlay and it looks like new! So good. Sometimes those things I bought that I thought “Will I use this” are now almost all in use, and that makes me happy.

I think the next game to go on wheels will be Elevator Action, so will start taking that one apart, and that will mean 16 of the 30 games in the bavacade will be on wheels, and that means I am have crossed the half-way mark, which is encouraging progress! It also means I will have stripped almost every game down to just the cabinet if I manage to get wells on all of them. That’s pretty awesome.

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”: Food, Cooking, and Eating in Video Games

Pixelated Paradise

“Are you seriously telling me that this hot mash of mushrooms and fruit is going to completely heal his wounds?” (Gilbert 2019)

It is summer 2020 and I, like many others, am sequestered indoors clutching my recently acquired Nintendo Switch playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH). In wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world seemed to swarm either to their handy technological devices or towards the soothing arms of nature. Luckily for me, my technological device included encounters with some virtual greenery—the trees and flowers of my beloved tropical Animal Crossing island.

As I planted my strategically planned flower beds and traveled from mystery island to island collecting fruits which I didn’t have, I also consulted many online forums for guidance. To my surprise, I stumbled upon PETA’s Vegan Guide to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Within, I found several suggestions on how to play the game while supporting vegan ethics. My favourite part? The commentary on what foods within the game are vegan friendly. While nowadays it’s possible to cook a variety of dishes in ACNH (even seasonal varieties!) much of the early discourse on food in ACNH was about how powerful vegan diets are. In the game, you can literally dig up entire trees with the nourishment provided after eating a singular  luscious virtual fruit. Sadly, this spurred some backlash from players arguing about: (1) the boundaries of our onlife and offline selves, (2) the potential of video games as pedagogy, and (3) the politics of digital and virtual foods. But how is it possible to extract all of these insights, politics, ethics, and social tensions from a game mimicking  an agricultural life on a tropical waterfront property we all secretly desire during daydreams?

Terms, Theories, and Methods

In this piece I apply my concept of Digital Food Spaces (DFS) or “online communities and platforms dedicated to the sharing of food-centered ideas and media” (Dam 2023) to the realm of video-gaming. I draw from both personal experiences and the insights of fellow gamers who I recruited via Twitter. Through our conversations I apply my theory into practice by analyzing the DFS of ACNH to examine how users conceptualize and interact with food in video games. Twitter (at its peak) had the capability to house and foster dialogues of every topic without reserve—food was just one of many, and as Schneider et al. (2018) has demonstrated, contentious discussion draws activist responses in the form of digital food activism by users.

From these conversations and interdisciplinary literature review I present three arguments:

• Gaming universes can be considered DFS
• Gaming universes have the capacity to foster food exploration and learning
• Depictions of food in gaming universes have intersectoral offline applications and implications

While there are video games whose sole focus is to highlight food and related processes like cooking and eating (e.g. Overcooked and Cooking Mama), I include all games which feature some aspect of food within its play and/or landscapes. I should clarify that even though something in a game is edible by characters,  I try to focus on what we can colloquially code as “food” through its relatability to offline counterparts. Basically, a food is a food within a video game if its origins can be traced back to a particular food or food idea which exists offline to some degree.[1] This tracing is rather open, considering video games also  feature mockeries of offline eats for several reasons. As a result, the boundaries of onlife (Van Est et al. 2014, Floridi et al. 2015) and offline in this piece are flexibly framed because they easily flow into one another and inevitably shape each other. As Floridi et al. (2015) emphasise, because  ICTS[2] shape our (1) self conceptions, (2) mutual interactions, (3) realities, and (4) our interactions with reality, there are ongoing instances of boundary blurring between reality and virtuality as well as between humans, machines, and nature. Therefore, we can easily translate insights between the different realms and apply interventions and solutions accordingly—furthering the range of intimacy that technologies have with us presently and in the future (Van Est et al. 2014).

