iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

(N.B.: The Steve Jackson who authored many Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, while an eminent game designer in his own right, is British, and not to be confused with the Texan Steve Jackson.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_J... www.sjgames.com www.sjgames.com/illuminati/i... munchkin.game

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

For more than 40 years , SJ Games has survived upheavals and change in the tabletop industry, and while I have no need to play yet another MUNCHKIN iteration, Steve has kept his company afloat, and when he goes back to design, has always produced interesting work. You really can't ask for more.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

My favorite game from Steve is ILLUMINATI, a card game in which secret societies attempt to take over the world by connecting cards to one another; e.g., yes, the Society for Creative Anachronism now controls the Republican Party, and they ultimately report to aliens. Which is totally true!

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

For decades, he he's run Steve Jackson Games, publishing often humorous tabletop games that you could describe as "Ameritrash," an epithet I do not take as pejorative -- it merely describes a game with an element of randomness and quirk, in contrast to the more sedate Eurostyle.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I've known Steve since we were teen designers remaking the American hobby game industry (then mostly dusty wargames) with strikingly original science fiction and fantasy games, and we've remained friends since then, though he is from Austin, TX, and I a staunch New Yorker.

lnkd.in

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Weird Game Designer Facts #77 Steve Jackson Steve is the designer of, among many other games, OGRE, MELEE, CAR WARS, GURPS, ILLUMINATI, and MUNCHKIN. He is also (full disclosure) publisher of my game TOON, a tabletop roleplaying game in which players are Warner Brothers-style cartoon characters).

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I only hope he can pull his head out of whatever techbro rabbit hole he's gone down, and return to being to decent human being I thought he was. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonatha... www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle... www.mrphilgames.com/blog/jai-in-... indie-fund.com store.steampowered.com/app/4

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

...supporting genocide against Palestinians, destroying our formerly good relations with the EU and Canada, and decimating the American middle class while providing tax breaks to billionaires as "the best president in his lifetime," while attacking DEI initiatives.

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

If this was the whole of the story, I would be lauding Blow as one of the greatest creators and most decent people in our field. And yet... Blow is reported to have called our corrupt current president, currently waging an unwinnable war against Iran for no good reason...

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Blow is also a participant in the Indie Fund, created by people who (like he) have achieved great commercial success as indie developers, and created to fund to benefit other indie developers working to get their games heard.

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Blow says that the engine behind the game will be released as free and open source shortly after the game's release; and the Jai will also be released as free and open source sometime thereafter. That is -metal- levels of indie.

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Here's where it gets weird, and also kind of amazing; ORDER OF THE SINKING STAR was developed using an original programming language, Jai, which Blow created, and claims to have vastly faster compile times than C++ and C# (the languages in which most indie games are created).

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

BRAID, a platformer that doubles down on the time rewind mechanic, went on to be an indie super hit. THE WITNESS, a Myst-style puzzle-solving adventure game also was a big hit. His forthcoming game, ORDER OF THE SINKING STAR, looks amazing, with deep, lengthy puzzle play

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

And years later meeting him in the lobby at the cheapo motel we both stayed at when E3 was held in Seattle, just a few blocks away from the Space Needle. I told him "I hate E3," and he responded "All good people do." Can't get more indie than that.

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Weird Game Designer Facts #76 Jonathan Blow Eminent Indie Developer with Lamentable Trumpist Leading Two personal interactions with Blow; I remember sitting with him at the IGF, when he was demoing BRAID, which I thought was supercool.

en.wikipedia.org

Jonathan Blow - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

And our foodstuffs are safe again. Regulation is good.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Tax the rich, support the middle class, and no longer pretend that billionaires are somehow magical, and that the long road between 1950s America, when the middle class was dominant, and today's world where the middle class is impoverished, is remotely reasonable. Bring back FDR's America.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

...and our food is safe, which it was under Roosevelt, but is no longer is under Republicans. Establish rules whereby Gerrymandering is prohibited in all states, whether Red or Blue (and the science to allow that is well established).

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Re-empower the National Labor Relations Board to certify and impose unions in the face of oligarchic billionaire opposition. End the war against Iran, unilaterally, and with concessions, if necessary. Build up the CDC and FDA to ensure that all children are inoculated against childhood diseases...

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Eliminate all "executive orders" imposing tariffs on Japan, Korea, and other Asian allies. Restate our commitment to the NATO alliance, and our willingness to put American troops in harm's way should Russia wage a war of aggression against NATO.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Todo list, 2018: Eliminate all "executive orders" imposing tariffs on Canada. Eliminate all "executive orders" imposing tariffs on European allies. Eliminate all "executive orders" imposing tariffs on Mexico and other OAS allies.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

While I remain skeptical of her essential thesis, I'm glad McGonigal is out there, advocating for games that change things, designing ones to try to do so, and -- you know, being weird. She is currently associated with the Institute for the Future, a not-for-profit think tank.

innovatorsunder35.com

Jane McGonigal | Innovators Under 35

Our annual list of the young dreamers, tinkerers, and innovators that are creating technology’s future.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Her game SuperBetter, designed to promote mental health and student success, has been played by more than 1m people, and scientific studies prove its success in doing so. A complete list of her games (some more successful than others) can be found at her site at janemcgonigal.com/play-me/.

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

No, games are not going to replace teachers in classrooms; and no, ARGs are not going to change the world -- if you want to do that, do the hard work of knocking on doors and building advocacy organizations. But one thing in McGonigal's favor; while she talked the talk, she also walked the walk.

