Nuclear Monster

  • Early in January Google started telling users of the free tier of Google Workspace (previously G Suite and Google Apps for Work) that they had until July 1st of 2022 to pay up or the service would shut off. I’ve been a user of that service for years, and the various projects I work on used it too. Google Workspace was almost perfect for a free email service that worked with custom domains, but I always kept a regular gmail account in my back pocket to use for Google’s services because I thought this day might come.

    The one good thing about Google deciding that one of the richest companies in the world can’t afford to give email services to small open source projects, small businesses, and individuals, is that it was the impetus to finally switch all of those projects away from Google’s services and support smaller businesses that don’t make the majority of their money from being a slimy advertising middleman.

    So, off to Fastmail it was, signing up, importing mail from Google, and updating the MX records was easy enough after I realized I had forgotten a period at the end of one entry but there was still one large problem with Google’s services: Even after a week of changed records, long enough to bypass the time-to-live many times over, some automated corporate e-mail was still being delivered to a Google account that had no MX records pointing to it.

    Turns out, that unless you go into the Google Workspace administration panel and specifically shut off the GMail service for all users, Google continues to receive some mail despite the MX records being set to go to Fastmail. It is truly bizarre that either Google or some automated senders ignore the MX records and I’m still not sure if it was only for mail delivered using Google’s services or what, but that was the final trick to getting all mail delivery go to the new service provider instead of the old one.

  • Densha de GO! is a series of train simulator games from Taito that require so much from their players, even honking at the right time for virtual rail fans in the game. Alex from The Yamanote channel on YouTube and Twitch plays PlayStation 4 Densha de GO!! Hashirou Yamanote Sen in the video above with the PlayStation VR and a special train controller from Zuiki. The Zuiki controller can be used with an adapter called the Titan Two.

  • The itch.io Bundle for Ukraine ended yesterday with over six million dollars split between two charities for the people of Ukraine. Humble Bundle now has a similar bundle called Stand With Ukraine going on with a $40 minimum for 123 different items like the recently released co-op Back 4 Blood and Satisfactory.

    The Humble Stand with Ukraine bundle has already raised over three million dollars for four charities benefitting the Ukrainian people and it ends in about 6 days.  Check it out at this link.

  • MacOS has changed in the past few major versions to start requiring that applications be signed and notarized in order for them to launch at all. Mac Source Ports’ developer Tom Kidd noticed that some source ports for games weren’t updated to pass through Apple’s system and put together a project to provide signed and notarized builds of these source ports for modern Macs running Intel processors and Apple’s M1 system on a chip lineup so that the games aren’t lost to time.

    There are already over 40 games on Mac Source Ports from more than 20 source ports, I recommended checking it out if you’re on a Mac and looking for classic games to play.

  • I played a few of the games in the itch.io Bundle for Ukraine recently and you can watch the replay of the stream on YouTube. There are over 900 games in the bundle and this is the first group that stood out to me, can’t wait to check out more. Let me know your suggestions in the comments below.

    Sophie’s Safecracking Simulator is a cracking good sim but not one I’d recommend playing for the first time on a stream unless you’re already familiar with safecracking. Runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

    Combo Postage is a fun arcadey stacking and combo-clearing game. Only for Windows and Linux.

    Kaiju Big Battel Fighto Fantasy has a questionable name but seems perfectly harmless and extremely on-brand for someone who goes by Nuclear Monster. Windows, macOS, Linux, Android.

    Antecrypt is an incredibly well put together retro single-stick arena shooter. Didn’t even know there was such a category before. Only on Windows.

    Dumpy & Bumpy is a puzzle adventure that’s similar in spirit to puzzle bobble. Windows only.

    SkateBird is a good Hawk-like skating game. Windows, macOS, Linux.

    Pullfrog is a challenging Tetris-like puzzler where you control a cute frog at the bottom of a well, trying to guide the pieces into the correct spot to clear a line. Windows, macOS, Linux, and can even be played inside Pico 8!