iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 29/09/2026

Honored to join Jason & Gabe on @blastpoints.bsky.social to discuss the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art! Come for the perilously deep cuts, stay for the narrative taxonomy. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. on.soundcloud.com/yydPqD2f5816...

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 25/09/2026

The folks who make The Room series of delightful puzzle games are crowd-funding a plush of the mysterious safe from their first level!

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 19/09/2026

The new "Inked" maze at Knott's Scary Farm is a masterpiece.

The facade at the entrance of Inked, a marquee that reads "Morbid Studios", with three retro rubber-hose cartoon characters on top.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/09/2026

Fewer labor disputes in a post-scarcity economy.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 17/09/2026

The Datapad is dead. Long live the Datapad.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 16/09/2026

The screen is redeemed at the end of the movie.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 14/09/2026

If "providing interactive play areas for recreational purposes" means Murder She Wrote at Fan Fest, Universal wins.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 11/09/2026

Corporate cowards allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by silicon valley conmen fearmongering on "being left behind" despite having no path to profitability. Not sure which to blame, the fool or the fool who follows him. There will always be hucksters, but we don't have to follow them off a cliff.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 05/09/2026

I think I've found a new third space in the @lucasmuseum.bsky.social library.

The Library in the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 01/09/2026

Affordances for the reality of your audience's participation style and the limitations of your capacity relative to demand — I believe these are the experience designer's responsibility. There are design solutions that could address the difficulties of this concept.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 01/09/2026

You have displayed more consideration for the narrative experience of the guest in this comment than the design of this walkaround will afford.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 01/09/2026

Speaking of this, Sunday was the first time at Ghost Town Alive that I felt they've entered the territory with their playerbase's level of commitment to costume and participation that they need to give an identifiable "Calico Resident" badge of some kind to all of the official performers.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 01/09/2026

I share your concerns. If the operations play out as they described, it is deeply negligent interactive experience design. (Unsurprising given the designer's track record on this front.)

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 31/08/2026

Another vibrant Founder's Day, filled with hitchin' traditions, book clubs, time capsules, secrets revealed, and a visit from the Governor declaring, "Calico belongs to the people!" Ghost Town Alive remains a shining beacon of boundless communal play in an increasingly passive theme park landscape.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 29/08/2026

If you could use a laugh, and also feel suffocated by corporate malfeasance, please go see COYOTE VS ACME in a theater this weekend.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 19/08/2026

Yeah, it's still a long way from the ideal version of this concept (I want bluetooth connectivity that tracks what I've done with it and sends me out on quests) but it's just refreshing to see something like this improve annually rather than disappear forever.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 19/08/2026

I still wonder if the cancelled Peter Ramsey live action series was a Kelleran show.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 19/08/2026

In happier theme park gameplay news, Knott's / Six Flags has released the fourth iteration of their interactive lantern for the 2026 haunt season. This improved version features a new "color collector" experience in addition to previous modes, and, for the first time, a speaker for sound effects!

The lantern. Notice the added symbols on the base.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

I know how heartbreaking it is to lose a third space. We're all entering an era that will test our boundaries. Tragic to watch a company founded by artists discard what remains of its legacy in order to repeatedly chase silicon valley snake oil down the drain. Mike renders his pain beautifully.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

I still believe the ultimate potential of this embodied medium is interactive. The Play app took a giant leap toward empowering curious folks to peel back a layer & explore these spaces on a deeper level. Its wings were clipped, but I will forever celebrate the miracle that it existed at all.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

Perhaps the orphaned triggerable show effects will eventually find new methods of being triggered, but for now it seems the parks are entering an era devoid of play.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

The most gutting loss for me (naturally, as a founding phone case kitbasher) is the Datapad experience hosted within the PDP app. A wealth of original, land-specific, epistolary Star Wars fiction rendered inaccessible to new visitors to Batuu. A tremendous shame.

The founding Datapad phone case builder kitbash party!

