Nikhil Murthy
@murthynikhil.bsky.social
Experimental game designer currently working on Hoop Dungeon. Previous games: Syphilisation, The Quiet Sleep
If you're interested in how strategy games can be used to convey theories of non-violence, Syphilisation is still probably the most comprehensive game to attempt it. store.steampowered.com/app/1712530/...
Nikhil Murthy's Syphilisation on Steam
Nikhil Murthy's Syphilisation is a postcolonial 4X game where you play a student doing a group report on Gandhi, Churchill and the Raj. It eXplores space left uncharted by the genre and proposes alter...
store.steampowered.com
A tower defence with orcs that move like a fluid. Games like this keep the spirit of Flash alive. www.jank.cool/the-spirit-o...
The parameters of the tunnels of The Count of Monte Clicker are exquisite. It's an excellent implementation of One More Turn and hiding upgrade prices behind tooltips helps to fill the working memory. Also, Chateau D'Idle is a fantastic pun.
I’ve had the documentary saved for years. Time to finally watch that and then watch this.
Alien Bob but also@jeremyoduber.com · 2d agoNEW VIDEO: In 2006 a Washington DC based think tank hired future lead designers of Civilization and XCOM to make a strategy game based on a documentary about nonviolent protest. 20 years later I'm here to tell you why. youtu.be/dmL7Ph4Us8o
Fun fact: people so often compare the Citizen Sleeper UI layout to Disco but the game’s presentation of text was equally inspired by the elegant Destiny 2 conversation panel that was used extensively through its many seasons.
We’re hiring - come join the Fellow Traveller marketing team as a Product Manager! This is a senior role leading the marketing for some very cool games. More info and how to apply here bit.ly/FTPMJob
Job Opportunity - Product Manager — Fellow Traveller Games
We have the rare opportunity to join the Fellow Traveller marketing team as a Product Manager. Product Managers play a key role at Fellow Traveller, taking ownership of a portion of our game…
bit.ly
A Paradise Built in Hell contains the best understanding of 9/11 that I have ever read.
Rebecca Solnit@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 3d agoMisreadings are frustrating. I can't speak for Polybius but I can speak for my A Paradise Built in Hell: this Le Monde version misrepresents what it documents and concludes. It does document constructive pro-social civil society responses to disaster. it also documents elite panic and crackdowns...
You’ve helped us raise over 80k for laid off gamedevs in need so far, and we still have plenty of time left in the bundle’s drive. Everyone who organized this effort was doing so on their own time for the benefit of others. If these companies wanted to, they would. They don’t. We do. Join us. ✊
This @edwinet.bsky.social piece shows why I think the standard solution for crafting needs updating. One of my Big Questions in Game Design is how to allow for ingenuity in a crafting system. I'm not sure that Lucid Blocks has the answer. www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-impossib...
The impossible alchemy of Lucid Blocks is a reminder that 99% of videogame crafting is boring
Lucid Blocks can look like brainrot Minecraft, but there's so much more going on beneath the surface.
rockpapershotgun.com
I'm clearing out some old Syphilisation screenshots and here's a good one of how British racism hurt the Allied war effort in WW2.
This is not to take away from Balatro at all but it did not come out of nowhere. Luck Be A Landlord was already very successful and I had even played Crop Rotation from the subgenre before Balatro came out. Balatro's a great game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a bit of a fast-follow.
I'm glad to see an expert 4X writer (@edwinet.bsky.social) write about the 4X I'm most excited for (@curiousdynamics.bsky.social ) www.rockpapershotgun.com/folk-emergin...
Folk Emerging is a 4X strategy sim entirely set inside the first few turns of a Civilization game, and I think it has huge potential
Stone Age 4X strategy game Folk Emerging combines the romance of early Civilisation with the ramshackle community vibe of King of Dragon Pass.
rockpapershotgun.com
I tried the demos for How Empires Work and The Solace of Flowers and both are charming. Unfortunately, neither set of systems clicked for me but I enjoyed giving both demos a spin.
i have an oomf that worked at a small studio making a fun game that also used poker in creative ways for gameplay and storytelling and was in the same next fest as balatro, and i think friends in our discord were the only ones who bought it and the studio closed immediately
Even if you don’t wanna play older games, Desktop Explorer, The Mermaid Mask, Heave Ho 2, Kaz, Denshattack!, Lost Castle 2, Schrödinger's Call, Mina the Hollower, TetherGeist, Mixtape, and Wax Heads just came out
when asked whether she would ever want to be involved in "interactive fiction", she responded with "video games are art" but "video game companies don't respect their writers" and "the industry needs to grow up"
I really don’t think this is true. There are counter examples everywhere but most saliently, game design has very little theory and much less creativity than I would like and I think the two are linked. Theory lets you communicate and lets you think and lets you build the house for your experiments.
