#android apps 2023

[buyiptvblog]

Best Buy IPTV: The Future of Television Viewing

In today’s fast-paced digital world, the way we consume media is rapidly evolving. Traditional television is giving way to more flexible, interactive, and convenient solutions. One such innovation is Best Buy IPTV, a service that combines the best of live television and on-demand content, accessible on various devices. Best Buy IPTV offers a plethora of features designed to enhance the viewer’s…

[zeroloop]

Smart watch Berrosy

Berrosy Orologio Smartwatch Uomo, 1.39″ Fitness Militare Questo e uno “smartwatch sportivo” nella confezione troviamo : due cinturini intercambiabili (nero e argento), un cavo di ricarica magnetico con connettore USB-A, un manuale di istruzioni in diverse lingue. Lo smartwatch ha un aspetto e design moderno sportivo, con un display rotondo touch e un pulsante multifunzione. Per collegarlo allo…

[evaultfinancialgroup]

"Top Investing Apps for #IOS, #android in 2023 - Must-Have Mobile Tools...

[scentedsuitwinner]

7 Days Loan App List 2023: How to identify Fake loan ap?

7 Days Loan App List: Many loan apps claim to offer instant loans for a short period, such as 7 days. These apps may not be reliable, safe, or legal. They may charge high-interest rates, ask for sensitive personal information, or harass you if you fail to repay on time. Therefore, you should be very careful before applying for any loan through these apps and read the terms and conditions…

[babylonburningmadiacenter]

Apple Knight 2: Hack and Slash (2023) (Action Platform) (Android,IOS)

https://www.limitless.online https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=online.limitless.appleknight.dungeons https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-knight-2/id6447652073 Ready to become a hero? Immerse yourself in this intense action platformer and battle through a kingdom teeming with adversaries! Boasting stunning graphics, challenging levels, and exciting boss battles, this game promises…

[amandaroos]

www.AmandaRoos.com/apps

Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/qjPqMUPScMQ?feature=share

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple faces criminal sanctions for defying App Store antitrust order

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in AUCKLAND TODAY (May 2), and in WELLINGTON TOMORROW (May 3). More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

Epic, makers of the wildly popular Fortnite video-game, have waged a one-company war against the "app tax" – the 15-30% rake that the mobile duopoly of Apple/Google take out of every penny we spend inside of apps.

Epic's own digital practices are hardly spotless: just this year, the company was caught cheating players – many of them children – with deceptive practices and had to refund over $72m:

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/fortnite-refunds

But in this fight, Epic is on the side of the angels. The 30% that Apple/Google sucks out of the mobile economy is a brutal tax, and not just on app makers. Patreon performers recently raised a stink when the company announced that it would be clawing back 30% of the money pledged by their supporters – that 30% surcharge is passed straight through to Apple/Google:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24218629/patreon-membership-ios-30-percent-apple-tax

From independent news outlets to crafters selling their work out of small storefronts, all the way up to massive entertainment services like Disney Plus and Fortnite, the mobile cartel takes 30% out of every dollar, a racket they maintain with onerous rules that ban apps from using their own payment processors, or even from encouraging users to click a link that brings them to a web-based payment screen.

30% is a gigantic markup on payment processing. It's ten times the going rate for payments in the USA, already one of the most expensive places in the world to transfer money from one party to another. In the EU, payment processing typically runs 1%…or less.

But crafters, Patreon podcasters and small-town newspapers are in no position to fight Google and Apple. Instead, we get Epic, a multi-billion-dollar company that's gone to the mattresses to fight these multi-trillion-dollar companies. Personally, I dote on billionaire-on-trillionaire violence.

Epic was wildly successful. It mopped up the floor with Google, securing an especially punitive award from a judge who was furious that Google had destroyed evidence:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

Epic also won against Apple, though not as thoroughly as it had with Google, because Apple had the commonsense not to get up to the kind of shenanigans that make federal judges very, very mad. In the Google case, the court found that Google had acted as a monopolist and ordered it to open up the payment system in Google Play, a direct blow to the Android app tax.

