procedural generation saves neither time nor money and is not something people do to save budget on a project

A thumb brace has let me play games pain-free for the first time in years Finally, I have achieved my fitness goals. My thumbs grow buffer by the day.

these super low profile thumb braces are the reason i can play video games again and i did a lot of searching to find them. no provider recommended them to me for video games! none of them really knew what to do about gaming. i don't want to gatekeep!
www.mothership.blog/a-thumb-brac...

I know it was always meant well but it was surreal having “are you going to GDC?” conversations when it was like oh, in the country that keeps threatening to annex mine, and fucking up our economy with a trade war? The place that’s disappearing tens of thousands of people? Am I going there??? No!

Not that there can’t be multiple factors but you know what’s also down by 25-40%? All Canadian travel to the USA, by land or air, for any reason. Can’t imagine it’s way better from other countries.

Awesome, lemme know whenever you’ve got some dates in mind and I’ll try to make sure I’m free :)

Aw, oh well! Really appreciate you checking 💙 Hope that you and Mel make a trip out west sometime soon and we can hang out!

Also goes without saying but, I dearly miss all my good friends gathering in SF right now! I’ve gone nearly every year since 2016, it’s strange and melancholy to not be walking those hills. Hope everyone stays safe and is rejuvenated by community, and that our paths cross sometime somewhere else!

I’m having to miss GDC this year for Many Reasons but if anyone there can do me a solid, I’d love to know if I made it into the speaker card deck for last year! (If I did then I’d REALLY love to get my hands on a deck or at least my card, not sure if there’s a way to do that other than ask around)

JANUARY A postcard writing game for two people, set in a kaiju-filled alternate history, about distant but persistent friendships.

JANUARY is a postcard-writing game about two artists living ordinary lives over five decades, in a world besieged by giant kaiju.

By Indiecade-winning, Ennie-nommed game designer and artist Shing Yin Khor, in collaboration w/ illustrator Jared Andrew Schorr.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/shi...

thanks to qud's revolutionary progression system, switching from your profile on the nintendo switch to pc is easy. when your character dies, start a new one on the other platform! all the accumulated knowledge and experience from playing on one will be present with you on the other!

Playing Caves of Qud on my switch last night, I got the urge to name my gun after a harrowing encounter, and was given the option to name it based the culture of the baboons I killed it with.
Not sure what I was expecting.

My favorite qud advice I ever gave was
"Do NOT double click the decapitate button, you WILL attempt to cut off your own face."

"That said, if you survive, wearing your own face is all upside with none of the downsides that come with wearing other faction's faces."

A screenshot from the Nintendo Switch reveal trailer with a man sitting on an airplane playing the nintendo switch. Overlaid is a the Caves of Qud achivmenet "Leap, Frog.: Convince a frog to each you how to jump"

TOMORROW 🐸

Ikebana flower arrangement with two large red tulips open and bending towards the camera. One unopened tulip grows up high, with long curling leaves. Nestled lower down are tiny clusters of blue flowers, and pink carnations at the very bottom, looking similar to lotus flowers.

Love when I get a bouquet and can play around with some ikebana 💐

Very excited for this: @unormal.bsky.social and I will be on a panel at Coding Medieval Worlds 6, a workshop bringing historians and game devs together

all virtual, Feb 21st and 22nd

Stardew Valley and real life labour Paul Dean explores the surface joys of Stardew Valley and reflects on life, labour and love

A Year in Stardew Valley was published nine years ago (!) and people still talk to me about it today. At this point I have no idea how many people have read or shared or re-read this, but I'm honoured and flattered that it's meant so much to so many.

www.rockpapershotgun.com/stardew-vall...

Very sorry to hear this, I’ve been thinking of you since I heard the news. Hope you and your team are taking care of yourselves the best you can 💙

A gaggle of several dozen geese that look very much like Canada geese, but if examined closely, are smaller and have shorter bills.

