Further news: evening tickets will get you in to the Centre for Computing History during the day - so that you can make use of their exhibits and retro machines - but we can't guarantee you access to the talks and workshops. Although, we're trying to arrange it so we run some of the panels twice, in order that everyone can get in.
Remember: Cambridge. October 1st. £10. Tickets here. Also, if you already have tickets, there's now an official Facebook event page for Block Party. Go sign up, ask questions about accommodation or travel or whatever, and virtually meet some of your fellow attendees.
Oh yes! And of course we're still taking donations on PayPal and Patreon if you'd like to help support Digitiser2000 in another way. All the relevant links to that are in the sidebar, or at the bottom of this page, if you're reading on mobile.
AND NOW THE LETTERS. 12345678910!!!!!!
1. What does your hair say about you?
2. What does your handwriting say about you?
3. What does your sleeping position say about you?
4. What does your choice of milkshake say about you?
5. What does your eyebrow shape say about you?
6. What do your nightmares say about you?
7. What does your beard say about you?
8. What does your eyeliner say about you?
So, I guess my question is, what are your Top 8 Buzzfeed articles?
Gaijintendo
Pokemon Go then. It's a reskinned version of the Niantic's previous AR battery killer 'Ingress'. Even down to the extent that local landmarks in the new craze mirror those in the 2014 game by being in the same location. The second I realised this, I deinstalled it.
Also, I'm a 42 year old man rather than what I perceive to be the target audience. Twitch is what I get when I'm sleep deprived just as streaming is what happens to my eyes when I slice onions. Get off my lawn!
Ian Thompson
With a new Prime Minister comes a new Cabinet. But how would you rearrange your hypothetical cabinet of games consoles old and new into a team ready to tackle the demands of ruling the nation?
PhilWal.
You know what I like a bit of? I like a bit of binge Digi.
Sometimes I am too busy to read every night like what I like to. Then, on Friday, I Binge Digi. I like to combine the read-a-fest with binge drinking, preferably on a park bench, in a park (I have a park bench in my garage - I don't do this on that).
The articles, which make barely any sense when sober, start to become more and more meaningful as I quaff high-strength, cheap cider. By the time I'm 3 litres of Diamond White (or 2 bottles of Thunderbird Red Label) in, it all becomes clear. I understand all, everything, the totality.
Then I wake up as the local teenagers frisk me for snouts, panic, grab my copy of Digitiser2000 and run home to the wife and kids. And by then I've forgotten it all.
Jonathan Ball
If you were forced to choose between eating a human-sized meatloaf that tasted like the singer Meat Loaf, or eating the singer Meat Loaf who tasted like a meatloaf, which would you choose and why?
Please note that Meat Loaf will only taste like meatloaf if you choose the second option. If you choose the first option Meat Loaf will simply taste like the old and sweaty man that he is.
I eagerly await your response.
Dr Dagless
Like, is the meatloaf-tasting Meat Loaf going to be full of guts and blood? Will I have to eat his bones? If so, I'd probably have to eat the meatloaf which tasted like Meat Loaf - though how long do I have to eat it? If it's in one go, then that isn't going to be possible. I can't - in one sitting - fit a big, fat man inside me, even though I am, myself, a big, fat man. I'M NOT A TARDIS, YOU KNOW.
I'm not a Tardis...
Just a quick one: will we ever see Bubblegun and Fartoon characters join their Digitiser cousins? Would love to see Knife and Wife comics make a come back.
Glyn Heaviside
If you wonder what Mr Darkside is on about, by the way, Knife & Wife was a cartoon that I created when I was 13 or 14, and it was later resurrected on a website I used to write called Bubblegun. And then it became an animated pilot for Channel 4, which was the first thing I ever had on TV - and by some measure one of the worst things I've ever written.
Did teletext have a canteen or did you go to the chippy every day?
Bill "Chippy" O'Chipps
Four things put me off #PokeMongo, even though as a regular medium-distance cyclist it may as well have been made for me:
- I lost interest in the main Pokémon series when it started basing rewards on when I would play - I lost a crop of Berries when caring for a family member. PG seems to take this concept and add 'walk around with an unlocked smartphone on display' to it.
- Whereas the main series tries to build depth around a decades-old Game Boy game's flawed battle system and add gimmicks without ever rebuilding it, PG takes elemental combat in the opposite direction to the way Battle for Wesnoth does it right.
- I lost confidence in Nintendo's free-to-start business model when they debuted it with a literal slot machine, putting their name on dopamine-chasing games of random chance where you get a few free shots then pay to try again to get the low-odds rarer rewards. I'm not spending money on virtual balls to throw after the free supply runs out, be they the Poké or Pachinko kind.
- I have a back problem that can relapse and put me in a wheelchair. I have no interest in getting invested in a 'move around' game that doesn't have an accessibility mode.
Nostalgia is big in games at the moment. Do you recall any smells that are inextricably linked to certain games you've played? If so, how did this connection arise? Thanks.
Stuart Lindsay
I went to Devon a week or so ago. On the way, I played World Of Goo on my phone (I wasn't driving). The thing that really spooked me out was some woman relieving herself at the services somewhere on the M5 motorway... on a grass embankment by the car park.
We only stopped for similar reasons but we went inside where that sort of stuff is 'meant to happen'. We got back to the car and World Of Goo had somehow made my phone reset and I'd lost all my progress.
Stupid phone.
Gaming Mill
You were name-checked very favourably by the chaps who now run your offspring website known as GameCentral recently (linkypoos!). I wonder what you think of your partially successful progeny?
Timmypoos
But... these days I'm kind of proud that GameCentral is still going. I do look at it on the Metro site from time to time, and they're good enough to namecheck Digi occasionally. God bless them. I'm glad it has remained popular.
Good letters this week, children.