Just played the REPLACED demo. It's great! Silky smooth combat and animations and a true heir to the 'cinematic pixel-art' style. Stirred up a bunch of feelings - it feels like the game TLN could've been. Very excited to delve deeper into the full thing.

@thunderfulgames.bsky.social hey folks - what's the best way to contact you about reviews/interviews? I write a narrative design column for @debugmag.com and would really like to feature a few of your forthcoming titles in near-future columns.

Finally got around to finishing FF7 remake. All that Whisper stuff is absolute bobbins. If Rebirth doesn’t pay off all the Sephiroth mystery a bit i’ll be furious because in just the context of Remake he's an utterly awful villain. Arbitrary motivations and personality of a fencepost.

Röki is a Christmas movie.

A mouth that eats and eats and eats by @edgarallanbro.bsky.social "None of us are innocent, myself least of all." Read on:

Nice Harrybut recognition from Gamespot.

chag sameach mofos

In many ways i find Kojima unbearable but he’s also incredibly real for this.

just a collection of "inevitable" multi-billion dollar tech that was going to be the future of everything until everyone in the audience who was supposed to just get on board said "lol no"

Yep. I did that writing test and had an interview a couple of years ago. It was wild. The (negative) feedback I got on the test was some of the most bafflingly inept criticism i’ve ever received. My experience wasn’t half as bad as many others but it was still the worst recruitment i’ve done.

Played the Birdcage demo and it’s a mix of Ikaruga and Radiant Silver Gun with the MGS codex. It’s wonderful.

A brilliant piece of writing. Especially when contrasted with an interview 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 did with Keighley a few days back. This - the journalism / commentary we deserve. The latter - 40 mins of "so how come you're so amazing?" to one of the most controversial figures in games. The state of things.

The Electric State in particular is a good example of this need by the industry to remove the artist from the art, reducing it to 'vibe' background images with no substance, while uncreative people try to create something for an uncreative & uncaring demographic

in order: purchasing on bandcamp, streaming or purchasing from qobuz, streaming from most other platforms (apple music, tidal, deezer, etc.), or pirating (if financially unable to afford other options) are all valid alternatives to supporting the spotify corporation.

I collected these as a kid but never had the full set. Now, with the power of disposable income and Vinted, the full series is finally mine! Honestly they still hold up, no nostalgia necessary - incredibly evocative and dark art and elegant writing. Criminally underrated series.

The most precious commodity you have is your attention. You don’t have to waste it on poor-faith debates or arguments with strangers if you don’t think they’ll be productive. You can prioritize the things that matter to you and make your life richer.

Steam bans an artistic, daring indie game release citing some ridiculous indecency rules. Whilst the platform is as we all know, flooded with cheap porn. Solidarity with Santa Ragione, the sooner devs find a way to move away from the monopoly of Steam the better. www.eurogamer.net/its-extremel...

It's Itch Creator Day. I'm running a sale: itch.io/s/170833/bla... #ttrpg #stockart #bsnm #creatorday #indierpg

I already didn't buy Ubisoft games, but I'm excited to extra not buy Ubisoft games: www.eurogamer.net/ubisoft-boss...

Solo TTRPG devlog 2: Designing an alternative to 'everything wants to kill you or die trying' Encounter systems AKA Adapting the OODA Loop for procedural alien creature encounters! substack.com/home/post/p-... What do you think - is this an interesting approach? Anything I'm missing?

authors you have the chance to do the funniest thing right now

I have just learned about the symbiosis of Goby and Shrimp. The shrimp makes a burrow in the sand they can both live in - in return, the Goby warns the blind shrimp of danger while outside the burrow. This is everything.

The winner takes all-instant hit-meme-flywheel mentality that has completely overtaken the games industry and even #indiedev is poison. It deteriorates the space for risk and sustainable growth, until all that's left is to to either make slot-machines or slop-machines.

Normalise citing the main writers in game reviews of narrative led games.

Woah I missed this! Krumit's Tale is a super addictive, strategic and goofy in all the best ways dungeon-deck-crawler-builder that also happens to have words by me - it'll be so at home on the Switch!

Text size that can be made larger, especially in menus. Small text size in menu heavy games genuinely harms my experience as I can't fully sit back and chill when I play it. Honestly think this is like 50% of why I didn't complete KCD2.

Every personal attack. Every attempt to distract or to divide. It energises, strengthens and empowers our movement. Lower bills. Tax billionaires. Join us. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Devlog 1 - The Origin Story (why I decided to start writing my own solo TTRPG) - madquillsgames.substack.com/p/devlog-1-t... - if you're interested to follow along as I design and test it.

Some were sick, on leave, or on paternity leave Firing workers on medical or parental leave, without pay, right before Christmas? That’s beyond unethical, it’s vindictive. Morale in the studio is collapsing Remaining employees are terrified, demoralized, and afraid to speak or act.

Utterly impossible to satirize.

added some more info here: bsky.app/profile/thou...

incredi-bundle

Congratulations to and solidarity with my NY brethren. Keep that good shit up.

And/or bricks the project entirely.

NEW: After my last piece about what's slowing down game development, folks wrote in to ask "why didn't you talk about bad leadership?" It uhhhh never came up. So I returned to the well and asked devs to explain why better leadership—not AI or any other tool—is vital to efficient game development.

I can’t promise i’m smart but i do try to be kind and the rest is absolutely true haha

When you think about how thoughts work, it's pretty crazy.

This was my game of last year. Do not sleep on this folks.

The atmosphere in Arc Raiders is so good. And I love the way they sell the feeling of being in the underground city just through menus and UI - super immersive and economical. No big empty social hub needed. And the level design is so intricately done. Big fan after a few hours.

This and death at all costs to the ‘£ per hour of gameplay‘ calculation. Utter madness. Renders art (or good old fashioned entertainment) down to abstracted economics. Thats how filler jockeys like Ubisoft want you to think.

Mervyn Peake sounds like the name of a guy who writes fantasy novels set a sprawling and ruinous Gothic castle

Golly, Seance of Blake Manor really is good isn’t it? Proper detective fantasy. Takes three minutes to be totally immersed and wracking your brains… wonderfully put together.

Alabaster Dawn demo: Lovely pixel art, fast, satisfying and responsive combat, gripping prologue. Decent writing too. An RPG to watch.

This is the most ruthless act of union busting in the history of the UK games industry. Yesterday, @rockstargames.com unfairly fired over 30 employees for union activity. We won't back down, and we're not scared - we will fight for every member to be reinstated.

So, today I'm announcing a new book project... and doing a call for papers: crpgbook.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/t... It's an anthology of video game history outside the usual US perspective - an accessible & exciting panorama of different realities - and I'll pay 300 USD per article. Please share :)

So either Labour need to ask candidates to step aside for the Greens to take on Reform.... Or actually bring in a fair democratic process where everyone's votes count equally. It's time for Proportional Representation. www.thenational.scot/news/2558507...

Incredible game.

The solo TTRPG is coming together. Have a first draft of the main systems and a good idea of the setting. Proto-solarpunk with bio-trans-humanism themes. Starting to write content. Will anyone ever play it? Who knows! Will anyone want to playtest it? Let me know!