One of the best things in games is hiding high-tier items in the starting area, letting players jump the progression curve and making replays easier. Off the top of my head, there's the Merc Suit in the attic in Stalker: SoC, the Drake Sword in Dark Souls, even the Pipe Axe in Fallout: London.

"I'm just using AI for concept art and promo, I'll hire real artists when production gets started " lol no you won't. I don't believe you.

After going to some local dev meetups this week, my big takeaway is: wear a cool t-shirt. One based on a game, movie, band, etc. We’re all there to chat & network, but too shy to approach each other. Giving us a reason to say, “Hey, nice shirt!” gets past that hump and on to the handshakes. 🤝

夢見させてよ…🫠

日本語 ver. 翻訳: @coffpic.bsky.social #katanazero

Once again, thanks to @coffpic.bsky.social and @theomniasian.bsky.social for helping put this year's comic together! 🙏😁

Happy 7 year anniversary. A lucky number.

Anniversary comic tomorrow. 🤖🦾🦿

Finally tried out MtG Commander with friends during a recent get-together, and I think I finally get it! A ton of fun. It's much more enjoyable being able to fool around with opponents whom you know won't take it personally--hard to do with total strangers at an LGS.

The next KZ anniversary comic is due in a few weeks! ...Sooo, if anyone could tell me what it should be about, that'd be great. 'Cuz I'm out of ideas. 😚

Another KZ thingy.

Why do game developers keep having to relearn this like it isn't known? Why do I keep seeing people allegedly in my area announce themselves for the first time by declaring the game that they made is coming out next week?

Art time! I drew this one for 'Demon Bluff', a single-player deduction game about rooting out the demons and minions hiding amongst innocent villagers. 😈🔪🧑‍🌾

Just came across this game on Steam. I was wary b/c of the massive anime tits, but this actually looks kinda cool...? 🤔 The big Contra-like background bosses are a neat addition. Judging from this and Sanabi, I guess people really want a grappling hook in these kinds of games.

Over spring break, I subjected my brother to a marathon of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. It was a upside-down Bell curve of quality, ending with a high note on Mutant Mayhem. His favorite (and mine) was still the 1990 original, though.

my new triple album, 'Lose Your Body To The Dance' is out today! title track taken from the new @ghmofficial.bsky.social game 'Romeo Is A Dead Man' now go ahead and ... Lose Your Body To The Dance 🔥 spacerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/lose-y...

@runningjump.games Well, look what I found! 🕹️

(I just realized how bleak it was to literally see Woody, Jessie, and Buzz behind glass in a Japanese toy museum, given the plot of Toy Story 2…😔)

With things the way they are, I'm getting nostalgic for Japan lately. So on this lazy Sunday, I'd like to take you on a photo tour of a toy collector's paradise: the Kaiyodo Hobby Museum in Kochi, Japan!

We loved working with Dave! And we just featured his art at our Emerald City Comic Con Table.

Just came home from an exhausting but wonderful day at GDC², an event hosted by UT Austin for aspiring student devs. Tons of student game showcases, lectures from industry guests, and yummy food! Thanks to the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS!) for putting this on.

@soundstrider.dev Hey, Will! Great presentation this morning, and the live demos in the atrium. 😁 Good luck at GDC proper!

A bit late for Steam Next Fest, but here's some Steam capsule art I drew for Haunted Heist by Autotroph Games, a zany party game where thieves try to rob a haunted mansion. I also designed the new logo!

🌟 It's here! Mistpaw Ravine is now available on Steam!! 🌟 Build a home for magical cats, have them shoot lightning, clean their poop! Get it now: store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

Nothing quite like moving to make me realize how many books I still own, even after tossing most of my old manga in 2023. This year, I think I'm going to try and visit my local library instead of buying books outright, see if that motivates me to read more often. 📚🏫

It's now that I learn Twisted Pixel and Bluepoint were both from Austin--right as they get shut down. Some days, it's like squatting in ruins of the Library of Alexandria. This city has such rich game dev history (it gave us Ultima, ffs), but lately we've only been seeing loss after loss.

My hand got stung by fire ants yesterday. ✋🐜 It doesn't hurt much (just kinda itches), but now my grip wobbles a bit when I try to draw stuff, so it's hard to draw straight lines. Might have to take a break till it heals...😖

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons - Bimmy and Friends DLC Trailer www.youtube.com/watch?v=G98z... "Four new characters are entering the melee for FREE! Fight with Armor Okada, Jackson, Bimmy, and Jim Mackey in our latest update."

