JOB POST: Games/Creative Folks with a Master's Degree (or more), Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) -- where I work -- is HIRING for 1 permanent & 1 contract teaching position, for interactive media folks w/ some programming background. Is that you? apply.interfolio.com/189698

Great news: the talks from Jubensha Con are now available online for FREE! Big thanks to our amazing speakers for agreeing to this, and to Joe Strickland at @chronicinsanity.bsky.social for producing the videos. A lot of much bigger and more expensive conferences don't do this – but we just did.

Jubensha Con 2026 - YouTube

The talks given at JubenshaCon 2026 Find out more about the convention at https://jubenshacon.com Buy jubensha from: https://jubensha.co.uk https://www.suspe...

youtube.com

Hmm, I'm gonna say it's one of these.

Workers’ Lit Podcast@workerslit.bsky.social · last wk.

What is history's single most influential novel? Been trying to decide, would love people's thoughts. Defining influential as politically or socially impactful (for good or ill!). I will not be counting nonfiction that's so outlandishly deceptive it counts as fiction, novels only.

Driving to GenCon tomorrow (Thurs) for the first time since... 2007? I'm basically using Tacklebox & @possibleworlds.bsky.social getting a Judges Choice Ennie as an excuse to reconnect with more folks I haven't seen in a dozen+ years. Excited to chat and play weird games with y'all.

Promotion of lukewarm word/art/data soup as "AI" has been so misguided -- & pushed by such terrible people -- that Big Tech may have finally poisoned the well? The public correctly doesn't trust them, or the institutions allied w/ them, to implement large-scale ML projects w/o causing massive harm.

JOB POST: Games/Creative Folks with a Master's Degree (or more), Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) -- where I work -- is HIRING for 1 permanent & 1 contract teaching position, for interactive media folks w/ some programming background. Is that you? apply.interfolio.com/189698

Oh, I finally figured out what game everybody was subtweeting about. Amazing how the edgelord schtick always works, no matter how many times. Makes me want to finally finish my game draft that's not-so-subtlely about the edgelord schtick.

"Kathryn J. Gindlesparger... [shows] how everyday documents such as meeting minutes, policy drafts, budgets, and accreditation reports can be used to push back against authoritarian and corporate forces that undermine an institution’s mission." (Echoes of Ben Kafka's The Demon of Paperwork 😈)

Paper Pusher

Paperwork is the new protest: leveraging bureaucracy for progressive actionIn contemporary higher education, power increasingly circulates through documents ...

upress.umn.edu

With all the Odyssey film buzz, someone should make "Rocs & Rocks," the game of fantastic voyages. I want to Dawn Treader it up on some strange islands.

Uh... Episode I, maybe? I would pick Vernon, Florida, but that's totally intentional on the part of the filmmakers.

Vernon, Florida (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Defector@defector.com · 3w ago

What's the worst movie you've ever watched in a theater? defector.com/whats-the-wo...

Müller and Lewandowski are playing in the same soccer game tonight. Hey, @cwgriffen.bsky.social, what year is it? Gonna try to stay up for the big West Coast game though: Seattle vs. Portland is always the best.

Matchday | Chicago Fire FC Celebrates Homecoming Red Out, pres. by Wintrust, Facing Vancouver Whitecaps FC | Chicago Fire FC

Match Information Chicago Fire FC (8-4-2, 26 points) vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC (10-2-2, 32 points) Thursday, July 16, 2026 7:30 p.m. CT Soldier Field – Chicago How to Watch: Apple TV English: Evan We...

chicagofirefc.com

The United States is turning into a kind of reverse Omelas: everyone is miserable except for a single child, Donald Trump, who inexplicably must be kept happy.

insta xpost

It’s like when your food is taking a long time to come out so your server brings some free bread to apologize for the wait.

If you look up "feckless unprincipled sycophant" in the dictionary, there's a photo of Lindsey Graham. One of the worst senators to ever have substantial political power, which he used in the most cowardly & cruel ways possible. See you at the Resurrection of the Dead, Lindsey!

The new-ish @chaosium.bsky.social series -- where RJ Ivankovic adapts Lovecraft stories in a Dr. Seuss style -- reminds me of the time Josh Jordan & I tried to write a small indie RPG in anapestic pentameter. I would wrestle a giant albino penguin for a simplified kids' version of CoC in that style.

