Brett Fritzke

Hey 👋 #GameDev! I'm Brett! I've been working in games for almost 14 years as a programmer, and am currently working on Darkest Dungeon II's builds, tools and systems. I'm mostly gonna be posting about my personal work, prototypes, and game engine stuff that I work on in the wee hours of night. 🎮🕹️

My good friend Kurtis Wiebe has taken back control of the Rat Queens board game and is making it happen for real this time! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/t...

I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: brettcodes.com/im-done-usin... The basic gist is: AI made me a worse, apathetic programmer. I think it's bad for humanity, the planet, and the craft of software engineering. And I'm done using it.

excited to find a play through of the Gobs & Gears demo on YouTube! my German is not good but i think they had a decent time! #gamedev #youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qc...

Gobs & Gears demo is out now on Steam! reposts appreciated! we're almost there! store.steampowered.com/app/4862900/... #gamedev #games #demo

Heyo all 👋 - Since it's Friday Fun-Day for my game Chirp Chirp 🐦, I wanted to play around with some look dev. I'm still exploring as I try and find the art vibe for the game (super blocky as I greybox levels still), but had a fun time messing around. Whatcha think? #indiedev #gamedev #godot

🔍👁️ - The first 15 level sections up and running in Chirp Chirp - aiming for around 60+ for shipping, along with some rest areas in-between. I really enjoy working on single screen levels, with the biggest challenge making sure that mechanics keep adding new excitement to the mix! #indiedev #godot

Heyo all! Woo this has been a fun mechanic to get up and running in Chirp Chirp - SINGING! 🐦‍⬛🎶 The UI is rough right now, but the idea is that there are several songs the player will be learning throughout the game that unlocks progression and secrets along the way! #indiedev #gamedev #godot

Heyo all! 👋 It's been such a productive month on Chirp Chirp - Mainly been focusing on a lot of under the hood stuff to prep for a big push on content creation side for August and onwards. Menu systems, steam integration, input management, save system (and more!). So fun! #indiedev #gamedev #godot

Wrapped up my first week back at Noodlecake! Excited to be working on Cool Things ™ with some really great folks.

Arthur Gas is a hell of a baseball player.

👀💦 www.kickstarter.com/projects/pit...

🐦‍⬛ Some fun Chirp Chirp updates - I've been tweaking the player movement / abilities based on some great feedback - Now the player can Air-Dash along with Air-Stomp, and each ability has 2 levels you can unlock, with the 2nd giving you "slow mo" to help better time the execution. #gamedev #godot

Unemployment views.

Some news from me: today was my last day at Red Hook Studios. I’m so grateful and for my time there. The team is so talented and we made so much cool stuff together. ✌️

Hey all! I'm almost ready to release v1.0 of an offline game storefront (Steam, itch, etc) asset management tool Anyone want to try it for free? I'm looking for a few testers on Windows and Mac. Please shoot me a dm! www.groveofgnomes.com/projects/bou... #gamedev #indie #steam #itch.io

Our games industry is people. Our studios are people. Our teams people, our games by people for people. Our games are made by people, in groups of people, in teams of people, making people things for people. The magic is people, and the people deserve so much better than all this. I am so sorry.

Game failure? Layoffs Game success? Layoffs Game delayed? Layoffs Game delivered? Layoffs Game announced? Layoffs Game unannounced? Layoffs Game good? Layoffs Game bad? Layoffs Game AI? Layoffs Game no-AI? Layoffs Game hated? Layoffs Game beloved? Layoffs Money cares more for layoffs than games.

My submission for #manifestojam2026. Thank you @haraiva.bsky.social for organizing it. Shaping what started as an extremely caustic rant into this was therapeutic, as was reading through the many great entries. melancholerik.itch.io/doa

I'm happy to announce that Prophet Margin will be participating the this year's @puzzleshowcase.bsky.social and @thinkygames.com's Thinky Direct with its first ever demo on the 28th! Check out the game on steam and wishlist it now! store.steampowered.com/app/3624110/...

Everything that's wrong with modern software can be summed up in two words: "Unnecessary Complexity" Programming languages, project structure, build systems. libraries, performance, team structure, all suffer from this.

