iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Mountain Tui @mountaintui.bsky.social · 21h

Posted on r/znpolitics

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2h

15 years ago when Apocalypse World was new and people were beginning to understand and work with it, it was seductive to look at "acting under fire" and see, not one basic move of several, but the template underlying all the game's moves. Like @kierongillen.bsky.social 's classic gag:

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 2h

Today at #NZGDC I'm going to be giving a talk on designing for new players! One of the topics I will discuss is the usefulness (and limitations) of using naturalistic affordances. Which is a way of saying you can use the meaning things already have (e.g. gold = valuable) #gamedev #ux

An image showing a crossbow with a sight, some gold coins, spider-man gloves, and a dredging fishing boat.

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 26/09/2026

I've finally seen the light. I urge everyone to visit taxpayersunion.org.nz and see the good work that they've been doing on behalf of the hard-working taxpayers of New Zealand

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🦝 Pepper Raccoon: Trash Priestess 🦝 @pepperraccoon.com · 22h

🤘 KICK IT 🤘 The Bird of the Year is the Black Robin/Karure, coming in like a tiny wrecking ball to smash the competition. Thread Project premium screenprinted tees in unisex and fitted sizes S-5XL. Pre-order this tee NOW: pepperraccoon.com #birds #boty #kikorangi

A detailed dark fantasy style illustration of a black robin on a branch, holding a tiny spiked mace. The words Black Robin are in high stylised handlettered text, and the border features Chatham Island forget-me-nots.

A flatlay of green t-shirts, featuring a detailed dark fantasy style illustration of a black robin on a branch, holding a tiny spiked mace. The words Black Robin are in high stylised handlettered text, and the border features Chatham Island forget-me-nots.

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Dylan Reeve @dylanreeve.com · 14h

A lot of panic and hand waving from right-coded political people about the prospect of Chlöe Swarbrick as Minister of Finance... Honestly can't see any reason why. Why would they suggest Nicola Willis is somehow uniquely better suited? Chlöe is clearly very smart and well informed. It's silly.

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Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 15h

'Piggy bank is empty' nonsense provides cover for the political class. Once the lie is exposed, they have to answer questions like 'If we have 100,000s of people wanting work, and plenty of raw materials, why is our infrastructure falling to bits? Sounds like mismanagement, ay? (It is!)

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 18h

This week I am NZGDC! I'm looking forward to meeting all the wonderful folks and giving a talk on "Designing for New players" on Oct 1st (@3:40pm) If you see me, come say kia ora!

A slide that says "UX that supports learning"

It shows a staircase balanced on top of a circle with "UX" written on it

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 29/09/2026

Ideally Game Engines should make it easy for developers to build in accessibility features. Player xlcustomizable controls, fully customizable UI, subtitle creation and display, all these things and more should be things that Game Engines easily facilitate. #gamedev #ux

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Xalavier Nelson Jr. @writnelson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

WE'RE MAKING A SHELVING SIM WHERE YOU USE THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM IN A LIBRARY THAT'S HAUNTED AS FUCK BECAUSE A BILLIONAIRE WAS STUFFING CORPSES IN THE WALLS TO GENTRIFY HIS CITY WISHLIST "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE LIBRARY" TODAY store.steampowered.com/app/3971340/...

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 28/09/2026

With poll numbers like this: - The media should stop referring to Labour and National as "the major parties". Everyone is just a party. - TV Debates should include leaders from all parties polling above 5%. No more debates with just Labour and National! #nzpol

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 28/09/2026

Soft Authority: Authority that comes from a person/organization's past behaviors. Hard Authority: Authority that comes from a social structure. Research says that hard authority is more often met with resistance from those impacted by it and more easily results in dissatisfaction.

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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This is a pretty uncomplicated untruth right? It's in Hansard. Audrey Young found the full quote for her column today. Thomas is a lobbyist & former staffer. He knows how to search Hansard. If he genuinely looked for evidence & couldn't find it then he's totally incompetent at his job.

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Anneleise @anneleise.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Just a reminder of who costs the most and commits the biggest abuses of the OIA... #NZPol

A screenshot of a twitter tweet talking about how the Taxpayers Union cost $61k in OIA requests at just one council.

