iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 05/08/2026

This might look like an unreasonable amount of chilli seeds to put on a parmesan crisp, but personally I appreciate a rate limiter on how fast I would otherwise eat what is ultimately a box of fried cheese.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/08/2026

My cats look like they enjoy sleep more than I've ever enjoyed anything.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 28/07/2026

If Michaelangelo had my cats, at least one chapel would have had a radically different paint job.

Jess and Beth, asleep. Jess's paw is extended and Beth is clutching it.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 29/06/2026

The humble bar graph taking a bold step into 3D here, while never losing sight of its passion: clearly showing which numbers are bigger.

A 3D bar graph where the smaller bars are closer to us, making them taller than the larger ones.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 28/06/2026

I had never imagined Merchant Ivory films was just named after two guys called Merchant and Ivory. It was olden times! I think I just assumed they were killing a few endangered animals between takes as a side gig.

Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) and director James Ivory (b. 1928). Merchant and Ivory were life and business partners from 1961 until Merchant's death in 2005. During their time together, they made 44 films.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 24/06/2026

Git still hiring poets to write error messages.

A git error message reading "fatal: you are on a branch yet to be born"

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 31/05/2026

Sick this week, so I finally started F1 Drive to Survive. It's good but there are a lot of smug young men in it and so far only one of them has been put in the bin.

An F1 driver in a wheelie bin. (It's an ice bath but it undermines my joke to mention this)

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 22/05/2026

My favourite fact in ages, via @lucyjames.games on the Besties: Widow's Bay (which is great btw) was created by the overdressed Babadook from this historic tweet.

Tweet from Katie Dippold where she's dressed as the Babadook but the party has more of a grown ups drinking wine vibe.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 13/05/2026

Mana orb: do not drink until overcharge pfx finish Health orb: do not drink (candle)

A glowing blue cocktail with a blue flame at Shameful Tiki Room, next to a candle in round red glass.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 24/03/2026

Ominous seating arrangements.

Restaurant bathroom. Three wooden chairs face the toilet.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 18/03/2026

Discovery: cats can toggle their legs.

My cat Jess, lying with no legs visible.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 18/03/2026

I'll be honest, there's also a fair amount of this going on.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 13/02/2026

Are we doing trailers for bins now

A pink recycling bin sealed with a "coming soon!" label

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 12/02/2026

Met a very high resolution rabbit tonight, and a very sweet drawing of a rabbit I did not meet tonight.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 12/02/2026

The Forgotten City is a game about going back to Roman times, so when it came time to choose a name, I decided it was worth becoming someone I hate in return for also ruining the game.

A screenshot in which an obviously Roman character is greeting me, and my response options include "I'm Roman and I've just come from the future. "

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 07/02/2026

Accidentally summed it up.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 08/01/2026

I've been running an indie games studio for 15 years now, and it felt like a good time to boil down what I've learned into 4 pieces of advice: www.pentadact.com/2026-01-08-1... I hope it's of use, not least because goddamn I forgot how long blog posts take to write.

A timeline visually representing the advice from my post, emphasising how dramatically and reliably having more time, with a testable build, converts to your game being better and your studio being safer.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 15/12/2025

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! I think I have a version of this that makes sense to me.

- The massager is shaking my view.
- My brain is correcting for this - call this the Stabiliser.
- The LED lights are flickering, and my brain fills in the gaps - call this the Persister.

So what I think might be happening is:
- The massager knocks my view up a little.
- The Stabiliser moves the image down to compensate.
- But the LED light is not on this frame, so there is no light to move down.
- The Persister, meanwhile, remembers the light from last frame and draws it where we last saw it.
- But since the rest of the image has been moved down, this is now out of alignment with the scene.

The offset varies smoothly depending on where in the jostling process the light's frequency happens to be on or off, which is why different lights move in different patterns.

