There's something magical about having worked on a decades-long live project like WoW long ago. 18 years later, I can see two characters I willed into existence (because dammit SOMEONE had to explain how Tauren used the Light) as a part of the Vanguard. Look how my babies have grown~

Stay safe out there this Halloween, all you lost shades.

Okay. Baldur's Gate 3's photo mode slaps.

Great thread about playtesting that's completely accurate to my experience. Learning to observe behaviors large and small as you watch, and getting any ego the hell out of the room, is how you learn where to improve your game.

my new answer to any question re: why i made something a certain way in one of my games that you don't like

One of my favorite game mechanics that FEELS fancy but isn't is "swimming where water shouldn't be." Mechanically, swimming is just a traversal method in a defined volume with a camera effect - it doesn't have to obey gravity. But there's still a li'l magic when you swim in a suspended bubble.

I once, over a decade ago, had a team I was on split up because there were "too many vaginas on it." (There were three femme-presenting folk on it out of five. Oh no, not a majority!) This stuff still happens. Call it out when you see it. ESPECIALLY if you're a cishet dude. Help folk. Please.

Am I done baking? No! My Swedish coffee bread dough is still rising. But I'm doing an okay spread regardless:

It's not Christmas if I'm not overcommitting on baking! (Gingerbread and chocolate cookie doughs are in the fridge, peppermint bark is broken apart and done. Tomorrow is the day of YEAST where I make japanese milk bread and swedish coffee bread.)

Finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. What a rollicking good time that was. If I'd cared less about collectibles I would have had a better time, I think - the game is at its best when you're rolling with story and not looking to complete your stone dildo collection.

Every so often I am reminded of my time as an unpaid volunteer on EverQuest, where if I'd desired it, I could have not only killed just about anyone with my god-tier characters, but turned any player into an NPC-flagged entity that was killable and a little lootable. Early MMO days were buckwild.

Didn't end up posting my hot #DragonAge takes after finishing Veilguard, so here's the deal, as spoiler-free as I can make them. It's a very pretty game with a lot of wonderful performances, and absolutely zero teeth. No friction that isn't sanded away quickly.

I dig Charge Blade for the times when I'm feeling like tracking several meters at once to do a big ol' hit (that inevitably misses). It's a lot of fun to keep track and switch between its modes. But I also main Dual Blades because swords go brrrr

Got a breezy new haircut just in time for summ-- what do you mean it's the end of November

I interviewed a QA gentleman today who I had never previously spoken with, but our work histories indicate he absolutely had to deal with my associate designer crimes. "Your name looked familiar." Yessir don't worry about it I'm sure it's a coincidence let's not examine it further

Me in my echo chamber

For @adanine.bsky.social - in Ancient Times, a player named Mashara posted a parody of Eminem's "Stan" to the WoW forums and I responded as a blue poster. It has long since been lost to Blizz's several forum revamps, but guild forums live on, so here you go. Mashara's original post:

Had an intro appointment with a psychiatrist where after an hour she said I treat my own brain like a puzzle that needs solving and goddamn I have never had anyone call me out that hard so damn quick

I have been keeping an eye on Twitter (what can I say, the community manager parasite in my brain that craves social media trend observation will never die) and it is telling just how QUIET it is on my feed now. I hope folk continue to bail on the shallow husk of what once was.

I appreciate that Qunari seem hard to nail down in #DragonAge and they're redesigned every game, but my boy Adaar stopped going to the gym so hard his horns shrunk.

I grew up on these streets.

Something I keep tripping on in the new #DragonAge is one of timing: that is, the need to time your quest-related walk-and-talk convo to the timeframe it takes for the player to walk to the next place the characters will talk. It gets interrupted CONSTANTLY, even when not sprinting.

I have found the belt in #DragonAgeVeilguard that summons attack bees whenever you drink a potion. GOTY.

About 5 hours into DA: Veilguard. Beautiful game, and the combat feels decent. The ramp to choice is slow (I just hit one now) and I imagine the very linear nature of those 5 hours might make some folk bounce off - but I'm enjoying it despite the rails. My Rook is a reckless, quippy fella.

I was only able to get through character creation at lunch (what took longer, making my pretty dwarf gent or building shaders? Who can say) but when I get time, my Rook's gonna make himself everyone's problem. #DragonAgeVeilguard

Happy Halloween, nerds. Now if you'll excuse me, kid's gotta go rage a while.

Been doing interviews lately, so some thoughts about how to win over designers in job talks: When I'm talking to a potential hire, I'm sussing out how they think. When I pose a problem to them, what solutions do they propose? Do they see everything as solvable by one discipline, or is there nuance?

What got you into #Gamedev? I loved the Sierra adventure games as a kid and became aware of the names at the end as I replayed them - primarily Lori and Corey Cole as well as Christy Marx. Designing was a job! That led into doing sprite and writing work for a Quest for Glory fan game (Hero 6).

A reintroduction for all new bluesky friends! I'm Kris, enby game designer who's worked on MMOs like WoW and WildStar as well as scrappier games like Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Current project's a secret for a while. I post game opinions and dev thoughts. If you're old, yes, I'm THAT Caydiem.

I hadn't been back to Starfield since they'd done the QoL patch, so I had not realized the new breadth of expressions available to me now in photo mode. I do not know if this is an improvement.

On the subject of carrying choices forward in Dragon Age: Any game dev who has spent fifteen seconds pondering the concept knows it's a nightmare. If the choices matter, the work is exponential - you have to not only consider the ramifications of each choice, but how those choices interact.

Hello new followers! I'm slowly spinning up on posting on the reg again. I'm a salty ol' designer of MMOs and such, relieved to be out of the spotlight these days. But also in a month this feed is going to be primarily Big Dragon Age Opinions so buckle up

Prototyping features in Unreal is the act of making something that playtests well in specific circumstances - then, once the feature is greenlit and folk want to scale up, you reveal it's barely held together by one hamster tangled in a mass of blueprint wires and delay nodes

So HeroForge just updated their Pro service to allow for straight up kitbashing of up to 20 bits put wherever you please, including better custom pose tools than ever before, and it is simply too much fun to play with.

Young Associate Designer Me: Wow, we sure are locked into some weird practices because of decisions made years ago. This should've been obvious and easy! Current Lead Designer Me: Hey, no one's established these processes and pipelines yet! ...oh. Oh no.

@ozone.birb.house Game dev here who's gonna be brushing the dust off this account!

@gamedevlist.bsky.social Please add me to the list, you big beautiful list you.

Obligatory "I've arrived" post, overdue. Time to talk about game dev things again.