We all know the big-name ones: Dune, 1984, The Martian Chronicles, etc.

What are some sci-fi books that you loved that you never hear about or that won't be making those top-of-all-time lists?

Why do they stand out to you?
What do they do well?
Why do you think they didn't get wider appreciation?

I'm curious as I'd be possibly interested in a solution that works for me. I'd be looking at devices (mainly a robot vacuum cleaner) that are able to operate without a mandatory internet connection that send over data to a datacenter to collect your information without your explicit knowledge (nearly everyone just clicks 'accept' when reading the ToS after purchase).

Introduction

The Legend of Zelda series celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, and A Link to the Past will have its 35th later this year.

So cast your mind back and let me set the mood. Picture this: the year is 1992 and you're a middle school kid who has saved up enough chore and birthday money to finally get your first new game for the SNES (the one you worked so many chores to save up for when your parents finally allowed you to have a console like the other kids you were so envious of.) You've beaten the Super Mario World game your SNES came with and you're definitely ready for something else.

You're sitting in the back seat of the car as your mother drives you home from the store, holding the box for A Link to the Past in your little hands. You open it up and find a cartridge (of course!). You carefully set that aside.

Next up, there's a detailed manual, because of course nearly all games back then came with some kind of little manual of some kind, or at the very least an instruction pamphlet. You read it cover to cover, because you're that kind of kid.

In the box you also find a little hint pamphlet sealed shut with a bit of adhesive. Tempting, but you want to challenge yourself to get as far as you can before peeking. (You give in a few days later.)

Finally, the ride back from the mall is done and you race downstairs to the den, pop the cartridge into the top of your SNES, and turn everything on. You're greeted with a Triforce in 3D that spins and assembles itself (3D on a console? Witchcraft!), while a short harp arpeggio plays:

Doodloodlooodloodloodloodloodloodl do do do do do Do!

Then the title screen, a sword drop, and a pictaresque castle, moat, and mountains behind them while a fanfare plays:

Bumpa deeee! duhduhdudludlut deeee! duhduhdudludlut deeee! Dee DEE DELAAAAH!!

A moment later, the intro prologue begins giving the back story as tense chords play. Then, the now-famous fairy fountain theme plays as you name your game save ("Link", of course!) and so the game begins. The mood is set as you step outside your house into a storm with a layer of splashing rain, flickering lightning (Wow! Amazing graphics!), crashing thunder and a reprise of the tense music. You binge through the first dungeon or two that day.

It's nearly summer, but school isn't done yet. So each day as soon as you get home from middle school, you can't wait to race down to the shade and the cool relief of the basement den to conquer the next dungeon, get the cool new piece of equipment and see what new areas of the game it opens. (Homework? Homework can wait!) That's the rhythm: one day, one dungeon, just an hour or two a day, until you get to the end.

That's how I first played it and why this game is so special to me. :-)

For First Time Players

Don't be afraid to check the manual and hint book that I linked above. Yes, they spoil things a bit, especially the hint book. But the game shipped with them and they were part of the original experience. And if you pace yourself to one dungeon a day, you should easily get through the game by mid-month. It's not a terribly long game, all told.

I think you're in for a treat, and I look forward to hearing your experience with the game, as seen fresh through 2026 eyes.

For Experienced Players

There's a popular randomizer for the game, complete with a Reddit community.. I've never tried it before, but as I've played the vanilla game many times, CGA seems like a fun excuse to finally try the randomizer.

I'll be using this seed if you'd like to join me on it. It uses the "Beginner" preset which seems a good place to start with the randomizer, but with the "Hints" turned on (which I understand means that the telepathic tiles in the dungeons are changed to tell you where some things are). I'm eager to see what insanity the chaos produces.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Versions:

• Super NES (1991/1992): The original!
• Game Boy Advance (2002): A rerelease as part of the The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords. I've never played this version, but there's a list of differences here.

