iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

One of the best games of the year and best decisions about its release.

Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

That Louie Zong wrote the music, performed the song, AND made the cutest animation to accompany it demands we respond with the careful administration of a finely crafted blend of appreciation and jealousy. 👻🎃⛹🏻‍♂️🍹🫡

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Reposted by Matthew

Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The American white collar workforce started working from home three days a week for like six months a year into COVID and executives so thoroughly lost their minds over this that they installed Trump II. If anything, AI will create the 7-day workweek.

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Reposted by Matthew

Do Better Games AKA //dbg @dobettergames.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Though both new editions have been out for a few months, we just sent out a newsletter informing our audience about the availability of the @ezeekat.bsky.social presents @happycampergames.bsky.social edition (English) and frechverlag Booklove edition (German). #bringyourownbook #byobook

A subtitled photograph of two different editions of the party game Bring Your Own Book. On the left, the Ezeekat presents Happy Camper edition, and on the right, the frechverlag TOPP Kreativ edition. Both include a stack of prompt cards in front, with one card turned to face the viewer though the text is too small to read. Both are charmingly blue and feature the title Bring Your Own Book in bright friendly letters. At the top a title has been superimposed: "Welcoming the newest editions of Bring Your Own Book."

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don't remember it, but I was told by my parents that we had to leave a screening of Ghostbusters because I was scared of the demon dogs. These two I remember though; both equally traumatizing adventures. Will Vinton and Terry Gilliam have special spots in the pantheon of my childhood horrors.

A cropped screen capture from the film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen when the angel of death breaks free from the stone grotesque on the wall in order to claim the Baron.

A cropped screen capture from the claymation film The Adventures of Mark Twain in which Satan is portrayed as a suit of armor carrying a mask on a stick.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The comic was great. In related spooky comic news: bsky.app/profile/beet...

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Hey, @snackczar.bsky.social: new off-season bracket idea. Dunked foods; king of the dipped. Fondues vs. Dunkaroos vs. Italian beef sandos vs. bikkies in tea.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Autumn, when the air turns brisk and we dunk our Twinkies in our mochas.

A close-up of an unbitten Twinkie that's covered in foamy mocha from having been dunked in the Star Trek mug immediately to the left. In the background are a fruiting holly tree and many other plants.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's that time again, pumpkin people. Mayor Bones (and @adamgryu.bsky.social) have opened the annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival. Make you a jack o'lantern and be careful getting rides on any hay-hauling tractors or passing UFOs! adamgryu.itch.io/pumpkin-carver

An image collage with screenshots from the Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival game. The background is an overhead shot of a town filled with jack o'lanterns. Inset are a picture of a ghost wearing glasses and a pirate hate under the banner "Design Your Ghost." There's also a picture of a jack o'lantern carved to look like Dropout CEO Sam Reich, the back of which is featured in another inset screenshot and displays a multi-ribbon arch surrounded by the words "i've been here the whole time."

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Reposted by Matthew

Do Better Games AKA //dbg @dobettergames.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Designer Matthew is on hand at the PNBA fall tradeshow repping Bring Your Own Book and other @happycampergames.bsky.social titles. If you're at the event, drop by and say hi. And if you'd love to see BYOBook at your local bookshop, let us know and we'll reach out? ♥️📖🥳🃏

A friendly looking man stands in a blue shirt covered in cats next to a tiny bookshelf and behind a table covered in board games with the banner Happy Camper at the bottom.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Many funny fake movies in the Dead Rising mall. I'm a particular fan of the very on-the-nose Evil Wish Stealing Magician...and also that they snuck a Lost Planet promo into the mix.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My little man does not like going to the vet and insists I wear clothes he can hide in.

A little grey cat stares out from deep inside the gap between a fleece jacket and a man in a T-shirt sitting on the ground.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Many people are reskeeting an older post right now despite those beavers being released back at the end of May. If you're looking for current animal cam action, there's still time to get in on Fat Bear Week: www.youtube.com/live/J7ZrIDv...

youtube.com

LIVE Brooks Falls - Katmai National Park, Alaska 2026 | explore.org

YouTube video by Explore Live Nature Cams

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Games industry people: Take This is doing a new series of talks specially for us. First one is focused on burnout and exhausting job searches. You can still register. If you can't make today but are interested in future sessions, you can sign up for their newsletter: www.takethis.org/support/news...

