iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Haunt-Along 2026 An annual tradition collecting a thread about a horror movie each day through the month of October. Find 'em all here. 🐈‍⬛

1178

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

How much The Last Sacrifice clicks for you may depend on how much you want that nail defined. (It doesn't seem interested in striking that on the head.) But if you’re at all a folk-horror weirdo, it’s absolutely worth tethering yourself into. It’s currently on Shudder / AMC+.

The Last Sacrifice title over a red and black photo of an English hillside

050

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Are we talking about witchcraft causing a murder? A murder causing witchcraft? Witchcraft inspiring folk? Fiction inspiring murder? The Last Sacrifice says yes to it all.

Shot of hooded figures holding candles from a sensationalized documentary about witches

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Intensifying the kaleidoscopic spin is how Russell constructs the visual story from a constant rapid collage of horror films and archival footage … all woven like wicker. Actor Edward Woodward and investigator Robert Fabian represent themselves and each other, fact and fiction interlaced infinitely.

Edward Woodward peering at a cross from The Wicker Man

Robert Fabian with pipe and hat at Scotland Yard

110

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The Last Sacrifice takes us around a cycle of "truth inspires fiction inspires truth inspires fiction" several times, layering in new conspiracy-like connections at each spin … and then ponders if the Walton murder was part of a bigger, older thread wound about the British countryside.

Vintage illustration of the Rollright Stones, a witch points at a king while soldiers turn to stones in the background

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

We start with the gruesome murder of Charles Walton. But simply solved at first stab, a conviction eludes investigators. Facts foment the folk horror genre in films like Wicker Man, which fuels real-world fascination with the occult, which stirs up further theories around the unsolved mystery.

Tabloid depiction of the "Witchcraft murder mystery" of Charles Walton

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Rupert Russell (yes, Ken’s son) takes an unusual approach in structuring the doc to achieve both ends of this. Rather than a linear true-crime mystery arc, Russell has built the documentary as a spiral, circling repeatedly and each time tightening toward its thesis.

A six-pointed star formed by swords in a ritual, as depicted in The Wicker Man

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s more complicated than that, sure. The myth needs to feel possible to trigger our God Gene and wind up the psychology to unground us. That’s the conundrum The Last Sacrifice tangles with: To be both a documentary ABOUT folk horror and a documentary that IS folk horror.

"One of the best horror documentaries in years". Pull quote from Horror Losers' review of The Last Sacrifice, as captured in the movie's trailer.

110

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Hill I wish to die on: The definition of folk horror. It is *the folk* that create the horror. Not the folklore. The horror should not be dependent on the folk being correct in their belief. The belief is enough. (Hot take: Paradise Lost is the most folk-horror documentary because of this.)

A colossal man made of wicker with a staircase leading into its belly, standing on top of a hill. Production still from The Wicker Man.

140

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Why are list-numbering options in the same menu section as GenAI text? InDesign is drunk.

An Adobe InDesign menu with "Continue Numbering" sitting in the same set of options as Generate Text / Shorten / Lengthen and other GenAI features.

010

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Tourist Hole has been doing really well in retail shops and conventions … First run is sold out! So we're doing a second printing. It's a stark, whimsical exploration and escape of the stories we tell when we're in spaces between. If you'd like it on your shelf, contact @plusoneexp.bsky.social.

1125

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Told this guy to come back in a couple weeks. No time for this shit right now.

Photo of a garbage can where the bag’s shadows have made a photo-realistic face. I mean, garbage ghost. it’s a garbage ghost.

040

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Putting the finishing touches on the Brindleverse Triptych this week!

Cover for By Endurance We Conquer. A snowy white landscape with a shadowy beastly figure.

Cover for Beach Blanket Body Bag, with a drawing of a slashed up surfboard on a beach.

Cover for DEAD-PILLED with the game's Blue Fairy staring at the viewer

0216

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It even has a bobblehead. (That you can see across the street from @tabletopbookshelf.com.)

060

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This is SUPER simple to execute, and really just a matter of some creative brainstorming on what a game's color blocks might abstractly represent. The blocks can be adjusted to fit any space. There are a few basic rules to make it look cohesive, but from there an infinite amount of room to play.

A spread of locations from Beach Blanket Body Bag. The color block bar includes a number of pieces, including a beach blanket block, a callout rule, and a heading.

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The signature component across the design is its color blocks: They add visual flavor and balance without needing custom art. A layered-on pattern then thematically reinterprets the blocks for each game. Beach blankets for BBBB, ship planks for By Endurance, swim trunks for DEAD-PILLED.

By Endurance's color block. Gold text on a blue-green background with waving lines running through it.

140

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Under the hood, it's a basic, flexible build: 6 grid columns, mostly running as a 2-column layout. Easy to adjust where needed though. Some fonts are intended to be used across any implementations. (Google Fonts… so again, free.) But then there's room to customize display-font headings and colors.

Screenshot of a spread from Beach Blanket Body Bag from inside the layout software. We can see the structure of the text and visual blocks.

1102

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Once a system is built, it becomes vastly more efficient to produce more things with it. Almost immediately on pitching the layout as a system for our internal use, we realized this could be extended for community use as well.

150

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Across these first few posts, you can see how the same system captures the unique personality of each game's setting and tone, while also anchoring it as a family. This has the value of consistency: Once you're familiar with one game, you can navigate any of them all that more easily. But also …

192

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

For the Brindleverse Triptych, I'm hard at work building a layout design system for creators' open use. It'll allow anyone to produce a short-form Carved from Brindlewood game that's visually on par with the official releases. 🧵

4435

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

What’s particularly confounding is the logic … Why would winning statewide worry you about a contest that needs to be won statewide?

Quoted source from article: “It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states.”

060

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how earnestly people believed in Weekly World News … Stumbled into this existential horror.

"One thing that did well for the Enquirer and for us were predictions. In the 1980s, it was World War III. People were concerned and would grab predictions to see what the future holds. They were upbeat. Predictions imply there will be a world a year from now."

250

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

We as a society don't talk enough about how much a *dagger* Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" is. Just reads whoever it's about for filth.

"Who was 'You're So Vain' about?" she says.

Mick Jagger?

"No."

Warren Beatty?

"It certainly sounds like it was about Warren Beatty. He certainly thought it was about him--he called me and said thanks for the song . . ."

020

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Sorry, but you've been decapitated. How is your still sentient head displayed in a warning to the masses?

1 Carried by goblins. Their feet tap, slide, and dance, while their eyes stay locked on the head’s, hands clutching it tightly.
2 Suspended by wires. Each pierces the head straight through, a sunburst of an array, polished copper glimmering.
3 Fallen from a pedestal. Regal and ionic carved marble, stained with the splash of the head’s ground impact.
4 Sealed within iron. A box molded with a clinical description of the head within, no seam or hole to verify the contents.
5 Submerged in fluid. Amber and thick, little air bubbles cluster throughout the contents of the glassware cylinder.
6 Staked to the wall. An unceremonious and violent posting, “DO NOT TOUCH!” scrawled hastily beside a dripping neck.
7 Resting on pillows. Piled as high as human shoulders, in a variety of patterns: checks, paisley, even a few polka dots.
8 Worn by slug. A foreign, form-loose creature seeping into the head’s nervous system, moving about slowly.

351

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Total tangent, but … Matching form factor has become _a thing_ among a vocal segment of readers. If your form factor does not match, you WILL hear about it.

“What one should definitely not do is try to use the fact that your book fits on the same shelf as Shadowdark because they have the same dimensions …”

2102

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Such a good point by @jdragsky.bsky.social in the 7PP AMA. Broadening the idea out: Every game has a hierarchy of things it wants to say, and it's useful to sacrifice the stuff that's lower on that list to make sure the higher stuff hits solidly.

"So the biggest challenge with depicting historical periods in TTRPGs is that people get really in their own heads about embodying characters and getting things wrong. People know the past is a foreign country, but knowing that there's a defined truth that they can mess up is stressful. That stress was obscuring the themes of 7PP and limiting how people engaged in the game. By shifting to a fantasy setting, I could focus on the parts of 7PP that were important to me and enable people to feel more confident making declarative statements about the setting. In a game with 7 GMs (effectively), everything you can do to boost confidence is good!"

0788

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

In the new version of Affinity. Haven't played with it yet … Custom bullet glyphs are tricky, and this makes them so much easier to implement.

Affinity update: Image files can now be used in place of a standard bullet glyph

052

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Worse than just proving she was the singer … it seems the dispute is about whether she should have caught their paperwork error within a specific amount of time. ie The work itself isn’t disputed. (Photo here from the LP re-release.)

Josie and the Pussycats liner notes. An oral history of the film with Kay Hanley as an interview subject.

020

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

She is truly at the height of her DM prowess.

“Olivia Rodrigo Releases Fantasy Tabletop Game ‘The High Winter Elves of Girlville’” Photo of an article in The Onion

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

The Stonetop covers are sooooo goooood. Wonderfully executed minimal approach.

