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Problem Machine

@problemmachine.bsky.social

Artist, game developer, writer, overthinker, etc. Current project is Bound City, a game about a strange dying place that might be a metaphor for something. (He/They)

58 Followers  |  131 Following  |  60 Posts  |  Joined: 20.07.2023  |  2.2455

Latest posts by problemmachine.bsky.social on Bluesky

Sounds pretty good so far!
(Also: Pleased to see a fellow Reason Appreciator)

09.01.2026 05:18 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

My whole life, advocating war has been fed to me as β€œthe adult position,” akin to drinking your coffee black or reading the business section of the newspaper. Let’s be very clear β€” war is the childish nonsense of impulsive destructive idiots playing baby-brained video games with real human lives.

04.01.2026 02:02 β€” πŸ‘ 19485    πŸ” 4107    πŸ’¬ 277    πŸ“Œ 139

I don’t know how else to say it: we must be stopped.

03.01.2026 06:57 β€” πŸ‘ 313    πŸ” 51    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

I was honestly not able to get the tilt function working, but I didn't try very hard. Sensitivity seems very solid to me, and comparable to my extremely sparse Wacom experience (a very old Intuos tablet)

03.01.2026 09:33 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Been using a Huion Kamvas Pro 22 a few years now. Mostly works great - the first pen broke after I dropped it off my desk, but the replacement I got has lasted years (through similar drops). Solid.

02.01.2026 20:19 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I always heard Dudley's "Corkscrew Blow!" as "Cock Scroobler!"
I don't know what it means to scrooble someone's cock but it can't be good.

17.12.2025 05:43 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I enjoy In-N-Out and I will never go to bat for their fries, their fries suck. It's so weird, you can see them making them and it seems like what they're doing should make okay fries, and yet.

16.12.2025 23:05 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Some people talk about this as it's missing "soul" or whatever, but I don't like that sort of mysticism. What it's missing is the unexpected texture generated in the process of creation, the fingerprint, the happy accident. It can only ever be exactly as expected and never more.

16.12.2025 07:20 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This is incidentally why AI generations are not a useful medium. Skipping over this process means you will never develop the eye, the ear, the skill of knowing what is or isn't working and why. Even if you already have these skills, bypassing the process leads to a sterile output.

16.12.2025 07:17 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Also. Fucking up the thing you imagined is often the first step in discovering something much cooler than you imagined. Creating exactly the thing you wanted might not actually lead to the best outcome. I think far more talent comes from learning how to harness these moments than how to avoid them.

16.12.2025 07:13 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Not thinking you're good enough... that's part of the process, that's how you get better. Because thinking that you're not good enough means you know a way that you could be better! That's good!

16.12.2025 07:09 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Occasionally I see an artist frustrated and saying that they'll never be as good as they want to be, so why bother, and, like... No one is ever as good as they want to be? The more one improves as an artist, or as much of anything, the more the scope of what they know is possible expands.

16.12.2025 07:08 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

i am begging game developers and musicians who are not putting your soundtracks on bandcamp/ampwall to just... do that... please... i will not be streaming your music off A Music Service. let me actually give you money.

05.12.2025 18:19 β€” πŸ‘ 695    πŸ” 194    πŸ’¬ 7    πŸ“Œ 0

It's time to face that books simply aren't a good medium for storytelling. Such a dry and linear medium has no way to convey systems or relationships outside of tiny snapshots to the player, or so-called "reader." This will be true until they innovate by adding LED screens and buttons to the books.

05.12.2025 20:06 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

A fake it 'til you make it approach to teaching reading. It might work, if we never needed to read anything besides picture books. But at that point you're not really using the text at all, are you? It's the opposite of learning to read.

11.11.2025 23:16 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

An obsession with form over function -- except that's not right, is it? A belief that form IS function, and once you learn to mimic the form well enough that's the same thing as creating a functional replica. Which maybe works fine until there's literally any change of context.

11.11.2025 23:15 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't kno...

www.apmreports.org/episode/2019...
This article's been going around and it's very worth reading. I can't help but see parallels with the infection of AI boosting, where solving the immediate task of saying words is superseding the actual purpose of the task -- learning to read.

11.11.2025 23:13 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1
Video thumbnail

Experimenting with using IK solvers to drive enemy movement
#ScreenshotSaturday #indiedev #gamedev

08.11.2025 21:50 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
A character leaping over the heads of enemies who are aiming at them in a pixel art style

A character leaping over the heads of enemies who are aiming at them in a pixel art style

A battle between a character and a large woman with claws in a pixel art style

A battle between a character and a large woman with claws in a pixel art style

A UI screen filled with keywords

A UI screen filled with keywords

A character running across a misty moonlit bridge

A character running across a misty moonlit bridge

A metroidvania with a strong narrative emphasis. The night never ends, the sea rises, the tower grows. Investigate by fighting your way to the heart of the city and meeting people along the way.

A couple years from completion, but a demo is available store.steampowered.com/app/3871260/...

04.11.2025 07:27 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

Not specifically game design, but I think my primary principle for art in general: Find the tension, then emphasize it.
Some people like to resolve it too. That part is optional though.

21.10.2025 22:47 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

false :(

19.10.2025 21:14 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

...true?

19.10.2025 20:55 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

...true?

19.10.2025 19:45 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Bound City on Steam An action-packed and bittersweet adventure in a city of endless night. Explore the dying city and try to find your way to the tower that seems to be at the heart of it all. Nothing is quite as it appe...

I have made a public demo for my game Bound City available! About an hour long, containing one zone and bits of others. Please check it out, wishlist, tell everyone you've ever met, fraudulently inflate my numbers, etc. Every little bit helps. store.steampowered.com/app/3871260/...

18.10.2025 17:15 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

With hunter crest dash attack bounces you up and you can get another hit immediately if you're still in range, so might have been that. I used that combo a lot.

18.10.2025 07:19 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I've been thinking "Adventure-Platformer" for mine but maybe explicitly calling out exploration is better

01.10.2025 04:28 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I wonder how much of that just stems from having a talking rather than silent protagonist

20.09.2025 04:43 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

We're stuck with jacking off 1.1 (the internet)

13.09.2025 07:23 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Dunno if that's my best ever but I agree easily the best in Bloodborne. If we're including Sekiro I might say Genichiro though

12.09.2025 05:12 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I'm treated as a madman when I say Midir is the best fight in the DLC. It's good! It forces you to interact with the space differently! I think Gael is, like, fine. He's fine.

11.09.2025 23:54 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

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