Platforms: Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Wii, Wii U, New 3DS, Switch, Super NES Classic Edition

Genre(s): Action-adventure, RPG, Puzzle

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores: Free under the Nintendo Classics library if you have a Nintendo Switch Online or Nintendo Switch 2 Online subscription.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

For most of the history of Tildes, if someone came across the site and decided they wanted to join, but didn't know anyone already on, they could email Deimos with an invite request. However, with the rise of LLMs, the noise-to-signal ratio has become so high this is no longer a way to join Tildes - explanation by Deimos: https://tildes.net/~tildes/1vl3/is_there_any_interest_in_building_a_tildes_successor#comment-if6r

I've read the recent discussions on Tildes being maintained as is and not actively grown, but I think most of us believe the community is up for many more years of enjoying each other's company, and would like to pick up a few more members along the way if they seek us out. That just requesting to join isn't possible anymore makes me a little sad.

I had the thought that larger sites are able to invest more resources into spam account filtering, many of us have active accounts on other social media sites (or other types of sites with community interactions), and I speculate that almost everyone who finds tildes and is interested in joining has already been active in some other online community. Some of us Tilderinos could post here our handles in other communities, and offer to consider sharing one of our invite requests to Tildes if DM'd in our other community. We'd have to reject requests from new accounts, and use some judgement on established ones, but I am thinking having people go through the filtering process those other communities use would reduce the spam requests enough to make it workable.

What do you guys think?

I love Tildes. I am not the most active member here, but I do make an effort to contribute. This site fills a hole for me not even close to be filled by other sites. It has that small local pub feel. All names are familiar, even if I haven't interacted with people directly and there is a general sense of people being aligned with wanting to be part of a 'better' community.

I know there has been a lot of discussion about missing features here and that ultimately leading to some users wanting to leave, because they can't block the content they don't want to see.

With Deimos's announcement that the site is being sunset, it immediately made we ask: Can we build a successor?

That has to be immediately followed with acknowledgment that it would be extremely hard (both in building the software and building the community) and very unlikely to succeed.

With that out of the way, is there any interest?

If there is, I'd like to here from you in this topic with your thoughts on how it should be run, must have features missing from Tildes, any features of Tildes not needed in an MVP (minimum viable product) and really any thoughts you have on the subject. What would be a deal-breaker?

I am especially interested to hear on thoughts of how it should be administrated. Do we like the benevolent dictator model? Would a committee be better? Are there other examples of systems that work well?

Tildes isn't going anywhere for a long while by the sounds of it, which I'm really grateful of. Please don't read this as any kind of descent, mutiny or call to leave. I mostly just want to make sure that if there's desire for this community to NOT be sunset, there's at least an option.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2022) which has reached end of life and no longer receives updates. I was wondering if it was possible to revive it using one of these alternate Android versions, but I was very frustrated to see that LineageOS (the one I've seen mentioned the most besides Graphene) supports both the 2020 and the 2024 model of this tablet, but not mine.

I wanted to hear from fellow Tildes users if installing one of these OSes would be worth it to get continued security updates for an old tablet like this, which OSes are out there (I've only heard the names of a few of them), which ones to avoid (maybe it's abandoned or there's some drama around a particular OS for whatever reason), and if anyone knows of one that specifically supports my model.

I'm also curious if S-Pen stylus support would work on any of these other OSes.

My phone is a Samsung A55. Fully updated.

I have ADHD and autism, which is to say that I have a very obsessive personality. I have used various blockers over the years to prevent me from wasting time on apps and websites.

Lock me Out has helped me for many years to curb my smartphone usage. Unfortunately, it stopped working, as it became easy to circumvent by either forcing the program to stop or uninstalling it. I have been in contact with the developer, but they weren't able to find a solution and eventually stopped responding to my emails.

So I need an app that prevents me from disabling blocks at all.

While I can pay for an app even if it is a little expensive, I cannot justify an expensive subscription priced in US dollars (although I might do so if there's no other alternative).

Any suggestions that could help me out? I'm using my phone 24/7, I can't stand it anymore. And I cannot simply turn it off because I have a toddler, and I must be accessible to my wife for emergencies when she leaves the home with him.