Gaming Universes as Digital Food Spaces

Digital Food Spaces (DFS) are not limited to social media sites and platforms, considering discussions about food take place almost everywhere online. Given that gaming (in practice and interest) continues to grow in popularity across age groups, it is essential that we include video games in our examinations of onlives and their capabilities of shaping the offline. Such insights are crucial for identifying and charting the transformations of how people are perceiving, understanding, and engaging with different foods—most especially when they allude to offline counterparts and processes.

A common feature which links many games together is the association of life/health points being replenished by consumable items in-game, much of which are stylized as food items. Gone are the days of only red health-boosting and blue mana-boosting potions—we’ve got entire menus of gourmet foods to fill player stats and inventories now.

This has led to much reactionary discussions and creations both online and offline. Entire online communities dedicate themselves to the recreation of these edibles in their own kitchens. Whether it’s a Reddit thread, a Facebook post, or a multi-video series on YouTube, gamers are experimenting with ways to bring the fantastical foods they encounter in their favorite games into their offline lives. Several dining establishments have also launched with these sentiments, but take a more reflexive approach through creating dishes inspired by in-game characters, locations, and items—for example the (unofficial) League of Legends restaurant “Challenger” based in China. However, for those of us who wish to capture the magic at home, there is also a growing video game cookbook collection which can teach you how to make foods from games like Destiny, The Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, the Fallout franchise, Sims, Minecraft, Street Fighter, and more.

Some games simulate the food production and preparation processes. In the Harvest Moon series, you’re a farmer with both crops and animals which grow and transform across the seasons. In several games it is possible to hunt creatures and cook them.[3] The Cooking Mama series allows us to pick recipes, prepare them step-by-step, and receive reviews on the final dishes. Overall, video games allow players several opportunities to critically consider and connect with foods and associated activities. This inevitably spurs discussion and prompts the formation and articulation of food-related opinions and perspectives among players. Within the DFS paradigm, video games are like entrées—catalysts of inspiration to explore and engage with foods in ways that go beyond the virtual.

Gaming as Food Exploration and Education

Video-gaming universes are seemingly infinite, in both creativity and vastness. Within, there are places for every wacky interaction and dream in between. We create our avatars from an assortment of options, and we attempt to explore the crevices of how we see (or would like to see) ourselves and the world through these choices. When given the tools (ICTs) in video games, we test the limits of what’s possible and appropriate. This logic extends to food in games as well. Think about so-called “dubious food” in the Legend of Zelda series:

“It’s too gross to even look at. A bizarre smell issues forth from this heap. Eating it won’t hurt you, though…probably” (In-game description, Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild 2017)

This food experimentation through hunting, gathering, and preparing foods often occurs in many explorational “open world” games, like The Elder Scrolls franchise and newer Pokémon games. For players, it provides a wider range of engagement and creativity with virtual foods while also providing insights into how cooking and mealtimes transform relationships between the player’s virtual body, their surroundings, and their in-game companions. VR games take this to the extreme by directly translating players’ physical movements into virtual simulations for added experiential depth. Hilariously, it is important to note that not all video game foods are helpful. Some creations also actively harm in-game health status and abilities, mirroring food poisoning experiences to some degree.

Video games easily initiate learning  through vicarious consumption (Veblen 2007). As players encounter, prepare, and consume virtual foods, they increase their familiarity and knowledge around them (Staiano 2014). In turn, it sparks further curiosity and thinking around the foods and their offline cultural and historical inspirations. Often, players find this learned food-related information applicable in offline scenarios and conversations even in the cases where the foods are entirely fictional.

