iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Are you in the UKGamesIndusty slack? It has a Brighton channel that would be a good fit.

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Tom Francis @pentadact.com · 11/09/2026

Continuing to quietly beat the drum of "Designing without testing is like painting with your eyes shut."

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Reviewing Sound on a 100 point scale - Metacritic couldn’t handle the review scores of the 90s.

A screenshot of a review of Starfox from the Mario All Stars video

They rate Graphics 98%
Sound 96%
Game Play 97%
Value 96%

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Excellent storytelling, thanks for sharing!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Then the lucky dip of “is this the eject button, or am I turning the console off”

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Purchased it! Looking forward to checking it out. Congrats on the launch!

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Lis @thewritegame.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

A rundown on narrative playtesting by @stevebromley.bsky.social. I’m a big believer in conducting proper user research if you have the access and means to do it. Golden data.

gamesuserresearch.com

How to playtest your game’s story | Games User Research

How to safely approach testing both comprehension and appeal for the story of your game.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Thanks for sharing Lis - always helpful to see the gap between design intent, and how players are receiving it!

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John Dickens @johndickens.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Seeing so many user research-adjacent platforms promising "instant insights" - two words that shouldn't go together. You can't get insight from one clip, one player, one moment. That's a data point. Insight is only gained when you find the context - often a long, multi-faceted, multi-channel thing.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Here in the UK, we have our own Max Miller:

The Brighton statue of Max Miller “the cheeky chappy”

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

York Castle Museum is a highlight every visit! House of Trembling Madness (the Stonegate one) is atmospheric for drink/food. (And if you have transport, Castle Howard has outdoor adventure playgrounds and good immersive exhibitions in the winter)

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I don’t remember the Gorilla, but “I’m your father, I’m your father” from the Star Wars Gangsta Rap regularly goes through my mind…

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

If you’re at Develop this week, look out for my article in MCV/Develop about playtesting for story appeal & comprehension - The magazine is free for attendees.

MCV Develop magazine - open to the arricle “testing story in games”

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Wow, amazing review scores for Denshattack! Was great to be small part of the journey!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Like much of the UK games industry, I'll be at Develop this week. Tuesday & Wednesday is pretty packed, but let me know if you're around on the Thursday and up for a chat about playtesting, games user research, or seagulls.

A seagull stealing chips. The caption is 'I'll be at Develop - come say hello and we'll chat about playtesting'

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Partner it with the best Brighton depiction in a board game:

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Yes please to being added to the list. Thanks for putting it together!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

This is one of my larger concerns with some remote platforms. For many projects I’d pay more for comprehensive screening (eg a phone call, validating their play history), but the model is “get a lot of cheap participants, & don’t publish the ones who don’t complete”, creating additional sample bias.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Checking spelling on Google - this automated summary hurt my brain...

Google's AI overview says"
Relevent, often mispelled as relevent...

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Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 31/03/2026

I’ve posted it before, but it feels evergreen The two hardest problems in Computer Science are 1. Human communication 2. Getting people in tech to believe that human communication is important

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Spain made me think Scopely. A great team there if so!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Great talk, including showing the impact of research studies to help inspire and inform decisions throughout iterative development!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I’ll probably go for the paperback version…

Amazon book options
Paperback £7.98
Hardcover £1309

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Finished Expedition 33, a while after everyone else. Not normally my genre, but I was hooked by the mystery of the prologue, and couldn't put it down.

A version of the coyote Meme.
My neighbour told me the paintress keeps eating his expeditions, so i asked how many expeditioners he has and he said he just goes to Lumiere and gets a new expedition afterwards so i said it sounds like he's just feeing expeditions to the paintress and then his daughter started crying.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Games are complex systems, requiring multiple disciplines to go in the same direction often without a clear map of where we are going- it’s why team alignment is one of the most hardest parts of game development: www.eurogamer.net/new-report-c...

eurogamer.net

New report claims Crimson Desert's development was plagued by "a hodgepodge of features crammed together" and leaders who "don't acknowledge anyone who doesn't share their exact mindset"

Two Pearl Abyss developers have claimed Crimson Desert was developed in a troubled environment, characterised by an inv…

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

This LinkedIn -> English converter hurts.

