I've been promoting our next DMV tabletop game event, but this morning it feels wrong to post without comment. 🌸 Local communities belong to a place, and our place contains Washington, DC. Many game designers are federal employees or contractors by day. During a government shutdown, many of us 1/▶️

My indie video game Flocking Hell is now on sale! Defend your pasture from the invading demon legion. Now available for -30% on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3236280/... Also check out this excellent guide from mondsemmel: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/...

Endless RPG: Untold Tales, by my friend Kezarus, is now on sale! The demo is also available. Go check it out 🥳 #Roleplaying #TurnBased #IndieGame

It's time again for GodotStream Thursday: www.twitch.tv/vested404 I play a different indie game made with Godot every week. This week I'm looking at Flocking Hell store.steampowered.com/app/3236280/ by @sextantstudios.bsky.social Stream will start around 5:00 PST.

Anddddddddddd we're off to the playtesters! This latest patch is mostly bug fixes + quality of life changes, so hopefully I didn't break anything 😅 #IndieDev #GameDev #IndieGame

Patch almost done. I haven't touched the code in a couple of months, so I was pleasantly surprised to find my deployment checklist in a very prominent spot! Well done, past Elli x2 #Programming #IndieDev #GameDev

Four cards in Flocking Hell use a hack where they skip the game manager and go straight to the campaign. This led to an exploit where players can cheat out resources by playing the card, saving, then loading the game 😬 Fixing this with proper access controls ... #Programming #GameDev #IndieDev

Getting back to the Flocking Hell codebase after a couple of months hiatus to develop the next patch. It's surprisingly accessible and clean. Well done, past Elli! #Programming #Godot #IndieDev #GameDev

Player informed me of a really weird bug where current level directly updates the campaign (= the save file), allowing players to cheat by exiting the game. Found the offending code ... # HACK: This REALLY should be managed locally instead of calling campaign. 🤦‍♀️ #GameDev #IndieDev #Programming

Why Colbert's cancellation marks a dangerous new stage for the culture at large

Gogogo! Check out Sunken Stones, a #TurnBased #Strategy #IndieGame where you recruit your pirate crew and deploy them to defeat monsters and collect treasure.

If you like Flocking Hell, I strongly recommend Sunken Stone from my friend @spritewrench.com: store.steampowered.com/app/2601810/... #Strategy #IndieGame where you place your pirate crew on a 5x5 grid in order to defeat monsters and collect treasure. Hits the same deep + whimsical vibes as FH ^.^

Gahhhhh helpppppppppppppppppppppppppppp #RetroGames #IndieGame #GameDev #IndieDev #Godot

Oops. Gravity. #IndieDev #GameDev #RetroGames #IndieGames #Godot

Talking to a colleague about how #IndieGame devs are not competing with *each other*. We're not even competing with AAA. We're competing with YouTube ... and Netflix ... and other effectively free forms of entertainment. The more #IndieDev work together, the higher we rise together! #GameDev

Step 1: Recreate classic #retrogames using #Godot. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit! (... I promise that there's step 2, but it might not actually lead to profit 😝) #IndieDev #GameDev #IndieGame

I have a zany new game idea which I am prototyping. Step 1 is to re-create certain #retrogames classics using #Godot ... #Arcade #IndieGame #GameDev

Connie Vogelmann, designer of Apiary and Wyrmspan, talks about player interaction: www.youtube.com/live/ouJNxXm... Focus is on #BoardGames but super-relevant for video games as well. #IndieDev #GameDev

✨✨✨ Navigate the stars ✨✨✨ @sextantstudios.bsky.social is our esteemed guest today! A well spoken designer with an interesting past and an even more interesting future 😍 Join us! RSS 👉 feeds.buzzsprout.com/2395944.rss 🎧 Check the 🧵 for more links! 👇 #godotengine #gamedev #indiedev

I find it interesting when players argue with me about some fundamental aspect of my game. On one hand, I'm happy that they are engaged & excited. On the other hand, I am definitely right cause I programmed the thing! I am looking at the code RIGHT NOW! 😅 🤷‍♀️ #IndieDev #GameDev #IndieGame

I got seven sales yesterday, which is awesome 🥳 no idea where they came from though! AFAIK nobody streamed the game and there are no new YT videos. #IndieDev #GameDev #Marketing

Just upped my pledge to *8* pins, cause these are too gorgeous to pass on! Go check out @noelleevepalmer.bsky.social's beautiful campaign: www.kickstarter.com/projects/npa... #LGBTQ #Pin

Posting the Katanaut trailer I put together again, still super proud of this one😅Thank you @splintersa.bsky.social‬ for the amazing cue! #indiegame #gamedev #pixelart #screenshotsaturday

For those of us who published a game on Steam: Did you ever use reddit ad to promote the published, available-for-sale game? I'm wondering whether it's worth the money. #IndieDev #GameDev #Marketing

Just finished recording an upcoming episode of Godot Unscripted with @vennnot.bsky.social ! Can't wait for it to come out 🥳 Meanwhile, check all the past episodes on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5FinUDx... #Godot #IndieDev #GameDev

(While going over old media, mostly DVDs.) So many of these have autorun malware, it's absurd. Such a huge security flaw. Why did that feature ever exist?! #Programming

