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jason grinblat

@jfg.land

6.6K followers 590 following 1.3K posts

creative head at freehold games co-creator — Caves of Qud, Sproggiwood generated histories, hidden monasteries, sentient plants🌹🌹 he/him

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · Nov 13

new folks, hello

I'm Jason Grinblat, co-creator of Caves of Qud (which is coming out in 3 WEEKS)

I'm a practitioner who likes theory, a poet who likes math, a designer of 100+ hr games who is uh deeply skeptical of videogames as a cultural project

into monasteries, emergence, & frame narratives

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Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 16h

I think this is bang on, and gets at a sense of what I see in play with stuff from Dwarf Fortress and Qud to Rimworld to Crusader Kings and the Sims: a desire to understand the world, whether a familiar or an alien one, through play

lincoln carpenter @lincolnhello.bsky.social · 16h

"'The more we try to understand what's going on in the world around us—the more we don't just withdraw into a hermitude of my family and I as a nuclear unit, the more we try to understand our society—I think the more these kinds of games speak to us,' Short said."

Founder of Dwarf Fortress and Caves of Qud publisher Kitfox Games says its procgen sims for sickos are 'giving storytelling tools back to the people when games and passive media took them away'

Streets of Fortuna, Kitfox's own in-development "megasim," is chasing that same systems-driven storytelling.

pcgamer.com

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Laura Michet @lmichet.bsky.social · 17h

Learned that I am being laid off from Heart Machine, and will be leaving the studio later this month.

Do you need a contractor? I've got a track record of leading scope-friendly script revisions late in dev. I have also done a lot of consulting on new IPs and pitches/demos. Feel free to DM me!

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 1d

(astronaut gun) everything is emergent? always has been

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Cole Wehrle @colewehrle.bsky.social · 2d

Alright, let's do it. Here's a little prospective reader's guide to every Thomas Pynchon novel. We'll take them in order of publication. This might be a long thread. Buckle up! 1/x

Image from the Simpsons of Pynchon with a bag over his head on a cell phone. He's standing in front of a house with a neon sign advertising it as his home.

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 1d

whoa, stunning

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_D @drnmcy.bsky.social · Oct 20

this is my passion project, angel's nest. a folk-horror survival rpg set in an alternative, pre-colonial africa.

angel's nest screenshot showing the player surrounded by towering trees.

angel's nest screenshot showing the status and map screen

angel's nest screenshot showing the stat improvement menu.

angel's nest screenshot showing the player in a towering slum yard

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patrick @redford.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote about Bari Weiss as the grim future of mainstream media under billionaire control: defector.com/bari-weiss-s...

Bari Weiss Signs Huge Deal To Usher CBS News Into Its Vichy Era | Defector

On Monday, newly appointed Paramount CEO David Ellison announced that his company had acquired the Free Press, the smirking blood-and-soil blog founded and run by former New York Times hall monitor Ba...

defector.com

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 1d

Even by today's standards 'Bari Weiss as head of CBS news' feels fake. I couldn't invent a more concise sentence to demonstrate mainstream media capture

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 4d

WHAT!? Congrats!!!

jason grinblat @jfg.land · 4d

let me exist in a little digital space without being reminded that the people who build it are tech-brained children, thank you

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 4d

fuck you

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Kitfox Games 🦊 @kitfoxgames.com · 5d

Caves of Qud has been nominated for Best Indie Game at the 2025 Golden Joysticks!

✅ Get your votes in now: www.goldenjoysticks.com

Vote now for Caves of Qud in the 2025 Golden Joystick Awards for Best Indie Game.

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 5d

Cointober

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 5d

Oh no

jason grinblat @jfg.land · 5d

Funny how age and responsibility can transform exercise from a chore to a sacred hour of treat-level me time

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 5d

Just putting out into the aether that despite coming out in December 2024, Caves of Qud is eligible for a number of this year's awards that have November cutoffs, like the Game Awards

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cmrn knzlmn @ckunzelman.bsky.social · 5d

ALERT! ALERT! We're in the last days of being able to preorder my book EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED: ON ASSASSIN'S CREED, which is a book about the Assassin's Creed franchise and how games reflect and impact the real world! Click this link and use the code MN93450 for 30% off! z.umn.edu/14943

Everything Is Permitted

An entertaining deep dive into the world, gameplay, and evolution of the hugely successful Assassin’s Creed video game franchiseA hooded figure stands i...

z.umn.edu

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Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美 @halfrobot.com · 6d

Speaking of said winner and other winners I would take it as a personal favor if you would try out excellent games made by former students, such as:
CONSUME ME
store.steampowered.com/app/2359120/...

DESPELOTE
store.steampowered.com/app/2367820/...

BABY STEPS
store.steampowered.com/app/1281040/...

Giovanni Colantonio @marioprime.bsky.social · 8d

Hard for me fault anyone who doesn’t know good games exist when almost no major gaming website reviewed or covered this year’s Seamus McNally Grand Prize winner.

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 6d

Everything else aside this man has the charisma of a deflated balloon animal

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "A few months ago I was at the White House when President Trump announced his liberation day for America's trade policy. It was a landmark day. Well, today is another liberation day. The liberation of America's warriors ... you kill people and break things for a living."

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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 7d

Nudibranchs as pictured by a Japanese illustrator named Kumataro Ito, artist for the USS Albatross’ Philippine Expedition, 1907–10. More of his stunning images here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/k...

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 7d

Being online in the present moment is sort of like a reverse toddler stage, where I'm undergoing language deacquisition due to every news item prompting responses in me that cannot be uttered in public, or outright speechlessness

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

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1000xRESIST | Available Now @sunsetvisitor.studio · 7d

Hekki, we’re hiring!

First up: Senior Programmer!

💠 80k CAD salary
💠 Hybrid/remote work (relocation support available)
💠 Health benefits plan
💠 4-day work week
💠 4 weeks annual paid vacation, unlimited sick/personal days

Job listing ⬇️ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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zaratustra @zaratustra.bsky.social · 8d

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 8d

getting railroad facts in a sundress is very funny

jason grinblat @jfg.land · 8d

lol sickos yes