probably going to take down a few more of my YouTube videos- I will announce before this happens just like last time

140 dice is somehow both more and less than I expected

so I might have accidentally roped myself into running a tabletop game in the near (ish) future

been watching a ton of d&d dungeon master content for some reason, I've played once and will probably never dm a game

"Baldur's Gate 3 was announced at Stadia Connect" is the "Halo was announced at Macworld" of our time

Once again, it is time for the end of year update www.xcvgsystems.com/2025/12/end-... tl;dr More games than expected, creative rut and possible burnout, a few projects laid to rest and lots of possibilities for 2026

Happy Christmas ♥️

I followed a tutorial blindly and it actually seems to work (?!)

Just in time for Christmas, one of the holiday games of all time (or: there was an attempt to use Twine and this was the result) xcvgsystems.com/static/xmas2...

Almost a year after CommonCore R6.2, here is R6.3 with not much added github.com/XCVG/commonc... Next will probably be R7.0.0 targeting Unity 6.3 LTS (skipping Unity 6.0 entirely)

I did actually start a Christmas project this year, but I kept procrastinating on it and even now that I've started it's just not coming together well. Even odds this one ever sees the light of day.

Don't know whether I want to dive into the "what counts as indie" discourse so I'll just talk about how I'm looking forward to some of the games that were shown off at The Game Awards.

I know it comes with the patient gamer territory but I'm still salty about picking up a BG3 spoiler hours before it would have been revealed to me in the game

I think at some point the Vancouver, BC and Vancouver, WA game dev lists got intermingled and sometimes my feed gets confusing as hell.

okay I gotta say that enamel pin goes hard (and, as one of my friends put it, is "a very canadian joke")

On a whim I looked up if anyone had ever done a BG3-inspired Doom mod (what a weird combination) and the answer is frustratingly "yes, but it's lost media now"

the big AI post blog.xcvgsystems.com/i-have-compl... (technically not a masterpost as it's mostly new rather than collecting existing posts)

Baldur's Gate 3 is not a perfect game, but I haven't been this invested in the story, setting, and characters of a game since the Mass Effect original trilogy. And unless it pulls a Mass Effect 3 (or something amazing comes along), I think it's going to be my personal Game of the Decade.

there was a quote I heard in English class a long time ago that was something like "...he said, and walked out the door. Who was that guy? There is no door." It was supposed to be deeply profound, but I joked at the time it was satirizing bad writing.

drawings from on the airplane (one of them might been on a train)

Finally watched the new Lilo and Stitch. It has its moments, but overall, it's just kind of not as good as the original. The ending wasn't as bad as I'd expected, but also lacked all the layers the original had (and didn't have the chase scene, for some reason).

welp the main twist of Expedition 33 has been randomly spoiled for me... thinking I should pick up The Outer Worlds 2 sooner than later if I want to play it without spoilers

An offhand line in a random fanfic has me thrashing my brain over what instantaneous teleportation even means assuming a relativistic universe. Not even in a "what scenarios would break causality" way but literally "what is the definition of instant"

Happy Halloween! They've upped their costume game this year.

Google is trying to kill open app development on Android. Let's push back. keepandroidopen.org www.change.org/p/stop-googl...

Done the first draft on my AI post, around 3000 words. Hoping to get it out next week. This one's gonna be a doozy...

I was really hoping to do at least a drawing for Halloween this year, but I just don't think I'm going to have the time.

So, uh, is ~~343 Industries~~ Halo Studios just giving up? A UE5 remake of a game that's already had one remaster, without the beloved multiplayer, is... a choice. Not continuing Infinite's abbreviated campaign, or bringing us something brand new?

I installed Windows Me in an emulator for some reason

Somehow all three sticks of RAM in my Windows 98 retro machine went bad

Summary post on CVE-2025-59489 www.xcvgsystems.com/2025/10/upda...

The Excessive Sound Guys and You Have To Make The Game are now patched for CVE-2025-59489 (that concludes the patching adventure, summary post coming soon)

Project D759 (version 1.0.0) and SE7ENGOKU (Story Mode Preliminary Demo, previously 4c01d7 and now 65dadd6) are now patched for CVE-2025-59489

followed a video tutorial and managed to not completely screw it up? (the half-elf ears were not in the video but I couldn't help myself)

Shattered and In The Middle Of The Night are now patched for CVE-2025-59489 (almost there!)

At The Break Of Dawn and A Dream Of Valhalla are now patched for CVE-2025-59489

See Who I Am, Shattered 2 - The Promise, and The Crystal Tower are now patched for CVE-2025-59489

Starlight Nights and By The Meridiem Gleam are now patched for CVE-2025-59489

Smash up the stealership, Boulder's Gate 4, and Shattered 3 are now patched for CVE-2025-59489

www.xcvgsystems.com/2025/10/addr... tl;dr: Most games from 2020 to today will be patched, hoping to be done by the end of the month.

*slaps hood* this merge game can fit so many harmful stereotypes in it

I will post an update on the Unity vulnerability situation soon, I have quite a few affected games and am still evaluating what the actual severity is, which games can be patched, and which ones I'm going to be bothered to patch.

If you see this, post a picture from your device without explaining it

I just realized it's probably supposed to be "Lords Paramount" and not "Lord Paramounts"

I keep forgetting a) how much taller Gina is than Sakura b) what an absolute unit Gina is

time for some upgrades?

YouTube Playables is interesting because it lets you play mobile games cross-platform and without monetization. Some games play great without the enshittification, others were definitely relying on it for padding and engagement. Some are stupidly easy with a mouse, others are unplayable.

Sad to have missed Game Sewer but it sounds like it went well so hopefully we'll have a similar event again some time

Wait, ChipDrop is a real thing and not a sketch?

Speaking of AI, the Shattered 3 demo is now available in an AI-free variant for your viewing pleasure, and the itch page has been updated to reflect that version xcvg.itch.io/shattered3