for g17
 
I played the gears don't grind on Sunday. It was clever and short and occasionally frustrating in that feel-good video game way. I won.
 
Making tiles and daydreaming about power-ups is a nice activity.
 
We poo-poo contemporary skinner boxes w/ IAPs & their collect-em-all-spend-our-virtual-cash mentality, but we shouldn't overlook the fundamental appeal of the collect-em-all itch.
 
First, simple signposts of progression are sooooo satisfying.
Second, variety, real or imagined, feels good.
 
So in Pac-Man, you get cutscreens. In some games, you get a palette swap. Demon Attack is sometimes almost imperceptibly iterative, but you can really feel the progression while you play.
 
And in Bubble Bobble, we love seeing rare powerups and encountering new level tiles and enemies. It feels good. 
 
This post is called "feels good."

Ok, yeah, a revolting cast of reviewers. I think a lot of people just want the games and a screenshot, so I sympathize with someone's (denzquix's?) comment about freeindiegam.es's just-the-games format. I also wouldn't want a contributor to feel pressured to write good copy in order to contribute. On the other hand, I like good games writing, especially, like, termite art games writing. By that I mean games writing that doesn't necessarily try to go for any highfalutin style or themes. Comment section criticism, but without the hoipolloi. Or comment section criticism written by and for the abject. Also keep in mind that some games posted will have practically nothing written about them, so this could be an opportunity to more publicly rectify that.
 
So, a tentative checklist:
 
- express the salt aesthetic, however suspect and nebulous that might be
- salt and friends-of-salt contributors
- games presented with contributor copy or presented relatively wordlessly (a title or a quote or a one sentence description)
- generally with at least one photo taken by the contributor, including for text-based games (I always want to see photos of text-based games)
- old and new games
 
Question mark:
 
- tumblr or generic blog or register an actual domain through someone cheap?
- name?
- logistics of different logins?
- editors with master logins?
- how laissez-faire?
- what is the look? how standardized is the format (i.e., sizing of picture, style of text, etc.)
- other ideas? amendments? objections?
 

Hi saltworlders. I tried to search for an appropriate old topic, but the flood filter slowed me down.
 
I'm looking for a free drawing program that does black and white textures the way Clarisworks used to in the early 90s. Mac graphics, basically, like this:
 

 
Do you have any recommendations?

Hey, I live in Oakland and I think you people seem interesting and cool and smart and tolerant (not racist or sexist or anything). If anyone would like to meet sometime, send me a pm or message me here. I do things and I like things, and sometimes I don't do anything (and sometimes I dislike things). I'm just a regular person.
 
We could get dinner, play video games, talk about video games, or go see a movie. I go to the pfa a lot. I go to oddball and the castro theatre sometimes. You can be socially awkward and anxious or a really cool-headed person.
 
I like to talk about:
 
- education (I believe strongly in rights for autistics, I think ABA is a pseudoscience, I hate phonics, and I have decentralist politics, just to give you an idea of how a conversation about this topic might go)
- video games (esp. b-games and games in that realm)
- movies (esp. 30s-40s movies and chamber pieces with an Agnes Godard look)
- pop music (but I don't have a radio currently)
- music in general (I like country and rap and jazz)
- friends/gossip
- other things
 
I am
 
- a pragmatist (Rorty-style)
- kind of a diletante
- not a vegetarian
- a decentralist, as I mentioned
- an "Intervention Specialist" (I work with autistic kids)
- a poor person
- moving much farther east soon (if you know of any rooms opening up in the twamps, let me know)
- moderately athletic, if you like to hike or bike or play basketball or something (four square?)
- starting school in a couple of weeks (Holy Names)
- a staunch descriptivist (have used COCA to solve semantic disputes privately (within myself))
- a lover of detective and suspense novels
 
I hope this isn't too long or against the rules or something.