Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
@halfrobot.com
Game Designer (Consentacle +37 others)
Chair / Director, NYU Game Center ( https://gamecenter.nyu.edu/ )
Founding Collective, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Formerly: Gamelab, LEGO, strap-on.org etc.
https://metasynthie.itch.io/
Opinions are only my own!
Chair / Director, NYU Game Center ( https://gamecenter.nyu.edu/ )
Founding Collective, Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Formerly: Gamelab, LEGO, strap-on.org etc.
https://metasynthie.itch.io/
Opinions are only my own!
Am I the only one who thought the prejudice metaphors in Zootopia only manage to function because of how poorly they fit the real world?
People seem to assume that the effectiveness of fictional/fantastic analogy hinges on similarity or veracity rather than some degree of distance or dissonance?
People seem to assume that the effectiveness of fictional/fantastic analogy hinges on similarity or veracity rather than some degree of distance or dissonance?
November 29, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Am I the only one who thought the prejudice metaphors in Zootopia only manage to function because of how poorly they fit the real world?
People seem to assume that the effectiveness of fictional/fantastic analogy hinges on similarity or veracity rather than some degree of distance or dissonance?
People seem to assume that the effectiveness of fictional/fantastic analogy hinges on similarity or veracity rather than some degree of distance or dissonance?
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
Games are constantly under attack for doing things other mediums have tackled for decades as if it's some new taboo.
Just watched @charalanahzard.bsky.social video that sums things up more eloquently youtu.be/G-7r9pL0Hqo?...
#Indiedev should be talking more about the freedom of the artform.
Just watched @charalanahzard.bsky.social video that sums things up more eloquently youtu.be/G-7r9pL0Hqo?...
#Indiedev should be talking more about the freedom of the artform.
why is anyone ok with this
YouTube video by Charalanahzard
youtu.be
November 29, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Games are constantly under attack for doing things other mediums have tackled for decades as if it's some new taboo.
Just watched @charalanahzard.bsky.social video that sums things up more eloquently youtu.be/G-7r9pL0Hqo?...
#Indiedev should be talking more about the freedom of the artform.
Just watched @charalanahzard.bsky.social video that sums things up more eloquently youtu.be/G-7r9pL0Hqo?...
#Indiedev should be talking more about the freedom of the artform.
This is what I keep telling people whenever they ask me how soon it will before AIs can make video games. I tell them that first human beings will have to know how to make video games, otherwise it's impossible to train AIs, and it's not clear that will ever happen
I think people really don't appreciate how remarkable it is that the games industry releases hundreds of video games every year when you consider that not one person on earth knows how to make a video game
November 29, 2025 at 2:52 AM
This is what I keep telling people whenever they ask me how soon it will before AIs can make video games. I tell them that first human beings will have to know how to make video games, otherwise it's impossible to train AIs, and it's not clear that will ever happen
Real "you're going to eat this crap and you're going to like it, children" energy from Sweeney. Especially considering that he likely justifies this opinion in part by including code autocomplete, which I suspect is used without disclosure in thousands of games on Steam (and nobody bothers about it)
Opposing Steam’s AI Disclosures, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney Says Game Stores Should Drop "the AI tag" Because "it makes no sense" When "AI will be involved in nearly all future production"
www.gamesradar.com/games/opposi...
#ai #gamedev #steam #epicgames #videogames #gaming
www.gamesradar.com/games/opposi...
#ai #gamedev #steam #epicgames #videogames #gaming
Opposing Steam's AI disclosures, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says game stores should drop "the AI tag" because "it makes no sense" when "AI will be involved in nearly all future production"
Steam has actually made AI disclosures even more prominent
www.gamesradar.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Real "you're going to eat this crap and you're going to like it, children" energy from Sweeney. Especially considering that he likely justifies this opinion in part by including code autocomplete, which I suspect is used without disclosure in thousands of games on Steam (and nobody bothers about it)
High school seniors: a group known to listen closely when neo-trad college majors mandated by Republican state legislatures are further support by the opinion of…[ checks notes ] an 80-something Reagan nerds known for dismissing the existence of climate change and campus rape
November 26, 2025 at 8:20 PM
High school seniors: a group known to listen closely when neo-trad college majors mandated by Republican state legislatures are further support by the opinion of…[ checks notes ] an 80-something Reagan nerds known for dismissing the existence of climate change and campus rape
It's true. The most left-coded card game is...
