Mara Whitefish, the most realistic character to ever be in a video game

Hi new followers! If you don't already know I have a new game coming out on January 22nd! It's a narrative adventure set in the year 2003 where you are a young writer trying to make sense of the world: store.steampowered.com/app/2088810/...

Perfect Tides: Station to Station has been nominated for @indiecade.bsky.social awards in the Narrative + Impact categories! Full list of nominees here: www.indiecade.com/festival-202...

Nic & I wrote hundreds of events for Amberspire, so I can say (with some bias) that the game’s world is so considered & interesting, but allows the player to form their own narrative that is reflected back at them in the cities they build. I’m proud to work on it, and everyone should wishlist it!!

feel incredibly lucky that my introduction to TTRPGs, outside of a few one-shots, was this incredible beast of a campaign. @brendanmcleod.com did an excellent wrangling it all into a book, helping edit a portion of it was a boast unto itself.

Coming soon. A chronicle of adventure and glory in a time of monsters.

just when it seemed like I was free of all the cursed films, this appeared like a jumpscare and looks great

about halfway through and enjoying the hell out of this book. there is something so special about experiencing honed curiosity and research applied to an excellently-structured dive into something you thought you kind of knew about but turns out is both infinitely weirder and more of these times

The 2025 Interactive Fiction competition ended this weekend, with results being posted. I wanted to list my favorite games I played out of it – even if you haven't been paying attention, I think you owe it to yourself to try these. azhdarchid.com/the-2025-int...

Pleased as punch to reveal - now that the backerkit is live - that LAST RITES is also available as part of the digital rewards for Ways and Means. Three adventures for HEART, for use as one shots, campaign seeds, or brief distractions on the road to the grave.

A beautiful writeup on the PT:STS demo over at Kotaku. Thank you @botherer.bsky.social !!

the pitch perfect weirdness of PENDA'S FEN

The updated demo for Perfect Tides: Station to Station is available now ahead of Steam Next Fest! We're getting ever closer to the full release in January! store.steampowered.com/app/2088810/...

air light water moon shadow sky, my collaborative (or solo) card-based game of poetic narrative generation inspired by experimental film, dream logic, and other omens, is now out as part of the Bather's Library Artist Games series. bathers-library.square.site/product/air-...

The New Sun, 30” x 40” acrylic on canvas. Book of the New Sun fan art. This thing took me forever, started in October of last year. Will post more info on instagram when I have time. Also if anyone wants to put me in touch with TOR or the Wolfe estate that’d be cool. Alright. Thanks!

the palestine 2025 charity bundle is live!! it's a huge bundle of very cool games (Coffee Talk, Extreme Meatpunks, Spirit Swap, Roto Force, Moon Hunters...) and the proceeds go towards providing direct aid in Palestine my game BOSSGAME is included too!! check it out!! itch.io/b/2979/play-...

check out nick’s amazing narrascope talk!!

Narrascope talks are up! Here’s one I did with @jesshaskins.bsky.social about running a scenario in Rosewater as a TTRPG, and the Twine model she built to test the companion relationship mechanic: youtu.be/4l5YMIuQoRo?...

✊ Happy Labor Day, Gamedevs! 🎮 A month ago I released a video called "A Brief History of Labor in the USA and What It Has to Do With the Modern Games Industry" and have been absolutely floored by the response from players and devs alike. Check it out??? youtu.be/g1rlCfaRT1I?...

@narrascope.org 2025 talks are up, including my own talk on the resonances between information seeking behaviors and narrative design. the conference, hosts, and audience were all wonderful. also thanks to @meredithgran.com and @geographyofrobots.bsky.social for everything. youtu.be/AekYBb576sU

Hello! Your avocados are now ripe... No, I'm sorry. They spoiled while you were reading this. You missed the window.

anyway thank you to tapsell and co. for encouraging humoring my weird ideas and letting me ramble for @eurogamer.bsky.social on death stranding 2 and the world’s fair www.eurogamer.net/death-strand...

this is why amberspire is so exciting. imagine one layer that is less a city-builder and more unearthing systems in an alien urban ecology (like scavengers reign for city planning), then you have these fragments that remain open and realistically messy, suggesting a history much bigger and deeper.

