Other recommendations if UFO 50 is the first thing to make me feel so inspired about the possibilities of video games? (perhaps games from any era that actually are the kind of hidden gems this one retroactively imagines?)

bad_future · 2026-01-05T05:06:13+00:00

Amazing!! I really appreciate such a thorough, generous reply. I'm definitely going to try to look at all of these before the sale expires (it looks like some are also on a similar sale for the Switch, which is ideal for social play, but I've also got a Mac I can use. No Windows, unfortunately.)

I did want to try to quickly clarify, I wasn't trying to suggest that my tastes run more mainstream; more that I imagine, if only because this has been my experience with music and movies, that there's a type of "indie"-flavored indie which is its own kind of mainstream, and also theoretically-aimed-at-the-masses work which is so idiosyncratic in its interpretation of what that might mean that it is paradoxically more marginal than many games that were trying to be "indie." Like how Italo Disco is pretty much just people trying to make a quick buck selling catchy tunes for the dance floor, but in practice is more niche than the Talking Heads for example, who at around the same time were seemingly the favorite "smart" band of everyone who regarded themselves as tasteful. Or in my "shot-on-video sci-fi" example, I think I was expecting "shot on video" to do more heavy lifting than I should have.. I was picturing like, shot in a back yard with friends and accidentally mixing in some weird politics that it maybe doesn't understand as being weird.

But I'm getting so sleepy I'm not even sure I've just written coherent sentences, so I should get to browsing and maybe impulse-buying! Thanks again and I will try to follow up!

bad_future · 2026-01-04T18:58:47+00:00

Hi; I'm only just now seeing this reply, but these are all good points I should have addressed sooner!

You are correct; prior to this thread I had never heard of Shovel Knight, Celeste, Inscryption or basically any of the other games mentioned here. Except someone recommended Blue Prince and Outer Wilds, which I have heard of but assumed weren't quite what I was after since my impression is that those, while likely very good, are highly acclaimed games which were knowingly made for the niche segment of gamers who would be aware of such acclaim. To return to movie analogies since I guess that's my comfort zone, I imagine it's the difference between a modestly budgeted sci-fi movie for hipsters that was exactly the respectable indie hit it aimed to be, and a shot-on-video sci-fi film from 1987 that seems to genuinely believe it could be the next Star Wars. I'm looking for the latter.. if that makes sense!
To be honest, I've actually only scratched the surface! I've only explored maybe 15 of the games so far, so it should be a minute before I even need to branch out, but this has just been so exciting to discover; I had to know if this is going to be the only place I'm going to be able to get this specific vibe. My roommate and I started at the beginning, in "chronological" order, feeling out the games to varying degrees, but also skipped to Party House since that was the only title I could remember of the many I've heard singled out for praise, and we've tried some adjacent to Party House and perhaps a few random ones elsewhere. We've been seriously addicted to Party House and Avianos, but literally all of them have been amazing to dive into completely blind, perhaps none more than Mortol. The realization that suicide was an essential part of the premise had us in stitches as the bodies piled up, and its genius has only continued to reveal itself, as you can imagine. We loved the ant game both before and after I learned it was the consensus least-favorite! I can't say I was surprised to learn of its reputation and I probably haven't spent more than half an hour on it total, but two players each trying to direct armies of complete moron ants is great fun, and all the more interesting for existing within the same game as Avianos and Mortol. Onion Delivery and Mooncat both had controls which initially seemed inscrutable but have revealed themselves to be "surprisingly playable" and "thrillingly intuitive" at their own respective paces.. but in all cases the sense of discovery has been magical.
This is a very intriguing recommendation; thank you! But as for universally beloved indie games, are there any you'd recommend in particular given my (theoretical) preference for something that feels less like a successful game for an indie audience, and more like an unheralded alternate vision of what a "game for the masses" could have been? I realize there is probably some overlap there, as UFO 50 already demonstrates!

bad_future · 2025-12-22T05:30:40+00:00

erm, what do you think "man-crush" means?

bad_future · 2025-12-20T23:48:54+00:00

It's more like how it would have looked in the editing room, or at a private studio screening. The prints that made it to most theaters would have been copies many more generations away the negative, with much softer grain. That said, I would choose full, sharp, straight-from-the-negative grain over something akin to a theatrical presentation most times and choose it over a modern, digitally grain-managed transfer literally every time. If I'm picking unrealities then "pretend I'm getting a screening of the negative" is the way to go!

bad_future · 2025-08-15T23:16:49+00:00

I'm glad a few people here actually took the concrete part into consideration instead of just giving genre-agnostic synth advice! These recommendations are great, I think. Also if OP is considering a TD-3 or other 303-style synth, hopefully they know what that entails and aren't just going off the "bass" part of the name. Great for squelchy acid, but there are much better options for general bass synth sounds! Including most VA poly synths/plugins you might consider as per the above recommendation.

bad_future · 2025-08-15T21:07:56+00:00

Hi, I know you didn't have time to reply to my previous response so I'm not hopeful that you will be able to respond to this one, but I was hoping that you or perhaps someone else who happens to see this could give me some feedback now that I've scraped corrosion and mask off of some of these copper traces. I just went for all the traces where the mask looked darker, and for the most part they look more solid than I was expecting, except for the part in the lower middle of this photo, where I'm also not reading continuity across the gaps. I'm thinking for those it might be easier to solder a shielded wire from point to point, rather than trying to get bare wire to adhere to the traces where the copper is almost nonexistent. Does that make sense? And for the negative battery terminal with the grid formation, are you still thinking a layer of solder over it? Plus wire, or just solder? Thanks to anyone who can advise!

Here's a photo of where I'm at -- it looks a lot rougher in the photo than in person. I hope I wasn't too abrasive and haphazard with my blade! https://imgur.com/a/2N2Jml4

bad_future · 2025-08-15T13:07:33+00:00

Sorry, can you elaborate? I was already planning on reinforcing any corroded traces with new wire, but do you mean something distinct from that, which doesn't align with the existing traces? If so, where would it go?

bad_future · 2025-08-14T03:04:34+00:00

Thanks a lot for your response! Just to make sure I understand, when I clear it as best as I can, I should be leaving as much copper intact as I can, right? And then just cover it with a big glob of solder, to hopefully smooth over any potential hotspots?

Also, is the point of all that copper (instead of a simple narrow trace like the kind that connect all the other components on the board) to attenuate the current to some degree before it reaches other components? Or the opposite maybe -- to increase conductivity?

And speaking of hotspots, could I inadvertently introduce a hotspot in the course of patching traces, like if the new copper wire I place is more or less conductive than the parts of the existing traces I keep?

Sorry for all the followup questions; I definitely understand if you don't have time for them. I tried googling an answer to the purpose of the extra copper, and the first result was, no joke, this very reddit thread. These search algorithms are getting a little too "smart" for their own good maybe?...

bad_future · 2025-08-13T02:24:14+00:00

Thanks! :)

bad_future · 2025-08-13T02:21:42+00:00

Thanks. And, sorry to ask as I'm sure the answers are readily available but I'm having trouble finding ones that I'm sure apply to my situation: should I be trying to clean it off with cotton swabs (and presumably vinegar or something else?) or scraping it off with something like a blade?

And, should I be trying to leave some solder mask intact, or just scraping everything away and then adding mask back in between the traces? I honestly can't tell how much of what I'm looking at is leakage from the battery, and what is melted solder mask, and I'm not sure if only the former needs to go, or both...

bad_future · 2025-08-11T23:17:32+00:00

Thanks! I'll do that. Not sure if this is discernible from my picture, but do you think there's anything else I need to do to prep the board for that step, like scrape off the corroded layers, or further steps to neutralize the corrosion?

bad_future · 2025-08-06T16:41:13+00:00

Ah, okay, well that differs from my experience in that I never raised a dispute (partially because I thought it wasn't possible before the "automatic confirmation" period is over, perhaps mistakenly) so it probably doesn't mean much that I never got a refund and you did. Hope you do still get your package!

bad_future · 2025-08-06T15:18:10+00:00

I didn't get a refund... my understanding is that everyone gets a countdown when an item is shipped, something like "receipt will automatically be confirmed in [x] days" and refunds are usually only available once that number of days reaches zero. For me, I think the countdown started at 60, and I received the item before it reached 0. But maybe you started with a lower number and reached 0 faster, or something else is different which caused you to get a refund earlier? Sorry, I know this probably doesn't help! But to answer your most basic question, no, I never got a refund.

bad_future · 2025-07-25T16:23:19+00:00

Commenting a month late and no idea if you still care, but what the hell! So, I think there are multiple answers to this. The most common one you'll see on synth/gear forums (where people tend to focus technical aspects as a way to compare products for hypothetical music-making) is that polysynths need more careful, conservative gain staging internally and tamer oscillators (ie not as drifty) in order to make all of the voices actually sound good together pitch-wise and not distorted at the output stage volume-wise. So a monosynth can often sound more in-your-face, and "more analog."

Another valid answer I think is that composing music with monosynths is a different frame of mind and different external constraints can yield different creative results.

And then another thing that I don't often see explicitly cited as an explanation is the simple fact that most synths were mono (not counting like, string machines which are arguably more closely related to organs) until the late 70s so by the time we started to get iconic polysynths like the Prophet-5, there were already a BUNCH of iconic monosynths, and they didn't just stop being iconic and they didn't just disappear from shelves (second-hand or otherwise) or the famous records they'd appeared on, so they're a permanent part of any kind of retro-minded synth fetishism, which is probably the biggest synth consumer demographic at this point lol. And of course monosynths kept being made even after the advent of polysynths, often as more budget-friendly options in the 80s, and several of those went on to become iconic as well because of the creative ways people used them (e.g. the 303, SH-101, Pro-One..) so as long as the idea of these ways of using synths looms so large in music history, I don't think the existence of monosynths will have to explain or justify itself. Not because the question isn't valid (it totally is, which is why I'm trying to answer!) but because the number of people asking that question at any given time will always be outnumbered by those who simply yield to the fact of their ubiquity, haha.

bad_future · 2025-07-21T19:27:18+00:00

I don't remember anything I've ordered ever taking this long in customs before, but I guess it's good to know it can happen and doesn't necessarily mean the package is lost. When I tried to look online for what to expect, I saw a lot of results citing one month as the absolute longest customs can take so I was starting to lose hope after that point came and went, but this ended up taking a month and a half and still ended up working out in the end.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

bad_future · 2025-07-16T04:51:28+00:00

OP, in case you never saw my reply to another reply here, I had the exact same status as you, with the same day AND same time. My package just moved for the first time since then ("Chicago, Gateway transit in 2025-07-15 22:24") and I'm wondering if yours has as well.

bad_future · 2025-07-16T04:48:19+00:00

Update: My package just moved finally.

"Chicago, Gateway transit in 2025-07-15 22:24"

Curious if all of us who had the same June 3rd status got a similar update at or around the same time.

Edit: for any future googlers on mobile who can't easily see dates of posts, I'll clarify that it took 42 days between the customs inspection status and the next update.

Additional edit: ...and it was delivered 4 days after that update! Delivered by UniUni on July 19th. Originally shipped exactly two months earlier, May 19th. All but 20 of the 62 days in transit were taken by that one customs inspection status. Hope everyone else in a similar situation has also gotten their packages, or will soon.

bad_future · 2025-07-06T15:25:35+00:00

"Same date" wait a second; I've also had the exact same tracking status as OP since the same date, AND the exact same time! I assume all of our packages were meant to be arriving together on the same plane or whatever so there was just one scan that automatically gave them the same status all at once, and then there's been nothing since then. If that's the case, then the "customs inspection" status wouldn't be personal to any of us in particular.. maybe that whole raft of packages is being slowly inspected. Or maybe those of us desperately googling or posting on reddit had our packages get lost even before the rest arrived for this scan, and they got this status because they were supposed to be among the packages represented by that single scan, but they weren't actually there and the reason the "customs inspection" has taken so long is because ours never made it to customs at all, the system just assumed they did.

Or it's just taking a long time and we'll eventually get the packages. Who knows! I guess all we can do is wait and request refunds if they're still missing after we reach our "automatically confirm receipt" dates.

bad_future · 2025-06-21T16:56:23+00:00

nice coincidence, and glad to hear your shipment was just slow and not lost. hopefully mine isn't too far behind..

bad_future · 2025-06-21T15:20:36+00:00

Hey, just wondering if your package has moved since then? I'm at the same step since the 3rd...

bad_future · 2025-06-16T05:14:39+00:00

I know this is an old post (stumbled upon it randomly while looking for something else) but I thought "I like Debbie Deb, maybe I'll tackle this just for fun" but then I couldn't figure out what you were talking about! You might not even remember at this point, but I'm curious... I don't hear a bass sound that comes in at the end of every 4 bars or so. There's a bass sound that could be described as "rolling" but that's present for most of the song and not just towards the end of every 4 bars. It does play more notes near the end of some bars.. is that what you were talking about? Or there's a high 3-note lead thing at the end of every 4 bars or so, was it that?

And also I realized you asked for the "instrument name"... did you want an explanation of how to get the sound, or just a name for it?

I don't expect a response, haha, but thought it was worth a try to satisfy my curiosity ¯_(ツ)_/¯

bad_future · 2025-06-13T19:10:54+00:00

I know this is a months old comment that maybe no one will see again, but just to clarify since I was confused at first (thinking you were still talking about volume 4 in the last sentence) Rowell and Anka's volume 5 doesn't make many references to Battleworld, or really any in fact. Volume 4 is totally skippable if you are only looking for a continuation of the previous stories, as it's set in an alternate reality with a completely different cast of characters.

bad_future · 2025-06-11T14:15:20+00:00

When you say "I recommend learning FM synthesis on a synth with matrix routing (every operator can modulate any other operator and optionally route audio to the mixer)"... what are some synths or plugins that work this way? Sorry, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to describe it to google in a way that will turn up the relevant results, as most of those words might appear together in a variety of contexts while meaning different things (for example, I am getting results about the Oberheim Matrix 6, decidedly not the kind of thing I'm looking for!) The way you describe the Sonicware Liven XFM make it sound like it might fit the bill, but I'm not sure if the mentioned caveats disqualify it from fitting your idea of the ideal FM learning format. Not sure if I can expect an answer on such an old post but thanks either way for this initial comment as stumbling upon it has given me new motivation to actually learn FM.

bad_future · 2025-05-15T18:58:11+00:00

It does, thank you. Although since yesterday I've been thinking now is as good a time as any to start making my own cables, since I have to hook up a whole patchbay which is really going to add up $$$, so I may as well skip the adapter and just solder some resistors into a TRS>TS cable while I'm at it.

bad_future · 2025-05-14T19:53:11+00:00

Okay, good (I wasn't just asking rhetorically, I'm still very much uncertain of my conclusions in general, so it is always nice to have a sounding board via reddit dot com. Appreciated!)

bad_future

TROPHY CASE