asgromo info!

• by the name Ashley Sgromo, typically in the Rochester, NY area
• on Discord: asgromo
• on Bluesky: @asgromo.info

Return to HELL SYSTEM on a quest to find your friends!

Strange things are afoot in HELL SYSTEM, an ancient virtual world into which humanity is spreading its influence. Amid a chaotic string of problems, Miranda's friends have somehow been trapped in HELL SYSTEM, and it's up to her to save them... and to find the root cause of all the recent trouble!

With design, program, music, and script by Lachesis and additional graphics, story, and world design by me.

Play HELLQUEST 2 for free, on your device or in the browser, at DigitalMZX.

Starred films, for example PlayTime*, were my selection for movey night.

You can learn more about the Synod at synod.us

My current bike is a "cardinal red" Schwinn LeTour. It's a steel road bike from the bottom of their 1980 lineup that I found at a secondhand store for $25 several years ago. Being the cheap one, it's plain old 1020 carbon steel, not the nice chrome-moly. Before anything but the kickstand is bolted on, it's 30 pounds, which is too heavy. But if I don't drop it into a volcano, it will probably outlive me.

To this I have attached:

• Pletscher Model C rear rack (found as purchased)
• silver Wald 1392 Basket mounted to the rack with zip ties (purchased as the "Huge" basket from Rivendell Bicycle Works) with a blue net to hold stuff in (also from RBW)
• black Cannondale handlebar touring bag 1995 vintage (purchased from R Community Bikes for $5)
• silver SKS P45 fenders (last item from that RBW order)
• a couple of lights
• a little saddlebag with a patch kit, multitool, and tire levers
• a mini pump
• a bell (I have a classier brass one, gifted by my sister, and a subdued black one. I go back and forth.)

This has made the bike approximately 1 metric ton and the steering could stand to be more lenient. Nevertheless, it rides beautifully at speed and fits a lot of groceries.

I may further adjust it for a more upright and casual ride, but that'll mean a new stem, handlebar, or both. And I need to rewrap the present handlebar. And then it will be perfect.

The following table, amended for my particular bike, was sourced from a Schwinn catalog scan, credited further down the page.

(Schwinn catalog page scan from Anna and Patrick Sexton's "Bike History" site

I'm not sure I got to the end of any video games until I was like 15.

I had mostly lower end or behind-the-times PCs growing up.

I tasted a bunch of DOS stuff in large part thanks to my childhood friend Anthony Turner, who shared his Game Empire shareware disc with me. This is also where he discovered ZZT.

• Rise of the Dragon (Dynamix, 1990)
• Chip's Challenge (Chuck Sommerville, 1989)
• ZZT (Epic MegaGames, 1991)
• Myst (Cyan, Inc., 1993)
• MegaZeux (Software Visions, 1994)

The legendary Home of the Underdogs is probably where I learned of these:

• Oolite (Giles Williams, Jens Ayton & contributors, 2003–2021)

  As a teenager my bedroom was painted a vivid blue, like a dark afternoon sky. At night I would play Oolite with a Saitek Cyborg Evo, pretending (by default) that I was a space trader, and the room would glow. It was an even smaller game than it is now.

• Out of this World (Éric Chahi, 1991)

• The Typing of the Dead (Sega, 2000)

  I learned how to type on this game.

Noctis (Alessandro Ghignola, 2000)

For exploring a galaxy I don't think this game has been quite matched. I'm uneasy about the chaotic retrofuture maximalism attitude in No Man's Sky, where new lands are candy-colored canvases for base-building. The hope-starved slide-rule non-mystique of Elite makes my freeform adventuring in it feel like a highly sanctioned, monitored, and redundant sinecure. As video games, they're both on their own admirable missions.

But Noctis is the simulator of being a dignified and mostly solitary member of a sparse race remnant of super-intelligent spacefaring cats, living in a 'ship' best described as a glass box of gaze-tracking HUDs that eats grams of lithium to seamlessly drift from star to star and planet to planet (sans loading screens, natch).

A few radical decisions made for its UI, lore, and visual design push this game into an aesthetic of profound escape from the human world, with no back door, none of our books and shows and memes, no hint of a fourth wall to break or even a window looking in. The galaxy research database accessed and contributed to via one of the ship's terminals may be synchronized with other players via a quick import/export process mediated by emails to the developer. The database received its most recent update in 2017, and is available alongside the game itself (runs on older Windows PCs and in DOSBox) at anynowhere.com.

As far as PC (and emulated) stuff later on, these were my faves.

• Quake 2 (id Software, 1997)
• Deus Ex (Ion Storm, 2000)
• System Shock 2 (Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios, 1999)
• Half-Life and Half-Life 2 (Valve, 1998 and 2004)
• MechWarrior 3 (Zipper Interactive, 1999)
• Gunstar Heroes (Treasure, 1993)

• Landing

  Actually I only made half of this, Flimsy made the second half and then I downloaded the complete game out of the uploads directory and replaced the rest with my own scribblings. It was greatly improved.

• Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2009)

next up...

I grew up with the following video game consoles and respective games having an undue influence on me. This is a small subset of the memorable titles; others, unlisted or unremembered, were probably/mostly bad garbage.

Sega Genesis (and 32X !!!!)

• Kid Chameleon (Sonic Team, 1992)
• Landstalker (Climax Entertainment, 1993)
• Ranger-X (GAU Entertainment, 1993)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sonic Team, 1992)
• Sonic and Knuckles (Sonic Team, 1994)

• Doom (id Software, 1993)

  I believe we first owned this on the 32X, but I could be wrong. Most likely I played very little or none of it at that time.

PlayStation

• Gex: Enter the Gecko (Crystal Dynamics, 1998)

• Final Fantasy VII (Square, 1997)

  My family rented this soon after getting the PlayStation. Having no prior exposure to JRPGs, I was super bewildered and impressed. I made little progress. That early train ride from the Mako reactor really stuck to me.

• Final Fantasy IX (Square, 2000)

• Final Fantasy Tactics (Square, 1997)
• Metal Gear Solid (Konami, 1998)
• Descent (Parallax Software, 1995)

• Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996)

  I only watched my dad play this. I believe he tried to play it when the kids were already in bed.

• Time Crisis (Namco, 1997)

Dreamcast

• Shenmue (Sega AM2, 1999)

  At the age I first played Shenmue, I probably felt like all games should pretty much be it. Certainly I wanted to make games like it. Now I've paid witness to the fallout of the QTE and the endless inflation of game dev budgets and artist exploitation, and I know that most games should just be slightly more like this in some ways. They should let you open more of the drawers. To actually look at the things inside.

• Crazy Taxi (Sega AM3, 1999)

• Rez (United Game Artists, 2002)

PlayStation 2

• Final Fantasy X (Square, 2001)

  Winter break, post-Christmas, sitting under a blanket, eating jam thumbprint cookies.

• Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (Konami, North American console release: 2004)

• Metal Gear Solid 2 (Konami, 2001)
• Shadow of the Colossus (Team Ico, 2005)
• Katamari Damacy (Namco, 2004)
• Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix, 2006)

• Odin Sphere (Vanillaware, 2007)

  Look at the little bunny guy in this one. He used to be a person! Isn't that neat?

Game Boy Advance

• Metroid Fusion (Nintendo, 2002)

  This may have been my first Metroid, as I received it shortly after release and I wasn't a Nintendo kid.

• Mega Man Zero (Inti Creates, 2002)

• Metroid Zero Mission (Nintendo, 2004)

XBox

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Bethesda Softworks, 2002)

  This is probably the best game. Sorry people who think anything is wrong with it. Actually it is you who are wrong.

• Shenmue 2 (Sega AM2, 2001)

  I didn't finish it. Sorry Yu Suzuki. Good, and often beautiful. Painterly in how it loves its settings. Not enough openable drawers.

• Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 (Bungie, 2001 and 2004)

  LAN parties. Awkward feelings around boys at LAN parties.

• Knights of the Old Republic (BioWare, 2003)

  Disliked this game. Even did a school newspaper review about how I disliked this game. And yet this was maybe the first one I was just barely brave enough to play as a lady character (to the extent possible, behind closed doors).

Angela Quinton is a friend, role model, and werewolf. She/it runs, writes, rends flesh, and designs (for web and print) with the best of them. Find Angela at argylewerewolf.com or in the woods.

Noah made the soundtrack to my unreleased game Sadie the Star Sprite and generally kicks ass. Try Noah's music and games, which will make you a better and smarter person.

Some I know personally, some I cherish, and some just have a cool website. But I like what they're all about. If you aren't here, it may be that you don't have a website.

friends and acquaintances

• Matt Smith (Bluesky)
• Diane (from the Synod) (really good website)
• maple mavica syrup
• Lynn a.k.a chordbug
• Valerie Halla
• Adrian "asie" Siekierka
• The Green Herring
• Cyan Lapine
• ritchie's portal
• Silicon Girl
• Cube Underlord
• Win Big (The World's Most Improbable Magazine)

nice websites

• autofish
• AnyNowhere
• Indie Web Turnpike
• Butterick's Practical Typography
• maia arson crimew
• netizen.club
• Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info (Store links to Harris Cyclery are defunct, disregard them)

• JetPens

  They put different cute little comics about stationery on the packing lists.

• Muji

  Clothes, home goods, stationery. Fair prices, clean lines, and neutral colors!!! I have a baseball cap from them I thrifted and the quality is great.

• Lush

  Skin and hair care products that smell nice, feel nice, and look nice.

• itemLabel

  They have Dinkle here.

• Rivendell Bicycle Works

  I do not expect to afford one of these bikes, but what a great website. What a great store. I am a Grant fan.