I wish that there was more room in the current game landscape for games to be moderate successes instead of either massive games or shutting down. I am a bit disappointed to see the internet dunking/memeing on this (or any) game though, if only because I know that people worked hard on it.

I have been saying for years that Castlevania has to be one of the easiest franchises to resurrect. Literally just give it to some indie studio that's capable and let them cook. In that same thought, I've also said that Evil Empire/Motion Twin is the single most obvious pick to do it.

I have genuinely tried to get generative AI to help me do things for work. But it gets so much wrong and is so confident about what it gets wrong. This is in things that it should be very good at. The best way to see that LLMs really aren't that great is to ask it about something you know about.

It's a good way of looking at it. While I do think that looking at the "video game industry" as a single thing can be useful in some places, it's not as much when you're looking at what is competing with your game for their player's time.

Support your local tournament organizers. (by inflicting unnecessary distress to the ones that are fans of Metroid like @jaxas.bsky.social)

So let me get this straight. OpenAI needs a license to Disney characters but not any of the other copyright-protected material in their dataset? What's the distinction here? Just those who have the resources to sue them? Got it. Really not helping the "copyright for big corps only" allegations.

This is from a Sonic game, allegedly. What excites me the most about these crossovers in games is the business deals that have to go on between companies to make them happen, and that says something about me.

Star Rift Saga is part of the Metroidvania Fusion Festival on Steam! Get the game for 20% off and the soundtrack for 10% off until November 10th. You can also discover other metroidvanias of all sizes during the event. store.steampowered.com/app/2158690/...

It was a fun bracket, my final set went to game 5, final round. Always a good time with @salemfighters.bsky.social.

I find this fascinating for a few reasons. It shows how games can't easily cater to both players and market speculators. Their interests in the game are directly opposed to one another. Which is a big reason why I think that crypto/blockchain has no good place in games. 🧵

One of my biggest gripes with the way that fighting games are monetized (paid game+DLC characters each year) is that the goals of the game's balance and profitability are at odds. Is the new DLC character overpowered at launch? Maybe, but the incentive is there to make it strong so that it sells.

Group that makes cool remixes purely because they love creation and the game music that inspired them says AI is antithetical to their core values because of course it is. The problem is people who want to pretend to be artists and get the credit without actually doing the work to learn the skills.

It might be because I played a lot of Hades so I was a lot more familiar with that game (and had more upgrades), but Hades II feels a lot harder. Which it could be, since this game is aimed at people who already played and beat the first one. Game is very good though.

(Epilepsy warning, probably.) I think I won Maze Mice.

Price increase for Xbox consoles in the US "due to changes in the macroeconomic environment." Look, if you're going to be vague about it, you're part of the problem. Just say what it is, tariffs being imposed by the current administration are increasing the price in the form of an import tax.🧵

Star Rift Saga is on sale for 20% off for a week long deal on Steam! You can also pick up one of the bundles on the store page for an additional discount on other items.

Mike made a pretty bold assumption here about my brain not exploding, but I do appreciate being called an indie dev daredevil. I was on Mike's podcast where I talked about the basics of what indie devs should know about the law. Give it a listen so I can do it again and talk about other topics.

Work has begun on Star Rift Saga's 1.1 content update. Here's a preview of a new robot that will appear in translocator rooms.

I came across this trailer last night and I have rarely needed a game beamed straight into my eye holes so immediately as this one. The opening made me think Star Fox, and the gameplay confirmed everything I look for out of that. Hey @chuhailabs.com, I need a release date ASAP.

Okay yeah, Kirby Air Riders seems like it's building on that prototype. It sure is Air Ride, but again. And more. Which is what fans have wanted. I have my reservations, but game looks solid. Love how many of the visual effects were seemingly pulled straight from Smash. Efficient.

Hot take: I think the original Kirby Air Ride is only alright. It's still fun, but mostly a good prototype for different ideas rather than a great game on its own merits.

I have no idea how Game Changer is going to get any wilder for their next season, but I'm excited to find out.

Rivals of Aether II is a good game. It's a platform fighter like Smash Bros but designed intentionally and has an online mode that actually works. Character designs are super cool with everyone doing some very neat tricks. It is free to try and on sale this weekend for Evo. Go try it out!

As a reminder, Star Rift Saga's launch discount ends tomorrow at 10 AM! Pick it up at a discount before then!

Calling any game that is complete and/or not receiving new updates dead or obsolete is unsustainable and dumb, but Apple codifying such a fallacy as policy is bad for the industry as a whole, but especially for small devs. Let games be complete works without the constant need for new content.

