iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Welcome to Szymantober, in which a bunch of Szymanski announcements all clump together in one month. TO BEGIN WITH, My Friendly Neighborhood is coming to Switch 2 October 22nd!

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The Wizard Boy team has been working on a new castle for the better part of a year. This is the difference between the current castle in early access and the castle we've been working on.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

"Your game looks too much like hot garbage" The game, which is 100% hot garbage:

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Surprise! The Wizard Boy "Spring Cleaning Update" is now LIVE! Prop collecting, prop possessing, broom flying, head spinning, new missions, new gadgets, and lots more. If you're on the public testing branch, there's even an in-progress version of our new big castle to explore.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Added head spinning on command. Fully analogue control. Was thinking this should be an upgrade but honestly feels like it should just be part of the basic toolkit.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

This is probably the only time something I worked on outranks FNAF so. . . career moment, I guess?

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Spreading the good news about how utterly broken this spell in my game is.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I just added the ability to possess props to Wizard Boy and the way I had to implement is. . . well, really, really, really jank.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

This isn't really my normal content, but I'm going to start posting stuff on shortform video places and I put a lot of work into this first one so I thought I'd post here too. :) Development updates coming soon!

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Reminder we just released the PS5 port of Iron Lung! Go grab it if you haven't yet! store.playstation.com/en-us/produc...

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Surprise free game! I took ten games made for the game jam I co-ran with Jacksepticeye and put them into a collection together. Go take a look and let the developers know what your favorite games are! It means a lot to them. :) Link below. Again, totally free!

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

I've been redoing the Wizard Boy AI and at some point corpses started moving around and attacking on their own and it's really unsettling.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I just learned that my game is apparently currently topping the Xbox game charts? Can anyone confirm this?

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Wizard Boy 1.1 is RELEASED!!! We've got upgrades, missions, an inventory, lots of visual updates, the Spy Lair, and more! TIME TO GET WIZARD. (Full writeup posted below.)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Wizard Boy just passed into Overwhelmingly Positive!! Thank you all so much! This one seriously means a lot, especially with how weird this little game is. Update 1.1.0 coming soon! :)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

A boy wizard spy is full of secret techniques.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

On vacation. These guys called Coatis have infested the beach and are causing complete havoc. Directly after I stop recording jumped on a girl's table and took her nachos. Yesterday one stole my hamburger. Notice the sign warning about the Coatis. I love them.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Looking to collab with an artist! Hoping to find someone who is adept at making likeable characters that have an air of being a little humorously off kilter. If you think smear frames are funny you're in the right mindset. Shoot me some links/portfolios if you know of or are someone like that. :)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

An important character in the Szymanski lore is my cat Oscar who never ceases to find a way to lay on me no matter where I'm sitting.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Posted an update about what we're working on in Wizard Boy world, what our plans for the first content update, and some other cool little things along with. :) Link below!

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

My official prediction for the Switch 2 Direct is Super Mario Pancake. No, I will not go into further detail.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

"AI Overview is not available." Yeah, sure. Refuse to answer if you want. I'll find out someday.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Started playing Ape Escape on a whim and am completely taken by how endearing and creative everything is. Especially the apes themselves. I see now why Team Asobi MUST make a new Ape Escape game.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Trying out "floor is lava" to see if would be fun to add in. :)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Some of our favorite Wizard Boy clips from week 1.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Don't worry, everyone, Google says Wizard Boy is IN STOCK. No scalping here.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Thanks so much for 100 reviews! A great start to what I hope is a great game! :)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Secret Agent Wizard Boy is RELEASED! Explore a mysterious castle with silly wizard mayhem alone or with friends! Lots of explosions, secrets, and SPYING. Link below! 👇

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Beta testing has given us some insights on what players find important.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Video of me dying a ton while trying to record this.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Trampolines now bounce you higher if you fall on them from higher.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Toki on Mega Drive goes hard, according to the box art.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Despite it being Valentine's Day, my wife was extremely unimpressed with my CIB copy of Mr. Potato Head Saves Veggie Valley.

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

New feature - there's a camera terminal where you can look through all the cameras in the castle for exploration and spying. You can also interact with stuff too, which gives some great possibilities for traps. (This is my favorite new feature.)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Wizard Boy early access is coming next month! We've redone the whole castle (with new areas), added spells, expanded on mechanics, and most importantly, you can now use students as potion ingredients. Wishlist to get notified when it releases! store.steampowered.com/app/3111080/...

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Despite legitimately having much more important things to do I made a cauldron hat that idly sucks up things and spits out tiny little potions. (Yes, that is it sucking up buttons that are meant to be used for a puzzle. No, I'm not sure I'll fix it.)

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John "Ducky" Szymanski @ducky-dev.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Dev Tip #1: Always put glowing collectibles in places that will likely get your players killed.

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