Nick with his Datapad, bothering Asa while others play with the app.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

The minigames that occasionally frustrated other guests were just an alibi, and the real secret sauce was the interactions enabled by the app's backend. It was a profound moment the first time a theme park ride remembered me.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

Play Disney Parks, even in its compromised state, represented a lot of ambitions I'd waited my whole life to see. Exclusive merchandise unlocked though gameplay was one of those concepts, if only briefly and timidly attempted, and I still think it holds vast untapped potential.

An achievement pin available exclusively to Play Disney Parks players.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/08/2026

Reminiscing. Back in 2018, I rope-dropped with a bag of quarters to unlock all the Esmeralda cards. Pure magic to trigger a fortune telling machine without touching it, and getting an exclusive serialized story chapter each time you visit? Lovely.

Nick with Esmeralda, holding all the Esmeralda cards, wearing an Esmeralda shirt.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 17/08/2026

Pouring one out for a dream too big to survive. RIP, PDP. I loved you very much.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 16/08/2026

Instead of tuning in to the big announcement stream, consider watching this panel about Imagineering's collaboration with Adobe. It just might cure you from ever wanting to spend another dime in a Disney Park.

youtu.be

"Accelerating World-Building & Theme Park Design with New Creative Tools" - D23 2026

YouTube video by Laughing Place

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 12/08/2026

Cannot wait to see what shenanigans my Columbo is up to.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 31/07/2026

I completely understand why folks want to interview Kane Parsons about Backrooms, but it saddens me that I can't find a single interview with the movie's screenwriter.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 31/07/2026

Please tell me they at least created a fictional stunt coordinator character?

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 27/07/2026

Only exception being anyone who has blocked me, as I am known to do that.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 24/07/2026

I screamed louder than I've ever screamed in my life.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 24/07/2026

A selection of episodes from STAR WARS DETOURS, George Lucas's final, unreleased Star Wars project, will screen at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

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Reposted by Nick Tierce

David Daut @davidmdaut.com · 22/07/2026

“The Cinerama Dome to reopen as an Alamo Drafthouse”

static.klipy.com

The Simpsons Monkey Paw Wish

ALT: The Simpsons Monkey Paw Wish

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 18/07/2026

Seinfeld 2026: George rents a wheelchair to attend an otherwise sold-out screening of The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 09/07/2026

If you still have a local comic shop, I heartily suggest picking up Darrow's latest Shaolin Cowboy offering, "Stayin' A.I. Live". I think it might be his best work yet.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 07/07/2026

The scene they wrote for him in JJ's first movie was sweet. (Kirk recorded a video birthday message for Spock Prime, pre-Generations, a wistful reverie that would have played over the last scenes of the movie.)

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 07/07/2026

Happy 20th, Dead Man's Chest. Here's one of my favorite deleted exchanges, from Ted & Terry's screenplay:

"ELIZABETH
The Church came to the island, and brought salvation ... and disease, and death. They say the priest had to bury every body, one after the other. It drove him mad, and he hung himself.

NORRINGTON
Better mad with the rest of the world than sane alone."

http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/PIRATES2.intro.html

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 26/06/2026

With an extra dose of their new favorite lie, "this was always the story." That PR strategy needs to end. Folks who don't pay attention won't care, and those who do will only be insulted.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 24/06/2026

Star Wars is lucky to have you.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 23/06/2026

The whales are starting to balk.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 23/06/2026

They treat CMs as on-screen talent, which they aren't paid to be, and other guests as extras in their productions. Rather than design a reprieve from this shift, the company guts the experiential heart of their offerings to cater to it. Lands are sets for social media now. The berm crumbles.

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Nick Tierce @nicktierce.com · 23/06/2026

I don't collect autographs, but later at the signing on the show floor, I ask everyone to personalize their signature to Don Knotts. Kristen Schaal writes, "To Don Knotts, you should have been in this."

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