2 Rooms with students is so much fun!

Our personalised avatars speaking in speech bubbles. The content of the bubbles is pretty much what's on the text of this post!

The Study of Comics in Academia
May 30, 6 PM EDT
I'll be moderating a panel for @cartoonist.coop Nib & Ink Digital Comics Festival, with @neilcohn.bsky.social @scottmccloud.bsky.social @nsousanis.bsky.social - geeking over the developments in comics studies.
nif.cartoonist.coop/event/the-st...

Mostly travel. Fill up my brain with places and people and all manner of new-to-me things.

Connections Online • 20-25 April • tinyurl.com/cnxonl26

Another free library game design class! This time in Maryland.

Registration link with the QR code or URL at the bottom of the image.

Screenshot of "Zen and the Art of Mimeo Maintenance" article in issue one of the Whole Fanzine Catalog by Brian Earl Jones.

The first issue of Whole Fanzine Catalog (1978) ends with an article to help aspiring zine makers understand the labor & cost involved. He breaks it down step by step & concludes, "You can count on a 24 page fanzine of 200 copies to take about 50 hours to produce." fanac.org/fanzines/Who...

Readers, we're experimenting with the paywall More access for all.

We've updated to a metered paywall. Readers without an account can read any two stories per month, and free members can read another two. Details here:

(Nothing is changing for paying members!)

Gotta catch’em all.

A brown rabbit next to a part of the defences within the dead zone.

I recently watched 'Rabbit à la Berlin' or 'Mauerhase', about the rabbit colonies that survived for generations in the dead zone between the two sides of the Berlin Wall—and today excellent Copenhagish coffees helped me write a playset for The Warren about exactly those rabbits. 🧵

Doctoral Researcher in Historical Game Studies

Sharing this posting which could be a dream PhD for many: www.uni.lu/en/jobs/doct...

Being First Is Overrated

Always a treat to read a veteran like @jaybushman.bsky.social on the history of ARG-like work, especially when they pull in comparisons to film and immersive theatre history!

Firsts are rarely truly firsts…

Consider gluing a card sleeve to the cover so that you can switch out queens as the cover art.

Influences, Part One How we’re influenced by Death Stranding’s ambulation, Eclipse’s sensors, and PUBG’s shrinking play area.

Death Stranding's ambulation + Eclipse larp's Explorer gameplay + PUBG's shrinking play area = ???

Strandfall, the highly physical outdoor larp I'm designing with @x13n.com, has many influences. Here are three of them!

Hey #AcademicSky and #ttrpg , run do not walk to the latest issue of the International Journal of Role Playing! It is a special issue highlighting papers from the 2025 Role Play in Games conference. There's 10 *amahzing* articles - including one on murderhobos by yours truly!! (free to download)

I had a really great guest speaker talk to my students!

Unsupported client – Canva Unsupported client – Canva

So #PAXEast start for me tomorrow so I wont remember to like self promote each day.

Here's all the games that Games on Demand is running

www.canva.com/design/DAHBs...

Workshop pitch: Regency scholars meet to discus what even is Regency and generate random event tables that include all the details that Regency players didn't know they wanted or didn't know they were allowed to include in their imagining of Regency life.

The Veiled City has launched a third beta test. We need your help! Come play as chaos wizards, alien collaborators, worshippers of sleeping gods, cryptid preservationists, or vampire blood dealers. Recruit your friends, recruit your enemies. A good ol-fashioned browser MMO! www.veiledcity.com

Sometimes what playtesters say isn't the feedback, sometimes it's how long they go on or how vehemently they make their case. But also, "what's the issue you're trying to address?"

The next beta play of The Veiled City launches tomorrow. You can learn a little more about it here! veiledcity.com

Seed trading postal game when?

Choose Your Own History Path “ Historical game design is the ultimate historical research project for non-specialists!” — Dr. Jeremiah McCall I love interactive fict...

hobbygamesrecce.blogspot.com/2026/03/choo...

That feeling when you've gained enough XP to become a 2nd partier and you've reached the stairs but you're not sure if you're ready for level 2 of the party and kind of just want to go back to town for a long rest. Hopefully your ride is still where you left it.

QA is where you build the specific paranoia good design requires. You learn to ask 'what happens if someone does the thing we didn't think of' a thousand times, and then you can't stop asking it even when you're designing. That's not a bug. That's the skill.

🎮 Do you know any *good* theories for making games? 🎮

Share your thoughts in our survey
res58.itu.dk/limesurvey/I...

Whether you are a game dev, scholar, educator, or blog about games. @dooleymurphy.bsky.social and I would love to hear from you!

🌟 Thanks for participating and reposting! 🌟

Oh, that is good!

More recommendations welcome!

If that one’s out for you, are there other design books you would recommend reading instead?

If you're at #GDC this year, come join me for a game of Molly House or Arcs and see some of the new things we have in the works! schedule.gdconf.com/session/play...

Maybe also subdivide creative work, publication, and making publically available.