iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthew Farber @docfarber.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

I love this Vince! We were watching traitors in NZ a couple of months ago, and I was planning a post on it—there was a particularly interesting game theoretical situation that happened—cooperation due to traitor behaviour. If I do it I'll definitely incorporate your video here, so well explained :)

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Reposted by James

🚀 It's book launch day! In "The Well-Read Game," @kinojabber.bsky.social & I explore the experiences we have when we play games and how players evoke personal and subjective meanings through a new theory of player response. @mitpress.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255223...

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Then enough people had wondered out loud "Why the number faces? You know some people don't like numbers" and I started toying with som characters. But how would I indicate how much charge they have...?

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For the last 5 years I've corralling my various and disparate games, essays, cartoons, simulations and diagrams into my website at nonzerosum.games and have been able to really flesh out the ideas that were core to NEUTROPIA... but I always intended to return to it.

nonzerosum.games

NON-ZERO-SUM GAMES

~ a world-help site ~

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About a year in it started looking like an actual game... bear in mind I learned to code on this project—and it was in Objective-C and then Swift at this stage! People kept saying "Why aren't you using Unity?" #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday

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James @nonzerosum.games · 09/10/2026

Just checking out the share functionality for NEUTROPIA.. seems to work

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Some “inspo” for NEUTROPIA’s weeds, right there on my house #NatureFindsAWay #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday (almost). The mads contribute by “fertilising” the map, when the greens plant there you get flowers :)

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James @nonzerosum.games · 09/10/2026

NEUTROPIA gradually got more minimal, as I refined the concept, small puzzle worlds. The neuts became little number faces, with just a dash of personality, and the dragon... rabbit still holding on in there.

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Reposted by James

Sandor @sandoreclegane.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Hi! I'm Sandor, I study Artificial Intelligence. Learn more about me and what I do. Please join me in building a better future. youtu.be/udRy9toUaBY

youtu.be

Meet Matt: Logos7.org A Founders Story

YouTube video by Matthew Chase

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Reposted by James

Alice Lastname @oldbellboy.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

✨ it’s a way of being to be enjoyed

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James @nonzerosum.games · 08/10/2026

The NEUTROPIA design kept evolving...

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James @nonzerosum.games · 07/10/2026

Next the "Neuts" of Neutropia needed to feel industrial and utilitarian. The game is all about emotional contagion—the core mechanic: positives build each other up, negatives drag each other down, and in the end the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

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NEUTROPIA began with a cute #dragon as the player—much to the disappointment of my daughter, that changed.

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This was actually really fun, it was the first time I'd experimented with a proximity mechanic, which is now used in the game for particular interactions around sadness and avoidance. In this early version if you scared them off, they literally fell off the world.

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Oh, and this is the first version... from 2014. Look at those auto-shadows... amazing. I actually did like making the dungeon tiles, they're all hand drawn (9 of them repeated and rotated) I'll surely use them for something one day. #GameDev #DevLog

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I realised at this point, if I was going to try and push it further, and get it published everywhere, I'd need to port NEUTROPIA to #Unity sooner rather than later. This is how it started... well that's different.

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About 2016 I introduced disco mode, and mood walls and... somewhere the dragon got lost... I realised if the message of the game is that we can all make a difference by being a positive influence on those around us, then a magical dragon rescuing us all doesn't really make sense.

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James @nonzerosum.games · 05/10/2026

These posts are a contracted "Dev Log" showing the many iterations over the last 10 years for my upcoming game NEUTROPIA which teaches non-zero dynamics. The 1st version was based on light-switches... they made little clicky noises. #GameDev #Games #MobileGames #GamesForChange

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For me ufologist is very much believing-people-are-reptilians adjacent.

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Reposted by James

SCP @10-5.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

California whenever its proposition time

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James @nonzerosum.games · 05/10/2026

First red flag for me is Ufologist.

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James @nonzerosum.games · 23/09/2026

Welcome AI to one of the great joys of intelligence; cognitive dissonance.

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James @nonzerosum.games · 21/09/2026

Yep. I’m a one man band, I’d prefer to spend my time creating than “doing” social media. It’s effective and means I attract like-minded people (it’s not random) in a pretty niche subject. Which puts me in touch with people I like spending my online time with. It’s a win-win.

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Fair enough, sorry, it’s my bot, it’s not meant to like the same account twice. The liked accounts log must have got bloated and failed. One of its search terms is “systems” which you use on lots of posts. I’m going to tone it back to more specific terms and less accounts—I have plenty of followers.

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Brilliant, love that you can post NIN with a picture of Johnny Cash an everyone knows what song you're talking about.

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You don't want me to like your photos?

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It's finally here! Our first video interview episode on the 'Non•Zero•Sum James' podcast—with Liv Boeree! View on: • Youtube: youtu.be/l7_FAYllmvM • Apple: podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/n... • Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4uRA... And now people can finally stop asking if I'm AI!!! #Podcasts

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I agree with you we should hold ourselves to high standards, and pay attention to externalities. My point in the post was that many of these Molochian actions are taken by ordinary people, so we can't assume these actions are those of evil others—discounting ourselves from the equation.

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If you need further reminders of what you previously said, you are welcome to comment on the site (where there is a less restrictive word limit). Otherwise I'll need to block you, sorry. I'm not interested in following someone double down on a mistake. Mistakes are okay, if they are acknowledged.

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You also said this: "It's inadvisable to let perfect be the enemy of progress." Which is also inconsistent your original statement. It says there are some actions where it's "inadvisable" to avoid them out of perfectionism... Something "inadvisable" not to do, is reasonable.

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