Music

I absolutely love listening to music, and I listen to more or less all kinds of genres, from rap to weird niche electronic music to breakbeat and I even have a sea chantie I like to listen to.
Generally I like listening to full albums (or specific song recommendations) and then putting the songs I enjoyed into a kind of a kitchen-sink (clusterfuck) of a playlist that I like to shuffle through, just dubbed "The Playlist". Well it's more like 2 playlists, one for listening to actively and one with no songs with prominent lyrics and generally calmer / background tracks to zone out to while doing work.
Oh also I don't yet know much about music or different genres so sorry if theres some wrong genre names, I did NOT bother to check.

I listen to more various artists than I can count, but the most prominent ones are these:

• Jamie Paige: She mostly makes songs using vocal synth, but also occasionally sings herself with beautiful breakbeat-y but very melody focused backing tracks. What stands out though is the lyrics. Pretty much every song has some of the most beautiful and sometimes metaphoric lyrics I've ever listened to and is by far my favourite music artist that primarily makes songs with english lyrics. She's also in a band named Flavor Foley with 3 other vocal synth creators and they are also really really good.
  I can very much recommend her album Constant Companions (or rather the deluxe edition), aswell as her previous album Bittersweet if you're looking for more songs that are sung by herself and also something a bit calmer. Both of these can be found here or at all the streaming service stuff.
  My favourite songs are probably Asemic Speech (Bittersweet), Shiny Chariot (CC Deluxe ed.), You're telling me a shrimp fried this rice (Single), Some more of that Song (Single; if you can't find it, you'll be able to on the "Smots Gaming" youtube channel).
• Tanger: Probably one of the most, if not THE most diverse artist I've ever listened to. She collabs with other people a lot, which I think is pretty neat and mostly makes electronic music, but has made jazz stuff, hardstyle things, the backing track for an entire fucking RAP album, ambient music, lofi stuff and also the occasional bit of music in the style of various other artists. Tanger for me is the first artist where I feel like the type of music they make has a perfect overlap with my tastes.
  Her album Prefer not to Say is probably straight up my favourite album ever made and also the most diverse album I've heard in my life. I have 20 out of 24 songs from that album in my playlist which is the highest ratio of songs out of any album I have in there. Beyond that, I can heavily recommend basically every other album and single, especially both the Bonus EPs and her album Archive for Thought for some great lofi background music
  My favourite Songs are (of course) BAD NUMBER (PntS), Strangers once Again (PntS), Downpour (Archive by Night) and BIKE (Bonus EP).

Those are the two I like the most, I'll just throw a couple more down here with super brief descriptions. Theres also album suggestions with each artist, these are for the album I think would be best to start out with.

• Jhariah: Electronic kinda with english lyrics, very varied songs & instrumental, check out A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO FAKING YOUR DEATH
• Deathbrain: Breakbeat, super good to zone out to, check out their first album and then the second one
• Bear Ghost: Rock, more experimental in their newest album, check out Blasterpiece and their song Sirens, did have controversies involving alleged sexual assault so beware
• Tally Hall: They're kinda silly with it, but still really good, english lyrics, check out Good & Evil. Also listen to the album by a different artist who is related, called Hawaii: Part II, that one is VERY experimental tho
• Chonny Jash: Does remixes of other songs with different instrumental & lyrics, darker tone usually and very hit or miss for me, but some are REALLY good, check out his Tally Hall remix album (abbreviated CCCC) or his song Dream within that album
• Nihosika: vocal synth producer, makes japanese songs, sometimes pretty experimental, but very good. Check out I'm Perfectly Imperfect
• Dirt Poor Robins: Kind of old-timey in their songs, made a silent film, check out Firebird (Deluxe Edition) and their song Enchante

Games

Being a gamedev, it's pretty obvious I like playing games and thinking about them. I think the stigma that video games have by people who don't play them is very silly though (specifically people saying they make you stupid / they're a waste of time), I like comparing them to a medium like movies or videos in that regard, just obviously with that layer of interactibility. You can probably guess that I'm very much in the indie corner and don't really like many AAA titles (I really enjoyed DOOM 2016 tho). I think pretty much the only consistently good AAA games released are by nintendo and they are far from a good company, so I don't plan on buying anything from them anytime soon.

I'll just omit the topic of game design for now since I plan on writing a full blog post about that sometime and link that here when it's done, so I'll just list a bunch of games below with short-ish descriptions. I won't include obvious classics like Stardew Valley, or A Hat in Time, but focus on less universally known titles. So here we go:

