Cat Manning

Hi to new people leaving the other place! I’m Cat Manning, currently narrative director on Civ 7. Worked at Riot and on some indie games previously (most notably Pathologic). I have a Lit PhD and a background in classics. Here I talk about emergent narrative, games, poetry, possums, and perfume.

"let IPs die" 🚫 "force IP into the public domain" 👉

we released our latest batch of rehab possums back into the wild last night under a full moon 🥲 always a little bittersweet, but very happy for these little guys 🤍

I loved both Ghost games, Tsushima and Yōtei both sold very well, and Sucker Punch is not a massive studio by AAA standards. Huge bummer.

Still thinking about Forbidden Solitaire. Excellent game that does a great job of evoking its very specific atmosphere from the jump and then holds that quality and clarity all the way to the end.

🫩 don’t make me tap the sign.

a bark as old as the sun dial, the alphabet, and the spoked wheel

It's a rough time to be an indie dev, so we got to thinking what we could do about it... Announcing MATES' RATES 🍻 We're offering 12 month-long co-dev engagements where we work on whatever you need to succeed! Very permissive terms. Flat rate of US$5,000ea (+ taxes). 🎟️ yarnspinner.dev/mates-rates

ordered some fish oil supplements that came stamped with an AO3 tag

some games have their finger on the pulse, mediterranea inferno opens up the whole vein

So here you go ... Thank you again to my friends at both BioWare and EA. To even dream in your sandbox was a privilege. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBO8...

Hi, my name is Alex Goldman -- you may know me as the host of Reply All. These days I am making a longform narrative podcast called @hyperfixedpod.bsky.social . I am making a small thread to ask to consider becoming a premium member of our completely independent show. hyperfixepod.com/join

start paying artists you fucks!!!! the potential of you reaching nirvana depends on it!

It's really nice to see another Meta investment fail

I am very glad I have not seen this. These are not serious people

Brazil’s results tonight are a big endorsement for the idea that every country should have a second “are you you sure about that” election a couple weeks after the first one for the important stuff

Everyone thought Lula was cooked, hopeless. Then he bought a phone and started posting and now he's gonna get a 4th term. The lesson is to never stop posting.

someone post the “watching the Eagles” meme

Lula winning is great for the planet, great for Brazil, and great for people who aren't revanchist assholes everywhere in the world, but let's not forget that it's also going to make some of the worst people on Earth extremely sad and mad. We should enjoy that, as a little treat.

when you hear startups constantly talking about their "moats", what they are talking about is a structural factor which will delay this from happening. they know it's inevitable, but the hypothesized reasons for the delay is often the thing that forms the basis for the company's value.

(Sorting through piles that I didn’t deal with for literal decades) aha. Well wasn’t I annoyingly prescient.

this is what my parties are like (h/t @jazztap.bsky.social @barrettrees.com @jfg.land)

Shout out to fellow ecologists @jazztap.bsky.social and @barrettrees.com bsky.app/profile/jfg....

your yearly PSA: want to do something positive wrt the ecosystem while saving yourself a bunch of time and effort? skip the bagging and just rake leaves into a pile wherever convenient (bonus points if you do it under a tree). www.nps.gov/articles/000...

Shadow ecology of dogs taking waymos to the park at midnight. Not a single human knows

Seeing You Can See Everything in a crowded theater is a pretty great experience.

I can’t believe we ended up needing all five boxes of pizza. I am in shambles.

we have five boxes of pizza

I looked up this writer's other columns and it seems like she's really good at finding men who belong in the plastic Magneto prison

me: I’m excited to host a big party for a bunch of my friends me on the day of hosting a big party for a bunch of my friends

the magic of BioWare games is this kind of gestalt emotional impact from every part of the game. You mostly can't look at any one conversation or any one moment and say "See, if you put THIS in a game, the game is good." It's a type of quality that emerges greater than the sum of its parts.

if you ever happen to see someone post a joke you don't understand or discuss a subject you aren't familiar with, you are well within your right to complain, and perhaps even scold them if necessary. you are their customer and you have rights

I am always thinking about ME2 because imo it's the apotheosis of what's great about Mass Effect & Bioware and it's also objectively a mess. It's got some all time dumb missions. The Illusive Man is nowhere near as interesting as it thinks. It makes no sense as the middle act of a trilogy.