Tanya X. Short

Arrival and Annihilation are both in the running for me. Interesting films that bring a new flavor and insight to the old material without changing the core texture.

it's hilarious that if you send something to Slackbot, it'll reply "You can also send things to yourself!"

I could, but I didn't. slackbot engineers are clearly annoyed with people using their features "incorrectly". too bad. explain to me why it's wrong. don't be pass-agg. shush.

this is based on a true story, my dev today, except it was tables not chairs, and this was changed in order to not confuse the poor programmers, who already have enough going on

sometimes game development is staring at a spread of 12 chair varieties, finding #11 is missing, was never put in the game, and trying to figure out what to name it without breaking everything

This is in 2 hours!

it is disorienting to communicate in professional spaces with people whose names are UnleashTheGiraffe or ApplePieButt, which makes me old I guess, but, it's also a joy. this is their true selves, or reflective of some fragment that was true, once, and that's beautiful. dizzyingly kaleidoscopic.

HBO executives, I am available to negotiate on Qud's behalf

this morning, my 6yo asked me that question every parent dreads. "mom, is there a space between video and games or not?"

thanks. from now on when I am served goat or lamb or venison I will taste it and nod appreciatively. "Tastes a bit gamer"

perhaps you have already eaten a WeeabooSmore, but allow me to share it with you, which we (re?)invented from first principles:

1 pocky
plus 2 large marshmallows, skewered first with chopsticks, then put on the pocky
toasted or roasted

equals

DELICIOUS

you're welcome

I genuinely love this as a look

Skeet that shows Caves of Qud running on a handheld in front of a stand of winter trees. Below it is a skeet showing someone holding a book entitled "Reigmes of Inequality" against trees displaying fall colours.

When the timeline delivers.

there are people who use google meets,
and people who use discord,
and people who use teams,
and then there are people who use teams and will refer to it always, loyally, as TEAMS, a small gesture of respect that it has not earned and will not reward, and these people should not be trusted

this morning
as we were packing up and leaving our old office
we saw the biggest raven land on a neighbor roof
and dig intently in the snow
it pulled and pulled, revealing a wing of a long-dead pigeon
and we looked away
and moved to the next office.
we didn't talk about it
or metaphors ever again.

why yes LinkedIn, I WILL accept Sam Altman's job, thank you for offering it to me, now look at my left hand for just a second

why yes, my title in 2010 when I was hired on Age of Conan was "AI Designer"

why no, I do not have any--hehe--comment on--- hahahaaa aahahahaahaha ... phew.. okay... I'm... HAhaaa hahaha!

Heartwarmed and flattered by a new crop of folks getting into Caves of Qud on Switch. If you're having trouble with how deranged it is at the start, please stick with it: it gets much worse

Reminder to other indie dev teams especially new teams. Most of us are happy to share advice and give feedback on publisher/funding/platform deals and terms. There are some shady predatory biz weasels that will take advantage of you as soon as your game starts to pop off. Please reach out.

Are you making a story-focused indie game? 📖

Applications are open for the Story-Rich Showcase, our event that will run during the Summer Game Fest period and is built to champion narrative games that deserve the spotlight ❤️‍🔥

You can apply here 👇
📋 storyrich.games

thanks to qud's revolutionary progression system, switching from your profile on the nintendo switch to pc is easy. when your character dies, start a new one on the other platform! all the accumulated knowledge and experience from playing on one will be present with you on the other!

marketing advisors really will send you top-game lists that read a bit like a bad Saturday Night Live fever dream. several zillion-dollar IPs from 20 years ago, but also a couple of totally random Adjective + Nouns to spice it up. Crimson Desert. Burglin' Gnomes. Sure. definitely also just as real.

Since there are undoubtedly going to be people playing Caves of Qud for the first time today and in the coming weeks, I'm gonna share a few basic tips that I figured out along the way. Because I'm original like that:

yeah, an extremely neat database game, and/or database puzzle within a game, attn Lucas Pope admirers/impersonators

Caves of Qud is out now for Nintendo Switch!

🍄 Buy on the eShop: www.nintendo.com/en-ca/store/...

Rewriting the Player Contract: Legibility and Trust in Game Development Whether you mean to or not, as a game developer, you will find yourself embedded in contracts with your players, of both explicit and implicit varieties.

Some designers recently wrote a big piece on "player contracts" (expectations) that might help think through it if you haven't seen it -- mostly from the perspective of video games, but one ttrpg designer as well as a co-author: polarisgamedesign.com/2025/rewriti...

doing a kickflip of the soul, deciding not to feel guilty about not answering a bunch of work messages and instead feel virtuous about it

there are many other plausible reasons to ask to see a save file and log ahem

I mean, the trouble is, we keep intentionally making games in which this is the expected behaviour, whoopsie

"the NPC saw me from across the map!"
...no... a different one popped in you didn't see..
"the NPC remembered me from 3 hours ago!"
...no... that's just a random bark actually, maybe we should rewrite it...
"I teleported through the mountain!"
ok wait yeah that sounds like a collision issue hold on

hasn't happened to me in awhile but it happened on the bigger MMOs I worked on all the time. it even became designer shorthand when we got a bizarrely-worded bug. "players lie!" we'd cry, chortling, and get to work reproducing it.