GAME IDEA

SPEC OPS: THE LINE AS A COSY GAME

lamenes, website, excerpt (2001 - 2002) lamenes.myrmid.com

Been thinking how Greek myth in art and media feels so different to my experience of having just read The Odyssey. The mythology of it feels more like a set of default archetypes of Western art history than any attempt at adapting Homer's epic poetry

I want a Greek myth retelling but it's about the guy who got too drunk on Circe's roof, fell off, and died

Last night I had a far too vivid dream that I was making a... *shudders* Metroidvania 😬

That said it was way cooler and more interesting than other Metroidvanias

Wrote a little review of playing Final Fantasy V for the first time as part of the Four Job Fiesta!
backloggd.com/u/Joas/revie...

Reading Walter Scott's Ivanhoe has been interesting because it's the template for every medieval adventure that has been written since, so I didn't expect it to be so slow and so focused on an exploration of division of ethnicity and class in medieval England

And one more time, another one from the weekend: over at @unwinnable.com, @theautumnwright.bsky.social interviewed me about games criticism. I think we had a really great, worthwhile conversation

unwinnable.com/2025/07/11/a...

Sometimes I think the myth of creative genius exists to discourage people from the reality that it's actually very easy to uniquely engage with the world, or uniquely make art, if you just try a little bit to be curious about things

I think this perception that games are "the interactive medium" is really reductive, and results in a weird sense of games having to prove their legitimacy both within and as a medium.
Read my full thoughts here:
joas.bearblog.dev/legitimacy-a...

Interesting to see the replies to this that seem to defend gambling and skinner box design uncritically because it doesn't involve betting money? You can enjoy Balatro and at the same time recognise that said enjoyment comes from addictive design that springs from the gambling industry

if you post about how people should just make solo game projects or start small indie projects you are now on the hook to personally buy a copy of every single small-indie game you hear about on both steam and itch. if you don't do that you are a poser

That blog post I said that I was going to write was going to be about this. I was going to title it "Faces", because it was the metaphor that I kept coming back to when considering what is lost in the creative process with generative AI. Maybe my longest 🧵ahead...

TO CATCH A HERON
joasb.itch.io/to-catch-a-h...

Check out my metaphorical interactive fiction piece I made for the @fxckcapitalism.bsky.social 2025!

Includes music by the amazing @everydaylouie.bsky.social

#FuckCapitalismJam2025 #godot #gamedev #indiedev

I'm a hobbyist game dev, and am going to try posting here! Find my weird little games over at joasb.itch.io and keep an eye out on new releases, as well as some written work I'm hoping to get out soon!