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hiive

@hiivelabs.com
408 followers 271 following 2.2K posts

Developer who started his professional journey last millennium. If you follow me expecting me to follow back, you are likely to be disappointed unless your posts interest me. Remember: AI ≠ GenAI hiivelabs.com/blog

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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 4h
I'm a fan of Quazatron.
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MauS @mausthekat.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." #retrogames #gamedev #Mausitron
A close up of the Mausitron player robot, with a rubber duck on top of its head.
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MauS @mausthekat.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Finally! Got the #JetSetWilly Redux in-game map working more or less how I want it on the #ZXSpectrumNext. Just a few more tweaks and optimizations needed and it will be at parity with the PC version (downloadable as jetsetwilly.net). #Retro #Gamedev
JSW:R Single player mode, running on MacOS, showing the in-game map.JSW:R Single player mode, running on ZX Spectrum Next, showing the in-game map.
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Byte Arcane making Sigil of Kings @byte-arcane.itch.io · 06/03/2026
Hey #TeaseYaGame, here's Sigil of Kings: 🌍 Explore a huge procedural world in vibrant 16-bit pixel art ⚔️ Conquer deadly dungeons with might, magic & cunning 👑 Complete quests, ascend guild ranks, shape city fates 💀 Make your mark in a living, breathing world. Or perish! 👉 Playtest soon on Steam!
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Nautical.Nico @cybermonsterart.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Guys i animated #art#blue#wings#angel#shadows#halo#glow#valkyrie#paint #animated#runes
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 07/02/2026
Happy #Caturday from Truffle, my newest rescue.
A gray kitten sitting looking up with big eyes at a point above the camera, wearing a red collar with a bell attached.
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MauS @mausthekat.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Jet Set Willy
The Bathroom from Jet Set Willy, a popular 1984 video game, enhanced with graphics by Andy Noble (@loafjaw.bsky.social)
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Kenney @kenney.nl · 15/01/2026
Retro Textures 1 is out now! 🎉 Completely free to download and use in any of your projects. Includes 115 textures like walls, floors, windows, doors and much more! kenney.nl/assets/retro... (no tracking, no ads, no sign-up, etc.)
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Richard Jordan @ericretro.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
My new Playdate project, Melkhior's Tower, has a new home on Itch, where I'll post more frequent dev updates to avoid spamming the socials with too many updates. #melkhiorstower #playdate #gamedev #indiedev #pixelart bitglint.itch.io/melkhiors-to...
bitglint.itch.io
Melkhior's Tower Playdate by BitGlint Games
A Playdate exclusive Melkhior's Mansion spin-off
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 07/01/2026
I want to get a Playdate just to play this.
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CSS by T. Afif @css-only.dev · 06/01/2026
💡 CSS Tip! Create a responsive grid of hexagon shapes with fewer than 15 CSS declarations, minimal HTML, and without media queries! css-tip.com/hexagon-grid/ Improving a 5-year old implementation using modern CSS (corner-shape, sibling-index(), math functions, etc)
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Grace @gracekind.net · 01/01/2026
As we enter into 2026: here are a few tips I've developed for posting about AI on Bluesky!
leaflet.pub
GK's Guide to Posting about AI on Bluesky
A few "do"s and "don't"s
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Steve Trower @sptroweresq.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
#BluePit📖 #SF #A The Ballad of Matthew Smith - the unofficial novel of Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner 🕹 #GameLit 👾 #Retrogaming 🏫 Big house ☎️ Weird gadgets 🐰 Frank ⛏️ Mining 🐛 Strange creatures Ebook available everywhere books2read.com/u/bOLa93 Paperback available from the author.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 29/12/2025
Stood behind Terry Pratchett in line in a sandwich shop. I didn't even realize it was him until after I left. He was even wearing the same hat and coat as some of his author photos!
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 28/12/2025
If God had not wanted us to eat school children, then why did he make them so tasty?
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SarahJaneAvory @sarahjaneavory.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
#C64 #Kouyate #RPG progress: working on the town of Eastport, getting all the shops working and finalising the layout. Also added The Hidden Way, the passage that leads to Pirate's Cove. Now I can get to Pirate's Cove, I'd better get all the shop maps there done... Cartridge used: 320 of 960K.
Entering the coastal town of Eastport. A signpost says, "Welcome to Eastport. Pirates NOT Welcome".
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Cubicle 7 Games @cubicle7games.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set is now available to preorder at bit.ly/3YB2tEK #warhammer #oldhammer #warhammercommunity #cubicle7 #ttrpgs #theoldworld #gamesworkshop #tabletoproleplay
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 18/12/2025