...
...
Mao
...
...
Mao
November 26, 2025 at 12:42 AM
It's true. The most left-coded card game is...
...
...
Mao
...
...
Mao
Santa Ragione, a venerable, innovative and award-winning studio, may close due to @valvesoftware.com's unaccountable, counter-factual ban. From an early build of HORSES I can easily say it's another award-contender.
Valve can still rectify this poor judgement.
www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-it...
Valve can still rectify this poor judgement.
www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-it...
November 25, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Santa Ragione, a venerable, innovative and award-winning studio, may close due to @valvesoftware.com's unaccountable, counter-factual ban. From an early build of HORSES I can easily say it's another award-contender.
Valve can still rectify this poor judgement.
www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-it...
Valve can still rectify this poor judgement.
www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-it...
Worth paying attention to: HORSES is a disturbing and compelling work of art.
Steam, the nearest platform to monopoly for PC games, has pre-emptively banned HORSES with a vague and spurious accusation that it features underage characters, despite the game having no such characters or context.
Steam, the nearest platform to monopoly for PC games, has pre-emptively banned HORSES with a vague and spurious accusation that it features underage characters, despite the game having no such characters or context.
Our upcoming game HORSES was preemptively banned from Steam, with no path to appeal. The game will still launch next week on December 2nd and will be available on EGS, GOG, Humble, and Itch for $4.99. Here is a detailed FAQ covering what happened: horses.wtf/BannedFromSt...
November 25, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Worth paying attention to: HORSES is a disturbing and compelling work of art.
Steam, the nearest platform to monopoly for PC games, has pre-emptively banned HORSES with a vague and spurious accusation that it features underage characters, despite the game having no such characters or context.
Steam, the nearest platform to monopoly for PC games, has pre-emptively banned HORSES with a vague and spurious accusation that it features underage characters, despite the game having no such characters or context.
me when I have to do a mandatory online training and it says "there are many gender identities. however, the most common are cisgender, transgender, and non-binary"
November 25, 2025 at 6:20 PM
me when I have to do a mandatory online training and it says "there are many gender identities. however, the most common are cisgender, transgender, and non-binary"
I'm gonna get so tired of people fantasizing that Mamdani did not openly declare a YIMBY approach that would draw in some pretty scuzzy developer types or imagining that he wouldn't appoint a bunch of established stakeholders to committees in order to consolidate power
November 25, 2025 at 3:08 AM
I'm gonna get so tired of people fantasizing that Mamdani did not openly declare a YIMBY approach that would draw in some pretty scuzzy developer types or imagining that he wouldn't appoint a bunch of established stakeholders to committees in order to consolidate power
just gonna say "the pronoun that matters is we" whenever I have to impersonate an endlessly position-hunting Democrat
November 24, 2025 at 11:48 PM
just gonna say "the pronoun that matters is we" whenever I have to impersonate an endlessly position-hunting Democrat
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
Finally, a biking game that embraces vibes
aftermath.site/no-quarter-bik...
aftermath.site/no-quarter-bik...
November 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Finally, a biking game that embraces vibes
aftermath.site/no-quarter-bik...
aftermath.site/no-quarter-bik...
Hmm, gotta try to make my life more efficient this run... is there a cheevo for encountering this rare procedural event ("accidentally unremoved security tag") and then surviving a certain number of days without ink exploding all over me?
November 24, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Hmm, gotta try to make my life more efficient this run... is there a cheevo for encountering this rare procedural event ("accidentally unremoved security tag") and then surviving a certain number of days without ink exploding all over me?
