Few bands impacted me as much, and right away, as the first time I listened to The Reds, Pinks & Purples. I love the melancholy humor that infuses the lyrics of @glenndonaldson.bsky.social’s songs and his interview with Brooklyn Vegan is a fantastic listen www.brooklynvegan.com/the-reds-pin...

We interviewed Nic Tringali, the creator of Amberspire, a dice-based indie city builder 🐦‍🔥 #indiedev yt: youtu.be/FPI4JOZA8qw?... audio: indiegamegarden.transistor.fm/15

Few bands impacted me as much, and right away, as the first time I listened to The Reds, Pinks & Purples. I love the melancholy humor that infuses the lyrics of @glenndonaldson.bsky.social’s songs and his interview with Brooklyn Vegan is a fantastic listen www.brooklynvegan.com/the-reds-pin...

“…this game seeks to emulate the experience of books like Nabokov’s Pale Fire, books that make you work and play in such a way that blur the lines between fiction and reality, books that force to work and play with language.” This solo game looks *awesome* backwards-tabletop.itch.io/spine

AI is, fundamentally, a mimetic crisis. It has a two-fold attack: it turns everything into indistinguishable copies so that individual achievement becomes imperceptible and it makes individual work imperceptible through its homogenized, copy-like output. It is monstrous doubles all the way down.

It’s a Grappelli/Grisman and pancakes morning here. (Bob Wills was the pre-cake coffee warmup soundtrack)

I, for one, will sleep easier knowing Michael will get medieval on your ass for conflating historical terms and periods.

I submit to you that these are functionally equivalent.

Coast Watchers at home: December 1942 Situation, an interesting Japanese Mission and Asset draw -- all Warship Operations and the Admiral "dream team" of Mikawa & Tanaka ...

I’ve sung this design’s praises before and if you know Volko, you know he has found the secret capturing of lightning in a bottle. Coast Watchers is an innovative design on a novel topic that demands attention if you are a wargamer or not. Preorder now for a discount www.gmtgames.com/p-1102-coast...

The End of History was supposed to be more exciting but, instead, it was replaced with the ‘Never-ending Crisis.’ It’s no wonder that AI is being pushed so hard as it is the perfect tool to both perpetuate crisis and suggest you can ‘manage’ crisis at an atomized, individual level.

Had a really excellent debrief on the Grizzled with my 10th graders, trying out more explicitly using my Defensible Models standard as an actual guide for debrief. Wrote a very quick post for now for teachers to use debriefing historical games in their classes. gamingthepast.net/2026/05/06/d...

Thanks to the prevalence of brute-force-word-predictors, all your jargon are belong to us.

🌖 Amberspire is OUT NOW! 🌇 A dice driven science fantasy city builder. Grow your city atop a mausoleum moon, interact with strange weather and ecology, gain influence to make deals with powerful off-world factions, experience the history of a future city. PC, Mac, Steam Deck s.team/a/3350750

big thing I wanna see tomorrow as people play: - screenshots of your cities - fanart of things we only describe: coral monarch, lantern pod, L-Station, the entombed sovereign, etc

Amberspire, our dice driven science fantasy city builder, will release MAY 6! Roll dice, grow a city, forge alliances, interact with an ecology, and read a history of the future. PC, Mac, Steam Deck - May 6! s.team/a/3350750

i cohost this podcast so i decided to commandeer this month to be about amberspire, so we talk with Holly about writing, history, and games of all kinds. if you want a quick hit of what we're doing with amberspire, check it out!

This month on PAPER LABYRINTHS, we talk with Dr Holly Nielsen @hollynielsen.bsky.social about her work on Amberspire, games in historical context, the Whiggish nature of skill trees, and narrative plausible deniability. sites.libsyn.com/568595/site/...

30 years ago Richard Garfield released the game he considers his masterpiece. invented to fix all the problems he saw in magic the gathering, a game he pitched in a moment of panic when robo rally got turned down. still the best game ever made

Folks you do Not Gave to give it to Hegel when there is a whole John Dewey who made journalism a cornerstone of democracy as a way of life WITHOUT the eternal racism of being.

my series THE HISTORY OF CHARGING THE MOUND is about the history of charging the mound. here's the first episode, now free to watch on youtube

Mackenzie’s post is about teaching DH to undergrads at a SLAC but I think it capture what it feels to teach anything anywhere right now.