“One day I want to learn to identify the cackling goose,” I tell Kawa in front of a gaggle of geese. “It’s like a shiny Canada goose, super similar but smaller, they travel together. Maybe today I’ll get lucky.”

20 minutes of birdwatching later I realized. They’re basically ALL cackling geese!

A list of animal names - near the top are a bunch of general wild cats (Bobcat, Serval, Lion, Cougar, etc) while just below it are very specific bird names (Boreal chickadee, black-capped chickadee, mountain chickadee, etc)

My favourite part from my list (which is reverse chronological) is how I started out really cocky with being able to name 4 different chickadees, but didn’t realize there was a timer. It started flashing and i started panic blasting cats, lol

I like how the emoji summary shows me starting with “well, I can name a shit ton of birds, let’s start there”

Well this is fun and very up my alley. Despite being very sleepy and on my phone:

rose.systems/animalist

232 animals listed
🐢🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🦉🦉𓃬🐦🐦🐦🦆🦆🦆🐦🦆🦆🐤🦃🪿🪿🦢🦊🦊🦊🐺🫎🦌🦌🦌🦌𓃷🦧🦍🦮🦜🦜🐦🐦🦅🦅🦌🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐬🦦🫍🐋🦦🐢🐸𓆏🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🦈🐟🦈🦈🐦🐻‍❄️🐱🦜🦜🐀🐀🐭🦫🪲🪱🐌🐌🫅🦋🦋🦋🦋🐅🪰🪰🐛🐛🕷🕷🕷🐛🐛🐛🐛🪰🕸️🐛🐛🪲🕷🐜🐜🐗🐽🐮🐃🐑🦙🦬🦬🐛🐛🦝🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦🐦𓅣𓅣𓅣𓅣🦉℥🐵🐦🐛🐛🦎🦎𓆈🦎🦎🐙🦀🦀🦐🦀🦀🦐🐸🦋🐢🐛🪲𓆣🐢🐐🐦🐍🐍🐛🦗🐛🦇🦇𓆏🐦🐦

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in university:
- Contemporary Meta-Ethics
- Social Psychology
- Special Topics in CPSC: Retrogames
- Cool Science (science coms, taught by a famous Dutch popular scientist)
- Natural Disasters & Earth Phenomena (doubling down on this one!)

Agaricus bisporus - Wikipedia

Fun fact: the Agaricus bisporus is *the* domesticated mushroom.

As a baby mushroom you know it as the cheap white button mushroom, as a kid mushroom it's called a cremini, as an adult it's called a portabella.

Same mushroom.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agaricu...

I worked with the irrepressible @jonremedios.bsky.social @tylermakesgames.bsky.social @rainysector.bsky.social @bravemule.bsky.social to write a paper on why permadeath (and other forms of loss in games) appeals, and what we lose when we try to paper over it with metaprogression. Check it out!

Being tokupilled means going from "wow these effects are pretty corny" to "this is literally the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life".

If you ever can swing a flight to Vancouver I will absolutely make you as much tuna as you can eat 😆

Bonus on the side that I ate too quickly to get nice photos - deep fried enoki fritters. I absolutely loved these, super crispy edges that fan out in the oil yet the stalk bundle stays pleasantly chewy. With vegan mayo and kimchi juice for a tangy dipping sauce. Wok frying kicks ass.

A single thinly sliced piece of tuna tataki on rice, topped with sesame seeds and chili. There is a thin even layer of cooked brown flesh around the blush inner tuna that is still raw.

A rectangular plate overflowing with thinly sliced pieces of tuna tataki

A good problem to have: too much tuna tataki for it to plate nicely. Got a blowtorch at Xmas, now I’m unstoppable. Best hack was using Korean yuzu honey tea jelly as the basis of the drizzle, you get the yuzu hit of ponzu but with all these extra flavours (and don’t need to go out and buy ponzu lol)

I was so glad to see Pirates on the final list - I agonized over leaving it out of mine since it’s one of my fav games I go back to and representative of a type of game design I adore (you described so well in your write up on it!)… but my career hasn’t given me the chance to do much like it 🥲