In The Labyrinth of Time, entering the Ziggurat without a lantern is supposed to show a black screen. However, the developers put in the wrong filename for the black screen, so it fails to render, showing a black screen instead

I still think about the move to F2P being touted as more "accessible"- than a $20 game that never asked more of you than that. Had they ended live support after the initial seasons and just left up the custom server functions it would still be heavy in my friend rotation

to make a video game is to constantly be thinking about what elements you need to put into place to trick people into thinking this emotionally troubled computer program you built is a real video game

watching @eyepatchwolf.bsky.social's new video on fake video games and what strikes me most about the process of making fake video games is it is largely indistinguishable from the process of making real ones www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hkk...

Whenever I say this, people get Really Mad, but it's true. Same of any other art, too. You have to read the book, watch the film, see the painting, listen to the song, whatever. I'm sorry, but watching a video about it on YouTube is not enough. You have not experience the art.

One of the producers on Guilty Gear Strive said it was basically impossible to source player feedback on balance changes online because nobody had original opinions and would just parrot what the most popular content creators said and so they had to rely on data and I think about that every day.

While it's true you can't fully trust player opinions on balance for this reason, devs in charge of game tuning must also realize that data lies too. Balance isnt real. Only the perception of balance is. It's all vibes. Balance isnt a viable OR desirable goal. You want fun, variety, and retention.

Like this is less "I FEEL ENTITLED FOR YOU TO SUPPORT MY FREAK SHIT" and more me being surprised the people who make these games aren't freaks.

Today’s xkcd made me cry. In a good way. xkcd.com/3172/

the problem with modern fantasy movies is that they stopped having bizarre plot detours where the hero encounters a fucked-up practical effect creature with a crazy rule like "you can't make any sounds around this thing or it turns you into glass" that exist only to traumatize 8-year-olds

id rather someone pirate something i made, like it and share it around, than someone not engage with something i made because they're worried about 'stealing' something from me that i cant even be said to really own

and also like, if someones pirating something of urs, they probably werent gonna buy it anyway. there isnt any real tangible proof that pirating negatively impacts the income of indie creators - only main studies are marginal effects on corpos!

like, i dont pirate from indie ppl because id much rather give them my money. this doesnt mean i need to act like pirating is some inherent moral bad rather than someone who doesnt have the means to access my art doing it anyway

sorry, gonna disagree here. pirate everything ive made, and pirate everything i will ever make. you have my permission. supporting creators is good and essential (my career depends on it), but i dont think treating it as on par with stealing is productive or good for any actual moral convo here.

youtu.be/phiWRZ_VCCA fun video about an arcade genre that doesn't seem quite as well-remembered as, like, shmups. i had a little difficulty picking out the voice over from the background music but it's definitely worth it. you gotta share videos like these so they don't fly under the radar!

back in 2003 you could play "Parlor Games" with your friends over steam while in-game. it was later removed because steam's initial launch was pretty rough and never returned when the friends system was relaunched in 06

something i kind of miss watching on twitch is people throwing themselves at a very, very hard video game for like months on end until they finally beat it. or until they realize they're not having fun anymore and step back i guess. but i feel like i don't get to see that as much lately

the whole "don't play the game, just watch a video on youtube that will explain its story to you" is so disheartening because the issue of accessibility is genuinely really important but it's always just people who want to be spoon-fed nicely quantifiable information

A while ago, I asked people on bluesky to tell me the name of the movie Koyaanisqatsi without looking up the spelling. I made a musical algorithm based on the answers. I figure I owe you a demo of what it sounds like! It's for my game Rhytm Doggo: store.steampowered.com/app/4090240/...

This #ScanlineSunday is in honor of Rebecca Heinemann: 🕹️ Out of this World, Delphine/Interplay, 1992 🎮 1CHIP SNES via 🟥🟩🟦 📺 Sony BVM-20F1U Éric Chahi’s masterpiece was a breakthrough with it’s cinematic ambitions, and programming genius Burger Becky made those polygons run decently on stock SNES.

