Cool new book alert! With an open access digital edition, too.

extremely wild story from @nicolecarpenter.bsky.social (yes that one): aftermath.site/nicole-carpe...

if you think about it, a megadungeon is the ultimate walkable city

One easy fix would be to eliminate categories based on genre or whatever “indie” means and instead get granular about craft (best level design, best world, best combat, etc) which would probably pose other problems but at least make for more interesting conversations and honor specific people

"video game mechanics?" Actually, they're called developers.

I played Horses this weekend and I wrote down some messy thoughts not only on the game but especially on the specter of formalism that emerged to haunt us all for a moment. transgamerthoughts.com/post/8023277...

I have written a new blog about what an OSR is. I am told there is a lot of discourse about this, but am confident that this should settle the matter once and for all. thegardenbelow.blot.im/what-is-an-osr

Surprise, we're getting pretty close to the final version of REALIS! ICYMI: I've been making a TTRPG about mystical moons and living spaceships and sentences that can kill you. A preview is available now (see my pinned post), but the full version draws near! www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...

Ohhh yeaah, narrative RPG + Zola, I'm here for it.

it's on miro. it's literally on figma. you have to log into okta. it's in jira. it's on zoom. it's on pureref. it's on flow. it's on perforce. it's on slack. you can find it on slack. you can go to slack and find it. log onto slack right now. you can slack it. slack has it for you. it's on slack.

The webpage for our upcoming book has the cover on it now which is enough of a milestone for me to write another post about the book we have coming out soon. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Can confirm, this was nice and easy to complete!

Here We GO! Come along, my dearies! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

i wish people would be substantially more careful with their choice to dismiss art/games they don't like as "not art / not a game"

Check out this nice review of FICTIONAL GAMES that @steinea.bsky.social did for ARB a while back: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2023/05/26/i...

Roll with Advantage: Creative, Collaborative, and Critical Responses to Dungeons & Dragons (Play Story Press 2025) edited by Suzanne Richardson & Edmond Y. Chang: playstorypress.org/books/roll-w... - in print or open access PDF! #analoggamestudies #creativewriting #dungeonsanddragons #dnd

Silksong true ending as praxis, in this essay I will

The Mist, Phantom, Cogwork Dancers last night. Unlocked Whiteward before going to sleep. This game, man. Mechanically, aesthetically, just so impressive. And the WRITING! Achingly beautiful. Talking with the Caretaker in Songclave, some real gut-punch lines.

I'm starting to get texts about this now so I guess I need to say something: There is a fundraiser going around about a "preservation disaster" raising money right now that I highly advise you to stay very far away from. A particular British tabloid is running with it unquestioningly. Thread:

Wow, these ToCs are awful. I've made my research available on several platforms for a while for exactly this reason, as well as syndicating on my personal site. This was an easy few clicks to delete my Academia page. The site has rapidly worsened over the last few years, so I'm not sad to leave it.

THEY LET ME WRITE ANOTHER BOOK "You’re Not Overthinking It" is available for pre-order right now. It collects the most meaningful essays of my career alongside hundreds of new annotations on each piece’s creation, background, and legacy. Far more details below: www.lostincult.co.uk/overthinking

Spot on. I do not have the fastest reflexes, but it's been incredible to feel Silksong teaching me to *slow down*. I beat Widow and Last Judge when I was able to actually calm myself and stay still in the arena. Panic is my #1 cause of a failed boss run.

Beautifully written. The whole review is worth a read, captures a lot of what I love about this game. May we be like the bugs, indeed!

I ran through Sinner's Road tonight and it is evil and mean and incredible. So many awful curveball surprises which made for great early game tests of all the tricks I've learned so far. Liz describes it perfectly here.

"I want games that I can argue with, games that trust me to read them closely, games that demand I think through them."

Digging into Silksong, and of course it’s beautiful, but it also SOUNDS so good. All those crunchy rocks and rosary beads rolling around, the voices, and the music.