My book Military Revolution and the Thirty Years War (2023) looks at four military institutions - feudal cavalry services, militias, regular armies, and war commissariats - and investigates how they evolved, mutated, stagnated, or withered in 1618-1648. Open access at hup.fi/books/m/10.3...

The development and evolution of US proposals to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I via the work of area experts enlisted by President Wilson to serve on his secretive proto-think tank called ‘The Inquiry.’

Just some light reading during my lunch break.

Spent some time today with @volko.bsky.social’s Coast Watchers, published by @gmtgames.bsky.social. This has all of Volko’s trademarks but some new twists, hidden info, full solitaire support, and beautiful production. Preorder here with a discount: www.gmtgames.com/p-1102-coast...

Sage life advice on the shopping bag included with my 4-year old’s outdoor play-kitchen built last night. Simple and not simple indeed.

Just put in a CSU bookstore textbook order to use Maurice Suckling's (@writegameread.bsky.social) Paper Time Machines in my Fall 2026 International Relations Game Design course. Game on! www.routledge.com/Paper-Time-M...

There is absolutely a modern retelling of Gogol’s ‘Dead Souls’ waiting here to break out.

Taste in music is a signature signpost for subjectivity in our capitalist system, but only if it feels ‘authentic’ because authenticity is a coping mechanism for the mimetic sameness imposed by capital. Threatening that authenticity unleashes violent potentials embedded in mimetic acts à la Girard.

Taste in music is a signature signpost for subjectivity in our capitalist system, but only if it feels ‘authentic’ because authenticity is a coping mechanism for the mimetic sameness imposed by capital. Threatening that authenticity unleashes violent potentials embedded in mimetic acts à la Girard.

30 years ago today, Principal Skinner purchased fast food to disguise as his own cooking at an unforgettable luncheon with Superintendent Chalmers. #TheSimpsons episode “22 Short Films About Springfield” first aired April 14, 1996.

Don’t Look Up (2021) or, alternatively, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

I’m making an order for strategy games and historical war games for some research I’m doing. What recommendations do people have for interesting stuff? (deep cuts appreciated) (image for attraction)

Very excited to be hosting @ckunzelman.bsky.social at Seattle U next month. Stop by if you're in the area!

I think my favorite part of “AI” being crammed into everything is that recommendations for how to “better write” my emails in Gmail come up before it tells me if I misspelled a word (if it does at all!) and, honestly, that is the perfect metaphor for “AI” in general.

Here's the link to the free pdf of my new book The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet. Access is so important and I'm grateful that the press is platforming it as one file that is easy to download. www.upress.umn.edu/978081669906...

First student prototypes of the year! From civilian resilience to evacuation to Klaipėda Revolt of 1923. A great start, looking forward to see how they develop in the coming months.

Getting inevitably closer to the US Government announcing that interest in AI is ‘too big to fail’ and all these grossly insolvent companies will be bailed out by taxpayer money.

REALIS IS LIVE! After 5 years of development, countless hours of playtesting, and invaluable ashcan feedback, the hardcover edition of @austinwalker.bsky.social's debut TTRPG Realis is now funding on Kickstarter April 1-30. Learn more & back the campaign today at www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...!

I got to contribute some art for this! Incredible to be alongside so many talented artists and so much amazing writing. No prizes for guessing which class I got to illustrate here

Duelist, class illustration for Realis. Check out the kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...

frodo: the burden of The Ring is so heavy, sam. and it plays tricks on me. it twists things until they’re unrecognizable, makes me see things that aren’t there sam (pokémon voice): samwise gamgee

TWO DAYS. Give the page a follow if you wanna make sure you don’t miss it!

I can't get behind the idea that art is for nerds/snobs, because making & engaging with some kind of art is something all humans do: be it films, books, chairs, sandwiches, clothes, sex, jokes board games are a part of this; the impulse to treat them as somehow different is nuts

As a critic I chafe at the idea that you shouldn’t write about certain pieces of media on ethical grounds. I believe that to understand the ways in which these objects are morally and objectionable, as a you HAVE TO engage with them, especially when it’s as pervasive as Potter.

A new favorite is Twisted Teen’s latest album, *blame the clown* - it has an infectious, earnest energy in the performance and the songwriting is great. Standout tracks include Wild Connection, 100 bill is gone!, peekaboo hand, who could it be?, and white hot coal cpnpc.bandcamp.com/album/blame-...