thinking of guys at gdc/industry parties who spent entirely way too much energy telling you about your potential and how talented you are, wonder how many of them are actively trying to avoid needing to speak to an artist ever again

with permission, the game here is minerva labyrinth! was able to see this made basically start to finish, including a total rewrite unity->godot, just at chance due to some Mastodon repost RNG. very sleek DRPG, you'll immediately know if this is for you store.steampowered.com/app/3520970/...

last thought on tonights matters before i explode of sleep its such common knowledge how much control the platform holders have over livelihoods now but when the solutions we prevent to escape that are just alternative ways of 'generating wishlists' we're still just capitulating to the platform!

Hey! Have you heard of Indiepocalypse? The monthly anthology of alternative games started in 2020? Born from a love of small press publishers and desire to provide more opportunities for people making games outside the industry, each issue is a collection of 10 games. itch.io/c/689872/ind...

always been bugged by 'directs' because it seems tacit that you cant really pick anything *too* experimental, lest it cheapen your presentation value + what of noncommercial games, or devs who boycott steam? is my def. of 'fringe' too small?

in general the 'practice' of design seems to be boiling down to - identify 2/3 genres the game makes up, marketingwise - find the gmtk/etc videos for those genres to identify which boxes you have to 'tick' to satisfy those genres - add your coat of paint to differentiate, marketingwise

New blog post! "Sketch Gamedev and Glorious Trainwrecks", about my attempts to make itty bitty games farawaytimes.blogspot.com/2026/02/sket...

2026 update on this and i have not been micro or macro blogging. i am glad to be avoiding the coy irony that i kind of exuded on twitter but my thoughts on so many games things have just become sour and i hate turning things caustic for others

the twentysomethings of today are also growing up impressing themselves on the behavior and expectations of those indie darlings. there is probably a very negative cycle here starting post-'boom' and esp. during the pandemic when new grads/etc got stuck fully investing in this workstyle

Still looking for more alpha testers for KERO, my 2D game framework for Rust! It's like MonoGame or LÖVE, but in Rust! If you're new to Rust or experienced, anyone is welcome, I think coding games is a cool way to learn a language. CRATE: crates.io/crates/kero DISCORD: discord.gg/AYjNw9WHJa

Outside these walls, the Children say, the grown-ups are monsters, and nowhere is safe. Our bittersweet fairy tale RPG #StrayChildren is now available worldwide! Buy it now on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3649490/... Buy it now on Nintendo Switch: www.nintendo.com/us/store/pro...

It's time to get your brain back. Mark your calendars for September 17th! ⚔️Try Blanksword's free Demo on Steam⚔ ⚔️Preorder the game on Kickstarter⚔️ 👇Official trailer below, links in comments👇

still do have faith in itch, but it is starting to show w/ the # of fires the site has had to put out since ~2022 that the boots are too big, its very much the single faultpoint for indies hopeful this highlights a need for collective organization to take place, upping oversight and communication

Today is two years since my book THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY DOES NOT EXIST was released! I'm still really proud of it as, I think, one of my best academic works. And I'm really thrilled with how much game researchers and especially developers have engaged with it. direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

The Steam Page for our angelic brain-shuffling Roguelike RPG is now live! To celebrate, we're holding an AMA in the replies to this post, and on our public Discord at the same time :] Wishlist Blanksword on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3484670/...

"Folks, we have climbed the mountain." www.patreon.com/posts/sdl3-i...

A terrifying noise echoes forth from the earth. And with it, a set of stories... Vextro's latest video game anthology, Tunnels of Vextro, is now public! Like our first, Gardens of Vextro, each game is inspired by those before it. Please try them out! itch.io/c/5260212/tu...

playing Stray Children would own so hard right now

incredibly sobering at the 50min point on ive got whiplash from just revisiting the two mid-2010s indie games docs last week. its crudely funny because the critique around the 2010s docs was that they were too 'celebratory'. now its simply impossible to talk about/demonstrate success...

aregames.art/t/cave-story... share your cave story memories thanks

people could slag off this entire current era of indie games for the clones of 90's games or the endless metroidvania/deckbuilder stuff. but it's reductive! there's a lot of other stuff going on. so i don't know why people don't seem to want to extend that to late 2000's/early 2010's indie at all.

