Author | Lightnews

Vivian 🍉

@hexanguine.bsky.social

430 followers 760 following 220 posts

✨ Prod, Comms, Writing @afewdragons.com ✨ Indie game addict ✨️ TTRPG dabbler ✨ Crochet witch ✨ Horror lover ✨ Wholesome deviant ✨️ Delightfully cringe ✨ She/Her 📧 [email protected]

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Vivian 🍉 @hexanguine.bsky.social · Mar 4

Welcome new followers! Here's a little about me:

✨️ I make games with the fantastic team at @afewdragons.com
✨️ Released The Sacred Acorn last year
✨️ Working on some secret TTRPG things
✨️ Crochet, tarot, plants, cats
✨️ Big auntie energy
✨️ Curious & awkward
✨️ Honestly just a weirdo

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Vivian 🍉 @hexanguine.bsky.social · 10d

Dying today

A screen capture of a weather app with the following information:
Nope!!
Wed, October 22
Partly cloudy
39° Celsius
Top of 39° low of 14°
Feels like 39°
Wind: 28km/h NW
Humidity: 22%
Dew point: 13°
Pressure: 996 mbar
UV index: 7 of 12
Visibility: 11km

A zoomed in crop of the previous weather app screen capture picture with just "Nope!!"

Reposted by Vivian 🍉

AbleToPlay | Find Accessible Games! @abletoplay.com · 10d

Pssst! 👀

Are you a disabled content creator OR a creator passionate about accessibility? DM us!

We’re working on something new and exciting at AbleToPlay to help inclusive creators grow their audiences and connect with game studios and publishers for sponsorships.

Reposts appreciated!

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Anna Hollinrake 🌤️ @annahollinrake.com · 15d

If anyone sees me today I'll be doing combat rolls behind the networking spaces because the AI VCs are hunting me for sport

Elissa @elissablack.com · 15d

The SXSW Sydney posters VS The SXSW Sydney games stream content is a wonderful juxtaposition.

(Shout out to @annahollinrake.com for this one, in her talk on kickstarters for digital games.)

"The AI to Z of Innovation" reads a poster advertising SXSW focused on the "Tech" & "Innovation" stream. (Basically, the tech-bro side)

A slide from Anna Hollinrake's talk on digital games kickstarters in 2025, which reads, principally, "DO NOT USE AI".

Bad-ass queer game devs VS Techbros is a contrast.

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Vivian 🍉 @hexanguine.bsky.social · 18d

I've been re-discovering reading for joy instead of productivity and self-growth and it's been an utter delight.

Reposted by Vivian 🍉

thesixler @thesixler.bsky.social · 18d

This cat looks like it’s about to start a fighting tournament to promote the strength of the Mishima Zaibatsu corporation

Tammi, yeah, that one. 2.1 @tammi.bsky.social · 19d

I found a 19th century Cat Villain!

A huge chonk of a fluffy cat sitting on a table near an open fire. The cat is cream and grey and appears to be shaped like a barrel in a fur coat. They are scowling fiercely with their moustache and bewhiskered ears apparently flowing back into the cold wind. There's a definite vibe that this villainous cat twirls their moustache as they evict orphans into the aforementioned blizzard and think Scrooge was an easy-going lightweight. They are magnificent.

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Brandon Sheffield @brandon.insertcredit.com · Oct 2

If you make experimental or unusual games, the Out of Index festival in Seoul is still accepting submissions through the 17th! www.outofindex.org

Out Of Index 2025 - Experimental Game Festival

Out Of Index is an experimental game festival in South Korea. The goal of the festival is to inspire the game industry with new ideas and experimental energy.

www.outofindex.org

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Dan Johnson @coil.bsky.social · Oct 1

Every day

Tweet from JoshMLabelle that reads: We've assembled 100 people with
ADHD and 5 people with no soft skills to manage them, and given them a simple goal: make an impossible amount of money. We call it the games industry, and we think it's going to work great

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Vivian 🍉 @hexanguine.bsky.social · Sep 30

Did you know I voice four of the characters in The Sacred Acorn? 🎙️ See if you can guess which ones.