@ericretro.bsky.social Absolute long shot, but I found a facebook post from 11 years ago(!) indicating that you'd downloaded beta 3.1 of jsw:online and the screen editor. I don't suppose you still have those kicking around, do you?
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MKSchmidt @mkschmidt30.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Hey, check out my game Cyclopean: The Great Abyss. It is in the top 100 games at IndieDB, and has a shot at Indie of the Year! #CRPG #Lovecraft #Indie #GameDev #TurnBasedThursday You can still vote for it here (2 days left) www.indiedb.com/games/cyclop...
A Gug!The Tower of Koth!A Night-Gaunt confronts you!
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 16/12/2025
Well. This is glorious.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 15/12/2025
Superb and creepy bedtime reading.
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Dave Morris @davemorris.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
A pre-launch review of Whispers Beyond The Stars: "Modern #Lovecraft: sleek, eerie, buzzing with uneasy implication rather than melodrama [...] Every decision feels messy, weighty, and uncomfortably human." I'll take that. #Cthulhu #gamebook gamefound.com/en/projects/...
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 11/12/2025
Reposting to catch other timezones.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 11/12/2025
New blog post: Building a Zèrtz AI, Part 1: MCTS, Rust, and Hexagonal Symmetry! As always, comments and questions are welcome. #ml #ai #gamedev #graphics (This is an automated post.)
hiivelabs.com
Building a Zèrtz AI, Part 1: MCTS, Rust, and Hexagonal Symmetry
Building a Zèrtz AI involves developing a Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) engine that navigates the game's complex mechanics, including mandatory captures and dynamic board topology. The implementation utilizes a Rust backend for performance, Python for orchestration, and Panda3D for rendering, with the code available on GitHub. Key challenges addressed include handling forced capture sequences and adapting to the changing adjacency graph as the board shrinks. Future enhancements may focus on optimizing the search algorithm and exploring the implications of hexagonal symmetry on the game's strategic depth.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 10/12/2025
This is not a good look, Steam.
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🐔 Brian Bucklew 🐔 ₑͤ>∿<ₑͤ ∞🌮 @unormal.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
don't forget ACA plans deadline this year is DECEMBER 15th not january
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 07/12/2025
I love these books. Classic pulp at its finest.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 07/12/2025
If I owned a cereal company, I'd be putting Peace Prizes in every box right now.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 05/12/2025
This has been at least forty years of planning and execution. They played the long game, and it's clearly paying dividends. Longer term though, this is not good for them either.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 03/12/2025
@wisp.place I'm playing around with some toy websites, and occasionally I get a really unhelpful message in the deploy log: [WISP] stderr: × client error ╰─▶ jacquard::agent::client × client error Any idea what this is? And is there any way you could make the error info more helpful?
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 03/12/2025
Just finished a playthrough of #Dispatch. Excellent game.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 01/12/2025
Does the #Bluesky #iOS app hang after playing a video for anyone else? It seems to happen about 90% of the time. It will freeze at the end of the video, and there's no visible way to return to the timeline without restarting the app. @support.bsky.team
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 30/11/2025
I didn't realize it was that easy! D'oh. What have I been doing with my life?!
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 27/11/2025
The only thing they should be redacting is the name of the victims. Assholes.
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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 25/11/2025
New analysis by the House of Commons library estimates that Brexit is costing the Treasury up to £90bn a year in lost tax revenue. To fix our nations finances we must get closer to Europe and fix the problems caused by Brexit... bit.ly/4pobLzs
independent.co.uk
Brexit costing UK up to £90bn in lost tax revenue , new analysis shows
Exclusive: Britons also up to £3,700 worse off, leading to calls for the Labour government to improve relations with the EU
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 20/11/2025
No algorithm here. Just people.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 30/10/2025
A little bit more work on my #Zertz #ML #boardgame visualization tools. I can now render an entire game, turn-by-turn from the SGF files on boardspace.net :)
This is a turn-by-turn render of T!Z11-Alex504-bluedog-2025-10-29-1136.sgf from https://www.boardspace.net/zertz/zertz-viewer.shtml
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 29/10/2025
Interesting...
What’s plotted:
	•	Each marker = one hyperparameter setting of the search.
	•	X: mean time per game (s). Y: win rate.
	•	Color encodes three knobs: more red → higher exploration constant; more green → higher progressive‑widening constant; more blue → stronger FPU reduction.
	•	Marker shape = RAVE constant (circle/square/triangle/diamond or “+” for none).

