Possibly Leila Wilson's finest album yet.

Castle of the Winds is one of my favorite games of the Windows 3.1 era, so I was thrilled to see it get a shout-out on the latest Cathode Ray Dude video. It's a great game, and kind of obscure, so I'm always excited when I find out other folks also have fond memories of it.

In the video he touches on playing it growing up without really understanding that it was a roguelike, and that was my experience as well. It's funny; I can't stand the modern roguelike genre, but I loved Castle of the Winds. I really want to dig into that one of these days and figure out why that is.

Coincidentally, I recently went to the trouble of installing Windows 3.1 in a new DOSBox environment to get the proper Castle of the Winds experience, with Windows 3.1-style controls. Now that I have it, I find myself wondering what other games I could install to build a fully-stocked pretend Windows 3.1 gaming PC. If any of y'all have suggestions, shoot me an email! I'd love to hear them.

Music to be reminded not to cut back on vaporwave to (lest one regret it.)

GEOS had incredible aesthetics. I gotta do something with this.

• Permalink pages for blog posts now support the h-entry microformat! For an example of what you can do with this, check out this blog post by Natalie.
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One of my favorite soundtracks of all time.

• Flying Saucer Video - Remember your neighborhood video rental store? This an ongoing webcomic about the final year of one of those stores, and the employees who work there.
• Complete WordStar 7.0 Archive - A guide to using the legendary word processor WordStar on modern operating systems, with downloads.
• The Walnut Creek CD-ROM Collection (archive.org) - In the days of dialup, getting a CD-ROM in the mail from Walnut Creek was exciting. I still think fondly of their Linux and FreeBSD CDs.
• Living Worlds - Art by Mark Ferrari - Have you ever seen those old animated pixel art scenes that used palette cycling? If so, it was probably these.
• Last Call BBS - A game that's a little bit about BBSes, but even more about shareware, and the excitement of downloading it. I still boot this up regularly to enjoy the chill music and puzzle games. Edit: I completely misremembered. It's a game about warez, not shareware. There are even fake crack screens! But my favorite game in the pack is Dungeons & Diagrams, and that one doesn't have a crack screen, just a registration popup in the menus.

Despite the title, the John Carpenter vibes of this album make it seem a little spooky, and thus the perfect album to listen to at the cusp between summer and autumn.

A talk show about Sierra games called Space Quest: Guest to Guest.

Image text

NightBridge. A bridge too far...on another planet!

BRING ON THE NIGHT

There's one bridge she can't burn to escape from her past

Capel De La Sarthe has found herself in hot water more than once. From the failed colonization project on Planet Aloha, to the invasion of Agoli 5 Oasis, she hasn't gotten a chance to settle down until now.

Nightbridge seems to be a peaceful enough planet, a seat of the Federation, and a shining example of a well-populated utopia.

...at least that's how it seems. Crime is rampant on the streets and soon enough the secrets of her past are once again going to catch up with Capel. So much for settling down...

Recorded in Stereo. ©2018 WoofleMusic Company. All Rights Reserved.

2018. Color. Approx. Runtime: 1 Hour 7 Minutes. © WoofleMusic

There is also a stock FBI warning, the text of which is omitted here.

Finally, the VHS cover is marked "Printed in U.S.A.".

Leila Wilson (of Freedom Planet soundtrack fame) is one of those artists I keep coming back to, and this album in particular is a favorite. Especially recommended for the Sonic fans out there.