The Funtastic
thefuntastic.bsky.social
The Funtastic
@thefuntastic.bsky.social
Maker of things. Rust Game Developer. www.thefuntastic.com
Localising Cadence made me understand I was influenced by the East more than I consciously realised...

But also we're getting real close to shipped now!
November 16, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Using Unity after several years absence: I've been pleasantly surprised to find state of most things is better than I remember it.

Unity's IAP Purchasing is not one of those. Message from my future self: Just use RevenueCat...
November 15, 2025 at 8:14 AM
It only took 12 years, but I have just implemented THE most important feature in Cadence...

#PetTheCat
August 21, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by The Funtastic
We're excited to announce that applications are open for the Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant 2025 🎉

The grant will award $15,000 to five thinky puzzle game developers from all over the world, and a year's mentorship with genre veterans.

Deadline: September 28th
More info 👇
grants.draknek.org
August 8, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Them: Just release your game, it's done right?
Me:
August 7, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by The Funtastic
If you like flies, this is for you. If you don’t, even more so. Either way, you should get it RIGHT NOW!
Time Flies has landed!

Now available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Mac/PC.

timeflies.buzz 🪰
July 31, 2025 at 2:26 PM
This is the most conceptually challenging tile in Cadence. Have been musing for years if I should even build it, and how on earth to telegraph it to users.

Fitting the last piece of content is my best work to date - really happy with the polish here.
July 24, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Paid Dreamhost $1000 over the last five years for a broken wordpress website because I was too lazy to port my email away from them. They rubbed salt in the wounds by making me pay an extra $20 cancellation for a "free" domain registration from over 10 years ago 🙄
July 9, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by The Funtastic
Announcing our first game...
Fool King
Please join our Discord community to find out more! (Link in bio)
#indiedev #gamedev #videogame
June 27, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Today I was brutally attacked by truth...
Solo indie #gamedev sounds really cool until you find out it's 90% of the time deceiving yourself that your game is 90% complete.

And that completion of the last 10% takes another 90% of the time. And another 90% is hidden in the last 1%.

#indiedev
June 23, 2025 at 1:47 PM
This has been a brutal leadership lesson:

Explaining an idea to a room full of 15 people, and getting 15 different interpretations back. Especially when nuanced.

And that was just 15, not 400! I have a lot more sympathy for the derivative nature of AAA now...
Another HUGE factor is creative alignment and consensus on a large team.

One of the hardest problems in big teams is getting everyone working towards a shared vision, consistently. Doing this is the job of the creative director. And it's, just, logistically very hard!
June 21, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Being an adult: having the money to buy fancy Lego.

Also being an adult: waiting a year before finding the time to start building it...
June 7, 2025 at 12:16 PM
I need to get over the idea I'm only capable of "programmer art". But also pulling off something you have no rights to is pure magic... perhaps I should start believing I can't program to recapture that beginners joy?

Anyway, can't close Blender, because how cute is this guy I made?!? 🥹
June 5, 2025 at 7:14 AM
An e.g. of how mad gamedev in 2025 is:

Great, look at this niche games festival full of my prospective audience...

...with 477 niche games. That's more than the entire number of games that launched on Steam in the 2013, the year I started working on Cadence. 🪦
June 4, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Cadence is a minimalist zen game about solving circuits to generate music.

To find out what that means, there's a brand new Steam demo available as part of the #CerebralPuzzleShowcase by @puzzleshowcase.bsky.social!

store.steampowered.com/app/362800/C...
Cadence on Steam
Relax. Solve Problems. Make Music. Feel Nourished. Beautifully simple, devilishly clever - Cadence is the experimental sandbox game that uses problem-solving to create music.
store.steampowered.com
June 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Producing promotional material is my anathema, but seeing Cadence taking its final form is slightly thrilling...
April 25, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Always immensely jealous of the games Alan designs... This game builds on previous titles in a really satisfying way!
The Electrifying Incident is OUT NOW on Steam and itch!

Featuring the monster from A Monster's Expedition in a brand new sci-fi setting! Explore a mysterious facility, manipulate the electrical hazards and find a way to the source of the problem.
April 24, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by The Funtastic
PLAYTOPIA IS BACK ONCE AGAIN!

playtopiafestival.co.za
April 9, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Surprised things I've forgotten about are still making ripples: 10 years ago I participated in a game jam for, of all things, the Swedish traffic department. Someone recently got in touch with me because they are still using the game for youth outreach and they want to update it
April 4, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Another unexpected use for AI:

What colour is this random hex code?

No guarantees it's right, but it's probably more accurate than my colour blind arse...
April 3, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Good idea:
Tell your discord you're working on game again after four years of radio silence.

Bad idea:
Do this yesterday, on Apr 1st. D'oh!

Anyway, expect to see more Cadence updates here... or hop on discord for marginally more frequent news:
Join the Cadence Discord Server!
The official Cadence discord. A game about solving puzzles to make music. Discuss development and follow progress. | 105 members
discord.com
April 2, 2025 at 7:14 AM
This article is ostensibly about Nvidia stock, but it's also a great 10000ft overview on the state of AI:
youtubetranscriptoptimizer.com/blog/05_the_...
The Short Case for Nvidia Stock
All the reasons why Nvidia will have a very hard time living up to the currently lofty expectations of the market.
youtubetranscriptoptimizer.com
January 27, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by The Funtastic
Let's talk about $TRUMPcoin.
Imagine that I have 100 dried kidney beans in my kitchen cupboard.
I come to you and say, "See these kidney beans, they're magic! They're magic because I'm magic, and I've enchanted the beans. Each of these magic beans is worth $1-million!"
January 21, 2025 at 10:07 AM
For most of my game dev career unit tests have been a bit odd and mysterious.

I'm working on interaction code that's a swamp of edge cases.

Defining them all in unit tests allows my brain to focus on the particular case I'm looking at, rather than trying to keep the whole thing in my head.
December 18, 2024 at 3:47 PM
One of my favourite uses of AI so far: writing regular expressions.

Needed to do a complicated search and replace with matching groups and tokens.

It nailed it. Would have been a 45 min argument with regex syntax if left by my myself...
December 16, 2024 at 1:30 PM