john 🌼

if we talking about the game awards can we talk about their silly games for impact category aka the diversity award. its so silly they will put queer games and games with poc leads (all indie btw) in that category but never nominate them in anything else

once again, Bluesky has deleted Sama'a's account in spite of its minimal activity and strict observance of the site's rules.

As Steam cracks down on adult games, one dev urges taking back control Game developers fear for the future of games with LGBTQ themes, which is leading some to pursue alternate (and way cooler) forms of distribution

Well! There we are! Me and Val! The handsomest men to ever grace the Indie game scene!

It's an absolute honor to say Parfum Nostalgique has been featured on @polygon.com . I'm gonna go scream now.

www.polygon.com/steam-adult-...

'We're not safe here' In the immediate days after, creators have found themselves at a loss of what to do. Game developer krispycat, also known as ButterflyLatte, reports that her NSFW game demo, known as "The Seventh Bride," was deindexed, and is only shown when specifically searched for. It wasn't just this game, either. "On a whim, I tried to search up my SFW games as well - Wendy, warm, Like Seafoam. These games are fairly innocent and wholesome; 'warm' and 'Wendy' star children. However, they don't appear in the suggestions either - I suspect it's because they're yuri games," she recounted, describing a genre of fiction which depicts romance between two female characters and has no inherent sexual elements.

Some creators report that an entire game jam - or collection of games developed in a short period to build community - was affected. The Toxic Yuri Game Jam, consisting of over 200 different games, saw significant hits, with over half of the games delisted and several being completely removed from the site. One user, known as Kastel, describes how a joke game they made was delisted squarely for having the tag "erotic." They mention how this jam was filled with first time developers, and how the occurrence of these bans led to mass panic, watching a happy community turn into people feeling completely doomed. "I've done a bunch of these game jams, so I'm giving them advice. And then I'm looking at all this and it's just... what do I even say? This is a pretty bad situation. I can't pretend that this is good. This isn't a wonderful thing we can all survive. It's pretty rough. I feel bad for everyone, especially because it's their first wave of censorship."

“She was not the only developer who reported the company singling out yuri content.”

Games journalists really dropped the ball on itchio targeting yuri content, both SFW and NSFW

The censorship of Toxic Yuri Game Jam hasn’t gotten any coverage from the games press

On itch.io, payment processors, and the developers and creatives affected - Press SPACE to Jump Itch.io deindexed adult, LGBTQIA+ and Furry media en masse across their site on July 23 due to pressure from payment processors, so creators are speaking up.

On itch io, payment processors, and the developers and creatives affected

I wrote about the itch deindexing, stripe, a religious group & a call to action + shared amazing words from 25 affected creators who took their time to write me.

🔁 RTs Appreciated 🔁
#itch #indiedev #visualnovel #comic #novel

you can be frustrated with how itch handled the situation but you also have Got to focus on the actual source of the problem. i for one am going to call some credit card companies today.

i worked with our director RJ to put together a web page compiling phone numbers, emails, and petitions where you can make your voice heard - protect queer artists and sex workers and tell payment processing companies to end their awful policies harming safe spaces for creative art

BREAKING: President Trump signed an executive order directing states to criminalize and institutionalize people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental health disabilities.

📢 ISO of Devs Affected by Itch 📢

If your game got:
• Deindexed
• Removed
• Payouts turned off

Especially if you make Adult &/or LGBTQ+ #IndieGame or #VisualNovel, I want to talk to you.

🗣️ Please reply below with how you were affected. This is for a #Journalism piece.

🔁 RTs Appreciated 🔁

if you are an indie game dev and the art you want to make is being censored, don't let these fucking websites take away your creativity.
do not depend on them for your audience. talk to each other. we will get through this if we fully internalize that we are developers responsible for our own work

HUGE ‼️ congrats!!

Digital illustration. On the left is a person with fair skin, short blue hair, and silver/gold eyes. They are dressed in some fancy black, white, grey, and gold clothing. A complex halo of yellow circles and signs floats behind their head. In the top right, an illustration of the planet Mercury. A few city lights are visible on the night side, and some white dots representing space habitats are visible in the planet's vicinity. This illustration is captioned "Mercury, 2660". Below this is a graphic depicting a map of the solar system with various yellow lines spreading across it like a web. This illustration is captioned "Beamed power network". Below this is an illustration depicting some kind of worn-down spherical building on the surface of Mercury, with harsh shadows and some yellow symbols scribbled onto its side. Text around the bottom middle reads out: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies - whose frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: COUNCIL FOR MANAGEMENT OF THE PISCES-3 BEAM HIGHWAY. During the epoch of Stagnation vast mining infrastructure was constructed in various locales across the surface of Mercury. The Stagnation came to an end before these mining machines could get to work tearing the planet apart to feed the insatiable appetite of their operators, today many of the old buildings and underground tunnels serve as residences for the various bureaucratic activities carried out on Mercury. The planet is considered the hub for ~85% of the solar system's beamed power networks, which form the backbone of the majority of interplanetary transport and energy distribution. If the beamed power network is the solar system's capillaries, then Mercury is the heart."

