Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Hamish

Deanna Kreisel 🌱 @doctorwaffle.substack.com · 6d

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
(Not sure if I spelled that right)
What immortal hand or eye
Could fashion such a stripy guy?
What the hammer that hath hewn it
Into such a chonky unit?
Did who made the lamb make thee,
Or an external franchisee?

36 1.4K 3.6K

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 5d

Dog Eat Dog is my pick for the best designed TRPG, full stop.

Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 5d

RPG nerds, this is worth keeping an eye on. The physical reprint of Dog Eat Dog in particular. Not been in print for ages, and it's a well designed and confronting framework for role-playing the shitty ass power balance of colonialism.

www.backerkit.com/c/projects/c...

Art & System: Games for Expanded Play

A new indie game series from Central Michigan University Press launching with a lineup of three games: Princess with a Cursed Sword, Dog Eat Dog, and the Mountain Witch

www.backerkit.com

2 7 22

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 5d

I hadn't heard about EX TENEBRIS and it's kickstarter, but this (looong) interview-meets-description definitely sold me on it. If "40k investigation but you don't play as fascists" sounds good to you, have a read.

Kieron Gillen @kierongillen.bsky.social · 6d

Interview feature with @armadajosh.bsky.social and @beckyannison.bsky.social about EX TENEBRIS, currently in the last week of their crowdfunder, where we talk influences, mystery games, systems and their future.

"I just didn’t want my friends to have to play fascist enforcers."

A Bright Dark Future: Ex Tenebris Interview - Old Men Running The World

If you're a British game designer, you work beneath a cloud - both literally and figuratively. For the former, it's really cloudy here, For the latter, it's a

oldmenrunningtheworld.com

11 15

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 8d

Honestly, *chefkiss* right here.

Text clarifying that the early bird tier is the same as the basic tier but costs more.

1 4

Reposted by Hamish

Ettin @ettin.itch.io · 11d

(I still need backers for my light novel about a guy surviving a badly-run RPG campaign, so if you like my work (or posts) I'd appreciate it if you spread the word! Tell your friends, your parents, your Discords, your subreddits, buy a haunted pizza joint and then tell the ghosts about it)

CRINGE WIZARD: A TTRPG Isekai Light Novel

A light novel about a guy forced to live through the terrible TTRPG campaign he ran when he was a teenager.

www.kickstarter.com

3 53 68

Reposted by Hamish

William C. @williamcson.bsky.social · 9d

More people need to understand that saying only “criminals” should be subjected to expanding state violence around us is what led to the broader public being targeted by it, too. Criminality is subjective, and power determines what it is or is not.

17 320 890

Reposted by Hamish

PERFECTLY NORMAL @nzpom.com · 10d

Fuck off Judith

It's your government that have caused people to take the extreme measure of striking, not the Unions
#nzpol

Govt and union trade blows over strikes

New data shows there has been 22 “work stoppages” - strikes and lockouts - in New Zealand this year so far, adding to 47 in 2024.

www.thepost.co.nz

1 13 40

Reposted by Hamish

Stu Fleming @thebasement.nz · 10d

Buried in the detail about reducing earthquake strengthening is the removal of requirements for disabled access and fire safety. You know who does that? Sociopaths.

8 120 310

Reposted by Hamish

nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 26d

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

onion person @junlper.beer · 26d

the entire media ecosystem is just not built or ready for events like this and far right billionaires like larry ellison buying news orgs will only make this worse

130 1.4K 6.2K

Reposted by Hamish

Vicci Ho @vicciho.com · 27d

is there any kind of logical reason as to why stuff keeps publishing fluff nonsense on these far right personalities

1 3

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

(I usually take "long" as "unending multi-year campaigns that fade out rather than have an ending".)

Normalise arcs and endings.

1 4

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

Another useful thread, this one expanding on AW's cycle of play and the tension between "gets good after 6 sessions" and how some people interpret "not good for long campaigns"
bsky.app/profile/supe...