I found an old stash of DVD-Rs which I'm now copying and uploading to cloud storage. DVDs are slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww #Programming

There are many ethical problems with the use of AI. None of them are a good reason for witch hunts. I'm seeing more and more cases of people deciding that an illustration is AI-generated, and then hounding the creator. This has to stop. Let people create. #IndieGame #IndieDev #GameDev

Lowpoly V-Tuber Commission for @megaa.bsky.social 💜🐸 Was an absolute delight working with Mega and creating their new design. #lowpoly #vtuber

I played the production version of my indie game for fun for 20 minutes and spotted a specific bug, *twice*. Been trying to reproduce it for 1.5 hours since. Can't do it 🤦‍♀️ still no idea what's causing it ... no players reported it though so 🤷‍♀️ #IndieDev #GameDev #Programming

Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBgH...

‪👋 Hello friends! 👋 As you know I have a podcast where I interview #godotengine Game Developers and I need your help 🫵 🎤👨‍💻👩‍💻 I'm looking for peeps to interview! If someone you know would be a good candidate or is already interested, let me know. Contact me through dm or 🧵👇 ♥️ #indiedev #gamedev

The Pride Snapshots pin Kickstarter has officially launched! You can check it out here! www.kickstarter.com/projects/npa...

I'm a fan of Noelle Palmer's pride pins, and they just launched a Kickstarter campaign for a new gorgeous set! www.kickstarter.com/projects/npa... #LGBTQ #Pride #Pins

Flocking Hell is 20% off as part of @turnbasedthursday.bsky.social festival! Go buy the game ;) and check out the other cool gems in the festival. I'm celebrating with my biggest patch yet, with tons of new content: store.steampowered.com/news/app/323... #TurnBased #Strategy #Roguelite

🎮 Announcing "Press Gay to Play" 🎮 Rainbow Tech Fest 2025's LGBTQIA+ Indie Game Showcase! Kicking off our Pride Month hack-a-thon (June 19). Whether you are the creators or there is representation in your game submit YOUR LGBTQIA+ games by June 11: link.rainbowtechfest.dev/LrChOb ✨🏳️‍🌈 #RTF2025

I'm a finalist for the Women in Toys Wonder Woman award! 🥹 Going from working part-time out of my dorm room a few years ago to being recognized by an organization like WiT is cooler than I can put into words.

Every once in a while I look at a 2FA code and think to myself "there's NO way those 6 digits are randomly selected". #Programming

Wow! @maleficious.bsky.social has already completed 10 playthroughs of Flocking Hell. Check out this awesome series 🥳 #TurnBased #Strategy #Roguelite #IndieGame

Rotation is now operational! The more I work with hexes, the more sense the math makes. Usually I'm more of a theory kind of person so it's interesting to experience how effective coding-based learning can be. #IndieDev #GameDev #Programming #Godot

(In a game prototype that has a hexagonal grid.) The guide said to calculate rotation and then apply to offset, so of course I applied the offset and then calculated rotation. BAD IDEA 😤 20 minutes of debugging later, the penny dropped and I fixed it 🤦‍♀️ #IndieDev #GameDev #Programming

AstraX is a space exploration game inspired by the likes of KSP, Rimworld, Freelancer and Space Engineers. Create your own spacecraft, explore an infinite galaxy and mine for resources! #PitchYaGame

Huge day for Beefarena, the demo is available on Steam! It contains a single biome and the first two bosses, every run is randomized, so you may find new enemies on repeat plays! Beefarena is coming this summer, wishlist today to stay up-to-date! s.team/a/3217930 #gamedev #indiedev #videogames

Just. Finished. The final dev work on Endless RPG. Now in QA, heading to production Friday (probably). A 5-year journey... ending today. Cheers! 🍻 ▶️ Don’t miss it: store.steampowered.com/app/2586000 #GameDev #IndieDev #IndieGameDev #TurnBased

On one hand, marketing guru Chris Zukowski says that if your game doesn't get traction 1-2 months after release, just move on. OTOH, there's the @greyalien.bsky.social school of thought, that says that long-term support + long tail is a thing. Not sure what to do. #IndieDev #GameDev #Marketing

Part 9 of my look at Flocking Hell from @sextantstudios.bsky.social is now available: youtu.be/9UT1j1_dxOo

The slow march of progress! Programmers: "Nice! 👏" Non-programmers: "Why is this interesting?!" #IndieDev #GameDev #Programming #Godot (The engine can create a hex grid of any shape, hexes don't need to be adjacent or conform to an array or anything.)

Deductopia Chapter 1 is out now! Sort out chaos in the classroom and get a little free taste of the puzzle-filled world of Deductopia. store.steampowered.com/app/3515580/...

Now you're thinking with cube coordinates 🤓 I couldn't find a #godot package to manage logical hex grids and then seamlessly translate them to local coordinates, so I'm guessing I'll develop one myself. Thankfully there is ample support online. #IndieDev #GameDev

Most guides are ~10 lines of code. The most complicated is Nomad (30 lines). I just finished Oracle II ... which is ~300 lines of code 😅 the price of top-down design! (It has 8 prophecies for you to fulfill and 7 possible rewards.) (And probably lots of bugs!) #IndieDev #GameDev #Programming