Devon Smith

All of this art will change one day to not be prefab kitbashes... ... but I'm slowly dialing in the vibe for my coop game about suburban latchkey landscapers scavenging themselves a new shelter. All while tackling the elements, bullies, indigestion, and the mysteries beyond the void.

Me: "Cool, I think I can probably record a little footage of the Metasound and Megalight stuff I've been experimenting with!" Game: "oh yeah?"

You can now use your haunted shopping cart as a mobile basketball hoop. Just one of the many weird ass ways I wanna change up collecting resources.

Have really only stayed on X for gamedev twitter, but it feels like engagement everywhere is supporting Dead Internet Theory. So here’s a gif of kids falling down that was too chonky for the hellsite.

Bew now eats grass & leaves and uses the energy to fly.

What started as a Princess Peach style floating mechanic is evolving into filling the hole left in my inner-child’s heart by never getting a real E.T. game.

The Black Phone 2 is the best “Part 2” in modern horror (and then some). @crobertcargill.bsky.social The Grabber is rad… but I want the Blakes to become our new Warrens.

After failing twice to do it on purpose… I’ve successfully/accidentally got drifting mechanics for my haunted shopping cart.

My “haunted shopping cart mowing lawns” simulator is inching along between the bugs.

Spent the apocalypse weekend teaching myself about lighting functions, texture-disabled emissives, and per-bone blending to dial in that classic dusty flashlight vibe.

I’ve also been setting up hitbox reactions to specific body zones based on locomotion and physics velocity. Like real kids, you’re gonna fall down a lot. Making that fun and part of the core loop is the key challenge.

Been inching through building the scaffolding of a bunch of different systems (like dynamically holding items). But took a detour to learn how to turn heightmaps into landscapes. Finally have my beloved Mt. Hood in the background.

constantly thinking about this ominous sticky note drawing i saw in a boba shop

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's completely okay to kitbash asset packs and all of those sweet, sweet UE5 plugins while to try to make the game in your head take playable shape. Find the fun, then make it cohesive later.

Solo Gamedev with zero capital means making your own music. It’s set Portland approximate, and I this idea awhile back to DIY refit a guitar that has guts made in the PNW. It’s also turned into signature sounds coming from pedals built in my neighborhood.

Portland having a rise in The Oregon Trail’s most humiliating killer. Shit.

Scream in 35mm tonight played to a packed house. Still fun as ever, but I think the meta schtick of the sequels can leave us noseblind to just how smart the original is. Between this and 'New Nightmare', Wes had some congruent self-reflections to tease out through his work.

Managed to balance social life, family time, personal time, and a little solo project work all within the span of two whole ass days. So obviously, I gotta jinx it.

My indie game for 15 seconds! (16 days into solo development). Nightcrawlers is a co-op survival platformer about latchkey kids in grunge-era PNW battling rain, bullies, and the supernatural (while falling off everything in sight).

Had an impromptu first playtest for my solo game project last night with my target audience — adults who only play games with their kids. Even with placeholder art, and loose debug setup, my accessibility-forward locomotion had them exploring areas out of curiosity— just to see if they could.

Holy shit. Violet Grohl fronting Nirvana and absolutely killing it was a mid-apocalyptic gift.

My small studio crushingly had to lay off half project’s team before the summer as the industry violently reconfigured against our will. This last week, most of that team was recruited by huge AAA studios and publishers. I’m so very VERY happy for all of them, and miss them greatly.

Venturing into “solo” deving a game after 20 years in AAA humbles you hourly. There’s stuff that’s invaluable working a team that you almost have to unlearn. It’s also easy to rabbit-hole into new skillsets and operating at the par of seasoned peers that you just can’t rush.

Genuinely love the back half of Twin Peaks S2. Stopping after Episode 7 this round to watch ‘Fire Walk With Me’ really maximizes the impact, and softens a lot of the big critiques — you really get to sit in the tragedy, and then take in all of your faves trying to move on together.

Never wanted a slice of pie and a cup of coffee more in my life.

Please be aware, RedNote is in Mandarin. All servers are in China. It's a female dominated social media platform, sort of a cross between Pinterest and TikTok, that's mostly used by Chinese folks to get restaurant recs and beauty tips.

Bookended my holiday break with a couple bed-worthy viruses, and am *definitely* not ready to start work tomorrow. But I *did* complete over 20 feature prototypes for my personal indie game project in less than 2 weeks. Little victories.

Was not ready for What We Do In The Shadows to end. I could watch them do stupid shit together forever.

I know Microsoft would never break feature parity with their flagship console... But if Indiana Jones on PS5 had dualsense haptics, and a 40 FPS quality mode, l'd double dip at full retail.

When you just wanna read some stolen documents, but the Nazis are going apeshit, and you have to escape armed with nothing but El Kabong.

The Great Circle out-Indys the last few Indiana Jones movies by a landslide.

Skeleton Crew has all the ingredients…

Accidentally recreated movie magic in Star Wars Outlaws. Wrong movie, but queue John Williams either way.

They really marketed Outlaws as this bleached, Disneyland/Galactic Starcruiser-ass depiction, but once you ditch Kay’s cosplay box art look… This game oozes atmosphere.

Finally actually *playing* Star Wars Outlaws for a considerable amount of time. It’s actually *very* good Star Wars experience that lets you spend far too long playing with anemic systems that are FAR more interesting and engaging on it gets going — like all Ubisoft RPG-likes.

Zero doubts Netflix has internally discussed whether or not they could get away with renaming it “Hot Frankenstein”.

Every time someone repeats the totally incorrect myth that "CGI" is cheaper than practical effects—it's not and that's a ridiculous statement—'because "CGI" isn't unionized,' they're unwittingly giving ammunition to studios who are arguing that unionization would be bad for the industry (it's not).

Also… I never thought I’d be say this with sincerity… Peacock does ad placement well. Props to the grizzled, dusty, Old Media company for respecting commercial stingers, and not overstaying their welcome.

Finally watching Hysteria!, and it’s way better than I expected. Campy, spooky, but earnest. Bruce Campbell is acting his ass off.

Game UI is forever cursed to not have its own award category despite literally every game requiring it, but being niche enough as a discipline that who would we even trust to jury for it

A bunch of incredulous, self-aware, genre-loving junk food. Like Evil Dead or Army of Darkness — but for Teen Dramedy and Kung Fu movies.

Finally getting to the haziest memory corners of my X-Files rewatch. This wasn’t even the most surprising alien in *this* episode.