Recesses is part of the Steam winter sale. Get dozens of hours of 5th graders philosophizing/having existential crises about playground card games for only $2.49! And maybe my Christmas wish of 60 reviews will come true?? 🥹🥹🥹 store.steampowered.com/app/3087810/... #indiedev #indiegame #cardgame

Keep thinking about this term "pre-digested" that Kojima used to describe art that's instantly gratifying. And how it's better when people grow to love something instead. I've gravitated, as player and designer, toward the latter, but that term "pre-digested" is new and feels very strong.

Anyway, an indie game is a game that makes me go ‘oooh, that’s sick!’ and a AAA game is a game that makes me go ‘ewwww, I’ll wait for a sale.’ There’s your concrete definition, you’re welcome 🙏

"save systems should dynamically handle object IDs and automatically populate the serialized data of every object that requires save states, and then for dialogue progression it needs to-" team cherry: WRONG. 1400 hardcoded fields in PlayerData.cs

I can't believe "Arguing With a Company Over the Phone About Incorrect Charges on Your Bill" won game of the year! I thought I was the only one that even played it.

Sometimes game dev is just one checkbox five tabs deep in a file buried under seven other files that absolutely ruins your life for three days

EVO for the SNES! Literally no changes to graphics, just more evolutions/time periods please 😍

My current game development process: Step 1. Get an interesting idea. Step 2. Build out that idea for months. Step 3. Realize you need to change *one* part of the game's setting... and now you have to rewrite 50,000 lines of dialogue Step 4. 🥲 #indiedev #indiegame #horrorgames

It's almost the weekend! That means it's time to...

I'm starting to feel kind of grumpy about how some indie and AA games copy so many of the practices that harm AAA. Like, dopamine loops and such can be compelling in a good way, but when we're implementing fomo shops, daily grinds, etc just like big companies... idk it feels wrong to me.

One thing I never really thought about before doing it, is that when you're crafting the narrative for a horror game that takes place in the modern day... you have to account for cell phones existing during all the scary parts 😆 #indiedev #indiegame #horrorgames

my hot take on video games is that they don't need to (and shouldn't) always strive to be "fun". it's ok for games to have some friction and evoke negative emotions. something with highs and lows is more memorable and impactful than something uniform the whole way through.

Income from my indie games over the last few years: - 2021: $0 - 2022: $0 - 2023: $0 - 2024: $0 - 2025: $31!!!! Don't let your dreams be memes, YOU CAN MAKE IT! #gamedev

game design 101

Anyone else going for the AAA to celebrate the holiday today?? 🥰 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlze...

Can we have a conversation about RNG in games? I feel like the overwhelming opinion of gamers is "RNG = bad" and the only type of skill expression is memorizing/executing patterns. Rarely do I see anyone talk about the skill expression of adapting/responding to RNG. Why? #indiedev #indiegame

Just watched Battle Royale for the first time in 20 years and... good lord has it aged like ✨🤌🌟 the finest wine 🌟🤌✨

Other games: The free demo has one map, one character, un-installs itself after 15 minutes, and we hate you for playing it. My game: The free demo is pretty much the whole game lmao #indiedev #indiegame #cardgame

For no particular reason, if you're in the mood to play a game that has 5th graders talk about the horrors of modern society, dunk on tech-bro A.I. and team up to take down their crusty old principal tyrant, Recesses may be up your alley! store.steampowered.com/app/3087810/... #indiedev #indiegame

Working on my horror game, and thinking of having something like this for the splash screen. What do you think?😈 #indiedev #indiegame #horrorgames

Why does it feel like every game that comes out has 8,000 mechanics right off the bat and a 5-hour tutorial explaining each one of them in excruciating detail? 🥲

Static-Orb was one of the first cards put in the game! I wanted cards that could only be done digitally right off the bat, and this one uses different ability pools depending if you use it on your own card (good abilities) or the opponent's (good and bad abilities). #indiedev #indiegame #cardgame

I've always found the psychological difference interesting that new players have between Hellfang and Spikyball. They both basically do the same thing (take down *one* card, since Spikyball has the max of 9 power), but new players love Hellfang and hate Spikyball 😆 #indiedev #indiegame #cardgame

Talking about Recesses cards because way too much thought went into their design😆 Peptalker is everybody's favorite card at first. It emphasizes learning/predicting type-matchups and then, in the mid-game, you realize it's not really worth a slot anymore and drop it. A great training wheels card!