In the Apple case, the judge did not find that Google had acted as a monopolist, but did rule that the App Store's payment processing racket violated the law, and ordered Apple to end its own app tax:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/30/epic-games-just-scored-a-major-win-against-apple/

That's where things get gnarly. Apple is addicted to corrupt sources of income – like the tens of billions it illegally receives every year in bribes from Google make it the default search:

https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-search-engine-verdict-apple-319a61f20fb11510097845a30abaefd8

And it really, really loves the app tax. When the EU ordered Apple to allow third-party app stores (as a way of killing the app tax), the company cooked up a malicious compliance plan that was comically corrupt:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

So, the mere fact that a federal judge had ordered Apple to open up its app store to competing payment processors was not going convince Apple to actually do it. Instead, Apple cooked up a set of rules for third-party payment processing that would make it more costly to use someone else's payments, piling up a mountain of junk fees and using scare screens and other deceptive warnings to discourage users from making payments through a rival system:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-apple-executive-lied

That's the kind of thing that is apt to make a federal judge angry – and, as noted, angry federal judges can make life very hard for tech monopolists, a lesson Google learned when it destroyed key evidence in its Epic case. But Apple didn't just flout the court order – they lied about it to cover it up, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is furious. She held that Alex Roman, Apple's Vice-President of Finance, "outright lied under oath," and she has raised the possibility of criminal contempt penalties for Apple:

https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/05/01/pacer_epic_vs_apple_injunction_judgement.pdf

The judge further wrote:

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases

In other words, any junk fees, any impediments to opening up third party payments, will be switfly and harshly dealt with. As of right now developers can start to build third-party payments into their apps and Apple cannot block them. It's the end of the app tax, a source of about $100b/year for Apple:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/apple_epic_lies_possible_crime/

The world is on fire and everything is terrible, but we are also living through the most consequential season in the history of the war on corporate tech power. Google has been convicted three times of being a monopolist and is almost certainly going to have to sell off Chrome, most of its ad-tech stack, and possibly Android. Meta just put up a pathetic showing in an equally serious antitrust case that could see it forced to sell off Instagram and Whatsapp:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/11/it-is-better-to-buy/#than-to-compete

Countries around the world have passed big, sweeping, muscular antitrust laws specifically aimed at smashing corporate tech power, like the EU's Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act:

https://www.eff.org/pages/adoption-dsadma-notre-analyse

Most importantly, all of this is happening from the bottom up. There is no dark money campaign to fuck up the tech companies. The politicians and enforcers who are taking on Big Tech are being shoved from behind by billions of everyday people who are furious and refuse to take it any longer:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/10/solidarity-forever-2/#oligarchism

I am deeply grateful for the public servants who have championed this cause, but I also know that these people are the effect of our movement, not the cause. When Kier Starmer fires Britain's brilliant and effective top competition enforcer and replaces him with the former head of Amazon UK, that does nothing to tamp down the political outrage that Britons feel towards America's tech giants:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter

All over the world, countries that passed IP laws to protect US tech interests in exchange for tariff-free access to US markets are grappling with the end of free trade with America. This represents a generational opportunity to pass laws that enable local technologists to jailbreak US tech exports and liberate their people from the extractive practices of Big Tech forever:

https://archive.is/CiBIz

There is nothing harder to stop than an idea whose time has come to pass.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

--

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[buyiptvblog]

Understanding Best Buy IPTV: A Comprehensive Guide

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital entertainment, Best Buy IPTV stands out as a robust solution for those seeking a versatile and modern way to consume television content. This comprehensive guide will delve into the myriad features and benefits of Best Buy IPTV, illustrating why it has become a popular choice for viewers around the globe. What is Best Buy IPTV?Best Buy IPTV is a service…

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

[satoshi-mochida]

BUSTAFELLOWS Season 2 launches July 17 in the west - Gematsu

Otome mystery visual novel sequel BUSTAFELLOWS Season 2 will launch for Switch and PC via Steam on July 17 in the west, publisher PQube. The Switch version will be available both physically and digitally.

