iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Nigel Kennington

Neil Goodman 🌈 @seffles.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Been busy 😅

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Amicable Animal - New CRT7 demo OUT NOW! 🦝🏳️‍🌈 @amicableanimal.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

It's time to start shouting about EDJAM 2026! Will you be in Edinburgh Jan 30th to Feb 1st? Then come join us and make cool stuff in our big annual 48h game jam! 100ish people, all disciplines/experience levels welcome, super friendly! Hybrid options for joining too 🧡 Sign up: bit.ly/edjam26

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

In unrelated news, I've just thought of a great name for my coffee shop.

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Reposted by Nigel Kennington

Dr Daisy Abbott @daisyabbott.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

A wee trailer for the about-to-be-released interactive 3D model of the Empire Exhibition of 1938. The original modelling of all these pavilions was done in 2007. This new app incorporates archival materials and quotes from contemporary Glaswegians. #Glasgow #history #research #playfulLearning #3D

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Amicable Animal - New CRT7 demo OUT NOW! 🦝🏳️‍🌈 @amicableanimal.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

It's been a rough time for games but one thing that's kept me going is the fact we're running a showcase for our student's games on the 7th of August at CodeBase Edinburgh! - Totally free to attend - 10+ locally developed games - Come support new devs 🧡 👉 www.tickettailor.com/events/mdesi...

tickettailor.com

Get Free Ticket – Heriot-Watt MDes Graduation Showcase 2025 – CodeBase Edinburgh

Each year we celebrate our Masters of Design Students at Heriot-Watt University by giving them a special space to show off what...

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Reposted by Nigel Kennington

nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 04/06/2025

Tmrw is SWITCH 2 LAUNCH Da ...no wait, I mean it's EDINBURGH COLLEGE GAMES EXPO!!! #ECGx Thu 5th June, 17:30, CodeBase, #Edinburgh 👉 www.tickettailor.com/events/edinb... Besides all the truly amazing #gamedev student projects, we're also hosting 14 #indiegames by #Scottish #indiedevs. Look!🧵👁👁⤵

tickettailor.com

Select tickets – ECGX - Edinburgh College Games eXpo 2025 – CodeBase

Edinburgh College Games eXpo rides again! ECGX is the end of year show for both Edinburgh College game dev students and the lo...

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Reposted by Nigel Kennington

nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 03/06/2025

It's now only 2 sleeps to #ECGx! Where did all those sleeps go? If you're in #Edinburgh this Thursday, come to CodeBase from 17:30 to play 40 student and #indiegames, including Keeno, a lo-fi village-management game that's not to be slept on. Free tickets and info: dub.sh/ecgx2025

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NickBell @mrbehemo.mastodon.gamedev.place.ap.brid.gy · 28/05/2025

Hey #gamer / #gamedev of #Edinburgh! Do you know about #ECGx? 👀 It's a free night celebrating both our amazing students and local #indiedevs! You can play 40 (FORTY! 🫨) hot indie games and student demos at CodeBase on Thu 5th June, from 5.30. Get […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]

A poster for ECGx. It shows 3 screenshots of student projects and an image of a young person with blue hair and a checked shirt playing a puzzle game on what looks like an old CRT. (The game is CRT7, by Amicable Animal.)
The screenshots contain images such as cute blob characters in a colourful pixel art environments, and what looks like a glowing robot or warrior in a dark eerie space.
At the bottom are the words "Let's play some games!" and details of the event, including the date (5th June) and the URL https://dub.sh/ecgx2025 where you can find more info.

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Reposted by Nigel Kennington

nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 27/05/2025

Calling #scotgamedev & folks interested in #Scottish #gamedev in #Edinburgh! Please boost the post quoted below to help out our amazing college students! Grab yerself a ticket while you're at it!😁 @hubworld.bsky.social @scottishgames.bsky.social @brianbaglow.bsky.social @scotgamedev.bsky.social

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 27/05/2025

9 sleeps until #ECGx ! 👀 Here's some more pics from our amazing FE & HE #gamedev students. Come to #Edinburgh College Games Expo, 5th June, CodeBase, and you can play these amongst 40 games from both students and #indiedevs. Yes, FORTY! Get free tickets & info here👉 dub.sh/ecgx2025 #scotgamedev

Screenshot of "Epic Wizard Game". Purple platforms are set against a lilac sky with pink clouds, with stylised sprites of wizards and cute monsters on them.