Thinking about making videos like "THE SECRET MEANING IN [book/movie/game title] THAT EVERYONE MISSED!!" but it's just the obvious themes/allegories that the author fully intended.

Okay fellow millennials...

Love it when you've been trying to figure out how to connect two seemingly unconnectable story threads in your game for weeks... then you just sit down one night and *BAM!* your brain is like oh, just use this perfect idea 😆 #indiedev #indiegame

"How my game made 10k wishlists in 1 week" well my game made 2 wishlists last week and one of them was my best friend and I'm very happy with it

i keep getting into creative fields because stuff pops into my head and it wont leave me alone until it is out in the world i honestly dont care about making money from it, i just want to be able to rest

Moi?

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.

I like Stephen King’s short story “The Jaunt” a lot, but I think it ought to be classed as a novella really. It’s longer than you think.

I just noticed that Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass - one of the best indie JRPGs I've ever played - is JUST shy of 500 reviews and the Overwhelmingly Positive rating. We should make that happen. One of the best Earthbound-inspired games I've played while having its own, very strong identity.

@quest64official.bsky.social I saw during a stream of my game today that I misspelled "brain" as "brian" 😆 I think your posts have subconsciously influenced me. I was going to patch it... but maybe it's better this way?? www.twitch.tv/comfybasilis...

Welcome to 26 o'clock. 🔴 GOING LIVE - viewer request day! playin Recesses, a card game adventure twitch.tv/comfybasilisk

free game design: when the game first starts, begin ticking down a timer. give it like 20 hours and label it "judgement" or something. leave it as a small part of the UI at all times. it doesn't even have to do anything

Has *anybody* ever typed the words "besdies" or "charatcer" right on the first try?

gamedev in 2025

Tell your favorite artists you love their work

My game Recesses is only $2.49 for the Steam Autumn Sale. Give yourself an elementary-school existential crisis for 50% off!! store.steampowered.com/app/3087810/... #indiedev #indiegame #cardgame

Classic gamer emotional rollercoaster lol www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-uN... #indiedev #indiegame #gamedev

Sometimes it feels like a waste of time putting a ton of effort into a part of your game that you know not many players will even get to. But when somebody actually gets to it and it hits the exact way you wanted it to, it's so worth it 🥰 #indiedev #indiegame #gamedev

#indiedev #indiegame #gamedev

‪I love when some indie game websites have you fill out a form to submit your game for review, and one of their questions is "what is your marketing budget?" Well...I found a pretty nice quarter in the parking lot the other day. You can have that if you want?? #indiedev #indiegame #indiegamedev

Me sowing: Yes... yes! All of these character portraits and facial expression variations for the visual novel are AMAZING! Me reaping, having to actually type the portrait changes into the code after every single line of dialogue: ...ouch, my wrists🥲 #indiedev #indiegame #indiegamedev

I'm working on a horror game, and I have a very important question for anyone who's worked on one before. Is it normal to be so scared of your own assets that you don't want to open them? 🥲 #gamedev #indiedev

referring to metroidvanias as "hollowslop" to simultaneously piss off people who like metroidvanias, people who like hollow knight, people who want a better genre name for "metroidvania", people who are sick of the word slop being misused, and gradius fans who want to see more checkpoint recoveries

Reminder! There are 3 mechanics that no one is allowed to include in their games anymore: * Water level puzzles * Escort missions * Stealth sections that restart if you fail You get a warning for your 1st offense, and for the 2nd, I will come to your house and cry. Thank you! 🥲 #gamedev #indiedev