completely forgot to post this Phantom Spark commission I did a while ago, extremely neat game

Today’s @puzzmo.com crossword is an example of how puzzles express the identity of the constructor. I was so happy to see it’s the work of @loa-gunnars.bsky.social and Auđur Ákadóttir. Clues like “advanced degree of a game designer” and “surface of many games” show the personal imprint. Congrats!❤️❤️❤️

I made a crossword that’s available for just today! Celebrate Iceland National Day by trying it 😄 Also check out all of Puzzmo if you haven’t already!

The heartbreaking statement from Jonathan Joss’s husband about his death.

Had an incredible time at @amazefest.bsky.social. It was my first time and I’m encouraging all indie developers to make this their conference of choice next year over GDC.

I accidentally wrote an article yesterday about coming to terms with being trans and some of the facts I discovered in my years of research. It was originally on Facebook but I wanted to share it with my connections here.

I've taught many people new to gamedev from kids to adult, from a practical educator lens I believe the main difference people credit to kids learning faster or easier than adults is they aren't yet consciously trying to avoid temporarily looking like a beginner at something adding alt text to help

I’m seeing a lot of negative reviews on games along the lines of “this isn’t exactly what I wanted, even though it was exactly what was promised”. I can’t overstate how much more joy you will have if you allow art to unfurl in front of you, instead of demanding it be what you imagine you want.

Maybe people think the first trans person in Congress was going to get to operate like the first gay dudes that came out? Having established themselves already and gotten buddy-buddy with some Republicans, they could use their clout to advocate for gay rights

So proud of this bunch. Congratulations!! 🎉 ❤️❤️❤️

😬

Got a notification on my phone that my flight was about to board and suddenly all the bad feelings of cancelling my GDC trip hit me. I had somehow packaged them neatly away as a normal thing, but after all the convos I’ve had this week I finally realized I’m in the right to be pissed/sad about it.

I had to cancel GDC plans this year along with many other game devs. It’s surreal that the US just isn’t safe enough anymore.

Hyun Sook and I have officially canceled our 4 month trip to the US. We have planned this trip for years, I was about to announce events across the country, and Hyun Sook resigned from the job she loved and held for a decade so she'd be available. But the US is no longer a safe place to travel.

To me, "tuning" describes the tweaking of numbers and other design dials to create the desired game dynamics. And it feels like fully 50% of my job as a game designer. It just feels so critical. I've had prototypes where the system itself appeared to be a failure but the issue was actually tuning.

Maybe the title is clickbait but I think Leap Year, Vampire Survivors, etc. are far from "about rectangles". IMO it's far from clear that scaling up leads to better games, if anything just the opposite. SokPop, Punkcake, and the Minit crew are the model for indies to follow; real, *special* games.

a good game can turn into a great game if it sucks a little bit in an interesting way

Cannot stop thinking about how Octavia Butler wrote a book in 1993 about climate change. It opens with deadly fires in LA in 2025. In the story, a fascist President has just won office with the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." She was a modern day Nostradamus. If only we'd listened.

*loading a pistol and reopening netscape navigator* net's haunted

Musk’s wealth in 2012: $2 Billion Musk’s wealth in 2024: $447 Billion Bezos’s wealth in 2012: $18 Billion Bezos’s wealth in 2024: $249 Billion Zuckerberg’s wealth in 2012: $44 Billion Zuckerberg’s wealth in 2024: $224 Billion Minimum wage in 2012: $7.25 Minimum wage in 2024: $7.25

Five years ago @torfi.bsky.social and I published Out of the Loop. The game's popularity has grown year by year (I think probably 10 million people have played it by now) and we have wanted to finally update it with more content. Today we added four new categories to the game!

20 years ago we were suing teenagers for millions of dollars because they were torrenting a single Metallica album and now billionaires are demanding the free right to every work in history, so that they can re-sell it. The law only ever serves capital.

Listen to Ann, she’s one of the smartest, most experienced people in writing for games, and she’s seen a lot.

More to say on burnout and I'm probably going to boost it a few times because folks need to hear it: Burnout is a form of brain damage. It happens when stress conditions persist until they damage our brains. It's an injury that needs to heal, not a weakness that needs to be pushed through.

I love discussing #gamedev stuff, but the conversation that is meaningful to me has replies that: - ask questions, not just statements. - respect my truth, not just straight up disagree. - suggest a shared interest in finding the truth, not just arguing for sake of it. 🙏🏼

Thread

hundreds of people contributed to qud meaningfully over the years and it wouldnt be the same without any of them. our societ worships the auture but the truth is we make it together or not at all

I’m on my fifth work trip abroad this year. That’s too many work trips in a year.

Contract work is taking me to Dortmund in Germany tomorrow. They are paying for hotel, flight and per diem. But how would you charge for each hour of work in addition to that? Is it just the hours of work on location or does any of the flight hours qualify?

After 17 years of development, Caves of 1.0 is Out NOW! Live and Drink.

Some fun Spotify wrapped stats: 86%: How many tracks artists say Spotify has demonetized on its platform. $0.004: How much the average artist makes per stream. US$114M: Spotify CEO's investment firm spending on AI military tech. $0: How much the intern who says she created Wrapped was paid.

Just spoke at the @gamemakersiceland.bsky.social Holiday Game Jame kickoff and did a theme reveal. Great to see so many new faces this year as well as returns from last year.

this is a very good videogame and it’s on sale

Ugh… we have a parliament elections today in Iceland, and it looks like the three parties I’m rooting for are each going to get 4% of votes. This means that none of them get an MP in, because a party needs 5% of votes to get in. 😭

I was talking about video game patents today. There are some big ones like the Bioware Dialogue Wheel, but have any indie gamesever gone through the cost and trouble of patenting?

In case any of my fellow creatives also needed this reminder:

6 years ago @loa-gunnars.bsky.social and I released this little party game that you can play on a single phone. Somehow people are still finding and playing it and it's more popular than ever. We're very grateful for this and are planning to release some updates and content for it soon!

I start teaching my 3 week game design course tomorrow! This will be my fifth year teaching a university course, it’s crazy how fast time passes.

Ok but for real, this is how it feels when I go out in public and try to act normal

Do I have any Boston based friends?

Gamedev friends! If anyone is going to GDC this year and still needs accommodation, I am trying to offload a very nice and nearby hotel room in Union Square that I reserved but no longer need and am trying to recoup costs so my loss can be your gain 🥲

statement

I saw someone say here the other day "don't expect your first boardgame design to be publishable." Some thoughts on why this is bad advice: 🎲✂️ 🧵👇

Finished the Balatro demo! Got a good Flush build going and bought loads of celestial packs. @torfi.bsky.social

I've been playing the Balatro demo. What an incredible game, definitely something I wished I'd designed myself.

Recently, when I have to wait somewhere, I’ve been writing board game design heuristics to pass the time. So here’s a living thread. Caveats: 1) They’ll contradict each other frequently. 2) Sometimes, they’ll be really obvious. 3) They’ll never be 100% original Let’s go! 0/?

Games that I played a lot, or had a profound effect on me as a player and a developer!

Give me your Game Dev Tips: bad advice only

Useful post from Tyler! To add to it: one of the core reasons game dev Discourse is so cursed is because it often focuses on individual projects, instead of on game making as a broader *creative practice*. The unit of analysis is so often misguided tylerglaiel.substack.com/p/make-and-r...