joannes
@playthroughline.com
1.5K followers 450 following 680 posts
• "Experimental DM" of https://neurocracy.site • I've peaked and I'm kidding myself • https://playthroughline.com • he/they
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🌐 NEUROCRACY 🌐

An episodic sci-fi hypertext game

✅ Fall into a wiki hole from the future
✅ Solve a murder across article edits
✅ Your investigation affects the outcome [citation needed]

⭐ "Ambitious" - The Guardian
⭐ "Brilliant" - Eurogamer

▶️ Dive in: omnipedia.app
▶️ More info: neurocracy.site
Reposted by joannes
📚 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
I sure do love seeing all the same horrific headlines about the atrocities in Gaza coming in, except now they have 'despite ceasefire' at the end there
I think what's bothering me about all these statements I'm seeing from politicians that are variations of "Israeli hostages and Palestinians are returning to their homes, yay" is that Israelis are returning to their homes and Palestinians are returning to uninhabitable post apocalyptic rubble.
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This and the Palestinian hostages are always referred to as anything but, despite returning with signs of psychological and physical torture, missing limbs and eyes… they’re just “Palestinians” or “prisoners.”
I think what's bothering me about all these statements I'm seeing from politicians that are variations of "Israeli hostages and Palestinians are returning to their homes, yay" is that Israelis are returning to their homes and Palestinians are returning to uninhabitable post apocalyptic rubble.
Aw yiss, your neuroscience-focused stories always have me like
A drawing of a man leaning forward
In Neurocracy's future, brain implants are first adopted by people thinking they can protect against a terrifying disease, so the neural data mined from those implants is overfitted to that latent fear, perpetuating the spread of both in an ongoing feedback loop
Saw this on mastodon and it is fantastic. AI in medicine
The machines harvesting mental bandwidth instead of bioelectricity apparently was the original pitch, but the suits axed that idea because it was considered too confusing 🙄
Hell of a time to have picked October 2025 for this one 😬
A fictional Wikipedia citation that reads:

Kahukura, A. (October 2025). “Mass brain damage from COVID-19 pandemic prompts investment in neural technology.” Slate.

From: https://omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/10/Neural_colloid
The sci-fi setting of Neurocracy posits exactly this scenario: brain implants are initially trained on neural data from a subset of society, so getting them to work requires us to think in ways characteristic of that subset, installing biases directly in our minds and fostering a mental monoculture
Hi hello did you know that Elon Musk's third Neuralink patient (previously nonverbal) is "getting help from Grok" to communicate

and I hope -- I REALLY HOPE -- he's not stuck in his own brain listening as a robot talks for him without his input because this, to me, would be worse than death
Reposted by joannes
When we write or draw porn or erotica, we get banned from having a bank account and our livelihoods get seized even if we give it away for free.

When billionaires steal what we've written or drawn to churn out a slop-approximate of porn, they're allowed to charge for it.
Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year
We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.
Can't believe @marissalingen.bsky.social and myself both landed on Spencer as the name of a brain implant company CEO who's astroturfing himself through neural bias :>

omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/10/Spencer_Hagen
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things getting a little tight on food & essentials, so throwing up the link again.

managed to get somewhere stable & most of my property replaced (ty to all help <3); currently just holding out on passport processing, and I'm finally out of this place...

www.paypal.com/paypalme/jes...
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A while ago, I found an interesting number pattern and designed a puzzle about it. Would you take a small break and have a go at it? 🍵🫖 Please tell me if you think you got the solution, or if you need a hint.
Text on the right:
The Tower of Ba5el.
Each stage of the tower is a different integer, written in an unknown language.
What is the tower's next stage?
Can the tower grow infinitely tall?
a puzzle designed by Younès Rabii, original painting by Bruegel.

Calculations on the left:
1. A
2. A^B
3. A^(B+C)
4. A^(C-B)
5. A^(B+D)*C
6. A^(C+D+E)/2
7. A^(D-C+E)/2
8. ?
Return to the combat zone!
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Friends if you work at a creative tech/games/etc company in and around London, and you'd be willing to hire some internship/placement students for 2-3 months over summer, please let me know! I have incredibly smart and engaged undergrads looking for summer opportunities.
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Hello again #portfolioday!

I'm Sophie, an artist working in games & illustration. I love creating vibrant & beautifully rendered artworks 🌈✨

I'm open to illustration, concept, and cover work

sesmithfreelance.wixsite.com/illustration
www.artstation.com/sophiellensm...
[email protected]
Head study of a black woman, painted in krita Concept design for mini explorable planets, each exploiting a different game mechanic or mission objective An illustration for Neurocracy 3.0, of the Young Volcanoes, rocking out A painted fantasy portrait of a lightforged draenei; an adaptation of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne for Classics but Make it Gay volume 1; a fantasy portrait of a sinister, powerful woman
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notice to anyone who, for whatever fucking reason, feels compelled to come into my mentions to tell me they find minecraft clones boring:
i'm on maximum render distance

and i still can't find who asked
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What is Nighthawks? It's a vampire game where the vampires have been exposed to the world... but it's also different in tone from most. Vampire games tend to be cold and cynical, but this time, being a light in the darkness can be the real adventure.

store.steampowered.com/app/1221950/...
Nighthawks on Steam
The secret is out. Vampires have been exposed to the world… and you’re one of them. Seize the night as a modern monster, stepping out of the shadows to build a thriving nightclub empire through fear, ...
store.steampowered.com
The sci-fi setting of Neurocracy posits exactly this scenario: brain implants are initially trained on neural data from a subset of society, so getting them to work requires us to think in ways characteristic of that subset, installing biases directly in our minds and fostering a mental monoculture
Hi hello did you know that Elon Musk's third Neuralink patient (previously nonverbal) is "getting help from Grok" to communicate

and I hope -- I REALLY HOPE -- he's not stuck in his own brain listening as a robot talks for him without his input because this, to me, would be worse than death
This patient’s Neuralink brain implant gets a boost from generative AI
A patient who types with his brain thanks to a Neuralink implant is using AI chatbots to speed things up.
www.technologyreview.com
Reposted by joannes
> It is 2025 BC. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

> It is 2025 AD. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis
Soldiers at the Bass Pro Shops pyramid in Memphis, TN.
Reposted by joannes
GenAI truly was the worst technology to come along at this moment.

An energy and water guzzler when we most urgently need to take climate action.

A disinformation machine as our journalism fails.

A bias machine as fascism takes root.

A job killer in a cost of living crisis.
The "cognitive decline and brain damage from repeat COVID infections" and "easy to use robot that makes slop and melts your critical thinking skills" is a hell of a combo in a post-fact media ecosystem
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oh yeah, I wrote that character for Neurocracy
It’s all happening on x dot com where I do my banking
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This is not a defense of perpetually feckless Dems, but I bet Dems feel they ran on "Trump is fascist and undermining democracy" and they lost the election and so are giving up that message.
is it not weird that every day there’s a new video of anonymous masked men having the time of their lives beating/shooting/disappearing people and the dem response from the top down is “republicans want to double your health insurance premiums”