BUSTAFELLOWS Season 2 first launched for Switch, iOS via App Store, and Android via Google Play on May 25, 2023 in Japan.

In the west, the first run of physical edition will feature an exclusive character booklet with concept art and special insights into the character creation process.

Here is an overview of the game, via PQube:

About

The hit series BUSTAFELLOWS continues with an all-new season! Featuring the crime-solving gang you know and love, that trouble can’t help but follow. Uncover their story in this movie-like experience, as you meet new characters, make important choices and help solve the dark, unspeakable crimes that plague New Sieg.

Story

Everyone wants answers. Who is to blame, and what went wrong? And what is to be punished? In order to keep the shape of this world, things are divided into black and white. Those who look between the black and white will only continue to suffer. Everyone should know it in their hearts. Things are two in one. White and black. Front and back. Light and shadow. Good news, bad news. And, if it will change or if it will end.

Key Features

A Puzzle to Piece Together – Five different playable “movies”, different routes corresponding to each male lead, each portraying a different story which you play an integral part in.

New Flowchart System – Review your progress through the story with a helpful flowchart that allows you to select and replay different parts of the story, leaving no stone unturned.

The Romance Builds – Continue your relationship from the last game, growing together through struggles, and learning new sides to Teuta, Limbo, Shu, Helvetica, Mozu and Scarecrow.

The Power of Visuals – Skillfully crafted characters brought to life with beautiful artistry. Experience the characters in new outfits, hairstyles and scenarios!

An Unforgettable Voice Cast – Featuring a cast of famed voices such as Yui Kondo, KENN, Yoshimasa Hosoya, and many more!

Extra Episodes – Collect memorabilia and extra episodes through certain conditions, and even unlock a special episode when playing with an existing save data from the first game!

Watch a new trailer below.

Release Date Trailer

[luthqrs]

doctor who novelisations (2005-2023)

i just spent a considerable chunk of time sourcing as many nuwho novelisations as i could get my hands on and in the spirit of sharing i have some free gifts for the tumblr dot com population

also up for grabs: doctor who audios (x) and torchwood audios (x) (all big finish)

a list of what's there + how to open below the cut x

things you'll find here

rose

dalek

the christmas invasion

fires of pompeii

planet of the ood

waters of mars

the crimson horror

day of the doctor

zygon invasion

twice upon a time

kerblam!

the witchfinder

the star beast

wild blue yonder

the giggle

the legends of river song

the angel's kiss: a melody malone mystery

the ruby's curse

the missy chronicles

the wintertime paradox

i am the master: legends of the renegade time lord

the wonderful doctor of oz

and how to access them

do this for every book you think you’ll want to read, even if you don’t have time to read it now. don’t rely on this link always being available.

ios: tap the 3 dots -> open with -> apple books*

android: tap 3 dots -> open with -> google play books*

mac: download and open in books

or: download and put the file into an epub reader

* or any epub reader app

want something you can't have?

if there's a particular book you wanted to read that i don't have listed yet, send me an ask or pop it in the comments x

happy reading! x

[changes]

Friday, August 11th, 2023

🌟 New

We've implemented OpenAI’s instructions for blocking GPTBot. This should discourage OpenAI, including ChatGPT, from scraping any part of Tumblr, including individual blogs.

We’re rolling out a new redesign of the direct messaging conversation view.

🛠 Fixed

The latest version of the Android app (30.8) fixes the issue where links to “View Post” on filtered posts opens the web browser instead of taking you to the post in the app itself.

On web, we’ve improved the screen reader hint for tags on posts, so it doesn’t say “Pound” or “Number” when it encounters the hashtag symbol.

Fixed an issue on web that was preventing the Related Tags section of the sidebar from showing up on the search results page.

Fixed a bug in the mobile apps for group blogs which was preventing members from editing the Notifications settings for those group blogs.

We’ve been rolling through some bug fix releases and one major release for the StreamBuilder framework.

🚧 Ongoing

Nothing to report here today.

🌱 Upcoming

We’re cooking up our first public reveal on the @labs blog, give that blog a follow if you want to see what we’re working on!

