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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️

@sharkabytes.bsky.social

22K followers 3.9K following 25K posts

Freelance Writer│Magazine Editor│UK VG & Anime Historian│🦈 fur │Transfem she/her│AuDHD │❤️ : @kitnibbles.bsky.social │Business Enq: [email protected] More info in pinned ❤️ : https://ko-fi.com/retrobytes ❤️ : patreon.com/SashasRetroBytes

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Oct 17

New pinned post and info sheet!

I'm curious and passionate about a whole bunch of nerdy and cool stuff! I also publish a fortnightly retro gaming and anime 'zine and write on several blogs:

Scanlines zine: betweenthescanlines.itch.io
Main blog: scanlineartifacts.wordpress.com

A pixel campfire themed info sheet giving an introduction about how I'm a self-employed freelance writer, a zine publisher, a collector and enthusiast of older games and computer/console hardware and also run a racing competition, and very much into 90s and 2000s anime!

Passionate about PS1, Amiga, Wii, and Mega Drive in particular!

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Aug 1

What is love? What is free love?
What is love? Love is free, free
Understand, understand the concept of love
Understand, understand the concept of love 🎶

📺: Jet Set Radio Future, Smilebit, 2002 (Xbox)

A CRT TV screenshot of Jet Set Radio Future's intro with one of the skaters seen from behind and skating along a colourful city road.

An action shot of another skater in a blue top and with yellow skates sailing through the air against a backdrop of a metropolis and highway

Another screenie of a skater grinding along a rail alongside a street with lamposts and roof supports. A red bus can be seen at he end of the road.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Oct 13

I do love a console or handheld concept render or drawing. And these are real doozies - Pocket Gamer Magazine's musings in 2000 about what the Game Boy Advance might look like.

Definite touch of the Wonderswan about them. The handhelds of the 2000s will be shiny, rounded and vaguely bioorganic!

What will it look like? "Nintendo hasn't released the Game By Advance, but we have a few mockups of what the future may look like."

Two concept renders, the first actually not all that dissimilar to the actual GBA, just thicker and bulkier! The second veers off into curved controller land with a bright red bulky thing.

Two more renders, one chrome and the other a soft translucent(?) purple with visible stereo speakers, a large screen, and softly curved controller stylings.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Jan 25

The PC-9801 can produce mind-boggling effects.

A snapshot from the Slayers game for PC-98 with Lina facing off against a gaggle of skeletal warriors in the battle screen phase of the game

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 17h

The life of a band manager in late 90s Japan. Hit up the big city, go splash out on some pop art to put in our fancy penthouse apartment, and get told to hit the bricks by a potential band member.

📺: Sold Out, Shinko Music, 1997 (PS1)

A menu in a mix of English and Japanese, with a flat render of a secretary standing with clipboard in hand and an apartment background bathed in purple light, with a menu of various decisions to make such as Cruise the City, Band Meeting, Band Chart, Promote, and Jump to Next Week.

A render of a sparkling metropolis at night, no doubt with catgirl criminals doing hot crime

What do you want, asks a lady in smart dress and with long brown hair in an art gallery, as she offers some pop art for 80,000 yen.

If you don't want to die, disappear! Warns 'Flash', a grungy long haired rocker with muscles and a leather vest, plus slick back long air.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 5h

Ehh, yes and no xD The actual screensaver is a bit slender compared to others, but there's also a video jukebox of music vids, too. Still not sure it's worth the equiv of upwards of a hundred bucks today for it.

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 5h

A quick thread digging into Software Sculptors' Bubblegum Crisis: The Screensaver from 1994.

At 34.99, the screensaver is a bit flimsy, being simply a gallery of short gif-like clips (vid clip below), but floofing it out, in value are the music vids from Hurricane Live 2032/3.

A snap of the 'video screen saver' menu box window open in Windows 98 where you can arrange the vid clips or make your own using them or other bmps.

Video Jukebox - Loading Hurricane Live. A loading screen with Priss in Replicants getup and blonde wig.

A screencap of the video clip window with 8 music vids to watch, each around 3-5 mins.

The cover of Bubblegum Crisis: The Screensaver's big box. Let the Knioght Savers Save Your Screen! (from crt monitor burn-in)

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 5h

Here's a little vid of the screensaver in action, plus a blast of Priss and the Replicants goodness <3

These were also available on VHS then, and watching them in a tiny window isn't the best way to experience them. But it would have still felt pretty damn cool to do so on your Win 3.1 PC or Mac.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 5h

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 6h

Ahh, this one from PlayStation Power.

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Oct 8

In a parallel universe, or thanks to a bit of miscommunication through a dodgy telephone line to Japan, Aerith was instead...

A snippet from PlayStation Power's late 1996 feature on FF7, where 'Ealis' is described.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah! Sync on composite, csync, and sync on luma.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 15h

Game Boy Color visions of a Bitter Coast journey to Vivec.

Trying out a lil Game Boy game jam Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind fan adventure game that's got a whole glob of talent and charm behind it.

A pixel GBC scene of a silt strider rising above a fittingly swampy and tall mushroom strewn landscape in horizontal perspective. A tall grey mountain rises above the dithered mist.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 8h

How Rich Do You Want to Be asks Ocean Software in January 1986's Your Sinclair.

And it would have felt by then like anyone and everyone with a microcomputer and learned programming in mid-80s Britain could strike it rich. A tempting prospect to those growing up in declining industrial cities.

A magazine ad for Ocean Software as they start hitting it big and recruiting in-house staff and calling for freelancers to send in their programs on tapes.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 9h

Saaame, it is <3

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 1d

Following on from my last post sharing a vid from Minami CD 49, there is also a lovely snapshot of the Spanish cosplay scene with a gallery of photos from ExpoManga 2004.

I was stateside attending anime cons in '04, so yeah, the cosplay costumes and way the photos are taken is nostalgic to me. 💜

A group photo with FF8 themed cosplays (plus Tifa!)

A brown-haired Cloud cosplayer poses with a fittingly beefy buster sword to his side.

"I Am the Pretty Guardian Who Fights for Love and Justice!" A sweep group photo of Sailor Moon cosplayers, about fifteen in all, posed for a photo, with four of them, kneeling in front of the rest.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 10h

I'll get some ZX Spectrum #ScanlineSunday action in with a gorgeous piece of demoscene artwork from Elysium State, a 2022 prod.

📺: Philips 14", RGB SCART, Spectrum +2.

A crt tv screenie with a medusa head with vibrant colours, yellows, oranges, greens, and reds, with sharp pixel definition and very little colour clash.

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Rekawaiii 🏳️‍⚧️ Elf Faetuber~ @rekawaii.gay · 12h

ko-fi.com/rekawaiii

So here's the thing. My credit card debt has grown exponentially, to the point where the interest payments drown out my own contributions to it (I pay more than the minimum)
If you can help. I would greatly appreciate it. Even by sharing. I'll be streaming to raise funds.

Support reky

ko-fi.com

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · Apr 5

It's a game of cat-and-mouse as MacUser rolled onto shelves for the first time in 1985 with purrfect timing to ride the Mac wave.

A scan of the cover of Mac User with a Apple Mac with a blue-tinted paint program open and a sharp-pixel image of a close-up of a cat's face on the screen. Powered by MacLevitation, a mouse hovers in front of it close to the reader's face.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Hey Zeggy <3

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Likewise, Robin <3

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Hey Jade o/

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 13h

Yeah, big business then with themed screensavers. $25-35 seems to be the average price.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 14h

We chosen few*

*fewness may vary

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 14h

It's just a tiny slice of exploring that can be completed in ten or so minute, but totally worth doing so.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 14h

"We're here... why are you shaking? Are you okay? Wake up."

The game switches to top-down RPG after the opening scene in the boat, presented first-person style.

A pixel rendition of a first person view of the ship you wake up in that can be panned a little, Myst-style.

Seyda Need, Bitter Coast Region.

A top-down Ultima/FF style pixel rendition of Seyda Neen's swampy portside docks.

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Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 14h

Yeah! <3

Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ @sharkabytes.bsky.social · 14h

Yeah! Same <3