Mohammed Taher

I’ve had the privilege of seeing Marco develop Uproot Galaxy up close — I got to play the various demos he made & be a cheerleader of sorts to my friend’s grand new project. Industry woes meant the project couldn’t continue but man, what we have here is just so good. Have a look!

Uproot Galaxy Pre-Alpha Gameplay Walkthrough (with commentary) [CANCELED GAME] YouTube video by Monomirror

landing page with more info: www.monomirror.com/uproot-galaxy

10 min walkthrough video i had made for a platform holder at the time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnfe...

Uproot Galaxy - Internal Pre-Alpha Pitch Trailer (March 2023) [CANCELED GAME] YouTube video by Monomirror

This was Uproot Galaxy, a metroidvania with Mario Galaxy & Mario 2 influences. It was canceled 2 years ago after our publisher ran out of money. I'm making this previously internal pre-alpha trailer public because everyone involved has long since moved on...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUpS...

One hell of a concert, too. Medleys all the way baby 🔥

Just attended this spectacular concert with Alex. A bit surreal tbh - I’ve always loved Matsuno’s Ogre games, but they’ve always felt unseen or unloved except to a minority of players around me. What a great thing to finally experience something like this to a series I’ve long admired 👌🏼

I like the music. The art direction is generally good, too! Sadly, I hate nearly everything else in the game. The first three hours were the best imo, if only because they hinted at something greater. Everything that followed was downright asinine and primitive in a way a Prime game never was. RIP 🪦

⛔️Metroid Prime 4 spoilers⛔️

We lost our minds when it was revealed that Samus would have a “sidekick” (he’s not that) in Prime 4. I’m at the end and Mackenzie is the least of the game’s myriad problems. It’s just not a metroidvania game—period. Just a boring linear shooter. What a colossal failure.

Kiiiiing 🔥🔥🔥

Metroid Prime 4 is out! Can’t wait to play after work 🪐

🏃🏻‍♂️💨

A selfie with my 10KM medal at the annual Gulf Bank Marathon

The back of the medal shows an engraving of my name and my race time

My average heart rate was 166 BPM with a high of 189

Killed it yesterday. 10KM at 6’38”/KM was wiiiiiiiild the whole way through 💀🔥

Love the fashion choices in this game.

Pokémon Legends ZA is so great, man. Easily the best single-player experience of the series for me. I love the smaller and manageable scale of the city (versus Scarlet’s enormously empty open world), love the fast-paced battles, and vibing sm with the quests.

It never gets tiring to see Deoxys obliterate full health bars

I enjoy flexing my shiny legendaries in competitive fights lol

It took over 80 battles to reach Master Ball rank as I keep cycling between a win and a loss. You typically require 4 wins in a row to rise up from Ultra Ball to Master Ball rank.

I wanted to get to the Master Ball ranked tier because the game gives me a permanent ribbon on any Pokémon that wins a fight (any fight) on Master Ball tier.

Finally… managed to reach Master Ball rank one day before Pokémon Legends ZA is released. Competitive battling is so mentally draining it’s insane.

Deoxys remains the goat 🐐

Shinies… shinies everywhere. Got a shiny Deoxys from my friend in exchange for shiny Koraidon/Miraidon code.

I ended up collecting 27 shiny codes by running all over Shibuya and Shinjuku every day. Best use of my time in Japan. 👌🏼 (gave most to friends, used 7 myself lol)

Thank you for your interest! The project will resume once I’m able to do these myself without an interpreter. I believe it would allow me to dig much deeper and beyond game dev history. I will get there. I need time but I’ll get there. Proof that progress is made haha: bsky.app/profile/robo...

For real for rrrreeeeaaaalllll 🥹🙏🏼🧡

🥰🧡♟️

LFG!!!! Congrats 🫡🙇🏻💝

I was a translator on FFT - The Ivalice Chronicles!
Worked on the new/previously unreleased material. ‘Twas a sincere joy.

GIANTS, by Brave Wave Productions 22 track album

Track no. 5 “Ultramarine” bravewave.bandcamp.com/album/giants

Listen to this amazing chiptunes album from the composer behind Ninja Gaiden After a long absence, Keiji Yamagishi is back with his first solo record

In case you don’t know who Keiji Yamagishi is (enjoy the albums, you’re welcome) www.theverge.com/2015/2/5/797...

Text from the image: Keiji Yamagishi is the reason Brave Wave came to be, and sort of the reason I seeked Alex (@cvxfreak) to begin with. Ever since I met Yama-san in 2013, I have wished to be able to speak Japanese with him without interpreters. If you have been around Alex, you know how good his interpreting skills are. But there's something about walking around alone with a person and just... talking about music, making art, about childhood and sports and food and life that is just not possible to casually have when there's a cypher in between. I started my Japanese journey in 2020, but specifically I started my weekly conversation lessons in 2023. While I'm quite far from being good, I stuck with it to this day. It was 3 lessons a week, then I had to change to one lesson because of time constraints. Anyway: I kept doing it even when I was feeling stuck, when I was depressed, when I was not making progress, I kept doing it all the time. I met Yama-san last year but I couldn't speak much. Our meeting had a lot of pauses and silence, a lot of Google Translate communication, and just a lot of no-communicating. This time around, I feel like a completely different person. I still can't believe that I spent 5 hours with him where I couldn't stop talking. I talked SO MUCH about everything. This is the day I had dreamt about back in 2013. What a privilege it is to be overwhelmed by a life I once prayed for 😭😭😭

I stopped being open or vulnerable on social media because I have come to slowly despise all of it. But today is one of the best days of my life and there are not enough characters to properly say why BUT i tried. Seriously these five hours today were THIRTEEN friggin years in the making. Fuck yesss

Thank you David 🫂🧡

My only addition to this:

• Tateishi-san now understands how many people love his music;
• He went to MAGFest & Kuwait, and connected with a lot of game musicians and fans;
• He released a brand new track with us last year—and YES he still got it;
• He’s happy now

God bless vgm and vgm artists 🫡🤘🏼

Give folks their flowers

No, I mean right now. Go tell someone you loved their work right now. They're on social media just say it, it has never been easier

"They know how much people love--" no they don't go say it right now to a composer or artist or game dev or writer or anyone AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Akira Kitamura signing copies of Cocoron and Rockman 2

A selfie with Akira Kitamura and Alex Aniel

Kyoto’s Pokémon Center is relatively empty compared with Shibuya’s so I finished my shopping there. Deoxys and Miraidon are the pillars of my Regulation J team so I had to get them 🥵

Not much just a big ass bag of dreams & merch

Woke up in the morning, took a Shinkansen to Kyoto, met up with Rockman creator @akblueprints.bsky.social & then immediately went back to Shinagawa lol. Had to make a pit stop at the altar though 🛐

Reason #96839397 why I'm grateful for @robokick.tokyo: he is uniquely talented at hunting down legendary artists who went under-rewarded, under-compensated etc., and putting together projects that connect those artists with the people who love them and their work through @bravewave.net. 🙏