Okay we have the actual pack art in the card opening instead of a random pack of Pokemon cards, so now I should be able to upload a video of the card opening to Steam. And yes you can click a bunch and skip through all of it. I love this screen so much, it was so fun to make.

Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time on minute details on my game. Then I watch my buddy moony start the new Pokemon game and spend 20 minutes obsessively looking at every single background poster in the game. And I'm like damn if anything I'm not spending enough time.

This morning I am reposting this art because it didn't get seen enough yesterday. I don't know why bluesky kept refusing to show it to anyone in the half dozen times I posted it. But hey, look at this pack art! Now I can put a pack screen video or gif on steam I guess.

Me considering making a trans character: Twitter: *Nazi screeching* Steam: This is woke, review bomb it Bluesky: um you aren't trans so this isn't an authentic trans experience, hire a trans writer next time for one minor character on your small indie game Actual trans people: hey awesome!

Hell yeah I am, it's mine. I'm making my next favorite game of all time. That's what indie game dev is all about baby.

Here is the Morowa dziewica/Plague Maiden but with the actual text as more actual pack art. I might change it some more though. Also I can't put the number of cards because the player can change it, and I ain't making dynamic labels just for that. #indiegamedev

I think part of why indie game publisher contracts are so horrendous is because so many indie game devs are young and fresh out of school and willing to take horrible deals to try to make things work. It ends up hurting all of us though in the end.

The pack art is mostly done, so now I can finally take out the temporary Pokemon pack art, after I put the text on. This is Morowa dziewica, aka the Plague Maiden. She is an apparition of an older woman carrying a blood soaked handkerchief, and appears before a plague befalls a town. #indiegamedev

New phone screen size is basically the same as the steam deck but taller

Making a video game is like cooking in that nobody can stop my many crimes that make experts cry. Yes I will use hummus as a pizza sauce and yes I will load my levels as one huge image with a giant map of individual pixels for collision.

This is the only acceptable reaction to hearing about 6 7. Sometimes I see people getting mad online about it and it's like..... do anything else with your time.

The most daunting thing to me with indie game dev is not the massive scope of a project, or that it takes years, or that it will most likely not make any money. It's that one day, other people will actually have to play it. Very intimidating.

One of the main issues with AI art is that it's just half assed. If I've learned one thing about art styles, it's that being "good" is way less important than just going all out in whatever your art style is. A terrible but fully embraced art style will always better than competent but half assed.

I'm torn between "these are almost all big games by indie standards" and "hey at least someone is paying attention to indie games". Probably I should err on the side of hey, any attention to indie games is good and players can expand further from there. Well some of them. I hope. Please?

Being sick for two and a half weeks has really made game dev more difficult. I mean, I've still made plenty of progress, but not as much as I wanted with the time off work and all.

All I want from Pokemon is a game where you go out and catch Pokemon to include in a gigantic zoo that you manage.

So I hear there are a bunch of new people here. Here on some tips on how this place is not Twitter: 1. Being combative will get you blocked, not engagement 2. Post anything you want, including links and swears 3. ENGAGE WITH PEOPLE to grow here, don't just advertise 4. Engagement bait doesn't work

This might be a hot take but I think video games are neat, especially how people can make their own indie games.

I broke my phone on Sunday, so I currently do not really have a phone. I ordered a new one, scheduled to be delivered today. It has now been delayed until the 30th, one day before I leave. Sure would be nice is there was any compensation for a massive delay of a critical item, but it's 2025 so no.

Now when do we form a big self published indie game dev union to collectively bargain with storefronts?

The problem with trying to debug the enemy behavior is I keep being like "well that's not right it should have done X" and then I look at the logs later and realize X wasn't even possible. I just started testing this logic and it's already smarter than me.

I started playing Class of 09 (I feel obligated to because I graduated high school in 2009 and am therefore literally the class of 09) and boy every character is very hateable so far. And hate worthy in a painfully accurate way so far. It reminds me of how much I sucked very much back then.

@fuzzforce.bsky.social @sanjuny.bsky.social @aeioufootball.bsky.social You three should make a bundle on Steam. You all made single player TCG style card games, and they all came out within 6 months of each other. All self published. I own all three already, but it's just a though.

Fellow indie game devs, I am bored. As such, I will be adding games to my wishlist on Steam. Link your Steam page, and I will wishlist it. Preferably people I like, usually interact with, but sure anyone why not. And maybe I'll buy it when it's on sale and I forget why I added it!

Card game logic is hard. I'm currently making sure to account for potential future mana from cards on the stack. If there is a crew on the stack, you want to account for its mana when figuring out what normal speed spells you can play, so you know whether to hold back instant speed spells or not.

Sure it's almost double the amount of bugs, but it can ALMOST replace a summer intern at the beginning of their internship before they learn anything! Also it doesn't learn or get better! Just think, instead of a team of coders, you could have a team of particularly bad interns!