0222

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

The Babaelcroak is expanded from another mystery I wrote (likely the first mystery written for Public Access that’s not based on a concept by Jason). He is such a creepy nightmare of a presence when I run that mystery, I wanted to give him his own story.

Text of a Moment from a Carved from Brindlewood mystery:

A dot matrix printer sits in the dirt, endlessly printing a live report of what’s happening seen and unseen around it. “A pocket gopher burrows by.” “A crow flies overhead.” Every so often while you are near, “Babael watches you.”

120

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

We’re still trying to hit some stretch goals in the final days of the Public Access campaign, but we’ve hit already a LOT. (Go stack go.) One of them: Babaelcroak.

Sketch of a toad-headed man in a black suit with a tiny top hat.

1116

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Convergence is a mystery that pushes players in that way. These clues challenge you to put together what’s going on here. They want to see how you put it all together. You’re big Latchkey kids now: Show off.

Some clues from Convergence, including "A Sony Walkman; pop it open and there's a (small) beating heart inside."

150

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

I made the original version of the White Pages to solve issues like this. It's a sortable index, so I can really quickly find what exists or doesn't already. Canonical connections are noted, the time periods the components exist in (Public Access has multiple!), and a bunch of other key info.

Screenshot from the Deep Lake White Pages showing a bunch of character names and identities and their statuses within a campaign of Public Access when it begins.

100

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

We can narrow the possible locations of the house by comparing that ceiling height to the frost line, bringing us that much closer to finding the crime scene and bringing the killers to justice.

A map of the United States with the frost line marked.

010

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

I made a collage quoting it in 2009, probably around when I first heard it. It's a fine song, and the lyric "we're far too old to be invincible, and far too young to give a damn" has been living rent-free through my 30s and 40s. And it's _gone_ from the spots you'd expect it to be.

Two Victorian women stand on a beach in front of a distant mountain with fists raised to each other. The phrase "We're far too old to be invincible." appears on the horizon.

110

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

I don't always do this formally, but for Planet Raygun I formed a set of design principles: Things that will always be true in the game. Does "thing x" contradict any of these principles? Could it better fit those principles? Change accordingly. Players will never see these, but they'll feel them.

### Weird World Whys

Much of Planet Raygun’s setting will feel strange and alien, but it should also be rational. Underneath the bizarre appearance of things, players can find something empathetic and internally logical. Nothing is purely magical.

### Chain Lightning

Planet Raygun wants players to depict Rube Goldberg-esque plots that twist through tight spaces. Everything should drive toward grand group moments – and not get bogged down in minute details.

### Party Over Player

As part of a fast-acting crew, players should be continuously engaged with each other. Rules and mechanics minimize naval gazing and reward interaction.

### Thievery Not Thuggery

The fun of a caper comes from outwitting the setting and its characters, not eradicating them. While violence has a place, it’s mechanically disincentivized within the game.

092

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

I don’t have a strong opinion about it, but it surprised me that Blades 68 is an expansion/mod for Blades in the Dark and not a standalone spinoff. This seems to be the first Evil Hat FitD game where that’s the case.

Screenshot from the Blades 68 Backerkit page that says “you’ll find the same critically-acclaimed core mechanics from Blades in the Dark (which is required to play).”

041

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

And this is butting right up to the edge of the rest of the episode’s plot.

From the Irish Times. A Canadian judge has Alexa disabled and her Amazon account canceled because of sanctions for authorizing an investigation into US troops’ possible atrocities in Afghanistan.

020

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

There’s an X-Files episode (s11e7) whose pre-credit sequence is about an AI chatbot whose social posts are so horrifyingly inappropriate that it’s shut off. Grok has *literally* done everything that bot did or worse. We are beyond the X-Files rubicon.

Screenshot of an X post commenting on the Grok AI removing the clothes from a photo.

191

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Ripper deep cuts @themountaingoats.bsky.social show last night, ending with the non-Darnielle all-timer Sweet Jane. And Nicole Lawrence adding a whole new dimension across the set 🤘

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats on stage backlit by colored lights

060

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

No Boring Murals. Gary Friedman for LA Times, 1981. Part of UCLA Library Digital Collections.

Man without a shirt walks by graffiti that says "NO BORING MURALS".

052

Mike Martens | Clear Keep @clearkeep.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

1974. "We stock imported S.F., Occult, Comics, Mysticism, UFO, Fantasy, ROCK, Underground, etc. If your taste leans to the far out, check us out."

Hand drawn ad for "House on the Borderland"

051