Ace of Spades – EyeSpark Weekly (July 3, 2026)

Definitely a much slower week for me compared to the previous one, but it's fortunately still been pretty good!

I haven't brought it up yet, as I unfortunately don't have direct involvement with it this time, but this I have a speedcubing competition this weekend, and so I've mostly been practicing for that! Of course I'll start to write my actual posts about it tomorrow, but I do want to point out now that this is my 13th official competition, which is an unlucky number for some, but not really for me. However, just in case, I'll just carry an ace of spades with me during competition, for good luck, or at least to hope that everyone else DNFs /s

Also, today is July 3rd, which for some reason was consistently a pretty important day for me for a few years. Nothing big has happened for me that day since 2021, but the main thing I relate to this is that it was the day I got my Nintendo Switch and 3rd Gen iPad Pro in 2019! These were the first devices I ever picked for myself, and they both mean a lot to me in general. The Switch had given me so much entertainment over the years, even up to today, and that iPad Pro was such a legendary device that I feel lucky to have it for myself! (Even if mine is not actually in great condition, but that's a story for another time) This day always reminds me of that, and it makes me super happy.

Anyways, onto the update proper, though just like last time I don't have that much to share, probably even less, but I still have a bit!

For some usuals, I really liked Yahtzee's Semi Ramblomatic on open worlds, and Archenlander's video on Aperture Science's Borealis, which is closer to a general information video than his previous ones, but still one I really enjoyed! Also the new Game Changer episode was very fun, but I'll write a separate post about that just like last week, probably on Monday.

I also have two other recommendations that might fall under the usuals, but I'm not including for their own reasons.

Firstly, I really enjoyed last Saturday's LoadingReadyLive! All of the games were very fun, but the highlights for me were definitely the wild Truth or Bean game, and the pre-recorded Noodles Around game, which I'd seriously love to play for myself if I could. I always love LRLs when they happen, and this is one of my new favourites!

Secondly, I only just noticed that I've barely mentioned Scott the Woz here, if I have at all. He's one of my favourite creators on YouTube, and he uploaded a video on his second channel ranking the stages from previous Smash Bros games that aren't in Ultimate. I find a lot of these removed stages extremely interesting, especially the 3DS ones as I am very familiar with those, and so I really enjoyed this video!

Honestly, that's pretty much it when it comes to videos(?) Just like last week, I also watched a lot of Deltarune theory videos, but I don't exactly have any I'd like to link directly, though I will say the following without context: I can't believe he's a pirate now.

Much of the same story for games, I haven't played anything new yet, just stuff I already have. A lot of Geometry Dash, some more of Bit City and Mina the Hollower, but I also played a tad bit of Portal 2 again and I finally got all achievements with my sister's help! I'll try to play some more games next week, I really wanna start tackling my backlog again, but I'll get to that when I get to it.

I don't actually have any art to share either, but I do want to share that Joachim Barrum, the artist behind a lot of the promotional artwork for the original GoldSrc Half-Life and Counter-Strike games, just publicly shared the Photoshop files of a lot of his artwork to the Combine OverWiki, including some famous pieces of Blast Pit and Blue Shift! These are seriously so cool to see.

And that's about it! (I say that a lot, huh) I should definitely go back to practicing for the competition. I'll actually be completing in most of the events tomorrow, which I'll talk about more in its subsequent post, but I'm very excited! Also I forgot to say this earlier, but after the previous competition I got myself a small tripod for my phone which I think will work very well for recording my solves, so hopefully I'll finally be able to upload some videos of that!

Stay tuned!