@inkle.co has done it again. Whether you'll like TR-49 probably depends on your tolerance for persevering with puzzles, but there's no question it's good. There's a lot packed into a deceptively simple-looking thing.

Slightly obsessed with Rust COO Alistair McFarlane offering to buy the game. I wonder what he'd do with it if it ever came to pass

Something positive: Spry Fox is spinning out of Netflix. We are independent (once again!) and preparing to launch Spirit Crossing. We wrote up a little blog post musing about this wild adventure. Worth sharing the good news. spryfox.com/a-16-year-ol...

Congratulations to our Narrative Award Nominees! 📚 @meredithgran.com @arteinteractive.bsky.social @wednesdays-game.bsky.social @thepixelhunt.bsky.social @ho-games-studio.bsky.social @jeremyxho.bsky.social @rocketadrift.bsky.social 🏆#IndieCade Awards Ceremony on Steam & YouTube Sat 1/17 11AM PT!

Am I Nima's demo was BREATHTAKING!!! you're Nima (or are you?) and you need to convince your mom that you really are her daughter. the gameplay is... word associations?!? keep an eye out for this one and wishlist it please please please plea store.steampowered.com/app/3224600/...

Here's the thing, see. There are two types of narrative game. There's RPG and there's adventure game. That's it. Only the names are all wrong. RPG isn't RPG. It's second-person. You do this? Great. Now you do that. Adventure is the other kind. Third-person. You there! Do this! Now, do that! End of.

Can GOG also bring multiplayer games back from the dead?

Late Jan is a perfect time for this. Something to lift our spirits

Leaving CD Projekt Red has its upsides. One is publishing games.

Crunch is bad. Crunch ruins lives. Crunch kills. Don't ask for it. Don't do it. It's bad. I can't believe I still have to say this after all these years.

I did not expect to hear the former exec producer of Anthem outline a pitch for making it a single-player game, but here we are. Also, local servers! Anthem has never been more exciting?

Playing Anthem while it awaited termination was a strange experience

Enjoyed this by Oli. I get the feeling it's long past cool to like Diablo 4, but is it better than people give it credit for? www.polygon.com/diablo-4-pal...

I've just finished listening to the Wisecrack podcast from last autumn and it is stunning. Couldn't wait to wash-up to listen to it. Get it in your ears! Contains some dark material so be prepared www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXyf...

Love that!

I find it hard to believe but I also want to believe

Me writing alt text. Oh the things I've nestled in there

It's great that @lilchopshopgal.bsky.social sought Maxence out to talk about this. I imagine there are many other such situations where a mo-cap performer has remained invisible. But such is the Clair Obscur effect that it's changed his life - and rightfully so - regardless.

Nothing wakes you up in the morning like a shot of Sektori

Mmmmmmmm almond fingers

😍

Me making a list of games to play over Christmas

How does Aaron Paul feel about the success of Dispatch? https://bit.ly/3YCvjEE

A nice big Dispatch interview from me. I can't stop thinking about the K-pop character they cut. He looked like a Saja Boy, apparently, and everyone wanted a bit of him!

Interested to see what the reaction to this will be. If there's a more beloved dev out there than Larian, I'm yet to see them. And I'd sort of assumed Larian would stand like a bastion against AI for some reason. Will the audience sour at this news? Will Larian change its approach?

"The impact of time dilation is something very unique and fresh, I feel, and we really leverage that. We really lean into it. It's an important part of our IP and a very important part of our story."

Another day, another search to see whether "phenomenon" is the singular or the plural

"We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood."

The slippery slope of open game development. Bearing in mind that GGG has two more major story acts to implement in POE2 before it can launch, and test them, I reckon it won't launch before autumn next year and could very easily slide into 2027.

Love this. Big change coming to the game that will positively affect all platforms, including Steam Deck, to make it better utilise multiple CPU cores. Performance as much as doubled in some cases. Niiiice

AHHHHHHHHHH /runs around excitedly

"It's a rallying cry against hypocrisy, institutional or otherwise, and one that feels particularly potent right now..." Wonderful review by Matt of a provocative but important game.

Argh my office chair slowly lowers over time and it's driving me nuts

It's a good job midnight launches aren't a thing any more because how would World of Warcraft manage one for its new expansion?

I've been thinking about this comment since seeing it the other day. And I love it. That Boston base for Cyberpunk 2 is going to be really valuable I think. And for CDPR games in general.

I don't know why @cdpr.bsky.social is saying it's possible to effectively make two new Witcher instalments in six years. Even writing that sentence reinforces how ambitious it is. Investor bluster? Or does it genuinely believe it can do it? Remember...

@clert.bsky.social you go months, even years waiting for some good PSVR2 titles and then Infinity Home and Ghost Town get released within days of each other.

I think this is probably code for 'we won't do games like that again'. "Going forward, we focus our capital to our core segments and, at the same time, we'll evaluate how we best develop World of Darkness' strong brand catalogue in the future."

Thursday morning coffee thought: I love you dark mode

"I want to feel this crazy fire as I felt it in The Witcher 3, The Witcher 2, in The Witcher 1. And later, when the team was too big, I lost it somewhere."

"I finished Dispatch recently, which is my game of the year. I love this game. And I don't believe that AI could create something like this. It's not possible..."

We did something different with the credits for Demonschool. We used this format: name, title, lengthy description of what they did. Often you see credits in games where you don't know what the credited developer was actually responsible for. We wanted to give people proper, actual credit.

Tell me I should care about your game without telling me I should care about your game "We want to bring video games closer to pen-and-paper RPGs."

Anything Inkle is interesting, but this is especially interesting

Then they should *have to* state it on any storefront and physical boxed copies. Previews and reviews of the game should state it at the beginning and/or the end of the copy at the very least.

Is it OK for a game to include any form of generative AI? That's the story here, I think, because Zoopunk (which I keep wanting to call Zootopia) does both. On the one hand, "All our works are original creations and the culmination of our artists' hard work and dedication..."

A Raji sequel! There were some cool-looking games in Microsoft's Xbox Partner showcase last night www.eurogamer.net/heres-everyt...

We don't know. What we do know is the wiring diagram works. We built it, virtually, in @godotengine.org. We fed it scans of the books we found. And the books are very, very strange. The "game" that resulted is also strange. We're hoping people can make sense of it for us.

The real benefit of working in a team is that someone can Photoshop Ken Kutaragi's face on Peter Moore's body while you're on a train home