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martin pichlmair

@martinpi.bsky.social

2K followers 560 following 1.6K posts

🀄️ Wishlist SPARROW 🐦‍⬛ WARFARE https://store.steampowered.com/app/3473440/Sparrow_Warfare/. he/him.

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 24d

There've been a couple of streams of Sparrow Warfare by now but Mike explains the rules and analyses the design decisions like no one else. Watch it to get good and mostly actually true theories about why I things are how they are. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq_U...

Let's Play: Sparrow Warfare (Beta)

YouTube video by Ill Omens

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by martin pichlmair

Hannah Nicklin @hannahnicklin.bsky.social · 1d

📚 My current contract is coming to an end in Dec so I am now looking for new work!

⭐ I am an award-winning & expert/lead game writer & narrative designer.

🌎 I am interested in long & short term contracts & consultancy, ideally remote.

Let's chat!

hannahnicklin.com
linkedin.com/in/hannah-nicklin

A selection of images from games etc. Hannah Nicklin has worked on, a screencap or key art image from: Saltsea Chronicles, Black Mirror: Thronglets, Mutazione; and the cover of Writing for Games: Theory & Practice. Also featured two reviews.

One from Eurogamer: 5/5 Saltsea Chronicles
"Onwards you go in pursuit of your missing crew, then, your story diverging further from mine with every island choice, with every flick of the head or settling of the lips. Memories/Artefacts? Skeptical/Curious? And astonishingly, through all these moving parts, all this phase space, my story still made rich sense, and actually built to a truly devastating climax.

Scream/Weep? Fittingly, for me, Saltsea Chronicles turned out to be a story about choices as well as a story made of choices. It made me think about the big decisions I make in life, but also the decisions that shape a life that I don't even notice having made. Ripples turning to waves and all that. You must play this. It's luminous."

The second of Mutazione from Gamespew, 9/10
"Mutazione is a game that builds up relationships within a community you instantly feel a part of. The main story is secondary to the real drama and the heart of the town, but it’s necessary. It’s extremely well-written, and the hand-drawn environments are beautifully designed. Die Gute Fabrik has crafted a sweet, powerful fairy tale that delves into the human psyche and allows you to reside there for five hours or so."

A virtual biz card on a dark purple background, featuring an image of a white woman in glasses, with blonde hair, speaking at a podium. Next to it is the title Hannah Nicklin, and the details Creative Director, Narrative Lead/Designer, Senior Writer, Consultant.

11+ years experience in interactive narrative

• 3 games shipped as Lead (PC, Console, mobile)
• Many more as consultant
• PhD in Interactive Practices
• Masters & BA in Play/Screenwriting & Dramatic Arts
• GDC Indie Summit Advisor, BAFTA Juror, TGA Future Class
• Author of Writing for Games: Theory & Practice

Black Mirror: Thronglets; Saltsea Chronicles; Mutazione; Saturnalia; Night School (A Netflix Studio); Cardboard Computer; Die Gute Fabrik; Draknek; Twisted Tree Games.

Based in: Sheffield, United Kingdom
Work in: Remote, CET-PST
LinkedIn.com/in/hannah-nicklin
hannahnicklin.com

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 1d

:x!

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 2d

I’m playing host to a rowdy bunch of viruses in the moment and have to say Clair Obscure is amazing if your body is distracted with damage control and presumably also if you don’t have a cold.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 6d

Banger of a movie!

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Nothing is forbidden!

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Bleak outlook for the only country this piece is concerned with. I wonder how literacy is faring worldwide. Wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is “better than ever”.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 7d

I think Paul, of blessed posting memory, is entirely right here, and I say this *even though* the young people I know remain highly literate and engaged, because I think his sample is way more representative than mine.

musgrave.substack.com/p/a-post-lit...

A Post-Literate Society is a Too-Literal Society

Directness is a virtue and subtlety is lost

musgrave.substack.com

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Our first playtest ended after hundreds of people played the game. While we're preparing for the second playtest, and you're eagerly waiting, it's totally ok if you wishlist Sparrow Warfare. In fact it would be very nice of you if you do!

store.steampowered.com/app/3473440/...

