raigan said he's nearly out of copies, so let me pick up the banner: i've got 5 copies of Cinco Paus if you want to play one of @smestorp.bsky.social 's best games.

ATTENTION BSKY: in celebration of Cinco Paus Day's Eve, please message me if you'd like a free copy of the best game ever made. :) smestorp.itch.io/cinco-paus Also TSLOG are doing an amazing series of podcasts on Michael's games: eggplant.show PLEASE REPOST! OR RE-SKEET! WHATEVER IT'S CALLED!! :)

Happy Birthday to all my birthday twins! @doubleanna.bsky.social @ryanodonnell.bsky.social @droqen.bsky.social @petripurho.bsky.social I hope you are all having a wonderful day 🎉

Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

Today in "Don't Trust AI to Tell You Facts": How several different "AI" programs messed up the simple fact of to whom I dedicated a book, and what that means for how much you should trust "AI" to tell you the truth about things (spoiler: not much at all): whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/a...

AI has actively made life worse for literally everyone - tech is now more expensive - you cannot trust most media of reality anymore - programs barely function - energy prices - literal psychosis - your voice can be literally stolen for evil - more spyware but hey, you can avoid paying an artist.

It's my birthday! The ONLY thing I want is more subscribers to the exp. Patreon! It's just $1/month for consistent, quality video game criticism, but my gift to you TODAY ONLY (til 11:59pm EST) is 90% off the first month with the code 09BAA. That's like 10¢! But if you can't sub, please share!

Microsoft: 30% of our code is now written by AI Also Microsoft:

I was one of the other authors whose free games were used as a basis for this (by permission, under contract). Read the thread for details; I agree with every word Alan has written (both the positives about the game, and the negatives about Jonathan Blow).

The handmade, human qualities of your work are more valuable than they've ever been. Don't doubt that for a second.

My love for em dashes is as old as the hills and as mighty as my inability to make a transition between thoughts literally any other way and I will be damned if I let the clankers take that from me

HEY if you have ever wanted to make a whole working #PICO8 ROM from absolute scratch, but weren't sure where to start... just head over to www.pico-8-edu.com and i'll take you on a lil 15 minute tour that will have you up and running in no time! well, in 15 minutes 😅 www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWsj...

Just stop and read this John Paul Brammer piece on Substack. You’re welcome! Here’s a nibble: “The color of ChatGPT’s blood if ChatGPT could bleed, if ChatGPT could be slashed with a sashimi knife and if milky fluid could come gushing out of its jugular.”

I feel like I *just* posted about it but every time someone says people should promote their book I'm gonna promote my book. Just imagine adding this wonderful book of essays to your cart of Black Friday whatever. Think how you will cherish the experience of buying and then reading it

Our upcoming game HORSES was preemptively banned from Steam, with no path to appeal. The game will still launch next week on December 2nd and will be available on EGS, GOG, Humble, and Itch for $4.99. Here is a detailed FAQ covering what happened: horses.wtf/BannedFromSt...

I am glad to hear HORSES—the most incredible demo I played all year—is coming out soon, but hearing about yet another indie game getting axed by Steam really frustrates me.

One more week to submit games to the Pico-8 arcade residency! Application deadline is 11/23 at midnight

We don’t use generative AI at Strange Scaffold and I can confirm that a *lot* of other studios are not—whether indie or AAA. Get outta here with this normalization bullshit.

TEN++ bonus update! We've added support for Steam Cloud and fixed the save corruption issue -- hooray! Hope this helps everyone have an even better time playing N++ <3 store.steampowered.com/app/230270/N...

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

Jays win!!!

It’s always so delightful to hear @raiganburns.bsky.social cackling with glee as players encounter the gotchas in his fave N++ levels 😅

Re-posting for the weekend crowd -- it's TEN++, the 10th Anniversary of N++, and we're celebrating! <3

@raiganburns.bsky.social will be playing some of the new levels at 3pm EST! If you want to join in the fun, we'll be streaming here: www.twitch.tv/metanet_soft... and you can sign up in the discord to play (details below)!

