Alex Darby // darbotron 🛹

FACT 👇

Bluesky has four kinds of users

Forbidden Solitaire's new DLC is OUT NOW!! Very proud of what the team was able to accomplish with this! This also might be the most oddly romantic story I've written for a Night Signal project? Albeit with a touch of toothy body horror to go with it, of course. 🦷GO FORTH: tinyurl.com/k9uvnahk

In the last year, No More Robots has funded + is currently funding a dozen games, and has paid numerous devs to make prototypes happen for free But obviously, getting press is absolutely impossible for us, because only doom and gloom gets clicks

Looking for a modern Mixamo animation tool... on steroids? If so, check out ActionForge. A new free Mixamo-like tool, with powerful editing and compositing features! gamefromscratch.com/actionforge-... #gamedev #indiedev

Oh right, I remembered that I made Unity Gaussian Splatting eons ago. Well ok, a new maintenance release v1.1.2 is now out with a handful of fixes. github.com/aras-p/Unity... #unity #3dgs

🤨 From Viz 😂

Normal map broken on a tree at Kew Gardens

Coming to the end of Steam Next Fest. What a blast! Thank you to all the streamers who have been covering The Vaults Below Durn! Demo will still be there after NF if you haven't tried it yet. store.steampowered.com/app/4494830/... #SteamNextFest #ObservationHame #PuzzleGame #CozyHorror #IndieGame

Little Troubles in Spooky Town is free to play in your browser, as a download or on mobile. No silly stuff, just a totally free game. 👻

Obv indie game dev is scary right now, but I have to remind myself that instead of prompting pointless AI reports in an office I'm currently talking to @rossignol.bsky.social about the correct color for druidic mead in my game.

if you’re looking for some good news (and you own a PS5 and love folk horror) - Hunter’s Moon just released!

Ooof, wavelength-dependent scattering + scattered surrounding sky produce incredibly soft & lovely visuals

Did you know cozy horror games are a thing? #CozyHorror games bring the same spookiness, but without the stress of jumpscares or needing lightning fast reflexes. If you want to try a cozy horror demo in Steam Next Fest, why not The Vaults Below Durn? #HumanMade #HorrorGame #SteamNextFest

Ah yes my favorite topic as someone with total aphantasia, who people LOVE to claim are utterly helpless without AI help. My mind cannot conjure images, sounds or any sensations. No inner monologue. No dreams. And SDAM, so I don’t even have vivid memories And yet I draw. Without the shit machine :)

Yes, I imagine it would be difficult to make a video game if you have absolutely zero relevant skills and refuse to learn any

So for #screenshotsaturday I have something really #indiedev I tied a set of data driven achievements to the Steam workshop submissions, if you took your ship out and used it, you can earn a Ship's log.. Tags added to your workshop ship. Go multiplayer and you might earn an "Ace " for the ship.

THE REPLICATORS ARE LAUNCHING PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES AND PASTRIES ACROSS THE PROMENADE BUT DO NOT WORRY FOR I, CHIEF ENGINEER MILES “NOT A VAMPIRE” O’BRIEN, AM WORKING AS FAST AS I CAN TO AHHHG PUMPKIN SPICE TO THE FACE AHHHG IT BUURRRRNNNRAAAAHGL FRAWR RRAAAGGGH

Input Prompts is the largest collection of glyphs covering a wide range of input devices and platforms. It's also completely free and public domain. 🎮 I want it to be even better though so looking for feedback; what's missing? what can be improved? kenney.nl/assets/input...

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 459 - October 18th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

After nuking it from space we've got a nice little indie dev community starting to grow on the @polygontreehouse.bsky.social Discord server. Whether you're a fan of our games, indie games in general, or are an indie dev yourself, you'd be more than welcome. 👉 discord.gg/polygontreehouse

ooof. this hits home pretty hard

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Already working through them. All work in progress but going to add wheel input, guitar, N64, missing joystick, missing keyboard keys etc. Update soon!

my company did not lose $80bln so invest in free game assets?

Incredible

LAIKA’s ‘Wildwood’ is tracking a $15-20M domestic box office debut after a skyrocket of pre-sale tickets. This will potentially make LAIKA’s biggest opening weekend ever. (Source: @GlobalBoxOffice on X)

Vulnerability xkcd.com/3314/

Feeling cute. Might delete later. If you want to have access to our beta branch on Steam, the secret code is TransRightsAreHumanRights #IndieGame #SteamNextFest #GameDev #GameDesign #LGBTQ #TransRightsAreHumanRights

You might have seen the original "no genAI seal" by @kanaratron.bsky.social. I've made the icon into a set of assets in both PNG and vector formats that can be more widely used in different contexts. You can find them here: www.joramwolters.com/no-gen-ai-ico/

best. theme. tune. ever.

Ever fucking green

Game UI Database is back in the news! Huge thanks to @verticalslice.news and @kerrblimey.bsky.social for this article on the ongoing issues I've had with AI bots scraping the site, and my efforts to push back against them: www.verticalslice.news/there-will-d...

todays protip: if the cosmos is telling you your design/code/idea sucks, stop and listen. often i find that some chunk of code will throwup more than its fair share of bugs, or not integrate well, or not live up to its hype/cost/time. rather than resent it increasingly over time, take it as a sign

Parallax goals.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

The puppy woke me up at 3:30am, needing to go out. While outside, I made the mistake of looking at the clear night sky, noticing Orion in clear view. So I put the pup to bed and brought out my telescope - snapped this shot of M42 (42mins, 10 sec intervals). The night sky is amazing.

I don’t like this thing where we’re waiting for an economic crash so people can buy their kids game consoles again.

this is so perfect, so pure

We've been thinking about the ultra-rich in space all wrong. Thanks, Amos!

J Jonah Jameson—now *there’s* a haircut you could set your watch to

phaser setting dry clothes

Yo. @kenney.nl has done more to support up and coming devs, empower non artists and people starting out with accessible tech than any other single person I’ve encountered. Just wanted to throw that out there for absolutely no reason whatsoever.