Experiencing an issue? File a Support Request and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with the community.

[slitherpunk]

games i liked in 2023 (And Other)

I like games ! You know that ?! and I played a lot 2023! and I liked a lot :). They aren't in any specific order, it's just a little highlight of games that stood out to me this year. I've attempted to write a few thoughts on each so I hope take a look. I wrote playtimes for some also but that is very subjective.

-Ones that actually came out 2023-

Lunacid https://store.steampowered.com/app/1745510/Lunacid/ I think I mentioned enjoying this in 2022 but it officially released so I can say it was one of my favorite games in 2023 :3! I like to feel around this game's walls for secrets. I like the npcs that are full of hope and whimsy despite the bleakness of its world. Chill and occasionally spooky first person dungeon crawling around moody caverns and ruins varying from underground forests to vampire castles and blood lake. (Blood lake!!!! Lake of blood!!! Big creature there.) Lots of fun weapons and spells to find, I like the one that lets you turn blood into coffins.

~20 hours

Orbo's Odyssey https://feverdreamjohnny.itch.io/orbos-odyssey If you played the massively popular demo for "Peeb Adventures" by feverdreamjohnny then you know that Johnny makes some fun and funny games and this is certainly one of them. speedy and satisfying platforming! funny dracula moments! short and sweet.

~2 hours

A Walk in the Woods https://mooncaller.itch.io/a-walk-in-the-woods Quaint little GBStudio game :) Made by some friends of mine for a jam :) It's cute I like it. There's minigames where you catch bugs and birdwatch.

~30 minutes long

Undertale Yellow https://gamejolt.com/games/UndertaleYellow/136925 I've only completed the pacifist run and checked out a neutral run so far. as the title somewhat implies, this is a prequel to Undertale where you play as the fallen human who had the yellow colored soul. This Undertale fangame has a lot of charm!!! A lot of battles really feel like they could have been in the original, with quite a bit of extra flair in some circumstances.

~10 hours

vs really cool bird https://bobacupcake.itch.io/vs-really-cool-bird you know that really cool bird that rob bobacupcake made well you can fight it in undertale and it's really fun. yeah two undertale fangames. . . wat of it …

~30 minutes

Misericorde: Volume One https://xeecee.itch.io/misericorde I wont lie the main draw for me into this was cute anime nuns I sure didn't know a whole lot else about it when I dug into it. But it's (the first part of) a VN murder mystery! And I enjoyed it a whole lot. All the characters are memorable and I really enjoy how all of them have differentiating designs. The protagonist is so failgirl. She sucks so much and I love her. I'm very intrigued by the mechanics of the game's world, it clues you in near the beginning to expect something a bit supernatural/fantastical, which gives you (and later the protagonist) a curiosity about what's real and what isn't. The music is all very impressive too, with the ost reaching past 100 tracks varying through post-rock, folk, drum & bass, and others. (Remembering when the track "Scandal" played and my friends and I took a moment to be like- okay hang on this track pwns.) Big fan of its haunting locals and how the aesthetic of the game fits them well. Also the humor is a lot of fun, and I love all the moments getting to know the different characters. Very excited to see the eventual continuation of this.

~12 hours

Absolutely Perfect Specimen https://chambersoft.itch.io/absolutely-perfect-specimen It seems like a lot of people are craving toxic horror yuri lately. Here's a recommendation. It's a VN about the android maid "Pan" and the mad scientist girl who created her. Horrifying & gut wrenching & largely about having other people define you. The art and music is haunting & poignant and matches the ever increasing feeling of dread throughout. It's yuri with the chunks. Peak robotgirl horror for those who can stomach it.

~90 minutes

Wordhopper https://kokoscript.itch.io/wordhopper Very quaint word search type puzzle game for ms dos! I think its style is very slick and that's pretty impressive to see. Chill game with nice vibes and eyecandy visuals. also it was so cool to have played this and then ended up seeing the dev's booth at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest. I was like omg woah I just played this.