With the single string of light that breaks into two, I think these are the same frequency but different phases. And so I'm seeing the same motion, but one circuit of lights is offset from the other.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 15/12/2025

OK I'm not actually sure how you get at video alt text, so here:

Using a pneumatic massager for muscle pain, I was puzzled by strings of lights on an opposite building wobbling around in sync, while the rest of the view stayed static.

When I turned the massager off, the wobbling stopped. If I point my camera at it and then massage the arm that is holding the phone, it replicates the effect - although IRL there's zero blurriness, which is freakier.

As you can see, it's generally fairy lights that wobble while other lights don't. The most fascinating one is the square-bracket shaped lights, where the left corner wobbles in a different direction to the right corner, so that the shape breaks in two, but only while it's wobbling.

Anyone know what's going on? I have to assume it's something to do with these lights having a frequency that somehow relates to the frequency of the massager jostling my eyes/phone, but that is barely less mysterious than having no clue at all.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 15/12/2025

This is absolutely batshit, and I'm so glad I was able to capture the effect on video, because I was feeling completely insane. Full story in the alt text. Anyone know what's going on here?

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 16/10/2025

Just an absolute cat pretzel. At my *funeral* I won't be this relaxed.

My cat Jess, curled absurdly and sound asleep.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 02/10/2025

"OK, we've got nothing to brag about on quality or price, so what's our selling point?" ... ... "Well, if you're standing right outside..."

Sandwich board reading "the closest dentist in the world"

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 28/09/2025

In this Columbo ep, he hassles a chess champ enough for the guy to lose one of his 10 simultaneous games. Fair enough, happens to the best of us when we done a bad murder. On closer inspection though, he lost in 2 moves, the literal worst moves possible in chess, and a comedy own-goal.

Screen grab of the brief view we get of the board, showing white in checkmate after only 2 moves.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 31/08/2025

Finally starting to click with The Bazaar. There was really no stopping this build once I screwed a Silencer onto my Dog.

Screenshot from a game called The Bazaar, showing a victory screen with my loadout, which includes a Dog and a Silencer.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 30/08/2025

The scamps both turned 2 today. They have no concept of why they got their favourite stinky fish treats or were allowed to play with The Forbidden Strawberry (a beloved choking hazard I have to watch them closely with) - but they had a lovely time.

My kittens Beth (black short hair) and Jess (tabby and fluffy), at arbitrary rotations.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 16/08/2025

A seagull will repeat itself if you ask nicely.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 16/08/2025

Hi, I'm at WorldCon! The only thing I'm doing is a low key hangout type thing with only 6 spots - if you wanna join for that, register for it in the next hour! You can register at room 326 or here: seattlein2025.org/program-and-...

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 13/08/2025

Yeah I guess you could say I live in a rough area.

Graffiti reading: "I'm so glad you exist!" With a reply beneath: "And I'm so glad you gave us this great grafito!"

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 26/06/2025

If I ever get up in the night, both my scamps go nuts for what they believe is the fabled Second Biscuit Time - a thing that has never happened.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 24/06/2025

I have a question for folks who know more about Dune lore than I do, and my question is this: Chairdog?

A screenshot from Dune Imperium: Immortality showing a card named Chairdog. The art features a fluffy chair.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/06/2025

Gunpoint, and the Defenestration Trilogy, are 12 today! store.steampowered.com/curator/3463... Gunpoint also just hit 10k reviews, so our 5 games now have a total of 34k reviews, averaging 97% positive. 😳 So grateful to the players & proud of the teams 💙💚💛 store.steampowered.com/developer/su...

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 15/05/2025

May 14th 2025: the first Fun has been had with the next game. 🔊 youtu.be/Hla3gWrV4TA Trying Godot for this, I like it a lot so far! GD Script warms my GameMaker-trained soul, so much less boilerplate and legwork than C# and Unity.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 13/04/2025

I've only just started Lone Star, but this is already the funniest thing a videogame enemy has ever said while exploding.

