Tracy McGrath

Thanks!

That classic pasttime: making 3d work in Pico-8

I know just about everything sucks now but please hang in there. The world is a better place with you in it

Donate to Help Rebecca Ann Heineman Fight Aggressive Cancer, organized by Rebecca Heineman I’m Rebecca Ann Heineman. The very first video game champion, creat… Rebecca Heineman needs your support for Help Rebecca Ann Heineman Fight Aggressive Cancer

I’ve started a GoFundMe to help with my cancer battle gofund.me/6850175a3

People will yell about accessibility, but accessibility is a braille translation, not a book rewritten as if it was a simple english wikipedia entry. Sometimes the friction is needed to appreciate the art, and sometimes you have to build your fluency up to appreciate something. That's just culture!!

Lol. What would "natural" difficulty even look like through this lens? That art team balance the game?

battle garegga has diagonal movement speed boosting like most 90s FPS so therefore it is the best shmup

Sparknotes is a whole industry. "Inception Ending Explained" is a whole industry. How many people have you heard get frustrated over not being able to engage with Abstract Expressionism. The problem is certainly not unique to games

I can't think of a medium where that isn't true

But if "The Citizen Kane of Games" signifies the first entry of a medium that really establishes what's possible and which elevates it to an art form (whether Citizen Kane actually did that for movies aside) it's hard to think of a better candidate than Xevious. It even has two plane focus lol

Less trying to make a direct parallel and more trying to make the point that if we really think games are art, which I do, that we should be elevating the art of gameplay itself and the things that are unique to the medium rather than shape it into something it's not.

idk the line of "but what if I want to experience the art and story" just feels gross to me at this point it never feels like it's said in good faith and is more just "this game isn't what I want it to be and should change to suit my desires"

A lot of talk about the art in games focuses on turning games into movies. And from this lens gameplay is a gate keeping people from experiencing the true art of the cutscenes between the gameplay. But the art is the gameplay. The Citizen Kane of games isn't Last of Us, it's Xevious.

And like to be clear I'm all for training modes and god modes. It's not too much to ask to let the player tinker with the component parts. But I really don't think people realize that an easy mode is a second game. You're asking an artist to make a second work of art. It's wildly entitled.

In what other medium are you expected to make a whole separate version of your art for people who don't want to engage with it? Difficulty is framed as some cruel trick being played on the audience but like no one is forcing you to engage with art you don't like.

shit is bad enough for trans people. do not. i repeat. FUCKING DO NOT start talking about things that might happen in the future as though they are already happening now.

Reporters talking with everyone who has ever met the shooter asking if the shooter knew any trans people. Healthy society we have here for sure.

Transgender people are owed a retraction and apology from @wsj.com. The lie has already become canon to millions and it seems the least they could do.

The Assassin (2015) dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien

happy labor day

Transgender studies professor Dr. Susan Stryker tears Gavin Newsom a new one while accepting the Transgender Legacy Award from the California state legislature 🔥🔥🔥 @susanstryker.bsky.social

Mandatory hrt until 30 for everyone. You need to wait until you're 18 to vote and 21 to drink, so I think maybe even 25 is a little too young to decide that you're cis. Your brain is still developing, what if you end up regretting it later? Might as well make it 40, just so you're absolutely sure.

The low grade discomfort ordinary people felt about trans people's medical needs was used to smuggle junk science and conversion therapy into the mainstream, and now you're running around like "how did all this junk science and broad based attacks on expertise get normalized?"

The pro AI UK government has advised citizens to 'Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems' to help reduce water consumption during national d... We're going to be the best at AI but you lot need to delete old email and pics to save water.

Speaking of the UK they're already at the point where the government is telling people to delete all their old emails so that LLMs can still function.

LLM demand is going to be 30 times higher than it is now in ten years. What are you willing to give up so that you won't have to learn to draw?

Can US infrastructure keep up with the AI economy? The AI age is expected to require scaling data centers, grid capacity, and supply chains. Deloitte’s 2025 AI Infrastructure Survey examines gaps and solutions.

You can tell people have no fucking clue just how environmentally damaging LLMs are when they think any world where they're around in ten years has anyone left to make art in the first place.

In the US alone they're projected to use 120 gigawatts. For context, the UK peak demand this year was 30.

The #HugoAward for Best Game or Interactive Work goes to Caves of Qud.

Tropical Malady (2004) dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

If you've got the time to harass people for smoking weed on their front porch then you probably don't have all that much violence to prevent