Introduce Yourself | Welcome to easymode

[robmakesstuff]

House on the Rock.

Hey gang, I'm Rob

IRL: Living in Western NY. Husband and dad. In my early 40s.
Work: Producer on Subnautica 2
Creative: Music production, Game development, Pixel art
Games: JRPGs, Indie games, Playdate, All the PS2 games I missed when I was younger
Interests: Dark Fantasy, Geocaching, Guitars, Synths, Learning, Handhelds

Excited about this forum! Love the vibe, the aesthetic, and the mission.

[CnEY]

It's been a long time since I've joined a forum, but it's probably about time to try again, and I caught wind via the bandcamp announcement.

Firstly, what the heck is my screen name? It's pronounced like "Kenny"; the name has a history dating back to roughly 2003, from a late friend who was responsible for my first dive into Linux.

Video games, especially retro and indie games, are pretty much the most steadfast hobby I've had for quite a while. I've dabbled in speedrunning once in a while, but mostly I just have a never-ending backlog of stuff to get through casually, both new and old, and given how active some communities are (e.g. for Doom and Quake mapping), I don't think I'm in any danger of running out.

In terms of retro games, the early 90s / 16-bit era tends to be what I have the most nostalgia for. I also find the PC-88/PC-98 era fascinating to look at, but am ill-equipped to experience most of that first-hand.

I've also been interested in musical composition, and for a while I made covers of video game music on keyboard, but I eventually ran out of time/energy for that. (On the composition front, since I've switched back to Linux, I've honestly found it harder to get anything up and running that I'm satisfied with in terms of sequencer or DAW. I'd almost be tempted to resort to CakeWalk Pro Audio 9 via 86Box, lmao, that's the software I started out with decades ago.)

In terms of career, I'm a web developer in the northeast US, lucky enough to have found a job not involving silicon valley techbros in the current slop-infested hellscape. I started with PHP/MySQL way back when, gravitated towards front-end for a long time (initially driven by a choice between that or Java server applications at my first full-time job - pretty obvious decision), and lately I've been mostly occupied with building static sites with Node.js/TypeScript. (I have fortunately not had to touch React or, heaven forbid, Next.js, in 3 years.)

[Sninkygle]

Gasp hello! First of all thank you ward for setting this up, feels kinda surreal joining a forum based on a whim of a bandcamp post but alas, here we are. I full heartedly agree that social media has a really disconnected vibe to it, especially platforms like discord which is... Awful now.

With that said, meowdy im snink, the creator of Qrenz0f. I kinda bounce around all over whether its making more prototype pieces that will (one day) make it to my website or pursuing a trade that's incredibly nieche, like massage therapy chances are we probably had a one off convo somewhere. Im really bad at making intro posts so I'll leave this one here but suffice to say its nice to be here and hopefully we'll chat somewhere in this catacomb!

[thefool309]

Hi Folks!

My name is Velma, and I had an account on this instance when it looked very different than it does now!

I love this old school forum style, and I'm excited to be here!

I'm a programmer, and a computer science graduate. Not gonna lie introductions are kinda hard to muster because life has been kicking my ass lately, but needless to say I'm happy to have found this instance again, and have this lovely surprise of it feeling exactly like old school forums. I've spent a bit of time on Shroomery, so I think I'll fit in really well here! I definitely already know my way around a forum board :razz: :cool: :cool: :cool:

[ravanal]

Yo! I made this account like two weeks ago and realized I haven't made a single post here yet.

I'm Diego, though most people know me as Ravanal or Rav nowadays. I was on the original easymode instance a while ago before fully moving to Bluesky.
Oh boy, I haven't used a forum in a hot minute, so it's a tad difficult to make an introduction like I used to back then. But man, it feels really good to use a forum once more. The sense of community is lost in modern social media nowadays.

I'm from Chile (now residing in the US). I'm a collector and data hoarder, with TBs worth of games in storage (and a growing collection of VHS tapes and DVDs). I consider myself an amateur archivist too, going out of my way to get hard-to-find stuff to make it available to the public. I grew up with classic PC/GB/GBA games and piracy, as it was the only way to play those back when i was a kid, we rarely had the chance to buy boxed copies unless you had a lot of money to import them.

Nowadays I live happily married with my husband, along with three cats. We have a big desk where we share our setups: me with my big desktop PC and my husband's drawing tablet, surrounded by handheld consoles, both using our collection of old stuff and our shared hobby of art and pixel art to make new memories.

Nice to meet y'all, happy to be here. :mrgreen:

[Destroyed007]

First of all, I'm glad to see that we have a forum that we are independent of once again. It kind of reminds me of Raze The World era, where things were mostly chill and casual discussions. But the internet culture has evolved a lot in the past 18 years, where we now have socials that are controlled by giant conglomerates; mostly corrupt, scandalous entitles. This forum aims to be what it was back in the days but in a whole new era, with new faces, frankly.

As for me, I happen to be one of Ward's followers since the Tigerdirect/Logan days, then where he moved onto Raze The World, where I made my first appearance when Ward created his own community back in 2008. I joined in and went for along a ride since then. I wasn't actually considered a big believer in computers and general tech then; I had average knowledge in them; just another teenager trying to dream big. Overtime through various studies, work experiences and just as a hobby around home, I now have a significant idea in the world of tech and information technology. That being said, I still consider myself a learner and I still learn to this day. I also get to know the old stuff we used to use back in the day is making a resurgence. The things we considered as "junk" back in the RTW era are now fetching a premium; even some tech from then are still worth the collection. Which is why I also consider myself an avid retro tech and gaming person.

