iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Josh

inkle @inkle.co · 28/09/2026

What's the minimum you need to make a story feel like a story? @joshmlabelle.bsky.social walks us through it: The full ep is here! www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope...

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Now watching: '80s slasher movie Edge of the Axe

The poster for Edge of the Axe, showing a man in a featureless white mask peering through a doorway

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It's so poignant to watch the At The Movies episodes between Siskel and Roeper, where it's just Ebert with random critics each week, and none of the critics put up a real fight if they disagree with Ebert, and the vibe is like Ebert's an old soldier who doesn't know what to do without a war to fight

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I gave a quote for this MobileSyrup article about must-play Canadian games and my quote ended up twice as long as everybody else's because I guess I just can't shut up about Knights of the Old Republic. mobilesyrup.com/2026/09/25/c...

mobilesyrup.com

These are must-play Canadian games, according to Canadian devs

As Canadians, we don't champion ourselves enough, so we asked dozens of game developers to do just that.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Updated my website to reflect the last year! - Gave a talk at GDC and appeared on a panel at D23 - Released 2 expansions for Dreamlight Valley and announced a 3rd, alongside releasing 6 large free updates - Released a million word interactive novel set in the World of Darkness www.joshlabelle.com

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Delaney King (She/Her/Whomst) @delaneyking.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Quick games design lesson: Consider your spaces in terms of points of interaction. (Think consoles, NPCS to talk, item storage or pickups). Here I have three POI placed in a convoluted space. Lets see how a player interacts with them...

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Does the fact that the coffee is *iced* matter in some way? Does a *hot* coffee at a job interview carry an all-together different salience? Is it just to signal a certain additional layer of frivolousness or something?

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This era, give or take thirty issues in either direction, is what the Fantastic Four are in my head. There were tons of those back issues in the bins at my local shop as a kid. There was something magical about reading them out of order and trying to piece together what the hell was going on.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Fight the forces of Hollywood darkness in Hunter: The Reckoning - Day For Night. Or ignore it all for a while, steal a Ferrari to take on a police chase around Hollywood, kickstart your movie career, do a fashion shoot with a changeling... Your call, really. store.steampowered.com/app/3133670/...

store.steampowered.com

Save 20% on Hunter: The Reckoning — Day For Night on Steam

These monsters aren’t just in the movies! Will you hunt the vampires, werewolves and others stalking Hollywood, or will you become a monster instead? An interactive, text-based game set in the World o...

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Aysha U. Farah @ayshaufarah.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This is a piece of advice I always give when I consult: you need someone to have final say. Even in a co-op, even in a group of peers. There needs to be someone who can say “okay, we are implementing this” someone has to take on responsibility for the decisions

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

store.steampowered.com

Save 20% on Hunter: The Reckoning — Day For Night on Steam

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inkle @inkle.co · 23/09/2026

And you can check out Josh's writing in action in this Choice of Games novel released just last week!

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I had an amazing time chatting about the things you learn about storyteller creating a quest a week for Kim Kardashian.

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inkle @inkle.co · 23/09/2026

New Kaleidoscope episode! Set-ups, Attempts, Complications and Pay-Offs @joshmlabelle.bsky.social talks us through the process of managing expectations so that we start off strong, and end with a bang. www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope...

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Cracks me up so much that And Then There Was Shawn wasn't even a Halloween episode of Boy Meets World. They just did a TGIF episode in February where a character kills everybody for some reason.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Like text adventures? Like killing vamps, werewolves, fae? (Or siding with them - your call.) Check out Hunter: The Reckoning - Day for Night, set in the World of Darkness. Below, I'll outline some of the Hollywood references and inspiration throughout. www.choiceofgames.com/2026/09/hunt...

choiceofgames.com

Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night is out now! In Hollywood, everyone is dying to be famous!

In partnership with World of Darkness and Paradox Interactive, Choice of Games is proud to announce the release of Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night by Josh Labelle, now available on Steam, iOS…

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is one of my favorite pieces of writing I did for Hunter: The Reckoning-Day for Night. Having a Hunter with history meant getting to tell these kinds of backstories. Weird fact: for a lot of the prose, but here especially, I was inspired by the voice & rhythms of Craig Finn of the Hold Steady.

"You watched a vampire kill this highway patrolman out in White Pine County this one time-a heavier guy with acne scarred cheeks, quick with a dirty joke, a father of two teenaged daughters whose pictures he kept stuck up on his dashboard beside a bobblehead of Jesus.

His name was Matt Kessler. His death wasn't pretty."

"You'd rolled into town investigating some intel about bloodsucker activity in the area. The sheriff gave you trouble when you came around asking.

Only Kessler believed you. He'd seen some shit.

He led you out to this abandoned copper smelter on the edge of town that he'd heard some rumors about. You were scoping the place when Kessler stepped on the wrong rotted wooden plank and tumbled down into a basement."

"They circled him. Five of them. One of them chained him up to a chair and started working him over with fists and a blowtorch, asking him if he'd come alone. Another couple of them stood guard while the other two started roving, searching the smelter for other intruders.

- I told Arbo that we had to move, now, to save Kessler's ass.
- I look over at Arbo and asked him what the hell we should do.
- I met Arbo's eyes and nodded. Two of us, five of them. No chance unless we played it smart."

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

One underlooked thing that makes Baldur's Gate 3 infinitely replayable is how "Jaquaysed" every single part of its level design is. "Jaquaysing" is a term named for Jennell Jaquays, whose dungeons were beloved for their non-linearity. To "Jaquays" something is (reductively) to make it less linear.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Hunter: The Reckoning - Day for Night should make a great entry point to the World of Darkness/Vampire: The Masquerade universe for anyone new. No homework required. But if you're a fan, you may meet or hear about some familiar faces. I'll lay some out below. store.steampowered.com/app/3133670/...

store.steampowered.com

Save 20% on Hunter: The Reckoning — Day For Night on Steam

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Love this image with Marc Maron hiding down in the corner. What are you doing down there, Marc?? Aren't you scared??

The October collection lineup for the Criterion channel, including categories like Highway Horror and Made-For-TV Terror. The only non-horror collection is "Adventures in Moviegoing with Marc Maron" and alongside the rest of the lineup, Maron's smiling face is incongruous.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We're up to the end of season 5 in our Buffy rewatch and it really cannot be stressed enough how incredibly good Sarah Michelle Gellar is. I'm not sure I've seen a better TV performance than what she does here. She's subtle, nuanced, funny, charming, but always willing to be unlikeable and thorny.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

store.steampowered.com

Save 20% on Hunter: The Reckoning — Day For Night on Steam

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that one video game writer @deathmeetauthor.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

too many people treat the maxim of “game dev is an iterative process” as meaning “we should salt the earth every time we have a new idea” rather than “let’s explore and improve the ideas we already agreed on”

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Joe Wintergreen @joewintergreen.com · 20/09/2026

no game dev skill is more important than making up your fuckin mind

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

God, this is such a good thread about focus testing.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

choiceofgames.com

Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night is out now! In Hollywood, everyone is dying to be famous!

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

If I'm ever in doubt about Shakespeare being very good at what he did, I remember he named a character Sir Toby Belch, a name which I'm confident has remained funny in the exact same way for more than 400 years.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Apparently it's Batman Day. My low-key fav Batman thing is the original Cassandra Cain Batgirl run. I like the side of Batman where this guy who wants to be a tortured loner winds up playing surrogate dad to a found family of weird orphaned gifted kids and this is one of the best versions of that.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Yesterday, Hunter: The Reckoning - Day for Night came out! Jump in while it's on sale and fight back against Hollywood monsters... or sell out and embrace eternity. If you're looking for something to listen to while playing, here are some songs to set the mood www.choiceofgames.com/2026/09/hunt...

choiceofgames.com

Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night is out now! In Hollywood, everyone is dying to be famous!

