iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I recently pushed out some stat rebalancing and new endings, bringing the total endings up to 16 (plus some secret ones). It's a great time to try it if you haven't yet.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I've gone a while without doing any shameless self-promotion, so reminder that if you're looking for some Halloween reading material, Hunter: The Reckoning - Day for Night has it all -- vampires, werewolves, Hollywood yoga influencers... store.steampowered.com/app/3133670/...

store.steampowered.com

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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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I really enjoyed RESIDENT EVIL. Such a fun approach to take to this franchise and it played the audience like a piano. I like how Cregger is charting this course in very commercial horror filmmaking that's not dull A24-prestige-horror-about-trauma but also not big dumb blockbuster slop.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

but am I not caring what other people think in the way that is cool or the way that is cringe

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Starting my October by watching the new 4K edition of Out of the Past and thinking about how this movie blew my brain open when I was 14. Like it was a real before-and-after thing.

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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 · 28/09/2026

The best movie for this is Pieces, where every single environment looks like one of those liminal spaces accounts.

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Josh @joshmlabelle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The bad weird pacing of '80s slashers can feel like a feature and not a bug. Like for large chunks of this movie you're just looking at people in dated fashions talking in rooms with shitty wood panelling and it enables it to become a vibe in a way that something that moved like a movie wouldn't.

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

This movie has one of those less common slasher tropes, the "mystifyingly bad needle drop that's clearly an original song made by a band fronted by a friend of the director"

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

The Northern California location shooting in this movie is incredible. It's fun just to like see some of these huge-ass trees.

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

These slasher movies set in America but made by Italian filmmakers always have this weird dreamlike quality that I really enjoy.

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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

And now it's time for me to slow down and enter a period of deep reflection about my need to be productive

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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

This is definitely the discourse escalation I was looking for

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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

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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

You'd REALLY feel like you passed through a year with those characters too. All the ups and downs and tonal shifts of real life. 22 seems like it was rough on everybody from a production standpoint but can we settle for a middle ground of 15?

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

This season also really benefits from every single writer being great and having their own signature style which gives the season a really varied texture. Jane Espenson episodes feel like Jane Espenson episodes. Same with David Fury or Doug Petrie. It gives it a sort of Beatles album quality.

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

Finished season 5. Can't be overstated how good this show was when firing on all cylinders. I'm still not sure I've seen another show where the storylines snap together like a puzzle quite the way the ones in Buffy do when it's at his best.

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

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy my interactive novel set in the World of Darkness. While there's more vampire killing than siring in it, who knows what might happen if you play your cards right. bsky.app/profile/josh...

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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

If you end up playing and enjoying Day for Night, I would love a recommendation on Steam or a rating on the platform of your choice. It's super critical for a game like this to help it reach its audience.

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

The main quarry of Day for Night has a history intimately tied up with Isaac Abrams, the Baron of Hollywood before Nelli, featured in a lot of places, but most importantly to me the original Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

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

Players who gravitate towards the werewolf side of the game may earn themselves a chance to meet Strikes A Chord (originally played by Jason Charles Miller) and the Bone Gnawer tribe in Griffith Park, originally introduced in LA By Night.

Jason Charles Miller as Strikes A Chord in the Vampire: The Masquerade - LA By Night actual play podcast

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

While Nelli mostly deals with the player from the shadows through vampire toughs like Maz & Otto, or a trusted Renfield named Dahlia, by completing her chain of quests, you may earn the chance to eventually meet her... and maybe wind up becoming a permanent part of her day-shift.

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

As you might expect, the sandbox I'm playing in is Los Angeles, so characters and events from the world of the LA By Night actual play podcast do come into play. This is a world where Nelli G (originally played by Cynthia Marie) has taken over as Baron of Hollywood.

Nelli G as played by Cynthia Marie in the Vampire: The Masquerade - LA By Night podcast.

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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 · 20/09/2026

Andre Micheaux, Los Angeles city council candidate who you can help deal with a supernatural problem, is named after Oscar Micheaux, considered the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century.

A black and white photograph of film director Oscar Micheaux

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

A prominent recurring location is Winky's Diner, inspired by Winkie's from David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.

An image of a sign that reads "Winkie's - Sunset Boulevard" from Mulholland Drive.

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

This has been around for a little bit now and is a built in function of ChoiceScript. The first game I saw it used in was one of the previous Hunter games, A Time of Monsters. It's at the discretion of authors if they use it from what I've seen, though.

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

Five of 'em, with no judging from me if you wanna roll back and try something different if you're not cool with a quest outcome.

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