iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wonder if it's possible for a piece of art to be truly meaningless? Obviously you can put an expended paper towel roll on a museum plinth with no intention for it to have meaning, but anyone walking through the museum would try to find meaning in it. Which they probably will. So is it meaningless?

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thank you! The subject felt massive, and as much discussion as there was about it at the time, it still felt like there was more to say. I still find the exercise of that review site silly, but the idea of an omega-review fascinated me enough to really dig in.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's amazing how much mutual exclusion there is between "I want to write about games and not starve to death" and "People with more money than I am capable of truly comprehending will more readily squeeze an industry to death than tolerate making less even more money than they think they should."

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I find it deeply strange that phones are no longer allowed to have headphones jacks for slimness purposes, but they're growing increasingly bizarre tumors for the camera.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Is there an inverted Ship of Theseus thought experiment? Like, the world around the ship has changed so drastically that even if the ship has not changed in any way, its function is lost to the world around it?

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'm excited for the roundup! Thank you for bringing it back.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Truly a wonderful piece. I didn't draw the parallels between arcades and same-space gaming and friendslop, but you're absolutely right that it's very much there. Practically driven into the bedrock.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I missed that Critical Distance pushed the deadline to August 31st. So, get your entries in!

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Big Walk does seem like such an interesting game. I hope it's one I get to sit down with eventually.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I think there are pockets of it that exist. Things like VRChat kind of rake at it from a distance, but the barrier of entry and lack of moderation make it a generally toxic place. MMOs do similar business. I'm not sure what design would look like to foster a culture, not a community.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

For example, what might it have looked like if we had dozens of games remixing the thing Journey did. Dozens of strangers having a kind of anonymous intimacy around a particular game experience? No slop, just friend.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Having read a bunch of posts people shared on the "Friendslop" Blogs of the Round Table theme, it's got me thinking more about the boundary lines for the genre. While I do think the "slop" aspect is load-bearing, I do wonder about a theoretical future where the genre formed differently.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

A little bleak, but I don't think you're entirely off-base. It's sort of a fast food socialization, with giggles greasing the interactions in place of something more substantive. I think there's room for it, but probably not great for us all at once like this.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Yeah, judging a multiplayer game on how it feels singleplayer is sort of a losing battle. I do wonder if there isn't a form of the genre that could exist that introduces unique mechanics to a single-player mode to help bridge the divide in terms of engagement and novelty?

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the a Nintendo property doesn't balance the difficulty tightrope well for a single-player experience, but it definitely seems like the game really benefits from added weight and pressure of a group. Charming piece.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

While I agree with your conclusion that the genre doesn't need friends, I do think the games weaken considerably without them. I appreciate that you put so much patience into trying the games on their merits, even if there was a lot of struggle getting there.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Aww, this was really sweet. I think you're absolutely right about how alienating and isolating the internet can be, and these games really are laser-targeting slicing through that.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I have a lot of nostalgia for RPGs from SNES, which were very compact and stayed tight to their lanes. The jank I think about is when the complex, multilayered systems turn themselves to spaghetti. Something that Bethesda and Obsidian are often infamous for. Still good, but never far from melting.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The genre really does fill the third-space void in a way that probably helps cement the genre. A beautiful post, with absolutely gorgeous web design, and I hope your comfort with your voice stops making the games a walled garden for you.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This piece is lovely! I didn't make the connection to budget and licensed titles, but you're spot-on in how much nostalgia can be wrung out of the jank.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Trying to put this piece together felt like a trial, everything I tried to put together seemed to turn to slop in my hands. Which, annoyingly, was on-theme. For @critdistance.bsky.social's Blogs of the Round Table #BoRT on Friendslop. www.thethesaurusrex.com/slop/

thethesaurusrex.com

Slop

I'm not sure I really understand the point. These games feel like they're kind of a lot of things, even if they're all similar enough that the lines are blurred enough to resist delineation.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

There's still time to get in on the Blogs of the Round Table for this month.

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Reposted by Thesaurus Rex (They/Them)

David Shimomura Halloween Edition @unwinnabledavid.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Anyone laid off from @restart.run, now and as always, if I can offer you a feature slot at @unwinnable.com to help keep your feet under you or to explore some critical angle that's never made sense for a games site, I'd be more than happy to!

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I wish writing professionally wasn't so scary. That any idea begins with "You have to earn the chance to be read at all." is sort of existentially terrifying. And even after the writing gets out, I never feel good about asking people to read.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This is just harm, tip to tail. No one walks away from this without some kind of damage, all because some adults are too hateful not to.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

In addition to the innate transphobia, I also don't envy the girls who are going to learn by surprise they have intersex traits or some kind of harmless chromosome variation from an expected norm. In school. Around other students. Who definitely won't weaponize any of this information.