“Cooking foods in virtual reality has transferred over to what I apply in the kitchen. I used to bake bread but I got to know a number of pastries and deserts like tiramisu.” (personal communication, @Zay_ZYXWV)

“The Fallout games have all the disgusting foods. But also a lot of parodies of actual American snacks I guess. I don’t get all of them because I am from Germany, but I have a sense that they are versions of actual foods.” (personal communication, @PrimoRCavallo)

“I recently played the controversial Russian game Atomic Heart. One of the primary themes is the Soviet Union, and one of the main food factors which is a completely mandatory item for traversing the game is condensed milk, alongside bottles of vodka. I thought it was an odd choice for a power up item in a game, but after spending some time looking into it it seems like those two items had some high degree of value to the survival of those geographical people due to their long shelf life and stability in indeterminate situations.” (personal communication, @TheAbeg)

Considering many games have foods which are modeled after offline ones, they are useful for learning about foods outside of one’s experiential range. In the MMORPG MapleStory, many places which pay homage to real offline locations have their own special consumables that allude to local dishes, for example: satay, ramen, chili crab, unagi, bento boxes, steamed buns, dumplings, laksa, chicken rice, tacos, and  curries.  Several tropical fruits and snacks like durian, dragon fruit, dried squid, and dango are also available in-game.

Beyond 8-bit: Applications and Implications

Scholars across disciplines have stressed the importance of considering interlinking implications and applications of happenings online with those offline (Boellstorff 2016, Taylor and Nichter 2022). Analysing the interactions and engagements of our onlives within the DFS of gaming universes can provide information about points of interventions (e.g. cases of digital obesogenic environments) or the range of shared interests of certain groups as they pertain to food. While video-gaming only simulates life or death, the impacts of digital obesogenic environments has yet to be thoroughly explored. Video-gaming allows for people to embrace (if not overexaggerate) and explore aspects of their individual values and varied performances of self (Goffman 1959). It is of interest to those working in diplomacy, marketing, and the food industry to pay attention to the reception of foods in video game universes and players’ concerns as starting points for improvements in initiatives of gastrodiplomacy, product design, food communication, and more. Doing so would help generate more interactive and reflective national foods branding given the diversity of  gaming communities (Ichijo et al. 2019, White et al. 2019, Dam 2023). Furthermore, there is immense potential to expand digital food studies’ research theories and methodologies in video games while also continuously challenging the boundaries of online and offline. If art does imitate life, how are we to ignore or deny the salience of how people play with and reimagine foods and foodscapes?

Notes

[1] An honorable mention for the “dubious food” available in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[2] Information and communication technologies

[3] There is an exhaustive amount of games where you can hunt creatures and eat them, so to list them all would be…well, exhaustive.

---

References

Atsuko Ichijo, Venetia Johannes, and Ronald Ranta. 2019. The Emergence of National Food: The Dynamics of Food and Nationalism. Bloomsbury.

Boellstorff, Tom. 2016. “For Whom the Ontology Turns: Theorizing the Digital Real.” Current Anthropology 57(4): 387-407.

Dam, Ashley T.K., 2023. “Dining with the Diaspora: Khmerican Digital Gastrodiplomacy”. Platypus Blog. https://blog.castac.org/2023/03/dining-with-the-diaspora-khmerican-digital-gastrodiplomacy/

Gayle, Latoya. 2020. “Nintendo fans mercilessly mock PETA for claiming vegans shouldn’t play Animal Crossing because it features virtual fishing and bug catching”. Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8155471/Video-game-players-mercilessly-mock-PETA-vegan-guide-Nintendos-Animal-Crossing.html

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.

Lynn, Lottie. 2021. “Animal Crossing Cooking: Ingredients and how to unlock cooking in New Horizons explained”. Eurogamer. https://www.eurogamer.net/animal-crossing-cooking-ingredients-how-unlock-new-horizons-8007

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA]. 2020. “PETA’s Vegan Guide to ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons”. https://www.peta.org/features/animal-crossing-new-horizons-vegan/

Schneider, T., Eli, K., Dolan, C., & Ulijaszek, S. (Eds.). (2018). Digital Food Activism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315109930

Staiano A. E. 2014. Learning by Playing: Video Gaming in Education-A Cheat Sheet for Games for Health Designers. Games for health journal, 3(5), 319–321. https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2014.0069

Taylor, Nicole and Mimi Nichter. 2022. A Filtered Life: Social Media on a College Campus. New York: Routledge.

Van Est, R., Rerimassie, V., van Keulen, I. & Dorren, G. 2014. Intimate technology: The battle for Our Body and Behaviour. Rathenau Instituut.

