iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 52m

slowly roasting something for #bitsyjam 100. I've so far failed to ever participate so I'll catch the final jam or be damned.

sliver of a screenshot from a bitsy game-in-progress. there's a text box embedded in.... a pager? some strange technology display? it reads: "QUERY. STATION DOVECOTE TO STATION ORLANDO. STANDBY."

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 17/10/2026

Perhaps the first game I ever played that, as a child, showed me the potential for bizarre and experimental game design choices. Wrestling with an emotionally volatile Pac-Man from beyond the fourth wall left a mark on me that I still think about often.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

HELL YEAH BUY THE DON QUIXOTE DLC SEASON PASS NOW

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

ooh yeah, cracking into adding don quixote to the tiny toy theatre imagination kit. feels like i'm adding new characters to smash bros

Image of a 19th century toy theatre character sheet from Pollock's Toy Theatres. Text reads: "Pollock's Characters & Scenes in Don Quixote. 4 Plates Characters, 5 Scenes, 2 Wings, & 1 Top Drop. Total 12 with book to the above.

Around the center text are the following characters: Don Quixote, Sancho, Pedrigo, Tereza, Barber, Juey, and Housekeeper.

Bottom text: London, Published by B. Pollock, 73 Hoxton Street, Hoxton.

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John @farawaytimes.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

it's simple: everyone on earth should make at least one game in bitsy, twine, puzzlescript, zzt, rpgmaker 2k/3, and pico-8. all of them have robust tooling, smart creative constraints, browser exports, and lively communities.

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Morgan Johnson @poormojo.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

No joke. I think this is the most important video I have ever seen about mobile games. This guy breaks down how this game psychologically profiles you, and makes the game harder or easier in order to show you ads

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

final fantasy tactics update: I have crossed the chapter 4 rubicon, and somehow all of my plucky-but-bedraggled teens suddenly turned the corner into Supreme Battle Gods. is this what parenthood feels like.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It's still hilarious to me that the only *three* games tagged "voyeur" on Itch (without NSFW turned on) are an erotic cuck VN, a hacking game with very little context, and my bitsy videogame poem about looking in windows at dusk. still routinely my most reliable source of page visits every week.

Screenshot of an Itch.io search page, showing the top listed games tagged "voyeur." There are only three games shown with their thumbnails and descriptions. From left-to-right: "The Wife of Dero Island" by fff0422479826, "capsules" by bibliomancer (me), and "Evil Intimates I" by seanographies.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

i'm going to have to thank the creator of 2023's hit YouTube video "Relaxing Donkey Kong Music" in my dissertation, aren't i.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

every fall I make this cranberry sauce that is so perfect I just call it The Sauce. One bag cranberries, one cup orange juice, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, some orange zest. Sprinkle of salt, cinnamon, rhubarb or black walnut bitters, maybe a dash of herbal liquor, simmer that bad boy

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

dracula after picking up PICO-8 in the summer months: please, step into my ~spoooOoky~ game. but bewaare! you may foind yourself surrounded by my leeeegion of...*cape flourish*... BOO-leans!!!

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Disco Elysium Quotes @discoelysiumbot.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

YOU - Johnny Law is about to tear it up. Sad-style.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

is it just me or does the immediate fad response of posting "oh here's a screenshot of the silly categories Amazon assigned me" feel like a psyop to normalize cute data surveillance tracking. like Spotify wrapped, etc.

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Computer𝔍𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔰 @computerjames.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If you're looking for an excuse to make a game (digital) and win a delicious pizza (physical) the next PIZZA JAM 🍕 starts November 6th! itch.io/jam/pizza-ja... So far Ive had pizzas delivered to Brazil, Canada, Sweden, Norway, USA, Italy, Taiwan, Poland, Germany, Argentina

itch.io

Pizza Jam (✨Pizza Prize!✨)

A game jam from 2026-11-06 to 2026-12-01 hosted by ComputerJames. Hello! This is a themed 9 day jam that runs from 7pm Friday November 6th until 7pm on Sunday 15th (GMT), in order to WIN A PIZZA. Ther...

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I loved collaborating on this project! You can view our (now award-winning!) critical edition in Scholarly Editing 42: scholarlyediting.org/issues/42/ap.... Many thanks to the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London for the recognition.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

after a long day one can kick back with a toy theatre set to a jonny fritz deadbeat dad country song

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Maddy Thorson @maddymakesgames.com · 05/10/2026

one thing you learn from making a lot of things is that the nitty gritty details, the millions of tiny invisible decisions, ARE the art. The "higher level ideas" are not nearly as important or interesting

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Berry 🍇 @nyamukoneko.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

the bunny can now KICK

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

the gargantuan number of games released each day is great. just means I can buy a wholesale stock at the autumnal farmers market and store them in my cellar to get through the hard winter each year

