What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Pincremental (Macbook Air)

February 17th, 2026

I got the cardboard Virtual Boy accessory I'd ordered ages ago yesterday and stayed up late to try the Nintendo Switch Online emulation. I really have a lot of nostalgia for Virtual Boy! My dad brought one home when they were super cheap at Best Buy, and my siblings and I played it until we had to keep it assembled with rubber bands and ponytail holders. I was genuinely very excited to hear Nintendo was throwing these games online.

Once I started actually playing these games, I was surprised how cool they still are! I settled on playing a 3D shooter, Red Alarm, which had a lot of neat, retrofuturistic charm. The 3D worlds made of monochrome pixels are not realistic or very immersive, but it's such a distinctive style. Also, while playing, I was reminded powerfully of how the Virtual Boy's display can make it feel like your eyes will never be able to water again from the damage it does with every frame of gameplay.

I liked Red Alarm, and'll say more about the game in and of itself later. Last night, I was simply wallowing in the nostagia, and that was enough.

I let Pincremental run for a few hours, too, still making decent progress. This isn't a bad idle game.

February 16th, 2026

Yesterday, I hung out and played games quite a bit, but the most interesting bit of that was starting Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. I played a bit of this back when it was on Game Boy Advance, and it's maybe even better than I remembered! Some of that might just be that it's easier to see what's going on playing on Switch than it was on a GBA, but it feels so good and satisfying to play. I'm very excited to continue this.

Other than that, I just played idle games. Push the Square is a very brief, but satisfying clicker from itch.io, and I enjoyed it. It was nice that I could play it on my phone, and a bit funny, too.

I also became obsessed with Pincremental, a free pinball idle game from Steam, while I was watching the Independent Spirit Awards. The basic pinball is a bit wonky, but I like the numbers-go-up parts of this quite a bit. This game will appear on this blog again, perhaps even tomorrow!