Phokal
@phokal.bsky.social
Likes Games (Video/Board/Card) and Nachos. ICQ -> Now. Weary, Old, He/Him. Fan of stuff like Waypoint/RemapRadio, Giant Bomb, and chatting about video games.
I gave Braid an A+ back in my press days. I spent 100s of hours working on The Witness at PlayStation, fighting for it, getting it into conferences, and being Jon's personal wrangler. I even coined "Metroidbrainia" after it. I will not be buying Order of the Sinking Star, and neither should you.
ooooh fuuuuck this (complimentary)
Xalavier Nelson Jr.@writnelson.bsky.social · 4d agoGods With Badges just debuted at the Triple-i Initiative--and it's one of Strange Scaffold's most ambitious games yet. Patrol the steeets of Scarhelm. Decide the fates of your fellow citizens in dialogue and brutal tactical combat. You are a god with a badge. store.steampowered.com/app/4462400
I remain disoriented about what we in the ordinary public should do (does the penny he gets if I watch one of his video essays matter?) or what he should do (I have no idea) but this piece is the best I have seen on The Discourse not taking the wrong we know about sufficiently seriously
What the fuck are we doing with Jacob Geller? | Lola Sebastian
On September 30, 2026, just days after the 2024 Cornell University rape controversy dominated the news cycle, it was substantiated that vide
patreon.com
it's good to see this laid out clearly, but i'm once again going to point to Peter Naur's 1985 essay "Programming as Theory Building"
Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick@shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 5d agoHarvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf
Have you noticed, lately, or noticed people around you commenting, that there just seems to be no money anymore. There's no money for companies to make the tv shows you like, the video games you like, the local diner you like shut down, no one you know can find a job. Think about that in context of
Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · last wk.AI is now the biggest investment in all of US history as a percentage of GDP. Datacenter construction is up, all other construction is down. "AI Is Squeezing Out the Rest of the Stock Market," reported WSJ 2 days ago. We basically bet the whole economy on the most optimistic visions panning out.
It's the basic answer but Game of Thrones, though I'd pin the fall-off a little earlier than "the last season". The stuff in Dorne (s5?6?) was badly staged and shot in a way I didn't have the vocabulary to express, but it's still burned into my mind. The rest of the show soon caught 'down' similarly
Nev Fountain@nevfountain.bsky.social · last wk.What TV show got so bad it effectively destroyed your appreciation for the show when it was was good?
It's a good idea and I'd totally pick up that new SNK if it weren't for SNK's publisher.
Aftermath@aftermath.site · 7d agoLuke half-seriously wonders: What if...everyone just re-released old consoles instead of trying to sell $1000+ new ones? aftermath.site/ps2-xbox-re-re...
I was already priced out of collector boosters but this still seems wild. Just how much are they going to squeeze their biggest fans?
James Whitbrook@jwhitbrook.bsky.social · last wk.Collector Boosters have become so insanely expensive over the past few years, deciding to cut the number of cards in them while keeping the current price is a wild decision
I just missed the toothbrush with my toothpaste so that’s how this morning is going
Ooo first is vague but I remember: - some scene in V where the human dies in a tube and their skin peels away to show a reptile underneath. - some Ewoks tv show where the kid reaches into a tree and his arm is chewed off - brave little toaster when the vacuum chews on his own cord and almost dies
Sleepy Hollow Reviews 🎃🐎@sleepingvillage.bsky.social · last wk.In honor of scary media month: what is the first piece of media you remember truly frightening you as a child?
Me, but with a *Large* iced coffee with coffee jellies inside.
Chris Franklin@errant-signal.com · last wk.Me last night downing a whole bag of Trader Joe’s jalapeño and pistachio salted dark chocolate: Haha fuck yeah! Yes!! Me this morning, an exhausted 41 year old adult with a spicy chocolate induced tummy ache: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
No one can claim to know if his attempt at redemption is internally genuine, but in a hypothetical if it were, what happens next? This uncomfortable essay is worth digesting, not for any certainty provided but solidly questioning if “we” believe redemption is possible, allowed, or incentivized.
Flora 🍓🏳️⚧️@floramerigold.bsky.social · last wk.Yesterday's news about Jacob Geller broke my heart, so much that I couldn't stop dwelling on it all day. In an effort to make sense of this horrific news and my admittedly complicated feelings about it, here is my article on the Jacob Geller situation: epiloguegaming.com/what-do-we-d...
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
I feel so basic that I was looking forward to and now really enjoying Star Wars Zero Company, and I’m also looking forward to Star Wars Galactic Racer.
Thank you to Costco Connection Magazine for coming up with my new bio
To be fair, the single most publicly-accessed example of "AI" in the world can't find its ass with a flashlight and it's right on top of the search listings, where the most accurate search result used to be. Every LLM suffers from token drift over time so it's only a question of WHEN they're wrong.
Ben@ben-not-a-number.bsky.social · 2w agoTo be fair, the system powering Google search is not the same one solving open Millennium problems. That’s like concluding that Concorde was a hoax based on riding in a Cessna one time. Not saying SI has been achieved, but you’re not even looking at the right entity to conclude one way or the other.
I think this about sums everything up, what do you think? 😅
How platforms censored ads for the ‘Musk’ documentary.
Really happy that folks are enjoying Nighthawks. Now that it’s out, I have been focused on getting back to Gilt and trying to make something really special out of it.
players hate being surprised by negative things but they also love choosing negative things on purpose to gain something.
Heather Flowers (500FF DEMO OUT NOW)@hthrflwrs.bsky.social · 2w agoOne of my favorite and most effective design patterns is "tell the player exactly what you're gonna do to them, then do it." You can be SIGNIFICANTLY meaner to the player if you simply tell them ahead of time that that's exactly what you'll be doing, and also the suspense of the warning is a delight
Pretty ridiculous that I make indie games but have had to become a clean air advocate
Lia@liasae.bsky.social · 2w agoOne thing I've started to do more often while advocating is explaining Sweden 2020 and then stressing that I'm a game programmer and it's all absurd. You think it's kinda weird I'm here doing DIY public health? YEAH, YOU AND ME BOTH, I MAKE VIDEOGAMES
If hdmi-cec is working (big if!) you can tap the home button on the ps5 or xsx and after 3-5 seconds it’ll take the input, even if you disable the auto-wake and sleep options. But it’s pretty fragile and some devices don’t work as smoothly…
beeef14@bearfucker.bsky.social · 2w agoThe Wii U had a button that could change your TV's input and to me that's still one of the greatest innovations that was simply abandoned for no reason lol