This must be how koopas feel when they find out Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach.

i see that people are talking about fascism and generative ai again, so what a fun time it is to read my essay about how the real labor of ai is being made invisible and how 20th century pop sci fi left us open to this scam: www.patreon.com/posts/140703...

BIG NEWS: We are no longer Eggplant. We are, simply: The Secret Lives of Games AND ALSO: We've launched the first episode of All Systems Brough, a year-long, one-a-month series exploring the work of @smestorp.bsky.social. Join us and play along! secretlives.games/all-systems-...

Without downloading any new pics describe your gender

"babies are born worshipping unknown gods" is one of the most incredible dwarf fortress bugs i have heard of. its poetry.

Wink and the Broken Robot is shipping! Digital version is on sale to celebrate (plus all my other games!) Sale here: https://itch.io/s/167109/winks-release-sale #Gamedev #IndieGames #PixelArt #videogames #gamer #gaming #gameboy #gameboygame #gameboycolor #90s #retrogames #Nintendo #NintendoGameboy

okay, update: i have had this question answered, and I am now looking to speak to game QA testers ON the record about the weirdest, silliest-sounding things they've had to do to make sure games work. the wackier the better. happy to keep folks anon if they prefer. DMs open, email/Signal in bio

This shelf is reserved for stylish platforming animals.

Girl, I am losing my mind

After an episode exploring UFO 50's metanarrative this week, we'll be doing a LIVE finale for the series next week! Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games Presents: A Year of UFO 50 Finale Eggstravaganza - LIVE! 09/17 at 5:30pm PST @ twitch.tv/eggplantshow (And after that, a final dev interview!)

We're down to the last 24 hours for the Kickstarter❗️ At 55% funded, hitting the funding goal seems out of reach, but who knows! 👀 #indiegame #videogames #indiedev #pcgaming #Steam

It’s that time again

The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.

Hooray! For all y’all new players on Switch: We’ve been doing A Year of UFO 50 since the initial launch, a weekly book club podcast, one game/episode per week. We’re almost at the end, but you should start at the start! Here’s our intro episode for the series: eggplant.show/ep-a-year-of...

Answering some important localization questions for UFO 50.

I beg your pardon. Some of us worked on Bionicle

So glad lego finally made a goth bisexual baba yaga pride set 🩷💜💙

🚨HUGE News🚨 🐸BIG HOPS is a froggy platformer with deep movement, fresh tongue-gameplay, where you use powerful veggies to grow paths forward! ✨Free demo out NOW 🎮Coming to Nintendo Switch 1 & 2 in Q4 2025 💰Our publisher dropped us, so we're KICKSTARTING (links below)

wife: how was guarding the two paths today, honey? guard: [looking away] fine wife: did something happen? guard: [tearing up] no wife: would the other guard tell me something happened?

I really love how #BluePrince makes instruction manuals a valuable in-game resource. And also makes them all unique and fun. The description of Red Rooms is perfect.

As @laurakbuzz.bsky.social has written, you can learn a lot about a game from its butts. In #kerokerocowboy by @metagamemike.bsky.social, you can "eat" enemies but can't swallow them. Accordingly, when viewed from behind, the only cheeks in sight are facial. It's diegetic indigestion.

Opened the NYT app and was delighted to see The Muppets are doing another movie.

being a game dev is knowing sometimes 10/10 is too much but 11/10 is just right

look at him go

All of our games are on sale as part of Steam's Spring Sale. Wilmot Works It Out! Flock! Hohokum! Loot Rascals! I Am Dead! Wilmot's Warehouse! Up to 60% off! Grab yourself a bargain! store.steampowered.com/developer/ho...

UFO 50 is 20% off for the #SteamSpringSale! Verified on Deck ✅ and recent winner of the Best Retro and Play with Friends (local multiplayer) DIGY Awards. 🏆 Get it here: store.steampowered.com/app/1147860/...

Eggplant Presents: A Year of UFO 50 - Caramel Caramel We're joined by Madison Karrh, @animalwell.bsky.social, and Steve Gillham to discuss game #24 - Caramel Caramel "Melon got a new camera and is going on a galactic adventure to try it out!" eggplant.show/ep-a-year-of...

There's a great gdc talk from many years ago about games of skill, games of chance, and games of labor (where it's about time invested not skill or luck). Which makes me think that maybe this all maps to Power Fantasies, Productivity Fantasies, and maybe Lottery Fantasies.

A colleague just shared, in response to the complaint that it's incredibly difficult to get work done under conditions of such high uncertainty, that navigating uncertainty IS work. Appreciating that.

May I present some ways that we might ask for our users' sex/gender on our forms in order to comply with new EOs: codepen.io/buttermilkbi...

Hey all, we've gotten a *lot* of tips since this post. Keep 'em coming. The deep-dive investigations we tend to do will often take longer to source, report, corroborate, fact-check and publish, but our reporters are hard at work following up on leads you’ve sent. Thanks for your trust in us.

There’s never a bad day to donate to @archive.org, but today seems like a particularly good day to support their work.

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

UFO 50 won a New York Game Award tonight for Best Indie Game! Extremely cool - thank you so much! 🍒 Proud of our dev team and feeling lucky to be part of it: @perryjon.bsky.social @strotchy.bsky.social @phubans.bsky.social (📸 credit) @fourbitfriday.bsky.social ...and Ojiro Fumoto!

Legitimately can't tell if this speedrun is a shitpost or if the new world record wind waker run is just also the funniest speedrun of all time

If Party House had an expansion that included guests from other UFO 50 games, who would you add to the rolodex and what would their stats be? I'll go first. I'm drafting Brazz from Hyper Condender with the ability to temporarily swap one guest's popularity and money values. #ufo50

a common thought about game design is that giving the players more choice is a good thing. I think it may be more about giving them the correct choices. eg early on based on the idea that players were a squad and should work together, we would let them choose who the first player in a round was.

There are so many thoughtful design decisions in #UFO50. While the big, conceptual design choices are pretty easy to clock, some of the smaller ones are even more impressive given the scale of the project. Really shows the team's attention to detail.

My game Overbowed is 40% off for Steam's Winter Sale! ❄️❄️❄️❄️ Overbowed is a mini-metroidvania with lots of boss fights! #indiegame #games #pixelart #SteamWinterSale #steam #metroidvania

My only critique of the absolute masterpiece that is #wilmotworksitout is Marathon Mode is missing the feature from Wilmot's Warehouse where you can view a timelapse of your playthrough. So I made my own. @rickyhaggett.bsky.social @hollowponds.bsky.social ponds.bsky.social @finjico.bsky.social

ok so if the spiky thwomps are domesticated and the flat ones are wild, what the fuck are the n64-gamecube thwomps? Mutants?

The woods are full of bouncy mushrooms and bouncy enemies. Watch your step! 🍄🦗 11 days are left for Kero Kero Cowboy's Kickstarter campaign! Help spread the word & show your support: kck.st/4fHvWUA #gameboy #gameboycolor #gbc #gbstudio #indiegame #gamedev

Eat a spicy jalapeño pepper to continuously spit hot flames, become impervious to enemy damage, and increase your movement speed for a few seconds! It's also the only way to defeat certain enemies, such as the hearty cacti 🌵 #screenshotsaturday #gameboy #gbstudio #retro #gbc #kickstarter #indiegame

It is time.

IT’S DECEMBER!!!!!

[told I’m needed to fulfill an ancient prophecy] What’s the latest possible deadline?

I have really appreciated the trend of people reposting some of their best tweets as skeets. This thread is gonna be my own little history museum as I methodically delete them from the Bad Place. First up is from January 2022 when I discovered a new #lego I never thought I'd see the day.

The purple category in yesterday’s Connections was so egregious, I reflexively said “Sure, Jan” once it was revealed.

Showcasing four locations from Fall from Space for the #GameBoy. A store in a ruined wasteland. Deep under the ocean of a water planet. Exploring an alien forest and visiting a bustling machine world metropolis. Try the demo here! – joelj.itch.io/fall-from-sp... #gbstudio #indiegame #retrogaming

It’s wild that the best games of 2024 look like this: