Niko

I know some people were interested in user levels, but not so keen on joining a Discord server to download/share levels. That's no longer necessary, levels can be downloaded & uploaded directly from within the game now with the latest update!

The case for coding by hand, even if it is slower: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t95-... There are more metrics and aspects to care about when writing code than speed alone. Plus coding by hand is fun! I ramble on a bit about why and cases where it's really important to do so

New video going up on Saturday. You don't wanna miss this one.

A/C repair tech at our house: “Sooo, what’s with all of the Monkey Island stuff?” Boy, was he surprised.

Last weekend @adamblast.com went all-in to an Halloween party dressed up as Snake Logan from his favorite Dosgame remaster BioMenace Remastered! Show us and let us rate your Halloween costumes!!

I'm sure there are still a lot of people out there that don't know we're working on a weird point and click adventure with deduction mechanics that owes as much to What Remains of Edith Finch as to Return of he Obra Dinn (but probably easier 😅) So, wishlist and make some noise!

Was playing a little Nintendo Switch 2 today, and noticed a distinct slant with the most recent games there. I worked at Apogee for the better part of two decades. Hard to purge that from the system. :) @apogeeent.com

This is a photo of Intel engineers working on the CAD design for the Intel 80286 CPU. I was drawn to the image on the right - since we have high resolution die photos, could we actually find what part of the CPU he was working on? Yes, we can #retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #reverseengineering

RT if you've never had a tab of ChatGPT open, period.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and hung out! It was fun! Had some internet connection troubles unfortunately, will sort that out for next time. But we made some good progress. See you next time! - Niko

Almost a year after releasing BioMenace Remastered the game still gets improved with new features. @lethalguitar.bsky.social is going LIVE right now while he's going to create the custom tileset feature for the level editor. Hang out in the chat and watch him code! www.youtube.com/live/u6KjrKV...

if one were to excavate an ancient video game store thought lost in 1996, one might discover an original copy of Tomb Raider—originally released 30 years ago today.

It's ridiculous how the rise of GenAI has made some people forget about the VAST array of non-GenAI resources, assets, and software, indies have been using for many, MANY years up to now for their craft. We didn't need GenAI before and many of us, myself included, do not use nor want it now. :P

BioMenace Remastered level makers, we have some great new content (tiles, music) for you to play with - perfect for spooky season! Update out now on Steam, GOG, and Nintendo Switch™. #IndieGame #IndieDev #BioMenaceRemastered

Devs shouldn't have to be protecting their games, Valve should be protecting its shopfront: aftermath.site/steam-indie-ga...

Ok, listen - Epic knows it has six fingers and they know you will rage repost it. Don't.

Join @lethalguitar.bsky.social this Saturday at 4 pm CEST (10 am EDT) for a BioMenace Remastered dev/coding livestream! Working on custom tileset support for user levels 👀 www.youtube.com/live/u6KjrKV...

I've made 6 open-source @godotengine.org projects perfect for as a base for your first or next game. Completely human-made and easy to understand code & comments. All visuals and sounds included, CC0! kenney.nl/starter-kits

📣 INDIE GAMES DEVS! 📣 If you have a demo in Steam Next Fest and do not use gen AI, drop it in the comments below. I will repost! Let's create a thread where players can actually find our games! (Image courtesy of @kanaratron.bsky.social)

BioMenace Remastered (Switch) Review www.vooks.net/biomen...

I also wanted to pull out a special part of the piece: fuck Jensen Huang. By forcing customers to take early delivery of GPUs to boost quarterly revenues, he artificially inflated the price of RAM and every consumer electronic. What he and his hyperscale paypigs have done is morally reprehensible.

This means that the increased price of RAM and consumer electronics was a result of an artificial "supply chain crisis" created by Jensen Huang pushing NVIDIA's customers to take early delivery of GPUs. Jensen Huang is responsible for making life worse for everyone.

Business Insider confirms it: Amazon has warehouses of GPUs that can’t be installed, and is buying them so far in advance that a supply chain team said they “didn’t have a clear forecasted path” to installing them. www.businessinsider.com/amazon-220-b...

Thanks all for reaching out to me, in public & privately. I'm doing well! I feel inspired to keep supporting creatives and eager to continue doing what I do in the way I want. @chetsucks.com made a video, and I think he's much better with words than I am. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQuN...

Don't let billionaires convince you slop is the future. They're used to managing & directing, not making things themselves. Of course they can't see the difference. They don't understand your love for the craft. Keep making personal, beautiful games. You've got my support 💖

Last Next Fest is was like 50% AI garbage on the front page at first. The moment they had some actual data, you had to go through HUNDREDS of games to find anything significantly slopped up.

Okay, people are already getting really depressed and frustrated with the Next Fest, so I'll say what I said last time round: Wait a day or two. They order the games on the pages by hours played, and 99% of the AI garbage will sink like a stone. Right now it's just undifferentiated and unranked.

Alien Carnage (1993)

Last I'll post about this, but Elon Musk disagrees with me. This means I am onto something, and I feel more valid in my opinion than ever.

#OpenBioForge now has a release target: open source under GPL v3, early 2027. In the meantime, here’s the full play-through I mentioned in August. Uncut, no commentary, 1 hour 21 minutes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Ur...

Been excited for this one... First playthrough of Monster Bash (DOS - 1993) www.twitch.tv/custrd

Boston, please take your drunk buildings home.

how indeed

once again reminded how the designer of the furby sincerely believes they are alive radiolab.org/podcast/more...

honestly re: reverse engineering it just kinda blows to see your fun hobby get completely blown up by AI shit and people who love the slop machine because it's faster. AI art and shit at least *most* people correctly loathe + shun it, but too many people think that code isn't similarly creative.

In this week's Better Offline monologue, I talk about how Anthropic’s big Q3 revenues underwhelmed an already-nervous market, and how the more of the real numbers we learn about AI, the worse things seem to get. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m... linktr.ee/betteroffline

Konami president Hayakawa believes AI “won’t bring a significant change” to the game market. “Humans” and “creators” are crucial for developing innovative…

*sigh* ...it's so discouraging the number of people going down the path of Generative AI, all thinking it's helping them, not realizing what it's going to do their motivation and skills in the long run, not to mention the damage it's doing to their credibility. >_<

"Scientists are finding AI may make us remember things that never happened": www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/... I have seen this is many programmers, the cognitive surrender is real and it is shocking to see it and how quickly is can happen. #ai