iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by J. "null" Thomas

Failbetter Games | Wishlist Mandrake on Steam! @failbettergames.com · 15h

We're hiring! We're looking for a Writer and Narrative Designer to join the Fallen London team at a senior or mid level. This position is permanent, remote, and full time, which for us means 35 hours a week. #GamesJobs

Night. The House of Chimes - a tower which you might immediately think of as Big Ben - is adrift in the River Thames. It still seems to be keeping time. In the background, a large, alien building looms over the city of London.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

once again, I can't recommend @locquest.bsky.social highly enough, folks. The thoughtful, probing questions by their translators ... have made the writing better, I'm not kidding. We have this big Q&A spreadsheet with them, and it's a record of me saying ... good point, maybe I should learn English

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

You. Yeah you. I heard you talking the most heinously uncharitable shit about yourself, just now. We can ALL hear it. I'm not gonna tell you to stop, because, y'know, c'mon, it's your whole thing- But at least have the decency to turn it into a jaunty little song

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The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

if you say "The Museum of English Rural Life" three times in a mirror, nothing happens. but if you speak it a fourth time, a man in a smock appears and asks you to incant the poem on the side of this rather menacing jug

harvest festival jug featuring a rather spooky sunshine design

the reverse of the jug, featuring a poem. it reads: "Harvest is come all
busy now in making
of the Barley mow if
you the Barley mow
neglect of Good ale you
can not then expect"

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☀️🌸idspispopd🥀🌙 @bhaalspawn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Happy #TillysGameversary 🎂, System Shock (1994)! Famously, it was a hellish experience using Microsoft SharePoint which gave Looking Glass Studios the idea for System Shock's evil AI, SHODAN. Merciless, evil & totally out of control, SharePoint is still in use today.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

sometimes, recording pick-ups, you just remove big chunks of the script, say "excised for length" and replace it with... whatever is left of your brain: "MORE SCARY GRANDMA BEING A KNOWER SHE HAS CLOCKED YOU AS A TINY CRIME WIZARD"

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Halloween Appreciation Account (gcmaybe) @gcmaybe.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Bloody Tears on a harp. I need a longer version of this in my life. www.youtube.com/shorts/9O33r...

youtube.com

Castlevania: Bloody Tears #shorts

YouTube video by HarpistKT

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Double Fine @doublefine.com · 19/09/2026

We just hit 550K funded, so it’s time to announce our next stretch goal! At 600K, ERIKA ISHII (Ghost of Yōtei, Dropout, Dimension 20) will lend their voice talent to the winning project! 🤯 Back the campaign today: f.mtr.cool/yq0fmuz3wp

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Check the thread, this is a tremendously generous offer for aspiring game writers / NDs

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dr. hazel 🕯️ @hazelmonforton.com · 18/09/2026

Steinbeck, John. (1939.) The Grapes of Wrath.

Twitter user Alyssa Sabo.

If I had huge knockers like like Sidney sweeten I’d actually be breastfeeding the hungry, not freaking posing nude for sports commercials. Jeez.

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Karla James Zimonja @eternal.observer · 16/09/2026

Look, there's a Famicase jam! itch.io/jam/famicase... You get to pick one of the existing famicases famicase.com/26/index.html and make a game for it. I got to see an exhibition of them in person recently, and they are super charming.

itch.io

Gamejam My Famicase Barcelona

A game jam from 2026-09-16 to 2026-10-05 hosted by indiedevday. From 16 to 30 September 2026 we're running an open gamejam where games are based on the My Famicase Exhibition 2026 cartridges . Pick on...

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danielleri @danielleri.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Have some BIG NEWS, and it really is wild that today is also the anniversary of the Fanbyte Apocalypse. But my time at Game Developer is done, and hence, my time as a full-time game journalist has come to an end. 20 years in a career sure is something. www.tumblr.com/danielling/8...

After 20+ years of writing professionally about games, including time at Polygon and Idle Thumbs, launching Waypoint, serving as editor in chief of Fanbyte and finally as EIC at Game Developer, my time is done. I'm officially out at Game Developer. Given the state of game journalism, this obviously means leaving the profession, at least as a full-timer.

I'm out, with respect to my colleagues, and a lot of love for the site as it was. We've published work that I'm extremely proud of, particularly our reporting on labor and on how workers are finding things in a miserable, gutting moment in the game industry. I'm proud of the dev-authored features we had for so many years, the resources and knowledge and bits and pieces of know-how that I still use, to this day, in my own game design courses.

