iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

the idea of games with a single difficulty level is so weird. it just doesn't make sense. how are devs supposed to magically target you, perfectly, sight unseen? people have all kinds of individual strengths and habits and weaknesses and accessibility needs? that's just not how it works.

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

we really went from games being one of the big entertainment industries of our time to “game maker is not a real job” in about 5 years?

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

If anyone know a license I can add with my code that makes it free and open source, but disallows AI scraping, please I'd like to know!

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

been building my own WGPU api/pipeline for the engine i'm using (@lily2d.bsky.social) and i've finally started to get the hang of colour space stuff. it is really confusing. made a fancy graph

A graph defining the Tektite API colour space pipeline... It's not that interesting

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Alex RS - WOIM🪱✂️🥚 @dogspawn.net · 15/09/2026

sometimes all you need is a little teamwork… #godot #indiegame #gamedev

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Lily2D @lily2d.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I bet you didn't know that Lily2D now has a Pixels API! 👀 Lily2D already has great support for WGSL shaders - and now it also includes a tiny 256x144 framebuffer renderer! Time to get started on that prototype, game jam or even just keep it retro! #indiedev #indiegamedev #gamedev #gamedevtools

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Ferron | Fyrn @ferronnuff.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

overly complicating solid designs is a media tradition well predating video games, you don't get a pass for trying to dehumanize artists and separate them from the work because you think it looks bad

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Rami Ismail (رامي) @ramiismail.com · 04/09/2026

what the fucking fuck www.whitehouse.gov/arcade/

whitehouse.gov

Arcade

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Joe Baxter-Webb @indiegameclinic.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Oh no they are vibe coding procedural rhetoric

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

in the 90s swedish artists got together and made a deck where each made one card each. can't find any more info on them, but you can sometimes find them second hand here. my dad did the 7 of diamond, IIRC auctionet.com/sv/2455228-k...

some splayed examples of cards from the swedish artist made deck of cards 'en lek med 54 konstnärer',

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Tim Clare @timclare.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

During the 2nd World War, various artists found themselves in a safe house in Marseilles, waiting for visas so they could escape the Nazis. André Breton & fellow surrealists like Max Ernst passed the time by designing a deck of playing cards, Le Jeu de Marseille, reimagined on Communist lines.

17 playing cards showing the aces, court cards & joker of Le Jeu de Marseille, all varied colourful images

A close up of the deck box & artist list of Le Jeu de Marseille

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André Bruwer @andrebruwer.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Good lord the corporate world is grim atm given all the AI mania. This has to be some of the best reads on just how crazy it is, with some advice on how to survive it at the end.

hermit-tech.com

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decisionmaking

The reality of how much damage AI mania is doing to our ability to run institutions effectively.

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Folk Emerging 🦣 stone age 4X (OUT NOW) @curiousdynamics.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

🎉 Folk Emerging is OUT NOW on Steam! 🎉 Grab that 10% launch discount, and don't forget to leave a review! store.steampowered.com/app/2275300/... MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone that has supported this game ❤️

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Jan Willem Nijman @jwaaaap.com · 25/08/2026

the thing about indie games is that if someone designs one single game I love, I’ll get whatever they make for the rest of their lives and pretty much always have a good time. people are so attached to ip but imo you really gotta know the creators.

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jazz mickle @queenjazz.gay · 06/08/2026

the software that LLMs write is not software i want to run on my computer. the text LLMs generate is not text i want to read or write. the images LLMs generate are not images i want to see or make. the music LLMs generate is not music i want to listen to or write.

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The Spaceshipper 🚀 @thespaceshipper.com · 06/08/2026

"Every studio I have worked in could tell you the cost of an artist day. None of them could tell me the cost of a decision that got reversed six months later. That gap explains most of what is currently happening with AI in game production."

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

the game already feels and plays more like physical solitaire, and getting to fudge things because noones around to police you reinforces that sensation

"If you find yourself wondering if you could've played this stage differently, you can try restarting it from the pause menu.
It's for you to decide if that counts as cheating."

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

picked up World Upon the Wind after being delighted by the demo this morning. follows basic "roguelite deckbuilding" mechanics but seems to be less about broken builds and more about balance and harmony. store.steampowered.com/app/3640430/...

screenshot of "Worlds upon the wind", showing off some of the glyph cards and gameplay

Screenshot of "Worlds upon the wind" showing off an Event

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Jeff Tanton - Wishlist OCCULT CLEANUP AGENCY 📸👻🪣 @jefftanton.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I think this is one of the cruelest, ultimately self-sabotaging decisions you can make as a company. Why on earth would you stop employees finding happiness and fulfillment in the act of creation, widening their worldview and skill sets - and being able to bring some of that back INTO your studio.

