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For the term "challenging toxicity".

BlueSuburbia demo is out! (more about the project, vision, and things coming…)

It has been well over a year that I decided to learn Unreal so that I can bring my vision of “reviving” BlueSuburbia to life. This was a crash course in Blender, 3D animation, modeling, Unreal, scripting, textures, volumetrics… what any of these things even mean and how to do them right. I still have a long way to go, but I’m proud to be able to finally share an early look at this new BlueSuburbia. The demo was posted on itch.io the other day: https://alienmelon.itch.io/bluesuburbia I already payed for the Steam store listing and will be working on getting...

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Indie Games and the promise of better spaces

Idyll is a small social world designed around kinder forms of online conversation. That description alone couldn’t come at a more meaningful time. I’ve been eagerly watching the development of it over Twitter, and have been looking forward to writing about it when it releases. I think it is a profound thing to put into the world in the shadow of “losing” Twitter… with friend groups scurrying to other social media spaces, and overall how things like this tiny game-thing contrast against the more popular online social spaces that we must inhabit. I think it goes without saying that each...

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Design notes on the Electric Zine Maker’s Tool Update! (and general life update + overshare)

Earlier this September I released the tool update for the Electric Zine Maker. Yay! You can download it here. You can read the devlog about it (a list of all the new tools) here. It’s not a complete tool update. I released it because I’m kind of in the middle of a lot of uncertainty about the future right now, so (to get around that), I’m changing the release schedule to be more frequent instead of what I planned. I originally wanted to release tools in larger chunks so that it stays interesting to people… You know, if you release...

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My gross revenue on itch.io, transparently sharing all my stats & earnings, and speaking on how supportive of a base itch.io has

I have been regularly sharing my itch.io income numbers on Twitter. This year I’ve been doing surprisingly well on itch (the snowballing is kind of blowing my mind). When I last looked at the account overview I noticed that (since starting on itch.io, in 2015, OVERALL)… The Gross Revenue of my games are: $7,276.70 The very touching part of this is that the *TIP* Revenue is $7,164.18. That’s Tip. So ok, queue me melting into a useless puddle of feelings. I shared that in this thread, with some thoughts about what itch.io and GameJolt mean to me. I asked if...

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Altgames Workshop: a discussion of surrealism and personal stories in games

I was invited to speak, and participate in a panel, at Image+Nation. It’s a LGBTQ film festival that takes place in Montreal. The event was organized by Tech Witches and held at Never Apart. I shared some pictures on my instagram if you want to get a sense of that space. It was wonderful to participate in something like this, with a total focus on queer culture. Queer culture makes me feel alive. I adore the art happening there. (tiny coming out psa: i’m Bi & my pronouns are they/them or she/her. tho i love they/them the most. thank u!)...

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A “10 years of experimental work” retrospective: does being a gamer automatically mean toxic fandom, and can anything be done to break away from that?

I was asked recently if I wanted to give a talk. That prompted me to map out reactions to “Everything is going to be OK“, as compared to an older project of mine. I was curious about how much exactly changed in regards to both negative and positive reactions work like this receives. Does the negative outweigh the positive? My question was whether this can even improve, or is harassment just a fact of life? So… I tweet about this a lot, but thought it would be a good idea to assemble all that in one concise post, instead of...

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Missing Pages added to “Everything is going to be OK” (personal writing & fever dream OS)

I just published the final update to “Everything is going to be OK” and, with that, this interactive zine is now completely done. This update features a lot of personal writing, and a strange fever dream OS for you to explore. There’s a lot to get lost in. You can play it on… itch.io or GameJolt If you feel so inclined, please help spread the word about the update being out. I will love you forever. Thank you! I also updated the page description, and the itch page has a nice theme with a fire to keep prospective players, journalists,...

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moving past destructive cycles, and modes of thought, about different game experiences

Over this weekend James from Seemingly Pointless contacted me saying he’ll reference some of my writing in a piece that he was writing about “You Must be 18 or Older to Enter” being banned from Steam. As you can imagine I was pretty pissed when I heard this news. At the same time I was not surprised that this happened. As (game) creators, we’ve heard this type of thing being said often in discussion about the App Store guidelines. If you want to make this type of art (app/game) make a book, a movie, anything else. Not a game. In...

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“Everything is going to be OK” development update: personal essays about hope, new pages coming, and some thoughts

First, to start with some positive news! IGN has nominated “Everything is going to be OK” for the Best of 2017 under the most innovative category! Vote for it! (or your other favorite innovative game) This is tremendous and I so hope some of this (in whatever small amount) sets a stage for how other games like this will be viewed. I really hope these types of experimental games start getting the respect and recognition they deserve. It’s legitimate art that deserves a voice. It sounds so crazy saying something like this in 2017 because I thought we where long...

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If “games are art”: challenging the toxicity of gamer culture and preconceptions of what a game is

If you have been following me on Twitter then you may have noticed my tweet thread here explaining that “If games are art then we have to embrace the idea that they don’t have to be fun. Art is not always fun. It covers a wide spectrum of emotions, and concepts.” That’s the opening tweet, I explain more in the thread. It’s worth reading in full before commenting or attacking. This was largely a reaction to criticisms from gamers that where justifying the toxicity directed at me by saying “if I didn’t want to receive toxicity then I should have...

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