Nuclear Monster

The 2022 European Tram Championship

May 22, 2022

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by

Jack Slater

in sports

I cannot think of a better example of competition than the 2022 European Tram Championship. Teams of tram drivers from all over Europe compete in a series of six challenges to see which team is the best at driving the tram.

Each challenge is clearly designed to demonstrate a complete understanding of how to drive safely and with care for the passengers and other people around them, that is why the Trams simulate billiards, bowling, and other challenges. Ultimately the team must also do it quickly by racing between each tram and for the buttons to start and stop the timer.

Some day I hope it will be safe to travel again so I can attend the European Tram Championship in person.
Kaiju Wars on NuclearMonster Live

May 2, 2022

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by

Jack Slater

in video games

Kaiju Wars came out recently from Foolish Mortals Games, it’s a little bit of Into the Breach-style turn-based combat mixed with some Advance Wars and of course the fun Godzilla-esque styling. The writing is cute and it’s clear from little things like the menus including public domain videos of old monster movies that the developers really cared about the subject.

You can watch my NuclearMonster Live video above or on YouTube.

Kaiju Wars is $20 on Steam for Windows, macOS (prior to 10.15 Catalina), or Linux. There’s a $2 discount until May 5th and a free demo is available.
Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale on NuclearMonster Live

Apr 27, 2022

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by

Jack Slater

in video games

Lets take a look at Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale on NuclearMonster Live

Follow NuclearMonster on twitch for the live show:
https://www.twitch.tv/MrNuclearMonster
MiSTer FPGA Developer Sergey Dvodnenko in Occupied Ukraine

Apr 25, 2022

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by

Jack Slater

in video games, war

Sergey Dvodnenko is a software developer living in a city in Ukraine that is under the control of occupying Russian forces. Dvodnenko is behind software cores for the MiSTer project with a focus on the Sega Saturn and he even recently released a core for Sega’s 32X during the occupation.

His most recent update to Twitter talked about the occupation:

Hi. I'm fine. But my town (and all neighboring ones) is under the occupation of Russian troops. The occupiers have closed the banks, cut off TV, and threaten the population. When people came to the protest, they opened fire in the air to disperse people.

— Sergiy Dvodnenko (@srg320_) March 9, 2022

Dvodnenko was later able to post last week to the MiSTer FPGA forums with an update on his status:

Hi. I’m fine. The Russian occupiers have turned off our Internet and mobile communications. There is a slow Internet connection, but this one is not always available. Twitter and Facebook are blocked, so I’m writing here. I’m working on Saturn and other cores. Maybe not so fast, but I continue to work. Thank you all for support.

Sergey Dvodnenko has a Patreon page where people can support his work directly and get updates like the video above when he’s able to upload them with his progress.
Bonesweeper in Development

Apr 25, 2022

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by

Jack Slater

in video games

Last year I wrote about the prototype Josh ‘Cheeseness’ Bush’s created for Bonesweeper, a game that’s a little bit like the classic Minesweeper but looking for fossils instead of digging for mines. So you’ll hear a soft crunch instead of a game-ending boom when you make a small mistake in deducing which squares are safe to click. The prototype was promising and Cheese has been working on a more complete full game based on the Bonesweeper prototype, streaming the development on their Twitch channel and I recently played a very early version that is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, through Cheeseness’ Patreon.

You can watch the video of Bonesweeper above but as it is very early in developing this new version, please note that you can expect crashes, incomplete or temporary placeholders, and other issues to be visible. If you’d like to try last year’s prototype, that is still available on itch.io.