iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

shahaan @shahaan.me · 30/09/2026

herobrine never existed, but he did in our minds and that caused us to behave differently in-game maybe overcoming that "mostly nothing" meta you mentioned doesn't require a tangible reward, but rather just enough ambiguous feedback that could spark superstition within the community

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 30/09/2026

totally true worth mentioning that sometimes even a placebo folktale adds to the experience in minecraft players blamed a character called "herobrine" for strange things in the world generation I vividly remember fearing that herobrine might pop up while I was exploring caves

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

as soon as players learn how a mechanic works, they begin min-maxing it and the game becomes a check-list rather than an experience ultimately I think having more vague / undefined / hidden systems like this could help players feel more immersed in our worlds (7/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

to make this mechanic you would have to manipulate RNG behind the scenes with the intention to generate player superstition if players start creating theories on how the god's favour mechanic works, the design was successful (6/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

imagine choosing not to shoot a deer, and later you barely survive because the enemy misses the killing blow, or a sudden tailwind carries your ship out of a storm since these things can still happen through standard RNG, it leaves the player wondering: was it god or just a coincidence? (5/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

likewise, the terms of a god's favour mechanic would have to be hidden from the player's perspective how cool would it be if sometimes unusual things happen in the world but the player can never quite figure out what caused the thing to happen (4/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

if something good results from the thing we did, we may attribute that to god but we never know for sure on the other hand, if nothing results from the thing we did to earn god's favour, we don't necessarily stop believing in god (3/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

however, in real life that's not how our relationship with god works we might do something hoping for favour from god, but the result is vague (2/7)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/09/2026

finally watched #TheOdyssey and it got me thinking: how would you design a "god's favour" mechanic in a game? typically, like with most game mechanics, you might design it to be explicitly transactional player does a good thing -> earns god's favour buff 🧵(1/7) #gamedesign

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 18/09/2026

at ~2:16 there is what seems to be a single frame in which he changes his shirt colour and puts on a fluffy pink jacket, which carries over into the next scene was this ad made with AI? 🧐

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 12/09/2026

want to feel like a flawless person? spend 30 seconds reading the live chat for any game industry event #BlizzCon

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 10/09/2026

smartphones have matured and iphone sales have been stagnant over the last 5 years that's really bad news for a public company that needs increasing revenue every year at this point I assume their logic is that appealing to sizable niches like foldables could tip their revenue out of stagnation 🤷‍♂️

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 10/09/2026

gotta love apple's animations

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 08/09/2026

most of my skeets are paced like that

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 03/09/2026

sports games should be treated like smartphones upgrade every year and you'll be disappointed upgrade every 2-4 years and the difference will feel tangible sports #gamedesign is too rigid, graphics have matured, and a yearly release schedule is too frequent to warrant big changes

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 27/08/2026

life is like taking a photo never quite how you pictured it

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Reposted by shahaan

Ahmed Soliman @solimaniac.com · 12/08/2026

ontario when there's something cool to see in the sky:

A weather map showing heavy cloud cover over Southwestern Ontario

Shaquille O'Neal make a "time out" hand sign

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 12/08/2026

a beautiful collection of nature friends you have there 🌞

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 24/07/2026

at least you're consistent

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 23/07/2026

I just said thank you to the self-checkout machine AI has defeated me 🏳️

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 23/07/2026

that was your dream phone for a while - RIP

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 20/07/2026

woke up with a sore neck, a bad knee and an ankle injury sleeping remains the most dangerous activity of my day

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 13/07/2026

im convinced boomers feel a deep, primal joy when they defy google maps how do we replicate this feeling in games? #gamedev

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 10/07/2026

as a #gamedev I really envy the songwriting medium songs don't need a plot or characters, they convey an emotion in < 5 minutes with a few looping lyrics I wonder if we can replicate that in games 💭 a short experience with no objectives or resolution - just focused on conveying a single feeling

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 08/07/2026

shocking statistic I came across today: roughly 1 in 5 AAA game developers in the world are Canadian happy belated #CanadaDay 🇨🇦🕹️

