Reinout Ruland

I'm still mad about a special thanks for a year of work where my layouts shipped almost EXACTLY as I left them 2 years later. 2/36 maps (5%) of the shipped game isn't worth a credit apparently 🫠

God, a thousand times this.

That's the thing with dopamine being tied to task initiation - there's a set of gears that won't - CAN'T - engage in my brain, but none of my problems are with analysis.

I can be fully aware of all the necessary steps, and stressing about starting, and just... not.

🤖🌟 Issue 6 of APWOT is live on Kickstarter! 🌟🤖

Featuring a beautiful lenticular cover of Astro Bot marking both our feature interview with the game’s director, Nicolas Doucet, and the 30th anniversary of PlayStation.

Get in there!

💫 kck.st/4i1GAHT 💫

people thinking an NPC that outputs different text forever is good remind me of (no shade to people reading this it applies to I love y'all) new game programmers who are sure randomizing everything will lead to replayability without enough understanding of design yet to first achieve one playability

Undiagnosed AD(H)D?

Swap Gameplay Designer for Combat Designer and you have summarized my recent LD Feedback.

See also: we need verticality but we hate stairs in the combat space. Also, we hate small ledges and we hate large empty spaces and any props with collision 🫡

When @aceottorney.bsky.social first told me about this I said "this could change people's lives and stop developers from getting exploited" and having seen the final resource, I think I was not wrong. I'd call it a must-bookmark for indie devs.

I tried to hold off looking anything up as long as possible, but after the credits that just left me aimless in a massive world with no leads on where to look.

Still love the game, but it's a 9/10 for me instead of the 10/10 for HK.

Yeah, 112%-ing HK just before Silksong has left me feeling similarly, the highs are as high as HK, maybe sometimes a bit higher, but the lows are much much lower.

Truly respect the team not just copying HK and trying new things, but endgame feels like it's not built for play without a wiki open...

Level Design at Naughty Dog #Blocktober 2025

Happy #Blocktober! It's been a while since I've done something so I decided to write another blog about #LevelDesign. medium.com/@arnaldo42/l...

Can confirm we started cursing again, and then louder (Skull Tyrant Glitch), and then loudest (Bilewater).

But also hooting and hollering (Any 1v1 Boss) and then at the top of my lungs (First Sinner).

It's such a great game that is sometimes difficult in ways I don't enjoy. Will see it through!

Sick man! So impressive to stick with something like this for a decade. Hope it has a good launch!

I remember hearing about it a bunch when I was in IGAD around ten years ago...

Also agree with what others have said, prioritize minimizing time spent fighting enemies on the way over.

Every time I give up on maximizing Silk or even reaching the Boss on full HP, I've done better for it.

Find ways to run past enemies and heal in the boss room during the spawn anim!

The delayed hits on the fire (especially the spin and retractable throw) kept tripping me up over and over and over.

I've accepted that I need to just learn through failure so it becomes muscle memory. Got it eventually.

Hope some rest helps it all click!

Stole this from another Dev, but hearing HK:S started as DLC makes SO MUCH sense.

If this came out as DLC, I think everyone's mindset on Difficulty would have been:

Godmaster++

That's mostly how I came into this and it has done so much to keep me having fun and still loving it, like I said 9/10

Getting wrecked in HK, just made me try harder. I replayed it all (ish) this month (112% + PoP)

In Silksong, the Encounter Design and Enemy Design sometimes feels purpose built to frustrate / waste my time / get me killed.

TC can do whatever they want, but it's a lesser game for it (To ME)

If ROI isn't a concern, SHOULD you then still "respect" players' time?

It's personal, but I'd say YES. I love how HK's difficulty curved ramped me higher and higher, I never felt like HK's difficulty was "cheap" or "mean".

HK is a 10/10 for me and HK:S a 9/10 so far, due to mean spirited friction.

Genuinely so glad I made myself 112% Hollow Knight before diving into Silksong.

Compared to Pantheon of the Knight and Path of Pain, these early hours are not too bad and I appreciate the brief respite before I start cursing at my screen again.

Over the last couple of days I've updated my Godot Starter Kits to support 4.5! ✨ It was a blast, I kind of forgot what a breeze it is to use @godotengine.org. I can really recommend it, you can see all my kits here:

kenney.nl/starter-kits

A No Man's Sky player-built corvette, viewed in profile. It's made up of small fuselage segments that spell out the word "SHIP"

A No Man's Sky corvette. It's... a forklift. Just a whole-ass forklift, floating in space.

A No Man's Sky corvette, built to be indestructible. It's in the shape of a Nokia brick phone, flying past an asteroid field with a planet in the background.

A No Man's Sky corvette, built to instill terror. It's Thomas the Tank Engine, complete with dead, googly eyes.

Sometimes I am forced to admit - and worry - that I am just not a sicko. I don't have it in me.

Images via the No Man's Sky subreddit.

The more things I've made, the less I've been interested in publicly criticizing the things that other people make, because once you make a few things you start to understand what a miracle it is that anything gets made at all

In my experience, content has never been the slowdown for making a game. It's lack of clarity/direction, changing minds, and outside stakeholder influence introducing trash. I fail to see how AI is going to solve that problem.

Hidden RPG Gem Dropping in August Will Blow Your Mind A hidden gem RPG is finally launching this month.

"It perfectly balances innovation and nostalgia in the best possible way[...] The Knightling is exactly the kind of game we need in 2025, and the perfect remedy for those exhausted by the Ubisoft-style brand of open-world RPG fare." 🤯 😭 💖
@screenrant.bsky.social...
screenrant.com/knightling-h...

The trailer should indicate (in this exact order)

1. Genre of gameplay
2. The hook/special thing (this is most of the trailer)
3. How much variety and scope the game has

This is assuming it's a gameplay trailer that's living on the front of your Steam page or being used for social media.

In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen As a restaurant owner – I’m astounded at the rate of progress since microwaves were released a few short years ago. Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s m…

"Gone will be stoves, ovens and flat tops. Restaurant kitchens will only be a small closet with a microwave."

"I’ve moved all my employees to exclusively using microwaves. After I threatened to fire any employee that complained everyone told me the microwaves were great."

via @totter87.bsky.social

Mesh2Motion (@scottpetrovic.bsky.social) is an open-source alternative to Mixamo that allows you to rig humanoid and four-legged characters!

mesh2motion.org

the still image really undersells how bad it is

If I had not been proactive - I would have been laid off twice.

If I had made different decisions about where I went to work (made based on things the co said in the interview) - I could have potentially lost jobs 2-4x.

It's REAL rough out there - and while my "data point" is positive - it's not.

Kevin Funny GIF Alt: chris hemsworth ghostbusters rubbing eyes through glasses frames

verily I say unto you: meds can help so fucking much

you might need to tweak them but you will know RIGHT AWAY if they are helping

this isn't like SSRIs

it's like glasses for your brain

you truly cannot imagine life on the other side until you have experienced it

A walking sim focussed on guidance (no verbs other than walk / interact) and a match three without navigation (only verbs / ingredients) are both Level Design to me, albeit extreme ends of those two axes.

Not LD is when there is no guidance and the ingredients blur / repeat without evolving.