There’s an Aztec city building game called Tlatoani. It’s in early access, but has enough meat on the bone that it’s one of my goto games.
Out of curiosity I checked Steam DB for active player numbers. I have discovered at any given point I am 10% to 25% of the given player base BY MYSELF. I am 1 of 4 people playing this game right now in the world. With the prevalence of the internet I always assume whatever weird bullshit you’re into there’s at least a thousand people talking about it; making memes outsiders could never comprehend. It’s actually novel to fly under the radar for once.
What do you do that doesn’t have a community associated with it?
I really love Japanese jazz fusion. None of my friends understand my excitement about the EWI solos, they just say it sounds like Mario Kart music lol. I’m also into Buddhism, but dont have anyone else with this interest.
Any specific recommendations? I’ve been into prog/jazz/funk for the last few years (thanks to Louis Cole’s various projects for opening that door) and I know Japan has a strong scene.
Absolutely! These are the obvious ones, maybe you already know them:
And then also some that are maybe lesser known (no particular order):
I think what I like about this genre is that it combines very catchy melodies/riffs and chord progressions with really creative jazzy solos. I have not really found much recent stuff (>2010), though. But I can recommend SOIL & Pimp Sessions. They are more recent and more traditional-jazz-oriented.
Bonus if you like light prog/math rock: Check out Elephant Gym. Spring Rain (春雨) is one of my favourite songs.
My familiarity with Japanese jazz is very limited to even the “obvious” ones are a treat.
In the interests of fair trade, here’s a scattering of what I’ve enjoyed lately. Some of it has a similar sound but there’s a lot of variance in the “jazz fusion” space and I like experimental stuff: