A lovely Canada Day to everyone back home! I still miss it, some days. I miss the cheese, the plentiful places to park, the bacon, the way people respect your personal space... but most of all I miss my friends. 50 years of Canadian life is never going to go away entirely. ❤️🫎

There are a few games (Star Citizen, mostly) which have been fully-funded by KS, but you're right in that, for most, the KS goal is a drop in the bucket. Mostly for visibility and to get the ball rolling. Yet many walk away with the idea that the goal is the entire budget... which is hardly ever so.

Since I moved to Melbourne, every morning I'm greeted by the high-pitched warbling of birds outside. Indeed, their warble has come to represent mornings, to me. I always assumed it was some exotic Australian species, but I finally looked it up and... it's the magpies. 😅

"And he does, indeed, go on." When I start a rant, there's really no stopping me, and apparently I ranted enough during my chat about AI with @woodwould.bsky.social that he was able to write an entire other article about it. 😅

How weird. I *just* rewatched the original a few days ago and idly wondered why it never got a sequel. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho10...

The third episode of the Vampire Lestat is the best one yet, wow! The showrunners are really hitting their stride with the new tone, now. Toronto doesn't deserve to be the setting for it, mind you, but otherwise I'm really excited to see how the rest of the adaptation plays out.

Finished Esoteric Ebb. Think: Fantasy Disco Elysium using legit D&D rules, where your stats (Strength, Dex, etc) are your inner voices that talk to you. Tongue-in-cheek without being goofy, enjoyable story, liked it a lot more than I thought I would at the start. Worth your time.

I am frozen and curled up on the couch under three blankets and have never seen Legally Blonde. So… here we go.

Great article on generative AI in game dev by @woodwould.bsky.social, for which he interviewed me as well as many other devs. Give it a read! Real journalism! Whoo!

Saw Disclosure Day. Went in knowing next to nothing, didn't even watch a trailer. It was... enjoyable. Felt about 20 years out of date, though, for an era where people still believed in news and not conspiracy theories. Spielberg has always been that optimistic, though, and it was still a fun watch.

Despite appearances, we had perhaps the best D&D heist game I've ever presided over. Perfect tension, interweaving of separate stories, chaotic exit - it was all *chef's kiss* (even if nobody died). www.tiktok.com/@ellalowgren...

Man, if you've read Anne Rice's books, you'll understand why the new Vampire Lestat show is SO different, stylistically, from Interview with the Vampire. They took a big swing and, for me, it connected... but I could see how someone might come into that from the first two seasons and be all WTAF. 😅

As someone who also once chided my fellow Melbournians over what they considered "cold", this is too real: www.tiktok.com/@alexandratu...

As much as I didn't care for most of Euphoria's last season, and felt like I was watching a completely different show, I have to say that I actually enjoyed the conclusion. They somehow rescued a theme out of all that, didn't pull any punches, and stuck the landing. More or less.

The moment I saw that the next God of War stars a female character (Kratos' wife, and it's not a prequel, which is awesome), I could already sense the collective manosphere rising from its hole in the ground like a bubbling turd.

Finished watching the Boroughs. Was intrigued with the first 2/3 - solid premise, nice drip-feed and creepy suspense - only to have it kind of fall apart in the last 1/3 as it turned into a different kind of show, like it was written by someone else completely, and too many things left unexplained.

Catching up on the new season of Euphoria and I'm like "what even am I watching?" It's like a completely different show. They've all moved on from high school and now it's Donnie Brasco or something. I am kinda enjoying Nate getting the everloving shit kicked out of him every episode, mind you.

The discourse around Mixtape is really something. It's like "if a game receives a good score and it wasn't made for my personal tastes, CLEARLY something is amiss!" Game doesn't look like it's made for my personal tastes, either, but it looks crazy fun. If I were a millennial, I'd be all over it.

How funny to complain about wanting a way to reduce the God Mode percentage in Hades 2 only to discover they put exactly that into the last patch. Now THAT is a fast response! 😅

I really like the God Mode in Hades 2, as it advances slowly enough it reaches an equilibrium where it becomes *just* challenging enough for your personal skill level. The only problem is that the randomness (and the trials, which are hit-and-miss with difficulty) means you'll still die sometimes.

A lovely excerpt from @charlottereber.com's book on Dragon Age 2, talking about the Writers' Pit and the writing team. I'd completely forgotten about the "Days Since Last Discussion of Cannibalism" sign. 😅 aftermath.site/boss-fight-d...

My afternoon flight got canceled, and Qantas bumped me to an early morning flight instead... in a middle seat, no less. Fine, I thought. It's just 90 min. I can endure. Yet nobody showed up for the other two seats. Entire row to myself! Is my flight karma *finally* restored? 🙏

Jaws. For many years after, I was scared of water. I feared sharks would come out of the swimming pool drains, even though I knew it was completely irrational to fear that.

My one big annoyance about this trip? Hades 2 released on consoles yesterday, which I'd been holding out for. I actually spent five whole minutes considering whether it'd be feasible to pack my PS5 and bring it with me.

Also, as a great start to this trip, I spent last night packing and fretting about every little thing only to realize just as the Uber was leaving that I'd forgotten my wallet. Could be worse, I suppose. Could have realized this upon arriving at the airport. Or Hobart. 😵‍💫

This is my first time using a boarding pass that only exists in my phone. I know, I know, but after 30-odd years of frequent flying there's something concrete and comforting about having a printed pass I can hold onto. I keep feeling like I've misplaced something. 😅

I'm heading to Hobart tomorrow to speak at Level Up Tasmania. Any suggestions regarding what I should do or see while I'm there? I hear a lot of things about Tas, but... most of them can't be true, surely.

Summerfall is looking for a 3D character artist to assist us on a new prototype by sculpting a stylised character head and hair for a prototype, based on a Metahuman model. Interested? Send me your portfolio, via DM or email [email protected]!

Saw Project Hail Mary. It's a great adaptation of the book, despite a couple of sections that they really condensed (and, even so, it was still 2 1/2 hours). A lot of fun, and the IMAX presentation was incredible. Interstellar meets E.T., according to @elieyoung.bsky.social, and I don't disagree.

There's a group of people, however, to whom "ideas" are solid gold: the tech bros themselves. That's because they haven't had a single solid idea between them for the last 20 years. In a group where inspiration simply doesn't exist, they consider it to be the only the only thing that has any value.

Honestly, the most disappointing news about the Firefly reboot that I've heard is that it takes place before the 2005 Serenity movie and not after it. I realize this is probably so Wash and maybe Book can take part, but I kinda low-key loathe prequels.

So all that buildup and “It’s time?”/“It’s time.” was for an *animated* Firefly follow up series? 🤔 I mean, I guess I watched the Critical Role shows. And Invincible. And ST:Lower Decks. And Arcane. Alright, fine. Consider me *begrudgingly* excited. Conditionally.

Notice articles out there making a meal of this, which was only meant to answer "would Ostagar have been won if Loghain didn't do what he did?" From Loghain's view, it was the correct strategy. Was it the RIGHT thing to do? Hardly. And it didn't matter to the endgame as much as he'd hoped, anyhow.

Great write-up. One thing I'll say: no matter what I think of reactivity between games in general, it's not a promise that I think can be abandoned lightly once established as a feature of a series, painful or no. www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-l...

It's here! This has been an utter joy to work on for Dragon Age 2's 15th anniversary. Huge thank you to David Gaider for taking me through how he and all of the writers managed to get this fan favourite story finished, with no time for redrafts www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-2...

I've been heads down all weekend and I finally looked at the news this morning and... gosh. 😬 Guess they should have given him that Nobel Peace Prize after all, huh?

When I first moved to Australia, I felt weird about the "no tipping" culture here. Now, after 4 years, I've done a full 180. It feels weird when I go home and am asked to "optionally" subsidize low wages and pretend it's a form of enticement for better service (even if there isn't any service).

Gaming my ADHD: starting a side project that I know I'm not truly invested in. BOOM. So much housework done. Side risk: I encounter an issue in that side project and fixing it becomes my hyper-fixation. 😑

OK, that's way too much discourse. I came here to get *away* from discourse, not post about it myself! Aarrgh. The outrage algorithm clearly has my number. 😔

Layoffs are unfortunate for everyone involved. Full stop. This mealy-mouthed thing where it'll help a company "move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently" - like they're metamorphosing into a higher state of being - who are they fooling, exactly? www.pcgamer.com/games/sports...

This came across my feed, and while it's the kind of discourse that's par for X/Twitter, I've seen variants here as well. As a gay man myself, I'll say this: I do kinda cringe at some depictions of mlm romance (like the oddly sexless teens on Heartstopper), but is it something to get *offended* at?

I wonder what the crossover is between the dudes who’ll criticize the slightest continuity error or suboptimal lighting or technical glitch in a released movie and the dudes who rave about those obviously sloppy AI clips as if they’re God’s gift to cinema based purely on their apparent potential? 🤔

A friend asked me if I really thought AI wouldn't be able to create video games, and I said no - they will, but that comes with a big asterisk. The games will all be of the one-step variety. "Do X" and no depth beyond that... enough to engross you for an hour until you realize there's nothing more.

"Bro, the games industry is cooked!" and it's always a video of some character running through an environment. Shooting enemies, maybe, or picking up hearts? Mostly running. Sure, the environment looks decent, from a distance... but this is, apparently, all they think is needed to show "potential".

Come work with us! I'll regale you with stories of Ye Olde Dayes on the studio's hangout chat while you work. 😎

Now, I love me some Dark Phoenix. It's literally one of the things I can give a talk on for 20 min at the drop of a hat. I do, however, think it's given Marvel "Dark Phoenix Syndrome", however, where any given female character has a roughly 20% chance per month of obtaining ultimate power.

Our current cultural war leads to some weird twists, such as this recent desperate need by conservatives for the Melania documentary to be a blockbuster and for someone like Kid Rock to be relevant and popular... as if their entire self-validation is on the line. It's honestly fascinating to watch.

Saw this on FB - I would say Canada probably belongs in the red, and it was absolutely the first real source of "culture shock" I experienced moving to Australia. No question.

So you know that magical tabletop map projector you see advertised on Facebook constantly? I thought what the heck. I’ll try it. Got it. Was trying to focus and the entire lens mechanism fell out in 6 pieces and I have no idea how to get them back in. Sooo… yeah. About what I expected, honestly. 😑