dr kieran cutting
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kierancutting.bsky.social
dr kieran cutting
@kierancutting.bsky.social
350 followers 300 following 230 posts
Transforming futures of relationships, power, and work at fractals co-op. Researcher, designer, facilitator, writer, poet, games designer. Former indie publisher at EXIT Press. they/them
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kierancutting.bsky.social
The cold dark months can be hard. Your friends with seasonal depression are about to really struggle, and you're going to find it a lot harder to leave the house.

That's why you need to start playing The Roasties. Because there's nothing roast potatoes won't solve.

xenolight.itch.io/the-roasties
The cover of an 8 page zine called "The Roasties, or surviving the cold dark months with your friends". There is a picture of a pile of roast potatoes on the front.
September 14, 2025 at 9:07 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Right now, the ?game? described as "holy shit","absolutely incredible work", and also "I don't understand this" is part of a FREE bundle with 146 other zines. That's crazy! You could have so many zines!

(go ?play? Chaos Magic omg)

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic
A comment from user frymynoodles on itch.io saying "Holy shit. Absolutely incredible work."
September 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Today I’m speaking at Multiplatform on our work using games as part of “speculative praxis” - using creativity to experimentally act towards creating more possibilities (for a better future).

Then, later today, I’ll be hosting an exclusive pop up of A NEW VERSION OF THE MUSEUM OF LOST FUTURES?!
A photograph of a conference programme describing the Museum of Lost Futures. The text is available at https://links.fractals.coop/Multiplatform
June 12, 2025 at 9:18 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
It's a story about my own life, told with the help of the His Dark Materials series, an Oxford Summer School, the YouTube videos I made at 17, and Philip K Dick's ideas of orthogonal worlds.

#psychogeography #zine #philipkdick #hisdarkmaterials (are these useful hashtags? I'm sure we'll find out!)
A double page spread from the zine. On the left hand side is a screenshot of a YouTube video, and around it are comments. They're from my videos I made when I was 17 and unsure about going to Oxford for a summer school.
April 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
My design skills weren't as good in 2021 as they are now, so I didn't feel like I could really capture what I was trying to do back then.
A
I came back to it recently after finishing Chaos Magic and it all sort of fell into place.

It's another pretty media-centric piece...
A panoramic photograph of some green fields in Oxford, with some colleges in the background. In the blue sky, the words to Shakespeare's "This Other Eden" speech from Richard II, and William Blake's "And did those feet in ancient time" sit, as if the landscape was whispering them.
April 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Finally getting round to editing a zine from four years ago...
Two pages of a zine in an editor view in InDesign. On each side of the paper, there are two buildings. between them is text that isn't really intended to be read right now, but is about privilege and Oxford and being scared.
April 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Fun fact about Chaos Magic, is that whilst it's a 'game', there actually IS a game that I wrote a while back that shares an opening segment with it.

So please enjoy this incredibly beautiful character sheet. I'll definitely finish this sometime soon.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic
It is the hot, wet summer after your final year of school. Your group of friends is turning in on itself. Moments of celebration quickly turn to tears on the beach; new couples form and old ones disintegrate in the face of the biggest change you’ve ever known. It is a time of getting round to what you never had, of not being able to put things off any longer. There's chaos magic in the air: the tiniest hints of revolution, the seeds of people reinventing themselves for the year to come. Everyone is thirsty for the idea of change, but their lips are chapped and their hearts beat nervously. Around you, your country is enraptured. People are baring their teeth at each other’s throats, hungry for the blood of Another. Everything is teetering on the brink. Almost as if from nowhere, They die. The person who held your group together, the social glue. The person who made you feel certain that you all would come back together after you came back from uni, or that you’d meet up after you started your new jobs. The person that made you think you weren’t just friends for now. A character sheet for The Last Day, asking descriptive questions like "Why is our relationship complicated?" and "Why do you keep risking yourself for me?"
April 4, 2025 at 12:02 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
There's just one hour left in the Chaos Magic launch sale.

Right now, you can get my new lyric game for absolutely free.

That means when you hate it, you don't have to feel bad about yourself!

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic
A page of text. A block of text in a serif font says: I struggle to find my voice every other day despite being a loud fucker. I struggle with the idea that this body and this mind are the same but embodied cognition says they’re best pals so I guess we’re stuck for now. The brain cannot capture its essence in essence but essentialism is reductionism and I don’t do simplicity I am fucking complex I contain multitudes so take the plane to the sky and hear the breathing and the song is ending and fuck what do I- Consonance ending symphony harmony life. --- A block in a sans serif font says: Ed: Fucking hell these kids were pretentious. I told him I’d take this on as a favour but this is a s t r u g g l e A final block in all caps, overlaid over the stair puzzle from The Beginner's Guide, says AND THAT’S IT! OKAY THE MEANING OF THIS GAME WON’T BE CLEAR JUST YET, PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH ME FOR A FEW MORE GAMES AND I PROMISE YOU’LL SEE WHAT MAKES IT INTERESTING.
April 2, 2025 at 10:43 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
And also Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic

#lyricgame #sologame #marginalia
A series of scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Ferris' friend, Cameron, looks at a Seurat painting and becomes lost in the detail of the painting whilst The Smiths Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want plays in the background.
April 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Chaos Magic continues the trend of being a not-game, and is a love letter to The Beginner's Guide, exploring queer desire, coming of age, and the cost of centring yourself in someone else's story.

