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.chantal//RYAN

@thoughtrise.bsky.social
9.7K followers 1.3K following 6.7K posts

:: lead dev @ darkwebSTREAMER @darkwebSTREAMER.bsky.social ::: anthropologist|englishslit🌱 👁️‍🗨️ darkwebSTREAMER: tinyurl.com/darkwebstreamer 👂 podcast: directional.show ✉️ chantal @ whalitfdotcom

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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
an...anyone else? 😅
a screenshot of chantal's inbox showing 81,650 unread emails
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
hello, excuse me, i don't mean to alarm you but these are lizard people
screenshot of a reddit screen that says IN A FEW WEIRD MOMENTS, TRUMP REVEALED MORE THAN HE INTENDED IN THE OVAL OFFICE

below is a photo of trump in the oval office looking like a mindless toad, a woman to the right that looks very literally skeletal and inhuman, and two men on the right looking extremely odd and toadish/pouchy
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
a sign that says "if you bag your leaves and stems, you bag your wildlife too"
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
lol no it’s actually huge, but that’s pretty funny please ignore my loudly blasting music
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i have eventually made it to lunch
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
avoiding the effort of walking to get lunch by showing you unedited photos of my apartment at sunset
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i wore glitter. i never wear glitter. i am now going to wear glitter every day. i am a rave fairy now
chantal half closing her eyes lying on a bed looking into the camera 

you can see green glitter eyeshadow
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
boiler room LA last night, got my euphoria on
chantal in a blue crop top pulling her hair back and taking a mirror selfie looking into the phone
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
if you’re a mutual in LA and wanna meet up, I have some time after today til I fly out on Wednesday 🙏 DM me. if we haven’t met but you think we have good reason to, reach out, i’m not shy <3 now. my apartment looks like the ending scene of Fight Club and I’m here for it
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
heading to LA in 5 days - mutuals hit me up if you wanna say hi! <3
 photo of chan in a room with pink and purple lighting

she's smiling, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and a mutilated chucky doll image on her tshirt is peeking up from the bottom of the frame
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
the straightforward australian news heading is the best heading
screenshot of webpage section that says news.com.au:
Sheeran's tour in turmoil as everyone quits
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
yes
a man in a well tailored suit harps on a saxophone next to a sweaty rocker looking guy in a cutoff singlet shredding on guitar, while a man in a zoot suit and a buxom woman in a tight pink sweater and 70s looking hair sing into a microphone beside them

very noisy, semi-old looking photo
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
image of a poem:

August Morning
By Albert Garcia

It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect--
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
quiet here in the dark
chantal in a dark room, high contrast lighting makes everything pink and black

she wears a long sleeved striped crop top and high waisted black pants and is looking into the camera with a hand dramatically brushing a strand of hair off hair forehead
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
i can't say enough about the craftsmanship of this game - every aspect of it is just meticulously considered and lovingly designed plus... it's wildly beautiful #pixelart #indiegame
a screenshot of moonring, showing a purple UI with a purple and black dark location rendered in gorgeous saturated contrasty pixel art with gentle orange and lilac glows. it shows caves, forest, a small town and ship in simple but elegant graphics

the left UI interface shows a stream of turn-based combat text
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The Goose and the Common (anonymous)
black text on white:
    The law locks up the man or woman
    Who steals the goose from off the common
    But leaves the greater villain loose
    Who steals the common from the goose.

    The law demands that we atone
    When we take things we do not own
    But leaves the lords and ladies fine
    Who take things that are yours and mine.

    The poor and wretched don’t escape
    If they conspire the law to break;
    This must be so but they endure
    Those who conspire to make the law.

    The law locks up the man or woman
    Who steals the goose from off the common
    And geese will still a common lack
    Till they go and steal it back

