I guess Vince Gilligan was curious how much money he could literally burn without anyone complaining. Well, they certainly weren't stingy. I'm not sure why the entire show had to be this pointless, but maybe that's what they call "artistic integrity."

The new "Gate" puzzle in my reincarnating Dragon Riddler game is practically done, including its tutorial. The demo is coming to Steam in January. The old game's demo will remain available on a branch for historical reasons for a while.

1/4 Yesterday, someone "graciously" bought Words of Yendor at a 75% discount, then went and dropped a post on the Dragon Riddler forum.

Creating proper tutorials takes a surprising amount of time. There are so many edge cases to handle. Most importantly, we must follow Voltaire's wisdom: clarity is key, so keep the copy short.

It would be great to live in a parallel universe where GDScript was designed with strict typing from the start. #GodotEngine

Instead of working, I completed State of Mind again. This time I went for story branches I didn't explore 5 years ago. It's still a superb story, and the "game" (more like: interactive movie) is currently 90% off. store.steampowered.com/app/437630/S...

It's inevitable: AI isn't going anywhere. People will get hooked on the supra‑reality of fake catastrophe‑clips, until real life feels unbearable beside their delusional expectations. Things will get uglier. Not cyber‑psychos, but AI‑psychos. This wasn't on my bingo card.

🚨BREAKING🚨 A highly respected art expert has uncovered a NEVER‑SEEN WHITE PIXEL in Malevich’s White on White. This single pixel is so authentic, so monumental, it REWRITES art history forever. #ArtHistory #PixelRevelation

Woohoo, one last task and I can ship… oh, a bug. Which reveals a deeper issue. But it's an edge case. Found the cause. Which reveals another issue. Well, if I'm touching this component, I might as well refactor. Which sparks an idea that *has* to be added, etc. #gamedev

I'm convinced without a shred of doubt that on the USS Enterprise all user passwords were stored in a plain text file, and everyone's password was "password." #startrek

Hey gamers! As a solo dev, I'm curious: is it better to have tons of low‑quality games flooding stores like Steam, or far fewer but higher‑quality ones? (Not planning anything, just curious.) #gamer #indiedev #gamedev #steam #pcgaming

The "Hello Carol, this is a recording…" shtick gets somewhat boring after having heard it the millionth time. I wonder if my complaining changes anything.

I've decided to release marketingforgames.com before procrastination and perfectionism kick in. What is it? A platform that helps indiedevs discover niche, mid-tier content creators (YouTube-only for now) based on their view and engagement metrics. #gamedev #indiegamedev #gamemarketing #youtube

"Things no player will ever know or care™": Dragon Riddler has 4 dictionaries, grouping words of increasing rarity, so lowly enemies use only very common words, while dragons and magical gates may go all-in into sesquipedalianism (up to 15 letters).

Rhetorical questions: Why does Windows 11 need several seconds (!) to delete about 400 files (game save files, a few kB each)? How could Microsoft bork this operating system so badly?

It's nice when an easter egg in a game I've made is appreciated: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/...

I'm pruning the word list for Dragon Riddler. Can salvage a lot from Words of Yendor but changes are needed. Google Gemini is tremendously helpful for writing Python and use the WordNet libs (syntax + gotchas), and helping me remember syntax while sanitizing SQLite data.

Just like when plugging in an old USB cable, I'm unable to remember the argument order of the Array.reduce() method. Every. Single. Time. :) #GodotEngine

Using simplified SEMVER (without "patch") for my game. Its demo is currently at v0.3 on Steam, but I've redesigned about 60% of the game. I'm reluctant to just go with v0.4, since there are *huge* improvements, but it's not a v1.0 either, as more features are coming. Thoughts? #indiedev #GodotEngine

It seems "art" functions as a label much like "prank." You can stick it on anything, and suddenly the thing becomes at least acceptable. Bonus points if corporate greed or capitalism can also be blamed.

Some monster resources in Dragon Riddler can summon certain others. Some may even summon their own kind. Setting this up without magic strings and avoiding circular references was tough. I ended up using a "magic null" to mean "itself." #GodotEngine

(work in progress) Made lots of changes to combat in Dragon Riddler. This is the Region 1 boss fight. The Hatchling is already a formidable opponent, though it doesn't fly, breathe fire, or use defensive tactics. Earlier, a Kobold ambushed me, that's why I'm low on Life.

Apparently, UIDs sometimes "rot" and require .tscn files (which haven't been opened or changed in a long time) to be re-saved to have new UIDs generated for them. Then all is well again. #GodotEngine quirks.

I want paper books with one cover being a solar-powered e-ink device, holding the book's content, so I can search it. Why is this not a thing?