The Sacred Acorn - ✨Out now on PC✨ @afewdragons.com · Sep 30

Do you love squirrels 🐿️ and cosy adventures? Get The Sacred Acorn 50% off during the #SteamAutumnSale

💥 Big boss battles
🍄 Cute companions
🔮 Magic abilities
🍂 An enchanting world to explore

store.steampowered.com/app/1259760/...

A promotional image for the Steam Autumn Sale showing the game The Sacred Acorn is on sale at 50% off

Vivian 🍉 @hexanguine.bsky.social · Sep 23

Attempting to break in my Doc's today, which really means I'm breaking in my feet, so any thoughts and prayers you can spare for my poor feet will be appreciated 🙏

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Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · Sep 20

probably the realest thing ive ever seen posted on that website

Happy Friday everybody! I don't know why, but I feel like spilling the tea this morning, so here are some hard truths about the game industry.

A lot of people who got into the industry early were terrible game developers. This shouldn't surprise people, but we used to look at numbers in the early 00's like half of all people rolling out of the game industry in the first three years as though all of those people were qualified.

Hiring in this industry has almost always been untrained amateurs looking for people they like and who remind them of people they know. Most interviewers decide in the first five minutes whether they think you're worth hiring. Even the people who get training in how to interview almost never get coaching on how they do it, or real feedback on the success of their techniques.

As a result, a lot of people walked in the door unqualified to do the job they were hired to do. Some of them survived for multiple cycles. Some of those were even promoted to leadership positions. There was a lot of nepotism involved - if you were friends with / had worked with the head of studio, department director, etc., then you were a known quantity and better than having to go out and find someone.

Combine this with the prestige halo that comes from branding, and you have real problems. People tend to ascribe god-like powers to successful game studios - EA back in its heyday, Blizzard, BioWare. People who worked on hit games at big / known studios carried a ton of prestige - regardless of what they actually did.

It's easy to say "I worked at Blizzard", and what that meant was not that you were part and parcel of the magic that made those games awesome, but simply that you were employed there; it takes hundreds, if not thousands, of people to make AAA games, and I promise you that inside every large, successful studio, there is a cadre of fuck-ups that no one has the heart, willpower, or political pull to get rid of.

I've fired people with over a decade of expe…

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Clifton B is working on [TBA] @cliftonb.bsky.social · Sep 4

Just added a page to my portfolio site about my thoughts on AI. So now I've got something to give to the next employer who asks about my experience with it.

It's terrible for the environment.

There may be a day when we can run AI prompts on local machines without offloading the cycles onto giant overheating data farms, but until that day, my main issue with AI will always be the environmental costs.

It relies on stolen work.

This is another one that might not always be true, and you can certainly train data on your own labor, but that isn't what's happening 99% of the time, especially if you're relying on a company to handle the output for you. This is especially true for visual art and writing.

It's making us dumber.

This point's pretty hard to argue: relying on AI is making users demonstrably less able to think creatively and critically. Without my creativity, empathy and ability to transform observations and data into stories, I wouldn't be the person I am today. There's no way I'm handing over those abilities to anyone, much less a faceless robot.

It's wrong most of the time.

There are plenty of statistics proving that AI gets things wrong more than half the time, and the handful of times I've been forced to ask a robot for information, it's always wrong. Turns out my web host is using stolen instructions from a different web host, and confidently serves that information to me whenever I ask it a question. It's hard to trust anything with a success rate that low. And because it's incorrect so often…

It's dangerous.

We've got people letting AI control their vehicles, reporting on whether a mushroom in the forest is safe to eat, and decide whose medical insurance claims to honor. None of this is a good idea. I got into UX research and design to understand and help people, and handing the reins over to a thieving, hallucinating, uncaring robot isn't the way we accomplish any of that.

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Chris 🎃 DevPods.gg gamedev community @chrisdeleon.bsky.social · Aug 29

streaming shows should handle audio like games with different volume sliders for music, sounds and dialog, they have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with mixing

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oooOOOooorbette @orbette.bsky.social · Aug 20

What an absolute fucking baller, 100% legend

66snafu @66snafu.bsky.social · Aug 20

Think I'll read this once a week forever.