I'm not surprised TOO often anymore about all the roleplay-text induced weirdnesses in LLM outputs, but the fact that poetry can be used to defeat prohibitions and produce nuclear weapon-making instructions is pretty odd/hilarious. Yet more kindling for the "magical incantations" camp
November 23, 2025 at 10:28 PM
I'm not surprised TOO often anymore about all the roleplay-text induced weirdnesses in LLM outputs, but the fact that poetry can be used to defeat prohibitions and produce nuclear weapon-making instructions is pretty odd/hilarious. Yet more kindling for the "magical incantations" camp
This is a bad take not because "licenses for digital goods" suck in general (they do) but because nobody speculating on in-game items can or should have any expectation of $ return. Those items exist only because the rules regulating them are decreed by arbitrary aesthetic criteria (e.g. "fun")
When you buy a digital item in a game, you're not actually buying it. You're licensing it, and the company can change the terms whenever it wants. A law professor and gamer explains how gamers lost $2 billion on Counter-Strike 2 digital products. buff.ly/BoykS4H
$2B Counter-Strike 2 crash exposes a legal black hole: Your digital investments aren’t really yours
An overnight update to Counter-Strike 2 erased billions of dollars in valuable digital assets that players had accumulated. The law gives them almost no recourse.
buff.ly
November 23, 2025 at 3:08 PM
This is a bad take not because "licenses for digital goods" suck in general (they do) but because nobody speculating on in-game items can or should have any expectation of $ return. Those items exist only because the rules regulating them are decreed by arbitrary aesthetic criteria (e.g. "fun")
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
My fave game at No Quarter: Ride a Citibike thru 3D low-poly NYC to a destination while audience checks Google map to tell you which way to go. The ride is more parkour than Tour de France, climbing walls and obstacles, and defying physics.
#noquarter #nymakesgames @nyugamecenter.bsky.social
#noquarter #nymakesgames @nyugamecenter.bsky.social
November 23, 2025 at 4:52 AM
My fave game at No Quarter: Ride a Citibike thru 3D low-poly NYC to a destination while audience checks Google map to tell you which way to go. The ride is more parkour than Tour de France, climbing walls and obstacles, and defying physics.
#noquarter #nymakesgames @nyugamecenter.bsky.social
#noquarter #nymakesgames @nyugamecenter.bsky.social
Please don't fall for ZOG conspiracy theories. Of course the US and Israel are propping each other up in various ways but the US does not need any shadowy conspiracy to be sinister power-mongers. We are sinister power-mongers in the open.
okay this image is weird. when i pasted it in gimp the artifacts became a lot less noticeable. same thing when i move my browser window to a different monitor. but yeah i bumped the exposure on the image to make the editing much more clear
November 22, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Please don't fall for ZOG conspiracy theories. Of course the US and Israel are propping each other up in various ways but the US does not need any shadowy conspiracy to be sinister power-mongers. We are sinister power-mongers in the open.
JFC now can we get rid of spineless simpering Democrats who're always trying to calculate the best way to cozy up to every constituency they think they might need something from, especially campaign $? Falling over themselves to symbolically "condemn socialism" as the DSA mayor gets senile backpats.
November 21, 2025 at 9:47 PM
JFC now can we get rid of spineless simpering Democrats who're always trying to calculate the best way to cozy up to every constituency they think they might need something from, especially campaign $? Falling over themselves to symbolically "condemn socialism" as the DSA mayor gets senile backpats.
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
Of course. This may in fact happen by midnight. The thing is that Mamdani will be able to say 'well that's not what he said when I met with him' and keep it moving.
Thing is, when Mamdani does something early next year that challenges some Trump admin nonsense, you *know* that Trump is going be extra angry and suggest it's a backstabbing, noting how "nice" he was to him in the Oval Office as if that means Mamdani should now agree to all of Trump's demands.
November 21, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Of course. This may in fact happen by midnight. The thing is that Mamdani will be able to say 'well that's not what he said when I met with him' and keep it moving.
