In the flip drawing mode - the drawing that you have to copy gets flipped upside down. Players were having some trouble understanding it. I added this little effect to help make that a bit clearer (rather than just showing the flipped image immediately). #gamedev #indiegames

AI is so good and cool and definitely good at understanding what is true and correct. I am so glad that it is plugged into every single fucking thing that I have to interact with against my will.

There's a lot to do right now and I have no time to do any of it. The prospect of kicking the can again on NextFest feels pretty awful. But I need to make a new trailer and I need to start doing a ton of outreach. Do I wait in order to start building momentum in the winter? This shit is hard man.

BIRDBUCKS GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR #gamedev #indiegames

behold - a MACHINE #gamedev #indiegames

Another reason for doing a lot of low effort investigation posts with your content: if you aren't thinking and put a word like "shooting" in your title - youtube won't propagate it to anyone. Now I'm also taking time to censor swearing 🙃 www.youtube.com/shorts/X230D... #gamedev #indiegames

New submit juice - look at it do the thing! Look at it! It's cool! #gamedev #indiegames

Been working on upgrading the scoring machine to have a bit more juice and feel more grounded. Any input on anything in terms of how it works right now? #gamedev #indiegames

A short from the playtest we did last night for Chicken Scratch where I struggled to understand how a pair of pants could actually be a vest: www.youtube.com/shorts/QyO3s... #indiegames #gamedev

Our game got third place in the game jam! Here's a post mortem post about it, link is contained within if you wanna give it a try :) bluepinstudio.com/blog/2025-08... #indiegame #gamedev #gamejam #indiedev

Yesterday we ran a table at the Toronto Expo for Chicken Scratch! Went in with very low expectations and ended up spending 11 hours straight showing the game to people. 🤯 Lots of notes for improvements to make and got a lot of positive reception! Super rewarding experience. 😄 #gamedev

Honestly, now that you say it, totally agree. How about now? Does this seem more clear that the player is running out of time? #gamedev #indiegames

10 days later and I've got a progress update for Youtube shorts! Biggest lesson: Voiceovers are a big value adds when it comes to viewer retention. The average video I've posted this last week got around 10x more traction when I tightened up the duration and added concise narration.

People have been saying that it hasn't been clear when time is running out in Chicken Scratch. I've been working on this effect, but I'm worried it's a little too subtle. What do you think? #gamedev #indiegames

Animating the drawings in the presentation has been on my todo list for ages. Super stoked with how this is turning out so far. #gamedev #indiegames

I've been working on a clearer way of communicating scoring in Chicken Scratch. The Calcutron shows an itemized list of sources of birdbucks & penalties before it prints the money you earned on an order. #gamedev #indiegames

I'm not really sure how some of these search terms led to my youtube short. everyone come back, we're having a retrial. #gamedev

Making a thread on some notes on about a week's worth of experiments with posting shortform on Youtube for my game. Might try to keep this updated with posts in the future, we'll see! #gamedev

Progress right now is a bit slow. Lot of summer stuff going on and work is busy. Really hoping that after this week I can spend two weeks on Chicken Scratch with full focus. I think depending on how things go - I'll have a better idea of whether finishing the game this year is feasible.

Workshopping a new case type called Body where you and another player draw a person with a quality for the head and a quality for the torso. Might still need a bit of work in terms of how it works (maybe with a clearer guessing sheet) but I do think the drawings are fun. #indiegames #gamedev

You know that whole "is it a rabbit or is it a duck" illusion? We uh.. accidentally made it last night. Four of us had to work together to draw "Original Bird" and the final guesser thought it was "Vaulting Ear". One of my favourite moments from playtesting, I was dying. #gamedev #indiegames

Here's a pair of fun drawing chains from a recent playtest of Chicken Scratch. How would you go about drawing Watering Shampoo? 🤔 I tried my best and failed 😔 #indiegames #gamedev

