David King

It's the last week to get your submissions in for Leftfield 2025. They close on Friday 1st of August: airtable.com/appIQDFmYU3o...

Adult games are forcing the game industry into a spiritual crisis Itchio joins Steam in pulling games due to pressure from extreme groups with an ongoing campaign aimed at payment processors

I've looked & I could have missed it, maybe its saved in their drafts but @ukieofficial.bsky.social TIGA, BFI, that new video game council. Which UK body representing games is stepping up to publicly speak about the mass censorship of the cultural form they represent?
www.polygon.com/news/615910/...

All true.

Have you tried teropa.info/musicmouse/

event poster, painting of a woman holding a dog with a poker visor and cards. text reads: Car Boot Casino: a night of homebrew card, bluffing and betting games. Tuesday 8 July 2025, 7pm - late, Brighton £7.99

UK playful pals & mutuals- we've been given a bit more capacity for our boutique Car Boot Casino night at Develop on Tues 8 July

If you enjoy homebrew card & bluffing games, poker visors, janky prizes then ticket details are below:

www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/t-zz...
Code: DOGPLAYINGPOKER

Obviously I'm massively biased, but this video on the wilmot's warehouse board game is great, both fun and insightful.

A reminder to apply to join us in London on July 11 for the symposium on the question WHAT IS THE ANTIFASCIST GAME. Applications due May 17!
reimaginingvalue.ca/antifagame/

Tiny Islands Brings Me So Much Joy I want to talk a little bit about this game I've had saved on my itch page forever in my collection called ! It's been years, and I keep coming back to play...

after 100 years of making my blog look really pretty instead of finishing any of the posts i have half-written, i started finished and post a post today!! about one of my favourite tiny games on itch that i keep coming back to play :)
knivesforcats.online/tiny-islands...

Misread this as 'procedural rhetoric is evil, actually' which is whole different kettle of fish.

Games for People (zine) In 2014, Pat Ashe and I were at the big gamedev conference in San Francisco together that year. And we were soaking in an international culture of indie game developers who were keen to understand and...

It’s the first day of @nowplaythis.bsky.social today and they kindly reprinted a bunch of Games For People zines for the event.

Also they are hosting a digital version of the zine here and @v21.bsky.social wrote a little intro for it! nowplaythis.net/game/games-f...

event poster with colourful shapes, faces and game controllers. Text reads "Let's Go Indie, insights and support for those curious about starting their own game studio"

West Midland games folk, join us on Monday 28 April in Leamington Spa for...

Let's Go Indie!?

An evening of practical support & guidance for those considering starting their own independent game studio, or new studios starting out.

free but RSVPs are essential

letsgoindie.eventbrite.co.uk

Playful theory site header

I finished teaching my Playful Theory class, a seminar for studio artists focused on games.

It was my first academic course in the post-ChatGPT era, so I tried out a few strategies to handle students potentially skimming readings and submitting AI-generated response papers.

Thread🧵

GAIA 2025 Call for Applications The Game Arts International Assembly (GAIA) is an event that creates space for people in the game arts organizing, production and curation community to discuss their challenges and share information. ...

We're close to the deadline for GAIA 2025 applications. We're looking for curators, streamers, reviewers, festival organizers, advocates & more!

If your work involves celebrating, documenting, curating, educating, organizing in games & playful arts, please apply!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Play Invention Digital Intern - Careers - LEGO.com Play Invention Digital Intern: Job Description Do you dream of making life more playful by using your deep curiosity and passion to create innovative play exper...

www.lego.com/en-gb/career...

THE CORRECT POSTING IS HERE!
(Sorry!)

An ASCII art image that says "I survived 18 seconds without a bike lane" with a cyclist crashing into a weed store. The cyclist is saying "please don't write this in my obit". At the bottom it says "THANKS DOUG".

I made a tiny protest game about the terrifying reality of biking in Toronto without bike lanes

marieflanagan.com/loserlane

I had a nice chat with Dan about Tiny Islands, the Wilmot's Warehouse boardgame and also dodged some challenging questions about the nature of art, games and education.