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

As a conventional game designer, just hoping to make my next game fun and that people will pay money and enjoy it, I'm more than a little leery of people who make unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of games. No, gamification is not the secret sauce for making your app successful...

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

She's an evangelist for the idea that ARGs (and games in general) can change the world, and written several books (and delivered an important TED talk) in pursuit of her idea that interactive media can have world-changing impacts.

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Weird Game Designer Facts #75 Jane McGonigal Game Visionary for the Future (Maybe) Jane McGonigal first came to prominence as the mission designer for I LOVE BEES, one of the first alternative reality games (ARGs), but has since designed several other interesting and even impactful games.

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This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Je... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Su... www.caburdenraremaps.com/map/geografi... www.caburdenraremaps.com/map/geografi...

en.wikipedia.org

John Jefferys - Wikipedia

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

"He who rests at 48 at Rome for kissing ye Pope’s Toe shall be banished for his folly to No 4 in the cold island of Iceland and miss three turns." So... Entertaining from an historical perspective, wouldn't spend a lot of time searching out a playable copy.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

In A JOURNEY THROUGH EUROPE, you roll dice, move along the map, and obey instructions from places you land on. Like: "He who rests at 28 at Hanover shall by order of Ye King of Great Britain who is Elector, be conducted to No 54 at Gibraltar to visit his countrymen who keep garrison there."

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So while Freschot's game was a one-off that, while pioneering, did not lead anywhere, Jefferys's helped to establish an enduring field. (And Sir John's was a whimsy created by a louche lord to entertain his friends, which caught on.)

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I do not wish to deny Jefferys's accomplishment. While both Frescho and Jeffery's games are variants of THE GAME OF GOOSE (we would call them track games today), Jefferys's game was part of a burgeoning boardgame industry in Britain.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Even in terms of boardgames, Jefferys is not the first ascribable designer; that would be Don Casimir Freschot's TARATARIA IN ASIA, a game designed to teach geography to Venetian youth; in this, it is similar to John Jeffery's A JOURNEY THROUGH EUROPE, designed to teach geography to English youth.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Cribbage is likely the first game ascribable to an individual designer, created in the early 1600s by Sir John Suckling, first rules published in 1662. (Not by him, he designed the game earlier, but it became popular enough that its rules were codified by later publishers.)

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

John Jefferys Weird Game Designer Fact #74 Not Actually the First Game Designer Ascribable to an Original Game As Wikipedia claims, and I may have some role in the myth (I wrote and lectured about him in the teens, when I thought that was true). But he is not. There are at least two antecedents.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Huh... someone has resurrected my 1989 game MadMaze, designed for the old Prodigy commercial online system on the web. I will not say it is a good game, but it's the first online game to achieve 1m+ users. www.vintagecomputing.com/madmaze/

vintagecomputing.com

MadMaze-II

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

At present, he is president and co-founder of Playable Worlds, the Raph Koster-helmed company working on an ambitious sandbox MMO, Stars Reach, recently in early access. starsreach.com en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Go... boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34... www.linkedin.com/in/consumerf...

linkedin.com

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

SPI, West End, Crossover Technologies, Unplugged Games, and Playable Worlds. Eric is a good game designer, and the business world's gain is design's loss. And both of us, of course, have migrated from tabletop to digital.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We also collaborated on MadMaze for the Prodigy service -- the first online game to attract more than 1m players. (2m, actually.) Since West End, Eric has focused on business rather than design, but in total we have worked together, off and on, at five different companies:

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

As a designer, Eric is best known for Tales of the Arabian Knights, a paragraph system boardgame (a recent edition in print). He also designed (with Dan Gelber and me) Paranoia,Crete (a wargame based on the German invasion of the island in WWII), and Commando (another wargame with RPG elements).

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We first met when we were both 14 when we worked for SPI, a tabletop game developer in the 60s-80s. We would often walk home together from the SPI offices (in the 20s in Manhattan; Eric lived in on 96th Street, and I on 88th), talking about all kinds of things, but of course games as well.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Weird Game Designer Facts #73 Eric Goldberg Eric is a well regarded designer of tabletop games -- and also, for most of his life, an entrepreneur in games and mobile companies, and a consultant to early stage companies as well as to VCs looking to invest in emerging technologies.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

So we collaborated, multiple authors contributing, on our take. And although featuring only arguably indie games, we nod at AAA titles we deserve to be acknowledged. First up is Wadjeteye's Unavowed, but you'll have to click through for the full list, here: indiegamereviewer.com/top-10-indie...

indiegamereviewer.com

IGR's Favorite Indie Adventure Games of the 21st Century

Greg Costikyan and the IGR writing team weigh in on some of our favorite adventure games of the 21st century (so far)!

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

We posted an article on our take of the "best indie adventure games of the 21st century." It was in response to an article from a larger site, which did a "the best adventure games of the 21st century," post, which was nothing of the kind; only 1 of the 10 could remotely be called an adventure game.

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Greg Costikyan @costik.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I reviewed LOST AND FOUND, a short follow up to THIS BED WE MADE here: indiegamereviewer.com/lost-and-fou... As with the earlier game, you clean rooms, snoop around, and uncover mysteries about the guests. Here, however, you are stewardess aboard a cruiseship, rather than a maid in a Montreal hotel.

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