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Reposted by Thesaurus Rex (They/Them)

Brandon Sheffield @brandon.insertcredit.com · 30/07/2026

In response to the unprecedented number of game developers laid off this year, we have created a bundle on itch to benefit a Game Industry Hardship Fund, managed by @videogameworkers.bsky.social. More than 100 games for 10+ bucks! Please share widely and donate generously! itch.io/b/3802/game-...

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

So overjoyed to see the Blogs of the Round Table format is back. I hope everyone feels inspired by the prompt; I would be so happy to see a lot of participation.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Yeah, and of all the problems to have, "I sound like me" doesn't rank very high.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

This is always something I personally struggle with as an editor. I have a lot of trouble not sounding like myself, so when offering edit options, they often still sound like me.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I do think there's more room from this when you're someone's editor than their is in more public discourse. And I think if there is room for it, it's in generating new criticism (blogs, etc.) rather than social posts or more personal criticism.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I do wonder how much the American grading scale is to blame here. Where a 7/10 is equivalent to a C, and 5 or below is considered a failure. Could something that technically accomplishes its goals, even if its in a boring way or wasn't worth doing to begin with, be a failing grade? Or worse?

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

This article is roughly what I expected, but the amount of defense of any LLM use in the comments is heart-breaking. Even if it were a useful tool—it's not—there's no defense of wide-scale theft, ecological damage, poisoning of minority communities, and financial doom when token costs become real.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I propose we treat the tax code for this as rollover. Tax it down to 0, and we apply that trillion to, at minimum, reversing what harm we can and making good on promises he made and never delivered on. We can send him a plaque commemorating rolling over, but we keep the money.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I keep commenting on the same thing, but it keeps being relevant. The friction is where an important part of the humanity is stored. The desire for this thing is still bad, even though we know Musk also can't actually produce anything he promises. Don't yearn for a more compacted life!

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

And now that LLMs are here, that future has grabbed me by the throat in its curled monkey's paw, and promised me everything I dreamed about. It feels like I'm going to choke on a frictionless world rather than the kinder one I really wanted. Crushed a second time by new feet, but the same boot.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

When I was young, with what I now know as social anxiety, I would often dream of a world where I didn't feel like every conversation was a potential hazard, where any interaction had a point I needed to solve before it was over. Like I was able to get a bad grade at socializing.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

As much as I like fiction and media to give me pockets of escape from a frankly horrifying reality, I cannot imagine wanting to just ooze through life on what amounts to the cozy equivalent of a low-level morphine drip.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

The more I think on stuff like this, the more I realize I need a blog to scream into the universe about politics and non-media culture. I doubt anyone would read it, but my mind is constantly drowning in a need for a pressure valve against the unending everything that is right now.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I cannot imagine what kind of comfortable, casual racism and phobias I'd still harbor if the world these people want every comes to exist. How everyone who could be something happier, rounder, and kinder was instead just profoundly comfortable.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Yes, I too live in a relentless hell of capitalism's own making, devoured comfort-first by a beast of infinite stomachs, so I get the appeal of everything being built to be cozy. But you also need at least some friction. Something that challenges you in interesting or useful ways.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

LLM nonsense is self-evidently bad on its face, but something that genuinely unnerves me is how much some people seem to desperately want a frictionless experience. No characters they dislike, no uncomfortable subjects, no barriers to exactly the thing they want.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

When you're in an obviously corrupted system long enough, it's never because no one has tried to fix it from the inside. It's that everyone who's tried has had the system outlive them.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Everything I've found time to read is already fantastic. Unwinnable is always stellar, and definitely worth making time and space to subscribe and read. In particular, @rubeck.bsky.social on Final Fantasies' relationships with kingdoms has stuck with me.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Even if the under-the-table money accusations were real, the complaint is always against the tiny person under the guillotine of a precarious, too-small paycheck, and never the billion dollar publisher that's supposedly offering dark money and imposing restrictions at professional gunpoint.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Apropos of nothing, I'm still kind of baffled by gaming communities' weird parasocial relationship with publishers and megacorporations. Like, all of the payola accusations against critics or complaints that they follow embargos are always against the critics.

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Thesaurus Rex (They/Them) @nukelassic.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

I want to be kind. It feels terribly strange and saddening that the society I live in makes that so difficult sometimes.

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