Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 92, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I’ve kept my phone case on all week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I am finally smashing my way through Donkey Kong Bananza, perusing the Panama Playlists, wishing I had a yard so I had an excuse to buy Ultra Skelly, clenching my stomach at JerryRigEverything’s Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 durability test, wondering if Apple will actually make a Pro iPhone in orange, thinking about where I could put Twelve South’s PowerBug wall outlet magnetic phone charger, and listening to Wet Leg’s “Moisturizer” (while perusing the band’s incredible Windows 95-inspired website).
I also have for you: a new Elgato webcam, LG’s next portable TV, a game about being a fly, and more.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- Elgato Facecam 4K: This $199.99 webcam can record in 4K resolution and 60fps and lets you swap in 49mm lens filters and dial in your ISO, white balance, and shutter speed. It’s still a webcam, but that flexibility might make it feel a little more like a real camera.
- LG StanbyMe 2: I have legitimately considered buying a TV on wheels for my home (I think storing the TV when I’m not watching it would be very useful!), so LG’s second-generation portable display, which you can now buy, is kind of appealing to me. At $1,299.99, it’s out of my price range, but I can dream.
- Twisted Metal season 2: I never watched the first season, but the second sounds like it’s a lot closer to an actual Twisted Metal game. Maybe I’ll just skip right to this one and enjoy the ride.
- Sharge’s Retractable 3-in-1 Power Bank: This new charger with a retractable USB-C cable also has a rechargeable battery. But perhaps most importantly, it just looks so good. Useful and cool? Might have to get one.
- Seenda MOU-302 Vertical Wireless Mouse: There are two things that catch my eye about this vertical mouse: it comes in great colors and has a volume knob. I can’t figure out if it’s genius or useless, but as a vertical mouse fan, I’d like to at least try it.
- Time Flies: In this short game, you play as a fly trying to complete your bucket list before you die in a matter of seconds. It’s sillier than I’m making it sound, but by the end, I was quite moved. One of my favorite games of the year.
- Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound: Dotemu’s reimagining of classic side-scrolling Ninja Gaiden games is just awesome: the pixel art graphics are superb, the levels are creative and filled with secrets, and the combat is satisfyingly tough. I’ll have a review going up in a couple weeks, but I can highly recommend this right now.
- 8BitDo 64 Bluetooth Controller: While you wait for Analogue to finally ship the Analogue 3D — the company’s 4K Nintendo 64 — you can now buy 8BitDo’s companion controller that puts N64 buttons in a more modern controller shape and with Hall effect joysticks and triggers. The controller is compatible with the Switch 2, too.
- The Ollama app: This desktop app for macOS and Windows lets you easily run a bunch of different AI models locally on your computer — no command line required. Thanks to my former colleague Parker Ortolani for turning me on to this one.
Today, I’m featuring Kallie Plagge, who joined The Verge from Polygon as a senior copy editor earlier this year. I am very glad she’s with us — she consistently makes our work look and sound great, and she has an incredible wealth of knowledge on all things Pokémon, as you’ll see.
Here’s Kallie’s homescreen and her explanation of what’s on it.
Image: Kallie Plagge / The Verge
The phone: An iPhone 14 Pro.
The wallpaper: It’s an official Pokémon wallpaper. There’s one for each Eeveelution plus Eevee, so I’ve been swapping them out based on the season. It’s Vaporeon’s turn!
The apps: I’m big on folders, but there are a few apps I need out and easy to access — mainly the Clock app, because I am very paranoid about accidentally not setting an alarm and missing work. I also always have the NYT Games app and Threes there, plus games on rotation based on what I’m playing lately. Right now that’s mostly Umamusume, which literally means “horse girls,” and it’s all about — you guessed it — training horse girls to win races. It’s based on the anime, which I haven’t seen, but it’s a good raising game!