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Cyan Worlds @cyan.com · 26/07/2026

Over a year ago, we built a prototype for a new Myst Universe game meant for publisher eyes only. This project is NOT in active development, but we're proud of the work the team did, and wanted to share it with you all. Presenting: Project Anglerfish. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNGt02yZNc

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

all my public repos were in here including stuff that is 100% my copyright and stuff where only i have the license to use them (like fonts)

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

you’re right that it’s really hard to start off right, but i like to define how the experience should feel for the player. ie ”they should get to level up about once every hour” and then go backwards ”if the player would level up once per hour, how much should they gain from that”

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Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

A question for all my game dev followers: What are your strategies for evaluating pacing curves for singleplayer games during development? Stuff like “is the pace of level-ups right” and “are we giving out the right amount of currency”

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Folk Emerging 🦣 stone age 4X (OUT NOW) @curiousdynamics.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

📣 RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENT 🎮 FOLK EMERGING will launch on August 26th! 🔥 stone Age 🦣 nomadic ⏳ turn-based ⬢ 4X strategy Wishlist on Steam 👉 store.steampowered.com/app/2275300?...

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

man these universes beyond sets are getting interesting now #magiccon

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

man these universes beyond sets are getting interesting now #magiccon

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

one of the best in a sea of excellent city building games. highly recommend trying it this weekend

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

being a game designer means you have notes you don't remember writing that say things like "time traveling salesman problem"

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patrickcarlson @pjcarlson.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

good advice, even when not laid off. We’re all so atomized.

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

fantastic initiative. embarrassing that our swedish union basically just ”maybe you should learn ai. we dunno 🤷” they have a great unemployment fund but it’s not built for industry wide collapse times like these

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Zi @majormcdoom.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

5 million

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flying saucer @flyingsaucer.se · 02/06/2026

HELLO WORLD This is me (@ossianboren.bsky.social) announcing that my solo game dev studio is open for business! I can help your company by beaming me in as a freelance game designer and developer. I can help build your game design, your team or both. 🧵 #gamedev

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Vincent // HEARTWORM 📸 THE ATTIC DOOR 🚪 @adinolfi.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

the past ~6 months I've been working on StarBourne: a trad. roguelike with deep tactical deckbuilding combat set on a dark fantasy planet that is secretly a cosmic prison. Think Shandalar meets Caves of Qud. Still early. Playtests will happen soon in my discord. Would you play?

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Wes Fenlon @wes.readonlymemo.com · 28/06/2026

Remember the internet before Google, before algorithmic feeds, before monolithic social media corralled us onto the same handful of apps? When small, *personal websites* and webrings linking them together reigned supreme? Time to bring it back.

readonlymemo.com

Introducing Warp Point, a Web 1.0 gaming blog directory built for 2026

It's a webring! And a website!

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

looking for a new indie game engine? for the past year i've been working in and helped design Lily2D: * just realeased in early access * similar in scope to Love2D, but using a new easy-to-learn language called Swamp * one time fee license (directly supports @peterbjorklund.bsky.social aka piot)

lily2d.com

Lily2D

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

even if you have no interest in the game, this is an amazing look into the concepting + preproduction process that went into one of the most visually daring AAA games in recent memory.

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[eve] @ninehydras.dev · 18/06/2026

Going to start a thread of all the areas I worked on for Marathon <3 <3 first up: bioresearch #MarathonTheGame #Marathon

Screenshot from Bungie's Marathon, showing the Bioresearch region of Dire Marsh

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 19/06/2026

I'm not sure how widely known this is, but Bungie made the entire original trilogy of Marathon games (developed for Macintosh) available as open source, and a group of fan developers created an engine called Aleph One to run them in. They are free on Steam: store.steampowered.com/developer/al...

store.steampowered.com

Steam Developer: Aleph One

Classic Marathon Open Source

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

just off the top of my head. that last one is a really cool magic-like by @eriksvedang.com

Riven, Angeline Era, Nexus 5X, Tetrachroma, Marathon, 1000xResist, Last Call BBS, The Bazaar, Manahex

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

the point of the Lily2D framework is to get folks to learn to code and become efficient coders - I've basically levelled up from bad Lua coder into dreaming about structs, building my own GUI frameworks and WGPU pipeline packages for the engine (which will be released for free!)

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

lily2d.com

Lily2D

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catnipped @ossianboren.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

spent the afternoon yesterday playing through MYST, and wrote down some thoughts catnipped.bearblog.dev/thoughts-on-...

Screenshot from MYST (remake). First person view in the starlit expanse, nothing but sand and stars. In centre view is the linking book to MYST, waiting to be opened.

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Daniel Burke - 🍺Innkeep @innkeep.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I'm a history of ideas nerd, and a few years ago I gave a public lecture on the common link between "disclosure" (the aliens are here!) and the "singularity" (we will merge with machines!) I had a hunch there was some underlying connection, so I did a bit of research, and oh boy... 🧵

A poster for my talk. Alien Prophets and Machine Gods: Yearning for a Secular Heaven

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Bullet Points @bpmonthly.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

"Marathon looks at the ills of today and instead of providing flaccid critique asks you to indulge in play of it, asks if you feel lucky yet." Our Marathon issue comes to a close with an article by Charlotte Lindsay. Read here: bulletpointsmonthly.com/2026/05/27/h...

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