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 27d

The fact that @jdragsky.bsky.social brings up, specifically, the NON-expressionist elements of Apocalypse World got me thinking. Funny enough, I’d credit it as one of the games that opened up my own play in a similar direction.

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

1 3

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

Another useful discussion of AW and it's play cycle. bsky.app/profile/supe...

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 27d

The fact that @jdragsky.bsky.social brings up, specifically, the NON-expressionist elements of Apocalypse World got me thinking. Funny enough, I’d credit it as one of the games that opened up my own play in a similar direction.

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

1

Reposted by Hamish

Louise Hutt @saycheeselouise.bsky.social · 27d

Even if you don't vote for your council (pls do but), tick that box for the referendum.

It is BINDING for three terms - so if it fails, no Māori ward for nearly a decade.

And EVERYONE votes, not just Māori. Tāngata Tiriti step up, Pākehā mā, you need to vote.

4 46 80

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

One could definitely get bogged down in minutiae, still not satisfy everyone, and also make the whole thing unwieldy. I like the length of the manifesto as published.

2

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

I don't have anything coherent to share here; something else to mull over, re-read jay's manifesto and re-read the source texts (because this is one of those big source-based games I do).

2 1

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

One thing reading the manifesto and some reactions prompted was some thoughts on (damage) Conditions, the part of one particular design that I'm currently lightly stuck on.

1 3

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

* It's not really a counter-manifesto (depending on how you define that), but as a philologist the aesthetic appeal of certain words and phrases is absolutely part of how I design games. (Kratophagia is probably my purist expression of that.)

1 8

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

Similarly Natalie's counter*-manifesto proposing their own category/lens for viewing games is interesting.

bsky.app/profile/luck...

Natalie Pudim @luckoftheharbor.com · 28d

The Relationship Games Manifesto

An approach to analog roleplaying game design that centers our relationship to one another over any other priority. A call to action for games with empathy as a foundational principal. Free to everyone on my Patreon.

www.patreon.com/posts/relati...

The Relationship Games Manifesto | Luck of the Harbor

www.patreon.com

1 2 5

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

I've seen a couple of interesting response to jay's use of art historical/intellectual history terms. Tanya's thread is a great example: bsky.app/profile/floa...

Tanya Floaker @floaker.bsky.social · Sep 8

I enjoyed reading this manifesto, and I'm keen to see if/how this inspires others and creates new modes of relation through game design.

Due to the character count, I'm putting my deeper thoughts into a thread below...

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

1 1 5

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · 27d

I wish there were more examples to clarify the big ideas jay has included, but big respect for making an Expressionist Manifesto expressionist in form.

There is a good chance I will re-read after mulling and reading other reactions.

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · Sep 8

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play
possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

The Expressionist Games Manifesto

“Work! Intoxication! Brain-racking! Chewing, eating, gorging, rooting up! Rapturous birth pangs! Jabbing of the brush, preferably right…

possumcreek.medium.com

3 4 18

Hamish @peregrinekiwi.bsky.social · Sep 8

Support structures for other books and papers!

1

Reposted by Hamish

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · Sep 7

Indeed.

Also the authors of the piece in question are a disgraced former professor fired for cause *through tenure* for sexual misconduct with students (plural) and his wife and former undergraduate student (the latter a member of the publication's editorial board).

So, you know.

Gross.

Joel @sentantiq.bsky.social · Sep 7

The online classics journal has published a piece attempting to defend "classical philology" against "attacks". The piece is driven by personal animus and makes the strongest case for the narrowmindedness of its authors

1 38 230

Reposted by Hamish

Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · Sep 5

‘AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex.’

I’ll ask again: What is the trillion dollar problem that this trillion dollar technology is supposed to solve?

A difficulty writing emails?

Prof. Ian Walker @ianwalker.bsky.social · Sep 5

"UK government trial of M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost"
www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/m...

M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial

: AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex

www.theregister.com

18 130 340

Reposted by Hamish

Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · Sep 4

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

11 110 450