Rhys Wynne

Thoughts on “The amazing mail sent to a video game publisher”

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This article did the rounds on my socials and on Bubbles, on how the publisher Panic receives mail by asking for it at the end of their games.

It’s something I was aware of, I finished one of their games (Thank Goodness You’re Here!) and sent them a postcard – I think it was a picture of the high street of the town I live in. So there’s every chance my mail is in the photo in that article.

It’s nothing too high tech, but when you finish you’re encouraged to visit a link mentioned in the credits. In it, it explains to send the developers a note, and if you put a self address envelope back in it, you could receive something back. No guarantees though. It was simple, and I think there was a bit of friction (it wasn’t just emailing them) and a bit of vulnerability (you were sharing your address with them), meant I wanted to do it.

I did message them, and I did get something back. I got this patch.

The article talks about how Activision in the 1980s inspired them, and it wasn’t just them. I have in my collection an “Elite” pin badge you got when you emailed the publishers of the BBC Micro game with a word that appears in the ending.

Sending snail mail related to computer software was rife in the shareware days (the amount of home addresses that appear in magazines and printed in software is ridiculous), but it’s effectively dead now. Which is sad. I did when I was more active on Twitch send my regulars Christmas cards, and I did send Dan Q a postcard as part of his “Postcards from the Internet” series when he asked for them. I’d like to think it gave a bit of joy in folks lives.

I am not going to lie, I’m thinking of adding something similar to my next game.

It’d be nice.

The Primate Experience at the Welsh Mountain Zoo

I’ve talked far too much about AI and how the world is going to shit on my blog over the last week and a bit. Let’s have a blog cleanse.

I mentioned this on my Now page, but over the Easter weekend I treated my mum for a big birthday to the Primate Experience at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, and I wanted to share the gallery here:-

I would recommend the experience! It saw us feed four of the primates (the lemurs, red-faced spider monkey, cotton top tamarins & goeldi’s monkey), and the keeper (Shaun) was excellent and knowledgeable and incredibly generous with his time. You do feed the animals live bugs – one found it’s way into my shoe – but it’s wonderful to get up close to these animals.

I did enjoy the lemurs!

Featured in “Cloudflare made a WordPress for AI agents” on The Verge

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So this is interesting, I was on The Verge last week, as part of the wider discussion on EmDash, I posted a blog post on my thoughts on EmDash, which was cited a bit. I should add – there’s some paywalling on The Verge, so if you can’t see it, sorry.

I remember when the story broke on April Fools Day (seriously), and by the morning of the second I saw a lot of takes on LinkedIn that – considering it was my mum’s milestone birthday – were a bit depressing. I took a step away, wrote something the Monday after, publishing on the Tuesday, with very little social media output, lead to actual decent traction, without the walled garden on LinkedIn (I’m this close to sodding it off now). A few days later I was contacted by the writer with a few more questions and clarifications, and boom, mainstream media coverage.

Moral of the story? Write the best stuff on your own blog, folks. WordPress can always help with that 😉.

Your crap is more memorable than your slop

Why you shouldn’t use AI to generate your poster.

Over the Easter weekend I was taking a stroll down the Rhos-on-Sea promenade, and noticed the following community noticeboard promoting local events. I stopped, took a photo, and went on my merry way.

Of the posters, I can confidently say that there is a Betws-Y-Coed antique and vintage fair held regularly thoroughout the year (which is the top left hand poster) and a Llandudno transport festival (whch is the bottom centre poster).

The rest? not a scoobies off the top of my head.

Sure, do I remember the dates of these events? No. But I remember from the time it took me to take the photos those events exist. If I was interested in either event, or know somebody who would, I could find out details and plan from there.

People use AI to scaffold websites, do art, or write blog posts. These feel like they fill a gap, rather than serve a purpose – a checkbox on a task list that needs to be filled.

However, in today’s attention based economy, why would you want your stuff to look the same? Janky websites with unique designs are more fun than every AI generated site out there, and whilst your kids art isn’t Rembrandt, you still hang it on the fridge, don’t you?

It’s been nice seeing other talented folk raise this, and the backlash has begun. I’ve even begun to switch off reading some prolific bloggers that use AI for the feature images. Even if they wrote every word, I think the images show a lack of creativity. So if you can’t guarantee that the featured image is slop, why should I trust your text?

So open up VS Code, or Canva and build that bloody poster, logo, or website. It may not be as polished as what ChatGPT can do, but you can maybe stick around in another person’s head longer than any slop can.