the software that LLMs write is not software i want to run on my computer. the text LLMs generate is not text i want to read or write. the images LLMs generate are not images i want to see or make. the music LLMs generate is not music i want to listen to or write.

"Every studio I have worked in could tell you the cost of an artist day. None of them could tell me the cost of a decision that got reversed six months later. That gap explains most of what is currently happening with AI in game production."

Bryant Francis@bryantfrancis.me · 4d ago

Holy shit this blog is amazing.

the game already feels and plays more like physical solitaire, and getting to fudge things because noones around to police you reinforces that sensation

picked up World Upon the Wind after being delighted by the demo this morning. follows basic "roguelite deckbuilding" mechanics but seems to be less about broken builds and more about balance and harmony. store.steampowered.com/app/3640430/...

I think this is one of the cruelest, ultimately self-sabotaging decisions you can make as a company. Why on earth would you stop employees finding happiness and fulfillment in the act of creation, widening their worldview and skill sets - and being able to bring some of that back INTO your studio.

Chris Kerr@kerrblimey.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: I spoke with multiple video game developers and a U.S. employment lawyer to learn more about restrictive side clauses that often prevent employees at major companies from pursuing hobbyist work or personal projects. In an industry renowned for creativity, why are we stifling it?

Over a year ago, we built a prototype for a new Myst Universe game meant for publisher eyes only. This project is NOT in active development, but we're proud of the work the team did, and wanted to share it with you all. Presenting: Project Anglerfish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNGt02yZNc

all my public repos were in here including stuff that is 100% my copyright and stuff where only i have the license to use them (like fonts)

Hoshino Lina (星乃リナ) 🩵 3D Yuri Wedding 2026!!!@lina.yt · 2w ago

Looks like Hugging Face scraped ~all of GitHub into an AI training dataset... huggingface.co/spaces/Huggi... There is an opt-out link. You might want to use it.

you’re right that it’s really hard to start off right, but i like to define how the experience should feel for the player. ie ”they should get to level up about once every hour” and then go backwards ”if the player would level up once per hour, how much should they gain from that”

A question for all my game dev followers: What are your strategies for evaluating pacing curves for singleplayer games during development? Stuff like “is the pace of level-ups right” and “are we giving out the right amount of currency”

📣 RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENT 🎮 FOLK EMERGING will launch on August 26th! 🔥 stone Age 🦣 nomadic ⏳ turn-based ⬢ 4X strategy Wishlist on Steam 👉 store.steampowered.com/app/2275300?...

man these universes beyond sets are getting interesting now #magiccon

man these universes beyond sets are getting interesting now #magiccon

one of the best in a sea of excellent city building games. highly recommend trying it this weekend

Against the Storm@againstthestorm.bsky.social · last mo.

Play Against the Storm for FREE on Steam this weekend and build settlements in a roguelite city builder ravaged by apocalyptic storms ⛈️ Free Weekend ends Monday, July 13. You can also save 70% when you buy the game. 🔁 Reshare and help us spread the word!

being a game designer means you have notes you don't remember writing that say things like "time traveling salesman problem"

good advice, even when not laid off. We’re all so atomized.

David Lindsey Pittman@dphrygian.com · last mo.

My best advice for any game devs recently laid off is to keep in touch with your closest coworker friends, do a group call at least once a week, share job postings in the chat, hype each other up, and just generally look out for each other.

fantastic initiative. embarrassing that our swedish union basically just ”maybe you should learn ai. we dunno 🤷” they have a great unemployment fund but it’s not built for industry wide collapse times like these

Sherveen Uduwana@suduwana.bsky.social · last mo.

Hey folks! I'm helping UVW-CWA organize a hardship fund for game workers impacted by layoffs. Please apply for it! If anyone has any questions about the fund, I can help answer them!

5 million

HELLO WORLD This is me (@ossianboren.bsky.social) announcing that my solo game dev studio is open for business! I can help your company by beaming me in as a freelance game designer and developer. I can help build your game design, your team or both. 🧵 #gamedev

the past ~6 months I've been working on StarBourne: a trad. roguelike with deep tactical deckbuilding combat set on a dark fantasy planet that is secretly a cosmic prison. Think Shandalar meets Caves of Qud. Still early. Playtests will happen soon in my discord. Would you play?

Remember the internet before Google, before algorithmic feeds, before monolithic social media corralled us onto the same handful of apps? When small, *personal websites* and webrings linking them together reigned supreme? Time to bring it back.

Introducing Warp Point, a Web 1.0 gaming blog directory built for 2026

It's a webring! And a website!

readonlymemo.com

looking for a new indie game engine? for the past year i've been working in and helped design Lily2D: * just realeased in early access * similar in scope to Love2D, but using a new easy-to-learn language called Swamp * one time fee license (directly supports @peterbjorklund.bsky.social aka piot)

even if you have no interest in the game, this is an amazing look into the concepting + preproduction process that went into one of the most visually daring AAA games in recent memory.

Aftermath@aftermath.site · 2mo ago

The art of Marathon: aftermath.site/marathon-bungi...

Going to start a thread of all the areas I worked on for Marathon <3 <3 first up: bioresearch #MarathonTheGame #Marathon

I'm not sure how widely known this is, but Bungie made the entire original trilogy of Marathon games (developed for Macintosh) available as open source, and a group of fan developers created an engine called Aleph One to run them in. They are free on Steam: store.steampowered.com/developer/al...

Steam Developer: Aleph One

Classic Marathon Open Source

store.steampowered.com

just off the top of my head. that last one is a really cool magic-like by @eriksvedang.com

Arvy@arvy.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Recommendations for sickos! Names and descriptions in the alt text

the point of the Lily2D framework is to get folks to learn to code and become efficient coders - I've basically levelled up from bad Lua coder into dreaming about structs, building my own GUI frameworks and WGPU pipeline packages for the engine (which will be released for free!)

looking for a new indie game engine? for the past year i've been working in and helped design Lily2D: * just realeased in early access * similar in scope to Love2D, but using a new easy-to-learn language called Swamp * one time fee license (directly supports @peterbjorklund.bsky.social aka piot)

spent the afternoon yesterday playing through MYST, and wrote down some thoughts catnipped.bearblog.dev/thoughts-on-...

based based based

zep.p8@lexaloffle.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Heads up, the Lexaloffle terms of use will change later this week to disallow genAI content. The proposed update aims to protect the current BBS culture without excluding usability. Any comments welcome (here or hey at lexaloffle dot com). Draft: pastebin.com/raw/v8cvrdgv #pico8 #picotron