With today's tech being both exciting and just full of nonsense, one of my goals is to show our younger current gens who doesn't know anything about computers other than being a show-n-tell, gaming commodity, is how we used to use back in the days, and the struggles we went through that our current gen are spoiled for. With my current situation, it may not be like an easy time for me to get into some sort of occupation. So I do intend to start streaming one day. The question being, "When?"

Other than that, I look forward to see new people joining the community Ward wanted to have in a while, and I hope there are still some of the old faces around here who has been following Ward's community since the beginning after his departure from Tigerdirect. Though I am aware a lot of them have moved on since, likely with a family of their own.

[WhiteSnake9191]

I'm WhiteSnake, south US based, I was on the previous fediverse site and just noticed there's a dedicated forum now a bit ago and made my account again. Like others have said, I'm really not feeling the current garbage algorithm of modern social media for the large part. Turned 35 a few months ago. Been around the block gaming since the 90s, have primarily been on pc since 2012, TekSyndicate vids helped me a lot with the confidence and knowledge to build my own pc back then, eternally grateful for that. I always enjoy the cozy sit-down black friday deal youtube vids, I'll never forget the 2021 one, felt like sitting down with an old buddy.

Mostly into horror, fps, and co op games, although I've largely given up on the AAA space, feels like all the passion is gone and replaced by pure greed. And the consumers have basically become unpaid beta testers. Indie stuff on pc excites me and gives me hope for the industry. The recently released Road to Vostok looks really cool and I actually really respect the dev's passion and decision to quit their career and go all in on the game. They recently posted it's done so well all the game's roadmap is now funded. Gotten quite frugal as I've gotten older, I mostly only pick up games now very cheap on sale here and there. My backlog is big enough for a lifetime as-is, while I'd like to build a decent enough ddr4 backup pc, I'd dare say my passion for chasing the latest and greatest hardware is fizzling away, the current ram and storage hugely inflated prices playing into that. If I had to, I could get a cheapo ebay tower and just play older stuff on emulator and be content for the most part.

I really like Resident Evil, Stalker Gamma, DayZ, Fallout/Elder Scrolls, L4D2, EFT, Hell Let Loose and 7 Days to Die

Glad to be here again and away from the toxicity and drudgery that has largely become modern social media. If it's not trying to get us to buybuybuy stuff it feels like stuff nowadays is trying to either make us super mad or super sad or scared. I've noticed stopping using regular social media so much has helped my mental health. It really starts to drain you seeing more or less the worst of humanity on display day in and out.

[Deadhand]

Hello all, I haven't introduced myself yet, I'm Deadhand. Born in the upper midwest, my wife and I are currently living and studying in Japan for a few years.

I got pretty fed up with social media in general and haven't used it in any form for many years, but I wanted to try out this forum (came across it by chance as i've been a long time fan of the tek syndicate/crit youtube show) and like it a lot, pretty relaxed, no algo's telling me what to be angry about. The general chill vibes from the show I got I hoped would translate to here to a community and it looks like it has!

Before japan I worked in IT for several years, have a comp sci degree and philosophy degree. I got a couple little hobby game dev projects I am working on.

For music I like anything not country or rap lol. But more speficially I enjoy electronic, death metal, smooth jazz, reggae, oldies, and dark atmospheric stuff that I can just zone out too and let my imagination run wild.

Videogames: Legacy of Kain is my favorite series hands down. Then Deus Ex, System Shock. These days i do more indie gaming (AAA is poop).

hmm what else... I suck at drawing and am bad at making music but I enjoy doing those if I have the time lol

[ironclad_chomskyan]

I’m from India, but I lived in Australia and Canada for almost fifteen years... until 2024. Currently I work as a Professor of Research in a research-heavy private university, in cognitive science and evolutionary neuroscience related stuff — mostly on Natural Language, bird songs and neuro-symbolic A.I.

Outside work I’m a long-time PC gamer and a Linux addict. Started messing with computers way back in the mid-90s and never really stopped. Used to be a chronic distro hopper, but these days life has forced me to settle down, as it were.

Was a long-time member of the original Tek Syndicate forums back in the days. Used the old fediverse version of easymode for a while too. But I was gone a for while... came back and lo! It is now a forum!! Couldn't be happier! Feels like most of the internet now is mostly AI slop and/or ragebait nonsense. Forums always felt different to me. Slower, but more real. You actually recognize people after a while.

[kookie]

Howdy! I'm Kat but my friends (and you may :P) call me Kookie.

I've worked in Tech for a bit over a decade and I'm extremely burned out by Silicon Valley tech bullshit and wondering if I ever want to work in tech again. Genuinely looking to pull off some kind of career switch but not really sure into what yet...

I'm in my 30s, weapons-grade autism-haver, live in Berlin, and do ... too much stuff tbh (ADHD goes brr, or something).

Right now I'm working on a narrative heavy adventure RPG with some friends. So far it's just been design meetings and me writing about 20000 words of dialog and exposition for the concept artists I hope the project goes somewhere, it's my first "real" game and it's pretty big in scope so please wish me luck

I make music (mostly techno/ electronica) and I'm starting to stream sim racing. I finally got my rig set up properly and I'm wiring my cameras and mics right now (see below).

signal-2026-06-01-013918.jpeg (901.53 KiB) Viewed 244 times

(Bonus points if you recognise the plushie on that brown shelf)

Games... right now I'm mostly playing Factorio and Kingdom Come Deliverance. Waiting for Star Citizen (hahaha) to be a bit more stable again to check out the new features too, but I need to get a new flight stick first because my last one broke.

Anyway I'm rambling, nice to meet y'all, hoping to find a nice community here. I think I've been yearning for forums for years now so genuinely happy @ward set this up (I was also on the fedi instance but I didn't really post much)

Oh and lastly, here's a picture of me wearing a funny hat (if it's visible even, the lighting in that room was weeeird)

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