Screenshot of "Htraes Trail". An epic, flat-shaded landscape, with a lo-poly mountain standing against a bright moonlit sky. In the distance a huge snake-like monster is rearing its head.

A screenshot of "Come Bye". A sheepdog is surrounded by sheep in a bright and sunny meadow. The on-screen UI mentions that there are 33 sheep today, and that total sheep saved and lost is 25 and 4.

A poster for ECGx. It should 3 screenshots of student projects and an image of a young person with blue hair and a checked shirt playing a puzzle game on what looks like an old CRT. (The game is CRT7, by Amicable Animal.) At the bottom are the words "Let's play some games!" and details of the event, including the date (5th June) and the URL https://dub.sh/ecgx2025 where you can find more info.

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✧ GIVE UP THE GHOST ✧ @playgiveuptheghost.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

We've been invited to be guest exhibitors at this year's #ECGx! Two members of our lovely team will be there presenting our demo, so if you're in the city of Edinburgh come and say hi!

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Was called a dobber by a glaswegian space pirate - 10/10

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Rao Dao Zao @raodaozao.net · 02/05/2025

Since it's #ECGx season, I figured that, rather than panicking and trying to get Exon's existing levels back in working order for public exhibition, it might be better to make a brand new -- SMALL -- demo level using all the new props. One that, you know, passers-by might be able to beat.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 15/05/2025

Here's another student game (title TBC) you can play at #ECGx. Bounce into @codebasetech.bsky.social in #Edinburgh on 5th June to solve this 1st-person traversal puzzler & unlock a whole test chamber of 30+ student & local #IndieGames to check out! Tickets + details > dub.sh/ecgx2025 #ScotGameDev

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 15/05/2025

Into the Restless Ruins (a Scottish dungeon deckbuilder with IMPECCABLE vibes, by Ant Workshop) is out! You should buy it today! But if you don't, you should wishlist it, then come to #ECGx 👈 on 5th June, try it out in person, *then* buy it. Or both! #ScotGameDev #IndieGames #GameDev #Edinburgh

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Reposted by Nigel Kennington

Tony Gowland @tonygowland.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

We’ll have something new at this…

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 12/05/2025

Here's a preview of Trespasser Deep, by one of our talented teams of #GameDev students. Discover its lurking leviathians, and dive into a sea of #IndieGames and student projects at #ECGx, the #Edinburgh College Games Expo on 5th June. Links below! 🤿🔦🦑 #ScotGameDev #IndieDev #LookOutForThatSquid

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 30/04/2025

The Edinburgh College Games Expo 2025 is coming! #ECGx is both the end-of-year-show for #Edinburgh College #GameDev students AND a mini expo for #ScotGameDev! Come to CodeBase on Thu 5th June (5:30pm) to play around 30 or 40 games from students and local indies. youtu.be/txo0rFRsnrI INFO🧵⤵

youtu.be

ECGx 2024 Event Highlights

YouTube video by Nigel Kennington

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

OK, so this week we have #noscreenshotsaturday. I love #monogame, but the 3d support is massively behind the 2d and my early decisions have started to smell so it's time to refactor of the 3d backend (a grander name than it deserves!) and clear some technical debt. Hopefully it won't take too long 🫣

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

That ship'll sail anyway when it hears about how mean I am to my robot vacuum cleaner.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

With some better code underneath - time to work on the card actions again. Firstly lets get some animation going as the cards transition between placements - a little lerp should do for now. Might make it fancier later... #monogame #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

With a digital #boardgame like Microverse, the ability to cache player actions and undo them seems pretty important, so this week we have a simple command pattern layer between the player inputs and the game world. Very satisfying to build a galaxy and then undo it! #monogame #screenshotsaturday

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Did you see this one? www.theverge.com/news/628666/... "What if clippy was in your video games?! Would that make you proles give us $20 a month for no reason?! Please say yes!"

theverge.com

Microsoft’s new Xbox Copilot will act as an AI gaming coach

Copilot for Gaming arrives in April.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Late again! Microverse players now have their stock of influence and hexes, which doesn't sound like much, but it involved refactoring a bunch of stuff to c# Interfaces that *should* make things easier later on. Also cute rollout tooltips for funsies. #monogame #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Very litle time to work on Microverse this week. I wanted to get the "weird" systems implemented for #screenshotsaturday, but the Binary Star was being a bit of a dick so the Nebulae and Black Hole do exist, but the underlying code is bit of a mess. I'll regret that later... #indiedev #monogame

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

I think they're supposed to sound *vaguely* plausible.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Satisfying one this week! Cards are now in "hands" or "displays" and have backs. AND systems can now hold and display their influence totals. First time for #screenshotsaturday that Microverse has started to feel like the beginnings of a proper #monogame #boardgame thing!