• Katana Zero: A friend of mine said a while ago, that if he were to show someone unfamiliar with video games, what that even means, he'd show them Katana Zero, and I fully agree. It's a fairly fast paced Hotline Miami inspired sidescrolling type game where you have a big ass katana and you and enemies die in one hit with fast and snappy respawns. That, together with an incredible story, gorgeous pixel art and a little bit of cosmic horror too (it's also not super difficult, but still challenging and rewarding). And it does all of that effortlessly in an 8 hour campaign. Theres also a bonus hard mode that will fuck you up which is always fun.
• Lobotomy Corporation: This is undoubtably the most important game in my life, fundamentally changed how I view game design and has probably made me a bit more evil in that regard xd. It's one of those fucked up indie games. To keep it brief, it's a facility management sim that's very repetetive and very, very punishing. After a bit though, the game suddenly opens up, punts you in the face and just as you think you might get back up, it throws you back down, again and again. It's the good kind of being thrown down, if that exists. I won't go into detail since I want to dedicate a full blog post to this game, but just know, that it's one of only 3 games that made me tear up at its ending and that should speak volumes. It does have a bunch of genuine flaws though and is very hard to get into by yourself, so it's a hard recommend, but if you push through, it's so worth it.
  (oh this game has a similar length to persona 5 btw (~150 hours), just as a fair warning)
• Temp Zero: A masterclass in minimalism. It's an arcade-y rougelike where almost everything happens on the beat. You get one of 6 weapons and 6 spells to choose from, and choose one of 6 total tracks split into 3 difficulties which are essentially just different BPM rates for the songs. There are like 5 enemies and 15 items total and one type of stage hazard later on, but it is so addicting and the way these mechanics are combined is pretty much perfect.
• Cassette Beasts: I think pokemon is boring and repetetive. Maybe not if you do challenges or play competetive, but the vanilla games are certainly that. Cassette Beasts is clearly heavily inspired by pokemon and has basically none of these flaws. It's one of my favourite comfort games. The story and side stories within are nothing super insane, but they're fitting and well done. If you like anything RPG-adjacent, comfy or are a deckbuilding freak, this is a heavy recommend.
• ANTONBLAST: This is my goty 2024. On the surface it's similar to pizza tower, but takes the fast paced platforming in a very different direction. Everything in this game feels like rejected ideas in a more professional kind of game and they make it work SO well. You'd be hard-pressed to find any normal level past the 4th one, every single level stands out as something super unique, you know when there's a horror level in your platformer that it's good. Do be aware though that this game flourishes on it's chaos. It's overwhelming and it relishes in that fact. It's also pretty challenging later on and at first, the controls feel a tad clunky, but unless that's an issue for you, it's a heavy recommend.
• Utopia Must Fall: The pinnacle of modern arcade gaming. Imagine space invaders with simple, but amazing looking vector graphics, an insane amount of strategy & build variety, a great amount of depth with that classic high score chase goal. And as a nice little bonus, you get some subtle worldbuilding with a touch of dark humor which adds a lot to the atmosphere. This game is hard though, but that's the appeal.
• Rhythm Doctor: Rhythm Doctor isn't really the "average" rhythm game. It has very unusual mechanics for one and is moreso structured as its own game that complete beginners can start from. It eases you into mechanics well, then develops complexity you didn't even think was possible and it does this so effortlessly and then towards the end, it pulls some of the coolest shit I've seen a game do, and they do all of that while (from my knowledge) keeping the game friendly for blind people which I really respect. Just fucking play this, it's good from the start and it gets insanely peak at act 5.
• Rhythm Quest (Demo): Yes, this is only a demo, I'll update this once the game fully releases. Just watch the trailer, it's easier than to explain it (tldr 2 button rhythm game where you jump and kill enemies and its good). It's structured in a similar way to Rhythm Doctor where it's more like a general game and not "just" charts. But whereas RD is very in your face about the cool shit it does, Rhythm Quest is so subtle in it's beauty. The way theres a small flash when you hit a checkpoint, the way the colors slowly change over the course of the level, that one speedup at the best point of 2-2, wow it's good.
• Eigengrau: A shoot 'em up with some of the most creative and unique levels I've ever seen. It's structured in ~50ish small levels categorized into 7 worlds that you can play either in classic arcade style or level by level. Every level introduces a completely new gimmick, teaches it quickly & intuitively without any conventional toutorial, and the develops and plays around with it beautifully. I genuinely haven't seen many games that do this sort of thing THAT well. At the end of each world is a boss that combines every encountered gimmick and they're all super cool. Theres a bunch of replayability, accessibility settings and 2 different difficulties. There's also plenty of score chasing opportunites with going for fast times on every level with a frankly disgusting top rank and secret bonus collectibles / missions in every level.

People

Here are a couple inspirations for the kinda stuff I make / aspire to be or just people who I have a lot of respect for and appreciate what they do. God I hope this doesn't end up aging super poorly lmao.

• David Szymanski: You most likely know this guy. Maybe not from the name, but from the games he's worked on: Iron Lung, Squirrel Stapeler, DUSK, Butcher's Creek. He mostly makes horror games and works on games more or less alone (with the exception of DUSK) and on a smaller scale. I absolutely love his approach to gamedev and he just seems like a really cool guy overall and is someone I look up to a lot. His games are great too, I heavily recommend DUSK for a fantastic retro FPS or Butcher's Creek for a great atmospheric horror game with really interesting combat.
• Tanger: I already listed her in the music section so I'll keep this brief; in essence the kinda music that she makes is genuinely the most perfect kind of music I could wish for. If I actually end up properly learning to make music, that is the kinda music I want to make.
• Patricia Taxxon: This one is a bit difficult. There has been some somewhat bad stuff with her a few years back, although that was retracted by the person who wrote it, probably because she was like 17 when that happened or something, idk it's difficult. But if we're talking about the things she makes, she genuinely makes some of the most inspiring things I have ever seen in my life. She makes music and other youtube videos and while I'm not that much into her music, I can still appreciate it a lot. It seems to me that she kinda has a "fuck you, I'm right" attitude which can be dangerous, but that unparalleled vision probably also plays a big part why the things she makes are so special to me. I really recommend her video on "celeste's biggest mod (and why it's interesting)", "art, furries, god" and (yes) her video "on the ethics of boinking animal people". How the fuck is a video about wether it's ethical to fuck furries one of the most inspiring pieces of media I have ever watched.
• Hbomberguy: Of course I have to have him here. He's a youtuber who kind of shits on presenting himself professionally and then makes some of the genuine best videos I have ever seen, albeit in a different way to Taxxon's. Usually they're about games or topics he's interested in (like plagarism in the youtube space). Go check out his videos about Pathologic, Vaccine Denial and the Roblox Oof.