The most telling moment of the Trump-Mamdani meeting was when Trump revealed his surprise that all the bad things he'd read about Mamdani and Mamdani's policies in the news media didn't correspond with what Mamdani actually wanted to talk about.
November 21, 2025 at 9:22 PM
The most telling moment of the Trump-Mamdani meeting was when Trump revealed his surprise that all the bad things he'd read about Mamdani and Mamdani's policies in the news media didn't correspond with what Mamdani actually wanted to talk about.
The Trump-Mamdani meeting is more or less the "normalizing version" that I figured might happen but it's definitely giving me traumatic flashbacks to every time I had to go talk to a boss or CEO or a university president that I'd been criticizing but who still ultimately controlled my budget
November 21, 2025 at 9:05 PM
The Trump-Mamdani meeting is more or less the "normalizing version" that I figured might happen but it's definitely giving me traumatic flashbacks to every time I had to go talk to a boss or CEO or a university president that I'd been criticizing but who still ultimately controlled my budget
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
A phrase you find in histories of the first decades of queer organizing was "boots and suits"; boots for the radicals outside, suits for the professionals inside. The first trans person elected to Congress was never going to be a firebrand, as much as that's what many trans people want.
For my newsletter today, I wrote about why I've changed my mind about Sarah McBride. (I still find plenty to disagree with) www.burnsnotice.com/revaluating-...
November 20, 2025 at 6:28 PM
A phrase you find in histories of the first decades of queer organizing was "boots and suits"; boots for the radicals outside, suits for the professionals inside. The first trans person elected to Congress was never going to be a firebrand, as much as that's what many trans people want.
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
This Saturday, come to No Quarter to play brand new game, THIS MUST BE THE FACE by me & @okremiok.bsky.social
Compete in a head to head to head to head battle of expressivity. Will they understand you're in love or will they think you just ate a weird egg?
gamecenter.nyu.edu/events/no-qu...
Compete in a head to head to head to head battle of expressivity. Will they understand you're in love or will they think you just ate a weird egg?
gamecenter.nyu.edu/events/no-qu...
November 20, 2025 at 3:55 AM
This Saturday, come to No Quarter to play brand new game, THIS MUST BE THE FACE by me & @okremiok.bsky.social
Compete in a head to head to head to head battle of expressivity. Will they understand you're in love or will they think you just ate a weird egg?
gamecenter.nyu.edu/events/no-qu...
Compete in a head to head to head to head battle of expressivity. Will they understand you're in love or will they think you just ate a weird egg?
gamecenter.nyu.edu/events/no-qu...
Reminder for anyone anywhere near downtown Brooklyn: Saturday night is the 14th edition of NO QUARTER, featuring four brand new games designed for public play!
Finally, as if a week of events wasn't enough:
SATURDAY NOV 22 at 7PM NYC's pile of weirdo/artsy/indie game-makers hosts the 14th annual NO QUARTER exhibition of games, with four never-before-seen works of play at a big party.
RSVP for a free ticket WHILE THEY LAST: noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
SATURDAY NOV 22 at 7PM NYC's pile of weirdo/artsy/indie game-makers hosts the 14th annual NO QUARTER exhibition of games, with four never-before-seen works of play at a big party.
RSVP for a free ticket WHILE THEY LAST: noquarter2025.eventbrite.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Reminder for anyone anywhere near downtown Brooklyn: Saturday night is the 14th edition of NO QUARTER, featuring four brand new games designed for public play!
Reposted by Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美
Realis is coming sooner than you think! Sign up to be notified at launch when the print edition of @austinwalker.bsky.social's TTRPG goes live in 2026, and start bracing yourself for all the additional art, player options, and GM resources being added to the game: www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...
Coming soon: Realis
A new tabletop roleplaying game by Austin Walker
www.kickstarter.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Realis is coming sooner than you think! Sign up to be notified at launch when the print edition of @austinwalker.bsky.social's TTRPG goes live in 2026, and start bracing yourself for all the additional art, player options, and GM resources being added to the game: www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...