⚔️ Blanksword ⚔️

A screaming cat

*Sobbing miserably* I have to hand it to Metacritic

This is genuinely the most crucial and important skill to master in any creative field, and with time and patience, it'll take you literally anywhere you can hope to go, regardless of your starting point. But it's also very hard to grow this muscle, so start small - with 10 minutes!

You know what sets aside that creator you admire that made this amazing album/game/book etc you love? Odds are, it's just that they learned to commit to working on their project, not for a day, not for a week, but at least a little bit at a time, every day, for a long time.

The 10-minutes thing especially isn't discussed enough. If you haven't made this kind of project, this kind of work, before, the muscle you need to train the most isn't your creativity (whatever that means) or your technical skill or anything, it's your *stamina*.

If you're looking to get into any kind of creative project (be it writing, music, art, making a video game...), this is excellent advice from the Disc Inserter herself packaged into a couple mere paragraphs.

The current ecosystem feels very bleak for devs that try different things, I hope your put your hands on some funding soon 💙

what do you call a mouse that can't drive, a roadn't

Interrupting our regular game dev broadcast to share this thread on how to help trans people in the US, they are really going through the ringer right now and every little bit of help (even non-financial) goes a very long way

MAKE AN EMERGENCY DONATION to Trans Continental Pipeline right now.

They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate there and they are overwhelmed with requests. CO borders KS, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.

GO DONATE.

tcpipeline.org

As of tonight, licenses of trans people across Kansas are being invalidated en masse, enabling the overnight criminalization of an entire group of people for going about our lives. It’s often said you never know when you’re living through history, so let me assure you: that’s what’s happening now.

DUNGEON GALS

Rosa the moth, saying: "Didn't you bring some fighting games or whatever? You could at least do something besides just sitting there and whining..."

Wendy, a satyress, standing below a puzzle. There are blocks that used to be color-coded, but are now indicated via visually distinct symbols.

Version 1.4 of the Dungeon Gals demo is LIVE!

store.steampowered.com/app/2864880/...

Changes include:
-Improved player sprites
-Tweaked level design
-Numerous script edits
-Greatly improved accessibility settings
-Faster animations
-More readable font
-Extensively re-arranged music

The Steam Next Fest promo image.

📢 INDIE DEVS WHO ARE IN NEXT FEST!

If you're participating and would like your demo/store page reposted to 37K+ Bluesky followers then drop it in the replies below*

*No games that use Gen-AI please and thank you.

(refuses to elaborate)

"2026 is the year of the horse"

The horse:

This is all the work of our fantastic pixel artist @mottley.bsky.social btw

The Ticky Bar - early draft

The Ticky Bar - advanced draft

More environment work on the way for Just Beachy, Blanksword's new Location we're currently working on! Here's an early WIP and a more advanced version of the Ticky Bar, a small but important area where you might meet a certain special someone :]

Tweet that reads Leo Xander @STALLEON Stop taking social media so serious. Nothing here is real. Look at this chicken V - it is bigger than the car

I think about this tweet every time I feel something online start to curl its annoying little grip into my head

excellent advice post that’s straight to the point. especially fond of the 10-minute rule, which is something i hold myself to for my own projects.

The Queer Games Bundle was a genuinely important and helpful resource for small queer indie devs in the past 5 years, it's wonderful that such a small team of volunteers was able to keep it up for half a decade and I hope it'll encourage other initiatives like this one to spring into life.

Studios are chasing FFXIV not thinking about how the original release was one of the worst in MMO history, and only after reworking things and revamping the whole game did it become the phenomenon it is today.

I don't even know how I conjured this link to the game's steampage, I'm just the Bluesky Whisperer now

Idk anything but if the rumors are true you should probably get In Stars And Time for $12.99 on Steam, PS5/Switch physical $44 US Dollars at VGP

caves of qud outsold cybertruck by like 5x in 2025

Holy shit

a Free Press headline, Why Is No One Having Sex? https://www.thefp.com/p/why-is-no-one-having-sex

The Free Press is discovering new levels of Telling On Yourself that scientists previously thought could not exist

I was able to play this game years ago. I really liked it. I highly recommend it.

Good luck with the launch!!

no fucking way