Phew, took waay longer than I expected but I think I've got the whole unlock/progression system for Eldritch 2 done. Also I had some fun writing alternate dialogue. If the player is a monster and kills Dev, he'll remember it on their next run.

Digging into some real obscure stuff in my Criterion backlog, tonight I’m watching:

maybe it* will happen today *a new mouth album

Reminder that per the EULA when you followed me on here, you are contractually obligated to let me know whenever Neil Cicierega drops a new Mouth album. It could be 4am and I'm deep asleep, but you should be awake and IMMEDIATELY LET ME KNOW ABOUT THAT.

I reeeally don't want to relocate for a new job, but also I would give anything to be back in Marin County and eat some Sol Food again, I contain multitudes.

There are a lot of reasons I don't like genAI (environmental and ethical reasons especially) but I also don't trust any computer program that is fundamentally nondeterministic. A program that does not give a consistent output for the same input is not a program I can ever trust.

You used to be able to google the time of the sunset, and Google would give you the exact time right on top every single time. Thankfully, with artificial intelligence, you can now ask Google what time the sun will set and it will conveniently tell you "I don't know."

Someone should buy me 007 First Light and/or Mina the Hollower.

I hate working with my own UI system so much, but also I don't really want to spend the time building a new one. And this screen is just really complex so I guess it makes sense that it's taking a while. But I'm making progress.

The special edition of Return of the Jedi was mostly garbage but the new “Victory Celebration” piece was way better than “Ewok Celebration” (aka “Yub Nub”). Honestly if I could just watch the original original trilogy but keep that piece of music, that’d be MY special edition.

Extremely youth pastor voice: Our generation traded third places for liminal spaces, but Jesus has space and a place for you.

Weirdly, Kyle is the more normal one of the two of us.

lol couldn't be me, I don't even LIKE amontillado

Which white guy pop rock song do you prefer? - The Killers "Mr. Brightside" - Coldplay "Viva la Vida"

Actually, wait, let me reframe this: I know my friends want to support me, and I thank you. BUT, Which of these would you ask your friends to do too? 1) Steam Early Access (it's an unfinished game!) 2) Patreon (it's, I don't know, devlogs? I already do those, but now on video?) 3) Kickstarter

100% this thread. Back when I did have to go to the office, more often than not I'd take my laptop outside somewhere and find a nice spot to sit in the shade because office environments aren't suitable for my style of work. Give me my own space and I'll do All The Things and go above and beyond

Coheed AND Cambria? In this economy?

If I were to do some sort of early fundraising for Eldritch 2, which, if any, of these would you do? 1) Steam Early Access 2) Patreon 3) Kickstarter 4) None

Anyone who is hiring on-site software engineers instead of remote: what are you doing? Engineers need their space to work, putting them on-site just interrupts their flow. If you need a meeting, we've got Zoom, we've got Slack, we've got Discord. Let engineers engineer in their engineering bubbles.

They say it's not what you know, it's who you know, but it turns out who you know doesn't have any money either.

I shipped a devkit back to my former boss today, and when the employee at the UPS Store asked what I was shipping and I said "a video game development kit", he and his coworker looked slightly starstruck and were like "DO YOU MAKE VIDEO GAMES?" and I was like "I used to."

I have literally no memory of writing this. I think it must've been for a series that Gamasutra (now Game Developer) was doing about BASIC programming, because I'm not sure why I would've written this otherwise. But I can't find any emails about it. Weird! www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/...

Star Wars producers rn:

The phrase "you wouldn't dirty a martini" (a la "you wouldn't steal a car") popped into my head last night while making a dirty martini. I guess there's an alternate universe where olive brine is outlawed.

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a vinyl post. I’ve played through almost everything I own. And I’m not buying more until I have a job again. But I’d already preordered this, so let’s conclude the series: DMB’s massive 5xLP live set where they played Before These Crowded Streets in its entirety.

I keep saying I'd rather see Collins retain her seat than for walking red flag Platner to get elected, and people keep getting mad at me for saying that, and then more stuff about Platner keeps coming out.

It's been a real OOF day. My AC stopped working in the middle of the night and it's probably going to be a few hundos to fix. Then a job opening I was very excited about got closed unexpectedly, and it looks like some people at that studio have been laid off. ☹️

im back store.steampowered.com/app/3304110/...

You ever spend an hour touching half a dozen files across different domains in a project, and when you finally compile and build it all, it just works perfectly? That makes me feel uneasy. Where are the bugs hiding?? I'm *sure* I did something wrong in all that time.

Imagine pitching "it's a 19th century western series loosely based on historical figures but also it's got Shakespearean dialogue but also also every third word is 'fuck'" Anyway, somehow Deadwood exists and is the second best TV show of all time*. *The best TV show is Twin Peaks: The Return

Biblically accurate cat.

A thread on Era about light modes and dark modes in web sites made me want to finally illustrate why I can't use dark modes even though I recognize they're generally more popular.

My retirement plan is to meet a wealthy and sexy widow who falls in love with me. I don't know why more people aren't doing this.

I'm a huge fan of Mark Knopfler but somehow I didn't know that he'd played guitar on a Killers song back in 2017. His part really ties the song together. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jty...

I installed Claude Code last night, just so I could avoid the "you haven't actually TRIED using AI tools" accusations. It went about as well as you'd expect if you know my opinions on genAI.

I wonder if David Lynch ever played Earthbound.

Joe's scripting system is very similar to my own scripting system I've been using since Eldritch (2013). I've referred to it as "event/reaction", but "i/o" is simpler and they mean the same thing. Things happen, entities listen for those things to happen, and then those entities do other things.

I have released my level scripting i/o system, it's called JoeIO and it works great for me and at work but it's early so be gentle and just holler if you come across any weirdness. An explanatory video is below www.joewintergreen.com/joeio-a-leve...

Maybe not everyone is familiar with Gunpei Yokoi or this methodology. He's the guy that created Metroid and invented the Nintendo Game Boy. This bit in his Wikipedia article explains the philosophy pretty well: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_...

I want shorter games dot meme

Near Dark appreciation post

Oh I guess I should qualify this. I worked on a UE5 game from 2024-2026, and we were initially using all its cool new features like Lumen and Nanite. We had to cut them out for performance reasons, and IMO we should've reverted to D3D11 for a broader market and to fix all those PSO compile stalls.

I spent $20 to prove to myself and everyone else that I was right to be anti-AI.

Me at 1am: yeah look at how much engagement my posts are getting! Me at 7am: oh no oh f*** how much engagement did my posts get?

Blendo is besto

To paraphrase the Arcane Kids Manifesto: Make games for the console you loved as a kid

The reason Diablo 1, 2 and 3 all aged as well as they did is they all came out looking about 5 to 10 years old but absurdly polished within that graphical tier. That's something you can only do if you hang back and really get to grips with what your era is capable of.

It's pretty bold of them to tease UE6 when Lumen and Nanite still aren't viable for most games on most hardware and GPUs are only getting more expensive.

In another time, in another place, I might've ended up being either an attorney specializing in IP law (because that's my jam) or a studio guitarist. It's cool cool cool that AI is coming for not only my actual career but also my alternate universe careers.

I decided to try Claude Code tonight. I figured as long as I was going to have some strong opinions about genAI, I should probably have some hands-on experience with AI coding tools. So anyway I just uninstalled Claude.