Comic: Types of Board Game. [Each panel has a person, a person with a ponytail, a person with shoulder-length hair, and a person with a white hat seated around a table with different board game and pieces on top. (1) Boring: PERSON 3: Each turn, roll a die and move your token. Turns proceed clockwise around the table until we all get tired and go home. (2) Abstract: PERSON 1: Each turn, you can place any number of red triangles or blue squares on a hexagon, or move any hexagon to a... (3) Hyperspecific Theme: PERSON 2: It’s October 2, 1814. The Congress of Vienna convenes. You are each in charge of distributing and lighting candles for the opening ball, which was held at these three locations... (4) Overcomplicated: PERSON 4: It’s a cross between *Twilight Imperium* and *Cones of Dunshhire*, but implemented entirely in category theory. Every cone is a monad, and... (5) Cooperative: PERSON 3: We’re working together to sort these decks of cards using only hand gestures. After that, we’ll silently organize my junk drawer. (6) Branded: PERSON 1: You can play as Phoebe, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, Ross, Joey, or, due to an ill-advised tie-in, Goku. (7) Party: PERSON 2: Each of the cards in your hand has a bad word on it. On the count of three, yell the... (8) Social Deduction: PERSON 3: Remember, per our *find the secret murderer* house rules from last week, discovering that a player has committed a real-life murder does *not* count.

Types of Board Game

xkcd.com/3235/

Let’s try this again now that bsky works

Ahead of a talk at NYU on games media, I’d like to hear how folks get reporting.

Not criticism. Not analysis. I got those covered for now

Plz send links to outlets, writers, video makers, podcasters who do interviews, uncover new info, break news, etc!

The YouTube player context menu, with the "Loop" option on top.

In honor of the new Boards of Canada song, I'd like to remind everyone that you can loop a YouTube video in the right-click menu.

See you on Sunday! Feat. Time Flies @playables.net, Curiosmos @celineveltman.bsky.social, Data Garden, Welcome to Approx AI (a new visual novel about destroying data centers) and a talk on the book Reworlding Ramallah (a collection of Palestinian Science Fiction).

1630 onwards, Sunday the 19th.

Atuel on Steam Atuel is an award-winning surrealist documentary game in which you explore beautiful, dreamlike landscapes inspired by the topography and wildlife of the Atuel River Valley in Argentina.

Atuel is now playable in Korean! 🙌✨

Thanks to our amazing translator, @kyleheren.bsky.social, and @iamsunpark.bsky.social's team at Out of Index, Atuel is now available in Korean on itchio, Steam, and Google Play! 🎉💪

This marks Atuel's 10th playable language! 👏🎏

The "interfaceX.net" graphic showing an old computer with the website url. keychains of old school computer iconography surround it. it is very nostalgic.

InterfaceX26 starts today! a Steam event of games featuring fake and fictional OS. "Everything is going to be ok" is part of it.
interfacex.net
"More than 150 developers and publishers have come together to launch InterfaceX26, a week-long Steam sale and livestream running from April 27 to May 4."

TV news people: when covering the London Games Festival this month, maybe concentrate on the profound cultural impact of the medium rather than leading FOR THE BILLIONTH TIME on how much money they make. Thanks byeeeeee

It is still, SO weird that after over forty years of rising, entrenched cultural importance, so many professionals still talk about videogames as if they're some quirky, inexplicable kids fad that'll go away at any moment.

That's weird, right? Any other precedence of denial like that after so long?

Publishers’ AI battle hits Internet Archive SF organization losing access to some news content

“We are collateral damage.” - Mark Graham, Wayback Machine

When preservation is caught in the crossfire, it’s not just libraries that lose—it’s the public’s access to history, knowledge, and truth.

The web shouldn’t disappear behind closed doors.
➡️ www.sfexaminer.com/news/technol...

The flyer for the London Games Festival: an illustration of a kind-of weird mecha made of various London landmarks, looming over the London skyline while some humans frolic, blue sky behind, title reading "LONDON GAMES FESTIVAL 13 April - 19 April 2026"

Hello! Are you someone in London who's interested in weird playful experiments and commercially implausible games? I've written up some of the stuff happening as part of this year's London Games Festival that I think you should check out

buttondown.com/holly/archiv...

