iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

One of the new types of content we're building is live Discord Server reviews for video games! (which will also end up on our YouTube channel). Super excited to hang out with @kittycrawford.com for our inaugural one on the 13th of October!

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm watching half a marathon being ran next to my house and it's really interesting to see all the different ages and body types Just shows you can't assume the state of someone's physical condition from their looks

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I think it's very silly there is no convenient way to screenshot a cool scene from a streaming service I guess I'll have to pirate it instead?

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One day I'll make a scifi with a neo/dark folk soundtrack

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Hey chat, is there a better word for acrylic retarder? I know it's the right term but I get funny looks from non-paint people so I just want to check

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

That moment you're in a full train and you see someone next to you with the hair you've been trying to find good references for to draw and you're trying not to stare too intensely because that's weird but also those are exactly the details you can't find anywhere

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

Robin-Yann Storm @rystorm.com · 16/09/2026

Through the grapevine of the very small game industry, I heard that originally people who got interviewed were told Bulkhead was a 4 day workweek studio. So I checked the wayback machine, and yeah. They used to advertise a 4 day workweek: web.archive.org/web/20250408... I wonder what happened.

A wayback machine screenshot from April 2025, saying:
WORKING AT BULKHEAD
We are actively looking for creatives who want to take a shot at making a real impact in the fps genre - whilst working a 4 day work week.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Everyone who calls the games industry 'gaming industry' is unwittingly adopting the successful strategy of the gambling industry to make it seems digital games and gambling are the same; with the intent to fall under more lax regulations Stop them from piggybacking on our medium. We're making games

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

He's a birthday boy, it's just his birthday would you hold a birthday boy complicit???

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

Felipe Pepe @felipepepe.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This is a great example of why you should disable Steam's dumb language filters. Most people are only seeing a random visual novel they never heard about with a couple of reviews. It has over 10,000 reviews. These filters do nothing except lock you in inside a bubble.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Request for all you tool designers out there: reduce the amount of clicks it takes to do something No, reduce it more If I'm clicking, I'm not writing or designing and it disrupts my flow. Plz, I beg of you, fewer clicks. You can do it. I believe in you

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Finally home Gamescom is so so so much more tolerable if you don't need to pitch anything

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I see your carefully balanced skillpoint-based roleplay game and I will be looking up guides to build a character that is able to enjoy all the narrative content in a single playthrough

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Ok this might be a hot take, but if you run an international convention that is the second biggest in the world for its type, maybe communicate important updates (like, I dunno, an entrance is closed) in more than just German

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I see your carefully balanced skillpoint-based roleplay game and I will be looking up guides to build a character that is able to enjoy all the narrative content in a single playthrough

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

UFO Citybusters @iankumohara.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I'm not at Gamescom, but here's a photo of me & my friends I like a lot & over half of us have shipped titles so #whatagamedevlookslike I'm Ian & I've been collecting paychecks in games for a decade now predominantly as a marketing producer. Right now I'm working on [NDA] for [NDA].

A group of 40 somethings standing together at a party in front of a tree.

I'm in the brown jacket and black knit polo shirt with green pants and white sneaker with a crew cut and thick black rimmed glasses on, flanked by a blonde woman in a pink and white coat, a white man with a beard, a short South Korean woman with tattoos on her legs, a white man in a futbol jersey and jeff cap, a tanned woman with her eyes closed, and a brunette woman in a denim jacket with a white streak in her hair. we look good as fuck

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

In honor of the gdc tradition and with blessings from @drjclau.bsky.social : #whatagamedevlookslike euro edition! I'm Berine and this is my 20th year meaning games professionally! I'm a narrative freelancer and I've worked on all sizes of games. I really like designing puzzles.

White woman with dark long hair and black clothes. She's protesting herself for a day of walking. In the back there is s large square before an even later convention center

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The organisers have now been informed and were horrified. They've taken the right actions and hopefully will be able to keep future events safer 🎉

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Join me at gamescom dev at 13.15 at stage 10 for my talk about applying for public game grants It's going to be thick with info but I've tried to make it a bit entertaining too just to make things nicely digestible

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JC Lau @drjclau.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I really enjoy when I’m at a women in games event and a man, who is also at the women in games event, comes up to me and asks me why I’m at a women in games event 🫠

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Cool. The wonen in games event at gamescom just didn't vet anyone huh. Any dude can just walk in and pretend to be any ally regardless of their history and behaviour As long as WiG events are just there to polish cis guys' reputations and provide indulgences, you're making us all unsafe. Fuck off

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Love this news but hate the "surprise comeback" framing. Teams around the globe worked incredibly hard to protect & expand mangrove forests & it worked! Please just say, "We tried and we succeeded! Go team Earth!" We must admit our victories to give people the heart to keep trying! #ShareGoodNewsToo

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Has anyone ever tried game promotion on Rednote/xiaohongshu? Is that a thing?

