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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Today is the day to repost this meme about International Men's Day, one of the most unironically wholesome memes that has ever been made. Shoutout to all my fellow champs, chiefs, and kings. ✊

Nerdy kid at keyboard:
Hi guys, I've noticed that it is International Men's Day today, and I'm confused. Why do we need a day to talk about men? We're not a marginalised group like women, queer people, or people of colour. The media is already full of stories about men.

Big buff shirtless dude at keyboard:
I'm glad you asked, champ. Whatever your view on men's place in society, it's still true that we face a lot of issues - like social isolation, risk of suicide, health problems, and attitudes towards sex and child rearing. Having a day to talk about those doesn't take away from anyone else's problems. In fact, having a day to talk about them helps us be more mindful, and listen better at other times.

Second shirtless buff dude on a couch at his laptop:
The chief here is really on to something. I want to echo what he said, and also point out that the idea we should remain silent about our problems actually contributes to a lot of our issues. We are human beings, with human needs. Seeking mutual support and understanding isn't the same thing as placing a burden on others. Especially if we're providing it for each other.

Third buff dude at his laptop:
Right on, my fellow kings. We've inherited a social legacy of competition and division, and a lot of what makes a man in our era is under question. IMD is a chance for us to examine and rethink what we are together, and build the bonds of solidarity and support that will make a better way possible - like in this meme. Because in our hearts, we're all curious kids and buff guys on keyboards.

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 28/10/2025

I am often deeply moved by comments on youtube videos of old songs. It may not be the most skilled poetry, but the sincerity of the message is so powerful to me.

Sometimes I worry about you, the stranger reading these words through a screen in the dark. The stranger who is fighting a war by yourself. It’s not easy being you but you do it to the best of your abilities. It’s not easy being you and yet you survive on nights like this. You inspire me so much despite being a stranger. You inspire these words as you continue to fight for the love you deserve. I know it feels like moving on is impossible and sometimes you don’t even know where to start but I hope you know that there’s a power that lives within you. A power that no one can destroy. A power that can be used to set yourself free. sometimes I worry about you but then I remember how strong you are. I believe in you. Please believe in yourself. Take care.

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"Sweet Man" Cam @malaiseforever.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

reading slaughterhouse 5 for the first time and i was absolutely knocked senseless by this passage, which is so true and relevant that it feels like it was pulled from a history book

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

so I am obviously biased but if you’re interested in smart thinking about game design I think this starter pack is your best quick resource on social media for it. sorry in advance for my contribution of all the animal pics to it.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Aaron Makes Video Games (and a podcast) @nemo10.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

New podcast episode! This week, I talk with @lowbo.io (Benjamin Lindsay), a former Riot game designer who worked on League of Legends and on Riot's illustrious and secretive R&D projects. We talked about Silksong, League of Legends, and what "good game design" even means! makegamesdrinkcoffee.com

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 24/10/2025

I was on a podcast! :O Was a lot of fun chatting with @nemo10.bsky.social about Silksong, League of Legends, and philosophical approaches to game design. Check it out! youtu.be/DtHTlp5Fvjs I’m a Certified Yapping Enjoyer so if anybody reading has a podcast, I’d be happy to be on yours too!

youtu.be

S1E4 - Benjamin Lindsay - Game Designer (formerly: Riot), "Give Everyone a Cookie!"

YouTube video by Make Games, Drink Coffee

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I think smaller teams make better games. I think happy people make better games. I think every studio should be thinking of the team as their #1 product and strength, and the games are the OUTPUT of that team. People should be trained, given opportunities, given reasons to WANT to be there

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 21/10/2025

1000 MBAs could never prepare you for the reality that people like Good Shit and will reward you for delivering it

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Kate Gray @hownottodraw.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

About this second principle, which is VERY important: I often find myself designing and tweaking to pre-empt the complaints that I have internalised after years of community management. But when you do that, you're designing for the wrong person. Design it for the sicko who gets you completely

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Ben Wright - Queex @queex.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

For TTRPGs I had something I thought of as the "postcard principle". "The game's themes and intent should be well-expressed and prominently surfaced by the mechanical rules - ideally it should not be possible to slip a postcard between the two."

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Matt Round @mattround.com · 21/10/2025

The TLDR Principle: if it takes more than a couple of short sentences to explain how to play then it’s not going to work as a quick, casual game

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Brainmage.itch.io @brainmage.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

People Want To Strangle Horses Every game should have at least one stranglable horse. It is a desire deeply rooted in the human psyche. brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran...

brainmage.itch.io

i will strangle a horse by BRAINMAGE

A comedy twine-based choose-your-own-adventure game where it's your first day on The Farm, and you have One Job

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Dowager Allison Salmon @codecrafty.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Not so much a design term as a production term; Hot List -> A prioritized list of stuff that is broken that really should get fixed before the next build/milestone/playtest.

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James B. Jones @jamesbjones.com · 21/10/2025

When it comes to narrative design and game writing, the phrase "story starts with the controller" has been burned into my brain for just about my entire career.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

CodeMarvelous @codemarvelous.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Meaningful decisions doesn't mean opaque decisions.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Blackblooms (indiegamedev) @blackblooms.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

This one is kind of silly since it's named after the thing i want to avoid, but "butter sword syndrome" is an issue where your attacks don't feel like they have any impact upon the enemy. I usually try to avoid it by giving the player attacks plenty of push, even against tougher mobs and bosses.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Aaron Lim 林家丰 @ehronlime.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Playtesting Is Play is one I bang on about a lot but that’s maybe not so obviously applicable. Maybe “Don’t make the game for people who won’t like it”. Call it “sickos only” or “every game it’s player”.

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 21/10/2025

Oh, this one is huge for me too. The Principle of Charity is vitally important in any philosophical endeavor, which includes game design. This applies both internally and externally - sometimes thinking through an idea that's awful at first will lead to someplace productive.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Mitch Dyer @mitchyd.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Imagine the good version. Life-altering advice from the pal Tom Bissell, I rely on this literally every day and it guides every choice I make. It's easy to assume something won't work, or be too hard. But the second I zoom out and exhale and imagine the good version...the road to victory appears

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Richard Cobbett @richardcobbett.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Surprise is a virtue that most gamee lack after the first hour.

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 21/10/2025

I can't choose so I have a couple. #1, stolen from a friend- Design Things To Their Purpose. Seemingly tautological but actually deep. Always keep in mind the end player experience goal and the way your feature interacts with it. *Features* don't need to be fun, the *game* does.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Nathan Savant @baldsavant.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Do, Don't Show. Don't build your systems to look like the cool things are happening, actually let your player do those cool things. Build your systems simple so the player has rules they can follow to create more surprising, emergent moments they'll actually remember.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Mine is "don't waste the player's time," and there are a couple of additional design principles that derive from that. My favorite follow-up is the idea that a game should still be fun even when the player thinks they're losing.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Jon Ingold @jon.inkle.co · 21/10/2025

Always apply ^1.2 or ^0.8 to any linear progression, it makes it better. Weirdly, this does NOT have a cool name.

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Owen Goss @owengoss.com · 21/10/2025

Allow the player to have moments of discovery. Lately, I've been mulling over this idea of game design like writing a joke: setup, punchline, tag, tag, tag. The setup is familiar, then a twist that allows for a moment of surprise/realization, then revisit that in a few different ways.

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Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

in terms of stuff other people invented, my fave is headroom: nethack4.org/blog/strateg...

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Douglas @dmgregory.ca · 21/10/2025

@sorenjohnson.bsky.social's "Water Finds a Crack" has been super influential in how I design progression systems, and how I teach my students. For me, it means asking myself "does optimizing for extrinsic incentives lead players into the fun, or away from it?" www.designer-notes.com/game-develop...

designer-notes.com

GD Column 17: Water Finds a Crack

The following was published in the March 2011 issue of Game Developer magazine… “This is what games are for. They teach us things so that we can minimize risk and know what choices to make. Phrased…

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Sahil Bajaj will BRB (for real this time) @sahilbajaj.dev · 21/10/2025

I've been looking at exploring comedy in games a lot lately and having the player actively participate in the joke. An example from my Dubai Twine is giving players chances to extend existing bits/jokes with their choices (Like "Yes, and" jokes) as opposed to just getting funny responses to a choice

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adamatomic @adamatomic.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Noticing! It's not a cool name, but the most overlooked kind of fun in games (and alll art ??) is the stream of tiny little "a ha" moments when you realize something you didn't realize before...

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Heather Flowers (500FF DEMO OUT NOW) @hthrflwrs.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Give players the tools of their own destruction, explaining exactly what each tool does along the way, knowing that they'll use them anyways and blame themselves when it all comes crashing down

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Liz England @lizardengland.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

"is this fun for the player or fun for the designer?"

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Kate Gray @hownottodraw.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I have one that I call "Go Left" - platformers often hide a secret for players who go left, instead of right, on the first screen. You're immediately rewarding players for thinking outside the box and being curious, instead of blindly following implied directions, with a low-effort small reward

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Kate Gray @hownottodraw.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

What's your number one personal game design principle? And even better - does it have a cool name?

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 20/10/2025

Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.

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Reposted by Lowbo | 就是萝卜

Getlucky12341 @getlucky12341.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

>Get Earthbound for the first time ever in 2025 >The world's gone mad >All the adults are useless at best or trying to kill you at worst >Everyone talks like a crazy person >Everything's too expensive >Your next door neighbor wants to be a dictator >Get home and start playing Earthbound

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 19/10/2025

WHAT AM I LOOKING AT??? Is this shit AI generated?

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

This shit is getting out of hand at some point only the robots will be able to solve them

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

Can somebody please tell me how the fuck this captcha is supposed to be solvable

“Drag the letter on the right to the place where it fits” it’s a C but there are three other Cs in the picture!!!

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

there are many good reasons not to have VO, but for me one prime thing overshadows everything, which is having VO slows down iteration speed. and as time goes on I more and more think that "iterations/[time period]" is one of, if not THE most important variable to optimize for

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

is "big dumper" called that cause he got a caboose?

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

Is it a regular baseball thing that I see consecutive posts on my TL from fans of opposing teams interpreting the exact same things as omens of doom for the team they support

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 18/10/2025

TIL that when Microsoft OneDrive says its "backing up" your files and data what it really means is "copying them into the cloud and then DELETING THE LOCAL FILES"

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Lowbo | 就是萝卜 @lowbo.io · 17/10/2025

for some godforsaken reason this prompted me to google "clippy rule 34" which had completely predictable results

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