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@chyr.bsky.social
Artist and game developer. Designed Manifold Garden, Hotel Infinity, and Strata. Creative Director at Studio Chyr. Adjunct at Columbia College Chicago. https://studiochyr.com/
We're launching a website.
Jank is an independent PC games website funded by readers.
jank.cool
If you like funny, thoughtful games journalism and can't stand adverts, deals posts, affiliate links, and other nonsense - Jank is for you.
Hotel Infinity is 10% off on Meta Quest: www.meta.com/experiences/...
This is a roomscale-first experience designed entirely around physical movement.
Walk the winding halls and grand ballrooms of a mysterious hotel from your living room without the need for joystick movement or teleportation.
Something positive: Spry Fox is spinning out of Netflix. We are independent (once again!) and preparing to launch Spirit Crossing.
We wrote up a little blog post musing about this wild adventure. Worth sharing the good news.
spryfox.com/a-16-year-ol...
Surprise, delight, and bewilder your fuzzy-eared friends with your OWN set of fuzzy ears. ๐บ
Are you more partial to a set of horns or feathered antennae? Good news - we've got those too! ๐ฆ
Express yourself with a variety of mythic animal accessories in Spirit Crossing. ๐พ
โ playspiritcrossing.com
new game for 7DFPS
polclarissou.itch.io/vermin3000-d...
Thank you to @playstation.com and Meta for believing in Hotel Infinity from the very beginning.
Finally, thank you to the rest of the team who contributed their talent to bringing Hotel Infinity to life.
This nomination belongs to everyone who worked on the project!
Thanks to Producer @augustjbrown.bsky.social for moving the project forward and Operations Director Molly Feingold, who supported the team in a variety of ways
Here's an illustration of the team by @matildedraws.bsky.social from when we visited hotels in Chicago for inspiration early in development
Zyad Elmasri, Gemma Lippman, and Sydney Glenn all helped with QA testing to ensure a smooth experience for players.
QA testing a roomscale VR game for both #MetaQuest and #PSVR2 is not trivial. We would record sessions to see how much the cable got tangled and make necessary design adjustments.
@laryssaokada.bsky.social and @ashellinthepit.bsky.social created a beautiful and eerie soundscape that makes the game so much more immersive.
13.01.2026 02:59 โ ๐ 7 ๐ 2 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0@jjerion.bsky.social created the narrative structure to encompass the overall experience
13.01.2026 02:53 โ ๐ 6 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0Tara Quinsac, our concept artist, helped us define the visual details of the environment and the puzzles to make the hotel feel like a real place.
13.01.2026 02:52 โ ๐ 4 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0The designers played a major role in pushing the limits of the tech. Oscar De Anda and @nw3d.bsky.social created environments that showcased whatโs possible in VR.
Iโm grateful for the design work that Sydney Glenn, @jacobmooney.bsky.social, and @goodboytan.bsky.social did on the final puzzles.
Shoutout to @arthurperpixel.bsky.social, our graphics programming consultant, who is responsible for the incredible seamless portals in the game.
Melody Yang also worked on blending lighting through portals, and the final result looks amazing. Image on the left shows portal light blending enabled.
Thank you to the core engineering team of @buzzjive.bsky.social, @goodboytan.bsky.social, and Melody Yang. They built the technical foundation of the game and the tools that empowered our designers. Making a roomscale VR game with natural locomotion is no easy task, but the team pulled it off!
13.01.2026 02:45 โ ๐ 5 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0Promotional artwork for the VR game Hotel Infinity, featuring a logo that identifies it as a finalist for the 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. The game title, "HOTEL Infinity," is displayed in large, bold red serif font across the center. A thin white horizontal line separates the two words. The background depicts a low-angle, perspective-heavy view of a dense, stylized architectural environment. The buildings are light gray or white with many dark rectangular windows, reminiscent of a classic grand hotel's exterior. A single window at the top right is brightly lit with a warm orange glow, contrasting with the otherwise cool and dark exterior.
This image displays five nominees for the "Immersive Reality Technical Achievement" DICE Award, organized in a table with promotional artwork for each project. Below the art, it lists the game titles, developing studios, and key team members for each entry. The games are: Ghost Town, Hotel Infinity, Marvel's Deadpool VR, Star Wars: Beyond Victory - A Mixed Reality Playset, and Unloop.
Hotel Infinity is a finalist for "Immersive Reality Technical Achievement" at the #DICEAwards from @official-aias.bsky.social!
Hotel Infinity was a team effort and wouldnโt be possible without the contributions from many talented people.
Full list of nominees: www.interactive.org/awards/29th_...
Manifold Garden is currently 75% off on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/473950/M...
