iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Question for @itch.io creators: How long did it take support to approve your request for enabling custom CSS on your profile/page?

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Looks for a project & notes tracking tool. Been using Notion, but it's become so bloated and doesn't have an identity anymore that I want to move away from it. #GameDev

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My SimTower-inspired game, Vertical Empire, is coming along nicely! Been slowly adding new goodies. Used some of the assets to make a better start screen. Hopefully, I can release this before the project's first anniversary, which is fast approaching! #IndieDev #GameDev #PixelArt #SouthAfrica

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I really like the look of the Ocarina of Time remake 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Some of the sprites in my SimTower-inspired game, Vertical Empire. Trying to make different facilities and variations, but since I'm not a pixel artist, it takes time. Really enjoying it, though! #IndieDev #PixelArt #Sim

different businessess in the vertical empire video game

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Xbox avatars had so much potential and now they're basically just dead :/

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Trying to figure out a 'needs system' in my SimTower-like game. Everyone in the tower 'needs' something, but they all currently refuse to have those needs met. 😂😭😫 #IndieDev #PixelArt #SimTower

vertical empire screenshot showing visitors with broken pathfinding and needs system

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

It really suck how expensive the Mac Mini series is becoming; the M4 model was such a good deal.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Taking a break from my dungeon game to work on my SimTower-inspired game. Heres a little vid showing off the current build - it still has a long way to go & I need to draw lots of new sprites www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3VT... There's also a LI post detailing changes :D www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

youtube.com

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

"Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious" was delisted years ago, but I finally got around to playing it yesterday, and it's a fun game with an easy 1000 Achievement score. I wish we got more promo stand-alone games like this. #XboxOne #Forza #ForzaHorizon

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious video game cover

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The death (by lack of official support) of the Unreal series has to be studied.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

While looking for narrative work, I've been making a vertical platformer about a very sweary character trying to escape a planet. The only way out is up. I've released an alpha for feedback while I decide whether to continue development. thegrahamza.itch.io/oh-shit #GameDev #IndieDev #GameMaker

thegrahamza.itch.io

Oh, Shit! [Alpha] by Graham van der Made (TheGrahamZA)

Reach your ship before the planet explodes!

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I'm at a crossroads in my video game career, and I'm not sure how to proceed. After my current batch of projects, do I continue working in narrative? The industry is so tough now, and I just don't know if I should (or can financially) soldier on or look at a different industry altogether. 1/2

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Finally able to announce this! Super excited to be working with @orangepixel.net once again! This time, I'm writing the narrative for Ashworld 2, a post-apocalyptic open-world game. Can't wait to share more in due time. 😎 #IndieDev #IndieGame #NarrativeWriter #PixelArt

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

In my downtime, I've been working on a small first-person dungeon crawler inspired by the likes of Eye of the Beholder. It still needs work, but I'm happy with what I have so far (and there's some placeholder text at the end of the video). #IndieDev #PixelArt #DungeonCrawler

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

A huge thank you to everyone who liked and shared this! Nothing has come of it yet, but these things can take time. :)

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Any South Africans have an electric standing desk? Please give me some recommendations!

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Finally figuring out that most of my problems were caused by "randomise();" not really working in my GameMaker HTML5 build and replacing it with "random_set_seed(int64(current_time));" solved almost every issue 🙃 Also re-learning to use a pre-load room + object for important global variables. 🤦‍♂️

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

The awesome South African indie dev @nicolaasdebruyn.bsky.social is bringing his arena shooter Rapid Escalation to Steam! Wishlist it and keep an eye out for the planned demo. store.steampowered.com/app/4411170/... #IndieDev #GameDev

store.steampowered.com

Rapid Escalation on Steam

A fast-paced incremental space shooter where short battles fuel permanent upgrades and exponential growth.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Hey #IndieDev peeps, what project management system are you using for personal projects? Looking for something new, and I don't want to use anything from Atlassian (no Trello!) or Notion. Just need to segment projects, create tasks, assign people, and divide into departments with notes.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Notion really tries to be both everything and unusable at the same time

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

My toxic trait is that I constantly want to make every single one of my video game narrative systems from scratch, instead of using stuff like Twine or Inky. 😅 #IndieDev #Narrative

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

I want to add a portcullis to a game dev project just because I really like the word

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Finally got around to playing the Resident Evil 3 Remake. It's a fun game and looks gorgeous. It also feels more like DLC than a full title, more so that the original RE3. And yeah, the Nemesis in Remake doesn't hold a candle to the original. Still, I did enjoy the game.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Some of these were difficult to pick, but these are the nine games that made me (or, at least, contributed) who I am: Resident Evil 2 (1998) SimCity 2000 SimTower Final Fantasy VII Quake Doom The Settlers III Dark Cloud Silent Bomber

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

When a company is creating a project around an IP that you love, but they won't even look at hiring you because you were born on the wrong piece of land (continent).

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine! It really makes things so much easier when you want to show off previous work, but the client/employer has either wiped their blog or is no longer around.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Taking a breather from the freelance writer gig search to mess around with creating a retro-style FPS dungeon crawler. #IndieDev #GameDev #SouthAfrica #VideoGames #Writer

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

At this stage, I'm convinced that 97% of users on LinkedIn are just "talent acquisition specialists" peacocking to each other.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Revival: Recolonization was one of the first games I ever worked on with the amazing @herocraftpc.bsky.social team! I helped with marketing, roadmaps, localization, and video scripts. So happy to see it hitting PS4 and PS5 tomorrow! blog.playstation.com/2026/02/23/r...

blog.playstation.com

Revival: Recolonization hits PS4 & PS5 on February 26

Jump into a post-apocalyptic 4X strategy and bring humanity back to life.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I know it may look like a weird decision, but I decided to shelve the game for now. I wrote a post-mortem about what went wrong and put it on LinkedIn if you'd like to read it. It is the only platform where I can write 3000 characters without a sub. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

linkedin.com

#gamedev #indiedev | Graham van der Made

It's been a few weeks since I last posted, and I think it's time to write up a post-mortem about And I Feel Fine: A Biosphere Game, the project I was so excited about. What happened to the game? Wher...

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Been messing around in GameMaker and made a basic fps dungeon crawler. Not too sure what I want to do with it. #IndieDev #GameDev #GameMaker

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, but I've started collecting Hot Wheels (mostly Batmobiles). I don't know why.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

From April, I'm open to video game narrative work! * 5+ years experience in video games * 15+ titles * written narratives, edited stories, fixed translations, proofed copy * worked in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, medieval, and post apocolyptic settings My LI profile: www.linkedin.com/in/grahampvdm/

linkedin.com

Graham van der Made - Obitus Games | LinkedIn

Are you searching for a master storyteller to take your video game narrative to new… · Experience: Obitus Games · Education: Fairmont High School · Location: City of Cape Town · 500+ connections on Li...

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Throwback to the trailer for Gran Turismo 3 that used "Just a Day" by Feeder! So good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n1W...

youtube.com

Gran Turismo 3 Trailer

YouTube video by TSKDumps

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Had a chat to someone in the LLM industry recently, and they compared the current AI race to Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb, and I don't think I've ever heard anything as dystopian as that.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

I've been re-listening to the 'A Thousand Suns' album by Linkin Park for a project, and every track just keeps reminding me how powerful it is. (same goes for Minutes to Midnight)

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

I'm not sure if I'll release what I have or shelve the game. I'm just very unhappy with how it's turning out and don't think there's enough 'fun' in the gameplay. Gonna have to think on this.

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TheGrahamZA | Game Writer & Narrative Designer @thegrahamza.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Found a few more sealed MageKnight boosters from 2000 and 2001! Crazy that stuff like this is still out in the wild. Also, I ripped them open - I'm not keeping stuff sealed :D

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