Well, the end of the year is approaching, so I guess it's time for me to don the capital letters of a Real OTY Post and kick around some of my favorite things OTY.

All the usual disclaimers in place, and I'll repeat this again in my GOTY post too, but hey this year sucked for game creators. My friend put together a really great page that sort of illustrates why: https://wrapped.games/

Digested all that? Ok cool. Thankfully, many game composers, bands, etc. were able to debut a total masterclass in game composition this year. The variety is huge. There's pop songs, rock bangers, weird synth shit, incredible orchestration, retro inspiration (and not just chips at that), chamber music, production quality to die for.

This is gonna be a long post with a LOT of embeds, so read on & prepare for it to take up your whole feed, or just click the permalink and let's get rolling. There's a lot to listen to.

Put the good stuff in my veins

Seeing musicians start to adopt AI art for cover art makes me so sad. Album art's a real part of the music for me; even something slapped together out of stock art feels like it's got more effort to me than something AI-generated that my eyes just slides off. Don't want to see that in my library.

if you have the means to create music, you have the means to produce a unique album cover

speaking from past experience, it is really not hard to take a picture with your phone and/or use a free/🏴‍☠️ image editor (even on your phone) to get something cool with zero experience, i promise

see also "no artistic skills" isn't real by @hthrflwrs

web

• PhotoMosh free, you can get even more fx by paying though, but the free ones are all you need
• Befunky free, better quality than PhotoMosh, avoid the green dots those are watermarked FX
• JPEG Zone by @wavebeem freeeeee and chosting

android phone

• Glitch Lab by Ilixa image destroyer, free no ads, but you can buy more FX for like $9 otp (i use this)
• Mirror Lab, Chroma Lab by Ilixa also are cool
• One Lab by Ilixa tons of different FX, combines all of Ilixa's other apps, free no ads, and you can buy more FX otp or monthly (i use this)
• Glitch Lab by gmikhail image destroyer, ad supported, $11 otp (i use this)
• Magic Fluids by Mad Scientist is a cool little fluid simulation app, take a screenshot and then chop it up
• Snapseed a lightroom-esque photo editor recommended by @rowie324!
• many many others to play with

desktop

• Krita image editor and painting app, open source (i use this)
• GNU Image Manipulation Program image editor, has quite a few different effects
• GLITCHET RESOURCES
• A Glitch Tutorial on editing images with a TEXT editor, not kidding
• Audacity the AUDIO editor, can be used to mangle images! (example 1 by chostie @thee-identity, example 2 by chostie @RobinProblem) recommended by @trashbees! and here is some helper software with a list of tutorials by @glitchwolfe!
• ImageMagick / GraphicsMagick commandline image manipulation (i use this)

ios

not my forte, but here are some leads, let me know if you have any recommendations

• Lisctle of Glitch Apps
• Listcle of Texture Apps
• Listicle of Image Editors
• Snapseed also on iOS - recommended by @rowie324!

images

using random images i already had on the device, i clicked random stuff for a bit

• #1 - Glitch Lab by gmikail and One Lab by Ilixa, phone pic of a craft mat being unboxed
• #2 - Mirror Lab by Ilixa and Glitch Lab by gmikail, phone pic of literally spinach pasta i am not joking
• #3 - Befunky, accidental digital camera photo of the inside of a car when the shutter button got bumped
• #4 - PhotoMosh, image of pyramid texts from my Beef with Osiris post

Happy "you forgot to unset your alarm and charge your phone so now you have to start the day with five hours of sleep and 22% of battery remaining" to all those who celebrate 🥳

For the record, I got up at 6 AM and took a nap between 10 AM and 12 PM today 💤