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Nonadecimal

@nonadecimal.com
4K followers 995 following 1K posts

Making social impact games like: 🪐 episodic systemic narrative Jovian Nights 💾 cyberPUNK open world RPG Black Ice ♟️ Forbidden Chess 🦠 cellular automata RTS about feedback loops nonadecimal.com

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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 26/09/2026
Over the summer my girlfriend moved in with her cat named Bug. The cat is developing a complex based on how many times I storm out of the office saying "I found another bug!" and "I have to fix this bug!"
An annoyed cat wearing a crown.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 19/09/2026
My best friend decided to watch Farscape on my advice while staying up with his newborn so I had to make the baby some custom outfits for his favorite TV show, including one of Pilot.
3 homemade Farscape onesies:
1) Rygel with the quote "I'm nobody's puppet!"
2) Crichton with the quote "Humans. Are. Superior!" (S2E4)
3) Pilot with the quote "I don't get out much. So I read."
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 17/09/2026
My friend sent me this banner ad at the entrance of Walmart. Clearly companies no longer feel like they need to try to earn your business and that your spending is guaranteed.
A banner ad at the entrance of Walmart using an Ai generated image of a man with 2 children, all of which have majorly distorted facial features and bodies.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 08/09/2026
I love working with artists to add graffiti to Black Ice. As we keep riffing on the design, we create stories about the fictional artist making the graffiti in the game and connecting their life into the larger story. Going to have some fantastic pieces from @sarkastiklover.bsky.social soon!
A rough WIP sketch of a dystopian cityscape.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 18/08/2026
I would hate for another Black Ice prophecy to come true but Quarkus, one of the 5 megacorps of the 2080s, was originally meant to be the laughably implausible byproduct of AWS absorbing Google and then being bought by Facebook.
The logo for the Quarkus megacorp from Black Ice
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 06/08/2026
It'd be nice if The Matrix IP holders saw this article and let me make them a Matrix-flavored Yakuza game. www.pockettactics.com/new-matrix-g...
He [Nonadecimal] suggests the next entry should explore corners of the universe that the films only hinted at. "I would love to see a Matrix game explore the perspective of a newly exiled program navigating the city, caught between the authoritative machines trying to delete them, the competing gangs of exiled programs, and the human survivors desperate to broker deals."
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 04/08/2026
I shared some memories about The Matrix Online with @samcomrie.co.uk and mused how there's never been a better time for a new game set in The Matrix. www.pockettactics.com/new-matrix-g...
Eric Ford believes "the story of The Matrix is more relevant today than ever before. We're confronted with an onslaught of misinformation and fake imagery every day that leaves us questioning what is real. We have machines pretending to be real people, whether for corporate marketing or scams."
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 03/08/2026
Valve offering some ??? with their cyberpunk sale's marketing copy.
The header text for the Steam Cyberpunk Fest reads: "They say never look back. Cyberpunk says ALWAYS be in the future. Think about it."
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 03/08/2026
I got delayed a few months but I think it's finally time to record that new trailer.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 20/07/2026
Adding sender icons to Black Ice's email inbox to give a little more character to the people you do or don't want to work for.
A screenshot of Black Ice's email inbox that serves as the mission system for the game. Two of the emails are from corporate suits. One is from the "Knights of Ishkar", conspiracy theorists larping as medieval knights with a sword and red banner as sender icon. The last email is from Anima, your hacker mentor, with a portrait of her eyes in a face-painted snarling animal's teeth.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 19/07/2026
Xalavier. You have the beautiful opportunity to give him a horse that's ONLY a head.
A hobby horse, ie a horse head on a stick that children pretend to ride around.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 18/07/2026
Gave the Dunk Tank more Arcade vibes. If you stand above the tank and someone hits the button, it reduces you to 1hp and rewards you for how much damage you could "tank".
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 17/07/2026
This week's Black Ice update replaced all the enemy textures with crisp neon outlines, added new menus with proper controller support (almost perfect for Steam Deck), and finalized the Arcade minigames. Plus a bunch of bug and performance fixes. Wishlist it! store.steampowered.com/news/app/311...
A Before and After comparison of a blurry spider with overwhelming bloom next to a crisp-outlined spider with visible silhouette (and teeth!).
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 11/07/2026
While updating Black Ice's main menus, I improved the character creator and added a couple hundred new random hacker names. We love puns and bad movie references so this one fits right in.
The Black Ice character creator showing a chrome blue woman's cyberspace character model with purple hair. Her hacker name is NightmareOnLLMStreet.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 22/06/2026
Adding a final coat of paint and some neon signage to the Arcade booths as I bugfix them. The Dunk Tank deals damage to reduce you to 1hp and rewards you based on how much damage you could tank.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 21/06/2026
Clearing more classic SF off my shelves while moving and discovered this strangely optimistic view of Florida in the year 2020 compared to where we actually landed.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 15/06/2026
I'm slowly working on a 4-player episodic narrative set on a space station carved inside an asteroid orbiting Jupiter. It's the last gas station at the end of the solar system. Each 30-minute session of Jovian Nights is like an episode of TV where you work together to solve the "crisis of the week"
A sci-fi UI in pastel blue, red, green, and yellow. Buttons along the left show the sections of the station a player can visit: Hangar, Security, Operations, Medical, Bazaar, Theaters, Gardens, Science, and Engineering. 4 character stat sheets span the top of the screen with various icons like a flexing arm, a blinking eye, a wrench, and a beaker. At the bottom of the screen, the player has 2 actions available for the Gardens: "Forage for supplies" and "Engineer new organisms".
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 15/06/2026
I have 3 monitors and they all look like this
Screenshot of a long line of browser tabs, almost all of them google sheets...
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 13/06/2026
School's out, sun's down, time to work on Forbidden Chess forbiddenchess.com
A glowing chess board in a dark void.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 09/06/2026
Really glad I was able to revisit those old memories of The Matrix Online for the documentary. I am still getting messages from people who played it 20 years ago. I've been trying to turn Black Ice into a similar open world experience full of mystery but it's a lot of work!
A message that reads:
"Hi Eric, 
I just finished watching a documentary on Future Games Show about MxO, it was a fascinating insight into the behind the scenes of game development and live operations! The game was a big part of my young adult years and I still have life long friends I first met through it. You were an integral part of that community experience and I was curious to see what you had been up to since the game ended, especially now knowing you were getting your physics degree at the same time! 
Thanks for connecting, gives me a chance to say thank you for the memories and I am glad to see you have been thriving. 
All the best,"
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 08/06/2026
I get placed on this blocklist every time I have a productive conversation with you.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 07/06/2026
Reading some 60s scifi and I made it 25 pages before I realized the vegans were aliens from Vega and not just particularly obnoxious people on a plant-based diet.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 02/06/2026
👋
A man gestures for you to follow him on the hotel room TV, welcoming you to Widow's Bay.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 30/05/2026
I've been investing a lot in my local community in recent years with my chess business and educational volunteer work. In the process, I'm learning a lot about how kids (and adults!) learn through play and it's helping me make my games more fun AND more educational.
A diagram showing the normal Input -> Output process of a function with a linear increase, proportional between Input and Output.
Followed by a diagram showing a feedback loop where the Output feeds back into the Input, causing a much larger increase in the Output for the same amount of Input.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 22/05/2026
In 2019, I set the date for this quote as 2026 and Black Ice has been a fairly consistent work of prophecy...
Black Ice screenshot from the volcano lair of a tech trillionaire. Beneath a transportation server in the shape of a retro sci-fi rocket, a gilded art deco billboard reads "It's no secret I intend to die on Mars. - Einar Sigurdsson (2026)". In the background, an ad billboard for his rocket company Skyward shows a fiery rocket blazing across the sky.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 13/05/2026
My game also includes a similar shenanigan where Facebook bought out Google and became a quantum computing megacorp, Quarkus. They're finally preparing to launch the metaverse in the year 2080.
