Max Lander

Ooo this has been on my watchlist, thank you for the reminder!

Anyone have good game design video recommendations about mechanics *not* by a dude?

You aren't gonna make the industry care about art or meaningfully participate in it. You absolutely can (and many of us do!) get artists to care about and make games though.

I spent a lot of yesterday chatting with a local arts org about showing and supporting art games and how we build value and community within the arts as game makers and I think everyone who is worried about that should log off and go talk to a local artist run org (or start one)

i don't think you can be a linkedin grindset guy or gal and also argue for the value of what you're doing as socially transformative, important art. i don't think those two things are ultimately compatible or can be reconciled.

It's so nice of these folks to give me this birthday present.

(The demo of this game is great!)

(I have so many thoughts on this, let's hang out and discuss it more)

I'm pretty attached to art games but I think videogame folks largely are uninterested in art on the whole. I just don't think artistry comes from the degree of insular focus so many videogame ppl occupy.

Claiming games are art is wild thing to me. Nothing is inherently an art. Games are just a mode/tool/toy/medium, art is a practice.

A pal recently introduced me to a solid/interesting art definition - “art is culturally significant meaning, skillfully encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.”

I'm so glad you're enjoying it!

MORE ODDNESS! This is great!

Oddfolk, to me, was love at first sight. It's very charming and very, very clever.

YEAH THANK YOUUUU. I have been struggling a little lately with my relationship to my games and this is such a nice reminder of why I make things!!

Eeeeeeeee I'm late to the excitement on this but it's honestly just so lovely to read!

I let OddFolk be messy because it's what I needed creatively and emotionally and it's great to hear that being met with enthusiasm!!

People need to relearn to be fucking embarrassed.

I think society was lost the second people started watching their phones on transit without headphones

This is like my theory that the people who are worried about other people pissing in the swimming pool are the only people who are pissing in the swimming pool.

We don’t use generative AI at Strange Scaffold and I can confirm that a *lot* of other studios are not—whether indie or AAA.

Get outta here with this normalization bullshit.

Less in common with one another

YouTube video by Soft Rains Games Ambrosia Sky 🪐 | Launch Trailer

Ambrosia Sky: Act One is available now!!

15% off on both Steam & Epic!!
store.steampowered.com/app/3580160/...

store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/ambr...

OddFolk by hugeboar A modular game of compounding consequences.

My big recent indie recommendation is OddFolk by @snaxwell.bsky.social

maxwellander.itch.io/oddfolk

if you go through the historical game studies record, you'll find attempts to strictly define games (generally around "goals" or "struggle") to be entwined with systemic racism, imperialism, and the enshrinement 19th/20th century patriarchal values

Anyway, being a prof is great.

But the combo of being raised by the internet where attention spans are so diminished and media that are big + evolving enough to occupy literally every open second...

I don't think it's doing great things to the development of the youth.

Obviously that's not controversial, but I wonder sometimes about the ways games exploit that trait. I think (maybe) older folks like myself are better at balancing (sometimes), at stepping away from them to engage in our own practices because we are of an age where people had many interests.

A not fully formed thought:

I think the main requirement for being a maker of things/an artist is being the kind of person who will voluntarily deep dive things. Concepts, elements of craft, other makers. Willing to follow an interest past some inevitable hurdles.

Lurk lurk lurk

Many of the "classics" one reads in school are chosen to be non-controversial to contemporary censorious nincompoops, which as I understand it is one reason it's often challenging to get and keep contemporary literature in school classes.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSZ

This thread is such a treat to read through!