Devan Soyka

Happy Halloween

Only in fall and winter, apparently 🙄

Normally they're careful to land behind me and at an angle, right at the start of my blind spot so I see them but don't SEE them 😂. Today they had a little assembly line, though. One would hop next to me, I'd drop a treat, he'd take off and the next would fall into step beside me.

The park crows are too funny. I was chopped liver all summer because they had plenty of food, but now that it's cold, ohhhh aren't I just everybody's best friend. For half a block I had the whole murder of 30 flying in circles around me like a Greed Tornado (today I brought almonds)

-"Apple changed its regulations"
-"We have to pivot"
-"It's classic Hero's Journey"
-"Visa changed its regulations"
-"We didn't make cert"
-"Did you see this?" [Sends link to another studio's announcement of the exact game you've spent the last 3 years making]

(The recurring "What are you, asexual?" comment is me @ me whenever I spend 20 pages developing a slowburn trust between characters to justify them being attracted to each other before I remember that MOST PEOPLE JUST...FEEL ATTRACTED TO EACH OTHER.)

Hottest notes to self from my draft zero, so far:

"Go Redwall on this shit"
"NOPE"
"What are you, asexual?"
"This isn't extra enough. MAKE IT A MASQUERADE"

One issue generally overlooked in the whole screenwriter vs gamewriter, discussion is time.

Beyond anything to do with training, ability, style etc is the amount of time screenwriters get to invest in a script.

Whilst there are time pressures on any writer, the vast amounts of script that-
1/9

YESSSSSS. I see your vision 🤩

It only took several HUNDRED hours of playing Hunt: Showdown but I took out a whole party today. Made such a weird little victory screech that both my teammates laughed

New Fire Emblem announced AND it has a prettyboy edgelord in black armor; be prepared to lose all contact with me for about 3 full months in 2026

Developing anything: why does anyone do this to themselves!!! This endeavor is doomed!!! This will never work!!!!

Seeing it in the build: 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹🥹💗💗💗💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💫

Tabletop Freelancer Rates Survey [PLEASE DO NOT FILL IN THIS SURVEY IF YOU DO NOT LIVE / WORK IN THE UK] This is a form put together by freelance tabletop workers in the IWGB to better understand the rate of freelance pay provided ...

The tabletop freelancer survey closes on Monday, if you want to make sure IWGB has the info to fight for fair freelancer wages share it and fill it in now!

forms.gle/efLP5CLxskse...

I still think about that one UX basics PowerPoint you showed me after work one day as I'm using various apps. Who designed this shit and why wasn't it Anna!!!

Beat all the Nightreign bosses so now I simply sit upon my lonely mountaintop, for there is nothing left to scale.

...

Just kidding! Time to do it again on hardmode

Congratulations, Diablo devs!! ❤️

I have a (initially very obvious) belief that a game is not primarily the artifact of the game but the stories generated by people interacting with the game, & that a good measure of success is the notability (for lack of a better word*) of those stories both by impact & number of people affected

Basil, a black cat with big green eyes, rests in his cat tree. His portrait, a small painting of him in an Elizabethan ruff, is mounted on the wall behind him in an ornate gold frame.

Stop doomscrolling. Enjoy this picture of Basil in front of the portrait @jannouna.bsky.social painted of him

“What’s a good name for the order” listen I don’t want to be world building right now, I just want my coffee

When Paizo unionized, I got a raise amounting to thousands of dollars. I also get a higher cost of living salary increase every year in addition to my seniority salary increase. I have incredible job security. I have advocates if I have grievances. Unionizing is hard and scary but so worth it.

If the AI bubble really is bursting, please take this lesson from it:

Nothing marketed to you this relentlessly is ever worth it. If it was, they wouldn’t need to beg you.

Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant? 👀

The infinity nikki both at gamescom, a nikki cutout by a mushroom and mansion display

Gamescom >:)
#infinitynikki

Yes! Play Ghost Trick!

The devcom conference center: A large white building with white pillars and a massive LED screen in devcom's colors

Spent the first day of devcom #ddc2025 in all my favorite ways:

-attending narrative talks
-talking to students
-teaching folks their labor rights and directing them to the games union for their country
-recommending everyone play Ghost Trick

when you're new to making games, it's easy to think it's about making art and making the right decisions and having the best taste. but actually making games is about dancing really good when the old west bandit shoots bullets at your toes

Sweet, I'll try to find you Wednesday!

People capable of loving some paintings or etchings or whatever can rarely do this without knowing something about the art-ist. Again, the situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is one halt of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you. Does he or she have a reputation for seriousness, for sincerity? There are virtually no beloved or respected paintings made by persons of whom we know nothing. We can even surmise a lot about the lives of whoever did the paintings in the caves underneath Lascaux, France. So I dare to suggest that no picture can attract serious attention without a human being attached to it in the viewer's mind. If you are unwilling to attach your name to your pictures, and to say why you hope others might find them rewarding to look at, there goes the ballgame right there. Pictures are famous for their human-ness and not their picture-ness. There is also the matter of craftsmanship. Real picture lovers like to "play along," so to speak, to look closely at the surface to see how the illusion was created by nothing but an unusual human being, with hands and eyes. If you are unwilling to say how you made your pictures, there goes the ballgame a second time. Good luck, and love as always K

Kurt Vonnegut’s definition of what makes something “art” is one of my favorites I’ve seen - from a letter to his brother in 1995.

So who's going to Devcom/Gamescom next week? 😄 I want to make sure I see everybody

The chess pieces I move may be heavy, but best believe it's because I'm playing a 4-dimensional game 😌