This week's discussion question: How do you approach creating a unique world for your VN?

This week's discussion question: How do you approach creating a unique world for your VN?

Narrat Jam - Summer 2025 A game jam from 2025-08-01 to 2025-08-17 hosted by Liana. The Narrat Jam is back! Two weeks to make a game in Narrat. Narrat Jam 2025 This game jam is about making games with the narrat game engine. N...

Narrat Jam 2025 will start on August 1st and last two weeks ✨ a good chance to try Narrat, make a new game for your portfolio, or even make your first game? itch.io/jam/narrat-j...

They are planning a heist 💅💖

#StarTrek #McSpirk

a lil chismis from the dev's locker room feat a very funny bug 🐞🚀

Hey, have you played GET IN THE CAR, LOSER!, my lesbian road trip RPG about an anxious trans lesbian going on an adventure to fight a reactionary cult summoning an ancient evil?

It's currently on Steam
store.steampowered.com/app/938860/G... and also available on your local Nintendo Switch eShop!

Image of library book display labeled:

“It's A Warning Not An Instruction Manual.”

Books on display:
• On Tyranny
• Twenty Lessons From
The 21st Century
• 1984
• A Handmaids Tale
• Diary of Anne Frank
• Parable of The Sower
• Fahrenheit 451
• Animal Farm
• Brave New World

~TAiLS of a Bookworm

Yesterday alone I, a person who writes books for a living, emailed two writers (one a friend, one more of an acquaintance) to tell them how much I'd liked their books.

One of them said I had *no idea* how much they'd needed to hear that right now.

It really makes a difference. 💗

a green and purple striped heart with a green heart in the middle Alt: a green and purple and white striped heart, the colors of the genderqueer flag

#mswl reminder: I am still on the hunt for standout trans/genderqueer voices, particularly in YA but also MG, from speculative to gorgeously written coming-of-age. My partner is trans/nb, I’m genderfluid, and I will never stop championing genderqueer authors

The cover of The Lotus Empire, by Tasha Suri.

#21 The Lotus Empire, by Tasha Suri

6/5

The first thing I did when I finished this book was scream. In these pages, you will find intricate worldbuilding and thrilling politics, but it isn't in service of plot; these things exist to make you feel the whole weight of a world that keeps love apart.

The cover art for Bury Your Gays, by Chuck Tingle.

#15 Bury Your Gays, by Chuck Tingle

4/5

It's rare that horror novels scare me, but Bury Your Gays, made me SQUIRM. There are X-Files-esque monsters galore, but its characters carry the real terror here -- them and the lens pointed straight at the intersection between capitalism and queerphobia.

The cover art for Night's Master, by Tanith Lee

#14 Night's Master, by Tanith Lee

4/5

Every so often, I come across a work that unlocks a new genre for me, and for anthology novels? That was Night's Master. It's dreamy, engrossing, and oftentimes tragic - all things that make a perfect introduction to the story's titular character. I need more!

The cover art for All Systems Red, by Martha Wells.

#5 - All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

5/5

Someone said that you cannot tell a story about robots without telling a story about labor. Inevitably, something is said of how labor and those carrying it out are seen and treated.

All Systems Red is layers upon layers of this, all within 150 pages.

#6 - Breath of the Dragon, by Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee

4/5

How dare I doubt Fonda Lee? How dare I worry that this wasn't going to be a BANGER? For shame!

But it IS a banger! Fonda Lee + Martial arts tournaments + Philosophy of Bruce Lee, as it turns out, is a surefire recipe for a great time!

Neo-Twiny Jam A game jam from 2025-06-01 to 2025-07-01 hosted by manonamora, Autumn Chen & Lapin Lunaire Games. Create a tiny Interactive Fiction piece in 500 words or less! This returning jam is a commemoration of...

Want a challenge? Or thrive on making tiny games? Looking to do a little good?

