I don't know that I can do 50 but I for sure can come up with 30 to 40 games from this year that you should check out. A lot of these are student games, and most of them are short and free and experimental. Hit me up if you've got one I should add to the list.

Bet. First, I'm gonna cheat and get four games from Enigma Studio because I really want to get around to talking about them and i haven't yet. First, play The Enigma Machine. It's a short (~1-2 hour) horror game about managing an AI's dreams.

Watched Red One tonight and had a blast. Smart writing, great acting, well executed all around. It’s a silly action comedy that knows what it is and has fun with it. Directed by Jake Kasdan, who did the 2017 Jumanji, and it has that same energy (complimentary). 5/5 Christmas trees 🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

This has been a long week but I will make a list of 50 indie games that are: From this awards voting year (Nov 2024 - Nov 2025) Not covered by the awards show Deserve your attention

since other people are doing it, here's a 50 indie game recommendation thread (entirely separate from the 50 indie games i have enjoyed thread i made a few days ago, which is here - bsky.app/profile/ella...). feel free to mute the thread if it's annoying

Simple way of testing the messaging: 1. Watch the trailer. 2. Write how you'd describe the game to someone who hadn't seen the trailer. 3. Does the description make the game sound unique or is it vague, generic, or unclear? If you can't come up with good or clear, that's a big uh-oh 👀

🤖 "Terminator" (1984) 🤖 "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991) 🤖 "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" (2003) 🤖 "Terminator 3: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) 🤖 "Terminator 3: Salvation” (2009) 🤖 "Terminator 3: Genisys" (2015) 🤖 "Terminator 3: Dark Fate” (2019)

Please don't let the fear of not doing something well stop you from trying it for the first time. Write a messy story. Paint a crappy flower. Whittle the worst wooden bear of all time. The best gift you can give yourself is to have fun and grow.

This is the number one issue I find with junior game designers (and unfortunately, non-designers who think anyone can design). So many people cannot tell the difference between "a game I like" and "a game that's designed well" and they get REAL mad if you point out there's a difference

truth coming out of her cup noodles to shame mankind

Love sports people because they post something like this and I watch it and it's some guys playing hockey

We are one week away from the return of the Turkey Fiend. defector.com/i-have-creat...

Xenopurge (@traptics.bsky.social) is a tactical autobattler roguelite where you command troops from your desk that recently hit its 1.0 launch. It's an immersive experience like no other. Check it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ci... #IndieGame #IndieCreators

smelly

😈 Maleficent, the evil queen, had her goblins searching for Sleeping Beauty for 16 years. 🛑 BUT…. they were looking for a baby the whole time. Acceptance criteria fail! 🧠 This is why it’s so important for villains to leverage AGILE practices. Don’t let this become your team. My new ecourse will

…why?

Interesting 🧵 re: cinematic language. I love that cinematography can be this expressive - stylistic in ways that don’t change the plot but do change our experience of the movie. Narrative style does the same for text. And games use those and also UI/UX to shape the experience of story and mechanics.

Every game designer parent I know bans Roblox for their kids

Whoa, that’s pretty cool! #MostlyWalking

Come work with me! My game studio is hiring a Senior Environment Artist for our multiplayer PC strategy game in Unreal. Full time and fully remote in the US, Canada, or LATAM. Please share, ping friends, tell all! Link in the reply!

Just want to emphasize here that this is an image of an INTERSTELLAR COMET taken by a camera orbiting MARS. Space is so cool!

#3157 A helpful tutorial

Doctor says, 'Dont worry, parser design is simple. Great programmer Kate Compton has written the parser you seek’

We've had these two little posters hanging on our wall for basically ever. They helped our kids get through middle school and high school and I personally still take a second to read them often. Printable PDF here: lumpley.games/wp-content/u...

Progress takes time. There’s no magical shortcut or special talent that replaces consistent effort and curiosity. Progress in #gamedev doesn’t happen overnight; it’s the slow accumulation of small wins, lessons learned, and problems solved. #indiedev #indiegamedev

This post, about games telling you that you missed something, is really interesting. It makes an excellent point about how that type of feedback system changes the player’s expectations and experience. I’m not convinced that’s always the wrong thing to do, but it certainly is a consequential choice.

Humans have a tendency to see faces in random patterns, we cannot be trusted with chatbots

A bit of a different post today. It’s black ops 7 launch day and I had the amazing opportunity to work alongside some incredibly amazing devs this summer as an intern. It’s also my first ever AAA game credit, so I’m really excited about that

I was in a class a couple weeks ago with @jessev.bsky.social who said something very similar in a lecture about the state of the games industry. It’s important to be learning to make creative, expressive, compelling work with a smaller scope and a smaller budget.

I got to read a draft of this and I am enthusiastically slamming the repost button.

I don’t usually post about current events in politics, because there are other, better voices that do that. But this seems like it marks an important moment in the delegitimization of the Supreme Court, or at least its current incarnation.

The conclusion of the dissent, written by Jackson and joined by Sotomayor and Kagan:

Why small studios and solo devs are doing what the giants can’t, saving gaming one experiment at a time. (in my humble opinion. 😜) www.core.show/p/the-indie-...

For the fellow designers in the chat, a history of circus and festival lettering. youtu.be/mvUbrnhlN6I?... #typography #design

NOZZO COSPLAY! ❤️

Update: added the ability to hide from AI when invisible. But beware: they might not see you, but they can hear you! (Still need to iron out some kinks)

Well that's best pause menu of the year wrapped up.

One of my students has been doing a great series of short, introspective videos about the process of making her latest game over on TikTok. Follow her on TikTok? I kind of gave up on TikTok around 2022, so idk. Go watch her videos so that your algorithm gets cooler? www.tiktok.com/@centicelebr...

Imagine you’re a player with zero context and stumble upon your game. What would they need to see or read in 5 seconds to instantly get the concept and vibe? That’s your game pitch -- refine it a little every day. #indiedev #gamedev #indiegamedev

Not sure it's my #1 but "The Bellhop Effect" is catchy/powerful. Framing the player experience like a hotel stay in your game, the bellhop contextualizes future interactions; the room/view can be 5 stars, but how you initially handle their luggage acts like a multiplier on everything afterward...

Lost most of the skin on my finger in a freak dumpling accident a week and a half ago and I gotta say. Every time I change the bandages I am filled with fresh bitterness about how mid those dumplings were

Here's my ongoing thread about the Immersive Experience Network Summit in London, happening today and tomorrow! Feel free to mute if you aren't into this stuff but it's a good crowd and people are pretty open about their opinions and experience... 🧵

I'm helping with level design on @sleightofhand.game ... the idea of this stealthy trainyard map is to contrast compact metro stations vs. long train tunnels vs. platforms where you duck into / beneath carriages #blocktober

The only excuse Lois Lane has for why her interviewing Superman isn't unethical, despite their romantic entanglement, is that it would be even more unethical for the paper's other top reporter, who is Superman, to interview himself, yet she cannot say this. This dilemma should be taught in J-school.

Check out Prism of You, a sandbox simulation about identifying and balancing (sometimes alien) emotions! This game was led by Kat (katadog.itch.io), an extremely talented recent graduate from USC Games and one of my students. Very proud of her and her team!

Live with a new game on tonight's #MostlyWalking! We are checking out THE DRIFTER, a highly recommended adventure game that we know virtually NOTHING about! Twitch -> Day9tv

Doing some early system design #gamedev