iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I applaud Tom of Frogland here:

Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Loading screens, cutscenes, and conversations: you can hide them, or you can make them something you play, rather than something you endure.

open.substack.com

Gameplay Dead Spots and How to Handle Them

Loading screens, cutscenes, conversations -- make them playable, or make them invisible

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Skipping conversations and cutscenes: the bane of the narrative designer. But why do players do it? And what can we do to make it more appealing to stay?

open.substack.com

Why do Players Skip?

Getting back to the action

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Reposted by Fred Z.

Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

primary every centrist democrat

If Democrats want a role model ahead of this year's midterm elections, they could not do better
than Analilia Mejia, the newest member of Congress. The winner of an April special election to fill a suburban New Jersey seat that party insiders thought would favor a centrist, Mejía, a former political director for Senator Bernie Sanders and the director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, ran as a progressive who was prepared to take on the "bosses and bullies in both parties to get things done." After emerging as the victor in a crowded and complicated primary—in which she backed Medicare for All, guaranteed paid sick leave, and a moratorium on AI data centers; accurately described Israel's assault on Gaza as a genocide; and declared that "it's time to abolish ICE"—Mejía won the general election by a 20-point margin (more than double the margin that the district gave Kamala Harris in 2024). Mejía embraced her mandate by immediately proposing to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour.

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Reposted by Fred Z.

Cameron 🇺🇸🗽🦅 @cameroncorduroy.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

>Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson were all on Russian payroll >Orban loses in Hungary >Rod Dreher immediately leaves Budapest >The Daily Wire fires half their staff was all the right-wing conspiracy posting about USAID just massive fucking projection?

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Reposted by Fred Z.

HAL @hal-monitor.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

BASEBALL YURI (1/5)

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

I may be the only narrative designer who hates cutscenes in games.

open.substack.com

Bugbears: the Cutscene

Play, don't show

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Good lord, reading comprehension is in a bad place. Although that last one guy, like a stopped clock, accidentally gets one thing right: it's all optional. If you're not feeling any story, you're allowed to stop reading. (notwithstanding school assignments or actually trying to learn things)

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Reminds me of a speed painting my friend Hallsi did from a particularly unhinged photo of me: “It took me four minutes,” she said, “and I was screaming the whole time. It was great.” I’ve never been so honored.

A hastily-painted canvas of a giant screaming man wearing a bow tie and also possibly melting. The corner bears the artist’s signature, “hk”.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Perhaps a big golden horse?

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

You will do it until you hand it to others to continue doing it when you're done. That's the work of living. Especially in stupid and frustrating times.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

You may get so good at doing it that people call it magic. Or you may never feel like you're doing it right, but keep doing it anyway because it's satisfying in a way that waiting for the alternative never was. You will do it because it keeps you alive and alert.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Do it fast. Do it together. Do it before you overthink it. Do it badly and learn from it and do it better the next time. Because you will have to re-do it, again and again, whether or not this old world actually does collapse as predicted.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Practice building that better world now. Practice finding the words for what you want to save. Practice working with your neighbor to make something real. It isn't just practice. It is effort. It is magic. It is doing something. And it is better than waiting. Than dreading. Than the alternative.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Better to start making things now, while it's easier. Sing while there's less screaming. Plant a garden while we have a neighbor to share it with. Make a mosaic that doesn't have to be your last. While we have time to practice.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

But rebuilding can't wait. Anxious hands need something to do. People at their breaking point need something to make whole. We need to make our own magic if we want to write about it afterwards.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Time was, it'd all happen in a flash: a firework montage set to ironic music. Now it's just a slog. Cable news coverage stretching one omnishambles over 24 hours and then repeat.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Yes, the post-apocalypse is enticing and immediate, whether you dream that you magically survive, or imagine the alternative. It's the mid-apocalypse that's exhausting. And it lasts so much longer these days.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

You can work from home! (if you still have a home.) There'll be space to start a community garden! (once you clear away the rubble of your neighbor.) All those skyscraper shards could be a beautiful mosaic! (and your cut fingers will provide such vibrant dye.)

