Welcome!

Yet Another Uncle Erik:

• Cyclist (Mountain/Cyclocross/Gravel/Road).
• Self-proclaimed Cool Uncle.
• Retrogamer and casual gamer.
• Fixer of things around the house.
• Star Trek fan (Classic and new).
• Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL) and other brick brands.
• More on my About page.

Erik here. Welcome! This website is a repository of the many interests that I have. You will find bicycle-related reviews, guides, and maps. Creations using LEGO (and other brick brands). Video game projects I made over the years. A couple of IT-related guides thrown in as well. More things will be added/updated over time.

I hope that this website helps, entertains, and/or inspires you.

Please use the top menu to navigate the site and its (external) social media links.

If you wish to communicate with me, please do so using the social media links on the navigation bar.

Currently playing (with the nephews)

2022 and 2023:

• Sneaky Sasquatch - by RAC7 Games (Apple Arcade)
  • Apple Arcade's killer app. Worth the monthly Apple Arcade subscription for this game alone. No violence, open world, addictive "one more day" gameplay, likeable hero, fun to play and to watch.
• Horizon Chase 2 - by Aquiris Game Studio (Apple Arcade)
  • Included with my Apple Arcade's subscription, so it was available to me as soon as it came out. Loved the previous Horizon Chase - World Tour on my iPad (and Horizon Chase Turbo on my PC), so this was a no-brainer download.
  • Barry Leitch is back as the music composer for this one.
• Shovel Knight - by Yacht Club Games (PC)
  • Highly praised as one of the greatest games ever made (best of 2014)... if you like retro-styled graphics, chiptune music and platforming gameplay (which I do!).
  • There is also Shovel Knight DIG released in 2022 (Apple Arcade), but it's not the same at all, and not as much fun (in my opinion).
• Civilization - by Sid Meier (MicroProse) (SNES)
  • The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) port of the first entry in the Civilization franchise has music (unlike the original PC DOS version), which helps with engagement through some of the city micromanagement parts of this game. It is also an easy-to-understand entry of the Civilization franchise for a younger audience.
  • This game also is one of the few that supports the SNES Mouse (but playing with the gamepad alone is not an issue).
• (WITHOUT the nephews) Undertale - by Toby Fox (PC)
  • Great role-playing game (RPG) made by a musician. This game remembers your actions. Players think nothing of "killing" your adversaries during battle sequences of traditional RPGs, but not in Undertale. There are consequences to your actions. In specific situations, the battles can make you question what kind of person you are. And the game has the ability to remember what you did/unleashed (even if you start over a new game).
  • Took a lot of my time but leveraged knowledge of others to save a lot of time at risk of spoilers... went through the True Pacifist route (for the happy ending), then the Genocide route, then looked at videos of neutral outcomes and looked at Tainted Pacifist and Hard Mode endings.
  • One of the greatest role-playing games ever made (best of 2015)... especially for its soundtrack. My nephews never played the game, yet through schoolyard word-of-mouth they know of one catchy song for one boss battle that can be uncovered when you are 90-95% through the Genocide route.

2021:

• Micro Mages - by Morphcat Games (NES)
  • People are still making games for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as of 2022. This game was made in 2019, and as of 2022, a sequel called Micro Mages: Second Quest has been made.
  • This is also a 4-player couch co-op game if you have the NES Four Score or NES Satellite.
  • The developers also made everything fit inside the same hardware constraints as the original Super Mario Bros cartridge.
• Megaman: Rock N Roll - by Dennis Engelhard (PC)
  • Difficult but clever (and free-to-play) Megaman (Rockman in Japan) fan game where you can play as either Megaman (Rock) or as Roll.

2020:

• Flappy Gorillas - by Bubblequark Software (Ouya)
  • Imagine if Flappy Bird and GORILLAS.BAS had a baby.
  • Realizing that a few people own the ill-fated Ouya console, this game is also available for Windows, Linux, or Android.
• Horizon Chase - World Tour (and Horizon Chase Turbo) - by Aquiris Game Studio (iOS, PC)
  • A love letter to simple console and arcade racers such as Top Gear (very popular game in Brazil; unrelated to the british TV show) and Out Run.
  • Barry Leitch (the composer behind the Top Gear soundtrack) reprises his role here, with a more contemporary rendition of his Top Gear music.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rescue-Palooza! - by MersoX games (PC)
  • A free-to-play 4-player couch co-op fan game featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the beat-em-up style of Turtles Arcade and Turtles in Time.
  • 60 characters to choose from!
• Super Bomberman 3 - by Hudson Soft (Super Famicom)
  • This is a 5-player couch co-op game if you have the Hudson Soft's Super Multitap 2 or similar multitap adapter.
  • This only came out in Japan or PAL countries (ex: Europe) for the Super Famicom. I purchased the Japanese version (60Hz instead of 50Hz for PAL) as a used cartridge. I had to cut two plastic tabs in the cartridge slot of the SNES to give it the ability to also play Super Famicom cartridges such as this one, and it works fine.

