iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I reread Neuromancer every year and it keeps giving. After I used AI for the first time, I reread it and Case switching the AI construct on, talking to it, then restarting it and asking it if it remembered the conversation they just had was eerily familiar. Bill wrote that in 1982-3.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Updated Nostos demo available now for Windows + Mac! Try customized ship layouts, a new tutorial, and backtracking through the ship for Datacards you missed. If you're into dungeon crawlers or dice and card games like Escape the Dark Castle, take a look! store.steampowered.com/app/4871240/...

store.steampowered.com

Nostos on Steam

A mint-tin sci-fi survival horror dungeon crawler involving dice, cards and nerve. Generate nailbiting stories in short runs that fit around your life. Lead a salvage crew through a derelict stalked b...

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Interrupting your regularly scheduled narrative thread to say the demo for my new game, Nostos, is out now for Win+Mac on Steam. It's a quick-playing, card+dice dungeon crawler with a horror sci-fi theme. It generates a different story every time you play. store.steampowered.com/app/4871240/...

store.steampowered.com

Nostos on Steam

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

THE DEMO IS LIVE! Happy Friday, gamers. To get your weekend started, I've just released the demo for my upcoming game Nostos on Steam (PC+Mac). It's a pocket-sized card + dice dungeon crawler with a horror sci-fi theme. Have a play & let me know how it feels. store.steampowered.com/app/4871240/...

store.steampowered.com

Nostos on Steam

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

This trailer shows the desktop version of the game. The Ship Card deck is shuffled, resulting in a different derelict layout each time. Your four Nostos Agents have to locate 3 Datacards, scavenge munitions, and get to the evac point before they succumb to the horrors that lurk in the decaying hulk.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Here's a closer look at the gameplay and card art. Nostos is a fast-playing dungeon crawler a la 'Escape the Dark Castle' with a futuristic deep-space salvage setting. It's designed to be short and replayable, perfect for breaks. There are also legacy game elements to unlock over time.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

If you're into solo, mint-tin card games, dungeon crawlers, sci-fi horror, chucking dice or procedural story generators, take a look at my new game - Nostos. Mac + Windows versions coming soon. iOS version + physical card version (!) to follow. Please wishlist! store.steampowered.com/app/4871240/...

store.steampowered.com

Nostos on Steam

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

This is amazing. Definitely adding this place to ‘the thread’. 🙏🏽

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

If this just happened, place a stunned NPC nearby still reeling. If it happened a while ago, the characters decided to preserve evidence of the miraculous escape and turn it into a monument to their own indomitable spirit and/or a deity's endorsement of their cause.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

When the player's investigating someone who's feared missing, a pet left unfed and unwalked at home can be a useful indicator of how much time has passed since they last returned home.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Looks like someone never made the flight.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Give me this kind of collectable note over a conveniently placed safe combination every time.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Petty, escalating revenge narratives can work well in environmental storytelling. (I also love the fact that the driver here seemingly couldn't fit their car into just one of these spaces - they needed both.)

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The real reason they drive so slowly.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Even when they're not outlandish, most adults subconsciously draw from cars conclusions about a person's lifestyle, character, self image, financial situation, priorities, awareness of environmental issues, family situation, attention to detail, taste, ostentatiousness, appetite for risk, etc.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

You can picture the owner of the car. You know who wrote the message. You know what he did. And you know he can't afford the repaint right now, so he had to drive it to the store anyway. All that narrative information was delivered to you in a few seconds.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

If in doubt, 'how did that get there' is always a fun little story to uncover.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

It was believed this unlucky man survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, only to be crushed by a slab of falling masonry. He wasn't. He actually died of asphyxiation from the gas of the pyroclastic flow. Centuries later, in 1800-1900, a looter tunnel caved in, causing the block to settle here.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Hard to find a good place for that scene, isn't it? It's great that Star Wars has something for everyone. It can be many things to many different people. That's interesting. But what it hasn't managed to do for a looong time is tell a story that resonates as widely as the original trilogy did.

static.klipy.com

A Long Time Ago - Star Wars Intro Text

ALT: A Long Time Ago - Star Wars Intro Text

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

She fights for her life and ends up killing him. In a desperate bid for leniency, she tells the other empire officers that he tried to "r*pe" her. It's gut wrenching. It's harrowing. It's an accurate portrayal of life under a fascist regime. Now, try to imagine that scene in A New Hope.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

There's a tense scene in Andor when an Empire Lieutenant corners an undocumented farm worker alone in her cabin. He offers to "fix" her visa situation in exchange for sexual favors. She refuses. He attempts to overpower her.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

However, Andor is a far cry from a little green goblin puppet who lives in a swamp hitting a trashcan-shaped robot with a stick and Chewie doing the Tarzan call while swinging on a vine with a teddy bear around his neck.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

