One of the problems with speculative fiction is that unless you can accurately predict the future, your vision will always look remarkably dated by the time you reach the far-off year you've chosen. But no matter how much time passes, the indie bladed dodger The Disc Room is forever set 69 years in the future.

As RPS discovered, co-developer Jan Willem Nijman recently updated the long thread of Disc Room's design tricks with another little twist: as the year goes from 2020 to 2021, the game's intro video also goes from 2089 to 2090 so that there is no chance of someone saying, "Disc Room takes place in this year."

Yes, this is a very silly joke, but it adds another nice little trick to the game. James wrote a while back about how the disc room is cruel, but never punitive, but the thread above has a lot of little tricks on the developer's part that make the game's challenges feel fair, fun, and (through the second thread) accessible.

The contrivances happen to be a kind of cultural service, so that when the disc room turns into a far-future calendar, we can say, like in Back to the Future, "Where's my hoverboard?" and worry that whatever nightmare 2089 brings, the lack of semi-knowledgeable flying saws should not be one of those nightmares.

Nice.