2019 (and earlier):

• MotorBike - by baKno Games (Ouya and iOS)
  • A fun motorcycle trials game with funny ragdoll physics (but no blood or dismemberment, so it's suitable for children); free to try, but pay to unlock more than the 10 demo levels. The Ouya version was more fun than the iOS version because you can slow down time (not available on iOS AFAIK) when your ragdoll-physics motorcyclist gets propelled to the skies because of an explosive device on the course. Slow-motion ragdoll explosion entertainment for my nephews since 2016 or so.
  • Realizing that a few people own the ill-fated Ouya console, this game is also available on many platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS) but no longer available on the PlayStation Network (from back when the game was made for the Playstation 3).
  • Back in 2018-2019, it became impossible to upgrade to the full version from within the Ouya so I purchased the iOS version.
• Mega Man Maker - by Wrecking Programs (and team) (PC)
  • Think "Super Mario Maker", but instead of making your own Mario Levels, you make your own Megaman levels with assets from the Mega Man franchise.
  • It's free-to-play as a fan project. You can create your own levels but also play other people's levels just like Super Mario Maker does.
• Mega Man 2.5D - by Peter Sjöstrand and Edgar Cebolledo (PC)
  • This free-to-play fan project introduces 2-player co-op in the normally 1-player MegaMan franchise. It also remasters certain levels of the Megaman franchise from 2D into a 2.5D style.
• Super Mario Crossover - by Exploding Rabbit (No longer available)
  • Was the best retro-themed game ever. Play the levels of Super Mario Bros, The Lost Levels, and Super Mario Special with a huge number of characters from different video game franchises (ex: Lance from Contra), with the abilities from their respective games (ex: spread gun) added to the SMB/LostLevels/Special levels. You can also change the level to look like different games such as giving Bowser's castle a Castlevania look and fight the Grim Reaper (instead of Bowser) playing as Megaman. TONS of replayability.
  • Used to be an Adobe Flash game played from a web browser (had to use a program like JoyToKey to map keyboard keys to a game controller). Apparently (as of March 2022) you are still able to play this game using a local Flash player such as BlueMaxima's Flashpoint.
  • Here's a video of the game with commentary and another without commentary but with more variety (random game skin selection) so that you don't have to install Flashpoint if you just want to see how the game plays like and its replayability potential.

Change Log

2023-12-xx: Translated entire website in French (click on the FR/EN square near the top-right of the page to toggle languages)

2022-11-06: Updated index.html

• Added a "currently playing" section
• Added hero banner image of different sizes using srcset

2022-10-05: More content in existing sections (all under Cycling Repairs)

2022-05-23: More content in existing sections (all under Cycling)

• Also introduced collapsible sections to some pages for easier reading

2022-05-05: Website architecture changes

• Now using AWS Certificate Manager and CloudFront
• Website will work with both yetanotheruncleerik.com and yetanotheruncleerik.ca domains
• Website will now redirect HTTP to HTTPS

2022-05-04: More content in existing sections (especially under Cycling Repairs)

• Also renamed "Work" section to "IT"

2022-01-26: More content in existing sections

• New section: Multitap

2021-12-29: Improved readability.

• Used new backgrounds from Freepik
• Changed some colors

2021-12-23: Redesign of website header.

• Fixed issue with navigation bar not working properly with recent touchscreens
• More testing will be needed
• Added noscript section to provide crude navigation should JavaScript be disabled
• Added social network links

2021-11-14: Time to publish more content I have been working on and off throughout a very busy year.

• Linked website to yetanotheruncleerik.com domain
• Website redesign via CSS theme modification
• Navigation bar redesign into one file loaded on each page via JavaScript
• Allows me to update only one file whenever I add a new page to this website
• Would prefer pure CSS; might have to revisit this navbar later
• New section: Cycling Trails
• New section: Cycling Repairs
• New section: Retrogaming
• New section: Bricks

2020-12-21: Learned Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) throughout the year.
Determined to create everything static and from scratch and not depend on solutions like WordPress which open up security issues.

• Website redesign; first use of CSS
• Navigation bar added
• New games added in Games page
• New section: About

2019-01-14: More time to play around with JavaScript.

• New games added in Games page

2018-07-04: Hello World!

• Games.html created. This website is a place to put games I developed in my spare time for my nephews (and anyone else) to play.