There's also quite a lot of games theory.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic

#zine #ttrpg #queer
Messages between friends. Oh man I may be in for writing the most tangential blog post ever Yessss Please do but a massive THIS IS MY THOUGHT post That's my favourite thing I think i'm using it as a way l've always wanted to with a diary also it may make like 0 sense k I'm going to loosely structure it but it will be like 90% stream of consciousness This sounds tood Content?/ What is it??? Or do I need to wait for The end result? I'mma say wait But it starts off with pre existing ideas on Beginners Guide and goes alla round the place haha I honestly feel like this blog post could be amazing for me to release pent up shit below the surface no idea what it will be like to someone out of context tho Ah that almost doesjr matter Creative nonfiction is the one oh god its turning sexual do i repress this orrr like not fully sexual but teenage angst LET IT HAPPEN WRITE FULL DISCLOSURE So many things happened that summer. It was a year when everything felt important. The UK voted to leave the European Union. Both you and Daniel were Politics students at university, and had been pretty sure it wouldn't go that way. It did. The morning the referendum result was announced, the world seemed quiet. In your local cafe, normally full of noise, it was silent for forty minutes or so, just an odd mutter here and there, until until someone said "I just don't get - why, or how.", and it brought life to the room, everyone beginning to share stories from the past few months of campaigning, of friends who had previously shown little interest in politics becoming diehard campaigners.
April 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
The Beginner's Guide is a 2015 game by Davey Wreden, developer of The Stanley Parable.

The Beginner's Guide is not a game.

The Beginner's Guide is a not-game where you walk through a series of games created by a friend of the narrator called Coda.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic
A page of text, saying: CODA noun. a concluding event, remark, or section. It is the hot, wet summer before your final year of university. There's chaos magic in the air, sparks of revolution and self-revelation every other week.We are all thirsty for change but our lips stay dry through the season. The country 'throws off its shackles'. You burn brighter and more intensely than you ever have before, back to seeing in colour after years of grey. Your mind is full of disquieting ideas, like leaving your girlfriend for the boy who made your heart sing, or ending everything and taking another spin of the wheel. You finally got round to starting Twin Peaks this summer, after years of putting it off, because you heard the third season would be coming out next year. It is a time of getting round to what you never had. Of not being able to put things off any longer. This, however, is all context. This is not even your story. It is the hot, wet summer before your final year of university, which means it is also the hot, wet summer before your best friend's final year of university. The Beginner's Guide is a 2015 game by Davey Wreden, developer of The Stanley Parable. The Beginner's Guide is not a game. The Beginner's Guide is a not-game where you walk through a series of games created by a friend of the narrator called Coda. In the opening to the game, Davey explains that in releasing a game about the abandoned games of his friend Coda, he wants to try to encourage Coda to make games again. That maybe playing through the games can help Davey to understand why Coda stopped making games. Davey relentlessly asserts his own reading onto everything that Coda makes, and by the end of the game, becomes convinced that Coda has become isolated depressed, and is creatively stuck. Obviously, Davey does something profoundly unethical insaring Coda's games. Or he would have done, if Coda were real. "Kieran do I replay beginners guide now" in a text bubble. 20/08/16.
April 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
It’s my birthday and I think this is a truly wonderful collection of things to be given. 🎉🥳
So many birthday things. Some bills, some games, some technology, a plush Eevee.
January 29, 2025 at 8:44 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
The UK Government, I guess
The anti piracy text from late 90s VHS’ saying ‘you wouldn’t download a car unless it was AI generated’
December 19, 2024 at 12:02 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Other games include a murder mystery that no-one has to run (with scenarios for the Prohibition, a Time Traveller's Society, and a Horror Movie Fan Club). It's basically a LARP for people that would be scared if you told them they were LARPing.
A front door of a house with an old-timey looking poster on it. The text reads "Public notice: these premises have been closed for one year by order of the United States Marshalls Office for violation of the national Prohibition law."
December 2, 2024 at 11:01 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
Post a gaming picture that gives you video game anxiety.L
Adult Link (the main character in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) is being grappled by a redead (a zombie like monster).
November 24, 2024 at 10:31 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
I've spent most of the day finishing up the latest version of our (Fiasco-like!) game to help teachers develop anti-racist pedagogies and practice.

I really enjoyed writing our #positionality exercise. It emphasises how our backgrounds, experiences, and identities are fluid, dynamic, multiple...
A screenshot of a text file. The contents of the text file are: - What kind of school did you go to growing up? What was school like for you? - What race or ethnicity are you? What cultures have been significant to you throughout your life? - How old are you? Does your age affect how people treat you? - What gender do you identify as? Is that the same as the gender you were assigned when you were born? - What is your sexuality? Is your sexuality important to you, or unimportant? - Do you have any disabilities or long-term conditions that affect how you do everyday things? Are they visible, or invisible? - Where did you grow up? How does that place feature in your life now? - What is your highest level of education? What did you gain from those experiences? - How long have you been in your current role? Does this affect how people treat you? - What class did you grew up as, and what class do you feel that you are now? How has your class affected you throughout your life? Having considered each of these aspects of your positionality, ask yourself: - Which of these identities and experiences do I bring to the classroom? - How do they shape my assumptions about teaching and the students I teach? - How do these identities and experiences affect how students interact with me and other students?
November 19, 2024 at 5:06 PM
kierancutting.bsky.social
October 6, 2023 at 11:32 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
October 6, 2023 at 11:32 AM
kierancutting.bsky.social
feels like a flex but... yay I get bluesky on the day I hand in my thesis

"Designing for an affective politics of possibility: Making futures that transcend capitalist realism in the 'post'-austerity children's social care system" is a LONG BOY.
A thesis entitled "Designing for an affective politics of possibility: Making futures that transcend capitalist realism in the 'post'-austerity children's social care system"
October 6, 2023 at 11:31 AM