A translation screen. I've written "i'm a games user researcher". It answers "I watch people play video games and write reports about why they're frustrated, which the developers will inevitably ignore."

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Enjoying Parseword this week, from @josh.powerlanguage.co.uk It feels like I’m learning a skill (how to do cryptic crosswords), creating an incentive to stick with it each day.

A picture of Password’s menu screen. It says
Parseword, a tricky wordplay game. With buttons for Today’s puzzle and settings

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Cheryl Platz @funnygodmother.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

It's Tuesday: #EnduringPlay day! We move from last week's research of games on the market to very practical playtesting of individual #videogames while they're in production with @stevebromley.bsky.social, author of How to Be A Games User Researcher, with something for all. #gamedev #uxresearch

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Sorry to hear that, it’s a big shame after all the great work you did with the team. I suspect you’ll need some time to rest and reset, but flagging this remote Scopely role if you’re jumping straight into looking for the next thing: job-boards.greenhouse.io/scopely/jobs...

job-boards.greenhouse.io

Senior Researcher- External Development

US - United States

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The ancient arts that were lost, now found.

A floppy disk. Ram Doubler - double your ram with just one click

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The service they offer just looks to be preying on early-stage developers who have heard they should be doing playtesting, but not been exposed to why they should playtest or how to get value from the process.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Well put - That’s the core concept that I find helps explain what the purpose of playtesting is. Here’s the pic I use to explain this concept in my book/talks:

Two circles
One is “what we think we’re making”
One is “what we’re actually making”
The gap between them is marked “user research” with an arrow saying “discover this gap”

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Agreed. Preying on teams who are new to this and don’t have a professional understanding of what the purpose of playtesting or user research is.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Excellent thread from @maxnichols.bsky.social I see this frequently when working live service & mobile teams who are lucky enough to have an active Discord - they represent *some*of your players, & have a big sway on vocal opinions, but don’t represent the vast majority of your player’s behaviour.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

It’s been a while since I last ghostrode the whip.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Congratulations David, a big milestone!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Great point, I think you’re right that it will make people continue to think a survey is the ‘easy’ option.

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

“Surveys are bad because people don’t know the rules” Yes, but I don’t think better question design is actually why surveys are bad. More common if you’re defaulting to a survey is because teams haven’t thought enough about what they need to know, or what they will do with the info.

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chloe 🟄°⋆ 🔜 game UX summit @chloehodgson.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

gotta remind myself that other devs know the score and understand when I say that - I've been in the industry for 5 years, and tomorrow is the first time a game with a significant amount of my work is gonna be played by the public... I'm so nervous!! and proud!! please play the Denshattack demo!!

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Elizabeth Zelle @kohizeri.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

My lukewarm take Spamming LinkedIn requests is not networking. Stop advising people trying to break into the games industry to do this Networking isn't a game you can min/max, it's about actual personal connections. Shitposting on Bluesky is a better networking tool than blind LinkedIn connections

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Elizabeth Zelle @kohizeri.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

A excellent piece on why 'Design by Reddit' is a terrible replacement for actual user research. Keeping a finger on the pulse of social media sentiment can be an important *complement* to understanding your users (and even add context to your research responses), but can't replace #GamesUR

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Lissanna @lissanna.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Xbox Research is looking for feedback on accessibility options in video games!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I am currently trying to balance a tilting ship… have recommended to friends!

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Steve Bromley @stevebromley.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

My understanding is that books on KU are free, and authors are paid by the number of pages read. So you don’t need to convince people to purchase, and getting thousands of people to read just a few pages until they abandon it will add up.

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Lissanna @lissanna.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

The IGDA GURSIG is happy to announce the #gamesUR Summit 2026 in Helsinki, Finland this May 2026. We look forward to connecting our community again! Keep an eye on our website for details. www.gamesur.com/coming-soon-... #GamesUR #UserResearch #GameDev

gamesur.com

Coming Soon (Conference) | Games User Research Community

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