if you're curious about designing horror games or feel like hearing my thoughts, join me this Saturday as I ramble poetic in partnership with Game Design Skills to join, hit up Funsmith Club, an online community of over 10,000 game devs, old and new: discord.gg/funsmithclub #gamedev (more below)

Tip for level designers: Get one of these, go to a cafe, and relax. Many of my best level design ideas existed on paper first. Tip for notepad manufacturers: Many level designers would be excited about hexagon patterns instead of square grids.

HAPPY JOHN CAGE AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE NOTE CHANGE DAY

depths of wikipedia@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 4h ago

for the first time in two and a half years, a new note was played in this organ performance today!

"Where the argument breaks completely is at the moment of integration. The expensive part of a reset was never the asset. It was the dependency graph and the accumulated decisions stacked on top of it. Generating the replacement asset faster does nothing for either."

Brie@briechindeyerle.bsky.social · 2d ago

Louder for people in the back, "Art has throughput and quality bars. Engineering has velocity, defect rates, build health. QA has coverage and escape rates. Production has burndowns and forecasts... The decision layer has status updates." www.productionalchemist.com/p/inever-see...

This is why I loathe genre names like "metroidvania" and "rogue-like" Tell me what I'm doing in the game, not another game that it's like. Stop referencing other games on your store page!!!! Your work should stand separate.

Robin Clarke@rclarke.bsky.social · 9h ago

This recent trend of games listing their direct influences by name is deeply weird. And probably not very legally advisable! It would be very unusual for a film to do this, unless quoting a review. The *first line* of this game's store page is "The Stanley Parable with a loaded rifle."

After talking to a young writer last night, I want to remind you all that it's okay to write without an assignment or goal. Write to explore a new technique, get an idea out of your head, or as emotional exhalation. Write for the raw joy of it. For you alone. It doesn't need to go into a portfolio

Bet we could push them down even further with a real high speed rail network.

Technology Brobdingnagian@dfeldman.org · 16h ago

Air travel has gotten dramatically cheaper That means more people can do it You can still buy first class tickets if you want them

Thread

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 17h ago

I think Washington's feint at Staten Island in 1781 before almost dead-sprinting down to Yorktown while Henry Clinton doesn't figure out Washington is gone in Sept 2, by which point Washington was in Philadelphia and Cornwallis was probably already well-caught short of naval rescue.

He stole their money. Thats what actually happened here. At a good company, that money would have funded dev for all those people to learn, grow, and work on the next game. He fired them to take that money.

Shayna Moon (she/they)@themoonis.gay · 3d ago

he got the bonus *because* he laid those people off, that's how it works

also I'm just tired of people using "slop" for anything that's not AI, and is just shorthand for "thing I don't like"

Maddy Myers 🏳️‍🌈@midimyers.com · 22h ago

ok how about friendscore instead of friendslop. friendslop sounds derogatory and so it’s therefore not a good term. be part of the solution people

You're gonna see a lot of people insist that layoffs at EA are a good thing, because "EA sucks" and "they don't make good games." Don't be a ghoul. Games are made by people. This is going to be devastating to the industry, not to mention the people whose biggest mistake was wanting to make games.

Keith Mitchell@shadowhaxor.bsky.social · 23h ago

Waiting on those layoffs and studio closures now. This is a fucking terrible deal, but corrupt powers win yet again.

"saudi arabia owns EA" is going to be the headline you see basically everywhere for this one but "jared kushner is about to use EA as a vehicle for trump administration bribes" is equally relevant imo

Wario64@wario64.bsky.social · 23h ago

EA Announces Completion of Acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners www.ea.com/news/ea-anno...

I think this is probably bad for games as a medium, an art form, an industry, honestly bad for the entire concept of video games when you think about it.

Kotaku@kotaku.com · 23h ago

Well, I guess Electronic Arts belongs to Saudi Arabia, private equity, and Jared Kushner now. https://kotaku.com/electronic-arts-officially-belongs-saudi-arabia-jared-kushner-now-2000721666

Sometimes, Nintendo's trick is simply that they have such long polish phases that they can design their world based on players' desire paths en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_...

Desire path - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hyrule Interviews@hyruleinterviews.bsky.social · 23h ago

Aonuma on polishing the Breath of the Wild world based on testers’ paths, 2017. Source: Nintendo Everything #Zelda #BreathoftheWildQuote #AonumaQuote nintendoeverything.com/aonuma-on-ze...

LA County confirmed that SoCal Edison's unused transmission tower started the Eaton Fire, which destroyed much of Altadena. The tower had been dormant since the 70's, but was left up anyway. It energized in the high wind and sent molten metal into dry brush underneath. www.cnn.com/2026/08/04/u...

