iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"I recall’d a witchcraft judge (Major Bartholomew Gedney) in mine own maternal ancestry, and thought of certain imprecations of the dead in fact and fiction. . . . . […] And at that moment, as God is my judge, I heard faintly but distinctly the clanking of chains in the wind . . . " #GolemOnHorror

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

“[…] Gallows-Hill is not a nice place to visit at night. […] And I was alone on that hill in that sepulchral place, where the allies of the devil had swung . . . and swing . . . and hurled out curses on their executioners and their descendants.“

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

To put it more bluntly, Lovecraft seems to have entertained the possibility that his family had actually been cursed by those unfortunate women. In a letter from February 1923, he described his visit to the former execution site of those accused of witchcraft as follows:

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

H. P. #Lovecraft was keenly interested in the phenomenon of witchcraft and witch trials, in part because… the twisted and dark turns of history had connected his own family with the fate of the women tragically sentenced to death in Salem. #LovecraftWitchcraft #1 🧵

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Besides looking cool, the teleport tip allows you to pull some wicked haunted pool moves. Swap the cue ball with the ball you're aiming at, score points, bleed the void horror, survive the ritual ⚡️💀🎱 #roguelike #indiegame #gamedev

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

*tentacle nudge* New Pool of Madness progress update just dropped: Upgradable cues and closed beta tests 🥢✨ Jump in here: store.steampowered.com/news/app/287... ⚓ #gamedev #indiedev #devlog #indiegame #roguelike

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

What’s more, Mikołaj has agreed to share the Stygian depths of his knowledge with us and prepare a series of unique Lovecraftian tidbits that will be published on our social media. Don’t forget to follow us so you don’t miss out on this eldritch wisdom. 📖 We’re waving our tentacles with joy! 🐙

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Mikołaj has professionally analyzed and edited the trivia entries in our game Dagon. A new, revised and expanded version, enriched with additional information, will soon be available as part of an update (which will also include a free DLC!).

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

He's a religious studies researcher, a specialist in the literary mythology of Howard Phillips #Lovecraft, and the author of a peer-reviewed academic thesis in religious studies on the subject, published in Poland as “Horror is Sacred”. He is also a keen observer of extreme religious phenomena.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Do you remember those tireless, fearless (and perhaps slightly mad?) researchers of the weird and extraordinary in Lovecraft’s stories? Well, we’ve just teamed up with one of them - Mikołaj Kołyszko. 👨‍🎓 🧵

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Quarantine memories unlocked. Good luck, Cats!

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That was 5 years ago, so the methods were a bit different, and some devs tried to utilise imgur with varying results.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Unholy Surges - also known as score multipliers - one of the most satisfying aspects of haunted pool 🟢✨ #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #madewithunity

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The game being free definitely helped when it comes to Steam players, hard to say about the creators themselves, to be honest.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It was a combination of things, like the viral imgur article before the release, reddit posts doing well, Steam Next Fest reception and channels of various sizes covering it.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

5 years ago today we released our first original game - Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft 🎉 Dev team: 1 person Marketing team: 1 person Thank you to everyone who helped us make it a success and raise 300,000 PLN (almost 80,000$) for charity! Free DLC soon! #indiedev #horror #lovecraft #visualnovel

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Dead Idle Games @deadidlegames.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Are you a friend of Mr Moreira's, young lady?" > I'm his sister. > I'm his girlfriend. > I'm his agent. No time to think... She wants an answer NOW.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

How a game made in 4 months reached 2 million players - the short story of Dagon Five years ago today, I released Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft, my first original game. 🧵🔽 #indiedev #indiegame #gamedev #madewithunity #visualnovel

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

And now, five years later, there have been over 2 million players and more than 12,000 reviews on Steam. To celebrate all the amazing support from our players, we’ve prepared a free DLC that was previously exclusive to the console version. It’ll be coming very soon. Stay tuned! Hubert

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A crucial moment was getting into Steam’s New & Trending very quickly and staying there for several days. The fact that the game is short also helped here - players could finish it quickly, which meant reviews started appearing a few dozen minutes after release and helped drive even more interest.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The game exploded and we passed 100,000 downloads in two days. With the review score above 95%.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My optimistic estimate was that, in the best-case scenario, we might reach 80% positive reviews and 100,000 downloads over the entire lifetime of the project. The launch of Dagon was probably the most magical moment of my 17 years in gamedev.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