I also asked Kallie to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she said:
- Besides Umamusume… I’m really into crosswords and word games, as you can probably tell from the NYT Games app getting top billing on my homescreen, and I’ve been enjoying Quartiles via Apple News Plus. It gives you a grid of 20 segments of words, two to four letters each, and you have to make as many words as you can with them. It’s a different kind of puzzle than anything from The New York Times, and I’m always so satisfied when I manage to find all the words.
- I follow competitive Pokémon, and the World Championships are coming up in mid-August, so I’ve been catching up on the current meta. I’ll watch videos from players/creators like Aaron Zheng, James Baek, and Wolfe Glick to learn and get up to speed. I do play, but not well or often enough to really compete — it feels weird to say that I play competitive Pokémon casually, but that’s the best way to describe it! At the highest level, it’s an incredibly difficult and strategic game. It has both a high barrier to entry (though that’s been improving in newer games!) and a ridiculously high skill ceiling.
- I have a long list of games I really want to play (Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, more Donkey Kong Bananza), but of course I’ve done none of that. Instead I’ve been playing The Mortuary Assistant with my friend over Discord — it’s technically single-player, but we collaborate — because playing a horror game with another person is always a good time. Jury’s still out on the game itself, since in between scares you kinda have to do the same embalming tasks over and over, but we’re having fun so far!
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on The Verge, this post on Threads, and this post on Bluesky.
“Watching Foundation and Smoke and liking them pretty well.” – Paul
“I’ve been absolutely housing the YouTube shorts of Master Builder Alec, the Lego master builder in Arizona. His series “Masterbuilderizing Kid’s LEGO Models” is such an education in creativity and execution.” – Alex
“Currently playing The Drifter on PC. It’s a modern point-and-click adventure that’s got time travel elements. Not for the faint of heart but very, very good.” – BaltMatrix
“I finally got to F1, sponsored by Expensify, Shark|Ninja and Brad Pitt’s Abs. Cars go vrrrm. I was duly entertained.” – Iain
“I recently came across Folio, which bills itself as a replacement for the recently shut down Pocket. I’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks and it’s a great alternative and available cross-platform, too. Importing my Pocket history was seamless and easy. It’s still in startup mode, and there’s a few key features like keyboard shortcuts missing, but it has a lot of potential.” – Gordon
“My friends and I came across a site run by two people called Reconnect, which is like Reddit or Hacker News just for gaming blogs. The two people running it have put hundreds of gaming blogs into one place, and they run a Substack newsletter every week that does a roundup, like Installer, of some of the best articles from that week. Makes finding good articles and new bloggers really easy.” – Christian
“I’ve been reading The Convenience Store by the Sea. It follows the popular Japanese literature ‘a different chapter focusing on one person and their relationship with food’ trend but if anyone has been to Japan and been charmed by the convenience stores it’s worth checking out.” – ashleytwo
“Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Descenders, an indie mountain biking game. Everything about it feels super satisfying, whether I’m flying down a hill at 40 MPH or hitting flips and tricks off a huge jump. There’s a huge feeling of speed, but you still feel pretty vulnerable — hit a rock or land too hard, and you’ll wipe out. I’ve never been mountain biking before, but this makes me want to hit the trails.” – Cr4shMyCar
“I just rewatched all of Entourage, all at night, all while holding a sleeping baby. The show is way better than I remembered for about two seasons, and WAY worse than I remembered after that. Still: no regrets.” – David (yes, that David!)
Any fellow non-QWERTY typers that read Installer? I type using the Colemak layout. I switched to it years ago when I was dealing with some issues with my wrists and was looking for a more ergonomic layout. The first few weeks of learning it were tough, but now, it’s just how I type — even though my wrists are mostly better now (which I attribute more to things like my ergonomic keyboard and my standing desk than Colemak). Now, if I try to go back to QWERTY on a computer keyboard, I really have to think about it, but oddly, I have no issues typing with QWERTY on my phone.
Anyway, I wanted to do an informal poll of Installer readers: have you tried a non-QWERTY keyboard layout, why did you do so, and have you stuck with it? No need to share your typing speeds or anything. I just want to know a little more about how and why people type. I’ll probably share some of the answers in a future issue.
