2023 Update

It has been a long time.

Life is wild.

I'll limit this post to factual updates.

Talos 2 did great critically and I fear abysmally commercially. I'm so proud of Jonas, Verena, Hunski, Tome, Kuber, Goran, Damjan and everyone else and especially Moss. And I'm glad I did what I did (a subplot probably <1% of the total word count); and a bit sorry I didn't do more. Some people vibed with my stuff, and some people recognised it was underdeveloped. I'm sure some did both (I certainly did).

The team are working on small DLCs. I would like to add some new 'Internal Monolog' character to those, but I am not sure whether Jonas will find a space for me to do it. If not then I hope Devolver will not go under and we will make Talos 3.

A couple years ago I took a job I shouldn't have because it's too big and long for me, but it's a really cool RPG world that I want to stretch my legs in before I go back to smaller things. Hopefully we announce next year.

Besides that I seriously hope Inner Party - the indie studio I co-founded with Jonas Boetel (Subnautica programmer) and Warby (brilliant technical artist) will get off the ground. Either they will find a prototype that sells and I'll add writing; or I'll finish this RPG and we'll do it together. Making games with those guys is my absolute number one dream.

I continue to take my twitter to ever more performative heights. I am glad to have the professional freedom to print whatever wild experimental ideas I like on there and still have a job afterwards. Although it does start to blur the line between created-character and self-identity. I'd rather keep the two entirely separate, or totally entwined. We're all characters, after all.

I have spent a good deal of the last two years going down rabbit holes. Morality, de facto power, global dynamics, honesty vs utility, non-human intelligence and AGI, faith and the occult, god and the devil. Interesting stuff to me right now. The challenge is balancing research with production.

I am also stepping into very new phases in my personal life. But that is not to be factually stated, instead it'll be there codified in everything I do.

Life is very strange. I find big parts of it change a lot - and big parts stay the same. Increasingly I understand what's going on, but not exactly in what way.

I started this blog and this career inspired by the writers who bared their souls so that I could learn from them. Increasingly I wish I could undergo my personal changes without their being public - but I am too lazy to start my career again from scratch as an anon, and too in need of purpose not to share my experience at all. Still, like a politician caught on hotmike saying what they really think, I'm aware from the outside it might seem terribly inconsistent.

Cliche I know, but for good reason: if my words can help just one person as others' words have helped me then all is well in my world.

And remember...

Reading is just staring at marked slices of wood for hours while hallucinating vividly.