"Predatory land grabs mount in the ashes of Maui" Of course they do...

I would love to go to more conferences and give more talks but I really really really hate traveling. I can muster maybe one trip a year, so I apologize for turning down so many invitations. I blame the race-to-the-bottom for air travel. If we had Star Trek style transporters the transporter industry would still find a way to fuck it up.

The story for my new game is about a going on an epic quest to find some Pumpernickel bread for an ailing grandfather. There is no "big bad", it's just a journey of discovery and exploration (with Diablo II style combat and looting).

I think I've come to that point with my new game. I'm spending too much time worrying about if my story will resonate, if the combat is what players want, etc. I loved playing the classic Zelda games, the combat of Diablo II and designing and writing Thimbleweed Park. I want to play this game and I'm going to stop worrying what anyone else thinks and just make this game. I really hope you will like it, but if not, that is OK. I'm at peace with what my game needs to be.

There comes a point where you just make the game you want to play and hope others want to play it too. If not, at least you had fun making a game. #indiedev #gamedev

Current status: Slowly making my way to Germany.

Current status:

Local feed. Much better.

Hanging out in the airport reading Mastodon. It’s time like this that I like the federated feed. Non-stop stuff to read.

I am heading to Germany for devcom to meet up with some of the Return to Monkey Island team and talk about the aforementioned so there will be no todo lists for the next week. #devcom

I got a new book to read on my flight to DevCom. Things you didn't know about me: I love the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I watch it every night and have for the past 8 years. I get to the last episode and start over. I was too young to really remember it but my parents always watched the show. I do remember I had a 7-years old crush on Rhoda.

Another day another dollar*. Spent the weekend doing a deep dive into how Diablo II does weapons and loot. Fascinating but it seems overly complex. It feels good to play so maybe it needs to be. I'm doing a much simpler version but there are some neat things I learned. * Except for the dollar part. #indiedev #gamedev #pixeltodo

Oh, look what came in the mail today: /cc @npub14qfr...tpku

I didn't get much (anything?) done from my todo list yesterday. I was wrapping up some code around an intro quest and I realized my loot table structure was woefully inadequate so I spent the day rewriting the whole thing. #gamedev

TV show I'd love to see come back: Flight of the Conchords. It needs a Next Gen run.

I'm need to make more salad this summer.

Because Mastodon doesn't allow quoted posts, I see is a lot of Mastodon users posting screenshots of the post they want to quote. It's interesting how people will find a way to get around any obstacle. It's a daily battle in game design. If you don't let players do something they really want to do, they find away and often break your game to do it. Not sure where this post is going, it's early and I haven't had coffee yet.