When browsing video game wikis, sometimes I find passages that are unintentionally funny due to the calm, detached voice the writers use. I always make sure to take screenshots. 📸 Here are some of my favorites:

One of my go-to listens while working is this playlist of acoustic covers by Riocato, featuring music from a bunch of retro Japanese games (plus the occasional Persona 4 cover). Most of them are 4-5 years old but have under a hundred views, so give 'em a listen! 🎶

Here's my capsule art for a newly-announced project--Wink Out, a top-down competitive shooter with roguelike build-crafting and psychedelic visuals!

Last night in my current apartment, before I move tomorrow. I already boxed up my cooking utensils, so I made dinner using a pair of scissors as a makeshift vegetable knife/spatula. ✂️ Good to know I can, at least.

To BlueSky’s many activists: Please, PLEASE stop using AI-generated images & cartoons to promote your causes. 🙏 Creatives are a huge part of your audience on this platform. We WANT to support you in your struggles, but not when you clearly don’t care to support us in ours.

This one's from last year--some art I drew for NERO, a game by Frog King about running a restaurant in a world full of animal gangsters.

Found this old pic of a Book-Off bargain haul from 2021. Crazy to think that two of these games aren't playable anymore and the third was, arguably, never playable (at least on PS4).

他SNSでこのミーム?見て"これゲーム始まる前のゼロとセラピじゃん!!"と思いながら描いたけどよくよく考えてみたらそうでもなかったかも知れない…()

I drew something a bit different this time! Here's my Steam capsule art for Lyre, a fantasy action-adventure game starring a plucky magic-wielding otter! My goal was to emulate the look a stained-glass window (though I'm guessing it'd be impossible to do this with real stained glass 😅).

👀

Damn, gonna be moving house right in the middle of this year's Global Game Jam. Guess there's always next year...📆

👨‍🎨 Behold, my magnum opus. I shall call it... "Sonique, Le Hog du Hedge" (Acrylic on canvas, 2026)

I can hear my inner tsundere when I bookmark NSFW art on BlueSky: "D-don't get the wrong idea, idiot! I'm not actually aroused or anything, I'm just saving it as a style reference for later! I'd never be into that sick, SICK fetish--I'm only aiming to exploit it for my own professional gain!" 😤😤😤

To any pixel artists on BlueSky: please remember to upscale your art by at least 400% when posting! Otherwise BlueSky's compression will destroy it utterly. Oh, and don't post from mobile, the same thing happens.

This, 1000x times. When it comes to ideation, even the simplest MS Paint doodle is more useful to me than a detailed text description. And far less insulting than an AI-generated mockup.

#KatanaZERO 🎄🎁

Using genAI for concept art is so fucking stupid because like... that's where you get the cool shit. Thats the blue sky phase where artists make pieces of art that will be seen by a teenager later and change their life forever. Why would you want to start from mediocre. Why would you do that.

Recently saw "The Wandering Earth II", a Chinese sci-fi movie about strapping rocket boosters onto Earth to flee a dying Sun. Mid as fuck and WAY too long, but it has one of the coolest robot designs I've ever seen--the "FRAMER", or Frontline Robotic Augmentation For Military Elite Rangers.

In my free time I've been trying to learn baking. Just simple loaves of bread, nothing fancy. It has been the messiest, most time-consuming shit ever, all to make something I can't even eat as a standalone meal. How bread became the West's staple food escapes me.

Here's some art I drew for the game Trials of Enkidu, which just got its Steam page up. Pretty jazzed about how it turned out.

I recall when I stopped wanting to draw manga. It was a Q&A with Tite Kubo (Bleach) that went: Q: What's your fav. book? A: I have no time for books. Q: What's your fav. movie? A: I have no time for movies. Q: What inspired Chad's Mexican heritage? A: When I drew him, he looked Mexican. So, yeah.

During the pandemic, I was so obsessed with MechWarrior 5 that I drew this fan art, which homages the cover art of the 1987 "The Galtor Campaign" sourcebook, drawn by David R. Deitrick. His was the first piece of BattleTech art I ever saw, so iconic.