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

My god, it's full of cards! I think going "full nordic" with the feedback animations would be inappropriate for the theme, but a bit of bounce is still nice. #monogame #boardgame #indiedev

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Skipped last week: away somewhere lovely. Back for #screenshotsaturday now though and we have a skybox and a bit of 4x style camera control. Might need to dim the textures a wee bit though to keep the eye focused on the "table". #monogame #TheresNoSuchThingAsParallaxWhenYourHeadsInABucket

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Damnit. Missed #screenshotsaturday, but gotta keep it going! Got the grid done thanks to the most excellent www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/ and a small amount of whimpering. Also, hello Binary Star: you were MUCH easier to casually write into a rulebook than to add to the system code.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Microverse is very much a "spare time" project, so progress will be slow, but #screenshotsaturday will hopefully help keep it going! This week: all basic system tiles now have game traits. Oh and billboarded glow for the actual stars. Cause pretty things are pretty. #monogame #writingbadcodeslowly

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

So: we were working on a #boardgame, a sequel to Microbrew: Microverse. It was a tiny abstract 4x game in a mint tin. It kinda got mothballed mid-pandemic but its been poking at me recently so I'm going to work on a #monogame version a bit and see what happens. Here's a VERY basic 1st POC! #indiedev

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

The lego league regional at dundee and angus is the largest (i think) in Scotland. 16 teams of young people completing robotics challenges they've been preparing for for months. (This is one of the robot game judging tables mid-match!)

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Random Green Octopus needs more sleep, less caffeine, is apparently Korean (what3words.com/random.green...) and I love him the most.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Hardware lab at Edinburgh College is looking pretty festive!

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

The problem was as soon as I tried to work with it in a practical scenario, well, I think the repo can speak for itself...

Repo commit log with most of the commits showing "restructuring" or "refactoring" and a light sprinking of "ranty old man" type comments.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

In my experience the most insidious thing about chatgpt output is its "at first glance" plausibilty. My student have been explaining some viable use cases for programming, so I thought I'd give it another go and was genuinely impressed with what it output...

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Yes, but if said monster doesn't reveal the game logo by breathing fire into the camera, is it even worth considering?

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

More like Pinkishorangesky this morning...

Pinkish orange sunrise. Does that count as a pun? I'm not a punologist...

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

The sheer ingenuity and engineering skill here is breathtaking. (Skip to 6.40 if you just want to see the robots dance, but your missing out…) youtu.be/EG9ISMjM-uQ?...

youtu.be

LEGO Omnidirectional vehicle

YouTube video by Akiyuki Brick Channel

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

(Also: love the teenie clear token containers!)

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Oh, been there my friend! Soldier on, you got this!

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Cards had a raw value and often an effect - kinda like a less complicated, face down version of Smash Up. I got lost in the weeds of it and couldn't find the fun so I gave up. Still like the idea, but I'm not going to do anything with it, so if anyone else wants to run with it, it's theirs!

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I was trying to model the mechanics of burying news" seeding counter stories, buying off/discrediting "sources" (card piles). I was working with 26 cards/faction being sent to various piles in the play area and then had "public interest" being a manipulable "focus" (king piece) on one of the piles.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Ooh, I like this! I had an idea for a game years ago which was a deck stacking game for various corrupt pr companies trying to bury bad press and surface their opponent's. It was going to be Sugar vs Tobacco vs Religion vs Fossil Fuels and was inspired by Merchants of Doubt.

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Nigel Kennington @nigelkennington.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

It's got issues though: the 3d support is frustratingly opaque for stuff that should be simple and the lack of output to web has me seriously eyeing switching over to KNI. Still recommend it though - it's fun to program in.

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