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The transit center is busy and crowded. People in uniforms push through, carrying baskets full of tickets, tickets in different colors and dazzling patterns, to places you've never heard of. Hands grab, voices mix and are indistinct. It's reminiscent of an old-world bazaar.

Buses, trains and taxis head out from the station into a winding web of streets and tunnels, forking and curving and looping roundabout. In the distance, the stream of red and yellow lights running up and down the roads in the darkening dusk looks like lifeblood circulating through the veins of some colossal organ.

Leaving so soon? You reach though the crowd and manage to snag a ticket. Where does it take you?

Here are some Neocities sites (and other sites) with buttons to start with. Other sites can be found on the right-hand side.


Route 55 to the Nexus-->
<--Back into the alleys

Under construction, as always. And expect frequent updates, 'cause I've got a heck of a lot to add.

NameURLDescription
Videogames 101, 201, etc.
Critical Distance https://critical-distance.com A site that compiles lists of the best writing on games from the blogosphere every week.
The Journal of Game Studies http://gamestudies.org The premier resource for academic games writing, edited by Espen Aarseth. Covers videogames as well as other types of games.
Shmuplations http://shmuplations.com Translates interviews with Japanese game devs from throughout history. A highly valuable resource.
Hardcore Gaming 101 http://www.hardcoregaming101.net Obsessively in-depth coverage of a seemingly infinite amount of games, both popular and obscure. They occasionally release print books on specific topics. If you've just learned about a game, look it up here! A rare instance of the term "hardcore gaming" that doesn't make me roll my eyes in 2019.
Tokugawa Corp. http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr A site dedicated to Japanese retrocomputing. PC-98, X68000, FM-Towns and the like. It's an old one, but its forums are still active. Send in your copies of Technopolis today!
Art Games have Always Existed https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRmMOveppLGPAZZdzY5zCZab5fqj1v_tl A catalogue of games on the high-concept side going decades back, for those who still think the "artgame" was invented by Johnathan Blow in the year 2008 AD. Compiled by MendelPalace.
(pc) 1 Windows games and software (~1997) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-oVNgml_pQ1Yk0Qc4X-WFkSoj2rEr3Yd Another catalogue of weird and interesting games, this time centering on early Windows. Compiled by Nathalie Lawhead.
Sounds From The Abyss mixes https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEdRlER1F5rGvaoE-XbV6jz6OymxQw4jx Several compilations of strange game music selected by ella guro. Strange and wonderful; you'll be glad you dived in. (A companion to the long-defunct "Sounds From The Abyss" blog.)
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling https://emshort.blog A blog about "Narrative in games and new media," penned by writer, critic and veteran game dev Emily Short.
Cool Jams for Data Divers and Information Gourmets
Hyperland https://vimeo.com/72501076 A whirlwind tour of the brave new worlds of hypertext and multimedia at the dawn of the '90s, with Douglas Adams and Tom Baker! More info here.
The Joy of Cybersex https://archive.org/details/The.Joy.Of.Cybersex.1993 An even more whirlwind tour of the intersection of eroticism and computer technology—again, at the dawn of the '90s—from anime girls on CD-ROM to computer-generated nudity to lewd BBSes and beyond. Fascinating stuff.
TV's TV https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfAON7qmybIb_GXIQvgyVBeQoeQ3i2v0_ A high-tech, free-form, late-night Japanese TV block from the mid-1980s. "Found Vaporwave," as it were. More info here. (It's also linked on this site's homepage, in case you missed it.)
Pasokon TV http://pasokontv.blogspot.com Okay, now for some actual jams. Click the monitor screen and get whisked away...
New World Notes https://nwn.blogs.com/ A blog dedicated to news and developments in Second Life, IMVU, Star Citizen, and other such metaverses.
People I Think are Neat
ella guro http://ellaguro.blogspot.com/ The blog of ella guro, aka Liz Ryerson, an impossibly brilliant musician, critic and game dev. I've learned a lot from her work.
Retro Pals https://www.youtube.com/user/Sardius A channel "dedicated to videogame history," the Retro Pals release mini-documentaries on the games of old, as well as stream them on Twitch. They take the jankiness of many such old games in stride; tune in to their weekday night streams, and you'll spend as much time laughing as learning.
The Freak Museum (Mechapoetic) https://www.twitch.tv/thefreakmuseum The Twitch channel of Lana Polansky, who describes herself as "elvira for very odd videogames." Also check out her site, Sufficiently Human ("Game reviews for art freaks") here.
Notable Works
Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" https://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/cyborg1.htm You've probably already read this somewhere at some point, but in case you haven't, here it is.
Chris Crawford's "Dragon Speech" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrj4S24074 The legendary Chris Crawford presents the audience of GDC '93 with his dream of what videogames could become artistically, a dream he had been chasing for years up to that point. A dream, and a challenge, his own personal dragon. Freaking...WATCH. THIS. I beseech you. It's powerful.
Misc.
Metroid 2: Return of Samus - Official Site https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n02/dmg/mea/top.html No, that's not "Samus Returns," you read that right. And no, this is not a capture from the Internet Archive. Somehow, against all odds, the original promotional website for Metroid 2 has been online since god knows how long. A little treat for you early web fans. I learned about it through this tweet.