A poster for Untitled Games Event, edition 4 in Amsterdam. Sunday 19 April, 1630 onwards at Tussen de Bogen 46.

Looking forward to seeing you all in 10 days! Edition #4 features:

1️⃣ Data Garden by Shaman Garage
2️⃣ Curiosmos by @celineveltman.bsky.social
3️⃣ Welcome to Approx AI! by Zofia Bochińska
4️⃣ Time Flies by @playables.net
5️⃣ A talk on "Reworlding Ramallah", a collection of Palestinian science fiction.

Game AI's Existential Crisis (Part 1) | AI and Games YouTube video by AI and Games

One final plug for some weekend viewing: part 1 of my big 'AI hype is ruining traditional game AI' essay is now a YouTube video.

Will keep working on it throughout the year in between my regular output.

youtu.be/mixkOgBs32s?...

Yeeeeees \o/

graph from oscillating wildly from major depression to mania swapping between “it’s so over” and “we’re so back”

currently here in the game dev process

I'm interested in what the indie/small team/solo dev world thinks about this.

I'm not a fan of the concept for a number of reasons - I think it devalues games even further, doesn't help devs build their own communities and the profit sharing is likely low. Sort of a c-suit idea.

What do you think?

Hey, do you want to work with me? We are looking for a new colleague:
Professor of Game Design, with a focus on Creative Coding / Game Programming
part-time (50%), 9-SWS to teach, nice colleagues, awesome students (hellooo!).
lnkd.in/d2Jg_SHv
If you have questions, feel free to drop me a pm.

a lot of people asked me how i got building relationships onto Summer Game Fest (ie who I knew to land that)

but I just submitted Building Relationships through the form lol

Currently wondering if this could be developed towards a sort of "playable intro sequence". With Credits and Studio name and all...

Hugo Award nominations now open.

Nominations are now open for the 2026 Hugo Awards!

Emails are going out to eligible nominators (those who became a member of LAcon V by January 31, 2026, or were a member of the Seattle Worldcon 2025) about how to set up their LAcon V virtual convention account.

Appreciate the feedback. Of course, as in any dialogue system, giving people options to adjust their preferred intake speed is important.
I do disagree with it requiring fine motor skills though. Clicking on a place on the screen can be eased with regular sensitivity settings and gamepad controls.

final bump on this, only a day left <3

game manuals are kind of like the lost art of cd album art. i miss them.
it’s true tho, we all need to make them a thing again!

A tiny green alien baby toy and a throwable led light

Can confirm those babies are indeed tiny and alien and the second weirdest thing we brought back from GDC.

We've had a number of conversations at GDC about how we can bring back Manuals to videogames. I feel it's a long overdue thing that needs to happen again!

Please do! Would love to check it out.

more games should have intentionally obscure, or strange, controls that you have to spend time figuring out. without real instruction. there’s something incredibly compelling about treating interaction like a language you learn.
i love that about games.

It's almost a given that AAA games will get long-term support - expansions, updates, etc - but that's all the more reason to come to them late. They can often transform enormously between launch and their final patches.

But indie devs often get harangued if they don't do the same, which is nuts.

Thanks! One of the things I keep on thinking about is how we can direct focus from leading the gaze to letting it explore in a scene - specifically when it's not a first person perspective.
Directing Focus and Timing I feel are the two main things we can use from theater staging to design dialogue.

UI Spline Renderer | GUI Tools | Unity Asset Store Use the UI Spline Renderer from olivecrow on your next project. Find this GUI tool & more on the Unity Asset Store.

It was UI Spline Renderer:
assetstore.unity.com/packages/too...

Draw XXL looks fun too, reminds me of my all time favorite: Shapes!

Yes, I am excited (and a little terrified) to see where I can take this for branching dialogue. There's options for multiple people speaking and multiple things to be said. Let alone all sorts of animation shenanigans, as you point out.