~bunny

Bossgame https://lilyv.itch.io/bossgame This game is yuriful as f*ck. Delightful humor and fun character dynamics! A simple-to-understand-difficult-to-master boss rush battle system that makes you satisfied to get it right, and enticing to get just a little farther if you get it wrong. There's a lot of detail and charm to this game's menus and dialogues and win screens, I remember noticing that once you beat a boss there would be some marquee text that would pass by with some prose on it. I love how it balances its silly moments with its heartfelt moments and its high octane moments. I like the character development and revelations had throughout the plot. & I like how good the protagonists are for each other :) It's very sweet. It's hype as hell. if you want some boss rush action paired well with that sweet sweet girl's love, you *will* play this game.

~5 hours

Elly's Adventure https://bikwins.itch.io/ellys-adventure Very cute and witchy!! You are the little witch girl "Elly" on an adventure to get your toys back!! Feels like a pretty authentic gameboy type experience, it takes a lot of design cues from Kirby's adventure and the like. I am a big fan of how playful it feels.

~1 hour

Nour https://store.steampowered.com/app/1141050/Nour_Play_with_Your_Food/ This was a treat for me, but I understand that not everybody is going to get it. It's a game where you play with food(and food accessories). And that's it. It knows what it was going for. I think a lot of people were expecting something else for some reason. It's a cute little toy game and I felt satisfied with my time with it.

~food

Hi-Fi Rush https://store.steampowered.com/app/1817230/HiFi_RUSH/ Do I have to say this game is super fun? It's a big one everybody probably already knows it. This game's dopey humor made me laugh a lot and I'm not afraid to admit it.

~12 hours

WHISKEY.ST2007S https://bonicle.itch.io/whiskey-st2007nes One of the last games I played in the year because it released super last minute. Does anybody else get a rush when running a shopping cart down the parking lot? This emulates that feeling. Short game where you collect whisky stones in the whisky stone dimension because you forgot to go christmas shopping until the very last minute. it rules. It's very short you can go play it right now & get a highscore.

~5 minutes

re:curse https://devpalmer.itch.io/re-curse Discovered this one near the very end of the year also. Fun little rpg maker horror/humor game about a weird scientist lady, her butch, and an evil clown computer virus that figured out how to warp reality. I got a kick out of it. and also enjoyed digging through the game's files, which was actively encouraged by the dev, which I thought was very fun.

~90 minutes

-Didn't technically get to until 2024 but released last year-

SWOLLEN TO BURSTING UNTIL I AM DISAPPEARING ON PURPOSE https://1207.itch.io/swollen-to-bursting-until-i-am-disappearing-on-purpose People love to dunk on a lot of indie rpgs for being "quirky Earthbound inspired and about depression" or whatever. Earthbound's great. If people can nail the kind of humor and absurdity it likes to pull off while also balancing difficult topics I think that deserves a high mark. SWOLLEN TO BURSTING was fun. Bizarre and charming places to explore & distressing secrets to find. I like how it blends meander-around-the-town gameplay with Yume Nikki sort of exploration and effects. Also I'm a big fan of the music. I like how it has the lofi sound which matches the early 3d look of the game.

~6 hours

HalOPE https://starbage.itch.io/halope Another for the fans of sweet little rpg maker games that have a lot of heart. HalOPE is about an incomplete little angel wondering through worlds. Each has a theme, usually to do with an emotion or feeling, and they do well at evoking that feeling as well as its antithesis. a lot of the music is very homey and charming at moments and unnerving at others, sometimes lonely, all doing well in their corresponding chapters to further the feeling of its specified theme. There are so many delightful characters and designs in this & I found myself feeling really attached to their tiny little stories. The narrative at the core of it all hit me. If I may be vulnerable, I cried a whole lot at various moments in this game. It was really cathartic. I feel very excited for people to experience this game.