Veblen, Thorstein. 2007. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford: Oxford UP.

White, Wajeana, Albert A. Barreda, and Stephanie Hein.  (2019) “Gastrodiplomacy: Captivating a Global Audience Through Cultural Cuisine-A Systematic Review of the Literature.” Journal of Tourismology 5(2), 127-144.

How Chess.com Became ‘the Wild West of the Streaming World’

During the pandemic, the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit famously sparked a huge increase in chess interest — but one online play engine turned what would have been a spike into a groundswell that eclipses even esports. Jessica Lucas traces how the royal game became a digital juggernaut.

By January 2023, Chess.com reported hitting over 10 million active players in a single day—more than the daily average of World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Among Us combined—leading the site’s servers to crash. Its online schedule now features a who’s who of chess grand masters who provide content for users almost 24 hours a day. A new class of chess celebrities, like sisters Alexandra and Andrea Botez, who recently surpassed 1 million Twitch subscribers on their joint account, and international master Levy Rozman, who has over 3 million YouTube subscribers, regularly appear on Chess.com.

New Street Fighter movie officially in development

Between Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers, it looks like video game movies are making a comeback – and this time, they're actually half decent! Not to be outdone, it seems Capcom is vying for another adaptation of its iconic Street Fighter series, having sold off the film rights to to Legendary Entertainment only a few days ago. — Read the rest

YouTuber tries to beat Skyrim without actually being in Skyrim

'Challenge runs' are a strange and simultaneously irresistible thing. Take a suitably open-ended and pliable game, like Dark Souls, Minecraft or Fallout, impose a set of arbitrary restrictions on yourself, and watch the hilarity ensue. Whether it's beating Dark Souls with only a hundred arrows and no other weapons or trying to have sex with every possible partner in New Vegas as quickly as possible, there's nothing like challenge runs to give you a different perspective on these beloved games and a real appreciation for all these interlocking systems. — Read the rest

The Labor of Play

Games like Wordle and CALL OF DUTY equally stem from capital's attempt to conquer leisure time. Is there a better way to play?

The post The Labor of Play appeared first on Public Books.

Yakuza series devs beat seven games in a row in 170-hour livestream

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the developers of the wildly popular Yakuza series, recently launched a livestream with one simple goal: Beat (almost) every Yakuza game in the series, from acclaimed prequel Yakuza 0 to the more somber Yakuza 6. It took almost 170 hours of streaming, but at long last and with a truly staggering amount of bicycles broken over goons' backs, the Ryu Ga Gotoku team brought it home. — Read the rest

GameStop turns a profit for the first time in 2 years

A recent earnings report released by Gamestop has, well, reported that they earned a profit of $48 million last quarter. This is, comparatively, quite a step up from their net loss of $147.5 million last year. Net sales and inventory have also dropped, however, continuing the steady decline of the last few years. — Read the rest

Elden Ring adds ray-tracing at long last

After initially being promised close to launch, Elden Ring has finally received its ray-tracing update a little more than a year later. The patch was stealth dropped in the truest sense of the word, with only a same-day Twitter post to clue players in. — Read the rest

How The New York Times managed to avoid ruining Wordle

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Welcome Home Must-Have’s for National Puppy Day

Today may possibly be the happiest (and cutest) national day in the world – it’s National Puppy Day! Being a new pet parent can be overwhelming, I’ve been there… So if you’re welcoming home a new puppy, or just looking to spoil your current one, here are 7 essential items to cover all your bases. After all, their happiness is your happiness! Plus, they’re all tested and approved by #dogintern, Koda, and trust me, she’s a picky one.

A warm and comfy bed

Did you know that puppies sleep for about 18 hours a day? All that rest is when their brain, body, and immune system are doing the most developing, so it’s no surprise that a comfy bed is the #1 thing they’ll be needing. Unlike most foam beds that trap heat, Koda especially loves Newton Baby’s Pet Bed, which features the same Wovenaire technology as their award-winning mattress. Koda’s an Aussie-mix with two fur coats, so she really appreciates a bed that keeps her comfy without getting her too warm! It’s designed to be 100% breathable, washable, and better sleep for your pup. (Extra emphasis on ‘washable’ because we all know accidents are prone to happen with new puppies.) For puppies that paw – not to worry because the bed cover is also scratch-resistant!