Haven't played this game since middle school, with @inauthenticity.bsky.social, and it was OOP then.

Chaosium@chaosium.bsky.social · 4w ago

Out now - ElfQuest the Official #TTRPG, based on the popular series of graphic adventures and novels created by Wendy and Richard Pini @elfquest.bsky.social. Roleplaying in the World of Two Moons – get your copy today!:

We owe you an apology

Oh hey, it's @crabmoney.bsky.social on @partyofonepodcast.bsky.social playing Tacklebox, the surrealist fishing game from @possibleworlds.bsky.social designed by @ludopolitics.bsky.social and co-written by me:

Party of One Says Go Birds: Tacklebox with Emma Shannon

Party of One Podcast · Episode

open.spotify.com

The (only) great thing about my debit card expiring is receiving all the notices of subscription payments not going through and then deciding if I actually still want those things. "Time to reconsider your relationship with undead-sooooo-late-stage hyper-intensified corporate capitalism."

Three new @analoggamestudies.bsky.social #AnalogGameStudies collected essays are here! (We're working back in time till we have the whole set!) Thanks, #PlayStoryPress! Vol. 10 (2023): tinyurl.com/agsvol10 | Vol. 11 (2024): tinyurl.com/agsvol11 | Vol. 12 (2025): tinyurl.com/agsvol12

I love that people are still discovering stuff about SMB, 40+ years later.

Games Done Quick@gamesdonequick.com · 4w ago

Who said you ever needed a flag to finish the level? Make sure to watch back Kosmic's run of VS. Super Mario Bros. if you missed it to see SMB like you've never seen it before! #SGDQ2026

whatever comes after the games industry will have to be unrecognizable

Jason Schreier@jasonschreier.bsky.social · last mo.

BREAKING: Xbox will cut 3,200 jobs as part of a major reorganization, and divest from five studios: - Compulsion and Double Fine will go indie - Ninja Theory and Undead Labs will be sold - Arkane to enter consultation process Here's the full story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Gotta say, it still feels a bit surreal that the "mainstream" of RPGs has shifted and expanded so much that Tacklebox, of all things, is a surprise hit. It's one of the weirder games I've ever made, & that messes with my tentative publication plans. Are folks hungering for the weirder stuff?

Huge thank yous to @ludopolitics.bsky.social and @possibleworlds.bsky.social for trusting me to write some things for this (beautiful) game store.possibleworldsgames.com/product/tack...

Tacklebox

Step off of dry land and into Tacklebox, a surreal fishing TTRPG where reality shifts with every card. Featuring 40 roleplaying prompts by designer J. Walton & surrealist author James Tadd Adcox, Tack...

store.possibleworldsgames.com

Tadd Adcox@inauthenticity.bsky.social · last mo.

Tacklebox, the game I worked on with @possibleworlds.bsky.social, is a Judges' Spotlight Winner for the ENNIES I have been informed I will possibly receive a medal or trophy for this, I will become insufferable

Weirdo game designers: Making people question "Is this really a game?" since the beginning of games.

David Masnato 🔜 PAX West@davidmasnato.com · last mo.

It's 2026 and I'm in too many game design Discord servers.

Surreal news to wake up to! BIG THANKS to my Tacklebox collaborators & to @fkth.bsky.social for seeing something in our weird little game! Shoutout to @possibleworlds.bsky.social @inauthenticity.bsky.social @patrickedell.bsky.social, plus @ipr.bsky.social @heartofthedeernicorn.com on distro help.

Possible Worlds Games@possibleworlds.bsky.social · last mo.

Tacklebox won an ENNIE! Huge congrats to designer @ludopolitics.bsky.social, co-writer @inauthenticity.bsky.social, illustrator @patrickedell.bsky.social, & all other nominees, and a massive thank you to @fkth.bsky.social for the Judges’ Spotlight selection too! Don't stop making weird games, y'all!

Sometimes I feel weird celebrating "minor victories" like Trump's DIY Spinal Tap arch & a bunch of racist misogynists being excommunicated, especially in the face of so much ongoing cruelty & more cruelty rolling out (SCOTUS, etc.). But gotta keep going somehow. At least DSA is winning primaries?

I'm currently trying to help publish some of my former students' board & card games. And it's increasingly clear that the other sectors of tabletop work pretty different from indie RPGs. Maybe I can still just do things our way, and publish non-RPG games for a mostly RPG-ish audience? Not sure.