iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Last train of the day! After enjoying a smooth ride on the Eurostar, it's time to go from Marylebone to Leamington on a freshly renationalised train 😁 🚈

Photo of London Marylebone platform from a train.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Had a great week in Belgium, teaching game design at Uni and seeing my friends (great sessions of board games and TTRPGs) and family. Back to the UK now, first train out of 3 🚄

A photo of a train platform. A screen shows the next train at 9:44 for Bruxelles Midi

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Taking my first break on the first day of #DevelopBrighton 🙂 It's been a blast so far, we've met great people and had super interesting conversations. Also got a cute @godotengine.org pin at the Godot meet-up ❤️

My develop:Brighton lanyard and badge, a business card for Alvera Studios and a Godot pin.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I'm very grateful for Game Dev Heroes for highlighting the people working hard to create our favourite games, and for shortlisting me in the Game Design category! 🥳

The image reads: "Finalists for Design Hero Game Dev Heroes 2026"

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

This photo is why we have to continue to fight Gen AI!

A photo of Jack Quaid in a strange cubic mocap structure as he plays "Phranque", a cosmic cube for the new God of War Laufey

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Today we're at the UK Game Expo with @khevna.bsky.social 🙂 For me it started with a great workshop "Creating Games for Adult Education"

A slide projected on the wall with the text: "Creating Games for Adult Education"

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I'm super happy for my ex-colleagues and friends. Forza Horizon 6 is yet another huge success! Even if it's not a surprise, I'm still impressed by the consistency of this team. Being able to launch -in less than 10 years- 3 games that hit 92 on Metacritic is definitely an incredible achievement.

A screenshot of the website Metacritic showing a 92 aggregated score for Forza Horizon 4, 5 and 6

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Naming a video game you've completed more than six times is trickier.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Today I was looking at some of my artbooks when I saw the one about Anthem there. It reminded me how much I appreciated it, and how sad that they killed the server last week. It's especially hard when you're a game designer because you know how cheap it could have been to "fix" some design...

The picture shows artbooks for Arcane, D&D, Arrival, Dune and at the centre of it, Anthem.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

We've just finished building the LEGO Game Boy with @khevna.bsky.social Very cool build for such a small set 😊

The photo shows the original Game Boy and cartridge next to the LEGO Game Boy and its cartridge.

A close-up on the LEGO cartridge of Zelda Link's Awakening, showing the cool detail of the hidden battery.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

I've never written so much design documentation for a Game Jam 🤣 #GMTK2025 #gamedev

A screenshot of the navigation panel of our game wiki for the game jam showing dozens of different pages.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

We finished the jigsaw puzzle we got from the Floral Dragon kickstarter by @kintheartist.bsky.social and @hitpointpress.bsky.social yesterday with @khevna.bsky.social 🐉 It was fun and the result is awesome 😍

A jigsaw puzzle showing a myriad of colorful Floral Dragons

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Getting some cool loots at the UK Game Expo with @khevna.bsky.social 🤩

A tote bag containing TTRPG books and board games.

You can notably see The Gang, For the Queen, and Unlock.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Take the fictional characters quiz and post the first four you know: openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/ I'm quite ok with that 😀

A photo of Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park

A photo of Lucius Fox from The Dark Knight

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

We built the "Evolution of STEM" LEGO (21355) set this week with @khevna.bsky.social. It has an amazing theme (STEM 🥰) and is a cool small set with nice hidden -and not hidden- details. #LEGO #STEM

A photo of the LEGO set "The Evolution of STEM".

The set represents a book with multiple elements bursting from it. The biggest one is a DNA strand. A bumble bee and a space shuttle are connected to it.

Elements present on the book: a lab where Marie Curie is working, Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree, an early home computer, a diorama of the evolution of living spaces, from caverns to cities, George Washington Carver tending to a mini garden.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

To shine more light on indie games, quote with 4 of your favorite indie titles! Don't forget ALT text if you attach images. 🩷 Ask me in 10 minutes and instead of those 4 I may say Obra Dinn, Into the Breach, Inscryption and Monster Train 😅 #IndieGames #gaming

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

I finished my first run of #Frostpunk2 this evening! 🥳 It took me a bit longer than expected due to limited access to my gaming desktop, but I made it 😎 The game is great, I'm happy the team took the scary risk of not doing a "Frostpunk 1.5" sequel. Now I want the solarpunk version 😂

A screenshot of a non-spoiler part of the end screen saying:

Against all odds, you have succeeded.
THE CITY STANDS

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

It feels good 😁 The process has now deleted all my tweets but my last two (which explains why I left Twitter for Bluesky).

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Happy New Year everyone! 😊🎉✨

A LEGO set representing chinese celebrations, with a red and gold boat with a dragon head on the foreground and a dock in the background showing "2025" and two mini figures celebrating.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

✨EOTY Prompt✨ - Your best of the year: 1) Photo of you 2) Album 3) Movie 4) Series or Video Game

A selfie of me, sitting in front of my gaming table.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

We had a blast playing -yet another- game of Spirit Island this weekend with @khevna.bsky.social and 2 friends (and are going to play another one tonight). I think it may be my favourite board game of all time 🤔 #boardgames

A photo showing Spirit Island and all its extensions on a gaming table

A photo showing an in-progress game of Spirit Island

A photo showing dragon-shaped cookies in front of the Spirit Island board

A photo showing different mugs (and a glass) containing a creamy coffe

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

We received our copies of Tidal Blades 2 (board game and #TTRPG ) that we backed with @khevna.bsky.social and it looks SUPER CUTE and cool 🤩

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

My #Xbox Year in Review 🙂 It was a good year!