There are also many ways to use a smartphone that are actually useful, positive, and non-addictive. And I'd rather be able to access these functionalities.

Thanks!

I have a group of work friends where we were playing D&D 5e (pretty infrequently) for a year and a half. We've been on a long hiatus from TTRPGs since last year after a couple problems with the game came to surface that some of them didn't like. One of which is the 5e gameplay. Out of the 3 players, none had any hands on play experience with any TTRPG. I had extensive experience with 5e so naturally I was the GM and it was the simplest way to jump in a play with my solid grasp of the rules. One player in particular did not have experience with games (table top or video games) beyond a few simple card games and classic games like chess and was more there to be happy to socialize and have fun with a story. She had a lot of trouble grasping the rules and feeling comfortable with polyhedral dice sets. The other issue was mainly the infrequency of playing and the players remembering the story and previous sessions, so that isn't really related to the system.

Having said all of that, several months later that less familiar with games player came to me and said one of her main issues was she would get stressed when told to roll, then blanking on which dice is which and what she is rolling for. She thinks a big fix to this is playing a game "like" D&D 5e with story and socializing (a TTRPG), but with "normal" dice (D6's). Until then I had given up on the idea of a TTRPG with them but that reinvigorated me. I wanted to find a game that is D6's only, with simple enough rules for those inexperienced, but preferably with some numbers, crunch, and customizable characters to satisfy those with more gaming experience. Do any come to mind as favorites of yours that you'd suggest?

TL;DR suggest your favorite D6 only games. Preferably simple on the surface for the inexperienced, but enough numbers and customizable characters underneath to satisfy more experienced gamers.

I just rewatched the movie Constantine. It's one of my favorite movies. I can always watch it again. But I'm sure the ending was different. I didn't find any record of an alternate ending online.

I know each person is different and if there's one autistic person's experience that's one person's experience. I'm aiming to spread a wide net here and gather stories to see the diverse range. What I'm looking for is something beyond the "well, you just do it / you start with small steps" experience: assume one can't.

Second hand accounts welcome if you know someone who has difficulties they were able to overcome.

I was talking to someone who could visualize something with microscopic clarity in their mind and that's why they couldn't draw, because any approximation, no matter how close, is not 100%, and that produces enough internal suffering that the task can't be done.

That the sentence "if it's good enough it's good enough" is nearly offensive and also nonsensical: there is the perfect and then there is failure which causes suffering, nothing exists in the middle.

So I'm curious: as an individual, do you have difficulty with .....

• breaking down a complex task into smaller achievable tasks?

• competing very simple tasks that have been broken down for you that leads to that complex task, whether because it's trivial or because now you're being told or some other hurdle?

• mentally being okay with practice / rudimentary exercises because it's not the whole completed perfect thing?

How did you learn to do something that requires practice [from you] to become good at? Do you tend to over rely then on skills that came "for free" to you? If you can see yourself getting better with practice doing that free talent, and you have a hard time learning a new thing that you couldn't also instantly do, why does the experience of improvement from one area doesn't translate into feelings of possibility that it could apply to another?

Hi, my family is moving to Japan in November, from US Midwest to Noto/Kanazawa area, and I’m wondering if there are things recommended to specifically bring from the US or things to wait to buy in Japan due to quality or price differentials (or straight up availability).

I’m 6’3”, so I’m buying shoes/boots/sandals in US, as well as pants/shirts. My wife is similarly tall. Kids are tall for their age, but still will get clothes in jp.

We are moving solely by plane, so no shipping containers or other moving services— it has to fit in suitcases.

If anyone can speak to online shopping in rural Japan, let me know if that’s as ubiquitous as it is here (it’s something I personally almost never do here, but i assume I’ll have to do more in jp just for sizing when it comes to clothes, though I’m not a big wardrobe guy anyway).