Mercury, planet of bureaucracy

#art

Come celebrate the beginning of Toronto Games Week outdoors at the waterfront! Meet some new folks and get hyped for the big event at sundown: a massive playable projection of Toronto-related games on the historic Canada Malting Silos! #TGW25

🗓️ Thursday, June 12th 8-11pm
🎟️ FREE!

Summer Game Fest logo

My feelings covering Summer Game Fest, in LA, as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant.
pentopixels.com/article/summ...

cis people: a trans care ban is not just "oh they can't get surgeries". a trans care ban is taking away life-saving care. both mentally and physically life-saving.

Open Letter to the Bluesky Team About Their Treatment of Palestinians in Gaza [CLICK here if you would like your name added to this letter] النسخة العربية من هذه الرسالة متاحة أدناه. Open Letter to the Bluesky Team About Their Treatment of Palestinians in Gaza The signatories...

Please read. We hoped that one of the many members of the Bluesky community from Gaza could be first to share this letter, but we were worried that their account would get taken down if they did. This letter is for
@moderation.bsky.app, Bluesky leadership, and the wider community here. Thanks!

a decade ago, when i started writing about games as a hobby, someone asked me where i'd like to work someday. polygon was my immediate answer.

i pitched them 12 times until i got my first commission. i've done over 100 stories for them since, and my editors shaped me into the writer I am today.

'tuna hake's underwater' now available on PC.

"you are a fish who does tricks"

store.steampowered.com/app/3521300/...

AAA is fucked. AAAA is fucked. AA is fucked. Indie is fucked. It's all fucked. I've never seen more across-the-board devastation in this industry in the decade-and-a-half I've been here.

a title screen with a pixel icon envelope: delivery, art and words by danielle taphanel

a pixel screenshot of some ruined buildings viewed from afar, emitting signals.

a pixel screenshot of a hermetically sealed room viewed from above with a highlighted sprite of a person.

a pixel screenshot of the top of a tall building in isometric view with a small highlighted cursor over an entrance shaft.

This is my third game, about a small delivery robot in a ruined city. I wanted to explore things like: more descriptive text, game over states, inventories, cutscenes, etc. while telling a simpler story.

Music by @laurentds.bsky.social!

DELIVERY: treelet.itch.io/delivery
#bitsy #interactivefiction

miku inspired by jet set radio
#HatsuneMiku #jetsetradio

sharing again ahead of the weekend - i'm still grateful and honored by everyone's participation. if you haven't heard about spine, i've pubbed over 150 writers and counting, and there's a new piece every week. i cover most payments myself, but there's a patreon, too: www.patreon.com/c/intothespine

i spent most of my december putting this together. it's a massive collaborative effort, and it features some of the best writing i've seen all year. a great encapsulation not only of 2024, but everything around it, past and future. 102 writers who, despite everything, are still here.

i wrote a short blurb about Void Stranger for this - it's really humbling to be included along with so many skilled writers!! thanks to Into the Spine for letting me write again, and definitely take a look at the other articles in here!

love that well tended is in this thread ‼️ it's a really lovely game, and imo this whole thread is worth checking out

back on the text stuff, really liking the kind of heavy feel of this so far.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you 💔

we're so back ‼️

Indiepocalypse - Collection by PIZZAPRANKS A collection by PIZZAPRANKS

Looking for indie games outside the norm? Fortunately, I neatly package and deliver 10 (1 newly commissioned) of them straight to you every single month with Indiepocalypse!

And if you work to check out the developers in any one issue you'll find a whole world of games!

itch.io/c/689872/ind...

YouTube video by Rami Ismail An appeal for Dreams on a Pillow

I want to make a personal appeal for the beautiful new game of Palestinian gamedev @rasheedabueideh.bsky.social. As nobody will fund a game about the 1948 Nakba, Rasheed is crowdfunding via launchgood.com/1948. I've been doing production advice on the game pro bono, and it deserves to exist.