Also if you’d like to check out Novella, you can download it at novella.app

today is my 40th birthday. to toot my own horn a bit, I'm the happiest, healthiest, and most successful I've ever been, so I'm going to indulge myself and do one of those "40 things that made me who I am" threads so buckle up (or mute me for the next little bit 😆)

✨ Introducing The Cozy Gaming Club WEBSITE ✨ I've teamed up with @nikkyscozycove.bsky.social to create a home for all the cozy gaming news and releases! Check it out: www.cozygamingclub.co.uk

Our mission remains; to recognize indie games from "all" corners of the world. 🌐 pitchyagame.com/mission/ 😤

Breaking: #PitchYaGame is now LESS than 30 days away! 🥰 🔹June 6th 2025 Another day of recognition for #IndieGames, across the world, approaches. 🥳

Found a good real world example of subsurface scattering with the light changing on this plant. #gameart #reference #photoreference

Today is my birthday ! 🍰 ✨ i’ll be very happy if you share my paper flowers 💕

Thanks @maxpears.bsky.social for sharing @andrewchambers.bsky.social Youtube channel in your last video - its a treasure trove of information on game design #gamedesign #indiedev

I didn't even realise you had a newsletter @flarup.bsky.social - this is an easy instant subscribe, I encourage others to do the same - www.flarup.email?r=q4ofl&utm_...

This is a cool world, take a look if you have the time!

Friday means its Godot lunchtime learning - added an SMG model, fire rate and learnt about inheritance #godot #gamedev #learning

👉👈 if you like what I make and want to support me for future projects, please consider sharing my game to people who might be interested. I'm making this game on my own, I don't have a huge network or big company backing me. Just sharing it helps me a lot. ❤️

Tomes & Tactics - Issue 002 is sent 💌 feels good to be getting into more of a rhythm with it, and good to share what I am doing. #indiedev #solodev #gamedev #newsletter

Tomes & Tactics newsletter number 2 goes out tomorrow - a great time to jump on the list today 💌 Find yourself some new worlds to explore and a bunch of potentially useful links for worldbuilders, writers and game developers arcanepyre.com/newsletter/ #gamedev #solodev #worldbuilding

Made some more progress learning Godot, first sandbox level design for @bramwilliams.co.uk Robo Rampage course! #godot #solodev #gamedev

This sort of time next week I will be sending another newsletter 💌 - great time to jump on the list! I'll be sharing links to cool resources for #gamedev and a couple of cool worldbuilding projects arcanepyre.com/newsletter/ #indiedev #solodev

If you an #solodev or #gamedev looking for more insight into developing a game engine, go follow Ben on twitch! www.twitch.tv/lazybengames

Been quiet recently as I got my head down to working through a Godot course - built this little tower defense game and learnt a ton about the engine and how these type of games are built. Now on to build an FPS and learn from that #Godot #IndieDev #Learning

I love how this visually shows how chaos becomes calm within a design/drawing process

And with that the first newsletter issue is gone 🛫💌 a little preview below 🕹️

2 hours until I send the first Tomes & Tactics newsletter; its got an update on what I learning next, 2 inspiring worlds and 3 useful links for game developers 🕹️ arcanepyre.com/newsletter/ #indiedev #gamedev #solodev

🌸Creative DEMO🌸 will be released NEXT-MONTH !!! It will allow you to create tiny chunks of environment and share it online! I can't wait to see what you are gonna create with it! (It won't feature story maps, only a tiny introduction crafted especially for the demo) #gamedev #indiegames

For the last 30 days I've been making a concerted effort to post everyday in the #Create30 challenge. It's helped me build a system to make it easier everyday and become part of my routine, which I hope to continue with - more posts about #gamedev and #solodev incoming 💪

Liam's #PitchYaGame is a great way to get your #indiegame noticed people 🎮

Big week coming up, planning to send my first newsletter on the 28th; it'll share some of my plans for learning game development as a solodev, as well as some links and resources 🕹️ arcanepyre.com/newsletter/ #indiedev #gamedev #solodev

Been planning my game dev learning path for the next 12 months and on game UI (which I do UI for products for a living) feels like its "learn how to implement in Godot" but I also want to reach out to indie devs and offer some free UI reviews, good idea? Bad idea? #indiedev #gamedev #godot

Big week coming up, planning to send my first newsletter on the 28th; it'll share some of my plans for learning game development as a solodev, as well as some links and resources 🕹️ arcanepyre.com/newsletter/ #indiedev #gamedev #solodev

This is a great bit of insight into the thoughts behind running an indie studio 🧵

Follow more indie studios guys! 🎮

You have to make the first draft exist, before you can make it better ✍️

Time for a little follow Friday love: @thisnorthernboy.bsky.social for illustrations of spaceships and robots 🤖 @hollandalbright.bsky.social for vgm and composing 🎼 @blindcoyote.com for amazing artwork featuring creatures 🐯 @charamath.bsky.social for creature artwork and inspiration 🐙

Set dressing FTW ✨

Follow Rob for Robots! He is very good at them 🤖

Some nice UI work going on in Isles & Tiles here, with an early access demo no less

Back to learning #Godot today, with some raycasting and updating a grid map using it 🎮 #indiedev #learning

From personal experience: Please, PLEASE PLEASE make smaller games. The more games you get out there, the more you learn, the more equipped you are for the next. Smaller games are those stepping stones. Stop trying to write a novel if you haven't written a short story FFS. #YourGameIsTooBig

This will make a great reference book for creature artists and #indiedev #gamedev will benefit from it!

Is it bad that up until now I thought Howl's Moving Castle was an original Ghibli story and not based on a book series?! At least I have 3 new books on the read list now 📚

Bumping this for the daytime people:

Does anyone know of any turn based tactics games but that use timed turns rather than just unlimited turn length? #gamedev #indiedev

This sounds fucking great!

Hell yes to non-AI slop reference libraries! #visuallibrary #reference

What if budget was no issue for your #gamedev, what game would you make? Time would still be required but what would that freedom do. I think I would look to an throne-war simulator game, fantasy based with team competing to capture areas of a continent. #indiedev #gamedesign

Another really useful reference dump #reference #visuallibrary

Building. A single word to sum up my plans for this year; building a sustainable studio, building consistency, building worlds, building games. #learning #gamedev #worldbuilding

Forgot Worldbuilding Con is coming up soon, I'll probably take a watch of the sessions and hopefully can grab some insight that can be applied to #indiedev also 🗺️

Still working on the design for @arcanepyre.bsky.social but thought I would share the look/feel I am trying to achieve for it with this little board

So today I have spent some time scoping out a plan for learning specific areas of #gamedev - looking at environment art/modelling, found this hand painted rocks tutorial www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqBh... and looking for more, if anyone can recommend good hand painted/stylized blender tutorials 🙏

Leadenhall Market Leadenhall Place, London EC3V Painted iron girder frame ceiling #reference #buildingreference #materialreference