That thing you could’ve sworn you existed, remembered existed and how it has now turned into a great wonder of a chase to acquire again after so long. What is that thing for you?
Mine is discovering what music was played during an old internet radio show I still listen to was. The episodes I’m listening to are 21 years old now and for years I wondered what specific tracks were played on that show that I so want copies of. In one of the episodes, the host mentions that the backing music is from Digitally Imported now known as DI.FM.
However, that doesn’t do me any good since newer music is played now on that platform and with no hint or source telling me what tracks were played on that show in show notes or even word of mouth, I’ve no hope in tracking them down. So for so long, I’ve had to listen to this show’s episodes almost religiously, just because of the music that was played.
And my only hope now is tinkering with audio tools so I can figure a way to rip out the parts where the hosts are talking so it is just the music, then go around online asking people who’re more expert on the genre than I am to tell me, then find them and download them.
Don’t have one anymore.
For the longest time, it was an Amiga game that my brother played more than me. The bitch of it was, I wasn’t even good at the game. But I remembered it and I wanted to recall the name, but couldn’t. The other bitch of it was — I later learned, after finding it — that another game came out in the same setting (not the same kind of game at all) that had a VERY similar name. I’d heard this name, and it didn’t set off any alarm bells in my head.
TL;DR the game is called Stellaryx, and of course the more popular other game is Stellaris. I’ve still never played the latter one. But, the name of that game should have clued me in, but didn’t.
So anyway, I remembered an Asteroids clone with aliens, and these black panels called monoliths you could shoot. You’d enter a single screen stage where, like in Asteroids, touching one side of the screen meant you’d warp to the other side. You also only had thrust and shoot for controls, and, like Asteroids, controls were a bit wonky since you didn’t have brakes. There were asteroids, and ice chunks, but there were also other things to shoot. And gorgeous backgrounds. Oh, and there were powerups. After so many of these stages — clearing one sucked you up to the top/center to enter the next area — you’d do like a Lunar Lander thing and land on a platform to complete the level.
The only other thing I remembered was that at the beginning, you chose difficulty by flying into it on a special stage for selecting the difficulty, and if you flew into one of the side ones at great enough speed, you’d go through the middle choice as well. (I was not sure if that did anything special, or even which difficulty option it chose of the two, but it absolutely showed both being selected, the first was not unselected when you flew through the middle one, and the middle one was not ignored by flying through the one on the side.
For years and years I asked on forums. Also tried Googling various terms. Nobody had heard of this game. Until one day I found a YouTube video where someone played a bit of like 100 Amiga games. The game wasn’t shown, but I went ahead and asked the YouTuber. They gave me a list of 5-6 games it could be, and one of them was the right one. So, mystery solved. Just had to find someone who was as old as I am and who had similar memories/experience. Because I’ve found most people on the Internet are pretty young. You will find a few old timers out there who don’t get memes and who don’t know what “skibidi” means and at this point are afraid to ask… but they’re few, far between, and they don’t always know more than their younger peers. (And yet, I’ve often found I’m not the oldest guy in the comments most of the time. But often the most verbose.)
Oh, there are a couple movies I remember details of but I don’t recall the name of the movie, but they’re not movies I ever want to watch again. Like I saw something horrific once upon a time and later forgot what the movie was. I found what the movie was, but a better example was a show… I thought it may have been an episode of Supernatural because there was a big car (like Dean’s) but I wasn’t sure. I remembered a teenage girl running from someone through some pot plants, and someone getting put in a trunk, and someone being poisoned. Everyone told me I imagined it. Then by a pure stroke of luck, my wife and I decided to watch a show called Justified — what I saw was the first episode of the second season. But now everyone wants to say Justified is cool and they love it, but when I pretty accurately described the second season pilot they couldn’t tell me the name of the show? Make it make sense. Anyway, it’s an awesome show, and the teenage girl? Katelyn Dever, one of my favorite young actresses. She’s awesome in Justified (sort of like a little sister/niece type companion role for the main guy) and I’ve seen her in a few other things. Hearing she’s in something is usually enough to get me to watch it.