Ben 🦇🥌
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ben.batst.one
Ben 🦇🥌
@ben.batst.one
730 followers 610 following 420 posts
Professional Game Designer, amateur hole digger. Prev: Linden Lab, Disney, Foxglove, Midwinter. Trying to build a better pig pen.
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ben.batst.one
My niece gave me this hat just in time for this game.
A selfie of the author, a scruffy middle aged white guy wearing a ball cap embroidered with “Go Sports”
October 11, 2025 at 4:57 AM
ben.batst.one
I know the US games industry has collapsed but LinkedIn, do you have to twist the knife?
Screenshot of a LinkedIn notification that reads “game designer: new opportunity in Seattle WA” with a thumbnail image that is the Lowe’s hardware logo.
July 28, 2025 at 4:53 PM
ben.batst.one
I should set a fence post every day before work. Feels good to build something real before logging in to make things virtual.
A pressure treated 4x4 set upright in fresh concrete. Tools and more boards are strewn around it on the ground. A bright pink line stretches between the post and a gate frame. Past it a wooden bridge stretches across a small ditch and more posts stretch up a gentle slope.
July 14, 2025 at 3:28 PM
ben.batst.one
Amazing work here.
Screenshot of two posts, the first by @bburbank.bsky.social with an image of drunk Don Draper pitching the 2013 KFC add campaign “I ate the bones!” The second post is @brunodias.bsky.social posts about reheating a frozen ortolan (famous illegal delicacy consumed bones and all) in a toaster like a frozen waffle.
July 14, 2025 at 5:12 AM
ben.batst.one
A pig-shaped mortar full of fresh made guacamole artfully displayed.
May 26, 2025 at 12:50 AM
ben.batst.one
It’s opening weekend for the high school musical that I’ve been helping advise. I can’t help but contrast these kids with my own high school experience and be amazed at how far we’ve
Come in 27 years (oh no).

Yeah it’s rough right now but these kids have a safe space to make art and be themselves.
A photo of four actors silhouetted against a bright magenta backdrop. They may be recognizable as characters from a Disney channel made-for-tv movie.
May 3, 2025 at 5:37 PM
ben.batst.one
Orbit Nayak is a great OC name.
Screenshot of the primary point of contact section with the name “Michael ‘Orbit’ Nayak, Ph. D.”
February 26, 2025 at 10:41 PM
ben.batst.one
2025, the bar is low. Let’s see what you can do.
A gold colored balloon emblazoned with a Happy New Year message. It is lying on a linoleum floor.
January 1, 2025 at 8:33 AM
ben.batst.one
Living my bean dad era.
Two massive ham hocks sitting in a yellow dutch oven, half immersed in a dark liquid. The electric range is glowing under the pot. Some time later, the hocks are peaking out from under the liquid and you can see the dutch oven is full of black beans. In the background is a frying pan with a bunch of onions and bell peppers sautéed. A dark blue dish with vivid red shredded meat. The ham hocks after 4 hours. The final product - a thick mess of beans and ham. The dutch oven has a mess of residue baked on to the walls as the liquids reduced.
October 28, 2024 at 2:09 PM
ben.batst.one
October 23, 2024 at 4:45 PM
ben.batst.one
My biscuits were a little chaotic today, but still tasty.
A batch of biscuits (scones for the commonwealth) that went a little wild on the rise and started to spread out in a cthonic sprawl. Nice golden brown tops though.
October 20, 2024 at 6:05 PM
ben.batst.one
Worried I have a cuckoo problem with my lemons.
A wire mesh hanging fruit basket with about 10 small lemons, and one very ripe delicata squash, larger than the lemons, but the same shade of yellow.
October 20, 2024 at 4:06 PM
ben.batst.one
Describe your in-person social skills with an image
"They don't know meme" with loner in corner watching dancers at a party. Text reads "They don't know I'd love to forge a real, authentic bond with any of them but am stuck in a feedback loop of anxiety."
August 20, 2024 at 4:33 PM
ben.batst.one
Someone else has done this better, but as I'm getting ready for the Pig Farmers for Walz zoom call, I thought I better get this out there.
A poster image of Tim Walz, done in a pastiche of the Obama Hope poster, captioned "Ope". Walz is wearing a Gopher's ballcap, and cradling a piglet in his arms as he smiles like a chibi cartoon.
August 6, 2024 at 7:00 PM
ben.batst.one
When I saw who was working at possibility space I was tempted to join them. Then I saw who owned it; I have folks in my network still recovering from toxicity at undead 4 years later. Shipping good games is not worth destroying the best talent out there.
Screenshot of a message I sent to a friend in mid December 2023. It reads: “So I don’t want to dig up old skeletons, but I had entertained the idea of talking with possibility.co for a hot second. Some of the secondary leadership folks they have are peeps who’s work I admire. But I know the actual leadership were Undead Labs and that you had a bad time with that, so that gave me pause. Anyways, I saw a few months their art director (Jane Ng) left, and now their game director (Liz England) posted she left and for a studio that’s been working on something for at least 3 years and hasn’t announced anything yet to be shedding leadership talent definitely seems like red flags. So thanks I guess for warning me indirectly!”
April 13, 2024 at 8:19 PM
ben.batst.one
Midwinter is in the same building as Bellevue’s Tesla office and there is one parked outside all the time. Our head of QA caught this photo after a heavy rainstorm last week.
A cybertruck strapped on the bed of a tow truck in a nondescript parking lot.
April 3, 2024 at 9:26 PM
ben.batst.one
“Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’"
Screenshot of a headline from Slate “Will Barron Trump Ever Stop Growing?” With accompanying photo-illustration showing full-color Barron head-and-shoulders above other members of his (greyscale) family and a graphic evoking a ruler.
February 9, 2024 at 10:43 PM
ben.batst.one
tell me where you were born using just one image of food

(its not chicago, so maybe this is bad, but I can't think of a better one)
A deep dish pizza, golden crust, with a swirl of green pesto laid on top of a solid layer of chunky tomato sauce.
January 24, 2024 at 5:58 PM
ben.batst.one
Sarah got into the duck food.
A large pig with its head in a galvanized steel can, animal feed bags strewn around.
December 23, 2023 at 6:45 AM
ben.batst.one
Robert Redford, mid-nod, a clip from a gif.
November 7, 2023 at 8:25 PM
ben.batst.one
Probably?
Screenshot of Bruno’s tweet over a tweet by Aaron Gordon linking to reporting on cruise taxi murder.
October 24, 2023 at 11:21 PM
ben.batst.one
So you are saying that if I buy a Trans Resist flag and a rainbow pride flag, I can get a Trump 2024 flag for free?!?!
A display of flags for sale at a fair booth with a “buy 2 get 1 free” sign. Alt-right symbols flown next to pride flags.
September 2, 2023 at 8:57 PM
ben.batst.one
Watching this slug in the fire pit slowly cruise towards the fire that will be its undoing, and if that isn’t the human condition summed up.
A large slug creeping over the ashes in a fire pit towards a large, active campfire.
August 20, 2023 at 4:25 PM
ben.batst.one
Only a year behind…
August 17, 2023 at 2:41 AM
ben.batst.one
I had a positive association with refugees before I even knew what they were. Art is always political.
Cover for Wyclef Jean’s solo album “The Carnival” featuring the artist, a slender black man, in a spotless white suit and a black fedora on front of a crumbling concrete wall.
August 15, 2023 at 4:09 PM