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

the issue with doing my phd on constrained poetry videogames is that I come across magnificent work, get galvanized to make a game in response, look at the various institutional proposals and timelines around me, and then instead settle for writing a paragraph.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 28/09/2026

Thanks to y’all’s help & some more research, my list of video games that include printing presses is growing I think I’ve found a student who wants to work on this project with me, so any other suggestions—particularly from the 80s & 90s—would be most welcome I can’t find an existing list anywhere

Sid Meier's Colonization (1994)
* Anno 1404 (2009)
* Deus Ex Human Revolution (2011)
* Dishonored (2012)
* Assassin’s Creed 3 (2012)
* Anno Online (2013)
* Bioshock Infinite (2013)
* Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015)
* Fallout 4 (2015)
* Civilization 6 (2016)
* Graveyard Keeper (2018)
* Anno 1800, Empire of Skies DLC (game 2019, DLC 2022)
* Hitman 3 (2021)
* Pentiment (2022)
* Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)
* Esoteric Ebb (2026)
* The Sinking City 2 (forthcoming)
* Stop the Press! (forthcoming)

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Cyriak @cyriak.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Been messing around with Doom Builder

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

what about a playstation controller with a little slot to insert your credit card but it gobbles up your card, shreds it, and emits a "yummy yummy" noise while the haptics "digest" the pieces. cowards. make it.

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Marc Max @marcrobledo.com · 25/09/2026

A must read on how AI is specifically making a significative decrease of quality in ROM hacking and homebrew.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It's the age of the constrained engine, baby

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Anna 🌿👁️ @annacwebs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I love being in my early 30s, now I say stuff like “I’ve really been into yogurt sauces lately”

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

From a dinner a few weeks ago, I present to you some Mystery Donuts. Can you guess what they contain? Hint #1: That is a type of sugar on them.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

playing through it right now and it's really a game of mitigating just how much my scrappy kids get the shit kicked out of them every single time

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DEREK IN HR IS A TAURUS SO YOU *MUST* DIVERSIFY YOUR JOB MATCHUPS BEFORE YOU GO IN FOR YOUR QUARTERLY REVIEW. i recommend equipping your dragoon with jump.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

i would also pay a lot more attention to my own horoscope if it was in all caps warning me about DANGEROUS ZODIAC PRIORITY MATCHUPS

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

man i never get sick of reading gamefaqs threads as i play through older games

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

they should bring back the rumble pack and sell it in different flavors. kitten purring. smoothie blender. car that lost power steering. Jackhammer.

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Thew @amazingthew.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

god i love videogames. have you heard about "places"? they are called locations

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Charles Snart (Histobat) @thehistocrat.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Today I found out that pretty much all the original footage from the live action filming sessions for both Myst and Riven are viewable online over on the Video Game History Foundation Library in their original quality and I think thats pretty damn neat.

archive.gamehistory.org

Raw camera footage

View Raw camera footage in the Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive.

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WOR$T GIRL IN ACADEMIA @medievaliste.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Once again, the median pay for an adjunct professor in the United States of America is $3,500 per course. Not per month, per course.

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

if you're lucky enough to have an old 3DS lying around it is truly a marvelous thing to jailbreak it.

A Nintendo 3DS playing Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

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doruk balcı @dorukb.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

new post to store my eavesdrop poems fuzul.bearblog.dev/eavesdrop-po...

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I have played hours of Urbanitas and I cannot stop thinking about it, I wake up with new strategies, it's so refreshing to have a sim builder system that seems to reinforce taking it slow and gentle in a tactile way. Long Live Neo Wichita (and my childhood dream of a Kansan city with a ferry)

a screenshot of a city built in Urbanitas named Neo Wichita. There's far more water here than a typical city in Kansas.

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bossk baby @bonnnt.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It is so mentally corrosive to try to ascertain, every day, whether the images I am seeing or the texts I am getting or the phone calls I am receiving are real - produced by a human who is trying to communicate something with me, even indirectly. It makes me feel insane and paranoid all the time

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Leland, my stalwart friend, has mastered the art of charismatic ennui

A handsome cat posting with affected ennui

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Rebekah Valentine @duckvalentine.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

if you can't be bothered to make your own game i can't really be bothered to play it

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Brendan Allen @brendanallen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

something that continually touches me - every month or two, someone stumbles across CentoQuest and gently leaves the poem they created in the game's comments. and then I get to wake up to an email that another little lovely poem has been created in the system! bibliomancer.itch.io/centoquest

bibliomancer.itch.io

CentoQuest by bibliomancer

Explore a home. Write a poem.

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Jenna "the" Yow @jannouna.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Extremely heartbroken to say that I'm one of the affected members. Working at KO_OP for four and a half years has been one of the best things to ever happen to me and I really hope that my teammates can land a pitch that can bring us all back together again.

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