A screenshot from the game Black Ice of a corporate billboard depicting a woman's face basking in a flow of blue and purple particles. In gaudy pink text, the ad reads "the metaverse, perfected. Coming soon: quintessence by Quarkus". The Quarkus logo is in alternating cyan, magenta, yellow, and green characters. Next to the billboard, graffiti text reads "Wasn't the metaverse 'coming soon' when we were kids?" and a graffiti reply reads "They were so focused on making it fungible they forgot to make it fun"
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 11/05/2026
The worst one sheared my bike in half. Somehow I didn't break a leg so I think I jumped onto the hood last second. I went headfirst through a windshield without a helmet and lost a week of memory (a lucky outcome considering alternatives!) so ultimately I don't think the epic story was worth it.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 05/05/2026
If only more people knew that Greek statues are theorized to have actually been extremely colorful in their original state.
A side by side comparison of a dull gray statue of a Greek woman as it looks today and a vividly red, green, and gold painted simulation of how the statue originally looked.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 21/04/2026
The mor.tar.gz has unrivalled compression and extraction. Unfortunately, it uses that to rain explosives on you. So rude. 3 more models to upgrade before the new trailer...
A red neon-outlined bug with a thick carapace and chunky legs. It has blue glowing eyes and a curving horn.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 17/04/2026
At times, I have wondered if it's the "imagine an apple" experiment in effect. Sometimes it feels like no amount of descriptive words or mockups are enough for them to visualize what the finished product would look like other than making a >50% complete version of it.
Image from the Wikipedia for Aphantasia: A representation of how people with differing visualization abilities might picture an apple in their mind. The first image is bright and photographic, levels 2 through 4 show increasingly simpler and more faded images, and the last—representing complete aphantasia—shows no image at all.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 14/04/2026
If we'd gotten this version of Alien, plus the Jodorowsky/Moebius Dune and that McQuarrie concept for Star Wars, the entire history of sci-fi film might have been more wondrous!
Concept art for the Jodorowsky / Moebius Dune film collaboration Ralph McQuarrie concept art for Star Wars
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 13/04/2026
My garish 3d game for dorks to run around vs its elegant 2d Yawhg-like sequel
Black Ice: a glowing neon cyberspace 3D world for hackers to rebel against megacorpsJovian Nights: a 2D episodic systemic narrative with a diegetic UI for 4 players to build ongoing stories on a space station orbiting Jupiter
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 11/04/2026
I don't reveal my true face often but @futuregamesshow.bsky.social made a documentary about the end of The Matrix Online MMO and I was lucky to share some stories about the incredible opportunity to design live events and ARGS while improv acting within The Matrix. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez0x...
A photo of Eric Ford in a room full of plants overlaid with the caption "Live Events, The Matrix Online".
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 06/04/2026
In case you're still looking for eggs today, the Mother of Spiders can lay hundreds of them. Newly remodeled with extra squishy, wet spider eggs. 4 more models to upgrade before the new trailer...
A large, menacing spider with mantis claws standing protectively in front of a cluster of 3 oily orange eggs. The dark silhouettes of spiders are visible inside the eggs.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 03/04/2026
Which is a better cyberspace egg: blue or orange?
Shimmering blue-faceted egg covered in a thin layer of goo with a spider inside.Warmer rippling orange egg covered in a thin layer of goo with a spider inside.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 03/04/2026
This was what the old egg looked like that required lots of "huh, more eggs here" prompting. I think the new model at least lets me remove a lot of that text.
A neon blue spiky boulder that is completely opaque with visible tris. Doesn't give egg.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 03/04/2026
Replacing the visuals for Black Ice's spider eggs. The old ones required a lot of narrative nudges saying "whoa, is that an egg??" because it didn't have many egg-like qualities. Does the new design telegraph that it will hatch a spider if you bump into it or let it hatch?
A spherical ellipse with a gooey orange filling and a shimmering white translucent shell. The dark silhouette of a spider is visible inside. A wavy oil slick cascades down the outside of the shell.Top view of the egg with a spider silhouette and legs visible below and a red-orange yolk.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 01/04/2026
Drastically expand all the absurd laws related to animals.
Down the road in Cotton Valley, Louisiana, men are prohibited from eating ice cream while on a horse.