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Didn't JKR used to work for Amnesty International? I recall reading about that. I think there's something else going on besides a legal threat

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I'm quite amused by the number of service providers who contact me to "get feedback" on their product and'd like to book an appointment at gamescom Can't believe they're using the indies-promoting-their-game-on-Reddit trick

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I know I'm preaching to the choir but it's kind of wild that of all neurological development discrepancies, they single out ADHD as 'nonsense' considering it's the one we know exactly the underlying mechanics of, and with 10% of the population affected it's by far the most prevalent

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 18/08/2026

I just put in an order for Rancho Gordo cassoulet beans and a bag of polenta. "Beans so tasty they've featured in multiple messy divorces" is not a culinary experience I can pass up.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

A casual reminder to backup your work Not just work-work, but also emails, photos, contacts Not just in the cloud but also on a physical medium Perhaps even also in a physical spot Ty for listening also

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

joannes @playthroughline.com · 17/08/2026

"Richie Diniz died doing what he loved: not dying" This brand new Neurocracy story kicks off with the unfortunate passing of a beloved sports icon and longevity influencer 😔 Check it out: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/03/Richie_Diniz (written by @brunodias.dev with art from @netizenses.bsky.social)

A Neurocracy illustration that depicts a press event for the signing of a football player named Richie Diniz, who's holding up a colourful jersey with a satisfied smile. To his right is a tall businessman in a dark suit who looks less pleased to be there

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

What is your drive naming scheme? For internal drives I use Sumerian mythology. For external, I use daytime soap characters :]

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Talking with other solo devs and micro teams I'm realizing there are very few resources about running a prime dev+freelancer teams - especially for those just starting out I guess that might be a good talk topic for next time

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I legit enjoyed the latest Spider-Man movie. The themes and overall plot was exactly in the vibe of the comics I love so much. And I was legit surprised by the quality of the acting. Just a nice surprise overall!

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I'm going to be at gamescom and gamescom dev! At gcdev I'll be giving a talk about the Do's and Don'ts of writing an application for game grants I've judged about 200 applications and I've done plenty of accepted and failed submissions. So believe me when I say I want people to succeed

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Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This is really good advice. One thing I’d add: if you’re an indie dev with a publisher, PLEASE double check if they’re submitting your game. I’ve seen publishers submit games, often demos, from devs who didn’t know their publisher was doing this & would have rather waited or had more control

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Aura/Moom @moomanibe.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

actually speaking of advice i'd like to beam into the minds of prospective IGF submittees, this one is a really big one that I really don't hope we have a repeat of this year

Please have the developer submit the game.
IGF is designed around a direct interaction between judges and the submit-ee. When we ask about bugs, or check to see if a new build is available, or etc, timeliness is essential. The judging period is only a single month. I can name times during IGF 2025 in particular where a broken build was submitted, and when we tried to get in touch with the developer we had to go through a chain of telephone of PR company rep -> Publisher -> Developer -> Publisher -> PR company rep and by the time we got a response judging was almost over. I can name a game from 2025 that got a nomination that was only able to do so because I, personally, went outside the judging system entirely and used my personal connections in order to email the developer directly and get a working build uploaded to the compo. Don’t make me do that. Don’t rely on the idea that I will have the time to do that. Let the dev submit or include them directly on the contact emails (more on that later on). PLEASE. IGF isn’t a PR beat, it’s a dev-to-dev judging process. If you treat it as cold and corporate you will fail it and it will fail you.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I know we all make fun of "have you heard any rumors lately?" dialog options but istg try asking during a conference and you'll leave with a lot of juicy stories

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

> Applies for Thing > Thing needs my legal name bc else I'm stuck in application hell > Haha fuck you.png

A screenshot with entrees for name and surname. Both are crossed out for privacy purposes. The warning beneath it reads: the combination of first and last name just be 32 characters or less including spaces.

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Tomas Sala @falconeerdev.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

When someone creates Solo rather than in a team , that is not interesting cuz some imagined extraordinary feat. No! it is all the limitations and shortcuts they have to take, to overcome real limits, that lead to interesting creative outcomes. The limitations are the point.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Just because you made a bad game doesn't mean you're a bad gamedev. The same goes for every form of art

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

H Y P E Please buy this game so this poor man can eat his body weight in Korean bbq and crêpes

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Ianipoos @ianipoos.com · 14/08/2026

Logged into Steamworks today for the first time in a long time, to see that nearly 28,000 people have downloaded Drag Her!. What an honour that project was, to make something so special with such wonderful colleagues. Cheers to them, and to the game that almost wasn't.

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I know we all make fun of "have you heard any rumors lately?" dialog options but istg try asking during a conference and you'll leave with a lot of juicy stories

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Reposted by Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom

Damon @damonreece.com · 13/08/2026

FWIW this is a pretty clearly AI-modified frame from the video they shared, the people involved with the shoot haven't posted any stills. www.instagram.com/danny_leon/r...

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joannes @playthroughline.com · 11/07/2026

I don't see any option to disable killer, only 'yes' and 'maybe later'

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Game Devs of Color Expo @gdocexpo.com · 12/08/2026

The GDoCExpo 2026 full schedule is out NOW! 🙌🏾 Four days, Sept 22–25, online - 38 sessions, 40+ speakers for our 11th year. gdoc.events/2026schedule In-person watch parties are back in NYC, LA, Rochester, and Portland, with more to be announced! #gdocexpo2026 #gamedev

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Bertine van Hövell 🛝 Gamescom @baroness.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Ok this was wild I'm so happy I got it on video. Sorry for the shaking but this was the best take

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