Officially backing out of Develop next week unfortunately. The heatwave has flared up a cornucopia of chronic illnesses and I'm just not in the right physical or mental shape to trek 4 hours on hot trains ✌️

Thrilled to see Locus's 'Year's Best' fund in a day. Reminder that our little 'Best Of' could use some pre-order love, as well. If you're able and inclined. We think it's pretty good. You might, as well. undertowpublications.com/shop/best-we...

Remains issue 5 coming very soon. Toby Whithouse, Rebecca Zahabi, Tim Lees, Aliya Whiteley, Matt Flintoff, David Vonderheide, James Sallis, and Ray Cluley. 100 colour pages with art by Richard Wagner. Available to order now. 🙂 remains.uk

The steepest discount yet on my 2025 GOTY, Look Outside. A cosmic horror RPG set in a single apartment block that sidesteps every Lovecraftian trope and tells a (highly replayable) story of retaining your humanity and kindness even when reality is falling apart and your neighbors want to eat you.

Editors want an oh-so-fun premise paired with an execution that does absolutely nothing challenging. Smooth, featureless, conventional, and expected. Something that feels like the average of every other story in every other promag. You know, precisely what an LLM does.

And what is this catnip? Was it the prose, the characters, the worldbuilding? Well, no. Upon examination, all of those were weak. No, the thing Bona mentions that made this story irresistible is...the premise. That's it. Just the premise. No wonder you all got rolled by a bot.

In one chapter of his book entitled 'The Art of the Bribe', Nigel Farage donor and convicted fraudster George Cottrell describes how politicians can be bought www.ft.com/content/7a0f...

Fuck this weather in particular

Indie studios and solo devs are constantly talking about how impossible it is for them in this climate, they also need investment, they also need the industry generally to be healthy. So this "who cares about AAA anyway?" crap I keep seeing is as clueless as it is crass.

Charlie Murder is one of the few games about a punk band to actually have real punk spirit. It's scrappy, rough, loud, dumb, frequently incoherent and carried by pure manic energy. What if River City Ransom traded its wholesome Animerican teens for pure dirtbag tattooed craft-beer-brewing weirdos

Still pretty undersold (though doing better now), Peppered is as much a joke delivery system as a platformer. The apocalypse is coming, the appointed hero is missing, and when you step up to do it instead, everyone hates you. It's a *very* branching story where failures lead to different routes.

I was harassed in the restrooms of a museum in London two weeks ago for… having short hair and loose clothing. I was with my toddler, who’s still asking about it. And a lot of signs have been swapped, from men/women to male/female. The UK isn’t just going back, it’s inventing a whole new hell.

And you can find my column on how Luna Abyss explores Hell in this month's issue of @unwinnable.com Monthly! unwinnable.bigcartel.com/product/unwi...

My review of Luna Abyss is up now on GameCritics!

"Put simply, Luna Abyss might be one of the most humanistic examinations of a kind of Hell I’ve ever seen." @unabridgedgamer.bsky.social explains what Luna Abyss has to teach us about Hell: unwinnable.com/2026/07/07/i...

Something I *do* want to say about the story of Luna Abyss, which some people have definitely caught on to, though perhaps I was too subtle in the writing of it...is that Aylin really, truly does believe that what she did for Fawkes was an act of love.

unwinnable.com/2026/07/07/i... Absolutely glorious, incisive, and almost entirely spot on analysis of the story and themes in Luna Abyss. This is the kind of thing that I live for as a writer. It's so affirming to see people really engaging with the world and story. Thank you, Elijah Beahm!

Quick one Bridget, what's two areas in which Britain punches above its weight globally? Arts and Higher education, is it? Ah well, fuck 'em.

The AI vomitorium is also going to make discoverability harder for newbie writers as editors tighten up sub processes and seek security in soliciting established voices. AI usage in the arts is an attack on us all. Just say no.

Truly dreadful decision

Count Binface is the only candidate standing against Farage. If you are local, help get out the vote!

Two MPs have been murderered in the last 10 years but Nigel Farage claims AGAIN to be the most attacked politician in modern times

Has anyone told Farage that resigning as MP and then running in the consequential by-election doesn't really stop the media from asking you, or indeed your family, questions? In fact, and this is just speculation here, it might prompt even more questions.

can't not bring this one up, a true classic

Le Guin on the idea that there is a secret to getting good at writing.

I've made a new dialogue system. It's open source, has a friendly editor, and runs on Unreal, Unity, Javascript, and Godot. You can find it at patterkit.dev And I've written too much text about it over here: medium.com/@wildwinter/...

We need a maximum working temperature. 50,000 people have already signed this petition to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Please add your name too. www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/we...

"1 billion gamers every day" is private equity talk. It's key jingling for the dragons that want to die on larger heaps of gold. And when there aren't a billion players a day it won't be the promise-makers that pay, but the remainder of the industry.

A bit of good news in the middle of all the bloodbath today: Supercell has announced a Grants program for game development studios across Africa with equity-free grants of USD $20,000–$200,000 to help them reach their next stage of growth. supercell.com/en/news/deve...

The Scottish Comics itch Bundle is now LIVE! Get 30 indie comics from a small selection of the talented creators who call Scotland home, all for only $20! All profits split between the creators, with 13% of proceeds going to PCRF to help provide urgent aid in Gaza. 🩵 BUY: itch.io/b/3727/scott...

the way americans talk about europeans is that they want to do 1950s ethnic jokes without it being weird and awkward, and guys, it is weird and awkward.

in this, the third heatwave with >30c temps this year so far, I am giving very serious thought to moving to Scotland, or at least the far north of England. I have my eyes on Aberdeen but am taking recommendations on places where summers never, or extremely rarely, get hotter than 24c

Maybe this hasn’t sunk in for anyone who should care but the NHS was birthed when the UK *literally had negative money*. The USA had razed us of every penny to pay for weapons to defend ourselves against Germany, Germany had bombed all our industrial sites. We still did it in 6 months. 6.

@unabridgedgamer.bsky.social finds out the Moon is Hell. "Luna Abyss might be one of the most humanistic examinations of a kind of Hell I’ve ever seen."

Up today at GameCritics.com, @unabridgedgamer.bsky.social covers Luna Abyss and finds that it's a singular, unmissable experience that more people should be talking about! gamecritics.com/elijah-beahm...

A bleak but compelling novel about climate change in the UK with strong characterisation and just a smidgen of hope

Listening to a bunch of Finnish writers complaining bitterly about having to decide what gender their characters are before they can be translated

This is utterly pathetic and totally hypocritical of the London Labour Party. When you abstain on human rights you are the people Archbishop Desmond Tutu criticised for taking the side of the oppressor. You should all be totally ashamed of yourselves.

There's no backwards compatibility anymore

pending heatwave conditions (in which event I'll be hiding in my darkened home like a vampire) I'll be heading to Develop from Tues to Thurs...I'll be a social tornado (chaotic, alarming to witness, liable to peter off into nothing at short notice) but do come say hi if you see me!

incredible of playstation to announce the end of physical disc production the week after they deleted all the movies you bought digitally from your account

There’s nothing new about feather-bedded columnists in nice homes in leafy streets or air-conditioned offices instructing other people to tough it out. But the class disparity in heat shielding is especially acute in Britain, where homes and public buildings are woefully unsuited to extremes.

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Cricket, warm beer and excess mortality are the markers of national character. This week's column is about the ignorance, snobbery and cruelty in the billionaire press, triggered by last week's heatwave. And about the grim condtions children now face in schools. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"Unplug your chargers".