                  • Watch what you say in Pattonsburg, Missouri where it is illegal to shout or use profane language in such a manner as to disturb a horse.

                  • In Burdville, Vermont, no horse is allowed to wander around between March 1st and October 20th.

                  • Also, in Vermont, it is illegal to allow a horse to run within enclosed burial ground. Violators can be fined $25. 

                  • Until the 1970s, a horse was required to wear a diaper in Charleston, South Carolina.

                  • In South Dakota, a diaper is not necessary, but a horse must be wearing pants before getting in a fountain.

                  • In Riverton, Wyoming, a woman is prohibited from riding a horse while wearing a bath suit unless she is escorted by at least two police officers or unless she is armed with a club.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 30/03/2026
With the image cropped as I was scrolling, I mistook this for a cathedral
The top half of the starfighter with the cockpit resembling an ornate stone balcony framed by spires.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 28/03/2026
The armored Ghost in the Shellfish is one of Black Ice's oldest enemies. An upcoming mission explores the rumor that they're powered by the forcibly uploaded consciousnesses of corporate prisoners. 6 more models to upgrade before the new trailer...
A large neon-outlined crab with armored and spiked claws in front of a toothy maw. An asymmetrical array of eyes stare at you with inhuman menace.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 27/03/2026
In addition to all the spidery and aquatic critters, Black Ice hosts a variety of plant life: Root Kits, Daisy Chains, Power Plants, and Floral Booms. 7 more models to upgrade before the new trailer...
A neon-outlined plant-based turret with tendrils extending along the ground and a leafy maw opening to fire projectiles.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 26/03/2026
E-snails became the primary way to send data across the Supermesh. Just be glad it's not another meeting! 8 more models to upgrade before the new trailer...
A large horned snail, outlined in crisp neon red. A glowing barrel is on its back, fortified with a spiked shield. I wonder if it would explode.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 22/03/2026
Scorpions that shoot lasers from their tails? Black Ice's got that too. Plus it's on sale this week! store.steampowered.com/app/311800/B... 9 more models to upgrade before the new trailer.
A neon-outlined scorpion against the cyan and purple grid of Black Ice.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 19/03/2026
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 17/03/2026
Black Ice also has a flying manta ray. 10 more models to upgrade before the trailer.
A manta ray, now properly neonized.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 16/03/2026
So many modern problems come from equating wealth with intelligence and trusting the wealthiest to safeguard things they don't even understand. Humanity has thousands of years of introspection to draw from, not just in Europe but China as well.
"Know thyself" (Greek: Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, gnōthi seauton)[a] is a philosophical Delphic maxim which was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek precinct of Delphi. The best-known of the Delphic maxims, it has been quoted and analyzed by numerous authors throughout history, and has been applied in many ways. Although traditionally attributed to the Seven Sages of Greece, or to the god Apollo himself, the inscription likely had its origin in a popular proverb.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 13/03/2026
Accidentally made the AOE bufferfish the most huggable enemy. 11 more models to upgrade before the trailer.
A neon pufferfish covered in glowing spikes. It has a cute smile and big round eyes gleaming because it's so happy to hug you.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 12/03/2026
Electric jellyfish complete. 12 more models to upgrade before the trailer.
A red neon Aimbot from Black Ice, resembling a flying jellyfish with toothy grin and dead eyes.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 11/03/2026
This is what it looked like before I overhauled the shaders. I think the crisp angular version looks scarier and has a more readable silhouette. Plus you can actually see its little teeths now.
An older version of the Black Ice spider, hidden in a cloud of thick bloom.
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Nonadecimal @nonadecimal.com · 11/03/2026
Updating all the Black Ice enemy textures to match my latest shader and bloom upgrades. 13 more models to go before I can record the new trailer!
Crisp neon red spiders against the blue grid of cyberspace.
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