Aesthetic bowls that blend seamlessly into your home

Timeless, simple, and made of food-grade stainless steel that’s dishwasher safe, Wild One’s bowls are perfect for mealtimes. The nonslip silicone base keeps the bowls from moving around, but if you want to go one step further, they also have matching silicone placemats to catch any spillage! With a messy drinker like Koda, the placemat is a lifesaver. It keeps my floors clean and dry, and it’s so easy to wipe down. Available in 2 sizes, with the option of neutrals (Black or Tan) or a pop of color (Lilac or their seasonal addition, Spruce)!

Walk-essentials: leash, collar, and on-the-go pouch

With all that puppy energy, long walks are a great way to tire them out. Maxbone’s GO! With Ease Hands Free Leash is perfect for us hoomans because 1) the leash distance is adjustable and 2) it can be worn around the waist or shoulder, making it one less thing to worry about while you’re training your puppy to heel. It can still be used as a regular leash if you don’t want to go hands-free, but I love the fact that it’s versatile to however YOU want to use it! Pair it with the matching Signature Collar + the GO! With Ease Pouch, and you two will be the most stylish duo on the block. Call me extra, but the Pouch is such an easy way to elevate your walking game since it can be attached to the leash. (Step aside, Lululemon Fanny Pack!) Load it up with your phone, credit cards, keys, and poop bags, and you’re good to go!

Clean paws for a clean pup and a clean home

It’s hard to avoid your puppy tracking in dirt and germs from outside, but at least Dandylion makes it easy to clean! Their Clean Paws No-Rinse Foaming Cleanser has become my second best friend as it instantly washes Koda’s paws without the need to rinse. The foamy formulation and soft silicone bristles allow for a gentle deep cleanse with plant-based ingredients that soothe, nourish, and provide anti-microbial benefits! Just simply remove the cap, pump out some foam, and gently massage into those hard-to-reach areas. Wipe dry and your puppy’s ready to roam free again. I love that they have a refill bottle so that when you’re through with the bottle, you can reuse your pump to stay eco-friendly!

A healthy pup is a happy pup

A daily routine extended to your puppy – personalized supplements for dogs have become a thing. Vet-formulated and pet-approved, Dandy has supplements that you can customize from scratch or simply choose pre-made packs to eliminate any guesswork. They also have a short quiz you can take, which gives you a vet recommendation based on your pup’s unique needs! For me, it’s been an uphill battle with Koda’s allergies, so I appreciate that their vet-formulated packs are a quick and easy no-brainer for me. They’re even available at some retailers so we never have to worry about going a day without them. Depending on your pup, choose from Allergy, Anxiety, or Wellness Care to target their concerns. (They also have Joint Care for anyone with older dogs!)

Fun and games turned into mental enrichment

As mentioned before, this short puppy period is full of development. Physical fun and exercise help their little bodies develop, while mental challenges help grow their brains. Fable’s Enrichment Set includes The Game and 2 Falcon Toys, which allow for interactive or independent play. Their Twin Falcon Toy is also a great option if you’re looking for a two-in-one. Enrichment isn’t just limited to mealtime; the open cavities on the Falcons can be stuffed with spreads like peanut butter, but don’t worry about the mess – the toys are top rack dishwasher safe! (Just try to skip the heated dry cycle.) Koda’s a huge lover of peanut butter and non-fat Greek yogurt, so she always knows what time it is when I bring out her Twin Falcon!

Durable, non-toxic, and easy to clean, Fable’s Signature Balls are an upgrade from your typical tennis ball. They aren’t just for a good chase, they’re also great for mental stimulation! The two openings minimize choking risk, but you can also fill it up with spreads to keep your pup busy. Hand wash with soap and water, and they’re good as new.

