Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚


Got tickets for Fredericksburg Comic Con.


Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚


Finished reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚


Currently listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan 📚


Ever since I started tinkering with gamedev (and Godot specifically), one thing I’ve periodically attempted is a recreation of the mac game Spin Doctor (released on PC and SNES as “Clockwerx”)

I started over recently, but I’ve got the basic swing/flip/bounce movement working. #screenshotsaturday


Finished Listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff 📚


I’ve been waiting my whole life for this email.


My excellent son Benjamin(10) has created BenKardian, his two-player take on the classic solitaire game Accordian.


Sometimes I play games

  • I still haven’t entirely kicked the Marvel Snap habit, but I feel like I’ve made peace with it. It’s a thing I enjoy, so I shouldn’t beat myself up about it. I think I’m paraphrasing Ted Lasso here.
  • When on the phone or tablet, and not Snap-ing, I’ve been playing Slice and Dice
  • I recently spent about an hour or two digging in to Book of Hours. I don’t love it yet, but after reading the two Alexis Kennedy books, I want to dive back in and try to pay more attention to the actual writing. Likewise, I want to revisit Cultist Simulator (which I at least got to the point with where I could seemingly live indefinitely without accomplishing much) and Sunless Sea (which I only launched once, but haven’t really played).
  • I spent a little time today finally playing Dome Keeper. I’m only one run in, but I’ll be coming back. So far: good game, great atmosphere.

Currently reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚


Finished reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy 📚

Much shorter than the other two game design books I’ve recently read (including the other book from Alexis Kennedy), but more inspiring and actionable, I think.



Finished reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy 📚

Good stuff, I’ll probably go back to the more practical chapters (mostly in part 2) again.


Current view:


Finished reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers 📚

I skimmed some chapters, but will definitely keep it around for reference.


GameDev.tv jam results for The Last Stan: I’m happy to have gotten #59 (out of over 1000) in the mechanics category, and a decent showing otherwise(except for “theme”).

My favorite comments call the game “weirdly relaxing” and “quite therapeutic”.


I don’t like this new world where swiping your credit card at a business automatically signs you up to receive their marketing emails.


“The Last Stan” is live on itch.io and submitted to the gamedev.tv jam. It’s a platformer, with typing.

It’s not my favorite thing I’ve made, but I will say that it’s got some charm (a good deal of which comes from the Kenney art and background music by Seth Makes Sounds).


Hey, an actual #screenshotsaturday :

For the gamedev.tv jam, I’m working on a platformer where you escape alien ships and defeat ground-based enemies by typing. All art by Kenney.