Here's a cheeky drawing chain from last week's playtest. #indiegames #gamedev

Hidden is a new drawing mode in Chicken Scratch where a player has to copy a drawing without being able to see what they're drawing. #gamedev #indiegames

Oh hey the Steam wishlist embargo is over, I should go check what my wishlists ar-

We've revamped the presentation section so that all of the players are shown at the meeting table. Notably - you'll be able to see all of the nonsense hats that everyone purchased (including stacked hats for multiple purchases). #gamedev #indiegames

In Split drawing mode - one player draws the top of a prompt and another player draws the bottom. Behold and marvel at the majesty of the Tall Duck 🦆 #indiegames #gamedev

No big special gimmicks on this case - I just really like the expression my friend drew for this during a playtest. #indiegames #gamedev

Me with steamworks the last 4-5 days. q_q #gamedev

We just got some amazing new splash art for Chicken Scratch! Super stoked about how it turned out (: Created by the very talented: @woeart.bsky.social Check her work out! #indiegames #gamedev

I've been working on more dynamic handling for if a player disconnects from the game. It's surprisingly hard to pin down all of the ways in which things can go wrong with multiplayer 😵‍💫 #gamedev #indiegames

New video! In it I talk about MindsEye and how so much of it feels like a symptom of a wounded, post-pandemic games industry. Check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAgh...

Copy is a drawing mode in Chicken Scratch where someone has to copy someone else's drawing in a short timeframe. #gamedev #indiegames

The Weird Little Guy Games starter pack is LIVE!! For all the games that fit the vibe of weird little guy and the developers that make them! go.bsky.app/Du6YrYP #indiedev #gamedev

Motion is a drawing variant in Chicken Scratch where a player draws something, then two other players create animation frames of it performing an action. #gamedev #indiegames

Wow! Super appreciate Chicken Scratch being highlighted on this list among so many incredible games! Thanks John!

I feel bad for ruining the first drawing from this chain. There wasn't enough room to make it into a giraffe!! Okay!? 😵‍💫 #indiegames #gamedev

Here's a highlight of the Telephone drawing mode from last night's playtest. The drawing/captioning mix tends to result in some funny misunderstandings. This one ended up working out! #indiegames #gamedev

There was a 48 hour window where bluesky was sending everything I was posting everywhere all at once. That was pretty cool. But also, I think my attention span is very obliterated by that much engagement so maybe it's for the best that it stopped lol.

My favourite snag is Fading - where the lines start disappearing after a few seconds. I've made some truly terrible drawings because of it😵‍💫 #indiegames #gamedev

Guess this is a thread for my MP animations now!

So uh, is anyone looking to hire a developer with an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about #atproto and #activitypub, experience building from scratch and running a social network (@ludumdare.com), hacking on GPU drivers/network protocols/the Linux kernel, plus a couple decades as a pro gamedev? 🤷

Shrinking is one of the meanest snags in the game. After a short grace period, a part of the drawing space starts becoming undrawable. #indiegames #gamedev

WIP Bird Boss! #arachnophilia #gamedev

Added in a new snag called "Swelling" based on a suggestion from a friend. As you draw, your lines get thicker over time which might make it harder to make adjustments to your drawing. #indiegames #gamedev

Spent a few hours today on a new variant of an existing mechanic - went to test it and.. it feels like it just isn't going to make sense. Too many clunky aspects to it and not really feeling that the payoff's gonna be that good if I fix them. Probably flushing that work down the drain zzz.

There are two wolves inside of me, one that wants to go to the LCBO and another that wants to climb a mountain (in a video game). Stay tuned to find out which one wins.

Now that's some progress baybeee. Mirrored drawing mode looks like it's good to go! #gamedev #indiegames

Tbh, this is not quite what I had in mind with this whole mirrored drawing mode. 🫠 #gamedev #indiegames

This is the last of the highlights from last week's playtest session. I think what I like about the Abstract drawing mode is that it tends to yield these funny alley-oop type situations where someone creates this amazing punchline off of someone else's setup. #indiegames #gamedev