games are about the poetics of play and doing

the prettiest friends in the world

my friend @amilanuh.bsky.social has been making a small board game this year and it’s been such a joy seeing their vision come to life game design is about making up your own rules for making games

little terrain study thing

the secret ingredient to game design is love

going camping in the coromandel with my loved ones and my crush for new years and I simply can’t wait ☺️🌿✨

what is memory but a geography of the past

please admire this chaise lounge my friends and I are thinking of getting

this may genuinely be one of the most breathtaking moments I've ever experienced in a game, in a game simply brimming with them

despelote is making me tear up in ways I'm not even certain I have words for but maybe that's what games are for, for those moments when words alone no longer suffice

meri kirihimete kaitākaro☺️🌿✨

Changing of seasons.

simply adored how critical this piece is artificial intelligence is at heart about the fantasy of slavery, without the woes of ever mistaking them as human, and I see it all the time in how willingly friends embrace it

spent the weekend celebrating an early Christmas with my found family and I’m still blushing about it ☺️

until with bird song breaks the dawn and I give myself over to you once more

so moved by this writing what a truly intimate and real bit of critical writing, my adoration of Tolkien has only grown even more through it

I regret to inform you I’ve begun watching For All Mankind, and it’s all my feral little heart can think about

- you've got to learn to move like a forest, straight for the sun thousands of times over, every limb yearning - šo i dropped my phone on my face whatever it's not embarrassing i'm an entire forest reaching skyward no- i don't know what that means but this is part of it, even if it hurts right now.

simply adored this piece by @leena.reuben.games all about the fascism of nostalgia, and how much of modern politics is driven by bureaucrats erasing the present to fabricate their own fantasies of an unbegotten past

designing a small interface

“We don’t have to be kind, anymore” is a sentiment that seems to be manifesting explicitly and implicitly all over the place. An alarming number of people seem to be relishing the opportunity.

simply adore this piece it’s so surreal watching this unfold while running a poetry space, watching people genuinely struggle to reach for any kind of honesty or personal vulnerability in their writing

my new year’s resolution is to dunk more pastries in my coffee

corporations have no issue with artificial intelligence because they already see people as tools to be exploited at any cost

momo — michael ende

I’m so relieved that we’re getting new places for critical games writing there’s truly nothing more joyous than getting to read a new Donlan piece over my morning coffee

so come now we the burning the summer blush brigade our banners heralding the dying light divine

nothing more joyous in the world than a ripe peach

simply adored our national ballet’s rendition of the nutcracker

I’ve seen such unimaginable bloodlust and heartbreak and cruelty against the Palestinians these last few years that I’m not sure I need games to indulge in even more of these kinds of violent fantasies

the secret to happiness is getting pleasantly slushed on an open tab that someone else is paying for while salaciously gossiping with your best friend, and then getting fried buttermilk chicken burgers on the way home

I wish we treated our online social spaces like libraries, something supported by our government that’s openly made for the people by the people

one massive concern (amongst innumerable others) with age-regulating online social spaces is that the only folk who will be able to securely abide by these restrictions are mass corporations

just been asked to play against a grandmaster in early January

simply adore this piece on Horses, and why it in particular has become such a catalyst for the moment we’re in alongside how ivory-tower academics such as Bogost persistently embrace a particular kind of naval-gazing fascism to justify their own world views

it’s been so inspiring watching this game come together over the last few years it’s so rare that we get a game that captures Aotearoa with so much heart and aroha, and I simply can’t wait to snuggle up at my computer and take to the skies! 🌿✨

designing a small interface (wobble wobble)

it turns out the secret to happiness is flirting with all your friends and entangling yourself in any number of small playful courtships

simply adore this time of summer

realising my small game is going to require a highly-modular custom-made interface system (yay)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film have as fine a control over tone and pacing and feeling as Wake Up Dead Man Rian Johnson is playing with live rounds, and one moment in particular left me feeling completely breathless

There's something really amusing about seeing the wonderful stylization of Breath of the Wild and then seeing rips of the actual terrain textures and they look ...like this. It's sort of encouraging in a way.

making a new video game

can't believe this is the catalyst that finally pushes me into making a mech game

demi dreams of video games

mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury

all done for now