Sparrow Warfare on Steam

Lead a feathered rebellion in the bird-filled deckbuilder SPARROW WARFARE! Combine your tiles to free birds. Unlock wildtiles to craft riotous combos. Take down the fiendish Storyteller for the libera...

store.steampowered.com

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Reposted by martin pichlmair

Char @alphachar.bsky.social · 7d

Hey there @mantisgames.bsky.social & thanks for hosting this #TurnBasedThursday!

@martinpi.bsky.social & I are making a weird deckbuilder with lots of birds called SPARROW WARFARE, & we'll have a new playtest next week - come sign up on our Steam page!
store.steampowered.com/app/3473440/...

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Nothing makes me feel more righteous than having done the accounting for a quarter. Should take a nap as a reward.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Go to the genuine Czech pub (PIVO), it's great! Don't pay attention to prizes there either, though.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

The trauma of that bloody dictatorship was evident for decades afterwards. A fertile ground for dystopian futures. I'm writing about it lightheartedly here but I urge you to read some Solzhenitsyn.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Especially writers under Stalin had to be inventive to be able to publish. Those who didn't end up in gulags wrote some of the best books in history (and so did those who did end up there, if they made it back).

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

So, growing up, the censorship-evading Eastern SciFi writers were much more my bread and butter than English language literature. My mind had already been mangled by the Strugatski brothers (all books cheaply available, even some that I'm not sure ever made it to English) when I read P.K. Dick.

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Not many people know this but the existence of the German Democratic Republic meant that much more Eastern European and Russian literature was translated to German than you'd think.

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

While there are many more good books out there than those by Nobel laureates, I have never regretted reading any of the winners. Even Handke, a questionable character, wrote the fantastic "Wunschloses Unglück". But a prize for my beloved weirdos from the East makes me extra happy.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Satantango is his only book I read and it was a good one. Reminded me of Sorokin and Tatjana Tolstaja. Dark East!

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 7d

The Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, known for his postmodern, dystopian novels, is the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for literature: on.ft.com/4oeJJFX

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Satantango is his only book I read and it was a good one. Reminded me of Sorokin and Tatjana Tolstaja. Dark East!

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 7d

The Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, known for his postmodern, dystopian novels, is the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for literature: on.ft.com/4oeJJFX

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 7d

Finally adding some missing animations. One day I'll tell about the design process of this game and it's going to explain why things happened in the order they did.

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 8d

If I put as much effort into a painting as goes into a simple prompt it ain’t art either. If I drag a reflection of popular culture out of a neural network it is clearly conceptual art. I want more nuance in this discourse.

zaratustra @zaratustra.bsky.social · 8d

meta-analysis on whether AI generated content is art

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQwOhjBufBKovQHoNqOj5l91AOGrTDsuiGLLdNxDOQ_fQ6hvSH7kAWSpwdcUvUSToALoFw6E6gfRfUZ/pub

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 8d

Still got it on some days

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 8d

This smells of panic. I haven't dug into the proposed legislation yet but I assume it's only an issue for free-to-play games aimed at kids, so there's not much to fear for other game developers or the industry as a whole.

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 9d

And when I say Discord I mean Steam!

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 9d

Tomorrow we're going to reveal what's next for Sparrow Warfare and chat about how the first playtest went. Join us live on Discord: store.steampowered.com/news/app/347...

Sparrow Warfare - Playtest #1 Roundup! - Steam News

Developers Char and Martin chat about results from Playtest #1: leaderboards, bugfixes, streams, & what's next - oh my!

store.steampowered.com

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martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 9d

It’s really hard to compete with something that scales as well as renewables. The name kind of gives away.

Electrek @electrek.co · 9d

In a first, renewables generate more power than coal globally

Solar and wind power aren’t just keeping up with global electricity demand anymore – they’re pulling ahead. According to a new analysis from energy think tank Ember, solar and wind combined outpaced global electricity demand growth in the first half of 2025. That shift led to a drop in both coal and gas generation compared to the same period last year. For the first time ever, renewables generated more power than coal globally. more…

electrek.co

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 9d

I only know "rødrød med fløde" but it stands to reason that that's just a detail of a bigger, bolder rødøjede ørreder story ...

martin pichlmair @martinpi.bsky.social · 10d

Wait they have money in the banana stand?