A picture of a hardback book on a washed blue background. The title is Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves, by Mike Cook.

I've written a book! Next Level: Making Games That Make Themselves is the story of procedural generation - the tech behind games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. It's about how it works, the games that use it, and the art and magic behind it.

Out May 7th, in bookshops: linktr.ee/next_level 🎲🔮

Sad to not be able to see you this year!

I think the people positioned to fund games are really sleeping on how many people are struggling to make friends IRL after COVID.

A year ago if you’d asked me where to put money, it would have been IRL connector games (something like Pokémon go but smaller/with less infrastructure)

Desire Paths for Wikipedia An extension that remembers the path of a cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, “wearing” them into the page.

I've just published a new userscript that remembers the path of your cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, averaging and wearing them into the page, showing your browsing history over time

Install at greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5... or read more about it everest-pipkin.com#projects/des...

“People don’t understand what this job is,” he said, adding, “You cannot pick and choose, because among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. Capitalism is a rough system.” In defending his pursuit of Mr. Epstein and candidly describing the burden of raising money, Dr. Botstein gave insight into how the need to attract dollars can appear to run headlong into an academic institution’s stated values. Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, including Harvard and M.I.T., and the Wall Street Journal report showed that his network of contacts was wider than had been thought, including prominent figures like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought money for a poetry foundation, led by his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor. Mr. Summers declined to comment. “Would we accept money from Jeffrey Epstein today? No,” Dr. Botstein said, describing the former donor as a “monster” and “truly evil man.” “We had no idea, the public record had no indication, that he was anything more than an ordinary — if you could say such a thing — sex offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”

As more academic names keep coming up in the Epstein files, I keep thinking about this NYT interview with the Bard president from a few years ago, and wondering how many people were rationalizing in similar ways.

www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...

Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.

whenever people would go "well it's not popular enough yet" i think not only of all the popular things they ignore anyway, but how apparently the expectation is for everybody else to the job of politics for politicians so they don't have to

YES THAT'S WHAT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS
AND THATS WHY WE DON'T USE IT
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A much-liked post by Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com with the titles “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student” and the caption “They don’t want to get blamed again“

A joke for the history buffs:

Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com titles: “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student — They don’t want to get blamed again“

19th Annual IndieCade Festival Join us this January 16th - 30th, 2026 as we celebrate this past year’s IndieCade indie game nominees. Connect with the creators, play demos and featured games, and more!

UPDATE: The awards ceremony will now be at 12:00 PST! The best place to watch is on steam: store.steampowered.com/sale/IndieCa...

In the meantime, why not check out some of our incredible nominees?

Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota YouTube video by Office of the Governor of Minnesota

"Two to three thousand armed agents of the federal government have been deployed to Minnesota.

Armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door, ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live."

#genuary12 Boxes only. A tiny and simple sketch before my evening screen time cutoff. I do like the texture, though!

#genuary #p5js

One day late #genuary9, playing with cellular automata rules based on hue.

#genuary #p5js

#genuary8 A monochromatic city generator.

#genuary #p5js

Protester holding a sign “The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” (Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

Protester holding a sign “The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” (Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

“The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.”

(Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

Job opening: game designer @ Hidden Folks We're looking for a game designer in the Netherlands to help build games in The Hidden Folks Universe, starting with a sequel to the indie hit game Hidden Folks.

friends! acquaintances! help!

i'm looking to hire a game designer (living in the Netherlands) to help build games in The Hidden Folks Universe, starting with a sequel to the indie hit game Hidden Folks.

know someone who's a good fit? pls forward this, ty!

hiddenfolks.com/job-opening/...

Ah, an opportunity to recommend the great book, “More Work For Mother” by Ruth Cowan.

Because obviously, no, AI won’t do this.

And historically, domestic “labor saving” technologies have only entrenched domestic labor expectations while shifting the specifics of the work.

#genuary7 Inspired by boolean algebra.

I don't feel much like making silly art on this horrifying and sorrowful day. But it's been nice seeing a bit of art show up tonight, as I struggle to stop doomscrolling.

#p5js #genuary

10,000 people honoring Renee Nicole Good
at the site of her murder

#genuary6 A tiny city that becomes that little bit more complex every time you turn out the lights. Until, suddenly, your city is gone and a new one takes its place.

#genuary #p5js

#genuary5: write "genuary" and avoid using a font

Handwritten text used as a mask when generating surrounding shapes. (Looks a bit like a colorblindness test, especially when I make "genuary" green!)

A fun, quick sketch that also made me want to draw with my iPad more often.

#genuary #p5js

Here's some of my favorites from the cross stitch patterns. #genuary4

#genuary4 lowres

This was a lot of fun! Started out making a cross-stitch pattern generator (my favorite low-res non-digital rendering technique) and ended at making dragon scales.

#genuary #p5js

#genuary3 prompt is the fibonacci sequence: I used the fibonacci numbers for mapping circle color and position within each bloom.

#genuary #p5js

It's #genuary! Today's prompt: one color, one shape. Keeping it simple for #genuary1. Hoping to keep this up at least until the new term starts. #p5js

New Year’s Day with my husband’s great uncle. He is 101 years old and has lived in the same farmhouse in Central MA for 100 years.

His granddaughter found a ledger from the farm’s old creamery covering 1895-87. It has absolutely perfect penmanship and later became a kids’ sketchbook. I love it.

🥳 Welcome to the Public Domain: creative works from 1930 & sound recordings published in 1925! Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has highlighted some of the most anticipated works entering the #publicdomain in 2026!

More ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai...

@dukelaw.bsky.social

Back in 2019 I took a class about procedural generation in game design and made a really cool LED board project that I promptly misplaced before I was able to hang it up. For the holidays this year I decided to buy myself the parts to build an upgraded version of it!

It makes me so, so happy to see this!

I read this article every time I see it.