Please just develop the literacies and dispositions to play old games just like you can watch old movies.

I spent 45 deeply uncomfortable minutes with Baby Steps last night. It doesn’t feel good, but I think it’s great. Sometimes it’s not supposed to feel good.

I don't usually go in for complaining about new OS/chrome updates but after a day with it, I really think this whole "liquid glass" thing is a usability nightmare

Please stop using OpenTorment!!! It's only open-core! TormentLibre is the fully FOSS alternative!

Are you or someone you know skipping GDC (or considering doing so) because of worries about coming to the US/San Francisco in the current environment? If so, I want to hear from you for a piece. DM me here or kyle DOT orland AT arstechnica DOT com. Please spread the word

I hope I make something really nice again someday. It’s been almost five years since I last released a game, and it’s been over a year since I wrote anything worth publishing. Wherever that inspiration is, I hope it comes back to me.

🎂 happy 10th birthday undertale 🤍 i made you a thing www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5a6...

At this point I could (maybe should?) write an entire book about what makes this game so significant. The research process would be very, very interesting.

Happy tenth birthday to Undertale, a game that is probably still the single best representation of what I value most about this medium

Five hours in, I don't find Silksong too difficult (or, frankly, difficult at all). But I find the discussion interesting. It's hard to distill my own feelings, but: I believe games should be broadly accessible, *and* undertaking meaningful challenges and growing through them is the whole point.

We have a Steam page for our game! It's a mahjong-inspired deckbuilder with A LOT OF BIRDS! If you have a Steam account and hit the wishlist button - you will have my eternal gratitude 🙏 store.steampowered.com/app/3473440/...

First cloudy day of September in the Pacific Northwest and, like clockwork, the Twin Peaks soundtrack goes on at the local coffee shop

It's been nice to be posting a li'l bit about game design again. I really miss writing, both in general and about games in particular. I know I tend to go through these long, elliptical phases of writing/not-writing, but I hope I'm currently swinging back around to a writing phase.

Oops I meant to start Silksong and now I’m several hours into a replay of Hollow Knight instead

Important to remember that everyone involved in renaming the DoD to the Department of War is afraid to take the subway.

I feel this deep down in my bones, along with the quoted post at the top of the thread. This is an oversimplification perhaps, and I think it's tangential from what's quoted, but I have long perceived a fundamental difference in how people engage with media: do you seek enrichment? Or distraction?

Well, I think I finally got to the Malenia of Clair Obscur, aaaand I think I need to go take a walk

Vacation rental home appointments of the suburban professional class: - 3-4 layers of couch cushions - cheapest, worst coffee in bulk - empty platitudes on walls - cookie jar (unused, poss. tragic?) - written directive to squeegee shower unerringly, think about the resale value, please, Thank’s

Thinking back soberly to when we as a society decided it was okay to give Mario a gun en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshi%2...

🚨Announce! Hype!🚨 Order Automatica has a new trailer, new demo, new art, and a new publisher! OA will be published by @betterpubpro.bsky.social - they're really cool and have been helping me a lot : ) Check it all out on the steam page: store.steampowered.com/app/2105840/...

The maddening thing is that we know EXACTLY how to prevent this. Yes, kids should get vaccinated, test, stay home when sick, mask as much as possible. But even without any of that: Better ventilation and filtration in schools can MASSIVELY reduce viral spread, for all sorts of respiratory diseases.

this site is bad! it's going to fail! its user base has plateaued! it's not making any money! nobody here is smart except for me! everybody here is stupid! nobody is having any good discussions! i don't like being here! ok that's it for now. be back in 90 minutes

My hottest game-design take is that the "Nemesis System" from Shadow of Mordor, which is often described as lightning in a bottle, is actually extremely simple and not terribly interesting. It's essentially just dice rolls against weighted tables at fixed intervals with some randomness tossed in.

A long time ago, I discovered a very silly game called Room of 1000 Snakes. I thought it was genius. It’s the direct inspiration for Skeal, my most well-known game. Anyway I just saw Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time tonight and WAIT so THAT’S where Room of 1000 Snakes comes from

The only solace I can find right now is that each time my country’s lawmakers enable the murder of children, domestically and abroad, it breaks my heart even more than the last. I am relieved to feel more pain, not less. I still have my humanity.

It's almost impossible to talk about the movie Weapons without spoiling it outright, so I'll just say: Weapons is a very, very good time at the movie theater

you wouldn’t believe how many legislators were certain that rural areas were subsidizing Portland area transit when in fact STIF very much is sending money the other direction for small town veterans and seniors to catch the one bus that runs to a nearby hospital for dialysis or whatever else

At last, I’ve finished Clair Obscur 🥲

Oops! All Motifs www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7u...

The thing they don’t tell you about becoming a morning person is that you have an average of fourteen minutes of free time after work before sleep beckons

game dev is a lot like when you take your clothes out of the dryer and try to carry them all in your arms but some of them fall on the ground and then when you bend over to pick those up more fall on the ground and this repeats ad infinitum

Still thinking about Clair Obscur a lot. Especially the music. How did they put so much music in it? And it's big music, too. Large music. Long live melodrama.

I bought a book written by a TikTokker, but I don’t think this counts as a BookTok thing. I think this is just marketing

I flew back from Western Europe a couple days ago and I’m absolutely not ready to admit how much waking up at 5am agrees with me

Hey, come check out the thing I've been working on for the past year! It's nice! I know "AI" is something most (including me) are deeply skeptical of, and for good reason, but we're firmly anti-slop: we design bespoke game systems, draw our own art, read/watch/play the works we're adapting, etc.

every attempted explanation this guy gives for his decisions is total nonsense. just gobbledygook. www.scrippsnews.com/health/rfk-j...

One thing that’s cool about life is when you come back to a place that was very difficult for you and you find it’s just so effortless and affirming now, just night and day, and you’re like: huh. I guess I can change after all

We want PDX to spend its limited resources on building streets that keep us safe, that allow our kids to walk to school, that control aggressive drivers. People driving are the biggest threat to public safety in Portland. Not diverters. We need you all-in for non-drivers @mayorkwilson.bsky.social

It is distressingly easy, if you’re able-bodied like me, to find yourself going along with the widespread notion that covid is no longer a threat, that long covid is a temporary setback at worst — until you’ve seen a complex illness like long covid or ME/CFS up close. Then the notion is shattered.

I don’t know what changed, but this is what it feels like to use this website now

this is a disgrace and a national shame

Wild decision for Clair Obscur to put a Final Fantasy III-caliber, final dungeon-ass experience at the end of Act 2. There’s a whole other act in there! Chill!!

Woke up and thought: I should learn “Alicia” on piano Four minutes later: ok, gonna need at least two more hands

Clair Obscur continues to be such a delight. I’m probably halfway through and, as I get deeper in, I’m realizing it’s one of the messiest games I’ve played in a long time. I mean that as a compliment: I love messy games. Mess is a delight, especially when the core game is as brilliant as it is here.

happy almost birthday, @undertale.com

Wondering how many times someone has asked ChatGPT to summarize the plot of Eliza (the video game) rather than play it themself and despairing that it’s gotta be greater than zero

It occurs to me, on about my hundredth listen, that the Earthblade soundtrack is outrageously good radicaldreamland.bandcamp.com/album/earthb...

Pondering the wisdom of Jockington

2001: A Space Odyssey, the way Kubrick always intended

The Orioles played like the 2023–2024 Orioles today :')