This paragraph resonates with me so so much and speaks to everything I’ve learned (often the hard way) over the last 15 years.
bsky.app/profile/ckun...

I try not to do ranty threads anymore, but man, this Valve GDC graph has just rubbed me up unbelievably badly

This was presented as a good thing - "more games are finding success!" -- when actually the data has just been presented in a tricksy way to make it look like everything is fine

No GDC for me!

But will be in LA for this event right after!

Yeah Gunpoint was definitely a reference for us even if it ended up being a light one

The chaos that can happen in Gunpoint when things go wrong is so fun

One heist loop I’d love to see is one that requires you to adapt on the fly when your plan goes to hell

Casing the joint could have been deeper for us, but honestly it’s mostly mental trickery for Relooted - we’re just building players’ mental model of the space so they have context before actually setting up their plan

For us we were focused on making the escape montage feel cool and making you feel like you had planned it!

In films you don’t understand the plan until you see the montage, so we wanted to allow players to understand the plan before executing it

Love the idea of casing the joint being more detailed!

I think you gotta pick your battles adapting filmic heists to gameplay!

With a Casing the Joint focus that should almost be the whole game and after your choices you see them play out automatically almost?

I need a whole talk to go through it!!

But I think for it to be a heist game truly, it requires players understanding and planning with the whole space rather than reacting moment to moment and room to room!

Imo Teardown was the only ‘real’ heist game and then we copied their loop 😅

For us we wanted to focus on the escape montage of your own making feeling cool, but there are other focus areas to do!

I feel heist gameplay is quite unexplored really and would love to see more devs trying other takes on the loops

It’s SO silly lmao

We tried real hard to make it more resistive getting in but it always interfered with pulling off a cool escape montage

I think adapting filmic heists to games is real challenging - you just gotta compromise and choose your focus!

Have also developed very strong opinions on what a heist game is versus a burglary game or a bank robbery-ish game as a result of making Relooted!

Great analysis!! We thought about a lot of similar things when figuring out the gameplay!

Really would love more heist games that do more planning - I think heist as a genre is really unexplored mechanically!

Cadence is out now!

Make music by solving circuits. It took 13 years to figure how to do this well!

Beyond the puzzles:
🐈‍⬛ Pet Ren, the cat!
📜 Enjoy Ren's life philosophy (all text is skippable)
🎹 Use the sandbox to make music
🧮 Or explore turing complete contraptions

Thank you!!

Thanks for taking a shot at playing it!

Thank youuu!!

Thanks bud 🙏

Thank you!!

Thanks bud!

Thanks Nick!

Relooted is finally out!!

Go grab it!

The Best Heists Are Also History Lessons In Relooted, before you steal artifacts you must learn why they matter

Tomorrow, Relooted hits Steam!

Before (or after) you play, listen to this interview with developers @benjamming.bsky.social and @blckporcelain.bsky.social. Learning the differences between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism helped me better understand the game's ambitions!

The Best Heists Are Also History Lessons In Relooted, before you steal artifacts you must learn why they matter

Many "important" games are boring. Few fun games are "important." Relooted is both -- and so much more.

Fair enough 😅

Just trying to bridge Australasian relationships!

This joke is just for me 😅

The number of times I see similar WORLDWIDE release times graphics just have Africa dark and unmarked in the centre is wild

I get that most of the revenue doesn’t come from the continent but still a wild thing to see continuously 🥲

Playtopia Playtopia is Africa's first annual destination Indie Games & Immersive Arts festival and conference taking place in Cape Town, South Africa.

You shout visit us some day!

We have a great festival in Cape Town in December every year!

playtopiafestival.co.za

It couldn’t work twice right??

Feels only appropriate to do a Relooted event in the modern home of heists 🪜🏗️

My fave 🥺🥺🥺

I did in fact post this on LinkedIn but Bluesky deserves it too @benjamming.bsky.social