Finished up Dispatch today. I love my team of misfits so much!

I always tell engineers: Never try to make your code reusable before you know how you'll reuse it. If you just write good/clean code, then making it reusable is trivial when the need arises. Example: interactive leaves -> interactive hair. Easy. #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

oooh, yay!

At Captial Creative Showcase, I got to play a bunch of demos from indie devs, mostly located in the Sacramento area. It's been so great to find a local dev community after moving here. Anyway, here are some of the games I played at CCS. www.onceupontheweird.com/art-dreamsca... #indiegames

Fuck AI. www.instagram.com/reel/DYKeJR_...

6/100 Match Knight! He strikes his match on his shield to ignite it for battle.

Just finished 1000xRESIST and wow, just wow. This story has sooo many layers, to the point I wouldn't know how to describe it to other people. It's beautiful.

So. A question. Whoooooo are your favourite game development funds? 👀 For funding cool games? (If it’s you that also counts)

My new game + album Asterism is out now! I made a behind the scenes of my handcrafted art to celebrate! 🚀 Please share around! If you play, a steam review would be super appreciated :D It's very hard to get seen as a small indie game and reviews do help! store.steampowered.com/app/2187450/Asterism

Watching my brother play Assassin’s Creed 2 for the first time and seeing a dude declare, “It’s me, Mario!” just sent us into hysterics.

Just watched the new Mortal Kombat. Was it kind of cheesy and ridiculous? Yes. Was it also super fun? Also yes. Was I maybe a bit buzzed and ended up shouting, “Hell, yeah, Liu Kang!!” in the middle of the theater? Absolutely.

Sam Raimi's Send Help was a good time. I enjoyed the darkly humorous thriller ride with splashes of gory horror.

where is the oral history of tom holland umbrella? there was a whole live studio audience who experienced this in real time. find the backup dancers. who tailored his lil corset? someone arranged the song rights. someone mopped up the splash pad. does rihanna even know?

I'm really looking forward to taking a whole afternoon off to play Wax Heads with a good, hot tea by my side.

My Culture Consumption for April is up, with all the books (including Gwendolyn Kiste's forthcoming In These Gilded Ghostly Hearts), movies (Ready or Not 2), shows (The Rookie), and games (1000xRESIST) andrea-blythe.beehiiv.com/p/culture-co...

Neopets recently launched the first new plot on its site since 2017. I'm so happy for my friend, Dean Ravenola, narrative and creative director on the project, and his team, who all put in incredible work to bring the plot into being. portal.neopets.com/news/apr28-t...

Haiku Hike, the game I worked on for the Unlikely Collaborators Jam, won first place in the jam! josepvalls.itch.io/haikuhike #indiegames

Haiku Hike, the game I worked on for the Unlikely Collaborators Jam, won first place in the jam! josepvalls.itch.io/haikuhike #indiegames

I did a tiny bit of writing on this!!

If you have bounced off OUTER WILDS, I beseech thee: Read @joshscherr.bsky.social's guide & give it another chance! I believe it is one of the most singular video games ever made.

'We've been a little bit too romantic about the idea that we should have employees and give people long-term job security' is an extraordinary thing for a video games CEO to say on record: aftermath.site/video-game-job...

Has any clever person out there figured out a way to have a better filter on itch . io's game jams? I would like to search for a specific length (or at least greater than x and less than y) of time. I'd also like to be able to look at jams that are farther than two months out so I can plan.

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

My essay from The Narrative Kaleidoscope is now on my blog. 1. Read it. 2. Think 'wow I wish there was a book with a 100 more cool essays about game writing'. 3. Buy a book with a 100 more cool essays about game writing (link in the post). www.narramblings.com/narramblings...

More and more I am seeing "I would never use it for anything creative but I generative AI seems fine for coding" and I wonder if people realize that coding is also a creative field and the generated code is also coming from scraped and plagiarized human code, please don't give coding a special pass

A whole new scam aimed at writers: - get an email from a writers conference asking for you as a speaker - google the conference: it's real - say 'yeah, let's do it' - the 'fee' is mentioned for the first time - you check with friends listed for the event and find out the email reply address is fake

Happy National Haiku Day! Here’s a fun little game in which you can make haikus on a hike josepvalls.itch.io/haikuhike #nationalhaikuday #haiku

I am humbled, honored, and very proud to receive this recognition from the IGDA Game Writing SIG. www.game-writing.com/posts/richar...

reminder for everyone participating in the mom game discourse that there's a mom game from small loan studio coming very soon 👀

This sort of just poured out of me yesterday, a short little game on inner thoughts. It's for the Flickgame Game Poems Jam andreablythe.itch.io/inside-my-eyes #gamepoem #indiegames

Post your favorite film from the year you turned 18

I’ve been trying to do this myself. Also reporting game announcements with favorable encouragement can mean a lot for small devs. Ive been meaning to leave a review for @pfquarta.bsky.social’s inspirational Atuel, so I’ll make sure to do that now!

“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer I’m grateful for Bonhoeffer’s wisdom.

An absolute banger from Tumblr

I mean, think about it. Have you ever actually met a real writer? And before you say “I met my favorite writer at a con”, think about it—did you see them actually WRITING, or were they just talking about a book that already exists? Because anyone can talk about a book.

Gonna hijack this hijack. Andrea is spot on, but I would also add: if you have anything published/playable, please don't hide that under a bushel.

Emily's art was fundamental to how I approached writing the stories for each character. Plus, look at them! They're so cute!

Did my first game jam!!! Going to post the game link and some sprite gifs in the replies!

Boom.

In the Seattle area this Friday and wanna do a free horror event? Come join me at 6-9pm as I do an immersive reading of Forgery! There will be coloring pencils and paint-by-numbers demons supplied. I’ll also be selling games after the reading.

I also wrote up a dev log about designing the narrative for "Haiku Hike" josepvalls.itch.io/haikuhike/de... #indiegames #haiku #narrativedesign #gameswriting

Just finished up the Unlikely Collaborators Jam with Josep Valls, @emilypearsonart.bsky.social, @ch3ckpo1nt.bsky.social, and Otter 841. Our game, "Haiku Hike," is a short adventure game about going on a hike, meeting fellow hikers, and writing haiku. josepvalls.itch.io/haikuhike

Twice today I have slammed my refrigerator door into my foot while closing it. In the same spot.

I would love to see folks #speedrun Monochrome Heights. Go ahead and skip all my narrative work (though I'm proud of it), because @pdyx.bsky.social put in considerable effort to make the game fun to play and it deserves to have more folks check it out. store.steampowered.com/app/2336210/...

CALL YOUR REP AND SENATORS 5calls.org can help

My Culture Consumption for March is up, with all the books, movies, shows, and games I enjoyed recently andrea-blythe.beehiiv.com/p/culture-co... #books #games

Legit can't wait to play this!

I'm super stoked to share the announcement trailer for VAUNTED, a narrative-rich turn-based tactics game from @lostlakegames.bsky.social. I've been having a great time writing dialog for the three main characters. www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_EW... #indiegames

How much research are you really doing for historical games? We'll be talking about narrative design, what the day-to-day responsibilities look like in research-heavy projects, and where can you apply these skills within the industry? Come join us on Discord on 4/4! discord.gg/funsmithclub...