iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alan Au

Here’s the bigger ask I mentioned: I owe $6k in back rent. I’ve been selling my limited belongings to reduce the number but it is slow going and I can’t hope to cover it all, especially not in the short time I have. I have enough to cover October rent and little more. More details below.

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Old DeuTaranomy🧶⚒️ @kindofstrange.com · 6h

🎂 My birthday is tomorrow, and I have a special request: If you want to do something for me, I'd ask that you please make a donation to Take This, Inc., the nonprofit I work for, using the attached link. givebutter.com/take-this-tr...?

givebutter.com

Take This Triple Match

By Take This, Inc.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 16h

If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula.

Terran Confederation F-109 Vampire Space Superiority Fighter (Wing Commander)

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inkle @inkle.co · 14h

New Kaleidiscope Episode! WHY I LOVE TEXT PARSERS Creativity, craft, and designing for text parsers, with the Crimson Diamond's creator @juliaminamata.bsky.social www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope...

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 16h

If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 17h

It's a shame that WH40K: Darktide (first person brawler) takes place in these spectacular and intricately modeled environments, but I can't really take it all in because I'm too busy focusing on target prioritization and enemy attack patterns. I guess a lot of action video games are like this. 🤔

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Reposted by Alan Au

Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One of the weird things about being part of the old guard is encountering old artifacts in the wild, like my handwriting on something in a shop, or showing up in a photo from decades ago. Some of these are artifacts of a previous career, or from a thing I helped with while in grad school, etc.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Despite rumors, I do not immediately kill plants in my care. Instead, I doom them to a slow, lingering death over many weeks.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Despite rumors, I do not immediately kill plants in my care. Instead, I doom them to a slow, lingering death over many weeks.

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Randy Au @randyau.com · 29/09/2026

This week on Counting Stuff, probably because I've had to do this work so much over the years, but man, analyzing user feedback mechanism data is a horrid slog #dataBS www.counting-stuff.com/feedback-mec...

counting-stuff.com

Feedback mechanisms are terrible data sources

Reflecting on how we collect a ton of data that doesn't get used.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Momo @heyheymomo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Guys! I am changing my doodle commissions a little bit! For one, I will send you a transparent .png on delivery. In this way they don't only work for user icons, but you can also use them as stickers, emotes, and however you please! Read more about it and order yours here!: ko-fi.com/c/7c3b3b7774

example sheet of doodles you can order! 12 cute stickers of various characters

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I rant about this sometimes, but I don't think we can have a proper "artificial intelligence" solution until models include an internal knowledge representation system. But of course, this would raise new questions about bias and manipulation by unscrupulous humans who mess with the training data.

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Alanah Pearce @alanahpearce.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Are you or have you ever been a narrative designer (as your official job title)? I would like to interview you for a video! Pls reply to this if you’re interested ❤️.

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Carol, Muddling Through Somehow 😏 @pierrette1789.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Please share our Crab Fragment & Cheapass Games shop with gamer friends! 🎲 ♟️ We've always relied heavily on word-of-mouth, and it feels like that's been getting drowned out by the general #enshittification of social media. 🫠 crabfragmentlabs.com/shop

crabfragmentlabs.com

Crab Fragment Store — Crab Fragment Labs

Crab Fragment Labs offers many of its fine games as free PDFs

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Woke up just a bit too early and trying to decide if I should just get up now or try to squeeze in an extra hour of sleep. So naturally now I'm thinking about asymmetric game design again. So yeah, I have a framework sketched out for a tabletop game based on submarines vs. destroyers.

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Reposted by Alan Au

ToadBrews @toadbrews.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For everyone saying "I wouldn't buy Harry Potter cards" they know. They're banking on you still buying other cards while Potter fans buy the Harry Potter cards. You're gonna have to boycott entirely to impact their bottom line and they know most people won't.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Every so often I'm asked about my list of top games, and like everyone, my list changes periodically, etc. I'm never sure what lens to use. Current favorites? Games to "get to know me"? Influential games? I mean, I've played a LOT of games over the decades. I play everything except sports/racing.

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Eric Neustadter (e) @thevowel.com · 25/09/2026

Interviewing an internal-to-MS candidate while at Xbox and he told me he had invented Microsoft Points. The interview after me was with the PM who had invented Microsoft Points.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Happy Dolly Parton Day to those who celebrate.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My hot take is that there are valid use cases for putting multiple values in a single cell. In the old days, I would have done this via a bit field or written scripts to pack/unpack a list. But you have to know what you're doing or you'll mess things up very badly. #dataBS

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Ugh, everything hurts for some reason today; I should probably go back to bed. 😑