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

choiceofgames.com

Hunter: The Reckoning — Day for Night is out now! In Hollywood, everyone is dying to be famous!

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Daniel Perlmutter @danielperlmutter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

No one does it like @joshmlabelle.bsky.social - get this game/book!

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Riley Wignall @writelywignall.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Josh is a fantastic writer and spooky season is basically here sooo you know what to do

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I've been reading the Gerry Conway run on Spectacular Spider-Man and it's a lot of fun and a good reminder that superhero stories need strong civilian supporting casts, because they're the changeable part of your status quo and can be put in peril with actual stakes.

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🪡Linden -Human Voodoo Doll📍 @rootwriter.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

One of the only things that I post on here that is not about politic or any of these fucking republicans. It’s been hard to lose about anything outside while in the middle of a take over by people who should have been dealt with, but here is one fun post. www.laughingplace.com/disney-enter...

laughingplace.com

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Diving Into The Keepsake Sea — Live Demo Coverage

We went hands-on with Disney Dreamlight Valley's mermaid and pirate-themed expansion, The Keepsake Sea, ahead of its November launch.

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The Nerds of Color @thenerdsofcolor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The Creators of ‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ Take Us to ‘The Keepsake Sea’ At D23 Expo 2026, we sat down with Gameloft's Riley Wignall and Joshua Labelle to talk mermaids, pirates, and Milo Thatch ahead of Disney Dreamlight Valley's next expansion, The Keepsake Sea....

thenerdsofcolor.org

The Creators of ‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ Take Us to ‘The Keepsake Sea’

At D23 Expo 2026, we sat down with Gameloft's Riley Wignall and Joshua Labelle to talk mermaids, pirates, and Milo Thatch ahead of Disney Dreamlight Valley's next expansion, The Keepsake Sea.

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Riley Wignall @writelywignall.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

FRESH KEY ART!!!!!!

Keyart for Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Keepsake Sea. There's a cute pink-haired mermaid swimming under some waves, and a neato toucan. Nearby, Milo Thatch, Megara, and Captain Jack Sparrow hang out on the dock in front of a sunset.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

What's the hip screenwriting software these days? Is Final Draft still the industry standard? People still using Fade In?

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

[sighs and sets the "Days Since My Favorite Comic Book Writer Was Accused of Being a Monster" sign back to 0]

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's so cool how Blood of Dawnwalker feels like it's explicitly designed to address the big critique of Witcher 3 -- that doing side content feels dissonant with the game's narrative stakes. It's really, really working for me.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I'm reading the Tom Taylor Nightwing run and it's such a shame comic runs can't be like this more often. Action's great, art is stellar, the soapy interpersonal stuff is handled super well, crossovers are smartly integrated, and the writer gets to play it all out over dozens of issues. Great stuff.

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The Interactive Fiction Competition @ifcomp.org · 01/09/2026

Get lamp and check your inventory...the 32nd annual Interactive Fiction Competition opens up tomorrow, Tuesday, September 1...

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Reading Blood of Dawnwalker reviews while breathing into a paper bag. Oh yeah, this one's for me.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Outlaws and the Fallen Order games are honestly fantastic. Some of the best Star Wars universe stuff in years. Outlaws had a few annoying gameplay issues that they patched out super quickly. Other than that, a great time.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Ohhh, instant buy for me, had no idea! Maybe one of my top 5 fav movies. Some of the most beautiful black and white cinematography of all time, along with some of the best hardboiled noir dialogue of all time. Robert Mitchum in this is as cool as anybody has ever been in the history of movies.

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sci.fried @scifried.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Ridley Scott's sketch of Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner (1982) #filmsky

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Terminator 2 on 35mm with a packed audience -- a really great time. Also on our way back from the theater, we saw Finn Wolfhard shooting a scene with the guys from Nirvanna the Band, so that was weird but cool.

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