Indulge them with their favorite word: treats

Winnie Lou – The Canine Co has all the things to satisfy your pup’s tastebuds! They started as a food truck and treat company for dogs, and they’ve easily become our favorite because of their locally and sustainably sourced ingredients. Since Koda has so many allergies, we love that their treats are made with single or minimal ingredients. With a variety of options, their treats will have your pup rolling over too! They also offer bone marrow bones, which are a much healthier alternative to rawhide (yuck!). Best for when they’re about 6 months old, or when they have their adult set of teeth, these long-lasting and tasty treats (so I’ve been told) will keep your pup occupied and happy for hours.
It’s also nice to mention that Winnie Lou gives back to the dog community by donating some of their proceeds to local rescues each quarter. Koda herself was a rescue, so brownie points there!

Maivy Tran is a California native and if she’s not brainstorming narratives or curating content, she’s probably at the dog park with her pup Koda. See the BTS of her life over on Instagram.

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!

Dig Dug on Wheels!

Like the Venture post before it, most of this was originally published as part of the bavacade repair log from February 9, 2023.  But in service of searchability and documenting these cabinet overhauls more individually, I’m breaking this out into its own post.

Broken corner in Dig Dug cabinet

There was a big gouge in the bottom rear corner of the Dig Dug cabinet that was bothering me to no end. The cabinet was otherwise quite solid, and I have to say the seller ensured everything in it was original, which is always nice. One thing that struck me when taking this apart was how well designed the Atari cabinets are. This was the first one I disassembled, and it was the easiest yet by far. I love the way the light and speaker are combined onto one piece of plywood for easy removal.

Light and speaker mounted unit for Dig Dug cabinet

The coin door setup is also super easy to remove with a genius design that allows you to attach and detach the coin box easily and tighten the door with all bolts seated using attached, movable nuts. When you disassemble enough of these machines you begin to appreciate good design choices.

Bolt system for coin doors for the Atari Dig Dug cabinet

The cabinet work for this game was a bit more straightforward. Epoxy for the gouged lower corner and for the various imperfections along the trim. I have new t-molding on order, so this game should be mint very soon.

Some taping of Dig Dug for touch-up paint

There were a few places the cracks in the sides meant I needed to do some touch-up paint work, and the base color of his cabinet is closer to off-white than pure white, so I found myself adding yellow to pure white paint to get a better match, and that was fun. It’s not perfect, but you would need to know what you are looking for in just a few spots to see the difference. It’s approaching perfection for me, so more than passable for most I hope. Also, none of the original artwork was touched, so this was already a pretty impressive cabinet, that just got awesomer!

Dig Dug After touch-up paint and before light sanding

There are a couple of things I still needed to attend to, and I got around to them after returning from travel. The first task was fixing the marquee light that blows every florescent tube I’ve put in there. I believe it’s the ballast on the light fixture, but I decided to go the easy route for the time being and just attach a 12V switching power supply to convert 120V power line to 12V in order to attach a 12V LED light strip.

That worked well, although the light is a bit bright, so I am looking to find some opaque tinted tape to dial down the lumens. Right now I have masking tape as a work-around, but that might not be the best idea

That said, the marquee is now working quite well, and it is an original glass, not pasltic, marquee, which is extra special:

Next up, the power brick was pretty noisy, so I thought it might be a big blue cap that needed to be replaced. It’s an easy job, so I brought a couple back from America and swapped out the existing one. Unfortunately the noise persisted, so in the interim I switched the power prick from Millipede, which is dead quiet, with the one from Dig Dug. I did this not only because Dig Dug is in the foyer and the noise can get annoying, but also because Millipede is next game up for a quick refurbish and wheels. While Alberto is working on Millipede, I’ll see if I can figure out what is making the loud humming noise on the Dig Dug brick.

Finally, the smooth, black t-molding is on order, and should arrive soon. But apart from that, this is another mint cabinet that sits alongside Donkey Kong Jr, Galaxian, and Pac-man in the bavamanse foyer!