It's kind of fun not having a working phone. No notifications to bother me. I went into Manhattan yesterday phoneless, so no GPS or anything. No staring at a screen every 30 seconds of standing still. I wish phones weren't completely necessary for modern life.

So I was trying to convince a friend to play Ghost Trick because it is a phenomenal game. I had never actually seen the trailer before, but this is an incredible trailer. And the game is even better. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OxM...

My beloved Bookoff gave me some bargains today as I start a DVD/Bluray collection. Avatar the Last Airbender complete series 9 disc Bluray set - $25 Firefly complete 4 disc DVD box set - $5 Finding and collecting physical media is so much more fun than streaming.

I guess I should probably make it so the player can't just pick the opponent's moves if they're fast enough, huh?

One of the biggest issues with foldable phones is that 95% of cases for them don't protect the most delicate part of them. The hinge is delicate and if you drop it on the hinge your screen is DONE. So the vast majority of cases don't even bother to cover the hinge. This seems pointless.

If you use generative AI for coding or writing emails or whatever, you used AI in making your game and should disclose it. It's not just if you left an art asset in there. If you used the slop machine, you used the slop machine. Coding is creativity that you're cutting corners on as well.

Oh no Clair Obscur lost the award they never should have qualified for anyway because they aren't an indie game.

Everyone makes stupid mistakes in indie game dev, so don't feel bad. For example: I am a a programmer with over a decade of experience, and the AI was just unable to tap mana because I passed the whole player object instead of the word 'Player'. Screwing up is half of programming basically.

Gotta love >50% having a very negative attitude towards gen AI in ever age bracket. Though they're talking about positive numbers, it is just overwhelmingly negative for everyone. Which good, because NOBODY WANTS THIS.

First trying the AI and I have to artificially have it wait because it makes decisions wayy too fast. Gotta slow it down a bit so the player can actually see what's going on. I did decide to have it take longer to wait the more serious the situation is though, so that's neat I think.

Is there anyone else out there making a top down 2D indie game that does NOT use tiles? I feel like I'm the only one, but also that makes perfect sense because only an idiot would try something different than what has been standard for 40 years. It's me, I'm the idiot.

Terrible news everyone: google has ended support for the Sega Dreamcast web browser. That's right, everyone browsing the web using PlanetWeb 3.0 on their Dreamcast now can no longer use Google services. Luckily there are still plenty of custom fan servers to play your Dreamcast online.

Turns out it's really easy to get me to buy indie games on my wishlist by putting them on sale. I might have only put it on the list because I like the dev, or to help out their steam numbers, but come sale time I'll be like "I don't remember this at all but it's cheap so you know, sure why not"

My cat will sit in my bare lap when he's desperate for affection, but he prefers not to. But if I put a pillow in my lap he LOVES to be there. He'll sit next to me, and as soon as a pick up a pillow, he chirps a little and then tries to play it cool while immediately jumping into my lap.

Of all the dumb things tech has pushed in the last like 20 years, the only one I kind of wish caught on kore was 3D stuff. I loved the 3D on the 3DS. I'd love to watch stuff in 3D on a 3D TV actually. Miss me with all the other shit like the metaverse and AI and NFTs and stuff though.

I hate the advice to reduce scope or avoid scope creep, because I sit here and play indie games and often I think this game could have been great but they just gave in too soon Too many games with the beginnings of great systems, because they didn't let themselves off the leash. You have to go big

1: Humble Bundle is a steaming pile of shit now. 2: These icons are all identical and clearly AI generated. Come use our slop to learn to slop so you can scam people with classes too! 3: Who needs FORTY FIVE courses to learn how to type shit into an AI prompt?

This is what I bought in the Steam winter sale. Nary a AAA game to be found. Indie games forever.

With generative AI co-opting the overall term AI, it really fucking sucks to talk about the enemy AI for your indie game now. I miss when AI meant useful machine learning things or the algorithms for video game computer opponents.

I found an amazing video store near my parents that had all kinds of strange and campy things. Something called Twin Cheeks with a butt on the cover caught my eye, and just look at this. It sounds incredible. I might need to buy it actually. I did buy paranoia agent and FLCL though.

As Larian and other studios are being dumb about AI, it's time to remind everyone to put this badge on your Steam page Since AAA and the like are just going to lie about using gen AI, it falls to us to ensure players specifically that we DO NOT use it in any way I've used it on my page for a year

"We only use the slop machine to come up with ideas" says CEO in an industry where every single employee is bursting at the seams with fresh new ideas.

Pro tip/Life hack: if you're ever going to start a response with "Wrong.", just don't. Online or offline, it makes you seem like a jackass who nobody wants to talk to. If I say something and you reply with WRONG I'm going to not listen to anything else you say and then go somewhere else.

So I've mentioned that I have a pretty great job. One perk that comes from the NBA is lots of swag. I have countless shirts and hoodies and even a pair of coats. But the best perk is that I haven't had to buy shoes since I started working there ten years ago. Here are this year's shoes I got.