~5 hours

-Favs I finally got around to that didn't come out 2023-

An Outcry https://quinnk.itch.io/an-outcry Kind of sad it took me so long to get to this one, but glad it meant I got to play the "definitive" updated version of it. Apartment wandering RPG maker horror. Bum smokes from your neighbors and use them to save the game. I wish I could unwrap a lot more of what I like about this game than I can without spoiling too much. But if I could, I'd probably go on for too long. Let me attempt to be succinct & not giving too much away. You can tell pretty early on that An Outcry is about taking action when necessary & not turning a blind eye. What it explores about player vs protagonist agency is very fascinating to me as well, and I enjoyed learning about the inspirations for why the game's narrative works the way it does. The character Anne is such a sweetie and I love her a whole lot. This game has a very tangible feeling, this apartment complex is dirty and crumby, it smells of smoke, and there's a surrounding desperation you can feel.

~5 hours

Pigments https://punkcake.itch.io/pigments Honestly I had gotten this game in a bundle and while I was playing it I hadn't looked at the name and I just kept calling it FRUIT. On call with my friends I'd be like "hey im gonna play more FRUIT". I straight up didn't read the title screen. But it's called Pigments. You play as a fruit and you try to paint the whole floor and not get sliced by buzzsaws. Fun little arcade type game.

~fruit

Bridge, October 3rd https://lowpolis.itch.io/bridge-october-3rd Very short vignette. I like it. It's what it says it is. I'm not going to overexplain.

~like a minute

-Other Games I Want To Mention-

Pseudoregalia https://store.steampowered.com/app/2365810/Pseudoregalia/ I think a lot of people might have already known this one but I felt like it was a pretty fun 3d platformer. There were a few issues I had with it (boss fight at the beginning was frustrating, and I got lost a lot [but it looks like there's been a map patch by now, so, perhaps for some that is a fix]). I enjoyed it but sure felt weird that the only accessibility option was to give the protagonist pants. What kind of joke is that?

~5 hours

Mushroom Musume https://mortallymoonstruckgames.itch.io/mushroom-musume (Disclaimer, this game is still early access, but I saw a lot of people talking about it last year. SO I will mention here?) Haven't played much of this yet, but I have enjoyed what I played so far!! As of writing I've gone through 6 playthroughs, I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface and I've been so impressed by its depth. It's very charming, you never know what sorts of fairytale shenanigans are going to happen, and it's very cool to see how your different stats will affect things. It very much plays out like a roguelike vn. Which is not the sort of thing you may expect to make much sense but it pulls this off well. Also all the mushroom girls are very cute and I love them very much. I hope the sad goopy one who had bugs in her skin rests in peace.

~mushroom

Knuckle Sandwich https://andybrophy.itch.io/knuckle-sandwich -_- Hm. Where do I start with this one. I was pretty excited for this one since the demo and kickstarter in 2018. I felt like the demo was a hell of a hook that got me curious & horrified. As time went on, it seemed to be shaping up into something really cool. turn based combat with action commands and wario-ware-type microgames?? with a banging soundtrack?? like, count me in!! Then it released and well, the gameplay, art, music all delivered. It was very fun and engaging in those aspects. But the story… oh it just devolves into disappointing nonsensical randomness. The whole hook at the beginning seemed to be completely thrown away for the wild goose chase plot that ensues, leaving you to wonder if it was ever going to be relevant again. It felt like it had no idea what it was trying to say or do. It disappointed me that a game that has so much good in so much else about it gets brought down so much for me by this plot.

~12 hours

Rhythm Doctor https://store.steampowered.com/app/774181/Rhythm_Doctor/ (Putting this one in mentions because it is early access.) I really enjoyed the act 5 release. When I first saw this game, I kind of shrugged it off, thinking "that base mechanic doesn't seem like it will last". I thought it was basically just that one ghost shooting game from Rhythm Heaven which I Hate. Well let's just say I am now seeking penitence for my previous transgressions. It's really fun. There's a lot more to it that I didn't know when I first took a look. Also, consistently amazed by people's custom levels, I had no idea that its level editor allows people to do so much in it, I look at some levels and think "This editor seems as complex as an industry standard video editor". I'm looking forward to what they're planning next, very curious how they could possibly one-up the last update.