What it tells you:
	1.	Two clear speed regimes
There are two clusters: a fast group around ~11–15 s and a slow group around ~21–30 s. They cover similar win‑rate ranges, so you’re not getting automatic strength gains just by spending more time. In fact, the best scores appear in the faster cluster, so many slow settings are dominated by faster ones.
	2.	Weak global time→win correlation
Across both clusters, win rate varies widely at the same time budget. More time helps some settings, hurts others, and often does little, so hyperparameters matter more than raw time.
	3.	Pareto frontier (best trade‑offs)
The “upper‑left edge” of the cloud around 12–15 s with win rates ≳0.75–0.85 forms the practical Pareto set; configurations there deliver high strength without extra time. Use those as baselines and ignore points to their right/below because they’re strictly worse trade‑offs. (Pareto frontier: set of nondominated trade‑offs in multi‑objective problems.)  
	4.	No single hyperparameter wins by itself
Top‑performing points are a mix of colors and shapes. There’s no obvious red/green/blue gradient up the Y‑axis, which implies interaction effects: exploration constant, widening, and FPU reduction need to be tuned together rather than pushed to extremes.
	5.	RAVE constant isn’t the decisive lever
High‑scoring points use several shapes (including “RAVE none”).
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 26/10/2025
First pass of #AI implementation for my #ML #Zertz #boardgame experiment. I've been working on the visualization of player 2 thinking. Player 1 is Random. Player 2 is MCTS. If you look closely you can see the thinking visualization for player 2. It's especially noticeable on their first turn.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 22/10/2025
A little bit more #zertz #ml #boardgame fun. Mostly cosmetic, but it's fun to look at, if a little impractical.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 22/10/2025
So, anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for cats. We have a feral cat colony in our neighborhood that I leave food out for on occasion (I've long since stopped trying TNR; it was a losing battle), and - because kittens are cute - I accidentally befriended one of the kittens. 1/2
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 22/10/2025
Given what I've seen of the content description, they would have done it more justice calling it 4.5e, but we'll see how it looks when it comes out!
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 21/10/2025
Okay, I'm cherry-picking, and I've still got some bugs to fix, but this is promising... #zertz #ml #boardgame fun.
Excertp of final game and summary results from testing my Monte Carlo Tree Search zertz player implementation against a random player implementation.

Game 10/10 (Random vs MCTS)... MCTS (P2) won (33 moves)

======================================================================
AGGREGATE STATISTICS (10 games)
======================================================================

Overall Results:
  Player 1 wins: 5 (50.0%)
  Player 2 wins: 5 (50.0%)
  Ties: 0 (0.0%)

MCTS as Player 1:
  Wins: 5/5 (100.0%)
  Losses: 0/5 (0.0%)
  Ties: 0/5 (0.0%)

MCTS as Player 2:
  Wins: 5/5 (100.0%)
  Losses: 0/5 (0.0%)
  Ties: 0/5 (0.0%)

Overall MCTS Performance:
  Total wins: 10/10 (100.0%)

Game Length:
  Average moves per game: 32.4
  Min: 27, Max: 36
======================================================================
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 18/10/2025
Fun with the #boardgame #zertz #ml project. This image shows the equivalent permutations (via reflection/rotation) of a specific board state. The more equivalent permutations, the more we can reduce the state space we have to search.
The image shows twelve permutations of a Zértz board position. All of the positions are equivalent via rotation and/or mirroring. The top left board state is the canonicalized layout, the next board state shows the original input layout, and the remaining ten are the other equivalent permutations.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 17/10/2025
I probably should have tagged this #zertz and #boardgames as well as #ML.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 16/10/2025
Managed to get some more time in on my #ML distraction project that I return to every six months or so - this is a board game called Zértz - one of the Gipf Project.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 10/10/2025
More fun tweaks on a side-#ML project I've been working on. I've added intention indicators. Green for placement, red for removal, blue for capture. (It's just random play right now, but I've been working on making sure the rules are enforced correctly. Not as easy as one would think.)
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Joseph Hall @groundh0g.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
effingham (ef·fing·ham) — n. 1. unwanted pork First posted on: Tue May 27 2014 #fauxcabulary
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 07/10/2025
It's been a while, but I finally got some time to work on the fun bits of a side-#ML project I've been working on. I don't get to play with this very often, so it's a nice break.
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hiive @hiivelabs.com · 10/09/2025
Proverbs 22:8 seems appropriate today. (Disclaimer: I'm not religious, but I do read a lot.)
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