iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

You mean I don't have to stop using blender?

Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Ok, this goes somewhere I didn't expect but it touches on something I have been thinking about for a while. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgjX...

youtube.com

Why Nothing Looks Cool Anymore

YouTube video by Design Theory

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

And here I was expecting bread dough.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

What I see is a lack of validation. Successful games are made by testing for a market signal before committing. Lately the approach for big games has been to design backward from the business model and then fit the market late in development (if at all) which is... expensive.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I think its both. Generations old enough to remember the before times don't need to think to know how bad these diseases are. Younger generations don't have that gut emotional reaction; they have to "trust the science." When you need 90+% of the population to opt in, that difference matters.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I've wanted to animate the lander actually landing at the beginning of the game for years now. Today was the day. Knocking off more things on the list to get to 1.0. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

In my experience, much of Silicon Valley is now more focused on meeting the desires of investors than in customers. Over the last 10 years or so the amount of money to be made from VC investment has, in many cases, dwarfed revenue from actually selling products.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Working on finishing up the Icaria story in anticipation of 1.0. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Those wheels really want to be on top of the floor even when the rest of the truck is 🤷‍♀️

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

When searching for a name for our next game I found this: www.linkedin.com/company/10x-... which is just the kind of attitude we are trying to parody. I also found a post on Reddit suggesting that 10X Factory is a scam. What are the odds?

linkedin.com

10X Factory | LinkedIn

10X Factory | 540 followers on LinkedIn. 10X Factory is the fastest-growing entrepreneurship group in the world, connecting entrepreneurs throughout the world over Slack. Our community of members repr...

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Working on our current game (a profit oriented factory builder), we've been thinking on the Gilded Age and gold plating things to create the appearance of value and satisfy investors. Selling the thing to customers doesn't matter since they don't have any money anyhow. LLMs and Thneeds are that.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Here's @sarahtaber.bsky.social using farm economics to explain why LLMs are so popular in Silicon Valley. They feed the dream of trust fund babies that they don't need talent to be successful, only money.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

I like the pinball vibe of #1; It's the one that, to me, communicates the most about the game. #4 has the most legible title. I'd consider trying to rework the lighting in #1 to make the title pop a bit more and add some drama.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I drove one of those for many years. Inherited it from my father who bought it new. Its a cool car and I miss it but, no matter how you slice it, owning a 60 year old car is a luxury I couldn't afford.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

In my experience rewriting code gets more expensive the further you get into a project. My take is to try to get your rewrites out of the way early if you can.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

If you find a good answer, let me know! There are lots of great character artists out there but finding someone to create a capsule for a game that doesn't feature a character is more difficult.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Our next update is getting closer. Here's some more fun with our new enemy(ish) plant, Husk. #icariagame #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Reposted by Arkenhammer

BeyondDC @beyonddc.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Phrasing, people 😂

Screencap of a news story from Germany with the headline "Cargo train breaks the sound barrier," and a photo of a train crashing through a sound wall.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

WIP: A new challenge targeted for the next update of our game Icaria: the Husk defends its territory by draining power and using it to grow. As it is a programming game, the attacking drones are fully automated. #icariagame. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Reposted by Arkenhammer

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

This one is only for Blueskyers of a certain age.

A drawing of a horse. The front half of the horse is black. The back half of the horse is white. The tail is black.

Text reads: I defragged my zebra

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

First feature for our next update: I moved the command bar to the bottom of the screen (like the build bar I did earlier) and then put the script editor in a movable and resizable window. #icariagame. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

That moment when a WSJ article reads like the Onion.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

youtu.be/ReKH838XPao My first every voice over YouTube video. Would have been better if I had gotten it out when we launched the update, but this ended up being mostly a learning exercise. #icariagame #gamedev #indiedev

youtu.be

Icaria Update 1 Feature Overview and Demo

YouTube video by Icaria

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Holy shit, they did it. They wrote the headline.

