iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Do you like beaches + murders + a dash of oceanography? Maybe you'd like to preorder my novel! www.amazon.com/Sun-Stripped...

amazon.com

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I have hinted about my novel, and it drops Aug 21! Before jumping into fantasy, I first wrote a BEACHY THRILLER, perfect for the end of summer. Preorders help with the algorithm, or you can grab a free Advance Reader Copy here: booksirens.com/book/TCDF87E... Reviews optional, but help so much!

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Are there any game mags left? :(

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Yeah he designed Chakra, and Penance and a lot of great priest abilities. He may have been working on a tinker, but when we decided to do Pandaria, monk was the obvious choice.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I typically run out of steam at this point because there isn't a great medium for blogs anymore. WordPress or my own website or something I guess, but then the adventure becomes getting people to discover that site.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I think there are a lot of interesting parallels between writing fiction and game design that would be fun to explore, such as the when to meet versus subvert expectations, or the role of anticipation or foreshadowing.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Not saying you couldn't make a "cool" Tinker. Just that it would take some deliberate effort and some guardrails. That's just my historical opinion. WoW has evolved enormously in the last dozen or so years.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

There was never any intention AFAIK to make the Mistweaver feel like a Tinker. I had concerns about a Tinker, because I find the goblin / gnome malfunctioning gadget thing often overdone and just played for laughs. I think there should be at least an option for aspiration in every class.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I have this specific form of insomnia that happened because news about the fate of our studio always arrived from China in the middle of the night

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

This doesn't actually surprise me at all, because social media only rewards outrage, so everyone making videos and posting needs to find something to be outraged about even when contradictory

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Gamers in 2026: Development teams are so bloated. Why does it take 500 people to make AAA? Also gamers: I noticed this puddle in the alley doesn't accurately reflect the angle of the neon light. Zero stars.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Some of you asked what I have been up to. In November, my previous studio, Fantastic Pixel Castle, sadly closed, as it seems like a majority of game studios are still doing. Fortunately I was able to get a new job that I hope to discuss soon. I also have a novel coming out to talk about soon!

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I haven't made a post on here in about 9 months, but I will try to be back. How y'all doing?

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

I wanted to share the news that Fantastic Pixel Castle’s time as a first party studio within NetEase Games is coming to an end.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I look forward to changing the name of every body of water and military base every 4-8 years. That won’t get old at all.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

I butcher those little ones by the dozen because they have a rare resource drop. I'm kidding. They aren't in the game just yet.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

There's a budget for how many new creature models, even critters, you can get in an expansion. This one already had a lot. (Budget in terms of hours of dev time, not cost.)

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

The owlbeast is intended to be terrifying. It’s one of the top dangers of the Wychwood, a jabberwock type creature

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Nothing against actual ren fairs. I find the music of ours in Texas to have more varied music than most fantasy games.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

We have talked a lot about it! I find a lot of fantasy games use generic ren faire music and swelling strings for EVERYTHING. There is so much more out there. I loved at Riot how we could work in an electric guitar for SOME pieces and it worked.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

We are really going to do this Friday! Join in or watch later!

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Reposted by Ghostcrawler

Fantastic Pixel Castle @fpcstudio.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

dev_stream_announcement_final_FINAL_actually.png Come join us on Friday 4/4 at 11:00 AM PT to take a look at the progress we've made on the Wychwood! We'll be live on our Twitch and YouTube channels - you know where to find the links.

A dev stream announcement for Fantastic Pixel Castle, the studio developing the MMO codenamed Ghost. It says: "FPC Dev Stream: The Wychwood Blue Zone Showcase. Join us for a look into our Wychwood Blue Zone progress and a Dev Q&A! April 4th, 11:00 AM PT - 12:00 PM PT, twitch.tv/fantasticpixelcastle, youtube.com/@FantasticPixelCastle. (See, we weren't kidding.)" Below the text is a misty screenshot of the game, showing craggy rock faces, twisting trees, waterfalls, and a wooden tower.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Probably but you would still want a healer in that case

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Right now we are thinking all combat classes with professions as something you add on top of that (like many MMOs do)

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Unlike George we are making really fast progress! We just started sharing earlier than most games would do.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

We have a melee class in our game now. It’s not shippable of course but directionally it’s ours and not stand in. Starting a healer next. Then just 20 or so to go! :)

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Yes and part of my job was to design the campaigns. I wrote all of the narrative and most of the maps. For the Aztecs, I wanted an alt history where they defended Tenochtitlan.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

"So says Cuauhtemoc, jaguar warrior of Tenochtitlan" I wrote that!

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Brian Holinka is in charge of combat, but I'm not sure if he has an account here

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

We started with it, but will end up having to a bunch of our own work, because Unreal is currently more designed for FPS than for client server RPGs.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

A lot of game designers have experienced the situation where someone plays something and says "I don't know it just wasn't fun" which may be true but doesn't provide them much to go on for how to fix it. So we try to ask more specific questions. Did you understand it? Did you find it worth the cost?

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

It is both. I have always believed you have to playtest and take the feedback seriously but you have to weigh the feedback through your experience and intuition as a developer. A playtester may said "I didn't feel the weight of my hits" and that could be because the enemies don't react at all.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Yeah designers don't use the word "fun" much because it's not very specific. "Satisfying" is the closest word, but that implies a bunch of different things: affordance, skill mastery, expression, responsiveness, immersion, wow factor.

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Many people on your team can’t squint. But if you are in charge of combat (or any other early feature like this) you best be able to. /thread

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

So how are we supposed to judge squintable combat that needs more polish without assuming the polish will fix it? Well that dear reader is why the job is hard. 7/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

We read all the time about failed projects that assume “the old X studio magic” will eventually appear and the game will become fun overnight. 6/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

But the opposite part of that is you can’t just trust blind faith that everything will be good once all the vfx and everything is in place. 5/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

“Is it going to say WIP in big letters in the final game?” 4/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

But there are two somewhat contradictory lessons I want to share here. First, everyone talks about being able to squint at early content. In my experience, most people are awful at squinting. 3/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Thankfully with unreal we don’t have to use literal gray boxes anymore, but combat still won’t feel satisfying without well-timed animations, sfx and vfx, hit reacts, and just better tuning. 2/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

We are at the stage of combat where some folks on the team are like oh no will it ever be fun? I’m not worried. I have been here before. Combat takes so many little things to get right. 1/

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Stop being surprised at the hypocrisy. Their worldview is that they are good so their actions are by definition good, and we are sus so our actions are by definition sus, even if they are the same actions

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Since I live in video meetings so much now, I try to show my hands on camera so the other people know I'm focused on them and not multitasking. This is not a natural position so I have defaulted to steepling my fingers like some kind of Bond villain

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Since I have lots of eggs, scrambled for breakfast because it’s easy, hard boiled for a snack, because it’s quick, but in a restaurant I’ll ask for poached

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Ghostcrawler @ghostcrawler.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Wrote this on the other site. At the root of it, quests are never that interesting, mechanically, in any game: get this, kill that, go here. It’s the context, story, writing that makes them memorable.

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