“Look ahead - a place to reflect, remember, and reconcile.” The past year has been a busy one! We released our 3rd Kingdoms module, finished our hero reworks, expanded modding support, and more! Read our yearly recap and find out what’s next on the blog: www.darkestdungeon.com/news/darkest...

Darkest Dungeon II’s 1.0 release was three years ago today. As always, thank you to our incredible community. We are so grateful for your support! To mark today’s anniversary, share your favourite Darkest Dungeon II quote - it can either be a line from The Academic, or even a hero bark!

City of None is an upcoming adventure game published by Extremely OK Games! Check it out on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3189450/...

Distracted yesterday by another sudden compulsion to doodle tiles. Mountain tops re-purposed from an old set I didn't use. Been deep in my programming spirit-time-chamber for a couple months, and returning to it now.　Ｂｙｅ 👋

hi

"Avarice slips unseen into the catacombs of the mind." The Grave Robber plush is available for pre-order on Makeship now: www.makeship.com/products/gra... This limited time campaign is only live for 28 days.

Still working on TERRIERTORIAL, a puzzle game about a dog marking his territory. 🐶 Gamers LOVE biomes. GET HYPED to explore THE SUBURBS, the most thrilling biome of them all 💀🦗😴 #gamedev #MadeWithGodot #GodotEngine #screenshotsaturday

Heyo all! 👋 Another monthly update from my indie-dev adventures! Got a lot of great feedback and playtest videos for Project Duelz (thanks all!) - and during that time, I started up and older idea and re-did it in Godot (goodbye Unreal!) - Project Husk! More to come! 🥳 #godot #gamedev #indiedev

The Grave Robber is the latest Darkest Dungeon plushie coming to Makeship. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified as soon as pre-orders open on April 22nd: eepurl.com/dBZuQf #darkestdungeon

Slowly working on my puzzle game, TERRIERTORIAL, about a dog marking his territory...and playing golf? Coming later this year! #gamedev #MadeWithGodot #GodotEngine #screenshotsaturday

Small note. Mass layoffs like these are also a tactic to devalue the work because workers become more desperate while companies create false scarcity. Do not, ever, forget your worth. Don’t let them win. You make this industry exist. They don’t.

I was asked to give my thoughts on generative AI usage in games - here they are!

Environmental storytelling

I’ll bite. my9games.com/s/567171d148...

Snoozing 😴 #indiegame #videogames #gamedev #pixelart

A bunch of the life siphon spirits I made for Wrath: Aeon of Ruin. I made 15 of these, but these 4 are among my faves. #pixelart #gamedev

Beauty 🥅🏒

Someone asked me to animate it so I did

Today is a blast the Cobalt Core soundtrack all day kind of day.

👋Hey all! It's the first month since going solo dev with Robots Go Boom! and I wanted to share what I've been working on so far! ⚔️ This is "Project Duelz" - A compact rock-paper-scissors style dice-tactics game where you duel increasingly challenging opponents to see who reigns supreme! #gamedev

Quick question for all you lovely small devs out there - When you're ready to ramp up playtesting a project past dev friends, what is your approach? And more so for new teams / projects - would this be a good time to start a Discord server, or hold off until later? Much appreciated! 🤗 #gamedev

Jennie’s birthday cake this year is a lemon layer cake with lemon curd in the middle. Pretty good!

People keep saying the codenames in Metal Gear Solid sound like Megaman X bosses, so I decided to give them actual designs. Matches the scale of my other X mockups. Something I've been sitting on for several years that I finally decided to wrap up tonight. #megaman #pixelart #ドット絵

The 10th Anniversary Darkest Dungeon Community Showcase video is live! Thank you to everyone who submitted. The Darkest Dungeon community is an incredible place, and it is an honour to show off some of the amazing art our community members have created over the years. #darkestdungeon

Darkest Dungeon is celebrating 10 years since its wide release today! In honour of this milestone anniversary, tell us about your most memorable Darkest Dungeon battle! Who was on your team, what were you fighting, and did it end in victory, or defeat?| #darkestdungeon

Guess who is a big dumb idiot and had to get surgery at 12 years old.

Can't wait to explain this one to grandma. Thanks Microsoft, you ding dongs!