Ian Malcolm
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ianmalcolm.bsky.social
Ian Malcolm
@ianmalcolm.bsky.social
Melbourne-based writer, editor and proofreader for books, publications and web.

Game designer from Star Wars on NES to Need For Speed: Shift on iOS, with dozens of titles in between.

Bass, uke and low whistle player. Unrepentant folkie.
Did this two weeks ago (for betting ads, as that was ALL I was getting...) and... it worked!

(Was a weird hiccup a few days later where I got one bookie ad, but that was it - nothing since.)

So yeah, can definitely recommend it. 👍
November 11, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Poor ol’ Gavin Pissfingers, still wondering why no one ever wants to shake hands with him.
November 10, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Ah, Robin Williams and Pam Dawber - two of the truly great British comedy thespians… 🤪

I guess this means that by association Happy Days is now also part of the British Televisual Comedy Universe. 😂
November 10, 2025 at 8:42 PM
It does indeed. Also the premiere of Sesame Street. 😉
November 10, 2025 at 12:42 PM
I did! Right to the last word! 😉😂
November 10, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Absolutely. Huge fan of his work as well - the Bas-Lag books got me in, but also love The City & the City, Kraken (squid cults!), and the YA-ish Railsea (Moby Dick on a train - what's not to love?) and Un Lun Dun. 😎
November 10, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Lovely! We have just the one rose bush, seen here intertwined with our only grapevine.
November 10, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Ooh, have bookmarked this, as I missed out on picking up a copy at ACMI, and it would make a fine Xmas gift either to myself or my youngest, who was quite obsessive about the game for a while as well! 😎👍

(Also noted on that linked page the book was released in 1970 - very clairvoyant of you!) 😜
November 10, 2025 at 6:24 AM
IMHO it'll still be shit; cos the underlying technology model is fundamentally flawed for purpose and can't get markedly better.

The only way to get better is scrap it and start over from scratch. "Just wait a few years" is just slop-pusher marketing, and what they want people to repeat.
November 10, 2025 at 1:26 AM
A couple of days late but hey, congrats! Looking forward to reading it down the track! Sláinte! 🍻
November 10, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Worst case of nominative determinism ever, cos that kid really was.
November 9, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Can't even get it right for a single frame - because GenAI is not actually AI at all, so doesn't/can't understand what "fingers" even are - and yet supposedly they're going to make entire movies with this crap, and have any degree of object permanence, frame to frame?

*cough*bullshit*cough*
November 9, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Would love to make the four-hour drive (cos it'd also be kind of fun/funny to do that, say "G'day!" then drive home again! 😜) but its a "work in the city" day for me, sadly. 🤷‍♂️

All the best with the poppies!
November 9, 2025 at 9:24 PM
That's brilliant news, thanks so much - will keep an eye out so I don't miss out again! 😎
November 9, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Heya folks - only just saw this three days late and just checked that link and the page says out of stock already... Are there plans to restock? 🤞

(I have Travelling The Great Circle and Trees of Eternity, so really want to pick this up to complete the set, as it were...)
November 9, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Yeah I had an Amiga as well - two actually, an A500 then an A1200. My favourite computer platform to this day, and probably my fave gaming platform until the Nintendo DS.

And fair enough re: not missing games. Be boring if we were all the same!
November 9, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Crazy prices. Nowadays even costly games are relative bargains, compared to 80s-90s, and so much good stuff for the price of a coffee.

Not me on the second though. Games were a comfort, a social network enabler and ultimately a 20+ year career for me. Up there with books, music and movies still. 🤷‍♂️
November 9, 2025 at 2:31 AM
I also remember most Atari VCS games back then being $50-80.

No wonder we only got two a year (birthday and Xmas) and learned to wrench every last second of entertainment out of those simple games, and rejoiced years later at $20-30 games on C64, when we weren’t 🏴‍☠️ them….
November 9, 2025 at 2:15 AM
Sounds about right. I vaguely remember the copy of Star Wars we got on VHS was around $70 (Australian dollars, for anyone non Oz reading this).

By the time DVD came along I think most VHS were less than half that - I have a tape copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark somewhere with a $30 price tag on it.
November 9, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Huge congrats and all the very best for reaching this milestone! 🥳

(And thanks again for all the excellent games, of course!)
November 8, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Absolute classic Melbourne!

(And because of those ads, I still think of Footscray as Foot-is-gray! 🏆)
November 8, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Something to look forward to! 😎👍
November 8, 2025 at 5:45 AM
Yeah, the old ones were shockers - and they're still running on some routes... 😱

Most of the more modern multi-carriage ones are good these days though. 😎
November 8, 2025 at 5:37 AM