Assuming there isn’t more to this than we know, it is indeed very embarrassing to see an industry obsessed with being taken seriously as an art form self censor in this way. You need the grit if you want the pearl, dweebs. No amount of trotting out auteur film directors on stage offsets that need

If I see just another coworker unable to explain a line of code in their pull request beyond "an AI told me to do it" I will go on a rampage

I see a lot of terrible takes even in my feed: that duplicated data wasn't an accident/'there for no reason'. It's there to be quickly accessible by mechanical disks. Removing it means the loading times will increase (not as big a deal on SSDs). Optimization is always a tradeoff: space versus speed.

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR Hint: it's not The Fireseeker, Steam releases or the RPG 😅

Folks have made a lot of petty excuses for hating Epic Game Store over the years. I always roll my eyes at gamers arguing that Steam should be the "one store to rule them all". But this is a legitimate reason to never use Epic Game Store ever again.

Let me give some insight on this, as a producer in the dub industry who worked with major streamers, who's witnessed first-hand where this push for AI is coming from. tl;dr: Only CEOs want this. Tell them how much you hate it. Be loud, email, call, @, post. You will kill this. 🧵⬇️

Check out kkairos's devlog and you may even catch a glimpse of my current project among many other cool WIPs

I dislike the term “Best Practices.” I understand why folks ask for them, but they don’t exist. Think about the inverse: If there were best practices that would always work well, then all companies would be using them to always ship successful products. They don’t. They all fail sometimes.

That's the attitude and energy I want to see from art directors. Sadly, I've seen too many become complete AI chills which makes NO SENSE to me

What a great headline

i take frenzy damage every time i see someone go "well i just use it for the boring stuff". what are you TALKING about? if it's boring or unimportant, why are you putting it in? NPC dialogue is fertile ground for worldbuilding, creating verisimilitude, conveying important information, and hijinks!!

🤔

Hot take: while "metroidbrainia" is a ridiculous genre name, none of the suggested alternatives (like "knowledge-gated games") evoke the requirement that your knowledge must change the way you move through the world. Your knowledge can't just be a key, it has to also be a player ability!

OMG I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in Tokyo listening to two AI salespersons talk way too loud about which game companies "have their shit together", aka which ones are buying into AI. Anyway, good on GameFreak for "definitely not having their shit together" ♥️

It looks more like a blend of Lord of the Rings and Percy Jackson than Legends of Zelda. But to be fair, I don't think it's possible to capture the Zelda vibe with live action.

Today, Aereven Advance finally dethroned The Lightkeeper as my most downloaded game on itch. This is significant to me for a number of reasons 🧵

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

Over-tutorializing is not always about short attention spans but often because AAA productions treat feedback from closed-doors playtests (which do *not* reflect normal play conditions) as mandatory notes to be addressed

Like I don't know how people simultaneously hold "we're seeing a massive boom not just in hardcore action and horror games that explain nothing, but simultaneously a heavily viral boom in barely parseable Roblox slop" and "but the kids! They just can't figure things out!" in their heads? Come on now

Oh no Not anOther M, please www.eurogamer.net/metroid-prim...

OMG I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in Tokyo listening to two AI salespersons talk way too loud about which game companies "have their shit together", aka which ones are buying into AI. Anyway, good on GameFreak for "definitely not having their shit together" ♥️

"GabeCube" is gonna stick, isn't it?

We don’t use generative AI at Strange Scaffold and I can confirm that a *lot* of other studios are not—whether indie or AAA. Get outta here with this normalization bullshit.

Google's incompetence cannot be overstated. They pushed a mandatory Android update that breaks Google Maps on a Pixel phone. They control every link of this chain but somehow can't guarantee that basic buttons are clickable! Amateur hour...

You know that kind review you left for an indie game on itch? The creator read it and it meant the world to them. And they will go on to make more cool stuff because you took the time to say something positive. Being nice is cool. Keep it up.

Game design is simple, actually. Except when it isn't. Here are the 12 things you need to know.