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Periodic reminder: solve now problems now, and later problems later.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Radiant G🌈 @radiantg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Bad news: I just got laid off due to budget cuts. 10+ years exp Hire me for: 👥 Production 🎙️ Voice Acting 📝 Narrative 🎨 2D Art 🔆 UI Art 📱 Marketing 👨‍💻 Design 🤳 Influencer 📸 Journalism ♿️ Accessibility 🎮 QA Lead 📄 Contract 🔁 RTs Appreciated 🔁 DM or email radiantgbusiness (@) gmail (.) com #IndieDev

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Reposted by Alan Au

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 24/09/2026

ME: So I can't put anything else on the scale? ANUBIS: No. Just your heart ME: No money, no good deeds? ANUBIS: No ME: What about steam points? I've got a ton of steam points ANUBIS: The point is to be lighter than the feather ME: I was just hoping to finally do something with the steam points

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I like the idea of cheaper early-adopter pricing that ramps up as content is added and risk is reduced. I haven't yet reconciled it with bundle pricing though, so that will require some thought. I also don't like FOMO-based content, which is a separate-but-related pricing consideration.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

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Micah @rincewind.run · 23/09/2026

video games as a whole make hundreds of billions of dollars a year and apparently somehow nobody can make any money on them or pay anyone to make them

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I don't talk about my age much here, but yeah, let's just say all of the lines are starting to bottom out. 😭

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season soup season

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Reposted by Alan Au

Celia Hodent 🔜 #GameUXsummit @celiahodent.com · 22/09/2026

Call for papers #ACM Games: Research & Practice special issue seeks empirical & practice-based research examining #gamedesign & #gamedev in practice, how games are actually made & what these practices reveal about games & those who make them. Deadline: Nov 15 More info: dl.acm.org/pb-assets/st...

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm a sucker for quirky golf games. But also, *my backlog*. 😆

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Okay, yeah, hit my doomscrolling limit for the day kinda early; gonna go log off for a bit. 😎

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This "renaming AI to SI" bullshit is obviously just an attempt to claim ownership of the language and discussion around the topic. It's yet another attempt to exert private influence over public things, just like the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario bullshit.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Microsoft is well known for frequent reorgs. They are typically done for two main reasons: 1. physical consolidation/relocation, and 2. as an excuse for layoffs. Xbox was previously made up of "limited integration" studios that made reorgs difficult, so these mergers presage future meddling.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 22/09/2026

I’m surprised that instead of “renaming” Artificial Intelligence to “Super Intelligence” he didn’t just assert that from now on the “A” in “AI” will stand for “American”.

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Sam.END.ICE.Machkovech @samred.com · 22/09/2026

anyone in Seattle who wants to meet up and talk about continued tumult in the region's Xbox/games publishing space, my DMs are open, my Signal is samred.81, and first round's on me (I'm sober but will imbibe w/ you anywhere).

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Reposted by Alan Au

Celia Hodent 🔜 #GameUXsummit @celiahodent.com · 22/09/2026

I can't believe the @gameuxsummit.com '26 is in 3 weeks already! For its 10-year anniversary (TEN years 👀 ), the summit comes to Asia for the first time 😍 (and gets an amazing re-branding by no other than Alex Townsend). This is such an incredible milestone 🧵 (1/6)

Poster stating that the Game UX Summit is in 3 weeks (Oct 12-14), hosted by PlayStation Creative Studios and Level Up KL

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Carol Mertz @carolmertz.itch.io · 21/09/2026

Send us your experimental game — we wanna help you show it off! Get a chance to share your project onstage at GDC next spring, and help us inspire more people to make strange and experimental projects that change how we think about games. <3

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I know people have lots of feelings about the Destiny franchise. Personally, this kind of feels like necromancy to me; they're exhuming the body and reanimating it.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Periodic reminder that if you're flirting with me, you have to tell me because I'm not going to figure it out. 😆

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Story time! One of the lessons I learned from doing robotics competitions is that reliability is almost always the key to success. The simple, error-tolerant thing will consistently outperform the complex, precision-reliant thing.

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Remember that the people who made the media you like already got paid, and the multinational megacorporation distributing it does not need your money.

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Reposted by Alan Au

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 19/09/2026

I assume that when whoever is making it IPOs they will reveal the full lineup implied by the existence of Tilly Norwood.

Grid of logic gate options as Venn diagrams of Tilly Norwood, Tilly Orwood, Tilly Andwood, Tilly Xorwood, Tilly Nandwood, and Tilly Xnandwood

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Joe Merrick @joemerrick.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

To commemorate the collaboration between Pokémon and the ESA, a special Pikachu plush was sent to the International Space Station from April 11th through June 17th What a picture. Absolutely stunning

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

TBH, I'm kind of surprised we didn't unleash an accidental nuclear exchange during the Cold War. 🫠 Anyway, happy Friday, friends!

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Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

There's a saying in the business community "don't build someone else's brand." That's a bit overstated, but the underlying question is "who really benefits from crossovers?" And yes, it generates revenue, but does it build either franchise's fan base and community?

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