A couple games I've worked on for Transolar Games are on sale as part of the itch.io Summer Bundle: https://itch.io/s/190452/summer-sale-2026

I've been listening to the When We Were Wizards podcast on the history of TSR, which is quite good. But it's giving me a sense of relief to hear other people go through these kind of small-business egos and dramas. I feel less alone […]

A lot of what I’m doing for 3D stuff is just straight up Blender plugins. There are many of them! You can do some pretty great stuff! But again, a lot of these are side gig projects or hobby developments. The actual cost of Free Software is patience, and time, and energy learning about how to […]

I’m slightly irked that more creative tools aren’t available on Linux. 😞 If ZBrush or Character Creator or an affordable copy of Divine Cut were available, that would be so fantastic. I know I could try to run them with Wine, but…eh. I feel like the Linux desktop is actually pretty great for […]

Updating #cityofglass to Godot 4.7 and Popochiu 2.1.1 has been... seamless? What is this wizardry? Usually this process is a lot more painful. :D

Well-done, @godotengine . https://godotengine.org/article/contribution-policy-2026/

Other people have shared this, but this video by Jason Schreier is very good. My career path I was "major in computer science at Wellesley, take IF classes and do IF research at MIT, work in tech/webdev for a few years, transition to full-time consulting, get indie game devs as clients, start […]

This looks incredible promising. Independent video game website and blog collection. https://www.warppoint.games/

Going to Narrascope seemed to really pull me out of the depression I've been in for the last few years. It's good to be part of a community. Just released a song, and now a game poem, this weekend. https://cidney.itch.io/let-me-speak

Looks like I'm still being bridged to bluesky... should I turn that off? It's mostly spam, but more adventure game people are on bluesky than fedi, sadly. :(

Updated Let Me Speak to fix a bug caught by @summerb -- thank you! One of these days I'll figure out how to do proper playtesting for short IF things. https://cidney.itch.io/let-me-speak

Going to Narrascope seemed to really pull me out of the depression I've been in for the last few years. It's good to be part of a community. Just released a song, and now a game poem, this weekend. https://cidney.itch.io/let-me-speak

Each broom agent can spawn additional, autonomous broom agents, each with their own pails. This allows apprentices to accelerate monotonous water-fetching tasks and save their time and energy for more interesting and useful work

I have just discovered that Trans Theft Horso exists, and the developer seems awesome. (Yay for more queer adventure game developers!) https://store.steampowered.com/app/2268550/Trans_Theft_Horso/

Last month I went from only showing #cityofglass to my polycule to having 15 playtesters with itch.io keys, including people I only know through their code. Plus several in-person demos. Eep. I'm really making this game? 😅

I have no trouble getting used to the metric system, but dates? There is no way to tell whether 12.7 is American or European. I am clearly not assimilating.

Today looks like it is going to be a catching up on emails day. Eager to get back to actual coding and creating. Need more time this week. Have zero time.

Josh Mandel on using interactions for storytelling in graphic adventure games, from #narrascope2026 . https://youtu.be/IS_Mq7kMBdA?si=BnaR4JXATmqU67G_

@spectra this is why I put my rough, junk videos to YouTube and try to only upload my higher quality stuff to Spectra. :> I've also been thinking about just making lower resolution videos in general. Why does everything need to be HD??

Time to do another round of #introductions . Hi, I'm Cid or Cidney. I've been on the fediverse since 2016; starting with mastodon.social, moving to some topical and self-hosted instances. Lately I'm too hosed for self-hosting, so this is my main account. @[email protected]#introductionsis my TTRPG alt. I'm […]

Spectra currently stores 7.5 TB of videos. As our costs continue to rise, we need to make a serious decision about the long-term viability of our platform and operations. One thing we are thinking seriously about is defaulting to a set per-account upload limit, with the ability to pay for […]

The Well Edited Game: Talk from #narrascope2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQLvaxva2QY

The last time I worked in an office was 2014 (in South Boston). I like coffee shops and coworking spaces in small bursts. But control over my environment is important.