$1 Ld Taxpayers’ Union OlAs to Hamilton council cost $60Kk in staff time 14:24 pm on 11 April 2021 Official Information Act requests by the Taxpayers' Union are costing councils thousands of dollars a year. A v Srey £m UIT ~~ S30 Il \ Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Jordan Williams and Hamilton City Councillor, Dave Macpherson. Photo: RNZ Hamilton City Councillor Dave Macpherson said an Official Information Act request to his own council showed it had 58 requests from the lobby group since the start of 2018, costing an estimated $61,364 in staff time. The sheer number and complexity of requests had meant extra staff had to be employed, he said.$

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 27/09/2026

Rewards in games often vary based on performance e.g. do very well and you get the max 5 stars, less well and get 3 stars, etc A risk of such systems is anything less than max (5 Stars) can be perceived as a penalty rather than a reward, and potentially be demotivating. #gamedev #ux

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 26/09/2026

The way that QA writes reports can be useful to look at for how to clearly communicate to the people who are directly making the feature you are UX testing. #gamedev #ux

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Tim Price @timprice.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

You joined "grand vizier chat (secret)" You: dark rumors from aboard You: abroad* fuck Sssnakecharmer: mf said aboard WhispersintheChapel: ahoy matey lol PonderMyOrb changed the group name to "rumors from aboard"

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 25/09/2026

Large scale differences within environments and characters are intrinsically appealing to players. Which includes looking down at things that are small and miniature, and also being confronted with the titanic and huge. #gamedev #UX

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Kylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is all right-wing politics is now, a guy who's killed tens of thousands of children complaining about podcasters

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Jason Pitre @genesisoflegend.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Once More Into the Void is a game about family and healing. The designer of Once More Into the Void, Rae Nedjadi, is in the midst of recoving from a medical crisis and needs our collective support. All proceeds for sales of OMITV till Dec 31 go to him. www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Once-M...

Once More Into the Void - Save the Galaxy, One Last Time

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Char Of AotearoaNZ @kiwichar.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Amazing what you find in the comment section…the disgraced & frankly dangerous NZTPU is all up in the new education curriculum’s grill, for “children to study” 🤔 Erica is sick of “ideological indoctrination” so she wheeled in her own extremely nefarious one instead…🙄🤦‍♀️ #nzpol #OneTermGovernment #NZ

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Russell Brown @publicaddress.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Chris Penk getting his new column off to a great start by reviewing a book he hasn't read and declaring that it belongs "in the fiction section". I hope Stuff's editors are proud of themselves.

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Mikhail Klimentov @leadergrev.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

For nearly two years, I've been investigating a pattern of ominous legal letters sent to journalists by defamation counsel representing Bobby Kotick. That investigation is finally live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKwp...

youtube.com

Inside Bobby Kotick's Campaign Against the Press

YouTube video by People Make Games

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 24/09/2026

Time to put some leaflets in mailboxes!

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 24/09/2026

Players will naturally tap screens, push buttons, and press keys. Interaction that involves holding one of these inputs for a set time or combining them (e.g. holding left and right bumpers at the same time or tapping with three fingers) tends to be hidden & needs support to discover. #gamedev #ux

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 24/09/2026

My kids, who grew up for the first few years of their life in the USA, are effortlessly enjoying Māori as part of their learning now we have moved home to Aotearoa. At breakfast time they joyfully see who can count the highest in Māori. It is wonderful to see! Leave it alone! #nzpol

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eevee @eev.ee · 23/09/2026

"clean" as a descriptor feels increasingly insidious over time though. is more than three buttons "dirty" somehow? is the ultimate goal a blank, offwhite screen?

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 24/09/2026

While unpacking I found my old Xbox 360 Elite. So I have hooked it up along with a Kinect and my kids are currently having a blast with @doublefine.com Happy Action Theater. Shouts, giggles, and laughter are spilling throughout the house.