Good morning! I'm sitting down to make a bunch of calls before starting work for the day. Please do the same! This has to be sustained pressure, not just one day. This thread and the document within it are great resources if you need a script or numbers to call / places to email, as is yellat.money

yesterday while tediously renaming a bunch of assets and linking references, I wrote a blog about that kind of tedious work and the considerations of creating tools or doing things by hand blog.enceledean.com/creative-dru...

for anyone who started following me after my @narrascope.org talk, this is the excellent visual novel that prompted me to ask everyone to raise their hand if they were familiar with june bugs. it is currently on sale, has june bugs, and is very worth your time.

the banished vault is one of the most consistent and cohesive games I can think of, just every aspect (art, sound, writing, mechanics) functioning together to create a consistent feeling (often of dread). even if it isn’t your type of game it is still something to behold and support.

for more established narrative folks — this is why we must refuse unpaid writing tests & tell studios why. also ask about rates + expectations before we recommend colleagues. in the absence of strong unions, we need to operate as a cartel

@essaygames.bsky.social manages to capture so much of what was special about NarraScope here (and a great primer on berrypicking to boot). truly a wonderful weekend, enriching and edifying via great presentations, conversations, open questions, and being intentionally welcoming and accessible.

Release date unlocked!

This rhetoric is quietly anti-worker dressed up in faux appreciation. Games are made by people. Often: a LOT of them! It should not be lost on us that the very corporate SGF starts doing this the year United Videogame Workers is announced…

Happy to say that Perfect Tides: Station to Station will be part of the Women-Led Games Showcase #SummerGameFest Edition by @womenledgames.com. It starts June 7th 10AM PST, and you'll be able to view the showcase here: www.youtube.com/@Women-LedGa...

thrilled to see Perfect Tides: Station to Station in there with such good company. @meredithgran.com will surely be discussing the game in her talk on Saturday and it will feature into mine as well (also Saturday) for anyone attending @narrascope.org and wanting to learn more about it.

This month on Paper Labyrinths, nic and I chat with Jason Grinblat @jfg.land , co-creator of the Hugo-nominated Caves of Qud, about storytelling, systems, trolls, and regional cuisine. sites.libsyn.com/568595/site/...

It's Pride Month! If you'd like to support a queer + trans game designer making games about queer identities, queer relationships, and queer possibility-making in a collapsing world, you're in luck! I'm running a sale all month long. Use "pride" to save 20% over at: store.buriedwithoutceremony.com

Interstate 35 pulls off the difficult trick of feeling like you aren't just uncovering a potential future via visual novel but really excavating the particular existence one person in that world, full of unique external systems and specific internal thoughts & themes.

one of the best to ever do it, left behind such a legacy and seeing her read “The Ten Best Issues of Comic Books” almost 20 years ago as the closer to a packed, enthralled house is a moment that opened up so much about context, space, and possibility www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8...

I started a playlist of ambient loops from NORCO, featuring music, sound, and artwork from the game. I'll continue to add to it over the next few weeks for those who would like background sounds and visuals from the game. Link below.

finally watched @everest.bsky.social’s talk on walled gardens & game spaces and was as incredible as everyone said it would be. up there with the best (yr Mary Ruefles, Anne Carsons, Jenni Olsons) where you leave full of such specific knowledge but still open to so much m.youtube.com/watch?v=O78u...

it has been very cool seeing the progress on @greenheronart.bsky.social ’s incredible Book of the New Sun painting (and check out @rangedtouch.bsky.social for a great discussion of the series)

Since it’s Mother’s Day at PAX, you are required to play my very talented child Perfect Tides: Station to Station and tell me what a good job I’ve done

love how this world keeps expanding through various forms, this may be what finally takes me from “liking solo ttrpgs in theory” to “liking solo ttrpgs in practice”

Hello! Ranged Touch is a podcast network touching on various aspects of popular culture. A selection of currently running shows is below, and everything we do and have done (including a completed Actual Play series and a longform series on the webcomic Homestuck) can be found at rangedtouch.com

been editing and doing narrative design / systems feedback on Station to Station for over a year now and think @meredithgran.com has made something really special. so glad it’ll be easier for more people to experience now.

Today I'm announcing the upcoming Nintendo Switch build for Perfect Tides: Station to Station! Very excited to be bringing the game to console.

this is a lovely interview about the importance of curiosity, kindness, community, and making weird little guys from the mixed-up parts of other weird little guys.

been reading Brothers Brontë by Fernando A. Flores and think anyone who enjoyed the story and characters in NORCO would find a lot to like there

excited to present at @narrascope.org in Philly this year on how information seeking behavior models from the MLIS world can help inform narrative design. come for the berrypicking, stay for the other ways we try to find information in our world and the others we create and inhabit.

glad to see this one getting attention. imagine a world where Zombies Ate My Neighbors code led to a belated adaptation of Escape from NY, then in 2004 those bones were used for Def Jux: Against Five Boroughs (unreleased), and finally that project was dug up and updated by Backwoodz 20 years later

think everyone should just start using “search ‘em ups” for games based around mechanically-integrated information retrieval systems (Her Story, Roottrees, Immortality, etc.)