Dig Dug is re-assembled and looking groovy

Becoming the Game: Hardware Hacking, Agency, and Obsolescence

Introduction

When I asked my aunt back in 2014 if my old Game Boy Color was still around, she handed it to me, but confirmed that the A and B buttons no longer worked properly. The Game Boy Color is a handheld game console that was released in 1998 as a successor to the black-and-white Game Boy (1989), though both consoles were discontinued in 2003. My grandmother had died recently, and we were clearing out my and my brother’s belongings from her newly empty house. Truthfully, I hadn’t touched this handheld console since the mid-2000s, around the time I upgraded from the family desktop computer to my own personal laptop. The title stickers on some of the cartridges had begun to wear out, but I held hope that this wasn’t an indicator of what their inside was like, or whether they had reached the end of their lives. I told my aunt I’d find a way to fix the buttons, to which she answered, “Why would you want to repair something from the past when the quality of what’s now in the present, on the market, is infinitely better?” In the mind of many people, it is indeed better to wait for a newer, more technologically advanced model to come out, a manifestation of planned obsolescence which we have learned to live with.

Flash forward to 2022, and I had still not managed to fix the buttons on my deep-purple handheld but I attended a Game Boy Hardware Hacking workshop hosted by Lee Wilkins, with the support of Alex Custodio and Michael Iantorno as part of a series of events leading up to a Solar Game (Boy) Jam. The purpose of this workshop was to hack into the console to alter the way it functions, involving changing the buttons. After a quick presentation, we started by removing the external screws from the Game Boy Color console using an “iFixit” toolkit. We had to use a tri-wing screwdriver because the screws Nintendo uses aren’t the typical Phillips; picture a peace sign Y, instead of a plus sign +. The internal screws were a plus sign (Phillips), however. The point of the screws requiring a different screwdriver is to stop you from getting in, but once you’re in, you’re in. We then took both sides of the case apart slowly, careful not to damage the screen or circuit board.

While concerned with sustainability throughout my whole life, ever since we had a tree-planting day at school when I was eight years old, my main takeaway from the workshop was not sustainability, but that I had been implicated in the process of making. I was made into an actor: not in the theatrical sense, but I had been given a role in making the game instead of just playing it. In other words, I became a “prosumer,” a mix between producer and consumer (Berg, Narayan, Rajala, 2021). I, and the workshop attendees, gained a form of agency that day through hardware hacking.

Becoming the Game

Taking the console apart felt cool, but we still had more to do. We wanted to hack into it and alter some of its functions, particularly the buttons, so the next step involved soldering. I had done some soldering before, with Alex and Michael as well, in May. We had replaced the volatile memory batteries on some Game Boy cartridges, which had to be soldered on the motherboard to stay in place. In the more recent workshop’s case, we soldered the exposed part of the wires onto the buttons and the wires served as extensions of the buttons which we could attach to conducting elements using alligator clips.

After everything was in place, we had to think about movements that would close the circuit on each button. We glued aluminium paper on cardboard to make bracelets, rings, headbands, and other accessories to connect to the alligator clips. Yiou, a visiting scholar, sketched out the positions we would be standing in. We stood in a circle to symbolise a circuit, with Alex holding the console in the middle of the circle. We each wore one or two of the accessories we had prepared earlier. The workshop attendees worked together: in order to move downwards, I would high-five Justin, Justin would (gently) smack Owen’s head to go left, and Richy and Yiou would elbow-bump to go right. Unfortunately, Tetris doesn’t have an upwards function so we couldn’t test Owen and Richy fist-bumping to go up. We modded a Game Boy console to become THE Game Boy console and played the coolest game of communal Tetris ever!

Planned Obsolescence

As I’m writing this, people are preparing for the eShop closure (the electronic Nintendo store through which people can purchase digital copies of games and other programs) on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles by downloading everything they’d purchased before they no longer can, as per Nintendo’s official announcement. The 3Ds, successor of the DS (2004), was released in 2011 while the Wii U, successor of the Wii (2006), was released in 2012. People can still buy second-hand games for both platforms, in the form of physical cartridges, but as of this month (March 2023), they can no longer buy them digitally from Nintendo. This news came around the same time it was announced in Nintendo Direct that classic Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games will now be included in the Nintendo Switch Online membership, in digital form. Fans suspect DS and 3DS games will be next.

