Mike Bithell

Proud to announce the next game Vampirium: 1997 Dracula is king of the United British Empire. Kill his enemies and find your own path through a minimalist immersive sim sandbox. Wishlists and retweets massively appreciated (and, you know, massively helpful) store.steampowered.com/app/4035190/...

Watching this thing suggests all over again that AI-generated art's central failing continues to be that the kinds of people who might use AI tools to make something interesting are the kinds of people who hate the supposed shortcut of using AI tools because they enjoy the work of making art.

Mass Effect was my ultimate white whale, my all-time dream project. For the last couple years I'd been in discussion w/ BioWare & EA to take on the project & as part of that I wrote close to 20 minutes of music to explore where the franchise can go next, may as well share it!

Normal map broken on a tree at Kew Gardens

Well this is shitty. As with all of these, complaining that I don’t get to play a game feels childish and disrespectful to the many people who are getting fucked over here. But I also did really wanna play this game. I’d assume my current project indicates my love of this subject and genre.

I think Americans often misunderstand, or simply do not know, how good European laws can get. Especially labor laws.

Every day, a new person on the internet discovers that I am a terrifying giant man

Fuck, and indeed, yeah.

Vampirium: 1997 isn’t in next fest, but while you’re in a wishlisting mood, I’d really appreciate you adding us too. Makes a big difference and helps us position ourselves better down the road :) Also I added pyromancy today. So that’s fun. store.steampowered.com/app/4035190/...

Oooof

I don’t like this thing where we’re waiting for an economic crash so people can buy their kids game consoles again.

Criminally under rated film

We've been squishing bugs and making quality of life improvements to Vampirium: 1997 🧛 Here's a handful of the updates we've been working on!

Next Fest was already a bit of a pointless exercise for 90% of devs. Now the AI slop has made it entirely pointless for 99% of devs I don’t really know what Valve can do about this, but I think it’s fair to say that we pay them well enough, that it would be nice if they’d bloody do *something*

In this current moment, I am very grateful that some of my heroes are keeping hold of their damn minds youtu.be/hQuNurh-f-s?...

I would read the hell out of an article collating historic quotes about the inevitability of NFTs and the metaverse from the current crop of LLM-poisoned boosters. Important context.

I reckon NFTs are gonna kick in any day now. The future of games.

Added strangulation to Vampirium today. Any appropriate item can be used, of course if you want to do it to a vampire you’ll need to source something silver. Game development is fun and also creates an interesting search history.

My only solution to the current moment is to get on with it and try to make a good videogame. Admittedly, that is my solution to almost every situation, so shouldn’t be taken as advice.

my talk is about -3 hours ago in this stream! I'm very excited to catch up on some stuff I missed today www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8DS...

That thing has ‘will be used exclusively in a universal studios show that will briefly replace waterworld but be cancelled a year in for bad attendance’ written all over it. Yes I’d go.

Yo. @kenney.nl has done more to support up and coming devs, empower non artists and people starting out with accessible tech than any other single person I’ve encountered. Just wanted to throw that out there for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

You love to see it

It was bound to happen eventually, I popped onto the Play Watch Listen podcast to talk about stop motion animation + what a puppet hospital even is. Recorded after the Wildwood wrap party, I’d just about got my voice back. Watch me sip a lot of water & play with cute dogs. Mainly in it for the dogs.

Cool thing looks cool

While this is indeed a bit scary, it is at least encouraging that growth in releases that actually pull an audience is much slower. Given how much Steam prioritises visibility based on interest, the impact of the slop seems.. limited for now

the funniest thing about galactic racer is how critical it's narrative elements are to how fucking hard it hits. It might not seem seem like fzero needed narrative elements, but galactic racer objectively proves how important they are to your game hitting like an atom bomb.

Talking on the main stage in a half hour, if you’d like to come listen to my nonsense #grnewhorizons

Ok, a games conference at a football stadium is a hell of a flex #grnewhorizons

If you’re a mutual and been trying to dm me on here and failed… that is theoretically fixed now. I’d never age verified. I am now officially old.

So is the epic stuff a pr pivot? Like they’re finding a point of difference with valve’s ’we think ai should be labelled’ stance by leaning heavily into genAI posturing? Or is this true believer Tim stuff?

‘I can fall off a building faster than Usain Bolt can run’

Oh, they’re a genius and a lovely person who will bring light into your life

The easiest way to figure out if someone is knowledgeable on a topic is to ask them to explain it to you. If the answer is verbose, filled with colourful words of foreign speciality and annecdotes, they’re not. If they explain it like an exasperated but kind primary school teacher, they’re a genius.