Josh Mandel on using interactions for storytelling in graphic adventure games, from #narrascope2026 . https://youtu.be/IS_Mq7kMBdA?si=BnaR4JXATmqU67G_

What people don't get is that I wanted to love the United States. I wanted to love Elon Musk. I wanted to love capitalism. I was sent as an unknowing kid who read the entirety of Elon Musk's biography into the heart of capitalism, the Silicon Valley, and talked to entrepreneurs, people who […]

How are Millennial oldies even a thing? Nobody liked this shit when we were tweens in the 90s either.

i dont understand how the artists, the digital painters, the musicians, the voice actresses, and everyone else on the planet realizes genAI is just plagiarizing. but software developers are like "ah this is brand new code that no one ever had before" ITS LITERALLY JUST TUXRACER

Hi, I'm working as a solo indie dev on an adventure/RPG called #cityofglass, developed in #godotengine and #popochiu . Here are some preliminary screenshots for #screenshotsaturday .

Going Union Part 2: How Indies Can Hire Top-Tier Talent and Not Break Their Budget by @GrundislavGames from #narrascope2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svMI5cvkTwE

The Life Games Require Of Us. Meredith Gran's phenomenal #Narrascope2026 keynote speech from last weekend, is up on the @IFTF#narrascope2026YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCLsLh56pkw

There are a lot of reasons I've been in a creative funk recently but one of them is the chilling effect where I think about the inevitable LLM plagiarism that will occur and I think, huh, do I really want to release anything publicly? I feel myself more drawn to making stuff that never goes on […]

RE: https://glammr.us/@TeamMidwest/116754577266981148 The ivory tower isolates. That gives safety but it has downsides.

Things #videogames Should Have: Mooses. Each chapter ending with the player hanging out in a homoerotic hunt club. A song called "New Age". Things They Should Not Have: AI usage, even code https://virtualmoose.org/2026/06/14/things-every-video-game-should-have/

Exchanging itch.io handles is so much more fun than the usual networking social medias. Met lots of very cool people at Narrascope; now to catch train and attempt to zzz.

Quick #narrascope2026 selfie.

wire and plastic, london, jun 2026 #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

"The cruelty of life in America seems like it has reached a fever pitch. It's not easy to be a writer, programmer, or artist in 2026." Meredith Gran, "The Life Games Require From Us" #narrascope2026 #narrascope

Narrascope is going very well so far. Meredith Gran's talk was very good.

"Now that I'm an old woman I have the media taste of a 13-year-old boy" remains my most seen moment in the latest Contrapoints video.

"This group of largely non-queer dancers made sure to keep my pronouns correct. And yeah sure fine, some of them collectively don't always get what that means... but they're respecting that weird preference." Because maybe the hobby I love can actually love me back." […]

This is a very sad #throwbackthursday . I grew up in the Satellite Beach public library, where the YA section had a somewhat limited selection to the Satanic Panic, and Jane Yolen (along with Patricia Wrede) were the authors I devoured the most. Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna had an […]

Y'know what? I think one of the most defining things about queer relationships, particularly among women, is that we are FRIENDS WITH OUR PARTNERS.

[CW: "AI"] "A lot of prominent developers decided they want to slam on the treat button ad nauseam and still call it engineering, and the united front is dead before it ever had a chance to form. That's life. My fault for expecting better." […]

Published a new devlog for #cityofglass on my personal website. These are mostly going to the itch.io page (for people with access keys only). https://cidney.org/2025/11/19/city-of-glass-devlog-006

But at this point corporate social media, and the stress and anger/anxiety it triggers, is reducing my life expectancy significantly. There needs to be another solution to community.

I'm trimming my follows here heavily... so this is now exclusively gamedev colleagues, and am only going to use this to talk about work. Mostly people I can vouch for personally in some way, but this is "work me". If you're a personal friend, writer, or anything else, @cidney@social […]