What's next? Well, I'm not leaving games. I'll always be making and teaching and writing about games, it just can't be my full time gig anymore. I've actually been doing narrative design on a game since 2022, with a team I really believe in, and I can't wait until I can show that off properly. I am also OPEN TO WORK. Anything involving writing or editing words, editing video, teaching (I've been teaching college since 2009), and hey, I'm an EMT and got my phlebotomy cert a couple years back. I'm versatile!

For full-time employment, I am eventually going to try my hand at medicine. I've served as an EMT here in NYC since 2016, and I've been taking science courses post-bac since January 2025, usually 2 or more at once concurrently with... the full time job, my part time adjunct job, and volunteering on said ambulance. Exhaustion set in years ago, lol, so I've settled into something beyond that at this point. I feel like I've been climbing a mountain, and trying to make many things work at once. I had a pretty good rhythm going, truth be told, despite all the burnout. I'm proud of myself for that.

I'd really like to be a physician assistant one day, or potentially a nurse practitioner. It's a very, very long and hard road to either of those paths, but I'm going to make my way as best as I can.

How do I feel? Again, devastated was years ago. We're pretty far past that at this point. What's happened to journalism in America is... a topic for a very depressing, very well-researched book. I hope someone writes that one day. What happened to game journalism... well, it's more of a niche, but I can say only that reporting honestly on layoff after layoff and corporate malfeasance writ large and executives gambling the whole industry down the drain was tough, but somebody had to do it.

But it's not something one can do without editorial independence.

It's dramatic, but I'm going to mourn this career. Twenty years of my life, at 42, is just about half of my days alive. I put a lot, and I do mean *a lot* of myself into this. I tried at all times to lead with empathy and care for the human beings around me and to be as honest and frankly honorable as possible in my work. I really, really tried to live my values in my work in this career, and the only way I can keep that reputation is the path ahead of me.

So there it is. Expect to see me making games, making art, teaching game design, writing about games from time to time @VeeGeeBees. Expect to hear more about my adventures as an EMT, and hopefully, soon as a PA student, and eventually, as an advanced practitioner. I've kept telling myself, in the darkest and worst days of the last few years, that I'll fly again, somehow. It'll just look very different.

To sign off, and pull an old favorite out of my pocket: be good, and be good at it.

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Heatherface Wixson @thehorrorchick.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Hey everyone, the next entry in my One-and-Done Horrors series is SOCIETY. This had been in the works before we lost George so writing this was a bittersweet. But man, Brian Yuzna was right on the money: from-the-desk-of-the-horror-chick.ghost.io/one-and-done... - open to free/paid subscribers!

from-the-desk-of-the-horror-chick.ghost.io

One-and-Done Horrors: Society

Exploring horror, film, and pop culture, all while celebrating the creators, history, and artistry that keep the genre alive.

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Ed Smith @edwardsmithwriter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Final Jewel Cases, right here, right now.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It's a recording week! I get to hear @emmagregoryvoice.bsky.social breathe marvelous, layered (twisted, renaissance girlboss) energy into Mariken for @thekillingstone.com tomorrow.🕯️🫀🕯️ This was the strongest GIF Bluesky had for Lady Macbeth, and frankly, all your Wednesday AMs deserve to be *judged*

static.klipy.com

The Lady In The Lake Film Noir

ALT: The Lady In The Lake Film Noir

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Chris Wade @luckshotgames.com · 08/09/2026

Valve should lower their rev share portion to 15% for the first $1m a game earns. Not because it would would help small teams survive to make more games (it would), but because they would earn more money in the long term.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

musicians, I know the court order SAYS no-contact. But- I love you all forever.🕯️If I couldn't loop some neurally-resonant banger on deadline days? Like one of those jars of goo that, when near a speaker: produce tiny, leaping waveforms of joy- I- -would- well. Be far less productive goo right now

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G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 02/09/2026

Underrated god-tier advice

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Kris Straub (كريس) @krisstraub.com · 05/09/2026

hi pax! i’ll be in bandland (level 4 SCC summit) today with a new pin, and on the pitch-your-game panel tonight at 9p in frog theatre!

pax west floor map of the seattle convention center summit, level 4.

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Rhianna Pratchett @rhi.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Big fan of this game and have put many many many hours into trudging around in the virtual Canadian wilderness.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

you know... I really liked the internet. if by any chance you're the guy who did this to the internet, I'd sure like to sock you in the mouth

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Chris Plante @plante.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Game publishers want the staffing of film and TV without the unions that make gig-to-gig work a viable living and a sustainable business.

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Ryan Mattson @rmattson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Today in kids saying silly things: daughter (5) said we were going to do a science experiment, “but I need my goggles so I don’t get science in my eyes.”