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The level of senseless persecution in this country is maddening.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

P.S. I was a little proud of "Againtures," which I've subsequently searched the internet for and come up empty. If you're making an adventurous sequel and looking for a punny title, please help yourself.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm glad they realized how misleading it was early on. Even spinoff games properly feature the main character's name in the title. Both CD-i games featuring Zelda don't feature Link's name (Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure), and Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love is as advertised.

A picture from the manual for Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love featuring an idealized portrait of Tingle, resplendent in green and ripped like a Greek god, sipping a chalice of wine while being thronged by admirers.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm about to play Echoes of Wisdom, the first main series Legend of Zelda game to star Zelda and the first since 1987's Zelda II: The Adventure of Link not to feature Link's name in the title.

A text graphic based on the box are from the first Legend of Zelda game with the subtitle "The 21 main games in the Legend of Zelda series," that lists those titles as follows:
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
The Legend of Zelda: Linkarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Link
The Legend of Zelda: Oraclink of Seasons
The Legend of Zelda: Oraclink of Ages
The Legend of Zelda: Four Links
The Legend of Zelda: The Link Laker
The Legend of Zelda: Four Links Againtures
The Legend of Zelda: The Linkish Cap
The Legend of Zelda: Twilink Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Linkinglass
The Legend of Zelda: Linkit Tracks
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Slink
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force He-Link
The Legend of Zelda: Link Gone Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Linkdom
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Please be aware of Elon Musk's latest scam involving a fake voting registration site. Vote.gov is the legitimate federal voting site. VoteSafe is not. More details here: electionlawblog.org/2026/the-hid...

vote.gov

Find the information you need to make registration and voting easy. Official voter registration website of the United States government.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Being the best even during the worst. ❤️‍🩹

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I know a lot of people who are hurting right now and wondering how to manage it. [zelda-dangerous-to-go-alone.jpg]

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Reposted by Matthew

George E. Osborn @georgeosborn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"I am tired of Earth. These gamers. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."

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Goodnews @goodnews.computer · 04/09/2026

Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.

A hand holding a model train with a replica of the same graffiti on the full scale train car behind it.

A model train with two graffiti pieces on opposite sides.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

That soundtrack holds me, thrills me, kisses me, AND kills me. 🦇

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Slings & Arrows must count. I've oohed at Branagh, aahed at Nunn, gawped at Kurosawa, and even clapped at Luhrmann. But even with some grating gender politics, I howled with laughter and wept several times during Slings & Arrows.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

"Huh, I don't think I know the music from that movie." Yes, you do: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshin... You very much do: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUWT...

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Sunshine is not a bad film, just uneven in challenging ways. But for the purposes of the prompt, sure, the distance between the "goodness" of the film and the extraordinary quality of the soundtrack puts it squarely in the category as declared.

static.klipy.com

Intense Fire Reaction

ALT: Intense Fire Reaction

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

100% Agreed. Big Walk has been a delight. Also there are no good candidates for GOTY 2026 is a wild take. Hang on, let me just click in a bit. "...for the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards..." Oh, thaaaaat. 🙄 Sure, whatever. Never mind. Nothing to see here.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

They're doing important work over there. Somebody gotta hook them up.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Some friends and I once bought a birthday gift for a big Simpsons fan in our group: the Simpsons trivia game. He was initially excited until he realized none of us felt knowledgeable enough to play it with him. Honestly, as gift givers, we could have thought that one through a little better.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Was reading the most recent @puzzmo.com newsletter (which has behind-the-scenes info on game and puzzle authorship + bonus puzzles), and the Picto-Gram puzzle where letters for a word are arranged on a hidden outline of a matching image made me sad that "star" has only four letters.

A diagram of a partially drawn star with letters and the vertices such that it starts in the lower left with an ess, travels diagonally up and right to the tee, diagonally down and right to the a, diagonally left and up to an ar, then an incomplete line to the right where a sad, tearful emoji sits at the fifth point.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Some days have that effect on you.

