Stefan Gagne

Control Resonant: Hey uh buddy do you need the popup tutorial on what button to push to dodge again

Me: No, I just have the reflexes of a 51 year old disabled guy

Control Resonant: Y'want assist mode on? It's cool, we won't take away cheevos

Me: Yep thanks I appreciate you not judging me

Steam desperately wants to replace Discord and even Twitch, offering chat, forums, streaming, everything. But like... why? The forums are toxic unmoderated rivers of culture warrior sludge, and curators seem to only exist to scam me for game keys. Clean your house if you want me to live there.

Got the first writing done on the new game. Like actual writing, in a game script, not just design document stuff.

Does anybody else work like this? Just cooking away in the back of your head for days, maybe jotting down notes, but not actually diving to write it until the moment hits you?

Body: hey
Me: g'way im sleepin
Body: OK but what if I woke you up after 5h30m and had you to go to the bathroom four times in a row and then you're too awake to sleep again and I destroy you with exhaustion later in the day right when you want to actually do something
Me: haet you
Body: ;-)

I've bought exactly three full-price AAA games in the last three years. Two are WWE (not really proud of that) but the third is Control Resonant.

I've been following Remedy since they were Future Crew in the 90s. I don't know who keeps giving them money to make gonzo games but I reap the reward.

Is it weird that I feel like I need to re-train myself to watch TV and movies? Like, just WATCH. Not get distracted every few minutes and go poke an app, not leave it on in the background while I work, just focus and enjoy the story and cinematography and stuff. I feel like I'm very scatterbrained.

A narrative game design problem for the ages: providing player agency to accept or reject another character when you really don't have a good reason to reject them other than like an achievement or something. Do you just write the story so that you always accept them? That's railroading.

You can make them embody a gray morality trade-off, but then you get "Nutters vs. Fascists" choices which are railroading in their own way. Otherwise, you just come off as a dick or a paladin, case depending.

Me: I really need to hammer down the worldbuilding on my next game, like is it going to be Faerie Court focused, or governmental collapse focused, or corporate or

Also Me: You just had your flu and covid boosters and feel like you've been hit by a truck please stop brainstorming it hurts to think

Marketing Dork: "You'll never reach anyone unless you start a TikTok, loser"

Me: "OK, I guess here's me making a cute vulnerable face from cute angles with a ChatGPT-written inspirational caption quote and a trending song playing in the background for ten seconds"

Internet: "HAVE ALL THE MONEY"

A very topsy-turvy day with my schedule completely out of whack, including a doctors appointment! I hate days like this. At least I'm smooth sailing after this for a while.

I've been trying to work on the game design document but it's hard to get the creative juice going to amidst chaos.

I'm at that weird stage in game dev where I'm between projects, but the public perception is focused on the one I already finished. I gotta keep my fire going for it long after it's basically done (just bugs and polish) but also get myself excited for something new.

Based on past experience I'll get ONE month of streams, reactions, feedback and then it'll fall into obscurity, so I need to be ready to live the life 24/7/31, so to speak -- but also maintain eyes on the prize of what lies beyond.

New StarCraft announced in this foul year of our lord 2026 (actually coming in 2030) feels very weird. The 25 year gap allowed Warhammer to take back the crown from its knockoff copy. It's hard to think of "dark future war" with these three factions archetypes without thinking "oh, so Warhammer."

Pretty low energy today, but I did manage to do what I said I needed to do: crack into the design document and figure some stuff out. There's more to do, and I really wanna nail this down before I start contracting artwork like last time. Timing is everything.

I need to seriously sit down and crank on this design doc. I have so much in my head, I'm feeling who these characters are and what their voices are like. Where they're going to come into conflict. But I need to actually get it down. Not sure why I'm hesitating. Anxiety? Worrying it's too soon?

That's a relief. The winners of the Amnesia Fortnight game jam were just announced and fortunately most of the really good single player games made it in. Most of the pitches were for multiplayer friendslop, the opposite of what I was looking for. Never underestimate the draw of a good story.

Notably, one of the winners was Plot Armor, a hybrid strategy and visual novel game. I was really pulling for that one. It's absolutely up my alley in every way.

Doing some research by reading a book I wrote in 2008, since this game idea I have cooking is a sort of pseudo-sequel. I gotta learn the rules of magic I already laid out two decades ago. And hopefully past me did not torpedo my current efforts with some byzantine restriction.

Internet, if one was to wish to research the concept of "Toxic Yuri," what research materials would you recommend which don't require me to watch 24 episode episodes of an anime series to get the idea?

Look, I'm Ace/Aro, subtlety and long-term narratives are kind of lost on me