Silksong GOTY

Steam and Nintendo eShop both down lmaooooooo

"The only thing that that amount of wealth is necessary for is the domination of others. In other words, at a certain point, wealth shifts from being something that enables freedom to something that can only be used to take freedom away from the public"

So hyped to be part of @peow.bsky.social’s ExMag volume 6! I had the pleasure of working on an original sci-fi short with one of my all time favourite artists, @decassette.bsky.social, telling a story of deep time and alien ecologies 🌱 Back the anthology here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/peo...

Ohhhhhh yaaaaaa "Something's wrong with the world and everyone knows what it is" feels extra true right now

New fund from the CMF and Creative BC is cool, though I find the parameters strange: 200K potential grant, but only for "mid-level and experienced studios." 200K would be life changing for a new or solo dev, but feels small for the targeted studio category. cmf-fmc.ca/news/cmf-cre...

"It all feels like such a colossal waste" Excellent reportage from @chrisbratt.bsky.social and PMG. Especially appreciate the transparency and integrity of the opening segment looking back at the original doc and all the complexities of reporting on such a tangled story. youtu.be/lZEAs6M1wts

More fantastic work from @jacobgeller.com: "we are so quick to ignore the intricacies of our interactions with machines." Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith the game meets Sudnow's Pilgrim in the Microworld—a perfect pairing. youtu.be/cSrP1ipkes0

"a necessary reminder of how humanity plays a pivotal role in conservation efforts, and that we, in turn, can only benefit from the ocean’s well-being"

Sword of the Sea is lovely so far. Perfect, chill Friday night activity after some grueling weeks of work. Nice balance after all the Nightreign recently, too (I said NOPE to Everdark Libra, and Everdark Gladius will have to wait—I'm busy doing tricks on my swordboard).

Here's one for all the game devs out there www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Oh, I'm excited for this! I poked a toe into the world of Fluxus games and other twentieth century ludic experiments in a 2021 paper on lyric games, but didn't have bandwidth to dig deeper. This sounds like extremely my thing.

Omg, just seen that French artist Jean Jullien has a big show on at Nanzuka in Shanghai, JUJU’s Castle, that looks INCREDIBLE. basically you get to wander around a fantasy world built from his “memories & experiences”. Someone please send us out there to cover it! More info & link in the replies

I have a project I've been working on all of this year: it's called DESCRIBE WORLD. it's made up of zines and free games and a new podcast feed where I do whatever the hell I want. the first pod ep is a 6 hour episode about criticism with @nochorus.bsky.social ckunzelman.com/describe-wor...

the elden ring nightreign experience

I kept playing Nightreign... Everdark Augur is so good. Very disorienting at first, but once you figure out the mechanics of the gimmick, it becomes an utterly mesmerizing few minutes of a boss fight. So aesthetically strong: visuals, music, gameplay, all working perfectly together.

Make games for yourself and for your friends. Make things because they don't exist and you want to see them in the world, because you have an itch you need to scratch. Art made with love and passion and quirkiness will find an audience who appreciates that love and passion and quirkiness.

My March talk at University of British Columbia is now available to watch! I was honored to be invited to present on modding board games for the students and other attendees: open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/colle...

Historiographies of Game Studies is now published open access with @punctumbooks.bsky.social ! This massive collection examines why game studies is the way it is, and how it might change and grow in the future. Congrats to all contributors, and please share! punctumbooks.com/titles/histo...

On this day eight years ago, we launched our third game, Pyre. We went on to make Hades, which is different in many ways, yet builds on shared ideas and themes that still inspire us. To all those who led the Nightwings to the end of their journey, thank you! Noxalas!!💫

✨ MY BOOK IS OUT NOW ✨ "Mastering Community Management" is finally here! 😭 Learn what goes into community management for video games from pre- to post-production. ❤️ Get my step-by-step strategy for creating meaningful online spaces! Shares appreciated. AHH!! Buy: www.victoriatran.com/book

In the middle of a very busy finaling season, it's always a thrill to see the new game reveal youtu.be/TSi0iJYSQ24

Night Aspect defeated! Took 6 or 7 attempts. Ended up being a variant of the Consort Radahn strategy to do it: big shield, big holy anchor. Was trying to dodge through everything and getting punished mercilessly. Turns out tanking hits and guard countering with a giant hunk of iron was all it took.