Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
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tzartzam.bsky.social
Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
@tzartzam.bsky.social
450 followers 820 following 1K posts
Editor, father, feminist, writer, capoeira, boardgame designer (Samphire Games: Poll & Write) (he/him). Bristol, UK. https://linktr.ee/samphiregames
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tzartzam.bsky.social
Putin has tried (and presumably is constantly trying) to detain or kill Zelenskyy. He's failed, just as the US failed to assassinate Castro for decades. Big men have a fantasy of omnipotence.
yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social · 1d
What a great day for Vladimir Putin! I can picture him in the Kremlin, watching the EU & the UK play dumb while Trump trashes Int. Law, their media reporting Maduro's abduction as an 'arrest'. I bet he's thinking: Should I also detain Zelensky and subject him to Russian justice?
January 4, 2026 at 11:53 AM
tzartzam.bsky.social
First game of 2026 was Rock Hard 1977! I've been keen to try this game as my first major design (currently shelved) was a music-themed one.

We had a lot of fun - it's about stories of *making it* or not, and it's about how "candy" helps you to take strategic extra actions at personal risk.
January 4, 2026 at 10:56 AM
tzartzam.bsky.social
My 2025 in games played. I don't often track playtests as games played (although you can see a couple in my most-played there!) - I'd probably add a few plays a month if I did. Not to mention digital versions of games...
BG Stats 2025 Plays: 121 H-index: 5 Games: 70 New: 38 Players: 73 Locations: 22 Hanabi: 8 Mino Dice: 6 Sea Salt & Paper: 6 Emberleaf: 5 Sprawlopolis: 5 Dwarven Union: 4 Eternal Decks: 4 Pax Pamir: Second Edition: 4 Wendybuxxx: 4 91 designers: Reiner Knizia: 5% Cole Wehrle: 2% Michael Kiesling: 2% Abe Nathanson: 1% Akihisa Okui: 1%.
January 4, 2026 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
drjennings.bsky.social
Forget the myths the media has created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
January 3, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
anthonyzach.be
100% seriously, European leaders and Commission officials should plan on the basis that the US might do this to them too, about Greenland, about tech regulation, about “Christian values”, about “free speech”, whatever.
jamesdaustin.bsky.social James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d
Fucking hell.

Think the referance to US Law Enforcement here is quite telling as well: a huge extension of how far the US feels its laws reach.

Apparently its fine to now attack and kidnap a head of state because of 'US law'. Fucking hell.
jaredwiener.com Jared Wiener @jaredwiener.com · 1d
Trump says Maduro is in US custody.
January 3, 2026 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
alanau.bsky.social
If you make stuff using gen AI, then you might be saving yourself some time, but you're actually just pushing that burden onto me, and I will resent you for it.
alanau.bsky.social Alan Au @alanau.bsky.social · Oct 19
I hate that in the new reality of rampant generative AI usage, I have to spend extra time evaluating things I see online to determine if they're real or fake and whether it matters in the context I'm seeing it.

This is the opposite of "efficiency."
January 2, 2026 at 8:16 PM
tzartzam.bsky.social
Happy new year! This seems like a good time to drop a newsletter:
mailchi.mp/a7c69be114d4...
A Look Back and Forth
mailchi.mp
January 1, 2026 at 10:25 PM
tzartzam.bsky.social
We playtested this multiple times the other night and I'm hungry for more!
miasmacorp.bsky.social jo kelly @miasmacorp.bsky.social · 4d
In 2026, I'm releasing my next game: WENDYBUXXX.

Play as song characters brought to life by singer Wendy Miasma and forced to compete as lifestyle influencers to promote her new necrocurrency*, WENDYBUXXX. Gain the most followers by setting and following trends, while balancing controversy.
A prototype of the game WENDYBUXXX, which comes in a VHS box. The cover features a drawing of Wendy Miasma, and ten half-face portraits of the contestants and lifestyle archetypes.
December 31, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
samfr.bsky.social
We have so much good evidence for cash transfers but so many just refuse to accept that those in poverty can make good decisions.
scottsantens.com Scott Santens @scottsantens.com · 5d
Spoiler: They used the money just as wisely as anyone else would, and it's so frustrating that this still isn't a common sense assumption to make.
December 30, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
robfordmancs.bsky.social
A genuinely progressive and liberal govt would act to reverse this trend and entrench citizenship rights given the dangers ahead. I fear the current govt will do the opposite.
December 29, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
robfordmancs.bsky.social
To be honest, reading this, things have proceeded much further than I had realised. I fear the precedents already established in last 20 years or so will mean a Reform Home Sec has sweeping powers to act against any dual citizen or naturalised citizen they take against bsky.app/profile/bows...
December 29, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
barrydeutsch.bsky.social
The only thing ChatGPT ever does.
Andrew Kadel @DrewKadel@social.coop My daughter, who's had a degree in computer science for 25 years, posted this about ChatGPT on Facebook. It's the best description I've seen. Something that seems fundamental to me about ChatGPT, which gets lost over and over again: When you enter text into it, you're asking "What would a response to this sound like?" If you put in a scientific question, and it comes back with a response citing a non-existent paper with a plausible title, using a real journal name and an author name who's written things related to your question, it's not being tricky or telling lies or doing anything at all surprising! This is what a response to that question would sound like! It did the thing! But people keep wanting the "say something that sounds like an answer" machine to be doing something else, and believing it *is* doing something else. It's good at generating things that sound like responses to being told it was wrong, so people think that it's engaging in introspection or looking up more information or something, but it's not, it's only, ever, saying something that sounds like the next bit of the conversation.
August 14, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
stephenkb.bsky.social
Agree with all of this, other than "the right will go 'pro-natalist" - I think what will happen is that much of the right will shift from 'blaming our ills on immigration' to 'blaming our ills on ethnic diversity', which is already happening to an extent.
anthonypainter.bsky.social Anthony Painter @anthonypainter.bsky.social · 14d
The UK will celebrate net emigration and depopulation come 2027.