Patricia Routledge, I love you.

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Chaosium @chaosium.bsky.social · Aug 20

We've started a new series of posts on the Chaosium blog called 'Table Tales', by Chaosium's Mark Morrison.

Table Tales is all about the fun of playing Chaosium games, and Mark has pretty much played them all, or close to it!

Mark Morrison's Table Tales

We've started a new series of posts on the Chaosium blog called 'Table Tales', by Chaosium's Mark Morrison. Table Tales is all about the fun of playing Chaosium games, and Mark has pretty much played ...

www.chaosium.com

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Rhianna Pratchett @rhi.bsky.social · Aug 19

He was very good in person with his trans fans too. Growing up going to SF cons, I met many trans people before I even knew what trans meant. I gave my parents very little they needed to accept in their child, so they had lots left over for everyone else. 😉 www.thepinknews.com/2021/08/06/t...

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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · Aug 12

Covid is still out there.

It’s still killing & disabling people.

I know you were told it was over.

I know you were told to stop masking.

Please get your booster & wear a mask.

Normalize masking (N95 or better!) as a public health tool.

We can save each other.

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Derek Lieu - Game Trailer Editor @derek-lieu.com · Aug 6

Hey indie game devs, here's a quick tip about the "biome montage" in your game trailers, because most of you are doing it wrong...

🧵

Captain America leans over a chair to give a lecture

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League of Geeks (LoG!) @leagueofgeeks.com · Aug 6

Hey friends! The hiring continues! This time with a couple of roles that folks are always asking us about. Get amongst it for our next PC/Console title!

🗺️ Game Designer
📝 Writer

Find all the info at leagueofgeeks.com/careers!

RTs appreciated. Share with your pals! 🙏

*zigzags into the tall grass*

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Sam Barlow 🔥 @mrsambarlow.bsky.social · Aug 6

tribute videos are a better and more worthy genre of filmmaking than this crap

(sorry)

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Ana Valens | 🔞 | COMMS: (4/5) @acvalens.net · Jul 23

Let’s change gears. Do some good

Sign this. Make it go viral. Protect sex workers. End payment processor discrimination

action.aclu.org/petition/mas...

Mastercard: Sex Work is Work. End Your Unjust Policy.

Mastercard's new policy unfairly targets the adult content industry, making sex workers more vulnerable, especially Black trans women. It must be stopped.

action.aclu.org

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Jay Britton @jaybritton.com · Jul 23

This gave me a hearty chuckle this morning so I'm sharing it with you all...

An image depicting the evolution of the Windows recycle bin icon over the years with the icon for 2025 simply being the icon for Microsoft One Drive.

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Chad Toprak @chadtoprak.bsky.social · Jul 21

The latest round of Screen Australia funded games has been announced, with over $1.4 million in direct project funding.

A massive congratulations to the 26 teams who have received support! 💖

www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-cen...

Australian gamemakers level-up with major funding from Screen Australia - Media centre - Screen Australia

Screen Australia has today announced the latest games and gaming events to be supported through the agency’s industry-leading funding programs – providing $1.4 million for gamemakers to upskill and de...

www.screenaustralia.gov.au

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Manuela Malasaña @xibanya.bsky.social · Jul 15

when i was a teenage nerd, nerd interests were niche and nerds were shunned. now nerd interests dominate culture and nerds are vicious bullies. turns out shunning nerds was the right move all along

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Brad Gallaway @bradgallaway.bsky.social · Jul 13

Friend of mine is writing a book about videogames... He's in need of a good editor.

It's a paid gig -- if any freelancers are available and have the chops to do this sort of work on a professional level, hit me up with your particulars.

And if not you bt you know someone, please spread the word!

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Zeboyd Digital Entertainment @zeboydgames.bsky.social · Jul 10

If "AI" was as valuable as they say it is, they wouldn't be selling it to you. They'd be using it themselves in secret to make the next Minecraft, the next Avatar, the next Hello Kitty and then they'd sell that to you.

They're trying to sell you a sick goose, while pretending it lays golden eggs.

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