iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Finally got #CozyStickerville as a solo activity because I can't bring myself to be an adult who colors. I'm role playing a slightly twee 30 something, choosing the quirky options. I do this anticipating a second play as a weary back-to-nature curmudgeon being slowly overcome by industrialists.

You had ONE JOB, sticker alignment tester!

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Definitely could change a bit, but at least half of these will always be on the list. I tried to think of ones that I not only loved, but remember shaping me as a gamer.

A grid showing cover art for nine video games: Lode Runner, Wizardry, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Everquest, Divinity:Original Sin 2, XCom, Satisfactory

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Learning Thunder Road 2-handed. Absolute carnage by the time one car gets off the lead board due to unlucky oil slicks and a self-own via ill-used chopper in round 2. I think it will be more fun with 4p, but the road feels so tight that I predict an insane amount of ping-pong slams into impassibles.

A photo of Thunder Road: Vendetta with 4 of 6 cars already eliminated.

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Who do I speak to about the vast conspiracy??? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

A screen clip showing I'm on the waitlist for the Steam Frame, dashing my hopes for a good Autumn season.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's MADDENING that Valve's completely fair and totally random reservation system didn't give preferential treatment to me, a VR enthusiast, a Steam user of 22 years, and a middle-aged white man. What is all this accumulated privilege worth if even I can't jump the line? 😱😱😱😱😱😱😝😁

120

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Are you saying I shouldn't have sold my copy last year? Dang.

120

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A pretty decent week for me! After three plays, I've decided I like everything about Final Girl - except playing it. It's well made with everything tying together perfectly with the theme and it looks great. I simply hate when a few unlucky rolls in a row can hamstring you. It'll be up for trade.

Cover art for the games Betrayal at House on the Hill, The Quest for El Dorado, Bordeaux, Cosmoctopus, Final Girl and the "Into the Void" episode.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Look, I know what I said. I'm aware. Counterpoint:

A screengrab of the Steam download page showing a completed download of Star Wars Zero Company.

110

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Never has a negative review of a game made me want to play it more than this one.

A screenshot of part of a negative Steam review for Star Wars Zero Company. It says, 'Don't get baited that this is "star wars xcom". This is "star wars midnight suns".'

130

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Amazing job bringing down that deficit while you've been in charge, #GOP! And thank god for tRump's business acumen. apnews.com/article/trea...

A screenshot of the US Treasury website showing the current US national deficit stands at $1.7 TRILLON

A screenshot of the AP news headline "The US national debt now stands at $40 TRILLION" (a new record)

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

You broke their website by making it too popular. Or they got hacked.

110

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This week was all BGA. I love being able to stay in touch with distant friends in this way.

Cover art for Lords of Waterdeep, Gaia Project, Can't Stop Express, and a close up of components for a game that's been rebranded as "Diamant".

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

One important insight is about the idea that Twitter became a sort of "town hall" - a role they hadn't intended to file, but began to accept and promote by around 2012. But it's a really flawed concept. Here's an excerpt:

Objectively, nothing could be further from the truth. At that time, one in five Americans had a Twitter account. Most people who had Twitter accounts had never used them, and above 90% of all tweets about politics were posted by fewer than 10% of the people that did use Twitter all the time. There was no way in which Twitter was a representation of the electorate. Twitter was a representation of the most extreme, politically active, hyper-partisan among Americans, who were following politics really avidly. Looking at it now, we can see, “Well, that’s really just a distortion machine. And if politicians are using it to gauge the electorate, they’re getting really bad information.”

Again, you can say Twitter was not trying to participate in the artificial state or undermine democracy. Twitter is trying to do business and get more users and sell more whatever. But it had these unintended consequences that then it sort of settles into and becomes comfortable with.

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Lean week, but still played some bangers! Yes, Sunderfolk isn't really a board game since we play on the TV. But we're on the couch together moving dudes around a grid fighting monsters with cards, so I'm counting it this time. Love how you can fine tune the level of interaction / meanness in Yedo.

Cover art for Yedo: Deluxe Master Set, Luna Capital, & Sunderfolk

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I found this paragraph insightful:

A screenshot from the article that reads:
"This is the part of cheap generation that makes me uneasy. Promotion pressure scales with how finished a prototype looks. A grey-box level with placeholder audio is obviously provisional and everyone treats it that way. A prototype assembled from generated assets and generated code reads as close to shippable, which makes the case for rebuilding it much harder to win in a room full of people looking at a screen. Dicken describes generative AI as automated scaffolding, useful for putting up a frame and incapable of building the house. The failure mode of scaffolding is somebody deciding it looks solid enough to live in."

020

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I was going to supplement this terrible attempt at humor with a modified pic of Blaine and Judah, but it's apparently impossible to find a photo of them together! But I did find a pic of these two handsome fellows at Moontower Comedy Festival. Posehn is so tall he had to tilt to fit in frame.

Posehn poses with fans (and Judah Friedlander) at Moontower Comedy Festival. Photo by Arnold Wells for Austin American-Statesman.

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Loved getting Scoville to the table after a number of years since our last play, but was reminded why 4 players really is the max unless everyone is already very familiar with it. Played Knarr for the first time on BGA - it was kinda boring. Maybe I'll try again with the expansion.