The @plante.bsky.social episode on Mini Mini Golf Golf got me to pick up the game. I'm always excited to see games approach climate without assuming eco-genocide and without technomagic. That was one of the hardest design challenges in Syphilisation.
If you're at GenCon, you can get my games What Should We Have Tomorrow? (solo journaling game about cooking for your loved ones) and Ithaca in the Cards: Second Expedition (blackjack play-to-lose storygame inspired by The Odyssey) at the IPR booth!
Indie Press Revolution@ipr.bsky.social · 2w agoHere's the list of 154 games from 92 publishers we're bringing to #Booth449 at #GenCon2026 www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Gen-Co...
This is irresponsible. I obviously do not use AI and I do not appreciate an article that implies that I do.
Aftermath@aftermath.site · last wk.All the video game studios that refuse to use generative AI aftermath.site/video-games-no...
I appreciate this piece for detailing the mechanical changes of Mortal Shell 2 but I want pieces to start asking what the change is for. Change just as minor novelty may be the luxury of a bygone industry. www.eurogamer.net/mortal-shell...
Even based on a limited sampler, the Mortal Shell 2 beta makes its predecessor look so simple by comparison
Mortal Shell 2 is at its best when it breaks out all the pieces of what makes a good Souls game, throws them into its sandbox, and lets you play with them.
eurogamer.net
I finished the final chapter of my book yesterday and I'm completely wrung out today and I have a Hoop Dungeon update planned for Friday. I think I'd be fine if I didn't also have a couple of hours of company account bullshit to get through today but that's the stuff that really ruins a week.
An even better way to work on side projects is to unionize with your coworkers and demand the company change the policy. This will change things not just for you, but also for everyone that comes after you. It will also inspire workers at other companies to do the same.
reminder that i’m making a simple static site generator with zero AI involved make your own website now and it’ll be that much easier to fuck off of Bluesky when you inevitably need to
izzy kestrel@iznaut.com · 7mo agoalright let's do this bimbo beta is now available on itch. check it out and tell me if this shit works at all iznaut.itch.io/bimbo
"transforming Game Pass into a bustling indie library could work to both rapidly shrink the costs of running the service, as well as retain more subscribers" IMO the primary reason Game Pass failed to hit its subscriber targets is because the mass market simply does not care to play lots of games.
Game Pass Was Supposed To Be the Netflix-Style All-You-Can-Play Subscription That Would Save Xbox – Instead, It’s Killing the Company
Game Pass was supposed to be the all-you-can-play subscription service that put Xbox on top after a disastrous generation. Instead, it's a failure that's threatening to ruin the company.
ign.com
Red Echoes: Berlin (via @edwinet.bsky.social) sounds excellent and may be a decent way for me to make up for never getting to Suzerain. www.rockpapershotgun.com/overthrow-th...
Overthrow the Kaiser in Red Echoes: Berlin, a Weimar-era turn-based strategy game in the style of Suzerain
Red Echoes: Berlin is a narrative-driven turn-based strategy game in which you take charge of the German "November Revolution" across 1918 and 1919.
rockpapershotgun.com
important (tragic) cow update: they die in polluted land store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/...
One thing that was super fun about the meetup was all the solo journaling gamers brought their journals and games to share with each other and chat. Love to see this part of the hobby flourish and @pokokpokok.bsky.social find her people!
Aaron Lim 林家丰@ehronlime.bsky.social · 2w agoSome more photos from the Storygames PJ+KL July meetup yesterday, featuring Zhenya’s Wonder Tales, For The Queen, and a group solo play of The Wandering Library.
