Joseph Mansfield

Only 5 days left until Öoo releases! 🎉
The full version is easier to get lost than the demo
but if a Warp Worm eats you, you’ll see the map
and can warp to any one you’ve found!

It brought up this page on Wikipedia for me: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippin...

Seems to be the right kind of skipping.

A linguist’s guide to thinky games that play with language · Thinky Games Word Play is a new roguelike blend of Scrabble and Balatro from Game Maker’s Toolkit. It joins games like Baba Is You, LOK Digital, and Heaven’s Vault as a great game for language nerds.

Word Play, a roguelike blend of Scrabble and Balatro, joins the list of puzzle games for language nerds!
thinkygames.com/feat...

Out now: play a big new mysterious update to fan-favorite puzzle game Isles of Sea and Sky · Thinky Games The retro-Zelda inspired tropical puzzle game Isles of Sea and Sky won Most Anticipated honor at the Thinky Awards before debuting last year and living up to the hype. Now the Mysterious Update has released, a free addition to the game adding new puzzles and a mysterious secret layer.

Isles of Sea and Sky just released a big update that adds secret meta layers to the game! And it's 66% off for the next 2 weeks!
thinkygames.com/news...

Ludocene: Game Discovery From People You Trust A dating app that matches you with games rather than people. A deck-builder that profiles your gaming taste.

Last 6 months have been wild:
🤯We realised game discovery was broken.
🧪We made a prototype game-finder.
🎯We Kickstartered it into reality.
🥘We cooked and cooked with our backers.

🚀On Weds 6th Aug we launch Ludocene.com into the world.

🙏Last chance back/share: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lud...

The Mysterious Update for Isles of Sea and Sky is OUT NOW!!!

New puzzles, new areas, new layers of mysterious secrets…

Isles of Sea and Sky is 66% off until August 13!!! Now is a great time to pick it up!

store.steampowered.com/app/1233070/...

#gamedev #indiegame #indiedev

Capsule art featuring the logos of Word Play, Wordatro!, and Birdigo

Congrats to @toboggan.work and team on the release of Birdigo!

To celebrate, we've made a bundle with Word Play, Wordatro!, and Birdigo - three awesome games about spelling words to score points - store.steampowered.com/bundle/57187...

Birdigo is out TODAY!

🃏 Balatro x Wordle with a dash of Scrabble
⭐ ‘My new favorite word game’ (PC Gamer)
❤️ ‘Glorious’ - (Finger Guns, 9/10)
🐦 Full of adorable birds

store.steampowered.com/app/3264170/...

Screen capture of a scene from The Dark Knight in which Harvey Dent says "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain", but the subtitles have been replaced by "You either die a casual fan of logic puzzles or you live long enough to see yourself expect every puzzle to have a unique solution".

Cipher Zero players starting this journey right now.

Really important website update: you can now search for Öoo without typing the umlaut. 😌

thinkygames.com/games/

Monthly Blog Post: June 2025 Welcome back to the monthly blog post where I detail what happened last month.

New blog post! I talk about the design process for Bee Magic.
nuvobloggo.medium.com/monthly-blog...

The Mysterious Update for Isles of Sea and Sky is coming July 30, 2025!

New puzzles, new areas, new layers of mysterious secrets…

store.steampowered.com/app/1233070/...

#gamedev #indiegame #indiedev

ElecHead dev’s upcoming game Öoo is Bomberman meets exploration puzzle platformer · Thinky Games Discover clever ways to use bombs in this cute puzzle platformer - the demo is available to play over on Steam.

This cute, upcoming game from the ElecHead dev is Bomberman meets exploration puzzle platformer!
thinkygames.com/feat...

BROKEN KEYBOARD HERO by soulware your keyboard is broken... fix it!

anyhow- @josephmansfield.uk if you are looking for more metroidbranias (per the end of the article), i'd suggest giving mine a play! it's on the web at soulware.itch.io/broken-keybo...

and i'd also recommend checking out Sylvie Miniature

Metroidbrainia: An in-depth exploration of knowledge-gated games · Thinky Games Thinky Games presents a definitive guide to metroidbrania games: What they are, how different games explore the idea in their own way, and a list of our favorites.

Anyway, yeah, even if you notice some overlap, there are many metroidbrainias that aren't escape room games and many escape room games that aren't metroidbrainias.

Definitely check out the article for more info about it!

thinkygames.com/features/met...

Metroidbrainias feature much deeper non-linear exploration than a typical escape room (closer to a Metroid game).

Metroidbrainias also have broader puzzles types, whereas escape rooms tend to focus on non-systemic diegetic puzzles.

The most closely related to escape room games are ones like Myst, especially as escape rooms were heavily inspired by the classic Cyan games.

So sure, there's a bit of overlap in this venn diagram.

Hey, I wrote the article linked at the top, which goes into a lot of detail about what a metroidbrainia is.

I'd say the concept is very different to an escape room game. Many of them in the list aren't escape room games (there's a sokoban, detective game, a side-scrolling puzzle adventure, etc.).

A bit of contemplative beatboxing helps Joe think!

This stream is starting shortly - see you there!

Puzzles, murder, and a secret plot - it's time to knuckle down in 1970s detective game The Ratline · Thinky Games Solve puzzles, make connections, and hunt down Nazis as a 1970s detective in the upcoming detective thriller game The Ratline, from Owlskip Games.

Upcoming detective thriller game The Ratline has puzzles, murder, and a secret plot!
thinkygames.com/feat...

Haha, wow.

"Ideas for your next video", followed by 3 suggested video ideas. The first is "Blue Prince - Part 51: Unseen Connections". The second is "Blue Prince - Part 49: Whispers in the Wind". The third is "Blue and Pink: A Shapeshifting Puzzle". It's all gibberish.

YouTube is now AI generating suggestions for what my next video should be.

Yes, sure, I'll do a playthrough of your imaginary puzzle game.

(I actually have a fun new series starting tomorrow!)

Criminals beware neighborhood! Watch program in effect!

Thanks, Aidan!

The next Golden Idol DLC The Age of Restraint gets a surprise release today · Thinky Games It hasn't been much of a wait: just about two months since the release of The Lemurian Phoenix, the next installment in the Golden Idol Investigations series of DLC is suddenly here. Explore an ancient, high-tech Lemuria in this new expansion that brings four new cases to the world of the hit detective game The Rise of the Golden Idol.

The next Golden Idol DLC gets a surprise release today, giving us four more cases to solve!
thinkygames.com/news...

I am very excited that this article is finally out! 🤩

Thank you!

I just had a look and can't see a typo. There are a couple of places where I do refer to metroidvanias, but I try to be clear about it. Maybe there's somewhere where it's not clear.

I genuinely started writing this article in December 2022, haha. Very glad for it to be out in the world! It is very in-depth.