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 23/09/2026

Perception is both bottom up (driven by the stimuli in the world) and top down (driven by player cognition). The upshot of this, when combined with the scanning nature of vision, what players see can often be about what they expect to see than what is actually shown to them. #gamedev #ux

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 23/09/2026

Designer folks. What is the name of the style of webpages that GenAI tends to spit out and is increasingly just becoming the default style of lots of websites? It's like Notion-like markdown programmer industrial minimalism or something...

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Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Even though the Halo franchise has been gutted for failing to meet unrealistic expectations, at least Bungie, the original creators of Halo, have also been separately gutted for failing to meet unrealistic expectations

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David Farrier @davidfarrier.com · 22/09/2026

with new zealand in an election year i would like to formally remind everyone that i am *not* right wing blogger david farrar. i am re-issuing this handy guide from six years ago about how to tell us apart. please RT: www.webworm.co/farrier/

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otava heikkilä @claystorks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

nero's guide is awesome, and concretely helped me with making a website as somebody who doesn't have the brain for this stuff 👍 if you're an artist of any sort, making a website for yourself is one of those things that hugely pays off the extended effort time and again

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 23/09/2026

These are very cool games! Pick them up!

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Andrew @openpolicy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Again I tap my sign that says a left of centre government that is serious about preserving and strengthening democracy in Aotearoa must quickly reform ownership and regulation of quality standards. #nzpol

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 22/09/2026

When subtitles are on by default over 95% of players leave them on. When subtitles are opt in around 60% of players turn them on. This shows both the power of defaults and that there is clear demand for subtitles. #gamedev #ux #accessibility

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Phil Wheeler @phil-wh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm old enough to remember when Family First was the hardline conservative bigoted lobby group for parents. Education is now a battle front, just like it has been in the US for decades. Well-funded astroturf groups are here to commodify education.

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 22/09/2026

This has been going on for a long time! When I worked for the Ministry of Transport back in the mid 2000's we were told by the ministers office to not put any advice or research about why the alcohol limit should be raised in writing because it would be OIAable #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

rnz.co.nz

Senior official appearing to try hide information being taken 'very seriously'

The Ombudsman and Public Service Commissioner are looking into a senior official seemingly trying to "subvert" the Official Information Act, the Education Minister says.

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Grant Howitt @gshowitt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Looking for someone who can do 90’s point-and-click style pixel art for a commission. Short notice but it’d need to be done in the next two weeks. Lemme know if that’s you, and share your portfolio please!

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 21/09/2026

Player coaching systems where experienced players coach new players often seem attractive. A big issue, however, is that demand usually massively outstrips supply Experienced players tend to want to continue having fun playing the game at their level It also takes skill to coach well #gamedev #ux

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Ben Taels @bentaels.taels.net · 21/09/2026

I once read a study that looked at the idea that "an armed society is a polite society" by examining cars in the USA that obviously had guns in them (gun racks, etc) and how aggressively they drove vs the behaviour of those that didn't have visible guns.

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Miriam Ross @miriamruthross.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

In case you're wondering where the Party is that's willing to reverse the landlord tax cuts 💚 www.greens.org.nz/tax_system_f...

greens.org.nz

For people and planet

We are building a future where we do more, faster, to protect our planet and make sure everyone is treated equally.

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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026

Americans: oh, look, a systemic issue. I will solve it individually

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D Jukic She/her @dejanajuk.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“Van Velden extinguished thirty-three pay equity claims, then stood in the House and objected to being called a name. Both things happened. Only one of them led the news for a fortnight.” #nzpol www.klaut.media/single-post/...

klaut.media

The Age of the Arsehole: ACT returns to its roots

Paul Henry is not a gaffe waiting to happen. He is a service ACT is buying — and the donors paying for it have never had it easier.

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NZ Game Developers Association @nzgda.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Zsombor Hughes is the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Space Rock Games Games. 🌏 We cannot wait to see you all very soon in Auckland, so make sure to get your tickets to NZGDC 2026 - link is in the bio.📍

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Russell Brown @publicaddress.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

So MBIE officials recommended spending less, but targeting the money towards local music festivals. And Louise Upston chose to spend much more, but hand it all to multinational companies and overseas artists.

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