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Ben Chandler

@threeohfour.bsky.social
3.3K followers 190 following 2.9K posts

I make games! Known for Old Skies, Expelled!, Nighthawks, Unavowed, Technobabylon, Blackwell Epiphany, Shardlight, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and more. :)

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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 2h
Also thank you to everybody that has been playing and talking about Nighthawks. This first bedroom scene I painted sums up my aim for the game, trying to capture a particular atmosphere of being awake in a world where most people are asleep. It's been great to see people get that.
The Halcyon Hotel scene from Nighthawks, a run-down hotel room with moody lighting.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 2h
In Gilt you play an outcast priest, haunted by a dying God, wielding divine powers in your travels through a strange world. But more importantly, you get to meet this lizard (frog?) guy. store.steampowered.com/app/3979770/...
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I was singing at a quiet Sunday afternoon gig this weekend and some staff from the aged care place my Grandma lives in were there so they snuck a photo of me and now she has this stuck up on her wall haha.
Me playing guitar and singing.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This week I had to explain that Gilt does not have a ‘stuffy’ religious tone. It is varied and unpredictable. Like mythology in general. Look, you can choose to be a stodgy pedant at times. That’s up to you, though, not me.
Dialogue choices where the player is forced to choose whether to correct the grammatical error of a character who is dangling from a roof.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Nighthawks has been out for a week! I’m happy people are enjoying it. Here’s a fun behind the scenes look, because sometimes the easiest way to get a good reference is to dress up and pose yourself…
Me dressed and posing as Gideon from Nighthawks.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Really happy that folks are enjoying Nighthawks. Now that it’s out, I have been focused on getting back to Gilt and trying to make something really special out of it.
A pilgrim reaches out to touch a wall of energy among a crowd of hollow-eyed idols.A pilgrim prays among glowing fungi.A pilgrim stands among decaying steel ribs, examining the road before him.A pilgrim stands facing a giant, glowing mantis in a cave.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I don’t think Steam really needs to keep track of this number tbh, it seems like this number is nobody’s business including my own.
Play time 259.2 hours.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Me and my big mate are watching you, pal.
Me and a tiny bobtail lizard looking at the camera.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Woke up at 5, the sky sure looks nice this morning.
Stars showing through clouds.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I get asked about the night sky out where I live, well, I took this photo of the Milky Way on my phone after dinner. :)
The starry, cloudy, Milky Way.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I have been thinking about Umberto Eco’s description of Dan Brown for three days.
Eco was asked whether he had read the Brown novel; he replied:
I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the
characters in my novel Foucault's
Pendulum, which is about people who start believing in occult stuff. ... But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy, and other occult practices explored in the novel. ... No.
In Foucault's Pendulum I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
@jon.inkle.co This was a good bit.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
A couple of woolly guys.
Me holding a sheep.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Listening to some very pink albums at the moment.
Hand.Cannot.Erase by Steven WilsonMarrow Deep by MastodonIn Case You Were Napping by Puscifer
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I read There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe recently and if you want to know how strange it was, I kept thinking “This feels like playing a text adventure, tonally” a lot of the time. It would be much harder to map out, though.
There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
It’s a kind of magic, this world.
A sunset.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I now own two big, orange over-engineered pens.
An orange Diplomat Aero and an orange Uni Jetstream Karimoku.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Can’t tell if Fanny’s name being accidentally spelled ‘Fannie’ here is a typo or a Clue because who knows with Wolfe…
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Lmao, I only use social media on my iPad, and this is the state of the Bluesky app for iPad. It hasn’t worked quite right… ever.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
A sketch of a peanut with the text “I am a peanut?” “Yes”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
A black and yellow ink sketch of a sheep skulled mech emerging from weird sci fi eggs as though I’ve done 1990s Amiga demoscene art.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Sketches of a head and various forms with the ramblings; “I have a strange opsession with being
able to draw convincing, voluminous, nicely proportioned forms in my sketchbook without reference, without construction, drawings, but just from my mind or from marks on paper and just following them as they appear and guide me. I think this is not the smartest approach but I like it and it is a relaxing and low pressure way of sketching for me”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Mushroom gender studies is wild.
The mating types of spores are sometimes called genders. To ensure their survival, most fungi have many genders, but the split gill (Schizophyllum commune) takes the proverbial cake by having 28,000 genders.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
A sketchbook doodle of a man walking down a hallway holding a flashlight, with black tentacles coming from the eye sockets of skulls towards him. The text says “Thursday 13th August. I have coffee and zero thoughts.” And “Listened to the new Mastodon single & drew this unplanned, just following my pen and seeing what happened.”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Sketchbook page of a hollow eyed mushroom being among stalks. The text says “Network. Everything the Fungi do is connected. They are One. This is Them.”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A sketchbook page of a hydro electric power plant and a rooster/sheep hybrid.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A sketchbook page, with a portrait, in front of a city drawn in black ink, with yellow lines running through everything and the text “AUGUST 11
A colour just on the edge of vision. Golden filaments connecting everything in a network of Gods and Outsiders.
Latticework tracing around and through everything, all leading to one central point, one inevitable breach. 
For the first time I can see it, and without looking down I know it is connected to me
For the first time, I remember.”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
No matter how much on an interesting weirdo I might ever be, I’ll never reach such great heights.
Hálek, Václav (1937-2014)
A Czech composer who wrote approximately 1,500 works inspired by fungi. His epiphany came one day when he was walking in the woods and happened to hear the discomycete Tarzetta cupularis engaged in sing-ing. Soon he found himself listening closely whenever he walked in the woods because, as he said, "I believe that each mushroom has its own special melody." Most of his fungal-based compositions are for piano, but he also wrote a Mycosymphony in which not only a forest of mushrooms 1s singing, but Béla Bartók seems to be singing, too.
Might Halek's compositions be an example of syn-esthesia? Perhaps an example of Czech humor? Possibly a form of sophisticated madness? Halek was also a mycologist who coauthored several scientific papers, so maybe he was simply merging his two passions in a somewhat unconventional way.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Black and yellow ink sketches of mushrooms and tools.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A sketchbook page of sci fi mushroom farm designs in black and yellow ink.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A sketchbook page with some sketches for Gilt, featuring assorted gameplay related farm equipment and denizens, done in yellow and black ink.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A sketchbook page of a human head, an explosion, some cylinders, a stone, a mushroom, a walking figure and a small sci fi craft all done in yellow pen.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Playing with 90s LEGO colour schemes.
Two sci fi vehicles drawn in a sketchbook, one black, white and green, the other blue, white and orange.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The reason I like low saturation base colours with a single high saturation feature colour goes back a way…
A LEGO Blacktron II minifigure with a similar colour scheme to the sketch I posted.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A sketch of a personal mech style vehicle called ‘The Leafcutter’ done in green and blank ink.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Sketchbook pages of some logs in water and a cowboy.Sketchbook pages of some planets and some sci fi symbols.The last page of a sketchbook with the text “Sketchbook finished Wednesday 5th of August 2026 10:34pm RIP Green BIC multi pen ink” and a Kim Jung Gi & Superani UI sticker”A closed sketchbook.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
A mech sketched in green ballpoint ink
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
If you want to know how tiny the novelty stegosaurus pen is, it might help to understand that my hands are already freakishly large when trying to hold normal pens
The pen is as long as my pinky finger, friends.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
A bug walker mech sketched with a very strange shade of green ballpoint and a tiny novelty stegosaurus multi pen.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
End of an era.
A sketchbook page of waistcoat studies, with a multi pen that is out of green ink. A separate green ballpoint and a tiny novelty stegosaurus multi pen are in the shot as backup green pens.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Green ballpoint pen sketch of a futuristic transit hub.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Green ballpoint pen sketches of sci fi head gear. The text at the top says “Wednesday 5th of August. Seeing this green ink run low has enthused me and I have ordered some new pens & ink”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
A green ballpoint pen drawing of an ice-cream van with the text “Got a cup of strawberry lemonade flavoured Italian ice from this funny shaped ice-cream van after dinner. It was very good!”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
A green ballpoint drawing of a science fiction style craft, with the text “Hadal zone submersible”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
A green ballpoint pen that is very, very nearly finished.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
A green ballpoint drawing of a chicken with the text ‘Feather as a way to describe volume’
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
A green ballpoint sketch of a deer with a hammerhead shark’s head.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
A green ballpoint sketch of a planet, an asteroid, a spacecraft and an astronaut. The text at the top of the page says “Tuesday 4th of August. The rain has gone & it is sunny today, with a clear blue sky” the text at the bottom says “I ought to start trying to overlap/layer elements in my pen sketches more”
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
A sketchbook page with a dungeon crawler style game drawn in green ballpoint pen. The text at the top says “Monday August 3. Home from camping and trying to familiarise myself with a world that has coffee and sketchbooks” There’s a small square with blotches labeled “ink booger dropoff” and the portrait in the game mockup is saying “I sense dark magic here” in an uncial script.
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Ben Chandler @threeohfour.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
A sketchbook page in green ballpoint pen, with the text “Thursday July 30, My last page for a couple of days, as I am having a break from art while going camping”, with sketches of heads, tents, and some Arabesque style border doodles. A multicolour pen that’s nearly out of green ink is visible.
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