We think thanks to its bite-sized length creators could fit it between bigger titles, which lead to more exposure. This helped us reach 21,841 wishlists at launch. A really nice result considering it was the first project and we had such a short development and promotion period.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A huge part of the credit goes to my friend Maciej, who joined the project to handle the promotion. We've also contacted hundreds of content creators of all sizes, from accounts with a million followers to much smaller channels, and many of them covered the game.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

As for the promotion, the biggest things that helped were the fantastic reception during Steam Next Fest, the strong response from Lovecraft-related communities on Reddit, and an Imgur article where we explained why the game would be free that became the top post that day.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

And that completely changed my perspective. It was actually the moment when I fell in love with Lovecraft’s work. To the point where I now believe that it’s impossible to truly understand the depth of his stories without knowing something about the man who wrote them.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The idea for this came from the fantastic historical collectibles in Valiant Hearts. I didn’t want to fill the game with dry Wikipedia facts or clickbait-style “fun facts”, though. So I started digging into Lovecraft’s biography, letters, worldview, and the historical context of his life.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I also wanted to add some unobtrusive gameplay, so I decided to include collectibles, inspired by Metal Gear. They contained various bits of trivia about Lovecraft, Dagon, and the historical context behind the story.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It was short enough to be a good fit for a first project, and it allowed me to make the game without expensive character animations - something that’s difficult to do on a low budget, while poorly animated characters are one of the quickest ways to break immersion.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Choosing the story was relatively easy. Dagon was one of the early stories from what would become Lovecraft’s most recognizable Cthulhu Mythos period.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I originally wanted to use the works of other authors, such as Algernon Blackwood or Stefan Grabiński. I ended up choosing Lovecraft for, admittedly, a purely marketing reason. He was the most recognizable “brand”, so it seemed like a better idea to start with him.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Although, ironically, I wasn’t a big fan of Lovecraft when I started the project. I love classic horror literature, but compared to other writers of the period, Lovecraft initially seemed repetitive and overrated to me.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Another partial inspiration was a very specific PSP release: Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel. That slow, deliberate pace seemed like a perfect fit for Lovecraft’s stories, which rely so heavily on atmosphere and a sense of overwhelming dread.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The lack of movement, and the way you jump between scenes, was inspired by comics, where the reader can spend as much time as they want looking at each panel, without being rushed.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

But the original idea actually had very little to do with walking simulators. I wanted to create a classic visual novel, but in a “premium” version: 3D graphics, animations, voice acting, and a much more cinematic presentation.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It is a faithful adaptation of Lovecraft’s 1919 story. Some people describe it as a walking simulator without the walking or an audiobook with visuals. You can’t move around - the camera is placed at a fixed position in each scene, and you can only look around within a limited range.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

*tentacle nudge* Still waiting!

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Pool of Madness is a haunted pool roguelite with guns - here's the core loop in less than 1 min 🎱🩸 - prepare to kill the next void horror: perform pool rituals, upgrade your cue, buy powerups ✨ - go mad and die 💀 - get back stronger 💥 - slay the horror 🦑 #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #roguelike

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Impressive number - congratulations! Looks beautifully nostalgic.

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Early sketch of one of the crew members for Pool of Madness. #art #artsky #conceptart #illustration #indiedev #indiegame

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

An essential part of every pool session: breaking your enemy's heart 💔 #TotalDestructionOfTheHeart #indiedev #gamedev #indiegame #horror

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voidpointer @voidpointer0.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Happy Monday, everyone.

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Team Lazerbeam @teamlazerbeam.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Our game's launched into Early Access! Shroom and Gloom is a first-person fungal punk roguelike double deckbuilder! 🍄 Enter a hand drawn world of mushies & madness! 🐸 Build 2 decks, 1 to explore, 1 for combat! ⚔️ every attack can be infinitely upgraded! 🥘 every enemy is edible! Yay! #indiegames

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Our haunted pool roguelite features customisable cues 🥢✨ - inspired by weapons in shooters and arpgs here's the Voidmagnet shaft #roguelike #gamedev #indiedev #gaming #indiegame

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Our haunted pool roguelite features customisable cues 🥢✨ - inspired by weapons in shooters and arpgs here's the Voidmagnet shaft #roguelike #gamedev #indiedev #gaming #indiegame

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Bit Golem @bitgolem.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Friday - time for some relaxing haunted pool with deadly stakes. #indiegame #gamedev #roguelike

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