Bonus question: family cargo ebikes in Japan? Is that common yet? I’ve got an Urban Arrow here and it’s probably by favorite object of mine, and would love to get something similar (or long tail passenger rack) in jp.

Thanks!

This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

What's new:

[Android] Version 1.7.1 (Aug 10, 2026): Improved HTML parsing speed. Reduced installation size. Fixed rare crashes.

[iOS] Version 1.7.1 (Jul 31, 2026): Added light/dark theme setting. Improved HTML parsing speed.

Version 1.7.0 (Jul 27, 2026):

• Detect expired sessions and prompt to re-login
• [iOS] Combined external browser settings for clarity

On iOS, currently TestFlight only for the next week or so.

Version 1.7 fixes a long-standing problem in the app: the interface pretty much completely broke when login sessions expired (after a year), with no obvious way to fix it from the user's perspective. Now the app will detect expired sessions and show a prompt to re-login.

I promoted this from quiet bugfix to a more prominent release, because it was pretty terrible user experience, and anyone using the app for more than a year has run into it.

I had to test thoroughly on Android and iOS, since I don't want to ever break users' legitimate login sessions. I also had to change approaches partway: originally I wanted the app to automatically re-login, but that doesn't work for 2FA-enabled users. Also there were too many error-prone edge cases when trying automatic re-login, whereas a user-visible re-login prompt avoids most of those silent error cases.

Previously:

[Android] Version 1.6.8 (Jul 15, 2026): Fixed crash when searching for topics on Android 12 and earlier.

[Android] Version 1.6.7 (Jul 9, 2026): Fixed comment interactions after double-tap to vote.

[Android] Version 1.6.4 (Jun 18, 2026): Indicate when replying to a deleted comment, fixed minor UI bugs in topics feed, fixed networking bugs, fixed rare crashes, support Android 17

[Android] Version 1.6.3 (May 20, 2026): Added "Find in comments" to "..." menu. Fixed first search position in comments. Fixed tapping links in collapsed details summary. Fixed stale vote rendering.

[iOS] Version 1.6.3 (Jun 27, 2026): Indicate when replying to a deleted comment.

[iOS] Version 1.6.2 (Jun 14, 2026): Fixed comment scroll bugs, fixed networking bugs

[iOS] Version 1.6.1 (May 21, 2026): Improves on the Find in Comments feature. Fixes some UI bugs related to the Find Comment bar, and with potentially stale votes showing in the UI. Also adds the iPad pane toggle on iPadOS 18 and earlier, to bring the behavior closer to iPadOS 26, and fixes some iPad animation bugs.

Previous topic: May 2026

Where to get it

Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

There's been a fair amount of discussion lately about the way Exemplary tags are used. Speaking only for myself, it seems like they're increasingly being used as a "super-agree" button rather than a "this post is really good" tag. That always has been (and always will be) a problem, but I think it's been getting worse - particularly when threads turn argumentative.

That's not good. It makes contentious threads more contentious and it contributes to polarization -- I've seen users explicitly say that it feels like a slap in the face to see a poorly-constructed post get tagged "exemplary" for what seems more likely to be ideological reasons than the actual quality of the thing.

There's an easy fix for all this. Not a technical fix, but a cultural one: if the majority of us resolve to only give exemplary tags to people we disagree with, but who deserve it anyway because they are posting compassionately, cogently, coherently, or whatever else we think constitutes exemplary behaviour, it will improve the discourse immeasurably.

I'm not saying that needs to be (or should be) a hard-and-fast rule. But as a general principle like "don't be an asshole," I think "save exemplary tags for posts you don't agree with, but which deserve it anyway" will do a lot to resolve the issues we're seeing. It shifts the reward signal from "demonstrate ideological alignment" to "write posts so good and so fair that even your opponents like them."

I've caught myself giving the tag to opinions I agree with for something along the lines of "finally, someone's saying it." That is bad, it's exactly what polarizes the site, and I'm going to try not to do it any longer.

Hope you'll join me.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like positivity, browsers and dungeons and dragons. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was inquisitive.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!