Indie game devs: how valuable is Discord for you? How do you grow your server community, and if you were starting today, how would you begin? #indiedev #gamedev #GodotEngine

I'm using the Levenshtein distance algorithm to discourage players from submitting duplicate words. New words must be *sufficiently* different from previous ones in the Gate puzzle of Dragon Riddler. (Note: the dictionary has not yet been pruned.)

A work-in-progress screenshot from the upcoming demo of my heroic fantasy adventure game Dragon Riddler shows the "Gate," where you must break magical seals to get through. The mechanic combines blackjack with submitting words built from unlocked letters. store.steampowered.com/app/3576600/...

A contract from a publisher is a dream come true - but what offer should you actually sign? We are bringing @aceottorney.bsky.social to an upcoming openindie episode! 👇 Drop your questions below and we’ll ask René on the show! #indiegamedev #indiedev #indiegames #podcast

A very important game design principle: players like to feel clever, and it's best if they feel they've outsmarted the game (by being clever, not because the game is dumb). Do you agree? #gamedev #indiedev

Missed opportunity in Stranger Things 1. The "demogorgon" should have been a Soviet feral child -- unwilling subject of an experiment like Eleven, but a tragic victim twisted into an irredeemable monster. Eleven would have felt deep sympathy and guilt when she had to finally defeat him.

Book review. Stu Horvath: "Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground" ★★★✩✩ A TTRPG guide heavy on name dropping, light on specifics. Author way too much obsessed with racism and woke politics. Disappointing.

cc @van800.bsky.social

I'm still looking for a few game dev colleagues to help me figure out if my "Tetris+Survior Shooter" project makes sense or if I should scrap it. There's a Steam Playtest for the prototype: you'll get an activation key. More info: sandorhq.com/games/projec... #gamedev #indiedev

I simply lack the Iron Will to stop adding more features and systems to my game projects. Hopefully, openly admitting this weakness is a step toward overcoming it. Eventually.

Plur1bus is a Schrödinger's series. While I enjoyed the first three episodes, I'm fully expecting it to crash and burn, much like Severance, which only turned into an utter disgrace in its second season.

I'm fighting to avoid the infamous "full-sized aortic pumps" fiasco -- courtesy of Joey Tribbiani -- while editing the 3 sentences on the "failure" and the "success" screens. But the temptation is hard/arduous/strenuous/contumacious.

I was wondering why I get the same initial shuffled result, regardless of the base seed in Dragon Riddler. Turns out, deep inside my RNG code I was accidentally multiplying by zero. Oops.

Its design details were tricky, but I'm so glad I implemented an incremental save system in my permadeath, turn-based game. Extremely useful for debugging.

I wonder which one is more despised: AI or crypto?

I'm looking for a few game dev colleagues to help me figure out if my project makes sense or if I should scrap it. I've set up a Steam Playtest for the prototype: you'll get an activation key for a Steam-approved build. More info: sandorhq.com/games/projec... #indiedev #gamedev

The year, 2025, has been a release-heavy year for OrangePixel, but since the year isn't over yet, why not squeeze out a few more games? THREE more releases coming to the modern @atari.com VCS this November read more here: orangepixel.net/2025/11/15/8... #indiegames #games

I'm looking for a few game dev colleagues to help me figure out if my project makes sense or if I should scrap it. I've set up a Steam Playtest for the prototype: you'll get an activation key for a Steam-approved build. More info: sandorhq.com/games/projec... #indiedev #gamedev

What's your current stance on Steam Early Access? Would you use it for a new game project? #indiedev #gamedev

Now that Steam has made the game pages wider, I had to update the long description. Annoying to see their WYSIWYG editor producing horrible tag soup that always gets borked after each save, so I still need to edit the content manually. Looks like they haven't tested this feature, as usual.

This was a negative review, later turned into a rather positive one. It's nice to see the AI I've spent so much time nurturing being appreciated. Also, Steam can't handle review decision changes, so the graph still shows the wrong data. Reported the bug. ;)

The pitchfork lynchbrigade anti-AI mentality is getting tiresome. store.steampowered.com/app/3876150/... gets negative reviews because for supposedly using "AI art," despite the creators categorically stating they haven't used any AI. steamcommunity.com/app/3702100/...

Ways to contribute to #GodotEngine: Donate. Test betas or release candidates. Report bugs. Comment on proposals, or bug reports. Make tutorials or addons. Review and test pull requests, and comment/approve. Improving the documentation or translations. Make proposals, and pull requests.

Got a simple Godot Plugin to simplify setting recommended set of settings on and off. github.com/JetBrains/go... Curious of WDYT. I have more plans for it, like search Rider installations.

I did this

Big thanks to all the brave, if not foolhardy, adventurers that spent some time exploring Weepstone Keep in the demo. So much to come! Nose going back to the grindstone now. Hope you enjoyed it and please leave a review!