You're gonna get to read stuff I worked on when you play this! I got to work on a scene with one of my favorite characters! I'm STILL losing my mind about how cool that is! Please look forward to enjoying Bachelor Dankovsky's warm, charming bedside manner ❤️

This is a good post about its specific subject and a great post about how to do anything cool on game production deadlines without having it get cut (being very intentional about where you drop the quality bar)

Six years ago, I wrote most of the Tragedian dialogue for Pathologic 2 in iambic pentameter. I'm back now doing the same for Pathologic 3. I figured it was helpful to write a guide on *how* I did it – in case I get hit by a bus and the team has to carry on without me. azhdarchid.com/so-you-want-...

I have worked with Laura a ton and there's no one more dependable. Completely hilarious and professional. Can adapt to anything. When I see an impossible narrative obstacle down the tracks I try to get Laura hired so the train doesn't derail.

Learned that I am being laid off from Heart Machine, and will be leaving the studio later this month. Do you need a contractor? I've got a track record of leading scope-friendly script revisions late in dev. I have also done a lot of consulting on new IPs and pitches/demos. Feel free to DM me!

In the interest of self-preservation I need to start reiterating: my current contract with KO_OP ends late Nov, and I'm looking for my next gig! I'm a game/narrative designer, writer, & generalist with lots of implementation experience in Unity, some in Unreal, knowledge of C#, Python, and more.

Do you love spooky? Are you a freak for singing saw? Are you scrambling to put together a playlist for your Halloween costume party? LOVE TRAINS? Are you secretly a ghost, ghoul, or goblin? Pre-Orders are up now for the Spooky Express OST for #BandcampFriday ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com/album/spooky...

skin deep is on sale!! play our game about scrutinising warning labels and flushing your less-observant adversaries down the trash chute store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...

There's no way to convey sexual tension except by having two characters fall or be knocked over, with one landing on top of the other with their faces an inch apart. We've made a lot of fiction but that's the only technique that exists

Pretty good.... But I know there's a better way to break this economy and I'm determined to find it.

youtu.be/WAHg0j0WZ-A I just released this video for Oceans Of Yore! It was one of the earliest "radio" songs I did for Skin Deep. Grendel had a wonderful voice and he put it to good use. I wanted to make this to celebrate the old man's legacy and create a little memorial. Captain Palanka forever 💜

My friend and industry colleague Heidi has received the devastating news that her partner can no longer fight off his cancer and must go into hospice. She will lose him soon and she is a good person who has already lost so much. Please consider helping her defray the costs and survive the aftermath.

Motivated flippers can get it in the first hundred flips. It's about determination and intent. "Unfair" is a negative mindset holding you back from ten in a row.

in ONE stream, even knowing that this superstition-game would happen, austin and I: invented a demiurge called the Red Duke, wondered whether luck was being siphoned between each other/towards previous LPs by other people, started reading barthes, and started to wrongly suspect the game was broken

TAILS. TAILS. TAILS. TAILS. TAILS. HEADS. TAILS. Unfair Flips is OUT NOW! Flip the world's worst coin over and over as you try to get ten heads in a row!! store.steampowered.com/app/3925760/...

part the silliest gambling roguelike you've ever played, part meditative art piece on the perception of probability, 100% worth doing to yourself

This is an agent of the US federal government, armed for live-fire combat against a modern army, slamming a passive and nonviolent female candidate for the US Congress into asphalt. Then walking away without checking if she has injuries, with his identity concealed behind a black facemask.

An update on The Dinner

Really good piece about the intrusion of AI into interactive fiction spaces.

New blog post: azhdarchid.com/slop-comes-f...

Bruno is very good at this

Over the past few months I've gotten a few informal questions about helping others with writing craft on a 1-on-1 basis. I'm not sure how much real interest is there, so I'm experimentally advertising tutoring/portfolio review services. azhdarchid.com/opening-up-s...

Grendel passed away today. I adopted him in 2012 from a shelter, when he was quite close to not getting adopted. When I opened his cage, he crawled into my lap immediately. He was a goofy guy who always wanted to snuggle. He was sweet to kittens and social with everyone. Some old photos...