Two Futures As part of Eurogamer’s 25th Anniversary they asked a few folks in the field of games (including me) where video games will be in another 25 years. I wrote two passages for them, and said they could…

The lovely folks at @eurogamer.bsky.social are celebrating 25 years, and asked me for a feature ‘where will games be in another 25 years’. I had two answers: a realistic one, and a hopeful one. They kindly allowed me to share both here: medium.com/@h.k.nicklin...

Ars Wilmot Meet Wilmot's Warehouse. Based on the video game by Richard Hogg and Ricky Haggett, and designed by David King — creator of browser-based roll-and-write Tiny Islands — Wilmot's Warehouse is a memory g...

Wilmot's Warehouse is a memory game. Let me finish! It's a memory game but good. But great. But a miracle.

My review: spacebiff.com/2024/08/06/w...

Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant The Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant is a grant opportunity for game developers from traditionally underrepresented groups and backgrounds who are interested in designing and developing puzzle games.

We're excited to announce that applications are open for the Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant 2024 🎉

The grant will award $15,000 to 6 thinky puzzle game developers from all over the world, and a year's mentorship with genre veterans.

Deadline: October 7th
More Info: grants.draknek.org

Black board game board with a white grid, tiles are placed on the board some face up with lots of different colours and shapes and some face down. Tiles and cards are placed around the board.

I've been working on this board game for 4 years, so I'm excited to be able to announce Wilmot's Warehouse.

You can watch a trailer for it here:
youtube.com/watch?v=bHa1...

And preorder it here:
cmyk.games/products/wil...

Nice to meet, good luck with the latest project. During your talk I was thinking about how Firewatch handled background story with a short text based game before the main game.

Tiny Islands Game Score card with 54 points. On the left hand side 8 scores are shown for different elements on the islands. On the right hand side a map made of a grid of 9x9 with three islands all with different features.

It's been a while since I've gone back and played Tiny Islands, I'm definitely not at my peak. dr-d-king.itch.io/tiny-islands

Sticky Arrow on Steam A Sokoban-like puzzle game, which can be solved using only the arrow keys.

Always great when a graduate student puts there game out in the wild.
I really enjoyed the first version of the puzzle game Sticky Arrow which was made on the course and I'm looking forward to seeing what Tong Yu has done with this latest version. store.steampowered.com/app/2879470/...

6 by 6 grid representing a pixelated map with each cell showing either mountains, forests, fields, houses, boats, beaches and waves in the sea.

Shifting Shores a little puzzle game I made using puzzlescript dr-d-king.itch.io/shifting-sho...

Downpour Downpour is the best app for making games on your phone. Collage together photos, drawings and text, and then connect them into an interactive story. It's genuinely quick and easy to use — you can mak...

It's finally here! Downpour is out!

Downpour is my tool for making games on your phone in literal minutes. Collage together images & text, link them up, then share online. No coding necessary!

🌐 downpour.games
🤖 play.google.com/store/apps/d...
🍎 apps.apple.com/us/app/downp...

This looks like an amazing opportunity.

If you already have a Masters degree, love games, and want to relocate to Gothenburg.

boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/158...

I don't have an MA/MSc but anyway I'm not sure if I can bring myself to move long-term to another country that gets so cold.

The Unbearable Weight of Worldbuilding Or: Playing in the Polycrisis.

I have revived my Medium to post a talk I gave for MA students at the London College of Communications, University of the Arts London.

The Unbearable Weight of Worldbuiling is a provocation reflecting on the politics of worldbuilding.

medium.com/@h.k.nicklin...

My first game made using puzzlescript.
5 levels of slipping, sliding and pushing blocks of ice to get the Penguins back to their nests. dr-d-king.itch.io/nesting-peng...

a nice promo image saying "Downpour: forecasted 6th March"

some personal news, as they say: my game making app Downpour is coming out in three weeks time!

you can sign up for the mailing list & see the shiny new screenshots here: downpour.games