I can't remember if I ever posted this complete map of Legends of Aereven: Lunar Wake, my first #zeldalike. I've always loved finding those kinds of maps in the walkthrough magazines

it's mind boggling how badly managed and communicated this entire thing has been. the owner of Bitmap Books and this random contract writer decide to donate 100% of his royalties because he said some dumb shit. then they sleep on it, change their minds, and blame wokeism and being dragged online.

Dear Clockmaker version 1.1 is now available! It adds a 3D map (Metroid Prime style) and a brand new ability to dive underwater. Plus a lot of polish and a few bugfixes. Perfect time to check the game out ;) dreamnoid.itch.io/dear-clockma... #metroidvania #indiegame

For a level with the word "dire" appearing two times in its name, "Dire Dire Docks" sure has chill, cosy music. I've got the Mario Karts World remix stuck in my head for two days now

It's truly insane that it's legal to go "I'm going to spend $50 billion dollars to buy this company. Do I have $50 billion dollars? No, the company I'm buying is going to take out a big loan"

Earlier today I went on a bit of a rant against Ubuntu's UX but it was actually for a good cause as Distant Paradise now has a native Linux build for you to enjoy: dreamnoid.itch.io/distant-para... #gamedev #indiegame #linux #metroidvania

I just installed Ubuntu 24 LTS on a VM and the file explorer doesn't give you any command to create a new file. You can apparently go to a special "Templates" folder to create presets you want to show there (though you still need to create the file through an app first) and this is just baffling

The vision deck for the new GDC is confounding. I don't know who any of this is for, but it's certainly not game developers eager to learn. ubm.ent.box.com/v/GDC26-FoG-...

Wait, Ryushiki07 wrote Silent Hill f? How come I'm just learning that? It wasn't mentioned in any of the trailers I saw... It's like announcing P.T. without any mention of Hideo Kojima

I took some time today to invest in the UX of my tools. Most behavior is scripted using deeply nested objects but it wasn't very readable before. Better now! #gamedev #customengine

Dear Clockmaker is out! It's my first complete 3D action-adventure game, a white whale I've been chasing since 1998. It's a short (1~2h long) #indiegame #metroidvania adventure through an interconnected world and it's *free*, so check it out: dreamnoid.itch.io/dear-clockma...

Every artist I’ve ever known has this itch to create that won’t go away until they create. They have to do it. It’s why I know the “finally, someone like me can make art” AI users are full of shit. What they really mean is “finally, a way to get social media likes without hard work”.

The reason? Game development regularly mistakes 'change' for 'iteration'. Iteration is a constructive process of development where ideas develop and refine over time. In game development, far too often the process is not iteration, but wholesale change, often without notice. 3/9

Dear Clockmaker is out! It's my first complete 3D action-adventure game, a white whale I've been chasing since 1998. It's a short (1~2h long) #indiegame #metroidvania adventure through an interconnected world and it's *free*, so check it out: dreamnoid.itch.io/dear-clockma...

One last batch of screenshots before tomorrow's release? "Dear Clockmaker" is a big breakthrough for me! Very proud of that one and it was a lot of fun to make #gamedev #indiegame #metroidvania

Always happy to see a new Mario Tennis announced but it's a bittersweet feeling as it also means no chance of a Golden Sun revival anytime soon

I was really hoping someone would be like "You're doing it wrong! You don't have to close Unreal every time you pull if you simply [do this]!" Seems like it's actually unavoidable...

Every line of code must be maintained. Someone who pushes 10k LOC every day is a liability. But then again, I guess "10x engineer" always stood for "10x the pain in the ass for everyone else"

I may have already posted a previous version of my goals for my custom game tech, but here's the latest. It's not obvious to me how to hit all those points at once, if it's even possible #gamedev

It would also be cool if you didn't need to close and reopen Unreal Editor every time you git pull files 🥲

I think that if you are trying to understand the Anthropic book settlement, and you are not doing it in light of the (extremely) failed Google book settlement from 2011, you will never be able to understand what is happening.

Updating my pinned thread with Distant Paradise, my first (and last?) game playable directly in your web browser:

I'm so sad that I have a small, internet-connected computer in my pocket at all times and I can't do shit with it