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sanctumsys
@sanctumsys.itch.io
380 followers 2.3K following 1.4K posts
ඞ
23
VR enthusiast (Valve Index). also a writer
i love my wife
please DM if you want to talk more personally. i'm always open to more friends or arch-nemesis..es? archnemeses
https://seaboundsanctuary.bandcamp.com/
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sanctumsys.itch.io
an underrated cool function of the new valve hardware is the fact that the steam controller can be tracked by the steam frame. i'd love to see shenanigans like astro bot rescue mission come back for this format, where the controller is tracked in the game world and can shoot out tightropes and such
November 12, 2025 at 8:36 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
imagine getting hit with this in the first level
November 12, 2025 at 6:57 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
melos actually discussed exactly this a while ago, saved this from twitter in the pre-bluesky days because it was foundational to my understanding of percentage counts as a potential harm to a game's staying power. two images because the alt text wouldn't fit on one
The missability philosophy comes from wanting to steer the adventure experience away from fulfilling linear questlines, which necessarily require more guidance and hints. While Angeline Era does feature a ultimately linear story, it's not the main focus for much of the game so we only need a light touch with guidance. I'm not sure what inspired the initial desire to have the game track minimal main-quest-related state, but it could have been a response to the very linear Sephonie, but, also, we tend to design games where you see everything, so there's always been an itch to make a game where most stuff is optional. And this game was too late to be a core influence, but I have enjoyed Romancing Saga SNES's approach to missing stuff and every player having a wildly different experience, yet not being as loose as a roguelike, which of course relates to the wide history of TTRPGs/CRPGs and nonlinearity. The imagery in the thinking behind the mixed up/loose historical structure of Kenzaburo Oe's "The Game of Contemporaneity" also comes to mind - he was inspired by a temporally nonlinear mural by Diego Rivera. The Oe is a much earlier influence so it's possible that guided my thinking. I have always loved the idea of creating a world that feels more like a 'book of myths' where we aren't seeing all that's there, but are forced to accept an incomplete depiction of the world (e.g. the collected Tono Monogatari, or something like Miyazawa's Ihatovo, Naohisa Inoue's Iblard, or even Hiroshi Masamura's Atagoul... or Sakura Momoko's Coji-coji), so to be able to lean into that approach with making the levels has been fun. I want Angeline Era's world to imply there's more we aren't showing, but also signal that to an extent it's up to the imagination to figure out what that is. I really like linear stories in that they can give us strong characters and arcs to act as a lens towards the more loose, nonlinear aspects. But not when the linear stories overly dictate the game's design and flow. E.g., I'm not sure I like games as much when they're linear a lot of the time, and the nonlinearness that exists is a kind of choice that feels more like uncovering some 'truth' or conspiracy-esque underbelly of the game - focused around getting characters to say alternate things, etc, replaying sections 10 times just to find one alternate dialogue. I feel that people today are primed to consume work with a compulsive-esque fixation on the 'truth', but I'd like to make something that tries to downplay that urgency. Because the whole idea of singular truth is really out of sync with how the world is full of many contradictions (but we still have to find a way forward, anyways!)
November 9, 2025 at 8:14 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
like i'm sorry i don't want to judge a show by its art but actually i will and you couldn't pay me to watch something that looks like this regardless of how good the writing is
paramount+ poster for star trek lower decks. the characters all have disturbingly boxy heads and just generally feel like the product of someone who used to work with justin roiland, i don't know how to explain how it looks in text but the point is i do not find it appealing
November 8, 2025 at 6:53 PM
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just got the funniest steam recommendation of all time
Steam "recommendations for you" section recommending i buy a replacement left valve index vr controller
November 7, 2025 at 6:20 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
if ninja gaiden came out today you'd have people complaining that the inability to slash and run at the same time "ruins the schmoovement" or some shit like that
November 6, 2025 at 7:14 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
been thinking about this, it's originally in context of wholesome games and people that think consumption makes them special but i think it also applies well to people who jump to playing Remake Of Popular Thing That Fucks It All Up docseuss.medium.com/i-was-a-teen...
quote from doc burford's article on wholesome games. Look, you can never consider yourself special or discerning for enjoying a product that employed a literal army of marketers in a skyscraper somewhere with the express goal of getting you, personally to spend money on the product. You’re a consumer. You bought the most marketed thing in the world. It’s like basing your personality on liking Coca Cola, the most popular soda on the planet. Congratulations on being the laziest motherfucker alive, incapable of discovering anything for yourself because you’re an incurious fuck. Why would you ever demand respect for doing something easy? Why would you demand respect for liking something popular? It’s popular, which means a lot of people like it. By definition, you cannot be special for liking the big and popular thing! But along comes the person who buys the game with the ads in Times Square and the commercials on the television and the standee in gamestop and the neverending press coverage (because it gets the clicks, and who’s doing the clicking? a lot of other people just like you!) and they go “I’m special! I’m special for consuming the commercial product!” I wouldn’t consider you a discerning consumer for buying a McDonald’s McChicken sandwich every day, so why would I consider you a discerning consumer for buying the most commercial shit in the world? Congratulations on being boring. Now, hey, this isn’t to say you can’t enjoy popular media! I enjoy a McChicken. The Last of Us 2 had a pretty good shotgun and some nice graphics! But to suggest that you are special for consumption? That’s what is ludicrous. It’s not even serious. It’s pathetic and boring.
October 26, 2025 at 8:22 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
women don't like the vehicle
Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters (basically a car with a bunch of flashing lights and a loud annoying horn) driving away from the Ghostbusters headquarters
October 16, 2025 at 9:34 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
this applies to sitelen pona as well. i have trouble reading the toki pona passages in the first two official toki pona books because they're written in english, but jan Osu pi wawa nasa is much easier to read in sitelen pona because the symbols stick much more than the spellings (check alt text)
sitelen pona symbols reading "jan Osu pi wawa nasa", which translates roughly to "person Osu (Oz) of strange powers". this is the title of the third official toki pona book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: toki pona edition. (font used for this image is Nishiki-teki)
October 10, 2025 at 11:14 AM
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gaze, if you will, upon seriousness
Passage from the fellowship of the ring, chapter 3, by J.R.R. Tolkien/ Reads "‘And it is also said,’ answered Frodo: ‘Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.’"
October 10, 2025 at 7:34 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
not quoting so i don't give extra clicks but i read that endless mode article about hades ii's depiction of greek gods and it's as sucky as people are saying lmao
there's a comparison to lord of the rings like "look at this, this fantasy book takes itself seriously too" when lotr has lines like this
a line from the first chapter of the fellowship of the ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. reads "For the collection of Hugo Bracegirdle, from a contributor; on an (empty) bookcase. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.
October 10, 2025 at 7:28 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
i haven't even seen any RECENT VR games do the thing where characters react to your head movement/direction, this is incredibly forward-thinking design??
www.warrenrobinett.com/ecv/vrgames_...
October 5, 2025 at 8:12 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
oh my god
(from www.warrenrobinett.com)
screenshot of warren robinett's website, reading: In the early 1990s at the University of North Carolina, he co-invented the NanoManipulator, a virtual-reality interface to a scanning-probe microscope, which allowed a scientist to be virtually present on the surface of a microscopic sample within the microscope. By using a haptics (force-feedback) subsystem, the user could take direct control of the microscope's probe, and could actually feel and manipulate nano-scale features in the microscopic environment, feeling (via amplification) the nano-newton forces measured by the Atomic-Force Microscope's probe. Some molecular-scale entities which were pushed around were: individual strands of DNA, carbon nanotubes, and individual viruses. In the mid-1990s, he started a company to make Virtual-Reality-based video games: a good idea, but one which was (at the time) about 20 years ahead of commercial feasibility.
October 5, 2025 at 8:03 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
just found out that Warren Robinett, designer and developer of Atari 2600 "Adventure", was involved in VR tech back when he worked at NASA
this thing has finger tracking and what we now call "roomscale" head movement in the mid-1980s
www.warrenrobinett.com/ecv/nasa_vr_...
wireframe model of a room viewed from a first-person perspective. a man is in the corner superimposed over the wireframe model, wearing a head-mounted display wireframe model of a hand viewed from a first-person perspective. a man is in the corner superimposed over the wireframe model, wearing a head-mounted display. the hand's middle finger is bending along with the man's real-life hand.
October 5, 2025 at 8:00 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
same energy
a screenshot of the first screen of the legend of zelda with two of the four normally open paths completely blocked off screenshot of resident evil 4 remake. there is a ladder covered in yellow paint, and marked with a waypoint both on the ladder itself and on the ingame compass. there is a objective marker in the top left saying "Climb the ladder" and text at the bottom stating "Gotta climb that ladder and find the Resident Evil."
October 4, 2025 at 8:28 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
our #FallingBlockJam submission is up, and playable right here
sanctumsys.itch.io/segmenter
September 21, 2025 at 9:33 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
i love you castlevania wall chicken <3
Castlevania screenshot showing Simon standing next to a chicken leg revealed by destroying a tile
September 15, 2025 at 2:58 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
setting up a dedicated gaming space with a TV, a modded system (the wii is great) and a few decorations is a nice cozy way to really focus on the game you're playing and i highly recommend doing it
a gaming setup with a Toshiba-brand CRT TV. a Wii is connected to it via the video ports at the front, running a WiiWare game made of a field of colored triangles (the game is Rotohex). there is a hatsune miku plush on the left side of the TV and on top is the wii sensor bar, a metroid toy (an alien-looking creature with a gelatinous top and claws on the bottom) and a cardboard art print of a train operator made of flames (Maguerite Tram/Memorial Engine merchandise)
September 5, 2025 at 9:19 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
the EVGA XR1 and OBS replay buffer are a magical combination. i can grab a clip off this system basically just as easy as i can from something like steam game recording
if only there was a lightweight video editor that i could quickly cut down the videos' length with too
August 19, 2025 at 1:14 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
suppose now's as good a time as any to show it off. this is Planet Defender, a little project of mine that's a riff on the "Invaders clone" genre that surfaced after Space Invaders launched. the aesthetics are influenced by Epoch Cassette Vision palettes
August 13, 2025 at 9:12 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
literally just this
tumblr post screenshot from user skautism, reading "I once won first place in my university's [sic] Poker Al competition. We had 2 hours to build a bot and first place was a new macbook. I was a freshmen and had no idea what I was doing. My algorithm was literally: if isMyTurn: goAllIn() I broke all the other bots, who started folding every single time. a reply from tigerterror reads "Everyone else made Als, but only OP was playing poker."
August 7, 2025 at 9:19 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
this one also rings true
Darumi Amemiya: Why not?! There's a huge demand for stuff like that right now. Banning it only made people want it more!
July 29, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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sure i'll do this
image with plain text reading "tell me a video game name and i'm going to tell you my honest opinion about". the "it" at the end of the sentence seems to be missing, which annoys me, but this is the template everyone is using so i just have to deal with that
July 25, 2025 at 1:38 AM
sanctumsys.itch.io
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ONE WORKS WHAT'S DIFFERENT
July 14, 2025 at 6:16 PM
sanctumsys.itch.io
peanut butter and sour cream sandwiched between two pickles?
divine. no notes
peanut butter and sour cream sandwiched between two pickles
July 11, 2025 at 7:57 AM