A speech bubble coming from the spaceship I've just blown up reads: "Adversity is the bouquet that decorates my life."

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 13/04/2025

In the emerging genre of roguelikes that actually try to explain why they Be Like That, Blue Prince comes in hot with "it was your great uncle's dying wish for you to play this like it's a roguelike."

A note you find at the start of Blue Prince. It's your great uncle's will, laying out 3 rules for your inheritance that amount to 'when you fail everything will be reset'

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 20/03/2025

In a career of being nominated for things we know we can't win, I don't think I've ever been more sure of not winning something than the IGF for Excellence in Design last night. Somehow, it was also the first time I've been wrong. Properly stunned, hugely grateful, deeply confused.

Team photo with award. Left to right it's Steve Lee, Robert Arzola, Tom Francis, and John Winder. Sadly absent: John Roberts.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 19/03/2025

I love alt+ctrl+GDC. I have no further questions about this.

Custom arcade cabinet named RICE!! controller is a bowl with a chopstick mounted on a crank-like arm.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 18/03/2025

Well, that was a hell of a GDC.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 05/03/2025

A delivery order is a series of interesting decisions.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/03/2025

Hello, I'm giving a talk at GDC about writing Tactical Breach Wizards, called How to String a Joke Out for 15 Hours. schedule.gdconf.com/session/inde... It's on Monday at 4.40pm, and it features things like this shot, illustrating why our tactical wizard generator did not produce anything useable.

A list of randomly generated tactical wizard class concepts, including such misfires as Wand Mage and Staff Operator.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/03/2025

Weirdly I just watched the movie for the first time, which is fun for a) baaaaaaby Christian Slater, and b) radically altering my Ten Worst Haircuts I Have Ever Seen list.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 26/02/2025

The numbers were... not sensible.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 26/02/2025

Well well well, looks like some suckers tried to win the Wildfrost daily by making smart decisions quickly. The actual strat was to let the Razorhogs punch your Lupa in the face over 100 times to boost their own Gobling's payout, while using your heals to keep it alive so you can stab it more.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 11/02/2025

Creme brulee donut is an object of power. (49th Parallel)

Donut with bruleed sugar top, cracked by a bite, filled with cream.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/02/2025

49th Parallel: the theme this festival has been The Actual Hot Chocolate Is Extremely Normal. Good, tho, and the donut was amazing: delicious caramel coating, delicious earl grey filling. 8/10

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 03/02/2025

Smoky marshmallow hot choc from Beaucoup. Intense, sweet smoke in the cream, subtler in the drink so it's not too much. Marshmallow is half molten by the time you're done and a delicious finisher. Truffle is rich and squidgy. Fantastic all round, first 9/10

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 02/02/2025

A La Mode's: hot choc with an exuberantly frosted pastry lid(?!), with apple pastry fries (?!), slotted into a pastry mesh hedgehog (?!) containing an apple yuzu custard fondue (?!). The drink was completely normal, the custard was nice, everything else was flavorless. But so impressive! 6/10

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 31/01/2025

What question do you imagine is at the top of this blackboard?

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 30/01/2025

Ok, these were chaos so buckle up. "Vegan custard flan hot chocolate" (per store menu): lovely, but turns out none of the accompaniments are vegan, and they sell nothing vegan they could sub in. Who could foresee this would be an issue with a menu item you specifically advertise as vegan??

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 29/01/2025

Blue Curacao hot choc from Uprising Bakery. Could have been bluer or orangier, but still good. Snack was phenomenal, like the smoothest creamiest imaginable version of a Reese's cup. Would buy a box. 8/10

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 29/01/2025

Salted caramel pecan hot choc from Purebread Bakery. Drink surprisingly plain and unsweet! Pecan bar rock solid, decent. Skor (Daim) shrapnel in the whipped cream: incredible. Always do this. 7/10 but 2 of those are for the Skor alone.

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