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Saddest game dev whiteboard. Big red caps, cradled by fastidious black drop shadow. Two pens. Shameful already: “BRAINSTORM” “1. Immersive Sin (Two underlines) Then… “Is this anything?”

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Cara Ellison @caraellison.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

glamour (a visual illusion, often suspiciously good) is a Scots origin word but it is also very funny to think about how it came from the word ‘gramarye’, because Scottish people seem to have been extremely suspicious of something written and the internet and AI have truly proved us right

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Sarah Ford 🐍🎨🖥️ SleepyTime Holiday @angeloslh.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Oh right they mean let electricity do the chores

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I loathe 'on the nose' dialogue, and was drilled against it so often in my early career. But now, several lovely friends have gently told me: "bro. It is OK sometimes to just say things. On-the-nose is not our worry here. It would be real swell - to know whether there is even a face in the room."

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Ed Smith @edwardsmithwriter.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Gone Home and Tacoma co-creator Karla Zimonja ( @coals.northsky.social ) joins me on the new episode of Jewel Cases -Can detective games really 'work'? -Does the Resident Evil 3 water sample puzzle make sense? -Is there anything Cosmo D can't do?! All this and more: soundcloud.com/bullet-point...

soundcloud.com

Jewel Cases S01E04 - Karla Zimonja

This week, Ed is joined by Karla Zimonja, whose work in games includes BioShock 2 and Minerva's Den, as well as Gone Home, Tacoma, and Wanderstop. /// Jewel Cases is a new interview series, hosted by

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Meghan Cross 💜✨ @meghanlynnftw.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Girls only want one thing and it's this.

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Dan Johnson will design games for food @coil.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I love game development (Alt text: BABIES ARE BORN WORSHIPPING UNKNOWN GODS - Dwarf Fortress, bug report #13172)

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Cara Ellison @caraellison.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

a lot of men looking around for a daddy to tell them what to do these days. please, tell me which minority to oppress to feel like a big boy, daddy. why don’t you humiliate me for fun, daddy. why don’t you take all my money daddy

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Cara Ellison @caraellison.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

any statement like ‘Gen z have no literacy/cannot write/spell/communicate’ that is not also coupled with ‘their means of learning has been eradicated by tech fascism and government removal of funding’ is not worth listening to or boosting. the kids are living under the regime we allowed

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Ed Smith @edwardsmithwriter.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

“It feels like Final Fantasy 8 is the Andor of Final Fantasy.” 1000xResist creative director Remy Siu shares his all-time favourite games on the new edition of Jewel Cases. soundcloud.com/bullet-point...

soundcloud.com

Jewel Cases S01E03 - Remy Siu

For the third episode of Jewel Cases, we're featuring Remy Siu, founder and developer at Sunset Visitor, the studio behind 1000XResist and the forthcoming Prove You're Human. /// Jewel Cases is a new

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Raphael van Lierop 🇨🇦 @raphlife.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

So much good Canadian stuff in this thread.

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ToonHive @toonhive.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

97 years ago today, ‘The Skeleton Dance’ released in theaters.

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Harvey Smith @harvey1966.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

socials for our new studio! bsky.app/profile/blac... and www.instagram.com/blackponyimm...

bsky.app

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Robert Yang @radiatoryang.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

watched The Night of the Hunter for the first time… slow start but then it gets good, so many amazing shots, can’t believe it’s from 1955

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Anngelica Renea @anngelicarenea.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I desperately need non-games industry people to understand that your regular average game dev does not make millions of dollars off of these AAA/AA titles. istg comment sections make me want to poke out my eyeballs with a stick sometimes.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Hope ? In Gaming? Call that a 'Black Pony Event.' What I take from this news is simple. From now on, Immersive Sim doesn't mean 0451 or "one lock, many keys", etc. It means, regardless of genre or budget, as a player: you get a horse, or you ARE the horse. Look at 'em. Surprising the devs already.

static.klipy.com

Horse

ALT: Horse

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Rick Lane @ricklane.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Watching Hokum with my partner. Paused it for a loo break and she started laughing. Looked up to see this:

David Wilmot pointing directly upward in Hokum.

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J. "null" Thomas @nullspeak.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The money wraiths in gaming have eyed Hollywood’s hire & fire model w/ rapacious envy since 1990. I've met 'em. That is their only dream. A fulltime 3d artist / LD - not Key Personnel™️ - w/ healthcare? Radioactive to their worldview. In perfect irony, the pure exec is the only 'redundant' game job.

static.klipy.com

Lego Guillatene Beheading

ALT: Lego Guillatene Beheading

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