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

At last, you can think about what you need to rebuild. What gets scrapped or salvaged. Your purpose is clear. You'll stop saying, "someone should do something", and you'll start doing something. At least, once you pick yourself up off the floor. Does that count as something? It's not nothing.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Because post-apocalyptic fantasies are so much more appealing. In them, you're free of everything that seemed to hold you back before. No more nuance. No more rules. No more innocents. Things are so much simpler when your deadlines are literal.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

*Ping! You won't believe what rough beast's hour has come round at last!* Fine, you'll say, let's get this apocalypse over with. Let's get to the exciting part.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

*Ping! Find out now which centre couldn't hold!* It's Armageddon and you found out from a sponsored ad.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

*Ping! Breaking news! Things fell apart!* The alarm you've been anticipating, but still want to snooze a couple times.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

And you go to work, and you do laundry, and you don't think about it. And you scroll on your phone, and you side-eye the war, and you wait for it. And you skim the news and skip ahead and zone out and sleep in and so on 'til maybe really finally for god-damned fuck's sake yes you see it: The alert.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

So, sure, the old world is dying. But it probably won't be dead by the first of the month, and you've got rent. Either way, the old bastard world will have sent someone around to collect.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Because as they say, there's a new world struggling to be born. Now is the time when monstrous midwifes are trying to shape it in their own image. But that's not how the quote really goes and sources disagree about who the real monsters are and you're not allowed into the delivery room, anyway.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Back to today's war. It probably won't be the end of the world. But it will be the end of some people's worlds. It might well be the end of the old world you know. That might even be a good thing. If you keep living. If a little magic saves you from the alternative.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The soldiers who happen upon that magic are the ones who get to write about it afterwards. The others... do what soldiers usually do in war: the alternative. So they go.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

So it goes, as another soldier said. That one found his own way to unstick himself in time. A different kind of trick, but still the same magic: a way to live in spite of death.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Big words coming from someone twice as tall and full of magic. Then again, he's the one who ended up dying. Even if he was reborn afterwards, he still saw plenty of death.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

One soldier talked about a little man who went to war and wished it need not have happened in his time. His friend just kept smoking and told him to do something about it.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

So we dive for cover into art and the creations of others. For shelter, for wisdom, for distraction. Just to know that other people faced other stupid and frustrating times, and they lived anyway. How?

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

You know the arrow of time flies in one direction. But to its target, it looks like it's just hanging in mid-air. Unmoving, yet looming ever-larger as you watch. Until it impales you.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

A war led by fools will lead to dire costs as predicted. Those costs will lead to a predictable recession. That recession will predictably pop an economic bubble that your world rests upon. And if it all goes as predicted, it'll be followed by even bigger fools.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

If you're alert, if you know enough history or economics or just human nature, you can see the path we're on and where it's leading. These dismal sciences can't predict every bump, but they show the cliff.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

This is a stupid and frustrating time to be alive. Being alive is still probably better than the alternative, but don't quote me on that.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

I write primarily as a way to process my thoughts on complex topics and big feels. Lots of writers do this. Sometimes I also write to vent. These pieces usually involve more florid and profane imagery. But I know I'm really in a bad state when I'm driven to that dread refuge of the damned: poetry.

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Reposted by Fred Z.

John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

After hearing this, my grandfather would’ve taken a bullet for this man. Just a crazy skill of making great speechwriting (written by and with others, I’m sure) sound conversational.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Nah, it'll just have countless unskippable pop-up ads.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

As a kid growing up at the end of the cold war and in the blast radius of DC, my family's plan In Case of The Big One was simple: go up on the roof and watch the fireworks together. Seemed much easier and more fun than the alternative.

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Reposted by Fred Z.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 14/03/2026

thevaultoftheatomicspaceage.tumblr.com/post/8110863...

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

I’ve seen the same on Facebook, and it’s infuriating. Adding a link to give a source in a discussion often gets your post auto-hidden, so people are just backing up their claims with screenshots of browsers, and it’s atrocious. Just supercharging the spread of misinformed nonsense.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Delighted to hear @shutupshow.bsky.social reminisce about Amalur's "beautiful neon fantasy colors"! Always a pleasure to hear it fondly remembered. If you liked it too, check out the now-funding board game featuring @seanandrewmurray.bsky.social, Amalur's lead concept artist! www.cityofgateway.com

cityofgateway.com

Gateway

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Players love breaking your game, and it takes a brave designer to let them. The results can be horrible — and greater than you can imagine.

open.substack.com

Player Investment: Break It Your Way

Be willing to sacrifice tone for something unexpected and wonderful

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Roast sweet potatoes, garlic, and onions sprinkled with feta and creamy lingonberry sauce. Add in some fried eggs or marinated tofu if you want extra protein.

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Fred Z. @fred-zed.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

I’ve seen this trend at game studios when managers run them into the ground (like my experience with Curt Schilling at 38 Studios): they disappear from employees’ view for weeks and only send a stiff farewell letter. Probably because they can’t bear to meet the eyes of the people they screwed over.

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