Fond memories of the first enemies in Sunless Skies being a gray box with googly eyes and "enemy" written on it. Said placeholder ended up being used for pretty much every test. The parallax system? Started as a stack of googly eye boxes fading into the mist of the high wilderness.

Had a dream about owning a cafe in the 70ies Korea. I brought my business to the brink of ruin and was coming to terms with that by tracing every decision that led there and asserting that it was the (morally?) right thing then and there. Portentous.

Did a playtest with our designer and experienced the tangy, urgent sense of mystery I had not known since Cultist Simulator To say that I am proud of this team is to make the greatest understatement

Me begging the boys in Marathon to exfil: “'I tend to be fairly conservative and say, ‘We already figured this out,’ Sawyer said. “We’re not going to redo it for a theoretical 15% gain in X, Y and Z because the potential to screw up the rest of the project is enormous."

See also: shipwreck washed ashore

I have to credit @blurrycrockpot.bsky.social for sending me this meme during GDC. It’s become Aimee’s and my whole personality

And “work” here should include consultations, paid and unpaid contributions, short-term contracts, outsource work, purchaseable packages,.. Omitting all of that just isolates the project from the industry. In barebones credits everyone is alone.

between buying pies for gulls and sharing bits of food with the pussens, I’m really enjoying this Leopold Bloom guy

There are three lines that haunted me, all found in K. Kerenyi, a good mythologist and a widely overreaching philologist. One is in the quoted post -- an obscure name of Prometheus. Another is one Iachim, allegedly an Egyptian priest. The third one I just managed to chase up.

ESCAPE WILL MAKE ME Q GIRL

For this game we are making lesbians so powerful that I am genuinely afraid

An activist game putting money where their mouth is! Gives me a lot of hope to see people who believe in something

Come to gamescom, we have (comparative) affordability and a cathedral

Caves of Qud

Maybe I will reconsider with a few more playhours, but it felt meaningful to me! My first death was in my first fight: a clueless Rook running into a trio. Adrenaline, shock, belated realization. My second death was seeing an exfil start, standing there curiously, and getting stabbed in the back.

The secret to a balanced dev team is combining someone who doesn't play videogames because they don't like videogames and someone who does play videogames because they don't like videogames

AWAYWYHAHA IT ARRIVED!!! !

SHE FINALLY WON................

had a dream about talking to unbeatable devs over tea under the starry summer sky I’m pretty sure the dream was entirely wrong in its details, but the atmosphere was lovely

My (smol) essay in this is "Interactive Fiction Games and Stand Up For Kids: How I Learned to Write Comedy For Kids" Where I go talk about my experience making Interactive Fiction for kids how *you* can make kids laugh with your writing.

Miyamoto should've done more interviews in 1989 because this is like reading a wizard talk. This snippet distills why playing games in another language has always been so appealing to me. (And also reminds me why Tunic is such a masterpiece.)

looking at the GDC talks for this year and this kinda sums it up, huh

📖 THE GAME NARRATIVE KALEIDOSCOPE ❄️ is out NOW! www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope 100+ essays on writing & narrative design, with articles from the writers of Baldur's Gate 3, Control, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, Sam and Max... ALSO the Kaleidoscope Podcast with 2 full eps!

A "special combat operation" in Iran!?! Seriously, the White House is just cutting and pasting Putin's language these days. They may as well say "spetsoperatsiya".

how can i get more shes gays theys interacting with my stupid little posts about video games if your answer is "make a game" huh? what?? i cant HEAR you

HEAVEN OR HELL LET’S ROCK

such a fun contrast between the anglophone and Iranian friends' posting today and by fun I mean the former people desperately need to shut up

Помер тот, помрёт и этот!

As always: may a chance for freedom come and may all figureheads fall. But freedom is always taken by the people’s hands, not imported.

AI could never

You’re going to want to keep an eye on this one, especially if you have any interest in game design and narrative. It’s the podcast that ties in with the new book Jon Ingold has put together, with contributions from all levels of the industry and indie scene.

I said so before, I’m saying this again: a month of tinkering with not even the real DWS taught more to me than five years of GDC vault or any crude unitygraphing I could do on my own. If you can pay your interns, take interns! If you cannot, still -- take interns!

Okay, time to actually play Daggerfall 2077 for real

Doomed Yuri? No, we’re making Life-Affirming Yuri (swords still included)

Jacob Geller videos as a team-bonding exercise

[Lindisfarne] Me: (chanting) teeth, teeth- Other fossil hunters: teeth, TEETH British Geological Society: [pounding its clipboard] TEETH, TEETH, TEETH!

When I was just starting out, I was taking a cab from one convention party to another with an indie darling who was coming off of a bunch of award wins. In the quiet of that car he told me “[game he made] was my twenties” and I have never really stopped being haunted by that convo

A colleague from the current project is going to #GDC this year — would anyone I know like to say hi?

She introduced me to the concept of lesbian beeswarm vampires Folks, this might be the one

恭喜发财! happy year of the horse!! 🧧🐎🍊🎨

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

Met a beekeper girl. I’m all abuzz now.