CAVE STORY 20th ANNIVERSARY PROJECT [1/??] #pixelart #gamedev For this special day, my brother and I sought to bring Cave Story's charms to 3D. Take a look!

everyone say happy birthday indie games right now

reverting back to calling tilesets chip sets in order to prove my allegiance to god

heartwarming: this studio made a bsky starter pack to help the 300 roles they just let go of

for #indieanimationday here is a teaser for my short film and the acronym of the title #animation #indieanimation #art

.. . .look mom... .. . im on mobygames.... did a little work making the dialogue/cutscene editor for this, so cool to see it fully together :">

SUCK UP SPEECH BUBBLES!!! MEET BIZARRE GODS!! …watch puppets cook? 🚨 GREAT GOD GROVE is OUT NOW on STEAM, NINTENDO SWITCH, and XBOX X|S 🚨 Can you use your words to save us from apocky-lips?? youtu.be/0QOe1ukeixw?... store.steampowered.com/app/2840190/Great_God_Grove/

feel like "AA" is kind of trite at this point. but i'm thinking about where the gap is forming/widening between indie titles that are broadly appealing on storefronts/vid. streaming vs the ones still very self-indulgently experimental

small but loving reminder that i run aregames.art which is a devlog-focused indie games forum

i mean i know i cant be alone for falling into that stuff. outside of literal sales twitter became the de-facto "metric" most games had to track with. but treating that stuff like the unwritten rules is probably tearing apart more small communities than anything

disliking resurfacing the internal emotions of 'are my last 3 posts the Exact Content that will impress people so they follow back.' + the follower count echelon math about who 'gets' into what circles. i wanna try being more candid but all this is what eventually got me to shut up on twitter ~2019

games world needs to finally grow beyond the enthusiast press sort of language defining everything and anything of how people approach games and a grow a fucking spine

this is why i harp so much on big youtubers who push ahistorical narratives about games. it all comes back to feeding the big machine of gamer culture to people who are already isolated - thus reinforcing it. it's also about pushing stuff that is already marginal further to the margins

are there any actually useful (non-bloated, non-linkedin-style) texts about the fundamentals of game designs?

did you know that one of the 5 Industry Guys Who Will Ever Give You Money is looking at your posts, right now? He and his 4 buddies are spilling long island iced teas on their waistcoats right now over how distasteful it is actually

nebulous nature of the opengl documentation 'yes this function can accept a null val if you want to hint to free this value. but also on sep. 23 2011 nvidia driver devs thought it would be reaaaal funny to also have your computer screech like a meerkat in response. so no it wont work but oh it does'

spellcaster ✨🔮

There's a preview of Richard Hofmeier's Cart Life update available for free, or you can give money. Get it while it's available before he takes it down and burns it to the ground! And maybe give him money, he's always on the edge. hofmeier.itch.io/danger-demo

starting to really miss the period of time when we were still okay with grabbing rips of bands you liked to collage into rm2k3 projects or whatever we are sorta figuring this out, but whats with vgs need to stilll pretend to be totally insular to any other media formats

it hurts

this isn't really a commentary re: social media current events. if twitter is a part of the sickness at the heart of the scene (probable) - then thats been true circa 2016, even

browsed thru my old following list, trying to re-add people. honestly terrifying how many incredibly talented folks, projects that inspired me to join the indie scene in the first place, have been completely chewed up by the industry and are basically just gone forever

2021, gd 3.x, prototype messing with simulating 3d collision on top of a 2d tilegrid. think it had working moving platforms too

2021? handbuilt physics/collision engine on top of raylib, cave story clone thing

dumping stuff so it looks presentable

ugh fine