Well, one way to narrow that down is that, excepting the castle’s secret stars, there are 7 stars in each course. The 100 coins star can be obtained while collecting some other star (usually red coins) but every other star in a course resets you to right outside that course’s entrance.

I read the owner’s manual for my Mazda 3 when I first bought it, and referred to it again on several occasions, notably when the maintenance mode light came on (I didn’t know that was even a thing, it’s just a timed annoy-a-tron) and also to figure out what the low tire pressure indicator meant. (I realized quickly…

Honestly, the thing that’s pleasantly surprised me about my Mazda 3 is how usable the entertainment system is. I completely forget that it even has a touchscreen until one of my passengers reaches out to put fingerprints on it; the knob-based interface works so well, and is so easy to use with my eyes still on the…

I’m going to gripe a bit here. As much as I would *love* a Yoshi’s Island and Star Fox release on the thing, the Super FX chip is not the easiest thing in the world to emulate. I strongly suspect they’re having technical limitations with that chip more than licensing restrictions, though it’s hard to know.

Yes, this is quite valid and is known as a segmented run. Often these types of runs are done using the in-game save system, and I think it would be quite appropriate for the 100% category in this game, which has a fairly ridiculous number of collectibles. I don’t see this category ever falling below 24 hours unless…

I find it especially interesting that the switch is already cracked for homebrew (like, a week after release) and the operating system is apparently similar to the 3DS. Which does makes sense, given it’s an ARM-based system. This means the work done on the Citra emulator might well be applicable to the Switch if…

I look forward to the shit-percent speedrunning category. That should be fun for the whole family.

Well, I do buy a *lot* of my Steam games in the form of Humble Bundle sales. These are usually handed out in the form of steam keys. My biggest question is, do these keys count as real sales? Or as gifts?

You did not, although they certainly helped. Most fire based puzzles could be solved by shooting an arrow through a torch flame to light in mid-flight, and you could also pick up the magic item Din’s Fire from one of the fairy fountains, which could light torches in a pretty wide area around link. I haven’t tried…

Welcome back Narcissa! I’ve missed you at the last few SGDQ marathons, you always brought a positive energy to the scene that was refreshing and welcoming.

Wha...? You’d think for a device marketed on and *named for* its ability to switch modes, Nintendo would make this a hard requirement for any games launching on the platform.

I remember being turned off of MyFitnessPal when I looked into it a while back because it wanted me to subscribe to remove ads, something which I am morally opposed to doing. (I shouldn’t have to pay money for software to stop doing an annoying, privacy invading behavior; that’s backwards. I’ll gladly pay for…

A Blu-ray Disc isn’t as impressive as it used to be. They cap out at 50GB for dual layer, and 128Gb for DXL.

I recall Ocarina of Time as one of the early games that did Action Icons right. Link has all these complex interactions with the world, and rather than come up with some bizzaro control scheme, the buttons just change meaning based on where you are. This could be confusing as hell, but Nintendo got the interaction…

I’ve identified a bug in Kinja: I only seem to be able to star you once. That won’t do.

As an owner of a penis, I can confirm that penis physics will likely be forever quite difficult to get right. A physics simulation in a game must assume a certain level of stiffness / rigidity for something to be able to move, and it looks like Conan here is going for the physics of a fully flacid penis with very…

Oh, oh! This reminds me of a fantastic webcomic I read a while back, which explores a similar premise. Very well done and recommended:

Luke, I’m sitting over here bawling my eyes out. This is so beautiful. You’ve perfectly captured everything I continue to love about Nintendo and game design in general, and you’ve made me sad that I’ll never have kids of my own.

The Sony line is really a shame, no? Except for a ton of great Square Enix games on the systems, there hasn’t been a ton of love. They’re beautifully designed too, and seemed like the mature, grown-up answer to the DS line. I always thought they were more popular than they actually are, because everyone at my college…

I still don’t bother to use the new “care” mechanics. They’re cute to play around with if I’m really bored, but I just use items because they’re much, much faster to apply.