Pietro Polsinelli 🔜 Games about revolution

I love writing short stories.

I love writing for games.

Why not both??

Becoming Saint is now available on mobile! A small, replayable strategic and tactical medieval game with a rich, evolutive and generative narrative component. Define your set of beliefs and convert the whole of Italy to your heretic creed!

Get it here: open-lab.com/games/becomi...

Also here a post with a preview of our next games, Rome City Of Cards and Revolt Of The Commons, and all the news about Homer, our free narrative design tool: peterpunk.substack.com/p/becoming-s...

Becoming Saint is now available on mobile! A small, replayable strategic and tactical medieval game with a rich, evolutive and generative narrative component. Define your set of beliefs and convert the whole of Italy to your heretic creed!

Get it here: open-lab.com/games/becomi...

Save 60% on Pendragon: Narrative Tactics on Steam AD 673. Camelot has fallen. The Round Table must rally to save King Arthur. Narrative strategy game from the creators of 80 DAYS, with elegant tactics and a unique, dynamic story every time you replay...

If you’ve ever been curious to try out Pendragon, the least well-known of all the inkle games, it’s on sale to support the fight against Type 1 Diabetes for a few more hours!

my take on game industry finance is any analysis of dev time, dev cost, sale pricing etc. is pointless without acknowledging the role of big capital in systematically acquiring and extracting all of the wealth

it‘s like giving someone diet and exercise advice while Dracula is actively killing them

For ages @peterpunk.bsky.social tried to convince me that microwaving tea was bad, and now that I stopped I see he was right... and that he could've easily convinced me by saying: "It's like putting pasta in the pot before it boils." How did you not think of that, PP!

"Every day a Voight-Kampff Test" peterpunk.substack.com/p/every-day-...

Post a banger that isn’t in English

youtu.be/pqiEe1wtpyk?...

Check this sh*t out

The Unfair Lie That Ruined Demos What could go wrong if I misinterpret data to make a shocking argument?

This is an amazing story about why a whole decade of game devs thought demos were bad. jboger.substack.com/p/the-unfair...

Per una amica

This song is sufficient reason to learn Italian open.spotify.com/intl-it/trac...

Ok, yes, I exaggerated with this dynamic color tool I made
(but I like it ^_^)

It's hard to describe, mostly the tone, its unique intersection of bizarre, funny and scary, with the devil on top 😅

Save 35% on despelote on Steam A slice-of-life adventure about childhood and the magical grip soccer held over the people of Quito, Ecuador in 2001.

And #1 is Despelote! store.steampowered.com/app/2367820/... @despelote.game

Wednesdays on Steam "The hardest part is not to speak up. It’s being heard." Part video game, part graphic novel, Wednesdays seeks to raise awareness about child sexual abuse through a surprisingly hope-filled ...

#2 is Wednesdays store.steampowered.com/app/2747770/... @thepixelhunt.bsky.social

Save 45% on INDIKA on Steam Play a third-person, story-driven game set in alternative Russia at the turn of the XIX century where religious visions clash with harsh reality. INDIKA tells the story of a young nun who sets off on ...

(This wasn't published in 2025 but I played it last year): #3 is Indika store.steampowered.com/app/1373960/...

Top 2025 con tantissimi DEV ITALIANI! - masterzi_and_dioghito on Twitch masterzi_and_dioghito went live on Twitch. Catch up on their Just Chatting VOD now.

So I've been asked by my top 3 games played in 2025 (streamed in Italian here www.twitch.tv/videos/26818...), and these are:

Italian voice actor Carlo Bononi was the voice of all of the characters on Pingu. A trained clown by trade, he used a theater technique called grammelot, which consists of "speaking" in a mix of babbled gibberish noises. He improvised all the voices live and unscripted.

YouTube video by inkleStudios TR-49 - Official Trailer

TR-49: OUT NOW

Narrative deduction / audio drama

"Outstanding" - PC Gamer
"Politically fierce" - Polygon
"One of the best" - Thinky Games
"I wanted to know everything" - RPS
"Impressive - very impressive indeed" - Eurogamer

$6.99 / ~6 hours

Steam: tinyurl.com/2jvt9ewk
iOS: tinyurl.com/4ucwx4s7

Yesterday, Wednesdays won the Indiecade Jury's Choice Award (tied with @asocialgiraffe.bsky.social )!

@indiecade.bsky.social has been around celebrating indie games for 19 years and It means A LOT to us to now be part of that glorious history!

Our second Jury Prix winner is Wednesdays by The Wednesdays Team! @arteinteractive.bsky.social @wednesdays-game.bsky.social @thepixelhunt.bsky.social

www.arte.tv/digitalprodu...

Art by Tim Hutchings!

This is so good 😊

GUAJIROS!!!
MI FIEL PUBLISHER @dupuis_bd ANNOUNCED HAVANA SPLIT 2 !!! OUT IN FRENCH BOOKSTORES THE 23 JANUARY!!
☠️
This book will be even more FOR ADULTS! Men tears!
Bikini! Face tattoos!! Voodoo!!!!
not for kids !!!
🐙🦀🌴
Scenario: Frédéric Brrémaud
Drawings: yo 🙈
Colors: @leevolt.bsky.social

My talk on Becoming Saint for IVIPRO www.youtube.com/watch?v=q760... [in Italian] - also the full list here www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

For my english-reading friends: if you want to know more about the really excellent programs for using games as part of civic literacy that Lucas Ramada is running in Barcelona, check this out! The booklet is available in English, and I think it's a must for library folks.

Found a beautiful resource to reopen my mind at the start of the year, even within the current nightmare of a world controlled by sociopathic finance lords & their vassals, left & right: on logical and mathematical infinity & paradoxes www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OP... - good luck for 2026!

Portrait of the back side of Blitzkrieg's board, with the alternative scenario.

Ending the year exploring great (board) game design, quick, atmospheric, effective, simple, deep: “Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes”, including an unexpected Philip K. Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle”’s like scenario! boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25...

YouTube video by AdventureX AdventureX 2025 – Talk: Pierre Corbinais & Florent Maurin "Delicate Art of Making Depressing Games"

So watch this talk about easily getting rich by making games! "Delicate Art of Making Depressing Games" www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnM2... by @thepixelhunt.bsky.social @wednesdays-game.bsky.social

Every interview with the AI shills pushing for "world models" betrays a profound lack of understanding about how games are made.

"DeepMind’s Alexandre Moufarek...said he hoped that world models would help give developers space to 'find the fun' and 'try new ideas and take risks again.'" 1/2