There's another common misremembering of the Star Wars movies by people who claim Andor is a 'real' Star Wars show. It's a good show, exploring the Kafka-esque horror of life under a totalitarian regime and how it radicalizes people. It's great that the IP can accomodate 'adult' material like this.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

An attempt was made. I like the idea of starting with this, then adding more and more objects every time there's a change in the world state.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Act 1: The tyre tracks. Act 2: The hole in the ice. Act 3: The footsteps leaving the scene.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Pretty good if the smited household is the focus. Potentially more interesting if the recent storm/disaster/event pealed up part of the street and created an entrance to a new playable area.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

"The snow's melted. Let's go for a drive." A nice idea when nothing's going right for the chronically comically unlucky character.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

For memorable locations and navigation landmarks in video games and TTRPGs, scale is powerful. You can emphasize it with an unexpected context. This is the 17-foot 3-inch copper face of the Statue of Liberty after it was uncrated on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in 1885.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

This is an ad related to the poster on the wall, but it's worth thinking about the layers of your in-game city. What did the subway's creators have to avoid while building? What is directly above and below a station? And how would those strata interact if structural integrity was compromised?

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Did a character just arrive? If so, how much can you tell us about their journey without a word of dialogue?

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

No, of course you don't. Because Westerns don't have the universal appeal of fables. Remember when the man with no name jumped into a spaceship with a bigfoot then learned sword-fighting and magic from a space wizard and a muppet? Of course you don't.

static.klipy.com

Yoda Feels the Force

ALT: Yoda Feels the Force

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Remember when Luke murdered outlaws + corrupt cattle barons to protect the townsfolk before his violent nature and dark past make him incompatible with the peaceful, polite settlement he just secured? Remember when he died/rode off into the sunset completely alone at the end of A New Hope?

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Remember when Luke arrived in A New Hope as the jaded hard-drinkin', hard-smokin' loner who was a necessary instrument of violence? Remember how morally ambiguous he was? Remember when he felt himself unworthy of love + peace, living only for violent retribution?

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This is another way the current team skews the IP. They seem fascinated by the Western (and to a lesser extent samurai) influences. Star Wars is a story about knights with swords saving princesses and slaying monsters. It struck a chord because it's a modern fairytale, not because it's a western.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Empire was drafted by veteran sci-fi writer Leigh Brackett and rewritten by Lawrence Kasdan, who also co-wrote Jedi and Raiders. However, if we assume they mostly focused on dialogue, perhaps Lucas had the bright idea to map his story to the Hero's Journey to give it that 'fairy tale' framing.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

On the other hand, the poor dialogue and structure of the prequel trilogy in comparison could well be because uncredited writers Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck did a massive "dialogue polish," rewriting about 30% of the original script.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Take 'I've got a bad feeling about this'. It was not as heavily used pre-Star Wars as it was in the decades that followed. We hear it so much, we forget that the line carries with it the implication that the speaker is (usually unknowingly) being guided by the force.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Sure, he wrote some clunkers later in his career (Anakin: "It's only because I'm so in love."Padmé: "No, no, it's because I'm so in love with you.") but the original trilogy is full of indelible lines.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

On that note, ignore the claim that Lucas was a bad writer. 1970s actors weren't best placed to judge sci-fi movie writing. GL wrote some good lines: "What a wonderful new smell you've discovered." "Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal... how are you?" "I don't know... fly casual."

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

If you want to see references to the original movies and Filoni's animated shows, they've got you covered. But what Disney really needs at the moment is a team that understands the timeless fundamentals of storytelling like George Lucas did.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Mandalorian and Grogu is a fun movie, the stop-motion throwback is cool, the giant repeat of the 3D chess battle with all the same monsters is amusing (if fourth wall breaking). There's a Yoda remix. There's a Jabba remix. There's a Boba Fett remix.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This thread is simply a look at what the movie might look like if a writer was allowed to focus on taking the characters on a journey, to change things about the IP, to introduce new characters, and to make that story the first part of a larger galactic struggle that is only just beginning.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Having Grogu level up, grow up, or change in any way that would affect merchandise production lines (beyond a costume change) was almost certainly off the table from day one.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

It seems nobody knows what the magic formula is, but if you happen upon a toy that's selling, there's going to be pressure to change as little as possible. The filmmakers were probably given ground rules that my outline tramples on.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The 'low-stakes, episodic' feel of the movie is partially a Filoni tendency, but I'd guess part of it comes from the desire to change as little as possible.

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

To be clear, this is not what the filmmakers 'should' have done. Filoni and Favreau have aims and agendas totally different to mine. Not so much: "This is the way." More: "This is a way."

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Andy Heather @andyheather.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Sigourney Weaver asks Mando if he now understands how the Light Side can win against callous deception and cruelty. Mando looks to Grogu in search of an answer. Grogu looks at Dran. Grogu smiles. Dran smiles. Grogu speaks his first word: "Hope." Credits.

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