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 07/07/2026

super cool solution! would love to explore how this can work for situations where you don't have enough room for the symbols, like when using coloured outlines around icons

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

a AAA game on avg takes 5 years to make annualized, 51% over 5 years is ~9% the s&p 500 has done ~14% annualized over the last 5 years if a basic index fund is beating hit AAA games, investors are going to look elsewhere 🥲

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

yes - 51% is avg profit but only *if the game is a hit* while it seems like a decent profit number, it has to be enough to make up for any flopped games the studio made that year additionally dev cost does not include other overhead like admin team salaries, IT infrastructure, and office rent

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

AAA studios must reduce costs to avoid layoffs high costs are largely a result of complex workflows which require more workers to save money, workflows need to become more efficient but more efficiency means less people are required which means either way more layoffs are coming 😬 (9/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

AAA games cost too much to make high costs drive away investment and make studios very vulnerable to risks which brings me to my conclusion: (8/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

objection 2: studios lay workers off even if their game is a hit mega true and dev cycles are real but I think this points to a much bigger reason: (7/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

objection 1: microtransactions exist super true and for a while microtransactions produced enough profit for studios to offer their games free-to-play, but success with this model is getting increasingly rare not every game can be fortnite, nor should it be (6/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

what this means: big budget studios today have significantly less room for error more remakes and trend-chasing / less experimentation and innovation a single failed game could be enough to shutter the whole studio (5/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

some math: in the ps2 era, a studio that spends $10M on a game could generate $78M in profit if it's a hit - a 780% return in the current era, a studio that spends $193M could generate $100M in profit if it's a hit - a 52% return (4/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

average net profit for a hit AAA game over the last 30 years (inflation adjusted) ps1: $44M - $176M ps2: $78M - $195M ps3: $86M - $258M ps4: $115M - $360M ps5: $100M - $400M 😬 (3/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

average dev cost for AAA games over the last 30 years (inflation adjusted) ps1: $2.2M - $11M ps2: $10M - $20M ps3: $26M - $52M ps4: $72M - $144M ps5: $193M - $386M but surely the increased number of gamers in today's market makes up for the reduced prices? (2/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 02/07/2026

prices for AAA video games over the last 30 years (inflation adjusted) ps1: $50 -> $110 ps2: $50 -> $97 ps3: $60 -> $103 ps4: $60 -> $86 ps5: $70 -> $90 prices went down but average #gamedev costs exploded (1/9)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

as a player it's a lot more fun to be overpowered than perfectly balanced as game designers we can focus on balancing levers that control *when* the player is allowed to be overpowered rather than *if* they are allowed to be overpowered (6/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

in #gamedesign I think this is where an underrated aspect of game feel comes into play a hero that's created on a spreadsheet is going to be mathematically perfectly balanced but may not feel great to play (5/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

but art does not aim for perfection, and for someone taking pictures as a form of art, a lens with a lot of character is a lot more fun to shoot with (4/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

modern lenses aim to achieve optical perfection, which has its use cases, much like launching a rocket takes mathematical perfection (3/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

the word "personality" is really fitting for that trait because when we describe an interesting personality, we're usually describing what stands out in that person, something about them that's not "ordinary" (2/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

i've been learning a lot about camera lenses and an interesting lens trait i've come across is its "personality" - which describes how the optical flaws of the lens create an interesting aesthetic (1/6)

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 29/06/2026

love me a physical keyboard on phones but it really is a nice to have rather than a necessity but so is the entire concept of foldables so you know what yeah let's do that

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 28/06/2026

I think more humans would get that wrong than bots

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 26/06/2026

we also have to be ok with not seeing graphical improvements every year games are so much more than hyper realistic simulations current hardware limitations will force devs to focus on art direction rather than fidelity

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 26/06/2026

solo / indie devs are more reluctant to use AI out of principle though they also can't afford tokens for the big fancy models but perhaps sentiment will change and open source models will be enough

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shahaan @shahaan.me · 26/06/2026

I wrote a thing then got AI to make its own version of the thing without context of my thing and it wrote a thing that's almost the same thing as my thing does that mean the robot is as smart as me or am I as dumb as the robot?

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