— Anonymous, "The Goose and the Common"
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
saw this image on top of this image of a woman in my timeline and needed you to see what i saw
a photoshopped version of lord diana's image on top of a woman wearing short black shorts with fantastic legs, it looks like the tentacled head is coming out of her body
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
anyone else have a profile on 1up.com? that place was the ish. unappreciated during its time
screenshot of an old website showing 1up.com, with things like "happening now on 1up" cary commented on so and so's blog entry, a menu bar with games/news and reviews, cheas, videos, community, etc
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
me and my mama some 15 years ago <3
chantal kneeling next to her mum, chantal is wearing a short red dress and is smiling kneeling next to her mum, her mother is wearing a black and white animal print flowy shirt and is smiling
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
iconic photo lost to time, preserved in an ancient tweet @richiedewit.com 🥰 (raw fury party, GDC ~some year~)
a screenshot of a tweet from chantal saying "at GDC we party like it's 1999) showing a polaroid photo of chantal giving posh spice with some excellent dudes around her (richie dewit, dario zubovic, the maich), all sitting on a couch
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
i promise it's not as bad as this
a newspaper photo of chantal with the headline GAME MAKER PLANNING HAPPY ENDING
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
just wrote a series of three psychology of horror design activities: ♱ understanding the psychology that drives fear ♱ designing fear experiences drawn from physiology ♱ how to identify potentialities of fear in your settings will post these when my site eventually goes live, but happy to share 🙏
screenshot of the first page of a PDF. a dark, blown-film and grain inspired background texture with white and red text. text reads:

AN EXERCISE IN HORROR

DISCOVERING THE PSYCHOLOGY OF

EMOTIONAL RESPONSES AND RHYTHMS:

EXERCISE 1

Write down 3 things you’re afraid of.

Now write why each of those things make you feel that way.

It’s okay if you don’t know right away - this is the purpose of the exercise. You’re
exploring your own mind in order to
 
fi
nd out. Are there any memories of long-ago
experiences that kicked the fear off? What does that thing make you feel - does it make
your body feel a certain kind of way? What are you afraid that thing could do to you? Why
do you care so much about that thing vs other things you could be afraid of?

~~~

Write down 3 things that make you feel nervous, but you wouldn’t say you’re afraid of.

Now write why each of those things make you feel that way.

Write down 3 things that make you feel calm when you’re stressed.

Again, write down why those make you feel that way.

Write down 3 things that make you feel safe when you felt you were in danger.

And again, write down why those make you feel that way.

~~~

Done.
 
These answers can serve as your bedrock design — now you have an
understanding of moments of fright, moments of anxiety or tension, moments of
release, and moments of safety. At the very least, you can design experiences around
these psychological and body experiences. As a human, your experiences have a lot in
Written by Chantal Ryan (chantal@whalitf.com)
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
my experience of trying to participate in social media
screenshot of post that says

Gerardwaist

"people b saying things so definitively. like man i think it depends"
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
this picture has been bugging me since i posted it and i think i just figured it out >.>
picture of megara from the animated film Hercules, showing her leaning over a rock smiling off camera with red hair. looks similar to chantal's photo she quoted, maybe?
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
heading to bed at 6am after a lonnng night of horror design talk 🥹 so sleepy, so worth
chantal wearing a poison ivy swimsuit, she's pulled her hair (red bob) off to the side and she has a tired smile on her face.
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
last call for my live horror design talk dropping in 5~ hours (09:00 PDT) over at Game Design Skill's Funsmith Club discord server (🔗 below) a tiny sneak peek at some of what I'll be talking about, with discussion after:
a series of 6 scary looking slides, analog horror themed, black white and red, with text visible like "why do people like horror?", "what scares us?", a breakdown of fears, "horror qualities that spark joy" and more
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
i... wrote a paper about this (it looks like it's about To The Lighthouse but it just uses that story as a diveboard for exploring identity theory and a version of subjective semiotics)
screenshot showing a paper that shows:


Nothing Is Simply One Thing:
Shifting Boundaries and Adversarial Time in Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse


Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
—Walt Whitman (131)


Virginia Woolf, in her essay “Modern Fiction”, writes of “materialists”, the canon of writers who came before her and her contemporaries whose fiction proclaimed it was of “The Real”. These stories
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
lil teaser of a slide from the talk on horror game design I'm giving this Saturday i don't get to talk about this stuff nearly enough and i'm going full nerd out mode
an analog tv pixel art slide (black and white) that says HORROR GAMES QUALITIES THAT SPARK JOY

common fears: what are they? why do they scare us?

the words subversion and twists are written in strange fonts and angles

UNCANNY: familiar-become-unfamiliar. pairing things for children ("innocence", "safety") with things that scare (menacing nursery rhymes, creepy puppets, threatening kids shows)
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
a lot of weird shit in.... well, a lot of my work, darkwebSTREAMER included, began from a spark of inspiration here
photo of the inside of man, myth & magic showing full colour illustrations, a notated palm, strange symbols and lots of text (mostly blurred)
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
you should hire me for your horror, supernatural and weird psychological themed games not because i'm a damn good writer & designer but because i have the complete 24 volume set of Man, Myth & Magic and i'm not afraid to use it
photo of MAN, MYTH & MAGIC VOLUME 1: AN ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SUPERNATURAL

IT SHOWS A STRANGE WEREWOLF-HUMANOID FACE ON ITa photo of 24 spines of books titled MAN, MYTH AND MAGIC sitting on an antique coffeee table in front of bookshelves (not my photo)
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
my kid told me his teacher sent some books home with him to give to me then he pulled these out of his backpack ......the allegations, i'm not beating them
a photo of two books - witchcraft oracles and magic among the azande by E E Evans-Pritchard and The Symbolism Of Evil by Paul Ricoeur
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
the biggest mistake you can make is to play a song for a friend and expect them to love the lyrics as much as you do. there you are, blinking back tears, while your friend is hoping that an airplane hits your house so they don’t have to listen to this lugubrious shit (a poem by david kirby)
The Man Who Discovered Uranus
By David Kirby
William Herschel. Good guy with a telescope, not so much
with the lingo: he called his discovery “Georgium Sidus” 
or “Georgian Star” after George III, but the name didn’t stick. 
In France, where the name of the British king was to be avoided 
at all costs, the planet was known as “Herschel” until the name 
“Uranus” was universally adopted. But that’s the way it goes: 
the biggest mistake you can make is to play a song for a friend 
and expect them to love the lyrics as much as you do. There you are, 
blinking back tears, while your friend is hoping that an airplane 
hits your house so they don’t have to listen to this lugubrious shit 
anymore, though lugubrious is a wonderful word, isn’t it,
because it sounds exactly like someone crying but is also funny, 
like Buick or waffle. Notice I’m talking about single words here,
not phrases like “Christian bachelorette party.” Or


... max characters, read the rest of the text at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1803748/the-man-who-discovered-uranus
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
tag yourself tag your friends!
a spread of 18ish horrifying dolls, each numbered

i'm sorry but there's too much going on to list in alt text. know that each and every one of them is horrifying in a different way
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
a few random quotes slammed down <3
white text on black, list of quotes:

"Even while playing it in a secluded room in the middle of the day, I found myself getting goosebumps and fighting the urge to check behind me." — Willa Rowe
Kotaku, "90s Dark Web Streaming Sim Is Way More Terrifying Than I Expected"


"One of the scariest moments in the pre-alpha build is when the in-game chat alerts you to a dark presence in your room. I may have swivelled slightly in my chair, in real life. — Peter Morgan
GamesHub, "darkwebSTREAMER is a disturbing emergent narrative experience"


"My stream is set up so that my back is against the wall — but at the end of this particular night, I couldn't help but turn around, just to make sure I was alone. — Samantha Low
GamesHub, "Probing darkwebSTREAMER's take on streaming culture"


"Darkweb Streamer does a great job of establishing tension and fear not through cheap thrills but by putting you through the almost real hell of being a live streamer who specializes in occult artifacts and forcing you to come to terms with the terrifying consequences of your own actions.
 […] 
Darkweb Streamer's writing felt shockingly genuine and specific to my situation, which is something I heard from several colleagues."  — Charlie Wacholz
Paste Magazine, "The Best Games We Played At Day of the Devs"
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
if you're curious about designing horror games or feel like hearing my thoughts, join me this Saturday as I ramble poetic in partnership with Game Design Skills to join, hit up Funsmith Club, an online community of over 10,000 game devs, old and new: discord.gg/funsmithclub #gamedev (more below)
a promo image for Chantal Ryan/thoughtrise displaying her talk: Designing For Fear: Horror Game Psychology

CHANTAL RYAN:
award winning studio director | 5+ years
Lead developer of darkwebSTREAMER

- psychology of horror game design
- strategies for different emotions
- marketing for horror communities

Saturday August 8th, 09:00PDT

www.Funsmith.club
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
a lot of people don't know this, but you should never, ever mess with moles
screenshot of a reddit post:

Maleficent-Agent-477

Seriously, don't mess with moles. A family friend of mine actually passed away because of one. This person was super fit, too - they regularly completed triathlons and worked out all the time.

Anyway, we went down to the countryside together and spotted a mole in a field... They thought it was cute and tried to touch it. Everyone tried to stop them, but they insisted they'd be fine and touched it anyway... And just like that, they died right before our eyes... The mole snatched them in an instant and dragged them underground... Leaving behind nothing but a single scream, they vanished deep into the earth... I still can't forget it..

Ever since then, I never, ever mess with moles.
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
teaching a procedural text generation workshop at the Gifted And Talent Children's Association today and have never been so excited to teach a class :D genuinely so excited to see what they come up with 🥰
a banner showing the following:

Saturday 1st August  2pm-4pm

Architecting Game Worlds: A Beginner's Guide To Programming The Universe

Award-winning game designer and learning designer Chantal Ryan, invites students to discover one of the most interesting techniques behind modern games: procedural generation. 

 

Using Python, one of the world's most popular programming languages, students will build their own text generation systems capable of creating everything from fantasy races and strange creatures to memorable NPCs, stories and worlds.

there's an image of children at laptops with fantasy creatures floating around them
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
your friendly neighbourhood leopard
a photo of chantal taken from a downward angle facing up at her

you can see leopard print on her leggings and she wears a loose fitting tank top

her hair is a wavy red bob, she has a tattoo on her upper arm and she has the hint of a smile
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
me when i f0rget my cat just spilolelod lioquid alol 0ver my keyb0aord
screensh0t 0f dami0n schubert p0st

chan unp0sted reply says loitioeraloly facts
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
discworld noir is one of the best games you've never played
cover art showing DISCWORLD NOIR - terry pratchett's latest adventure

SHOWS death, a PI, fantasy creatures in front of a full moona dark street setting with the words BUT IF YOU TRAVELLED A LOT IT WAS HARD TO MISS, LIKE MALARIA
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
looking forward to when we're far enough into development that i can capture all the text inputs our playtesters make and write custom responses that make players squeal with surprised delight that they were HEARD just the way ma used to make (and by ma i mean, old text adventure developers)
screenshot showing an old VGA pixel art game that says Passionate Patti on the top right

there's a top down view of someone on a stage under a spotlight and multiple tables sitting around watching them

theres a box on screen that says ENTER INPUT: where a user has typed "throw panties on stage"
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
fully procedural systems game you say?
white text on grey background: THAT'LL BE (STRIKETHROUGH)5 (STRIKETHROUGH)10 15 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
that’s not an indictment at all. just a funny observation singing culturally unusual songs? ritual gatherings and murmurings? drinking blood? eating flesh? dipping people in water? you know i’m all for it
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
a pixel art image showing the konami code - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A START
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
i'm thinking about how magazines like PC Gamer used to include demo discs and how so many of the games I discovered on them shaped my life now i'm wondering why modern games media don't put out curated demo bundles or similar... might that be a thing?? maybe???
photo of stacks of PC Gamer demo discs, showing Final Fantasy XII, Tomb Raider, Daggerfall, Duke Nukem and other things
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I have been looking for this game for YEARS finally remembered what it was called?!?! i loved this thing. all i want is a game played through menu interfaces, all the time
old game looking screen that says MORDORS - the depths of dejenol, shows create a character/load/character list. images show low quality fantasy art (reaper, dwarf, dragon, demon)a screenshot of an app with about 8 menus, showing lots of diff text related to characters, wizards guild, welcome to the bank, welcome t the city seer, welcome to the morgue, etc. it's very classic windows 98
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
thinking fondly of Quest For Glory letting you carry your character save across all 5 games in the series
a screenshot from Quest For Glory III showing character creation - RPG stats, puzzle pts, skills, stamina+mana and the class Thief
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
i haven't stopped laughing for two minutes straight
twitter screenshot:


Mike F
@mikefossey 

 Check this shit out motherfucker [I slide one foot out from under me and fall on my ass, its not clear what kind of move | was trying to do]
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
@kerrblimey.bsky.social i see you
a snippet from chris kerr's article about the xbox layoffs with the words "absolutely diabolical" highlighted

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/the-state-of-play-after-a-truly-torrid-week-for-xbox-patch-notes-60
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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
this week’s library haul
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