And by 2028 it will start to realise, with an ageing society and low growth, what a really silly thing it has done.

The right will go "pro-natalist", the centre-left will be completely stuck.
Net emigration
December 22, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
merriam-webster.com
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
December 15, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
fusspot.rip
AI out here subtly telling bobcats they’d be so much more attractive if they lost a couple of pounds.
thoughtrise.bsky.social .chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 21d
this field biologist does a great job highlighting the insidiousness of AI editing

these one-click AI edit buttons are incredibly appealing to many photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and are framed as innocuous

this is worth sharing and educating people about
screenshot of a post on facebook from Alex Lamoreaux, depicting two versions of the "same" photograph of a bobcat in front of a pine plantation, one labeled original game cam photo, one labeling AI processed the markings have been altered on the AI photo, and the head changed and resized text says: Oh! A neat goose hybrid posted to ‘What’s this Bird?’ but when you zoom in on the photos the bill details have been too manipulated by AI photo editing to be accurately assessed for which species may be involved. Scroll on… A cool-looking Red-tailed Hawk that someone is wondering which subspecies it might be - right up my alley! But when you zoom in on the photos literally every feather group has been so heavily manipulated and altered by AI editing that it’s impossible to determine subspecies because the photo is essentially fake now; just a mashup of whatever AI thinks parts of a Red-tail should look like. Scroll on… WOW! That’s a remarkable trail cam photo of a Bobcat! It almost looks like a painting!… but the head looks oddly small…. hmmmm. After some prodding the original photo is produced and sure enough it had been so heavily altered by AI ‘post processing’ that the photo posted was essentially a digital mock-up with totally different proportions and fur markings. No longer the photo off the trail cam; it may as well have just been ‘created’ by AI from scratch. This stuff is killing me. My days on social media are becoming very limited. We can’t even trust simple, everyday photos of animals to be real. The wildlife community needs to quit editing with AI, and we need to start calling out photographers that are using it. Our reality is being destroyed all around us.
December 15, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
hillarymonahan.bsky.social
May all of you celebrating Hannukah know I wish you peace and joy, and I am so sorry you had to start your festival on such a sad note.

Cruelty being normalized to the degree it has been is beyond fathomable.

Much love.
December 14, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
robinince.bsky.social
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
This is the saddest day of my professional life. Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage. I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys. I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show, A show that I named and helped develop over all those years. Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry. These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices. Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'. • I chose the latter. It broke my heart. I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make. I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer. I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career. I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more. I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost". James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice. Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences. I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness. Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire. I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal. I am so sorry to let you down. I hope that you can understand my reasoning. I have to accept that I am not what the current BBC expects of their freelance presenters. Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not "just a job" I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world. From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too. The strawberry is dead. Long live the strawberry. B
December 13, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
itsalladeepend.bsky.social
This is an excellent gift guide from @senetmagazine.bsky.social. I've played or own half of them. If you're looking for board games this Christmas this is an excellent place to look. #boardgamesky 🎲
Roll with it: the 30 best board games for Christmas 2025
If Monopoly is your festive fallback for family fun then go directly to Jail and do not pass Go. A new wave of party pleasers, trick takers and strategy games can transport you to Stalingrad, the spir...
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
duncanweldon.bsky.social
In some ways this is a useful reminder that a lot of the talk of European security guarantees to Ukraine have the whole thing backwards. For more than three years Ukraine has been guaranteeing European security by fighting and degrading the Russian armed forces.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
How long Britain could really fight for if war broke out tomorrow
In the event of a war, one expert suggests the British Army could be incapable of fighting effectively on land within weeks, once committed - though 'much depends on the form of the conflict'.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM
tzartzam.bsky.social
I've noticed a lot more em dashes (—) than I used to on sites like this. I know it's been given as a sign of generative AI, but is there another reason? Hyphens were ubiquitous online previously because they are easier to type. Eg have Apple suddenly made it easy to type — or autocorrect to it?
December 8, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com
in this week's column! I discuss what it took for me to become an Adult Gamer and I argue that you, too, should play video games: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/we-should-...
December 5, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
tiffanyleigh.bsky.social
🚨 Programming alert: Molly House is now in beta on Board Game Arena 🚨
November 30, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
duncanrobinson.bsky.social
Starmer and Reeves run probably the most economically left-wing government of past five decades and yet bleeding support to its left thanks to dumb strategy www.economist.com/britain/2025...
November 27, 2025 at 8:58 AM
tzartzam.bsky.social
If you're in Bristol/Bath and need a female decorator and/or colour consultant, my partner is booking on with for next year: www.instagram.com/p/DRZhUdgDc6...
Laura Bailey on Instagram
7 likes, 3 comments - ekota_interior_decorating on November 23, 2025
www.instagram.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Sam Francis (Samphire Games)
robfordmancs.bsky.social
We are moving inexorably to the end point of electoral chaos - five parties all tied on 19% in the polls, election to be decided by blindfolded chimps chucking coloured darts at a constituency map
electionmaps.uk Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · Nov 25
Westminster Voting Intention:

RFM: 25% (-2)
LAB: 19% (=)
CON: 18% (+1)
GRN: 16% (-1)
LDM: 15% (+2)
SNP: 3% (=)

Via @yougov.co.uk, 23-24 Nov.
Changes w/ 16-17 Nov.
November 25, 2025 at 11:14 AM