Southern California Edison equipment blamed for 2025 Eaton fire in Los Angeles | CNN

Sparks from an idle transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison caused the 2025 Eaton fire in the Los Angeles area that killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and businesses, ...

cnn.com

If you enjoy playing video games in the US you should be paying attention to this and contacting your reps if you're into that sort of thing or like personal rights or whatever.

404 Media@404media.co · yesterday

Mike Lee's SCREEN Act, which heads to Senate Commerce Committee for markup on Wednesday, would expand age verification requirements to a nearly limitless scope of websites, and is supported by the architects of Project 2025.

this is literally what I do for a living and it's called "blameless root cause" where you identify everything that went wrong without assigning blame to any one person in particular. the NTSB really went all in on this and it's one of the reasons airplane travel is/(was?) so safe in the US.

Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · yesterday

I would like to propose the Taco Bell Principle When a person/institution Did A Problem, & IMMEDIATELY fesses up & takes proactive steps to solve it That's exactly what we want them to do? So how bout we let them live ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Does anyone I know at or know someone at Studio MDHR? They have a tech art position open I think I'd be a great fit for, and would love to chat to someone about it if possible. I've applied already but never got a confirmation email so I'd love to at least make sure it went through. Thanks!

Massachusetts farm installs 832 solar panels above berry fields, and the berries grown underneath turned out sweeter and juicier and could change the future of American farming - The Economic Times share.google/GDGqQBgisqhG...

Massachusetts farm installs 832 solar panels above berry fields, and the berries grown underneath turned out sweeter and juicier and could change the future of American farming

A Massachusetts farm is integrating solar panels above berry fields. This agrivoltaics project generates electricity while shading the crops. The elevated panels create a cooler microclimate, retain...

share.google

Apartment hunting and all of these places are having LLMs generate emails, with no non-email contact info, insisting replying is consent to their AI policies. How do the people responsible sleep at night? How can anything but conscious evil be behind these decisions?

I've worked with Steve on many games over the years, and I cannot overstate what a great teammate he is! Do your team, your game, and your players a favor and hire this man!

Steve(n) Rynders is looking for work@angrymobofsteve.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I'm still looking for full time work! I've over 10 years experience in tech animation/art/rigging and asset implementation. I can also whip together a mean Gamemaker demo. stevenrynders.artstation.com Open to remote and Seattle-based roles, willing to discuss relocation Please reach out, thanks!

See also: Seattle

tweety fish@sifu.tweety.fish · 2d ago

'but it was so charming and sleepy fifty years ago" I am very sorry that the world economy decided to dump a jumbo jet full of money on your placid hometown every three hours for thirty years but here we are

Hello friends, I’ve been making some fun stuff and some political stuff for a while now. I’ve shared some here. If you want something in shirt/hat/sticker form, I have posted a bunch for sale on rhinosaurproductions.square.site This includes the Always Punch Nazis art (at cost for that one).

Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka writes that the Roma Holocaust remains a footnote in mainstream narratives of the Second World War: “Research on the Roma Holocaust is underfunded, while hundreds of its sites across Europe are still unmarked and disrespected.” eriac.org/anna-mirga-k...

Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka: Why the Memory of the Roma Holocaust Matters More Than Ever

82 years after the mass murder of Roma and Sinti at Auschwitz-Birkenau, anti-Roma hate persists. Today’s European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is a warning that Europe is still failing to turn the less...

eriac.org

Less than 10¢ per game, many of which are individually worth more than the $10 minimum asking price! In a time when nobody has money for video games and we're all worried about where the money we do spend will go, purchasing this bundle like this is practically a moral imperative.

Crank convergence theory means Democrats need to be actively adversarial to conspiratorial thinking

Chatham Harrison dba TRUMP DELENDUS EST@chathamharrison.bsky.social · 2d ago

I understand the impulse to campaign with this guy because he has a ton of pull with young people most likely to be engaged on the left. It's an apparently huge opportunity. But it's playing with fire, no less than Gavin Newsom with Charlie Kirk.

Fixing misleading @seattletimes.com headlines could be someone's full-time job.

Latin America's first primarily solar-powered passenger train, the Tren Solar de la Quebrada, has spent two years carrying travelers through Argentina's UNESCO-listed Humahuaca Canyon. Full story ➡️ https://electrek.co/...

Holedown is my best out-of-nowhere discovery so far (though I've only tried maybe three or four games so far). Super casual; super charming. I'm picking up elements of Breakout, Bust-A-Move, Mr. Driller, and Peggle, but it's even simpler and less stressful than any of those. A great podcast game.

holedown by grapefrukt

a delightful spectacle of bouncing

grapefrukt.itch.io

Hey, is that Jake Spencer?@atsymboljake.bsky.social · 3d ago

Less than 10¢ per game, many of which are individually worth more than the $10 minimum asking price! In a time when nobody has money for video games and we're all worried about where the money we do spend will go, purchasing this bundle like this is practically a moral imperative.