iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

I hate how dry and warm that it’s been here in Van the past month…but petrichor is such a nostalgic scent to me that I can’t help but love these first days of rain after an uncharacteristic dry spell like tonight.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I’ll be curious to hear what you think of what you think to 2 as well! Tried to stay a bit vague about my critiques of it to avoid colouring your experience at all lol

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Highly recommend Prey (2017) as well! I’m one of the few that love Dishonored but the sequel didn’t resonate with due to some slightly different design philosophies around level and mission design with Arkane Lyon being point on 2. Arkane Austin’s (RIP) more ImSim approach to Prey is more my jam.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The two-hit combo that KOed me was them following it up with the belief that the company would reward them with a large share of the profits earned on said micro transactions… I was completely speechless.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

The psychic damage that I have taken from folks not only actually using this logic to justify support of stuff like HP, but the implementation of unethical practices. Really had a colleague tell me that it was not, in fact, exploitative to use gambling mechanics in micro transactions based on this.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Happy Birthday! I’ve had Weyes Blood’s “Children of the Empire” constantly pop back up in my head a lot recently…can’t think of why that may be, though 🙃

youtu.be

Weyes Blood - Children of the Empire (Official Audio)

YouTube video by Weyes Blood

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Suffice to say, it would not surprise me if this is extremely common. Specificity to the image in their head is more important than creating a common language to collaborate within for some—in any discipline, not just art.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

The best I had seen before was a smorgasbord of different film stills from different directors, production designers, DPs, styles, eras, etc with little to no discernible through line. One project had the goal of looking like Mission Impossible and the question of “which one?” met with blank stares.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Can’t say for certain it’s common place everywhere in the industry, but most art directors that I’ve worked with relied so much on Google image search. My previous studio was the first using reference books and pinpointing specific artists—it was such a breath of fresh air! Felt like theatre again!

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Ezra Klein: [Slaps the forehead of Andrew Cuomo] This baby’s never gonna run again thanks to some frankly humiliating failures, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t the perfect candidate for a big ol’ tent!

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Looking forward to the absolute worst opinion pieces by establishment Dems about the NYC mayoral race in defence of Cuomo’s campaign pointing to the number of Republicans that voted for him—ignoring how that would be the most impossible thing to replicate anywhere else…and that Trump endorsed him.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Me, thinking about the good things that happened last night:

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Oh, most definitely! And I suspect this will lead to more and more IP consolidation/ homogenization as the budgets ballon. But, I’ve also seen this when your creative team doesn’t really have a vision to drive towards outside of a list of back of the box features.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

There is a big difference between my frustration at UE5 lacking keyboard shortcuts for their new level workflows after 6 major releases and how I feel when I die running back to collected my dropped Runes in Elden Ring. One is a failure of design, while the other is successfully creating a fantasy.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

However, the design of something intended to be a tool is failing when it is not as effortless of an extension of the human using it as possible. Whereas art is a conversation with the audience, thus extending its own vision back to the user as much as it is meant to be an extension of them.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

The relevant takeaway that I had while reading it is how folks seem to confuse designing software as a tool versus designing software for art and/or entertainment. Elements crucial to the former—HCD, mental models, cognitive load, etc.—are valuable to the latter.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I finally got around reading The Design of Everyday Things recently to see how it compared to the foundational book in my design education, Understanding Comics, and fill in the context missing from just hearing folks reference elements from it over the years.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Too often, you get told to sand off all the edges in the hopes that it will appeal to all players, which all too often alienates the audience you were targeting.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

It’s a balancing act for sure, but, in these instances, there is little room for nuance in the discussion around how much would need to change improve the user experience without sacrificing the fantasy we are crafting for players.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I find this is particularly difficult with discussions around “friction” in the player experience. For AAA games, in particular. Executives or directors basing huge changes on negative or lukewarm feedback when some level of that response is expected in the designated player fantasy.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Mind boggling considering the interview is 90% buzzwords that a marketing department would tell a studio is the perfect game for the moment based on the research of the highest revenue games out 5+ years ago.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I thought with the Canadian election settled that my anxieties on the home front would ease a little in this tumultuous world. But, every time I look out my window, I see a crow nesting in the tree across the street, forewarning me of the Hitchcockian nightmares brewing beneath the floorboards.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

I’m so tired of Star Wars sequels.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Every imported item at checkout on a website:

A still from the GI Joe PSAs with quoted dialogue from the parody version saying, “Hey kid, I’m a computer!!”

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Just really needed to get this out of my brain…

Tommy Wiseau from The Room screams, “You’re tariffing me apart, U-SA!”

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

I really hope that each part has scent notes comparable to the ingredient, so you know it’s about time to buy a new one when you are getting nothing but bun.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

It’s super unfortunate that UE hasn’t updated the move component on the base pawn to reflect how complex the collision on all these megascan and more detailed terrain sculpting can be. You end up with scenes that look pretty, but the player and AI get hung up on a weird facet of geo.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

It’s the biggest mistake that I’ve seen from the AAA studios that big publishers started in the last decade: they hire for a fully realized studio instead of laying the ground work with a core team and ramping up once you’re ready. So you get demos that look flashy but have zero substance.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

The addition of real-time cinematics with pcap made this even more likely, as the lead times on those are long and create fixed points in the game when you create all of them as full scenes rather than also having a systemic scene builder for more run of the mill moments.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Never fun to have an arted up level built before the gameplay loop is even roughly proved out and based on the first draft of a plot outline. Not the worst thing if it’s only a VS and not multiple levels, but even one level that heavy is extremely time consuming to rework 🫠

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

As an LD, this has been an even shorter timeline. With internal artists ramping up and the need to keep feeding assets to established outsourcing partners lest you lose your foothold, we often get tossed directly into production—rushing through a block out phase to start art phases.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I wish this had been the team trajectory for most of projects that I worked on. With the shift away from story DLC / multi-project studios and the increase in highly specialized roles to meet visual fidelity, the timeframe for that skeleton crew has never been longer than 5-10% of the project for me

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Since Eagles are on everybody’s mind today, I’m sitting over here thinking about this classic video from early YouTube.

youtu.be

Eagles Fly on IYI

YouTube video by GnØ βØdι

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

All chained to this mortal coil by the contracts that you made them sign with Tom Nook.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

The whole framework of escaping the city to take over your grandparents’ farm in a secluded town seems so apt for it! Using the relationship systems to create impact with who goes missing could just add to it. Just needs a late game objective that can somehow evolve the base mechanics.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Always loved the idea of a slow burn horror game that played on the structure of Harvest Moon and the like. The first year, you learn about all the festivals and meet all the townsfolk. But, each year after that, someone goes missing and the festivals start to reveal about the local customs.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

However, those budgets are only going to get bigger and bigger the longer folks are pushing to make a character’s eye ball slightly more reflective for a GPU that only a few people have, because it literally takes a village to make that single feature.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

As an industry, we should be moving towards learning from the mistakes of pervious projects and improving the process. Many of those are only going to emerge from collective action and organizing to help address systemic failures in the industry as a whole.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Coming from designing lighting for theatre and then chatting with lighting artists was so strange. Admittedly, I light abstractly generally, but it blew my mind how much emphasis was placed on perfecting colour temperature or angle of a source than what would best sell the scene or guide the player.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

But, to lose sight of how chasing realism has done exponential harm to the industry would be detrimental. So many folks working in AAA outside of leadership live for chasing that dragon too! There is a love for valuing technique over intent or meaning throughout the industry!

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

But that’s just creative bankruptcy and chasing buzz words. They all hurt those working on the project and the project itself, as both can feel aimless. It’s only conflated by indecision and pivots that cut down on polish work and come at the cost of days of labour.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

The corporate and studio leadership are absolutely at fault for setting huge goals that require these massive teams. Too many game modes, massive open worlds, chasing after cinema, idolizing realism, etc are all high level decisions that bloat the budgetary needs of the project.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

The example of CoD’s budget increases is really just selling this as they have so many game modes that are trying to hit the same level of polish for the same release date. Campaign, Versus, Zombies, and Warzone all have sizeable teams devoted just them.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Again, ramping up to production early will definitely increase your costs too early. But that’s because production costs are huge now! I’m sure there are a few instances like Bioshock Infinite that were able to keep getting extensions as the leadership scrapped whole games, but that’s an exception.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Taking more time on that crate just means there will be less time to create other assets. Where mismanagement in production mucks with budgets more than anything is how much you get from it.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

I didn’t even touch on VFX in this. I have a friend who has been working on a single destructible crate for greater than a month because the fidelity expectations are so high and the process is complicated. It can’t be state swaps and particles anymore; they need to fracture while keeping perf.

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Jordan Groves @tehjgro.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

A bit of a long winded way of saying that it’s still more about the fidelity increasing costs than specific instances of mismanagement—which is still a horrible problem in these huge teams. Each individual asset is just significantly more expensive to create even when things are running smoothly.

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