The biggest trap for unwary coders in Unity is Awake(). It looks like an init function... but it isn't, because there are cases where other code can run before it. Worse still, when someone makes this mistake, there is no easy solution. You can't just say "Do this instead...".

Ellie, talking about character design. I think players often don't realise how much iteration and refinement goes into this stuff behind the scenes. (This is Pieced Together, the game I've been doing dev work for.) www.tiktok.com/@glowfroggam...

We can have these conversations without mentioning money... but I'm disinclined to.

Me (smugly): This will fix it. <makes change> Pooter: Nnnope, still broken, LOL! Me: <flips entire table> Me: Long, ranty explanation about how that couldn't possibly not have worked. Me: <returns to code> Me: <saves previously unsaved change>

My new least-favourite coding mishap: 1) Make a one-character typo. 2) Intellicode guesses wrongly what I was trying to type and autocompletes it. 3) Because the autocompleted thing requires a library I'm not using, a 'using' directive is automatically, silently added.

"Without that, the game just wouldn't exist" Rami telling the real story of game production. There are always compromises. Players only see the gap between the shipped game and perfection.

This is a good wording of how I feel about puzzle design too. These days I only 100% about 1/4 of the puzzles I start. Sometimes not finishing is because the game gets very hard at the end and I don't have the time (eg. Gentoo Rescue), but more often... (1/2)

This thread is worth a read. Personally, I'm probably not going to play the game. Not because of the politics of the creative lead, but because I already don't have time to play all the creative and interesting puzzle games that come out.

Update to my review: I think this is now my favourite web game of all time. Just consistently great all the way through.

Part two! Next time some clown tries to tell you that nobody makes interesting games anymore, just send them these articles.

This is what I want the gaming press to be all year round! Wishlisted more games from one article than in the last three months combined!

Steam intentionally killing an old, respected, and beloved decade old indie game studio through bullshit policy is fucking wild

This is a very good puzzle and you should play it. (Free!)

If you know anyone who might be interested, plz send them the link? I've been doing dev work for this project and it's pretty great! Playtesters so far have loved it.

I played a bit of this during testing and it's really good. Andy Duff consistently impresses me as a game designer. store.steampowered.com/app/3330410/...

Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work. Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/

In case you weren't able to watch ThinkyCon 2025 live, the helpful folks at Thinky Games have now given my talk its own video. :-)

Today I updated by VS install from 2019 and now it has some kind of AI suggesting autocompletes for all my lines as I type them. It's like having a dim but very enthusiastic undergraduate finishing all my sentences for me. This lasted less than a day before being switched off.

Urgent help wanted, as mention by Tonda in this talk. One of the lead playtesters really urgently needs a living kidney donor. Read www.iggyland.org and then consider reposting, please.

My talk is in one hour, here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eb-...

The nice people at ThinkyCon made me a poster! Also, don't forget ThinkyCon starts on Wednesday 5th - I'm on day two.

This is the most ruthless act of union busting in the history of the UK games industry. Yesterday, @rockstargames.com unfairly fired over 30 employees for union activity. We won't back down, and we're not scared - we will fight for every member to be reinstated.

ThinkyCon last year was pretty great, so mark your diary! Also, I'm giving a talk again... actually live this time. :-)

Don't tell the Git illuminatii I told you, but you can just type this into a shell: git config --global alias.uncommit "reset --soft HEAD^" ...and then when you want to reverse your last commit before you've pushed it, it's just: git uncommit ...which you might have a chance of remembering!

This game is so well made. Just a pleasure to play.

"iPhone build only bug"

The demo for Pieced Together is out! I've just been coding on this project, but @katekillick.bsky.social & @ellieeady.bsky.social at Glowfrog have done incredible work. Check it out, then give it a wishlist! (Reposts also welcomed. ❤️) store.steampowered.com/app/4005690/...