Working with Emma over the past 2 years has been a pleasure. She’s extremely good at voice and character work, and I hope she snags a role that lets these strengths of hers flourish. I wholeheartedly recommend her for anything.

A project I cleared my schedule for is taking some time to get off the ground, so I’m once again open for contract work. Need a writer/editor/localizer? Let me make your women angrier and your bisexuals more chaotic.

Yesterday, at approximately 9:30pm U.S. Central Daylight Time, somebody aboard the International Space Station rocked an astronomically impressive piss:

20 yo Spellsword: so yeah even though it's ice-enchanted it can still infuse with the Stream of Zalaran for additional dark affinity 50 yo Warrior: you can't get a good axe that just does physical damage anymore. it's all elemental flavored shit. in my day a melee weapon would never scale with INT

store.steampowered.com/app/3352310/... 🧠 People who wishlist Spooky Express are statistically likely to be highly intelligent and very knowledgeable about things like classic scary monsters and saturday morning cartoons and also they carve the best pumpkins 🎃

It takes a lot to shock me and the ending of this article made me feel nauseated. This is evil.

Every time I explained Dada's name to someone I have to say, no, actually, he's named after an Ultraman alien named after the art movement, not the art movement itself. But if I lied and just said he was named after the art movement, I'd appear less ridiculous.

More precisely, this is how corporate clients, managers, and executives who've been sold on the power of AI by Silicon Valley, have used AI as a way to drive down wages, demand higher volume, and deskill work. I spoke to dozens of translators who've been impacted, and many tell similar stories.

Since 2023, translators and interpreters have seen work dry up, rates plummet and their jobs reduced to editing AI-generated output. Some are leaving the field, others are considering bankruptcy. All despite any major upgrade in translation quality. This is how AI is killing translation work:

Hello! Your avocados are now ripe... No, I'm sorry. They spoiled while you were reading this. You missed the window.

an awful part of our industry is that we are quick to say stuff like ‘auteurs are garbage, the team actually made it’ but when specific individual workers supply fantastic craft execution in impossible circumstances execs are v quick to erase that by diluting their credit/selling it as IP

It is time.

My favorite thing about Gundam is even if you've absorbed a ton of info from cultural osmosis unless you've seen it you probably did not know that there is a tiny airplane inside the gundam.

We've made a lot of progress on the new game this summer that includes new environments & systems as well as a responsive time cycle designed by @yulelepalacios.bsky.social. Consider supporting us on Patreon for devlogs and regular updates.

As a writer also in a field with a very high exec/top brass presence in the creative process, I can guarantee you that in 99% of cases, if the writing feels like you're repetitively being spoon fed plot and exposition, it's a directive from on high and not what the writer would do if left alone.

the thing about "just make it exist, make it good later" is that unfortunately three key challenges in game development are 1. deciding what should exist 2. deciding when to make things good 3. deciding what 'good' means

My life's work? Updating every fan wiki for every episode of the Donkey Kong Country cartoon to be perfectly accurate, thorough, and well-cited. It's not easy but someone has to do it.

me while starting to clench my jaw as a stress response: this feels great. I bet this won't make my entire skull hurt like shit in a week

I'm doing my part dot gif

glad the Hugo voters saw this and decided to address my concerns. love and light

The #HugoAward for Best Game or Interactive Work goes to Caves of Qud.

Just make it exist first. You can make it worse with each new pass while getting increasingly frustrated later.

I'm genuinely excited to see what probably negative effect playing this has on my brain. Feels like I already know when I see most trailers, but not this one. A little unpredictable... a little dangerous

when you're new to making games, it's easy to think it's about making art and making the right decisions and having the best taste. but actually making games is about dancing really good when the old west bandit shoots bullets at your toes

This comes from our collection of press CDs from GamePro magazine. GamePro received raw artwork from game publishers, which we're preserving! archive.gamehistory.org/folder/a5823... We're working on the next batch of GamePro CDs, which is where this layered Quest 64 art came from.