~rhythm

El Paso Elsewhere https://strangescaffold.itch.io/el-paso-elsewhere This was really fun & funny so far but unfortunately I had been encountering an issue with a certain level where the game would crash. I reported the issue, got a response, and there has been an update since then so I think there's a possibility that it got fixed but I have not tried yet. I would like to return to this sometime but having to relearn controls midway through is always daunting to me.

~?

-Things that looked good but didn't get around to-

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood https://store.steampowered.com/app/1340480/The_Cosmic_Wheel_Sisterhood/ Still don't know a whole lot about this. But there are witches, and I like witches.

Casette Beasts https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/ I haven't felt thrilled about Pokémon lately. I know a lot of people seemed to really enjoy this little monster-collecting-rpg. The style is appealing to me as a die-hard gen 5 fan. I started playing it but haven't set aside the dedicated time for it yet, but I'm excited to dig in more when I do.

Little Goody Two Shoes https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812370/Little_Goody_Two_Shoes/ Started watching a friend play this, and I'm certainly curious.. Some sort of horror fairytale but also there's yuri? Yum. Enjoyed the style and animation in the nightmare segments that I saw.

Venba https://store.steampowered.com/app/1491670/Venba/ I've picked this up a while ago but still haven't gotten around to it, but I'm eager to, I've heard nothing but good things.

Goodbye Volcano High https://store.steampowered.com/app/1310330/Goodbye_Volcano_High/ I think there are gay dinosaurs in a band and it's going to be the apocalypse? I have also heard nothing but good things about this.

-Things I watched friends play-

Signalis https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/ This was a pretty big one. You probably already know it, right? Watched a friend play this and I missed various parts but I understood a solid bit of it. hey. robotgirls are always getting put in these fucked up situations. have you noticed this? one time i got really high and cried about it. it isn't fair

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/ This one was also probably big enough you don't need me to sing its praises. but it looked really neat. swag.

-Various Thoughts-

Lately I've been thinking more about design and narrative. I feel like I haven't been doing as much analysis as I should be when it comes to games. I want to dissect more what games are saying and figure out meaning. Also attempt to see how the mechanics aid in that. I feel like most of my own work is pretty abstract & random. I simply make what I like. While that's fun and all, I still want to improve in a lot of ways, especially in having more of a theme or message. Figuring out how other games accomplish this is obviously a good step toward this.

If you saw games here that interest you I highly urge you to take a look, many are pretty short, and I pretty explicitly wanted to highlight some smaller titles. If you know me you know I like to uplift small games. (Save for the occasional big game, but that's rare these days) I think it's healthy for you to play and support independently developed & published works. I don't want to ramble too much this time about why that's important, but I hope that you might have found something you may enjoy here and if not then I encourage you to find small stuff that you would like. And I would like to encourage everybody to share their findings as well! Little games need our help to be seen and talked about! They don't have the budgets the big ones do for advertising, and advertising on your own is a whole ton of work. If you like something, spread the word! I'm sure the developers would very much appreciate that.

[amandaroos]

https://youtube.com/shorts/ATYo23pSeCo?feature=share

85 days until Halloween!

www.AmandaRoos.com/apps

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party — and America

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election – that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.

In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:

https://antiidlereborn.com/news/

To the entire news sector:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long policy of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-files-complaint-eu-over-microsoft-cloud-practices-2024-09-25/

Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory tools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265832/google-search-antitrust-remedies-framework-android-chrome-play

Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/

What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.

A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy

The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership – billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.

The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"

And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was – in the quoted words of Tim Wu – "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).

But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won’t be such a bitch and then maybe people would like you more."

When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.

The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright – the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.

After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban

Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.

Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US – and global – movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters – not "the economy" or "the forces of history" – are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.

Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:/p>

"Private equity’s been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;

"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo

"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo

Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, raped and murdered:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176

When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control

Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.

What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans – firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers – have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'").

This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account – not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.

The fact that successive neoliberal governments – including Democratic administrations – acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.

Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.

Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/this_man_made_millions_suffer_tim_geithners_sorry_legacy_on_housing/

If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.

In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.

There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1844034727935988155

And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1843733298960576652

In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl