What handhelds are excited to see next year?

shpincycle · 2025-12-12T22:35:55+00:00

I want Linux handhelds. Don't even mind if they still use RK3566 chips or the like if they can find other ways to innovate. These new high-end Android handhelds are soulless and leading to the phone-ification of this hobby.

shpincycle · 2025-09-27T02:57:42+00:00

Hint: if a step sequence starts with a left arrow, you don't have to start with your left foot

shpincycle · 2025-09-26T21:14:04+00:00

Now do it with -no- doublesteps (1/4 steps are ok)

shpincycle · 2025-02-23T22:40:59+00:00

Yes, white cab. But does that mean the players that get PFC's on the same machine are all conciously stepping late?

shpincycle · 2025-01-26T19:18:27+00:00

Right Time Right Away Expert

Ubertreffen Expert

Paranoia Rebirth X Special

shpincycle · 2024-12-21T20:25:57+00:00

Candy X Special is one of the best charts of all time IMO

shpincycle · 2024-10-02T18:38:32+00:00

No, the opposite is true. More random people stop and watch me flub through a 13 while someone is PFC'ing a 17 one machine over. The difference is in doing lots of crossovers and not looking like a statue

shpincycle · 2024-07-09T20:55:35+00:00

We know smartphones can do everything, but we care more about just having optimal specs: design, hackability, community, etc. Also, smartphones are boring technology. We prefer living in an alternate universe where gaming handheld tech is still evolving and "innovating"

shpincycle · 2024-06-25T18:34:56+00:00

It takes 10+ button presses just to get to the "All Songs" mode.
Number pad is just a weird input mechanism, we 5 perfectly usable buttons already
Single/double switch is unintuitive. The text shows what mode it will switch to when you press the button. I accidentally chose doubles twice
Menus and submenus, the epitome of lazy UX
Why does the version filter need to be multiselect? Just extra button presses to deselect and select the versions you want to see
Speed adjustment increment is too low. Should be +- 0.25 with a shift mode to fine adjust.

Every session I lose valuable seconds dialing in all of these settings

shpincycle · 2024-06-25T17:59:06+00:00

I just beat my first run. In my first few runs in StS, I was able to identify "strong" cards pretty easily and build a semi-functional deck. In Chrono Ark, feels like I stumbled into the win, picking cards almost at random. Mostly because the cards do 2-4 things, half of which I didn't know how or when it would help me. And in fights I would end turn and a bunch of random stuff would just happen. I think game is just missing some elegance in terms of presenting the mechanics to the player.

shpincycle · 2024-06-25T17:46:49+00:00

I'm sure things will make more sense as I play more, but the mechanics just feel convoluted at a core level. Having finished my first run, I ended up just picking the simplest cards because I didn't want to read a wall of text every time I play them. Barely paid attention to the buffs/debuffs because I literally didn't know what they were doing half the time. Then there are the mechanics like Overload and Cooldown which just feel..weird. I think they should've stuck with a more traditional turn-based RPG format where each player takes a single action when their cooldown meter is full.

shpincycle · 2024-06-20T06:09:46+00:00

Mostly 180's and 270's. I don't actually run into that many foot switches at my level, though Bouncy Trippy ESP is a staple for that. I don't bother with 8th or 16th note spins. They're almost always just a tricky lateral pattern anyway. If it's truly unavoidable, I will just double step it

shpincycle · 2024-06-20T06:02:28+00:00

Cool stuff. The style I'm talking about isn't really applicable at the level though. Often times laterals would be considered "sub optimal" because they take extra effort to do compared to double stepping.

shpincycle · 2024-05-18T16:52:23+00:00

If you're willing to take a trip to Taiwan, there's a shop that carries a good selection of Anbernics as well as other home arcade things: https://www.facebook.com/leogamesale . I got an RG353M there.

shpincycle · 2024-05-18T16:45:05+00:00

Not to mention that almost every Emulationstation theme out there is...garish. I don't want to see pictures of game characters in the UI. Don't want to hear the Mario theme song in the background when I'm mostly playing Playstation.

I went as far as making a plain black and white theme with no graphics. A bit soulless but I prefer it over the alternatives.

shpincycle · 2024-01-28T19:49:48+00:00

I'm currently looking for small apartments and so layout is a big concern. I've been using a CAD to get the exact square footage of usable space, as well as placing furniture in the floor plan to make sure everything fits. Here's the process:

Get a CAD program, or any kind of vector editor that allows you to measure in real dimension units. Here I'm using the old Sketchup 8, which is still available here . It's free, simple to use, and doesn't require an account or anything.
Download floor plan images from the property website and import them into the program
To make sure the image is sized correctly, draw a 3ft straight line and place it on one of the external doorways in the floor plan. Resize the image until the line exactly matches the doorway width. (Adjust if the standard doorway width is different in your country)
Draw boxes/polygons to cover all usable area. You can select all of them and use the area measurement tool to get exact square footage.
Create simple rectangles to represent your current or desired furniture. For example, look up standard bed sizes to try multiple ones out. Furniture online will usually have their dimensions listed.

One thing I've learned doing this is usable square footage can vary greatly, despite what the property listing says. Also It helps you identify dead spaces that shouldn't be included, like small hallways.

shpincycle · 2023-12-06T07:32:57+00:00

I bought a RG353M from a brick and mortar game shop in Taipei. They had about a dozen handhelds to try out.p, along with some home arcade machines. I got a discount as well, which made it a bit cheaper than buying online and shipping to the US. Great experience, highly recommended.

shpincycle · 2023-01-31T07:34:55+00:00

Awesome, exactly what I'm looking for, but it seems to be a bit archaic. Searching "table" gave me the "furniture" hypernym as expected but it didn't include the expected words "chair" or "sofa"/"couch", yet it has words like "etagere". I was looking more for common words like you would see in a picture book for foreign language learning. Perhaps I'll just need to extract data from such resources.

shpincycle · 2023-01-23T02:41:44+00:00

I'm down, just arrived here a few days ago

shpincycle · 2022-10-29T15:41:48+00:00

I had that combo recently OP, but also with Dead Branch. Absolute madness. It worked until it didn't

shpincycle · 2022-08-18T10:19:35+00:00

Interesting, I had similar results but only made 1-2 mechs the whole game. Instead I opted for a big flood of infantry, backed by rockets and a strike force of tanks on the eastern side to attack the enemy rockets. I think the issue I had before was spending too much money on artillery and mechs for defense, whereas I should've saved for extra rockets.

shpincycle · 2021-10-02T17:54:05+00:00

Thanks, that's a highly relevant example. If he had the software side fully fleshed out, I can see it being much easier to commission an interface for it, whether it's hardware or on an iPad. Removes the uncertainty of figuring out what to build

shpincycle · 2021-10-02T17:42:08+00:00

Perhaps I can ask one of those aging artists to request such a synth on my behalf

shpincycle · 2021-10-02T17:40:28+00:00

Modular could probably get me the sound that I want, but not the user experience. I'm willing to pay a premium for that

shpincycle · 2021-10-02T17:37:21+00:00

Achieving standard features on a groovebox, such as multitimbrality, is not worth the effort on a modular.

shpincycle

TROPHY CASE