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Michael Gruar

@mgruar.bsky.social

2.9K followers 1K following 1.7K posts

He/him (or they) Independent Game Developer, Software Engineer, Littleton MA Bike/Ped Advisory Committee, Father of 3, American and British (sorry), among other things. https://linktr.ee/lunarchippygames #gamedev #indiedev

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · Oct 20

Pinned Post: Hi all, I'm Michael, and I'm working on Iron Village, a cozy pixel town builder game - with trains! store.steampowered.com/app/3011060/...

(Also a heads up, this is a personal Bluesky account. Just be warned following me will include much more mundane posts as well!)

Iron Village on Steam

With the help of your railway, build houses, farms, warehouses, and more to create your village. Trade what your people make for other resources and gold to grow your village into a prospering town, a...

store.steampowered.com

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 41m

For me, its position gets affected by observing it. Like, normally I don't really consider it to have any position at all, but now that I'm thinking about it, it's definitely A.

(Obviously it appears as a sexy apple costume though, come on)

Reposted by Michael Gruar

Tarja Porkka-Kontturi @tarjapk.bsky.social · 17h

Keanu Reeves gesturing no, text reads Save and exit game. Keanu gesturing acceptance, and text reads Save game, Save and exit game.

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Sebas @ohlookbirdies.bsky.social · 2d

"anti-AI people should just learn more about it" motherfucker I know so much about it, that's why I'm anti-AI

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 2d

Personally I would prefer the movement of A, but the one-handed interaction of B. Having both a one-handed and a two-handed interaction would be neat though, for when the character has to do something tougher

Reposted by Michael Gruar

L @banalplay.bsky.social · 2d

When your custom character appears in a cut scene

The Portland frog backing down an army of jackboots

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Clairvoire @clairvoire.bsky.social · 3d

It's a wild defense on their part, because I can't imagine a stronger argument for halting their industry immediately.

"we might've made a new conscious thing" is a thought that can only be followed with "we can't let companies create and exploit these"

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Sagittarius A* @sagastar.bsky.social · 3d

oh so we're in the "forum mod crashes out over petty nonsense" stage of things huh

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

That attracted the critical users that got the whole thing going. Personally I like the idea of the mass decentralized social network, but that already exists: Mastodon. It didn't get as much traction thanks to perceived complexity, and AT proto comes across as even more complex imo?

Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

This really sums up (some of) my thoughts better than I can.

On top of that, it feels like they don't understand (or refuse to understand) what has been behind their success: having a social network that looks kind of like Twitter while the original was imploding.

Bruno Dias @brunodias.bsky.social · 4d

I think Bluesky could still be saved. Won't be, but could. They should hire me as Head of Comms. I could fix her (Jay)

azhdarchid.com/jay-graber-c...

Jay Graber Confuses the Gas and Brake Pedals

As your new Head of Comms I advise you to please stop posting this shit.

azhdarchid.com

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Bruno Dias @brunodias.bsky.social · 4d

I think Bluesky could still be saved. Won't be, but could. They should hire me as Head of Comms. I could fix her (Jay)

azhdarchid.com/jay-graber-c...

Jay Graber Confuses the Gas and Brake Pedals

As your new Head of Comms I advise you to please stop posting this shit.

azhdarchid.com

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

Yes! I'm a little biased though, that's (spoiler alert) the art style I'm going with for my next game.

Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

application of moderator actions.

Ultimately though, I don't get the point of this conversation though? Like, why stand up for a tech CEO instead of listening to the people who are subject to all of this harassment?

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

The best I've got is techcrunch.com/2024/12/13/b...: I guess if you want to be pedantic, it's people "claiming" he violated the ToS, and Bluesky saying they're going to have new Community Guidelines.

But also, didn't you just say a policy is the end result? The end result has been a biased

Bluesky at a crossroads as users petition to ban Jesse Singal over anti-trans views, harassment | TechCrunch

Now with 25 million users, Bluesky is facing a test that will determine whether or not its platform will still be seen as a safe space and place of refuge

techcrunch.com

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

transphobic harassers.

So when a legitimate complaint is made to the CEO, and she gleefully dismisses it and posts through it, this is what happens

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

site, specifically around its social dynamics, that decision is highly relevant.

As far as I'm aware they're all back, but that's moving the goalposts. The point is they will intervene and make specific decisions above and beyond the ToS when it suits them, but hide behind that same ToS to defend

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah, that's my understanding too, but I don't think that really matters for the context we're talking about here. Automated or not, he was violating the terms of service, and then there was a manual intervention to unban him anyway. So when the CEO of Bluesky is talking about making it a better

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Paul @pawlbologna.bsky.social · 4d

map of american bluesky users

A Bostonian’s Idea of the United States - 1935 Illustrated map of US with Boston, Massachusetts, and New England huge, NYC tiny, and everything else compressed and small.

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

Like if it weren't for the hypocrisy, I might be forgiving. But also, I'm not a trans person being harassed, so my voice isn't really important here.

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

...telling Charlie Kirk to rest in piss, etc.

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

So Jesse Singal was organizing harassment of trans users from off site, which was a ToS violation, and he was promptly banned. He then got specifically unbanned, and the ToS was "clarified", if I recall correctly.

Since then, they've been hypocrites about being "hands off", banning people for...

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Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 4d

I mean, if they're being jerks, it's kind of justified. Like, changing the rules to keep Jesse Singal was one of the biggest betrayals from Bluesky, when it went from a safe place away from Twitter to just another semi-hostile social media site

Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 5d

It's just sad at this point

Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 5d

Still pretending that they're just a little infrastructure company*, and their protocol is "totally decentralized**, promise"

*Unless you tell Charlie Kirk to rest in piss
**Totally ignoring that Mastodon exists

Michael Gruar @mgruar.bsky.social · 5d

Managed to get a weekly streak of these dev diaries going... it's #61! Looking at the timing of sales so far, plus an excessively cryptic teaser for Project OY.

lunarchippy.games/2025/10/03/d...

#IronVillage #ProjectOY #gamedev #devdiary #indiegamedev #indiedev #steam

A graph of net sales over time: The y axis is net sales (i.e. sales minus refunds), stretching up to 1500, the x axis is time, stretching from mid-March through today. A series of numbers 1-6 annotate the graph, which are explained in the linked dev diary.

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Reposted by Michael Gruar

Makkon @makkon.bsky.social · 6d

a flow-chart with 2 islands. "Do I need AI?" that flows into a final island saying "No"

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