An infographic showing my top games this year.

In order:
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Against the Storm
Dragon's Dogma 2
Frostpunk 2
Creatures of Ava
Cat Quest III
Unicorn Overlord
Chants of Sennaar

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

We celebrated my birthday this weekend. I'll let you figure out what was the theme 😁 Thanks @khevna.bsky.social for the amazing gifts and for cooking / baking / preparing everything edible and drinkable, making the party a huge success 🎉

A photo of D&D related gifts:
A spinner wheel that acts as a dice set. The deck of many encounters.
A tin box the size of a deck of cards called "Tiny Dungeons". It contains cards, two dices and a pen, everything needed to play.

The photo shows a series of eclectic reused glass recipients containing drinks of various colours (mostly blue and red). They have labels on them, all starting with "potion of"

Phot shows cookies with cute shapes: dragon eggs, baby dragons, big dragon and D20

Photo shows a board game being played on a gaming table

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Post a ship that's neither Star Wars nor Star Trek

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

I'm soon done with my first reading of The Wildsea. It's very enjoyable to read and it got me excited to DM a one-shot soon 🙂 #ttrpg

The cover of The Wildsea, showing a ship crew being attacked by a creature with four arms, jumping out of the trees the ship is sailing on.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

Received this today. I'm curious to see what they did with their Bastion system 🙂 #TTRPG #DD52024

A photo of the D&D5 2024 Dungeon Master Book

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

What note-taking software do you use (if any) and why? I've started using Obisidan recently and love it (apart from the lack of affordable syncing) but I wonder if Anytype or Notion (I don't like that they're missing an offline solution) would be better, especially for #gamedesign diagrams?

Icons representing well-established note-taking apps

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

I hate that, as a consumer, you don't even own a "game licence"; you own the licence to play it on a very specific ecosystem. Wouldn't it make sense, now we can stream those games on our phones and play them locally on our desktops, consoles and PC handhelds, to only buy a game licence once?

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 22/10/2024

Last one for me was The Wildsea that I for first on @alchemyrpg.bsky.social before acquiring physical copies 🙂

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

Welcome here! Very happy about the Vampire module. I'll probably master "A Taste of the Moon" 😁

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

I've now been playing Metaphor: ReFantazio for a bit more than 20 hours. I love how this team made a lot of smart choices to control their budget and still delivered such a fantastic experience. A lot of AAA studios should learn from them.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 07/10/2024

Ok, my Xbox and ROG Ally are ready😁 Thanks #xboxplayanywhere 🤩

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 13/09/2024

Hey, look at what we've just received 🤩 #dungeons&dragons #D&D

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 19/02/2024

I finished Chants of Sennaar in two sessions. It's a very smart and nice game. I'd def recommend it, especially if you like the deduction mechanism of games like Obra Dinn 👍

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

We finished building the Atreides Ornithopter LEGO set yesterday. It's one of the most challenging sets I've built but I LOVE the result and all the cool functionalities of this set. The minifigs are also awesome 🤩 #Dune #LEGO

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 29/01/2024

After roling numerous nat 20s and a fair share of crit fails, I've finally rolled the credits on Baldur’s Gate 3 after a 150-hour epic duo playthrough. Thanks to Larian for this amazing game and for the impact I hope it’ll have on the industry. It’s a masterpiece.

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 12/01/2024

The second new board game of the week -> Dune: War for Arrakis from Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, published by CMON I love Dune and I wanted to see if this would turn out as a more approachable, fast and tactical version of War of the Ring. We'll see 🙂

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 12/01/2024

I received 2 new exciting board games from Kickstarter this week! We love Larian in our house so, obviously, Divinity Original Sin - The Board Game deserved a place in our collection! 🤩

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 05/01/2024

Today we received our amazing gaming table from Geeknson that we backed last year. It is as awesome as we hoped it'd be. Spirit Island (one of our fav games) will inaugurate it but I can't wait to also play some #ttrpg on it 🤩

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 31/12/2023

We've started playing Cobalt Coreon my ROG Ally and finished our first run :) This game is an amazing blend of FTL and Slay the Spire / Monster Train. I absolutely love it 😍 #ROGALLY #CobaltCore

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 31/12/2023

That's a wrap on the Winter MelonJam!🥳 We made a game in 72 hours with a team of two (and assets from the store xD) I learned a lot during this one (especially about rendering 😮) and had a lot of fun! Time to finally sleep a bit :D #gamedev aegard.itch.io/friendships

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

Our Christmas Eve this year : Amazing home-made food, Spirited Away and hours of Baldur's Gate 3 (Ansur 😭). It was awesome! I hope you all had a great time 🥳🎄

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 23/12/2023

We started our holidays playing Baldur's Goty 3 until past 5AM 😅 Staying at home, playing video games and board games is def the best holidays 🏡🤩 #BaldursGate3

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 20/12/2023

I received my Asus ROG Ally (less than 24 hours after ordering it😮)! 🎉 I've already installed a lot of games from my Game Pass, Epic, and Steam Library. Any recommendations of games that play great on it? 😃

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

Enjoying our vacation in India 🇮🇳❤️ I've never eaten so many times per day in my life (+it's super good 🤩) Also, Mumbai is quite something 😯

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Hervé Gengler @hervegengler.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

Yup... This is the last one we've built :D

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