AND ALSO, the lede buried in our blog post -- we're working on something new! 👀 Want to find out about it (soonish)? Sign up here: www.metanetsoftware.com/newgame

Want to get a sneak peak of the super-secret TEN++ Solo levels? One of the best players in the world is streaming them right now! :D www.twitch.tv/hiya_5

And the celebrations don't stop here! This weekend, @raiganburns.bsky.social will be playing through the brand new multiplayer levels on twitch with fans - want to play too? He'll be arranging things on the multiplayer channel of the N++ discord, so get on over there! :D discord.com/invite/nplusplus

We've also made a bunch of limited-edition merch to commemorate TEN++! @maresheppard.bsky.social made some very special level art, plus we created a TEN++ logo tshirt, a ninja hat, a super cool extruded N++ logo tshirt, a merch pack for the superfans out there, and more: www.etsy.com/shop/metanet

The TEN++ celebrations continue with ten (natch) new Featured Levels, hand-picked by the intrepid community curation team from over a hundred thousand (!!!) userlevels made over the last decade. Hear about these amazing levels here: metanetsoftware.tumblr.com/post/7975845... And then go play them!

So many feelings! We wrote about them over on our blog: www.metanetsoftware.com/2025/celebra...

TEN++ is a big thank you to everyone who has played the game and supported us over the years -- you rock! Check out this amazing video community member abho made for us to help celebrate: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8gs...

It's time! Today we're celebrating N++'s 10th Anniversary, aka TEN++, with style -- a fancy free update to the game and a Daily Deal on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/230270/N...

Whatever you do, please don’t stop reading. Read for joy. Read for education. Read for resistance. Read banned books. Read books by marginalized authors. Read about experiences that differ from your own. Just. Keep. Reading.

Feel like I should make a bigger deal of this. You can pre-order, right now, all three issues of exp. and get my extraordinarily funny and insightful writing on video games and the 1970s for just $20 USD (+shipping) in a bundle. And the set looks really cool! expzine.com/product/exp-...

And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death.

Oh no! This is actually devastating. He was such a sweet baby and instrumental in creating the cat-based internet we love today. He lived a very long a full life.

lately when i’m feeling hopeless i just think of the Katamari cat wearing scuba gear. if she can survive in an inhospitable environment then so can i

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

The Play for Peace: Games for Palestine charity bundle is now live! Nearly 400 games from creators all around the world, with proceeds going directly to Gaza relief efforts. Bundle link: itch.io/b/2979/play-... We made a launch trailer to celebrate this moment👇 Please RT.

Want to see the hardest N++ level ever made? Tune in right now!! :D www.twitch.tv/xskylighter

As someone who loves an em dash—and is no fan of AI—yes to all of this: www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/p...

The process is at least half the point. This is true for research as art. You cannot make a thing without learning how to use the tools of making, and learning why, and what effects they produce, and how making it... I'm going to be slightly weird here: making it makes you, too.

Make games for yourself and for your friends. Make things because they don't exist and you want to see them in the world, because you have an itch you need to scratch. Art made with love and passion and quirkiness will find an audience who appreciates that love and passion and quirkiness.

i know "artist" is an abstract/multifaceted term but games are indeed art and they're a very complicated art. you don't need to pretend your main reason to exist is to be like some kind of playful interface designer - you can aim higher than that. you honestly should aim higher than that tbh.

It's the 10th Anniversary of N++! www.metanetsoftware.com/2025/10-ish Festivities to follow...👀

New exp. Dispatch! I follow up on Wheels of Aurelia by watching its inspiration, Il Sorpasso, I review Luth Haroon's INSERT/DATE/HERE, and I implore you to watch Local Legends: expzine.com/2025/07/27/t... Subscribe FREE to get it early in your inbox: expzine.kit.com

Wheels of Aurelia has now been delisted by Apple. You can still pick it up elsewhere. It's worth playing:

there are so many great things about generative AI! here are some of my favorites <3