Jay Castello 🌻

i'd describe this novel as "my most semicolon forward project"

i figured it out half when i was falling asleep and half on the treadmill. put in a good thousand words even after a full day of work today. for every it's so over there is an equal and opposite we're so back

believe me when I say I had many, many thoughts about cozy games while writing this and I hope some of them are reflected in it

words i wrote trailer 😊🦊

i saw this happen to somebody else recently and god can you imagine if the way it bursts is they all just devolve into this. it would be SO funny

a screenshot of google's AI overview talking about Pluribus, except halfway through it devolves into repeating introductory words like "for instance, in particular, perhaps, in fact, potentially..." and then just 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,

wow, thanks google!

anyway i've been stuck on the next scene of my novel for a few days which explains my tweets

thinking about when i had weird feelings about getting good feedback on the first couple of chapters of my novel & i was trying to explain those feelings to a friend & she was like "it sounds like you're saying writing well is tricking people into liking the writing" & i was like...yeah

thinking a normal amount about how often people say "writing is magic" (real, mysterious, generative) vs how i keep coming back to "writing is stage magic" (tricks, glamour, sleight of hand)

been feeling antsy and unproductive lately and i just managed to entirely trick myself out of it by going through the process of signing up for a trail run except i closed the window before actually paying and going through with it. i have the emotional smarts of a small child or perhaps a pigeon

i told my dad the game i wrote is coming out on wednesday and he said "did you know they were making it into a game when you wrote it?" i remain fascinated to imagine wtf he thinks i do for a living

a man in a blue shirt is talking to a woman with the words for $ 1 name a woman Alt: a man in a blue shirt is talking to a woman with the words for $ 1 name a woman

for IWD i think everyone, especially in games media, should stop making me reference this gif in the dms at least once a week

now i love a documentary. i love to see how they warp reality into a storytelling framework. but a movie that says "based on a true story"? now THAT is catnip to me

just had this exact thought again and typed it out and then was like. wait. i've said this before right

i'd do it again for a very reasonable price btw

i just remembered i wrote an entire video game that comes out next week. whadda hell

i thought of a killer concept for a video that i can't even start until november. can't wait to have an open task in my brain for nine months

Mountain of False Metaphor - Unwinnable Cairn constantly uses imagery that doesn’t signify what it claims to.

"Cairn asks why you would climb the mountain. And the answer is because it really isn’t a big deal."

@jaymcastello.bsky.social examines the contradictions present throughout Cairn's environment and plot: unwinnable.com/2026/03/06/m...

finding out there's a gambling company called cozy games ltd. lol. lmao even

i'm very used to the idea that writing is thinking but it doesn't stop being funny to sit down to a blank page and be like "i'm not sure what this game was saying" and then over a couple of hours and 1200 words to be like "oh. it was eco-fascism"

Photo of a living room with Virtue and a Sledgehammer's Pause screen on a TV.

Testing Virtue and a Sledgehammer with the whole team! 🔨🔨🔨 @selkieharbour.com

Beautiful pause screen by @darumastudio.bsky.social

the other day i was like, is it bad that i have made no effort to learn enough to even distinguish between the live service shooters that are launching lately. well, i think it's fine actually

OH NO i'm so sorry

you know how people are like "i've cut down on caffeine and unfortunately i have to report i do feel so much better." i'm here to tell you with 100% sincerity i've been drinking so much coffee & red bull lately and it's doing great things to my mood

every time i read something good i'm like i have to make my work weirder to match this freak and every time i read something bad i'm like GODDDDD i have to make my work weirder so it's nothing like this

at the level of Feeling Normal about the novel draft where i'm like look, every sentence is 0.02% closer to being finished

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope launches this Wednesday!

Over 100+ essays on the craft of game writing and narrative design; affordable priced.

… AND we’ll also launch with the first two episodes of the podcast series, where we talk to the article writers about their craft.

~80 year old man running serenely in the opposite direction around the park who told me 'well done' when I was clearly out of breath and dying: i'm in love with you

i'm sure this is specific to ff7 rebirth in many ways but it also rings true to how its felt to play basically any game i've played before release in the last two years

on one hand i don't get the impression eric barone is doing anything he doesn't want to. on the other hand please god free eric barone