You have 500 words to make an IF game.
All entries will be matched into a donation to LGBTQ+ organisations!

tinyurl.com/ntj25

#interactivefiction #visualnovel #gamejam #fundraising #lgbtq+

Screenshot of the following text: Night: Not for this day Total:00:00 Civil Twilight: 12:00 am - 3:53 am 11:11 pm - 12:00 am

So I'm going to Iceland this summer and I was looking up when the sun would set and saw something on timeanddate dot com that I'd never seen before:

"Night: Not for this day"

DAMN

I guess in Iceland you can say "NOT TODAY, DARKNESS" and it's just a literal fact

Cover of the last hour between worlds by Melissa Caruso

6% through this book and already enraptured at the radical thought that Kem can be talented and indispensable and whip smart and dryly funny and hot and badass… and a new mother. All at the same time. As if her entire existence doesn’t stop with the baby.

Can’t get enough of this one.

#booksky📚🪐

An anguished young man (Karimo) stands over the body of a shadowy man, destruction all around him. The sun is setting through the window behind him, and a bloody knife is in his hand. In the foreground, the hand of another person reaches toward him, also bloody.

Two men (Quill and Richa) in a cavernous space decorated all over with icons of a horned saint. Quill, bloodied from a previous encounter, lifts a lid from a box ing hte ground, revealing the decorated skeleton of the horned saint, lying on a bed of papers.

So for this release, I commissioned a sort of gazetteer from @jorgesantiagojr.bsky.social (who you may know from such Books of the Usurper art as the phenomenal promo bookmarks). Because of comments like the one that spurred this thread! What the fuck is an Alojan anyway?

On the #GameMakersNotebook pod, @alexaray.bsky.social chats with @mikelaidlaw.bsky.social of @yellowbrickgames.bsky.social about his dev career on RPGs like Dragon Age, his studio's first release ETERNAL STRANDS, creating a physics based combat system, what it takes to finish a project, and more! 🎙️👇

a tangent on this good piece:

Kill the Mean Commenter in your head

1/

Not that the Western ones are bad, but Japan was redoing game covers well into the 90s and some of them go HARD!

We're getting pizza and I'm obsessed with this slightly broken mural that used to be about eating with your hands but now it reads like Saruman's manifesto

I'm seeing conversations about dev team sizes & game quality (re: Clair Obscur), when imo we should really be talking about how not being under the thumb of greedy, short-sighted leadership & devs being allowed to let imagination/passion run the show is what's actually making the biggest difference.

The fact that the world getting worse made our game a stronger creative statement is cool, but also—rough as hell!

We didn’t want it like this!!!

(that said I hear this CRDM3 game is both funny and incredibly on sale right now)
store.steampowered.com/app/2116510/...

What a beautiful place to breakdown

Hey #portfolioday

I’m Jimmy, a digital collage artist making surreal pieces

I specialise in making cover art but post a lot of my personal works on here 🙌

Arranged Marriages Dave Weasel · Album · 2024 · 10 songs

I messed up the Spotify link! Here’s where to hear the standup album: open.spotify.com/album/0IFN5p...

Air Fact xkcd.com/3079

The Fae King Is My Roommate by Chthonic Chrome Studio ​Slice-of-Life Dark Fantasy Romance VN

Our entry for this year's Amare Games Festival: "The Fae King Is My Roommate" (FKR) Demo is now live on Itch!

Play here: chthonicchromestudio.itch.io/the-fae-king...

#amare #amaregame #visualnovel #fkr #thefaekingismyroommate

Free5e: A Free Open-Source Dungeons and Dragons Alternative Fully free, Creative Commons D&D-compatible core books—accessible, affordable, and open for everyone. Help us bring DnD to the world!

If you've been on the fence about buying dnd books, the goal of this KS is to distribute laid out 5e pdfs for free and to sell all 3 core books ~$45.

Man is not keen on Hasbro.
Super keen on accessibility.

Pretty neat.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/wyr...

#free5e #5e #dnd #dungeonsAndDragons