In Unity, a runtime script handling a prefab can add components to it. If it does, they stay there on exit. However, it cannot remove components "to avoid data loss". A classic example of seemingly reasonable design causing chaos... BRB, off to remove a few hundred duplicate components by hand. :-/

Have been watching this one for a while. Excited to finally get to play!

Really good intro to puzzle design. Worth bookmarking to share the link with new devs.

Trying to clean up some misinformation about what pages were affected by our NSFW content deindexing. If anyone has a contact with the author please send it my way. bsky.app/profile/itch...

Sunken Stones is out! Had a lot of fun testing this one. Has some really nice character design, too.

Glowfrog Games, who I'm doing dev work for right now, are hiring for a few roles for Pieced Together (music/voice/marketing/animation). They're good people to work for. Here's the link: www.notion.so/glowfrog-gdd...

I think everyone should fill out the Bank of England's consultation on new banknotes designs and put "Dinosaurs!". If everyone did, we could have dinosaur bank notes. Do it! www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/he...

For #thinkypuzzlejam5 I decided to try making an escape room. This was a lot of fun, but I would not recommend making an escape room in 48 hours! bateleur.itch.io/the-escape-s...

Oooh, interesting! Have to say, I'd find this very hard to do. Projects are always code-first for me because I like to get to something playable as soon as possible.

In less than ten days, I will be running Thinky Puzzle Game Jam 5. In previous years this has been a lot of fun and a source of many excellent games. It's not too late to sign up! :-) itch.io/jam/thinky-p...

I don't consider Blue Prince to be a puzzle game. This meets with various responses, but one person recently said: "It absolutely is, it's just that the initial room 46 quest is really before the start". Well... no. If over half of players don't get that far, it isn't in any useful sense the start.

👉🔴 Demo Announcement 🔴👈 I've released the Steam demo for The Button Effect! A first-person #puzzlegame inspired by The Witness, The Talos Principle, THE CORRIDOR, Antichamber and the architecture of a modern arts museum I enjoyed. Wishlist = ❤️ store.steampowered.com/app/3563110/

Exciting Spooky Express news - the demo is OUT NOW! 🎃 Plan the train route for the world's spookiest theme park. If you don't keep all the passengers on track, you'll have a grave problem... store.steampowered.com/app/3352310/... Check out the demo and wishlist on Steam!

Ah, Gentoo Rescue is out! I've been looking forward to this one but I won't have time to play until Monday... :-/

Very pleased to announce I'm now working with @glowfroggames.bsky.social on their game Pieced Together! It's a really strong team and the game's already looking great. Find out what it's about here: store.steampowered.com/app/2891370/...

Upfall is OUT NOW – totally free! Burst bubbles to progress upwards, but be careful to dodge the glowing hazards in the depths! 🎨 20+ customisations 🎮 Controller support 🔊 Creepy reverb 🦾 Accessibility options Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3570280/... Itch: amicableanimal.itch.io/upfall

Joel Fox has released a level pack for my puzzle game, The Golem. You can play it for free here: joel-fox.itch.io/who-took-all... Fair warning: the original is considered a hard game and this starts where that left off! It's really very good, though.

Announcing Spooky Express! Plan the train route for the world’s spookiest theme park! Pick up the monsters & drop them at their destinations. But be careful! Don’t let them bite the passengers or you’ll have a grave problem. store.steampowered.com/app/3352310/...

I am going to invoice @emmanewman.bsky.social for lost productivity this morning. :-P

I don't know if I could ever really manage to think this way, but this is how interesting design happens.

In response to the Polygon and Giant Bomb news, I created an indie and worker-owned games media starter pack. I’ll keep adding to it, so suggestions and recommendations are greatly appreciated. Please share!

My superpower: Not assigning any actions to my UI sliders, then wondering why they don't work.

Really interesting visual phenomenon I generated by accident: The only movement in this image consists of white and grey stripes at 45 degrees from vertical, slowly scrolling downwards. All the geometry consists of straight lines aligned to the axes.