12.01.2026 19:48 โ ๐ 29 ๐ 13 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 2I hit the button โ
๐ญ๐ธ
๐จBIG HOPS is OUT NOW๐จ
Get it on Steam | Switch | PS5 for just $17.99 with our 10% launch discount!
#indiegames #nintendoswitch #ps5
BIG HOPS is OUT NOW and to celebrate: meet the Animal Adventurers Bundle. 4 amazing games about being a cute critter exploring a big world. ๐ธ๐๐ฆ๐ป
#bighops #ashorthike #lilgatorgame #littlekittybigcity #indiegames
The Bears win!
The Bears beat the Packers in the playoffs as their storybook season continues, and Chicago is going wild.
blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/10/b...
IT'S CHICAGO, YEAH ๐ฃ๏ธ
The Bears erase an 18-point deficit to win their first playoff game since 2010.
subway art test
01.12.2025 19:33 โ ๐ 724 ๐ 106 ๐ฌ 28 ๐ 3vertical slice scene from 2024
10.01.2026 01:07 โ ๐ 430 ๐ 58 ๐ฌ 5 ๐ 0Wow!! Angeline Era received grand prize and design noms for the Independent Games Festival, plus a shout-out for audio ๐
Very honored for the recognition!! Congrats to co-dev @even-kei.bsky.social !!
How about... beginning your bumpslash journey today?? store.steampowered.com/app/2393920/...
Congrats! That's huge
08.01.2026 23:25 โ ๐ 1 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0When you beat some levels in Angeline Era, pieces will be added or subtracted to the world map. E.g. in this image, beating a level actually creates a bridge! This means that in about half the levels there's a new sense of possibility and unknown in what beating the level might take you to. It also allows players to loosely (but importantly, not accurately) anticipate what beating a level might do.
Most combat focused rooms in Angeline Era feature Eye Gates (in yellow. Ignore the number above this one). Something that people usually pick up on intuitively, but rarely comment on in reviews, is that every room has a consistent and fastest way to open up the gate and proceed - certain enemies are internally marked, and if you beat enough of them, the door opens. In each room I used intuition to pick which enemies this should apply to, so as you replay levels (especially on higher difficulties) you can start to prioritize and focus on certain enemies. Furthermore, room shape matters a lot in this game as you can attack enemies into walls for extra damage. Higher ground can be a lot safer, so your positioning matters a lot in this game, as it's crucial to minimizing how riskily you're positioned at any given time. The addition of a gun that only shoots up also allows you to take advantage of distance or keep the momentum up while closing gaps.
All of Angeline Era's bosses are intentionally designed to not have much overlap in their designs, since we wanted to display the full creative extent of boss design. In particular, we (usually) avoided the common boss design paradigm of being very focused on memorizing moves, instead wanting the bosses to be an extension of the normal combat: they place a lot of focus on positioning yourself safely rather than simply dodging attacks and waiting until the prescribed moment you're allowed to attack. One rule we (95%+ of the time) tried to follow is there should never be moments in which you flat out cannot do any damage, which I think made all the bosses have a really nice sense of pacing. Although not as novel (and mostly noticeable on high difficulties), bosses also generally have an internal 'heat' system where as time goes on and their HP goes down, attacks become more aggressive/faster, subtly aiming to encourage more aggressive play.
Yay, Angeline Era is Overwhelmingly Positive (& 88 meta!)! It'd be a great subject for a design video essay.
3 possible topics (details in alt)
1. How beating levels changes the overworld
2. Combat Room shape & the secrets of Eye Gates
3. Positioning-focused bosses
store.steampowered.com/app/2393920
๐ต MONEY for GAME? In 2026??? ๐ต
There have been more and more successful-game-devs-turned-game-funders popping up, so here's a lil' thread of some of the more recent ones I've seen.
Hopefully this helps you get some $$$! ๐ฝ
We're excited to announce the nominees for the 29th Annual #DICEAwards!
64 games are nominated this year, led by
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Ghost of Yลtei with 8,
Arc Raiders, Dispatch with 6,
Blue Prince with 5.
Check out our full list of nominees here: www.interactive.org/awards/29th_...
Hotel Infinity is a finalist for "Immersive Reality Technical Achievement" at the DICE Awards this year: www.interactive.org/awards/29th_...
08.01.2026 18:49 โ ๐ 8 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 1I've overhauled my puzzle level generation so a level is now "grown" like cell tissue in a triangle tessellation. New elements can be inserted anywhere, and the whole level deforms to make room. This makes it easier to control topology and create paths that loops around areas.
#ProcGen #GameDev
PCGamer writeup on Skin Deep - Best Immersive Sim 2025
Skin Deep year-end roundup: blendogames.com/news/post/20...
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