A grid of thumbnails with box art for the games Scoville, The White Castle Duel, Between Two Cities, and Knarr.

020

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Just FYI: popular.info/p/these-cons...

A screenshot of a list from the linked article. It shows the top 25 brands that are financially backing the biggest Congressional supporters of ICE.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Really disappointed to learn that the "How was your experience?" Thumbs Up/ Thumbs Down prompt at the end of a Zoom meeting is referring to the quality of the connection, not that of the presenter and my co-workers. So many wasted down votes.

A screenshot of the prompt you get after a Zoom call. It asks "How was your experience?" and features thumbs up/down buttons.

020

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The gulf between the rich and everyone else is laid out in a stark analysis by Bank of America’s economists on household spending. The top 10% of earners account for as much spending on discretionary items as the bottom 70% combined.

A pie chart showing share of average annual expenditure by pre-tax income decile.

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

This was the crowd at the GASF 250 kickoff. We had three times as many people show up at the last two #NoKings rallies in flipping Roseville and Sacramento, CA.

People attend a rally kicking off the Great American State Fair marking the 250th anniversary of independence, on the National Mall June 24. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)

051

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Turn 1 in my first solo play of The Old King's Crown by Pablo Clark from @theoldkingscrown.bsky.social - this was a brutal way to find out the Automa has 2 Deadly cards to start with. That 10 was played in the Highlands, but I put it back in my hand using one of my specials, only to lose it anyway.

A close up of the board of The Old King's Crown game in progress. The lowlands clash started with two Ruse cards, resulting in two ambush cards coming out, which are face down before being revealed.

A close up of the board of The Old King's Crown game in progress. The lowlands clash has had the two ambush cards revealed, and the bot player has revealed an assassin, defeating my highest card that was also revealed.

110

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

It finally came! A tough first teach even using the scripted tutorial - I'll do better next time though! Reviews were mixed based on player tolerance for direct conflict and information/decision space. But it was a hit with some, so I see it making the table more with the right set of players.

A photo of the box for the board game "The Old King's Crown"

110

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

You, as created and lived in the solo journaling game Thousand Year Old Vampire, by @timhutchings.bsky.social

A photo of the physical book "Thousand Year Old Vampire"

030

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

It sounds like someone who's not an artist prompted Ai with "cartoon of a monkey driving a taxi through a crazy city scene" and then gave the output to the art dept and said "make it like that!" Artists then created assets from scratch, meaning no Ai went into the game. So what was the point?

200

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Weird how calling attention to things works, huh?

A screengrab showing the game "Possess Me, Satan" is now at the top of BGG's "The Hotness" list.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Dumb sh*t like this is why Steam is still winning over Epic:

A screenshot of the Epic store's listing for a free Discord Nitro offer. In adjacent paragraphs the page says the offer is "for new and returning Nitro users" while also saying "for first time Nitro users only".

100

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

You know what we call people like that...

An image of dancing snowflakes from an episode of SNL.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

That's such a perfect description!

021

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

We both enjoyed El Dorado enough to immediately play a second game. 2p goes by pretty quickly, and we ended with an almost photo finish, but my friend beat me handily. Only a tad embarrassing...

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Looks cool! You have a typo.

200

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

If you cut off the bottom part of this story and just spread the headline you could probably get a lot more conservative men on board with green initiatives.

A screencap of a story with the headline "Great tits could be wiped out by climate change in the near future". Below the headline is a photo of a "great tit", a small, brightly colored bird.

02211

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

I got an older favorite to the table for the first time in years, and tried one that was new to us, despite being out since 2018.

020

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Has no one noticed this typo before, or am I just too new to be in on the joke?

A partial screenshot from The Emerald Collective's Twitch stream pre-roll. The words "STARING SOON" are on the screen.

110

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Is it a scam? According to the FAQ on their website, there i sno actual physical location (yet).

111

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I only got one thing to the table, and that was just for myself to learn before getting to teach it to the group. "Unsettled", which I just picked up for a steal of a price. To be fair though, I did also get Death Stranding 2 and that's eating up most of my free time now :)

A freshly painted "Luna" miniature, perched atop the Unsettled game box.

010

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Thanks for a great sequel @hideokojimaen.bsky.kojimaproductions.jp ! I never knew why the first game asked for my BDay, but I started DS2 the day before my latest celebration & got a wonderful surprise when I returned home after a delivery (perhaps a little early since I'd met almost no one yet).

000

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

@davepell.bsky.social As response to your latest NextDraft story about website enshittification, I present you with my browser toolbar - these are all the plugins I have to make the internet bearable:

A screenshot of more than a dozen browser add-ins to block tracking, auto-play videos, and other online annoyances.

020

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

This will be my weekend, starting now. Also, dayum... the graphics on PC are incredible.

An in-game screenshot of Death Stranding 2 on PC, presented in the style of a polaroid. Sam stands in a desert overlooking a distant facility of some sort.

210

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

The minute Thursday rolls around this is how I'll be celebrating!

001

Phīlomorph @philomorph.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Won't you think of the billionaires??

010