As defined by industrial designer Brooks Stevens in 1954, planned obsolescence is a marketing strategy that presumes that electronics are made with the intent that the consumer will want to discard them by the time their successor comes out on the market through “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary” (Adamson and Gordon, 2003). Many people assume that with planned obsolescence, their electronics will break down immediately, or that their electronics will stop functioning. However, scholars suggest that consumers will be under the impression that their belongings stopped functioning because they don’t function the same way the latest model does (Miao, 2011; Kuppelwieser and Klaus and Mathiou and Boujena, 2019). In other words, it’s not really becoming out of use as much as it would become inconvenient to use them in conjunction with other existing, newer models on the market.

Taking Agency or Being Given Agency?

In a sense, getting into the console to fix a button or switch out the screen are sustainable efforts to combat planned obsolescence, all while giving consumers more agency over what they consume.

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020), the game doesn’t end once the players reach the end credits. After the credits roll, one of the game’s NPCs, or non-player characters, tells the player that they’ve unlocked terraforming, making them an official “Island Designer” who can reshape hills, cliffs, create ponds, move bridges, to personalise their islands a step further than redecorating by putting down items from their pockets. Terraforming even comes with a white hard hat the player must wear every time they’re changing the architecture. This new feature that wasn’t included in previous iterations of the game before 2020 gives the player some form of agency, in my opinion, over what the game they’re playing looks like. In this case, agency was given, thus making it voluntary on the behalf of the development team and different from the agency consumers achieve through hacking and modding.

A form of agency I am more concerned with is people taking the reins of technology for themselves out of a want or a need. When I couldn’t get my Game Boy Color buttons to work in 2014—desperate to play Pokémon Crystal again—my first thought was to give up and purchase a 3DS, which would have newer editions of the game, though not the exact game I wanted to play. But I found a solution: Twitter friends opened my eyes to the world of emulators. To explain it simply, emulators tell a computing platform to operate a certain way that mimics another computing platform in order to run software that only works on a certain platform. Emulators exist for almost any platform and can even be encased in a shell that looks like one of the retro handheld consoles, another form of agency the players themselves have taken. I downloaded a Game Boy emulator onto my laptop and then downloaded a ROM file[1] of Pokémon Crystal that someone had modded to work on an emulator. I had so much fun playing it and reliving my memories, I ended up locking myself in my room for hours and hours every day that summer.

Conclusion

As the technology advances, there will be more to consider in the process to stop defunct consoles from ending up in landfills. When it comes to software, emulators have proven to be the way to go to preserve the games. In the case of Nintendo closing down eShops for decade-old handheld consoles, it could be justified as the company choosing to focus their efforts on their current consoles over continuing to invest in supporting older platforms, which requires human labour and financial cost.

It can be quite scary to not know where to begin or which tools you need to repair or alter electronics, but all you need to do is to start tinkering. I will leave you with my now-functioning Game Boy Color buttons, taken apart, then replaced by my brother—who, just like me, has no background in any of this, but also has a lot of curiosity and doesn’t want to give up on our childhood memories.

Note

[1]Read-Only Memory, the software data present on the game cartridges.

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References

Adamson, G., Gordon, D. (2003) Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Berg, P., Narayan, R., Rajala, A. (2021) “Ideologies in Energy Transition: Community Discourses on Renewables.” Technology Innovation Management Review 11(7/8): 79-91.

Kuppelwieser, V., Klaus, P., Manthiou, A., Boujena, O. (2019) “Consumer responses to planned obsolescence.” Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 47: 157-165.

Miao, C. H. (2011) “Planned Obsolescence and Monopoly Undersupply.” Journal of Information Economics and Policy 23(1):51-58.

 

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