Screenshot from a Reddit AMA with Wile E Coyote where someone asks "When Judge Doom was defeated in "Who Framed Rodger Rabbit", why did you choose to side hug the Road Runner rather than eat him? Mind you, this was the closest you got to capturing him in your thousands and thousands of attempts." and includes a screenshot from the film. Wile E Coyote responds by holding up a sign that says, "It was an emotional day."

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Heads up, @valvesoftware.com: It looks like Jeremy Culhane could be handy to keep in the rolodex.

A screenshot of side-by-side browser windows, one a cast selfie from the Game Changer episode "What's the Catch?" clipped to just Jeremy Culhane wearing a suit, grasping his tie, and making a pinched face, while the other screen is a capture from a wiki page for the G-Man from the Half-Life game series showing him wearing a suit, grasping his tie, and raising his eyebrow.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Perhaps most importantly is I actually have a digital word game that I prototyped with @jonagill.itch.io that speaks directly to this design problem, and I'd love to pitch it to @stfj.net for @puzzmo.com but I've never gotten around to figuring out how or pulling the trigger. Till today anyway. 🤘😅

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It reminds me of how my sister and I would play our variation of the license plate game, specifically how the length of our solutions wasn't as important as separator letters. OCTOPUS would beat CYBERPUNK, and I find that delightful. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

docs.google.com

The License Plate Game (Moore version)

The License Plate Game (Moore version) This game is not a particularly novel invention. People have been playing word games with the letters on license plates for probably a hundred years. Making a wo...

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

But I think the bigger reason I can't close the thoughtline is this statement by @stfj.net: "Restricting the solution set to the longest hidden words works great, but some days when I play I still wish finding a super cool short word meant something." That problem lives on for him as it does for me.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

For one, I genuinely loved Wordbind, and I really appreciated the discussion of procedural puzzle games that have a finite puzzle space that's small enough to experience basically all of it. Something doesn't need to be unbounded to be great or beautiful. Part of tagging the email was to reread it.

A screenshot of the Puzzmo game Wordbind, featuring the starter words "MEAN-IDLE-SAT" and a series of scoring words from within ("mailes, idles, mends, maids, meals, mails, maile"), along with associated website and game UI.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

My brain works in mysterious ways. I've had this @puzzmo.com newsletter flagged in my email for almost a year because I can't close a thoughtline about their retrospective for Wordbind. link.mailer.puzzmo.com/view/653145d...

link.mailer.puzzmo.com

ISSUE #110 | December 5, 2025

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Right: "Here is the corpse of the thing, and here's a recording of that thing when it was alive" is a very museumy approach. 😅

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Obviously it's complicated, but preserving an object by removing its ability to continue doing 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 has an element of sadness.

An edited screenshot from A Charlie Brown Christmas featuring Charlie Brown, looking distraught with his hand on his forehead, staring at the Singing Stone (which no longer sings because of its display environment) and features the subtitle "I've killed it."

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It is interesting that the outcome can hinge, not just a tool or a practice, but on a very specific implementation or execution as tailored to the individual. Over here, we have productivity software makes it better and over here we have productivity software makes it worse. 😅

static.klipy.com

Spongebob Goes Crazy and Glitches Out

ALT: Spongebob Goes Crazy and Glitches Out

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I love the "in the band or just the fanclub" framing. 😁 Also as someone with task prioritization issues who has run development teams, I imagine you'll also relate to how funny I find it that it's easy for me to prioritize tasks for OTHER people.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I identify with and am empathetic to others in my DSM diagnosis bucket, but I find it useful to remember that we're all working with different flavors and degrees of this thing. It isn't helpful to me to fall into "ADHD VS NORMALZ" thinking. And I eventually ate breakfast, which is a good start.

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I don't have much trouble with attention, and my hyperactivity is low, but I do struggle with task prioritization and initialization. I can spend an hour in bed thinking I should: - Get dressed before breakfast but - Shower before getting dressed but - Eat breakfast before taking a shower but...

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Matthew @ironmaus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

As someone with ADHD, I bristle at most short-form ADHD content, particularly when it's reductive and generalizes. We don't all have the same brain, and neither do the imagined "neurotypicals" positioned on the other end of the black-and-white binary. By way of personal example...

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