iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I think the team at VGC are absolutely fantastic, and do some incredible reporting. But I'm also a massive piece of shit.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Ambrosia Sky by @softrains.bsky.social is out of Early Access with both acts complete, and this combination of Prey and PowerWash is a unique, gorgeous and compelling time. buried-treasure.org/2026/09/ambr... Please support Buried Treasure from $2 a month: www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I'm glad PC Gamer has deleted their Grummz article, which I hope was written in ignorance of who he is, but I think it behooves a site to also acknowledge that it was posted and removed, not just retcon and hope everyone forgets.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ignoble by @retromagine.bsky.social is a wonderful combination of incremental game, auto-battler and roguelite resulting in a gory, wildly compelling action game I really don't want to stop playing. buried-treasure.org/2026/09/igno...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

While you sleep in your beds, think of the barely-paid guides writers toiling all night long. (This is just what appeared concurrently in my gaming feed across a handful of sites.)

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Haha, VideoGameCritic is my new all-time favourite website. Kotaku gets a 61 score for how well our (unscored) reviews match the review scores of readers. How? Llike this!

"How this trust score was computed
This reviewer publishes verdicts, not numbers, so trust comes from their recommend/pan calls: call accuracy (50%): when they say buy, do players end up satisfied, and when they say skip, do players agree; alignment (25%): do their recommendations sort games the way players do; and player-side (25%): on games where press and players sharply disagreed, whose side were they on. The blend is shrunk toward a neutral prior (60) so small histories can't peg the scale, and recent verdicts weigh more (2-year half-life)."

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I bet you can. We got this done a few years ago and it didn't cost that much!

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Just cannot get over how well The Pokémon Company is handling the TCG demand issues. Absolutely extraordinary work by everyone involved:

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

TIL that trees can be pinhole cameras in an eclipse.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

A new addition to my collection of Video Game Website Headline Or Jeopardy Question:

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

It Consumes by @sublexical.net is a stunning arena shooter roguelite where your greatest enemy is the dark. buried-treasure.org/2026/08/it-c... Help Buried Treasure keep the lights on: www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I just remembered one of my favourite things I ever wrote for RPS: a gallery of men at E3 taking photos of "booth babes". Tragically RPS purged all our old images for some godforsaken reason, but thank goodness for the Internet Archive: web.archive.org/web/20210516...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

.ti dniheb s'eH .etteuohlis sih sehctam yltcaxe pmal sihT

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I want this so ridiculously much. www.amazon.com/dp/B0G8773WZ... The only thing is you'd need a dining room table from one of those banquet halls in a medieval castle.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Kaz by Kalinarm is a stunning and deceptively tactical arcade game about hammering your cursor keys to reach new high scores. It has SO much variety, and I'm still discovering more. My review: buried-treasure.org/tag/kalinarm/ Please support this project! www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

So the news story here is, "Man Didn't Fall Over".

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

For Buried Treasure I've written my conflicted thoughts on Omen Exitio Hunger. It's a superb game, with incredible writing, art and sound, and it's hooked me. But it's also based on a true story that's so incomprehensibly upsetting, and I don't know what to do. buried-treasure.org/2026/07/conf...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Surely, SURELY, there's some limit to the Green's vaingloriousness? Right now they're being out-principled by Restore! That is really not a good look.

Here's what we've heard:

A Labour spokesperson says the party will not stand a candidate, calling the by-election a "circus"
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says the Conservatives will not stand a candidate in Farage's "fake by-election"
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has called for all parties to "stand aside and refuse to give oxygen to Farage's vanity project"
Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe says his party will not participate in "a Reform-sponsored media circus"
The Green Party has not yet confirmed whether it will put forward a candidate. A spokesman says it was a decision for local members in Clacton but adds: "We are a political party - we contest elections"

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Is there any way at all someone could convince Trump that the most powerful thing he could do at his speech is hug the tallest flagpole in the area?

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Decided to take the piss out of America's silly baby birthday by visiting a 630-year-old castle.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

@bcdreyer.social Is there a proper term for this sort of silliness to which BBC News seems especially prone?

There is also the potential for evening thunderstorms that could disrupt the events, which have been organised by a White House-backed public-private partnership.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This is a glorious opening paragraph by @joshuawolens.bsky.social, and reminds me of the good times writing for Gamer back in the late 90s, early 00s. www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

I confess, even after several years writing about videogames for money, I still have to pause sometimes and remember which CD Projekt is which. I use this handy mnemonic rhyme: If CD Projekt Red you see, that's the folks who made The Witcher 3. If CD Projekt alone you view, that's the parent company. Doo bee doo.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

This post has become popular, but I'm deleting it because I don't like that I'm slightly spreading misinformation. The question wasn't asking WHY they cannot unionise, but rather saying that they can't, so how are staff compensated. My point still stands, but, um, anxiety disorder prevents me.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

BREAKING: Hot Podium Guy makes an appearance on Downing Street:

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Space X trading following the trajectory of one of its own rockets:

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

This one's a twist. Start with the AI declaration, and then look at the game. Look, I'm no artist but I still feel pretty confident I could have scraped these together without a plagiarism machine.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

This one really pissed me off. There are almost no classic point-and-click adventures in Next Fest this time, and this one looked lovely. But quickly something seemed wrong about the backgrounds and... yup. Just fucking pay an artist or don't make a game.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

He's presumably concerned they might fail to capture his true Nazi beliefs.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Emuurom by @borbware.itch.io is an utterly extraordinary metriodbrania with more hidden depths than the Mariana Trench. Writing about it has broken my brain. I feel a responsibility to convince you to play it: buried-treasure.org/2026/06/emuu... Please help out: www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

How dare Pokémon try to tell me I'm not allowed to buy this for myself.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

I'll take "THINGS THAT ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY NEVER EVER HAPPENED" for 1000.

A wankstain saying "I was invited to attend Summer Games Fest, but turned down the offer."

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Uncle Lee’s Cookbook: Five Recipes For Disaster by @relativelypainlessgames.com is a really smart take on the point-and-click format, with bottle-episode puzzling chapters surrounding a ghost story short. buried-treasure.org/2026/05/uncl... Please help out: www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Elementallis by AnKae is a truly stunning Zelda-like 2D RPG, and I cannot believe this isn't already a massive hit. Let's see if we can change that! Repost this! buried-treasure.org/2026/05/elem... Help Buried Treasure with the resources to unearth these games: www.patreon.com/c/buriedtrea...

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I hope you remember being taught about Mufe, iDite, Egeg, Mocri and Hodel at school. And of course not forgetting everyone's favourite, Fooif.

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John Walker - Industry Analcyst @botherer.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

This article on AI videos on YouTube is perhaps a bit overstating the concerns, but god I'm glad we didn't have THIS slop 10 years ago. www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0... But still, I'm obsessed with the classroom backgrounds on one of the videos. This is from a video teaching the alphabet.

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