Fishes, Stereo Sound, Two Monitors, and Two Players - A fine prep-list for famously aquatic DARIUS. 📖: GAME FREAK, 1987

This is the final page of VOL. 23 which was the last hand drawn paper zine made before they became a professional game developer. Pokemon started with a fanzine staring Minky Momo playing early to mid 1980s arcade games. Fitting. archive.org/details/douj...

fun fact, if I ever had the bandwidth at Mischief, I'd absolutely hire some physics programmers to come help me make a cute little rocket building game for teens. a fun little story based game that simulates rocket physics and lets you design and build 'em

music tip: vary your sample start points for instant groove, even with a single note

hello fellow artists. google has fallen. pinterest/duckduckgo AI filters don't work. do not despair; here is a list i made of places to find reference images without having to sift through piles of worthless garbage: doodlemancy.dreamwidth.org/20757.html 🚯 #NoAI #HumanArtists #ArtistsOnBluesky

every time i see someone talk shit about motion controls i add one more arbitrary motion-based minigame to my game

Fuck out of here

Sonic CD US Metallic Madness is mostly just riffing on top of this sequence preset from Korg Wavestation

I wrote more words about how it feels to be a translator watching the games press report on AI and labor, coming from a field that's fought these battles for decades. It may look like I'm beating up on one outlet, but it's not about them; I've been trying to write this for me and my peers all year.

Letting guests know in advance that opening the shampoo 3 times, but closing it only twice, waiting thirty seconds, and then turning the bar of soap counterclockwise is how you get the towel to appear

gonna repurpose one as a towel for the Shower of Druaga

metroid ii's soundtrack is tied for best in the series

Also: Insulting to modern IF authors, as many games are written in Inform, the successor to ZIL that runs in similar Z-Machines as original Infocom games. The same TRS-80 you played Zork on 45 years ago could play a modern game using an interpreter! There’s no reason to bring ~the cloud~ into this!

I really try not to be like this but “MS has graciously ‘preserved’ one of the most documented games of all time that was released 46 years ago, made freeware 28 years ago, and are using it to promote data centers, all for a game that could run on most abacuses” is causing me psychic damage

The Zork trilogy was released as freeware in 1998 to promote Grand Inquisitor and most modern IF is written in Inform, which compiles into the successors of the original Z-Machines, so a modern game could be ran on that vintage hardware but sure let’s all give BDS target Microsoft some free press!

MAME is a triumph of open-source software but oh my god it needs another UI pass so badly

PC Gaming has the most exclusives of all the platforms, particularly when it comes to $15-$25 SHMUPS made exclusively for freaks and homosexuals.

FYI: turning off "Smart features" also turns off spell check and the promotions and social tabs. And more. In effect, a lot of traditional tools in gmail are switched off if you don't let them upload your contracts, love notes, and sad messages to your friends into their plagiarism machine.

Right. We just want funding to make cool stuff and then the ability to let people know that the cool stuff exists.

psst, no one is struggling with this - we are trying to create singular things that resonate with a huge audience or resonate hugely with a specific audience. We "struggle" with how tech and VC funding has broken almost every creative economy we have. So thanks but no thanks

vintage story is just incredible. can't stop thinking about it even long after each session. it's fighting with death stranding for space in my thoughts

far and away my most hated software trend of the last 3 years is bundling old, useful features alongside LLM horseshit i don't want and putting them all under one fucking setting. gmail now has gemini tied directly to their existing email categorization feature! can't have one without the other!

perhaps wikipedia shouldn't publish trans people's deadnames

paul wolinski's writing never fails to get me thinking knru.polin.ski/the-meanness...

We've already seen AI driving people to psychosis, but man, what happens to these people if/when the bubble pops. Not just to the economy but also, just, to these people's brains, what happens If AI stops being available or just stops being cheap/free to use

shelob's lair, mordor, and the unique cards you get for completing tracks on the boards. on the shelob's lair one, note little freak gollum in the top-left. aragorn is aged, legolas is beautiful, gimli is shellshocked, and the riders of rohan have a cute little horse on their helmets.

first batch - story tracker, moria, helm's deep, basic cards, and the playable hobbits. fatty bolger's here, in case you want to play with 5 people. some things in here make me think they must've been after the movie, then i remember how thorough tolkien was