NYC Mass Shooting Was Nearly Impossible to Prevent, Experts Say

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Messing around with a multi-layer base using our new sloped conveyors in #icariagame. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 14/07/2025

Building a Fire xkcd.com/3114/

4-panel comic. (1) [Two people in front of tent. Person with short hair kneels, stacking sticks.] PERSON 1: Can you show me how to build a campfire? PERSON 2 with short hair: Sure! We’ll use the log cabin method. First, we build a square cabin out of sticks. (2) PERSON 2 [holding tiny table and chair]: Next, we’ll add interior walls, doors, and some cabin furniture made from twigs. PERSON 1: This is very elaborate. (3) [Person 2 runs wire to miniature cabin. Tiny lightning bolt symbols indicate the wire is energized.] PERSON 2: Now we’ll add some rudimentary plumbing and electrical wiring. 50 amps, nothing fancy. PERSON 1: It kind of seems like you’re just building a cabin. PERSON 2: I just— …Oops. (4) [The mini cabin is on fire.] PERSON 2: I think my wiring wasn’t up to code. PERSON 1 [leaning away and shielding face]: *AAAAA!* PERSON 2: …And that’s how you build a fire!

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

We're participating in the Steam Automation Festival this week. Valve gives us this promo art but lordy is it difficult to work with. Nothing I've got looks good against their background.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Getting ready for our first major update coming to #icariagame on Monday July 14. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Its pretty common for programmer time estimates to only include the time spent writing the code without considering testing, debugging or, you know, actually shipping something functional. If you don't care whether or not it works using LLMS to help right code might actually be faster.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

The biggest new feature in #icariagame update 1 is blueprints; copying builds within a save, between saves, and exporting them as a string to share with your friends. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

If you've got it on your phone, A Dark Room is a great game to play when the power is out.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

Working on #icariagame Update 1 where conveyor can climb hills and jump over canyons. #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

So they disguised a contract software development house as AI so investors would throw money at them? Sounds like the 2025 version of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Meh, almost all new rocket designs fail a few times while they sort things out. However 3 similar failures in a row leaves me wondering if Musk has alienated too many of his staff and the SpaceX engineering team no longer has the skills to fix issues when they come up.

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Indie Games @theindieden.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

We created an Indie Den starter pack! We want to add as many of our community members as possible, so reply to this post to be added! 🤩 All I ask is that you follow us and some of the awesome accounts already on the list 💛 #startpack #indiedev #indiegame go.bsky.app/6jBtiB4

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I got a front row seat to watch a lot of the politics around the writing of the DVD and Blue Ray standards. DVD was, honestly, a miracle but it is also a bunch of parts glued together based a mix of technical need and who owned which patent. Blue Ray is kind of a mess but that's another story.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Sony (the primary author of the DVD standard (sorry Phillips)) clearly intended for Subtitles to replace Closed Captions as CC data was never going to support Japanese so we get this wacky extension on the MPEG-2 transport stream designed for Play Station-like hardware. 🤷‍♀️ it was cheap.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Post houses were already accustomed to embedding it and off the shelf NTSC video decoder chips all supported it so, if you built a DVD player, CC just worked with no effort. Its been a hot minute since I looked at it, but the DVD standard may not even mention CC data; at best it is a footnote.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

@techconnectify.bsky.social Just watched your video on DVD Closed Captioning. DVD supports closed captions because it is an extension of the MPEG-2 video standard which, in 1996, was how a live broadcast from WGBH in Boston made it to KQED in San Francisco.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Heya! Been following you for a while. Nice to see this starter pack and would love to be added to the list.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Heh, yeah. I was blessed in my job because converting to digital was somebody else's problem.

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Arkenhammer @arkenhammer.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I was involved in DVD Production in the late 90s and DigiBeta was ubiquitous. Also played both Myst and Riven end-to-end within days of release (CD swapping while playing Riven was brutal). What a throwback.

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Derek Lieu - Game Trailer Editor @derek-lieu.com · 27/05/2025

Hey, want to comb through hours upon hours of raw live-action footage from the Myst games (including oodles of behind-the-scenes b-roll and interviews). Just click the link below the video and you can do that. Holy crap.

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