Elizabeth Zelle

I will accept only the butchest of America’s pumpkins

a haunted house, but it's just various pieces of corporate software encouraging you to "get into the holiday mood" and take a minute to "have some spooky fun" as you desperately try to get work done

When I say I love Cheesecake Factory, I mean this cat who was found malnourished and wandering through a Bay Area mall parking lot. Cheesecake Factory has since been rescued and nursed back to health. He's now healthy, vaxxed, & sweet, but still needs a loving home www.petfinder.com/cat/cheeseca...

Looking for game devs who have been directly inspired by anything BioWare for my next video. I suspect the public likely doesn’t quite realize the extent of their influence on the industry, so I’d really like to highlight that. If you are one such game devs, pls reply to this post!

Michael Berthin speaking in the paradox of impact in #GamesUR - easily countable impact can often over-index on easy, low-friction issues. Deeper impact can be overlooked because it can’t be measured as easily. If your team allocates resources on ‘high impact’ work, what research aren’t you doing?

Rogue

Once mass spam texts were made legal, younger donors vanished, leaving a grassroots fundraising machine that subsists on squeezing vulnerable seniors, some of whom give hundreds of times a day. It’s a horrific model. Consultants get generationally wealthy, and the party hollows out its future.

“Human oversight only works while humans remain qualified” 👏 👏 👏 Pietro Guardini speaking on ‘Did the Player Survive the Pipeline? 4 Checks Before an AI-Assisted Finding Reaches the Roadmap’ at the #GamesUR conference

Video games has decided to discontinue its once leading product, the video game

The international flight dream

‼️‼️ Outgoing Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller endorses Democrat Clayton Tucker over Nate Sheets, who he accuses of being a "snake" with a porn addiction. Miller was once a close Trump ally + among Texas's most rightwing GOPers but has been critical of Abbott, data centers and the hemp ban.

Talarico: "We just found out that [Elon Musk] is almost single-handedly bankrolling this effort to install Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate and defeat this movement...Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants his very own personal United States senator. He is trying to buy Texas."

Dressmaker said make a frog dress, and I took that literally

this weekend's Bears/Packers game just got REAL high stakes

Productivity as an adult is just an endless process of applying new psychological tricks and operant conditioning to yourself until an acceptable number of tasks are completed.

The latest DLC for @RiskofRain 2 has arrived! Explore the dark world of N'Kuhana in Hallowed Concepts. Available Now! store.steampowered.com/app/3055670/... www.youtube.com/watch?v=uttX...

New Merch Alert!! Fish. The ocean's full of 'em. And protecting the ocean is a global job, so we better learn the word for fish in as many languages as we can fit on a tote bag. Support @skypeascientist.bsky.social by getting a *sturdy* tote bag with a zipper (with a zipper!!!) at SquidFacts.net

working 9 to 5

new wolfenstein looks like shit

As a UI/UX Designer, Game UI Database is a unique and valuable resource that has helped me and many, many other game devs. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's disgusting that all the hard work Edd puts into it is treated as fuel for the garbage machines.

gn

This dice collab is the product of the Disability & Accessibility Alliance ERG at Wizards; I have a good friend who is part of the ERG who said this took about a year's worth of planning! Sales of the dice (both digital and physical) benefit the American Association of People with Disabilities.

A new federal rule weakens the Endangered Species Act by redefining "harm" to wildlife. This change makes it much harder to protect the habitats that endangered species need to survive. Tell Congress to undo this change and protect endangered species here: mbayaq.co/4xSPQUZ

In the games user research space we've actually had to change how we talk about game systems with playtesters, because while 'NPC/Enemy AI' is common developer jargon that players used to be fine with, the term has been thoroughly poisoned by GenAI and will now elicit negative reactions from many.

I’m seeing a lot of posts about talking to your sons in light of the Cornell article. And yes. Talk to your sons. Here are some things you should say, based on anti-violence research about what they need to hear:

Reason I think this is neat is that there's provably unexplored space left to check out. It's cool if you want to make a roguelike deckbuilder but you absolutely do not have to.

The D&D movie was great because it felt very much like an actual session, complete with NPCs that your DM had to name on the fly.

‘Good’ narrative choices often only feel ‘good’ to the player in *contrast* to other narrative choices. It feels more meaningful to choose between A, B, and C because players trust that C, even if ‘Bad’, exists and has consequences. Even if a low % of players pick it, C simply existing is impactful.

How do we incentivize people to paint wizards on their vans again I haven’t seen a wizard van in a decade and it feels like we lost something precious Can we offer up a tax credit? Little bags of shrooms? Start a wizard van painting program at vocational schools?

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

The eternal reminder that game systems aren't neutral, they elicit emotions; it's VERY important to take into account the emotional impact a system has on your players. Whether that's feeling frustration or confusion or overwhelmed or like a failure, fun systems can still elicit negative emotions

This silly shit right here is why I love game devs www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/va...

WIRED asked 634 women what they really think about working in tech. They told us about harassment, bias, unequal treatment, and the everyday indignities that still shape life in the industry. 🔗 www.wired.com/story/women-...

just read the news and smile and show up to meetings and smile and continue to make video games and smile and run 1:1s and smile and deliver reports and smile and read the news again and smile and get laid off and smile and watch friends get laid off and smile and watch every collapse around you and

REPLY WITH A CHARACTER IN VIDEO GAMES THAT YOU THINK IS FAT. Do not worry about if others would agree. Just give me your video game fat characters. FAMOUS GAMES FRIENDS WHO FOLLOW ME: this is for work so RTs are greatly appreciated thank you!

📡 Can't make it to Helsinki this October? You can still be part of the hybrid #GamesUR Conference 2026. Purchase a Live Stream Pass to get live access to the talks, from wherever you are. Grab yours → www.eventbrite.fi/e/gamesur-co... #GamesUserResearch #UXResearch #gamedev #FinnishGamesWeek

"the assessment did not consider the crocodiles" is my new metaphor for people choosing to just ignore the data point that doesn't agree with them

the discourse has convinced me. adding fail states to the pause menu

Dnd, the second half of a boss fight My paladin goes first for the session. Hit 1: Crit, knock boss prone. Weapon + Crusader’s Mantle + Improved Divine Smite + upcast Divine Smite Hit 2: Crit... again. Repeat dmg rolls. Accidently deal 181 dmg... and kill boss 20 minutes into the session. Oops.

Some folks online appear to be putting up videos to show how the Wolverine game is too easy and handholding. Some of these videos are, only after they have gone viral, being discovered to have been recorded on the easiest difficulty with (off by default) accessibility settings turned on.

*screams into the void* variety.com/2026/tv/news...

Excited to share that I'm a speaker at this year's #GamesUR Conference! Are you interested in hearing more about how and why players engage with customization systems and how to get biggest customization bang for your bandwidth buck? I'll be sharing a framework I've built over the last 15 years!