I think that the most interesting part about this thread is that is shows how different score systems can encourage very different feels for your game. The score system here creates a tension and release rather than requiring you to play your best at all times.

I feel like there should be more fanfare on the Steam interface when you release a game, but here we are.

I'll be releasing Star Rift Saga TOMORROW. I've cut together a preview of the entire soundtrack created by @vincentcolavita.bsky.social.

After some time with Mario Kart World, I think that it's a lot of fun, but flawed. However, I think that updates could be done that would make it much more fun without being huge to develop or changing the core vision for the game. Note that these changes are purely focused on offline modes.🧵

Sometimes I think about game design quirks or challenges, or think about specific game's designs or problems and I want to post them somewhere but they're too long for a thread. Maybe after I release Star Rift Saga (next week!) I'll start writing blog posts about game development and design.

Star Rift Saga releases in just two weeks. I'm both excited, and terrified. store.steampowered.com/app/2158690/...

While I wish law school taught you how to be a lawyer, practice looks so different for different lawyers, even within the same practice type, to the point where it would be hard to teach much. My law firm, Argo Law, looks and functions very differently from most law firms, and that's by design.

Been getting back into digital painting a bit so I did some (unofficial) key art for Arc, the main character of Star Rift Saga!

I've been a proponent of RCV for a while now. It's just good game design- if the players aren't playing the way you'd like them to because the game incentivizes it, change the rules of the game to encourage the player behavior you want. The "players" here are both the candidates and the voters.

Last week I searched for information on when a game was coming to consoles. Google's AI summary was a release window as though it was fact. The source was a Reddit post that speculated on when it might be based on dev's comments. Probability says this answer is fact, because facts are written down.

It turns out that billionaires do fund media passion projects, they just end up taking some degree of creative control when they do. (Pictured: Cristiano Ronaldo in SNK's COTW. SNK is majority owned by the Saudi crown prince. CR played for Al-Nassr at the time, the Saudi football club.)

Not going to lie, the Final Fantasy set in Magic sort of makes me wish I had more tolerance for RPGs. There's a lot of cool flavor and allusions here that I feel like I'm only getting a bit of.

Star Rift Saga is part of Steam Next Fest, and the demo is playable now! I've been working on this for a long time, so it's something of a relief to be so close to the finish line. Go check it out now!

The perception of cheaply made games by like 1 dude minus all the contractors that blow up hurts us because when we ask for a real budget, someone says "well I saw an article that this other game cost $60K to make and sold 1 million copies" and that ends the convo

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because Star Rift Saga is releasing *next month.* I have worked on it for a long time alone, but at the same time @merlinthewizard.bsky.social and @vincentcolavita.bsky.social (among others) were instrumental in creating the art, sound, and feel it has.

Fun fact- Steam emails you if your game has issues to be addressed, but doesn't notify you if your game has been approved. They just drop a green button on your dashboard.

I know everyone is excited at the prospect of Sakurai directing a new Kirby Air Ride, but hear me out- after that he should get to do a new Meteos on Switch 2 with mouse control. Meteos rules, and the potential here might be more exciting for me than even Air Ride.

It only took me failing Steam certification twice (each of which is like a week long wait time) because of Steam Cloud saves not being configured properly to actually break out a second computer and test the thing. It does work now, I can see the same save files on two devices!

Disney and other companies with massive IPs insist that they need to tightly control how their characters are presented, to the point of some crazy rules. Disney also allowed Epic to have Darth Vader just say whatever the AI says it should, so they really don't have a strong argument there.

Nintendo's continued insistence on not letting you map buttons in the N64 NSO app continues to baffle me, especially as it absolutely mangles games like yesterday's Killer Instinct Gold release. This is a bad layout. Some games have a custom layout that's different from the default, not this one. 🧵

The problem with gen AI isn't only that it gives incorrect information. It also does so with such confidence that if you don't know know it already you'll just believe it. It's the idiot's genius. It can be right more often than not, but when it's wrong it is dangerously confident about it.

Burgerville opened in Salem with a limited-time burger that has botanero cheese from Don Froylan creamery and tortilla strips from Don Pancho and now I'm just going to be constantly asking them to make it a permanent menu item after the 30 day opening period.

I have posted the trailer and release date for Star Rift Saga. Check it out! (Featuring music by @vincentcolavita.bsky.social) The game will be releasing on July 15. There is also a demo available now on the Steam page, because I've waited long enough and won't wait for the Steam Next Fest in June.

I'm happy that one of my top 3 favorite board game creators, @stonemaiergames.com, is among the people and groups fighting to preserve the limitations of power in our constitution. Always happy when my relatively niche interests are hopefully able to make a difference. Games and play are important.