Kyle Orland
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kyleor.land
Kyle Orland
@kyleor.land
6.6K followers 1.8K following 9.6K posts
Senior Gaming Editor, Ars Technica / The guy who LITERALLY wrote the book on Minesweeper -- https://bossfightbooks.com/products/minesweeper-by-kyle-orland

Signal: kyleorl.31
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kyleor.land
November 11, 2025 at 4:34 PM
kyleor.land
November 11, 2025 at 3:27 PM
kyleor.land
136. Balloon Fight

Kind of a dinky Joust clone, when it comes down to it, but I still come back to the endless, randomized "Mode C" from time to time. At one point I had a Twin Galaxies world record on it!

#365games
November 10, 2025 at 10:29 PM
kyleor.land
137. Boom Blox

A great physics system and clever use of the Wii Remote gave this one a strong base, but it was the inventive multiplayer modes that make this one an all-timer.

#365games
November 10, 2025 at 10:26 PM
kyleor.land
138. Blast Corps

The sleeper hit of the N64 launch window lineup, this game helped me learn how to use an analog thumbstick. Destroying buildings is always cathartic, especially with the wide variety of vehicles on offer here.

#365games
November 10, 2025 at 10:25 PM
kyleor.land
139. Frequency

This came out when I was deep in my rhythm game obsession and hooked me with its relatively simplistic "time button presses to the music" gameplay and excellent soundtrack.

#365games
November 10, 2025 at 10:24 PM
kyleor.land
140. Joust

I played a port of this game with a janky joystick on my parents' 386 PC as a kid, but grew to love it playing the two player mode on an actual arcade cabinet. I'm still not very good at it.

#365games
November 10, 2025 at 10:23 PM
kyleor.land
November 10, 2025 at 5:53 PM
kyleor.land
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 PM
kyleor.land
From that same link
November 6, 2025 at 10:22 PM
kyleor.land
I think this is literally the only good thing to come out of the Trump presidency
November 3, 2025 at 7:37 PM
kyleor.land
October 30, 2025 at 12:27 AM
kyleor.land
Games should be free but every five minutes you have to stand up and shout "McDonald's!" to keep playing
October 23, 2025 at 6:56 PM
kyleor.land
October 23, 2025 at 5:45 PM
kyleor.land
DJ Roomba has had this option for well over a decade Drew
October 22, 2025 at 8:56 PM
kyleor.land
via @drewgmackie.bsky.social, the realization that "I died" is up there with "I'm asleep" in the set of "simple sentences you can't utter truthfully" -- except in video games!

www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com/blog/mario-d...
An overlooked virtue of video games, perhaps, is that they give you practice at dying. Really, in day-to-day human life, we get so little occasion to speak the sentence, “I died.” You could be talking about a dream, I guess, or you could be speaking metaphorically about something embarrassing, but when it comes to stating your life ended and you ceased to be the person you once were, very few of us get the chance to actually look back on it and say, “I died.” A big exception, however, happens when playing any sort of video game where you’re limited to a certain number of lives. When you’ve just lost one, you can say, “I died” and mean it and it’s not really a figure of speech, because in this little world of pixels, you did just make a fatal mistake. The stakes aren’t the same, of course, because in real life we don’t usually get second chances or “extra men,” but in a very small way, video games have afforded us a chance to say this underused sentence. Neat, huh?
October 22, 2025 at 8:49 PM
kyleor.land
October 22, 2025 at 2:07 PM
kyleor.land
October 21, 2025 at 12:35 AM
kyleor.land
October 18, 2025 at 4:49 PM
kyleor.land
Some quality signs in Silver Spring today
October 18, 2025 at 4:48 PM
kyleor.land
Women don't like the vehicle
October 16, 2025 at 7:15 PM
kyleor.land
Still a little bitter that my "Far Dide a Day" desk calendar was confiscated in 5th grade because *other kids in my desk island* disrupted class by laughing too much at a specific comic (pictured)
October 16, 2025 at 7:02 PM
kyleor.land
This looks like that awful fake animated show that Johnny Drama was on in Entourage
October 15, 2025 at 3:20 PM
kyleor.land
October 14, 2025 at 2:39 PM
kyleor.land
Difficulty sliders and accessibility menus are great, but there's something special about having to go outside the game and hunt for a magic sequence of buttons if you want to "cheat."

arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...
The difference comes down to context. Back in the day, players usually found cheat codes from a source outside of the game itself, passing around the arcane knowledge through online forums, printed magazines, or schoolyard rumors. That outside sourcing made it clear that, while these codes were obviously part of the game in a sense, they were also somehow separate from the core gameplay experience. Even the term "cheat code" connotes the idea that you're getting away with something by evading the game's built-in rules. An ever-present "god mode" toggle or "accessibility" menu, on the other hand, presents those options as contextually valid and at least somewhat intended ways for different players to experience the same base game. And that's perfectly fine in many cases; as Hamaguchi pointed out, sometimes players will just want to experience the story as quickly as possible. But in games where the difficulty is integral to the developer's intent, putting that kind of option upfront can confuse the message and confuse the player as to which is the most "correct" way to play. Toggling an "easy mode" through a menu is like flipping a light switch that the developers left invitingly available in a little-used corner of the house. Tracking down a cheat code, on the other hand, feels more like going to the hardware store and asking for help to install your own light switch. The effect is the same, but the path to get there makes all the difference.
October 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM