Tim Hengeveld

Happy to see a Dutch independent games journalism collective spawning at @unpause.nl, joining the likes of a @remapradio.bsky.social, @aftermath.site, @jank.cool, or @secondwindgroup.com, who have escaped from the hellscape of corporate greed which has killed so many good newssites. Go support!

I lost my creative drive for a while, as it’s been a rocky couple of months, but it seems to be coming back! Today I seized the opportunity to start greyboxing the next Ruin Wanderer location 👀

Bro found the narrowest niche possible.

(Also I don't think principals make quite nearly enough to buy yachts left and right... Legally, anyway. Maybe that's why it needs to be discreet..?)

jank.cool has a very good footer.

Smart!

that feeling when a game you want to play on your wishlist is discounted and it has reached an approachable price point but you can't rationalize the time investment

YES I’M OBSESSED

Gosh remember when every game had CHEAT CODES and you had to enter them via some sort of ritualistic dance ingame and then silly things would happen?

Stereogum soldiers on in the era of streaming and AI Stereogum Founder Scott Lapatine on the importance of independent media in the age of AI slop and algorithms.

Stereogum says Google's switch to AI Overviews reduced its ad revenue by *70 percent* www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

Meet the AI workers who tell their friends and family to stay away from AI When the people making AI seem trustworthy are the ones who trust it the least, it shows that incentives for speed are overtaking safety, experts say

“AI workers said they distrust the models they work on because of a consistent emphasis on rapid turnaround time at the expense of quality.”

Look at those chonkers! I can taste the salt from here

Incredible that Apple once had a section on their website called "Hot news"

I rolled credits on Blake Manor this weekend. What a game. It accomplishes many things I've been exploring in my own work as well. I'll be thinking about my time in the manor for quite some time.

Haha amazing! Yeah same when my assailant decided to spare me. That feeling of getting in over your head, high stress, everything going sideways, and then one moment turns it all around, that is unmatched.

Tell me more - ‘cause I think I had the same! I played it solo in the dead of night, and my palms were SWEATING. Every distant sound was new and scary, and when I finally dared to enter the elevator I was shot - then my killer got in and activated the lift, extracting me alive with seconds to spare.

Will you believe I did not go and look at the actual door of the room I suspected the victim to have stayed in until the evening of day 2? 😅 That certainly blew things wide open…

Games industry layoff data current through October 2025

With October coming to a close things really escallated quickly. We now know of so many games industry layoff waves in 2025 that we're only one short of matching 2024, and we have two months still to go.

I’ve never played another mystery game where the “I overheard a secret cause I was in the right place at the right time” thing felt actually authentic and not staged, since you have so much freedom to move through the manor and pursue leads. It’s crazy.

Almost everything ‘costs’ only 1 minute, and there are several days worth of hours to get through. Plus any movement between rooms and areas of the manor is free, so I never felt stressed.

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I just discovered Rumicat, a newsletter service, and I love their manifesto.

"Rumicat was born from the loss of spaces designed for authentic connection and personal expression."

www.rumicat.com/about

I skipped lunch to follow a trail of muddy footsteps and clothing scraps into a foggy hedge maze and it did not disappoint.

One of the grad students I counselled at the HKU just announced his game, a wild mix of genres with a unique style - keep an eye on this one!

THERE’S A WHOLE-ASS LIBRARY HERE WHERE EVERY SHELF HAS BOOKS YOU CAN USE TO RESEARCH TOPICS THAT COME UP DURING CONVERSATIONS??

…Who put this bench askew here in the hallway?

Wha- Did that… fuckin’ statue just move behind my back?

God, the passage of time, it’s done so elegantly. This is what The Last Express must have felt like to play. It’s what I wanted out of The Blue Prince. It’s what The Council aspired to be. It stands up there with Obra Dinn. What a game, already, and I’m still a day away from the séance.

I am CAPTIVATED by Blake Manor. The stunning style, the most excellent detective mechanics, all those suspicious guests skulking around the hotel at their own schedules, it is really living up to the promise of those first screenshots years ago.

This man don’t quit!

I got you

I wish streaming platforms had something like a 'reading list', for albums I want to check out when I have time to sit down with them.

If it’s like an office function and not at a friend’s home, I actually take great pleasure in just sort of unlatching from a group conversation during a punchline laugh as if I’m going to get a drink, and then disappearing out an open door like a ghost in the night.