Matthew "Queso" Niederberger
@queso2469.bsky.social
Still working at Muse Games, making cool, weird, multiplayer games. Director on Stars of Icarus (wishlist it on steam pls). Directed Embr. Writer/Designer on Wildmender. Opinions are everyone else's.
an occupational hazard we don't talk about enough is that if you get really good at designing video games half of all youtube videos become lethal brain toxin to you
OK while I am mad about UI, everyone is also banned from the "everything is a card" school of design. I was recently faced with this mobile app lookin ass departure board at DFW. Putting everything in rounded boxes within rounded boxes within rounded boxes is making shit completely illegible.
hey this is what i use to make textures for animations and games i work on. check it out. cheap and powerful. def give them support!!
Aseprite@aseprite.org · 2w agoAseprite is 40% off during the Steam Autumn sale, until October 8th! Get it directly from our website: aseprite.org/buy/ or from Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/431730/A...
games in general now, not even just aaa games, are way too concerned with the player getting stuck or upset or whatever. why give a shit. The Player is not gonna put the game down as soon as they hit any friction, most of them won't even stop when the game actively makes their life worse
This is why I'm so hardline on this shit. "Oh I'm just going to casually use the product of a corporation that's engaged in an unprecedented assault on the concept of there being such a thing as a society." Eat shit, sincerely.
One of the things to come from GamerGate was the gamification of torturing real, live women...hounding them out of their homes, making them look over their shoulders for years. It was treated as a joke, nbd, the work of a few bad apples--as all terrorism against women is--& that failure leads here.
Kelly@justkelly.bsky.social · 2w agoThe Cornell victim has been doxxed on X. So worried for her. I hate this planet.
i should clarify, when i write people doing bad things, it's because i am bad. they are me. more importantly, when you read about those bad things, they also become you. that's how story works. in fact, you are going to think about murder before this skeet ends. how's that feel, sicko.
microsoft have essentially bought up and bulldozed almost an entire american arts industry as a half-hearted distraction from their main project of trying to monopolise and rent-seek global digital infrastructure and military contracts
Oh jeez I've still been complaining about 4 day cons
davemakes🔶@mixolumia.com · 4w agocongrats to every dev I talked to dreading the extra public day
god i love videogames. have you heard about "places"? they are called locations
opinions on showing games at events (mostly a memo to myself for the next time i have to do it)
Seriously. Even if you are a monster, a person driven to hurt other people, an absolute piece of shit… Even THEN all the data demonstrates that prolonged crunch lowers productivity. Those who cling to it are ignorant, and with the evidence available, actively and intentionally so.
Jaime Cross@speedyjx.bsky.social · 4w agoI really REALLY need game devs, and especially those who are in higher up positions, indie or otherwise, to clue into the fact that crunching away for weeks or months of a time is neither normal nor something you should wear as a badge of honour.
Yeah man, takeout and energy drinks, THAT'S what's gonna make the kids you're burning through like firewood unable to buy a house. Wonder why they buy so much takeout and energy drinks? MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TIME TO COOK AND NEED CAFFEINE TO MAINTAIN YOUR SWEATSHOP.
Game Developer@gamedeveloper.bsky.social · 4w agoWardogs lead says the studio won't hire people who decry crunch on social media
A hundred times this. Consistently disappointed by how many publishers in indie world can’t actually sell a game. Or rather, provide little value in selling a game that isn’t in the thing itself. (Lots of awesome individuals of course, often with hands tied by process and nonsense)
Cara Ellison@caraellison.bsky.social · last mo.Another thing I really want especially Indie devs to think about before signing with a publisher: what is your plan for marketing our game? Ask to see a schedule, evidence they have done well with other teams, and get express permission to sign off on trailers, press & media. Get things in writing.
there are no words I'm allowed to say on this website that adequately describe what I think should happen to the "whistleblowers" who got people fired (and in some cases deported) for exercising their legal right to unionise :)
Chris Kerr@kerrblimey.bsky.social · last mo.Okay! Here’s the opening statement provided by the fired Rockstar workers. Key points: -There was allegedly a ‘mole’ in the union Discord server for over a year who funnelled info back to R* -It’s claimed R* only acted shortly after union members passed the 10% threshold for statutory recognition
Only Nintendo would have a worldwide premiere for their cafeteria
no one is browsing the store page and being like WOW, I HAVE TO USE THE B.R.I.K.X. TOOL TO OPEN DOORS AND GRATES? nobody is reading "play your way" and getting excited. This is not what excites people about games. What excites them is, and always will be, the fantasy. Which is harder to evaluate.
the problem with games is that a lot of people still try to market it as technology and that only worked when it was new technology. It's mature enough now that "check out this amazing feature" no longer matters. Games-as-tech makes it easier to market a game based on lists of things in said game.
Hannah Flynn 🐀@itshannahflynn.bsky.social · last mo.(this is why lots of the time you'll see lists of the numbers of things people have made. It's relevant with, say, a puzzle game to say '200 levels' but 'six biomes including fire world, ice world' isn't the hook people think it is)
It's not just delivery — it's DiGiorno.
YOU DON'T "CONSUME" ART MOTHERFUCKER. YOU EXPERIENCE IT. YOU FEEL IT. YOU ENGAGE WITH IT. YOU WRESTLE WITH IT. YOU LIVE IT. ART ISN'T A LITTLE MORSEL YOU GOBBLE UP.
there's a pretty simple connection here 1. humans become good at what they practice doing 2. outsourcing to an AI or even other people, means you have stopped doing the thing 3. if you stop doing the thing, you will stop improving, and, long term, get worse at it (cont.)
Joe Wintergreen@joewintergreen.com · 9mo agoi really think genai causes actual brain damage. probably faster than most ways you can on purpose give yourself brain damage. and if you hear this statement as literally as i mean it i think it sounds sorta conspiracy nut, but undeniably less conspiracy nut than the apparent sum of its parts
Anyone that has ever worked in games can tell you how much a point by point highlight of things that exist is both 1) not effective tutorialization or feature surfacing 2) going to piss off your users No we don't know how to explain that to your boss either.
Chet Faliszek@chetsucks.com · 2mo agoI want to open a piece of software and not go on tour... i want to do one really quick thing.. I don't need to tour the latest update... really, I don't. I do not. Stop. Oh on this screen as well... oh that's nice... I JUST WANT TO DO THE ONE FUCKING THING
Our beta playlist begins September 16th! 🎉 Here's what's new: - Cargo King on more maps - Weapon and tool rebalance - New ship: The Serpent - New outfits based on your suggestions Sign up for the playtest on our Steam page now!
man every day some pundit's on here with the latest random thing they think is the problem in the games industry, we're not original enough, not well-read enough, chasing the wrong trends, whatever. pisses me off. it's that there is no fucking money. whatever shit you think you are seeing is THAT
people really out there still saying a game is only good if 'your decisions matter' in the year of our lord 2026. shit's wild
Kevin Fox@michigrim.bsky.social · 2mo agoSaw someone give a take that Cyberpunk 2077 is a bad RPG because your decisions “don’t matter” and I feel like this is a case of confusing the kind of role playing Cyberpunk is giving the player an opportunity to engage with and misunderstanding the fantasy of the game.