Anything that looks like manga or anime. That presentational style represents what's wrong with the world.

1/7 The Fermi Paradox: where is everybody? Here's a theory that might actually explain the silence…

Oops, forgot the tags: #godot #gamedev #indiedev

1/7 I made a new game prototype in Godot 4.6 using C#. Then I realized I should refactor it to use MultiMeshInstance3D, and I rewrote everything in GDScript. I'm finding that GDScript is actually nicer and faster to work with than C# in Rider. Rider feels slow now. :( Details:

🦣 DEMO launches in 24 HOURS! Your stone age hunter-gatherers await... Check out the Folk Emerging demo, Jan 30th, 10am EST! 👉Wishlist to get notified: store.steampowered.com/app/2275300/... 🎮 #indiegame #indiedev

And again, my attempts to resurrect Dragon Riddler seem utterly futile. Probably 70% hubris on my part, but I'm unsure what the other 30% is. New plan: a small prototype to test on Itch, no AI. Godot 4 and C#. Wish me… anything. Something. #gamedev #godot #indiedev

When a robot is stunned you can turn off its brain! Some weapons in Reconfigure will only be able to temporarily stun an enemy so you will need to disable them manually to finish the job. #GodotEngine #indiegames store.steampowered.com/app/3989530/...

Welp, tried "porting" Dragon Riddler to Android again. This time I managed to start the game on a Redmi Note 12S. The display safe area was incorrectly detected. On a Lenovo M10 tablet, the game crashes on the Main Menu, and remote debug shows nothing. Okay, no Android port.

The desktop I use for testing Linux builds just died unexpectedly. And I had just uploaded Dragon Riddler to sandorhq.itch.io/dragon-riddl... for the first time. Of course. Can someone on Linux check if the build works?

Trying to record a one‑minute trailer narration for days. Every time I start, a neighbor, the street, or my laptop fans erupt, or I'm too irritated to sound the same. At this point I'm living in a Lovecraft story.

1/7 The Fermi Paradox: where is everybody? Here's a theory that might actually explain the silence…

I tried exporting Dragon Riddler to Android, but after hours of chasing nonsensical errors I'm giving up. I still don't know why it refuses to read the 16‑megabyte binary word‑list file (even though it's in the .apk), or how that somehow interferes with the buffs/debuffs class.

A discussion, that could be interesting for solo devs: A discussion could be interesting to solo devs: old.reddit.com/r/SoloDevelo... #gamedev #indiedev

I'm installing Omarchy on my 2012 MacBook Air. I'm curious to see how it behaves. I haven't used this hardware for a while, but as a "low-end test machine" it might be handy. No idea.

2 downloads. That's how many people are interested in the updated Dragon Riddler demo. I'm working on a 1-minute shortform (portrait) video, then I'll try some cold-call emails to reach YouTube RPG creators, because DR's combat system is a fresh take on the "unlucky roll, die" formula.

Dragon Riddler v0.4 • Demo on Steam now.

TIL: No more anim‑gifs. I converted some clips with ffmpeg and pushed them to GitHub Pages for free hosting. GitHub Pages instantly died. Completely. It took twenty minutes to come back. I'm beginning to suspect I have superpowers, and they're all catastrophic.

And finally: the demo of Dragon Riddler v0.4 has been released. It's literally a new game, and I hope you'll take a look: steamcommunity.com/games/357660... For fun, I also uploaded a 30-minute playthrough on its Steam page. :) #GodotEngine #indiedev #gamedev

And finally: the demo of Dragon Riddler v0.4 has been released. It's literally a new game, and I hope you'll take a look: steamcommunity.com/games/357660... For fun, I also uploaded a 30-minute playthrough on its Steam page. :) #GodotEngine #indiedev #gamedev

Will Valve ever modernize their prehistoric, confusing, primitive, and unintuitive admin tools for Steam? Having a separate page for a game's demo becomes truly painful when assets need to be updated and synchronized.

Creating a video trailer is by far the most challenging task. It's ridiculously difficult to showcase dozens of features in under 1 minute. Especially since this is for a heroic fantasy adventure that isn't a word puzzle but still uses words for challenge resolution.

I'm now preparing a video trailer for the new Dragon Riddler demo on Steam, but I've already uploaded a 30-minute narrated playthrough of one of the preset adventures. I'm hoping to release the demo next week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMzB... #GodotEngine #indiedev

🎵 When someone asks "I don't know how to make music, what's a good beginner tool", people often recommend Bosca Ceoil, and that's a great suggestion! Make sure to use Bosca Ceoil Blue, which works on desktop and on web, and has a ton of QoL features! It's free: yurisizov.itch.io/boscaceoil-b...

The new Dragon Riddler DEMO is now available in the beta branch on Steam. Whew. It took me a while to reach v0.4. Now I'll "only" need to make new screenshots, videos, and write new copy, since I've essentially made a new game. I'm targeting next Monday.

Godot adds an extra .remap extension to certain files when a game is exported. What's the current best practice to discover resource files? old.reddit.com/r/godot/comm...? #GodotEngine

I think this is going to be the new logotype for Dragon Riddler. #gamedev #GodotEngine

I've been bitten by the Typography Bug, and I couldn't resist adding the missing \quoteright glyph to the Hultog font I'm using here. #GodotEngine #solodev #typography

Could it make any sense to translate only a game's Steam page if the game itself is English‑only and -- being a word‑puzzle adventure -- absolutely requires an active English vocabulary and can never be translated? #solodev #gamedev #indiedev #gamemarketing

Stumbled upon a 1-bit pixel paint app, tried my hand at it. (This is a 4x zoom version.) #pixelart

In C# I like to use inner functions primarily as self-documenting code. I'm faking the same in GDScript too, except with __fuglified function names, sticked immediately below their "owner" functions. Sometimes I even wrap them in `#region` blocks. :)

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.