Nick Mangiaracina
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nickmanwrites.bsky.social
Nick Mangiaracina
@nickmanwrites.bsky.social
790 followers 680 following 1.9K posts
he/him (HevyD elsewhere)
- Narrative Design/Game Writing - nickmanwrites.com
- Contributor @monstervine.com
- Professional Inquiries: [email protected]
https://linktr.ee/nickmanwrites - Open for Work
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nickmanwrites.bsky.social
Nick Mangiaracina @nickmanwrites.bsky.social · Oct 19
My name is Nick. I write about video games, for video games sometimes, and am a cute dog haver.
Picture of Felix, a tri-color Pembroke Welsh Corgi, laying on the back of my chair with his paws hangin' out.
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
cuteosphere.bsky.social
“AI is clearly sticking around so you have to get used to it” wrong. I don’t have to get used to shit. I am a practiced hater and I can keep this going for decades if I am required to
December 1, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
cypheroftyr.bsky.social
Happy first of the month. Got a new post up on Patreon for y'all. www.patreon.com/posts/thats-...

If you're not a patron, you can join for as little as $1 a month! Support is appreciated as I'm still job hunting with no luck. patreon.com/cypheroftyr
December 1, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
phillewis.bsky.social
Costco sues the Trump administration, seeking a refund of tariffs
Costco sues the Trump administration, seeking a refund of tariffs
The wholesaler is the latest company to sue a federal agency over the president's signature economic policy.
www.nbcnews.com
December 2, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
scitydreamer.bsky.social
Waow, this is a new steam review I got for I Hate You, Please Suffer! Consider joining the adventurer j*b market today!

store.steampowered.com/app/2583620/...
Review’s by Moppi on Steam played the game until I got the “move out of the apartment into a guild house” ending. The good: - the unique MSPaint-style aesthetic - the writing: the dialogue ranges from cringe (complimentary) to some of the most sincerely touching I’ve ever read. the four main characters all have a distinct voice, and the overall vibe in interactions is uniquely… realistic, for lack of a better term. like everyone’s in this [censor hearts] world together, and they know that. even less-important NPCs have a uniqur voice. - the gameplay: each playable character has a unique niche, and despite the simplistic battle system, the variety sets itself apart from other RPGs in its thoughtfulness - the difficulty: this game is Hard, but mostly the fun kind of hard where you want to keep going just for the accomplishment of making progress. money is scarce (until lategame, anyway), enemies level with you so you can't go through random encounters by just clicking on Attack the whole time, healing items need to be managed carefully due to the stomach ache aspect, and the exhaustion mechanic adds tension to dungeon crawling. the bad: - the difficulty can cross over from exciting to tedious at times: as the game progresses and you complete quests, there will be powerful mobs running around the overworld that can just kill you if you exhausted all of your resources in whatever stretch of gameplay you were doing before. at least the autosaves are fairly plentiful, so it's easy to recoup your losses - the background music for the apartment and the tower grounds is just unpleasant to listen to try this game if: - you enjoy turn-based RPGs with a unique aesthetic, down-to-earth vibes, heartfelt writing, and challenging gameplay stay away if: - you're easily frustrated by high difficulty
December 1, 2025 at 10:09 PM
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
Holy crap! Take my computer down to install a new graphics card and come back to a bunch of new followers and reposts. Thanks @duckvalentine.bsky.social for the repost!

Hi new followers, I write just for @monstervine.com and primarily write about indie games and RPGs.
December 1, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
imrankhan.bsky.social
I am writing about games that are even in this image on top of an entirely packed workload so I am essentially doing it on my own time. Is anyone going to read it? Probably not!
December 1, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
I've been doing this all year but indie journalists have the same issues as indie games. Unless it's a big name, nobody cares.
November 2025 Indie Game Wrap-Up: The Best New Indie Releases and Demos You Can Play Now - MonsterVine
From gothic roguelites to rhythm adventures, November 2025’s indie lineup is packed with creativity. Discover 13 standout indie games and demos releasing this month.
monstervine.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:34 PM
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
Earthbound mentioned.
A screenshot of Bravely Default where Ringabel says, "Seems we're earthbound until we've another one of these skystone things."
December 1, 2025 at 7:38 PM
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
What's a constitutional law professor to do when the constitution doesn't matter anymore? Defend bigots, apparently.
anthonymkreis.bsky.social Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 19h
This won’t be a popular opinion, but I don’t think the instructor was right here. The assignment said that the goal was for students to demonstrate they completed the readings *and* they could do so by reflecting on, among other things, their personal experiences. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-stat...
OU puts graduate instructor on leave after student claims discrimination on Bible-based essay grade
OU placed a graduate student instructor on leave after a student publicly contested a grade and filed an illegal discrimination claim after she received a failing grade on an essay
www.oudaily.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
moreperfectunion.bsky.social
From the newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos.
Headline: why you may not want lower prices as much as you think you do
December 1, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
Streets are saying If Books Could Kill is the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 of podcasts
www.vulture.com/article/cult...
What Sadie Sink Loved This Year in Culture How about podcasts or video games? If Books Could Kill. The two hosts have really good banter and conversation. They review famous airport books, these bestseller airport books, often a memoir or self-help books. I don’t know if there’s much fiction work that’s on there. They break them down, debunk them, or roast them in a way. A lot of it is like, Do they need a book? A Bit Fruity. Matt Bernstein is the host. He is really intelligent. There’s political episodes, there’s pop-culture episodes. I’ve learned a lot listening to it. It’s a great way for me to keep up with what’s going on in the world but in a way that’s a little bit broader than something like The Daily, which I always love and listen to. Matt is in his 20s, and he makes it a very educational listen while also not feeling like you’re being lectured in any way. It’s a good blend. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I’m playing now and loving it.
December 1, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
junlper.beer
the fact that nick fuentes isn’t here but ms rachel is illustrates perfectly that groups like this don’t actually care about antisemitism at all
December 1, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
floppyadult.com
These kinds of stories really do lay bare that the super rich (and people who become super rich) have no shame
carnage4life.bsky.social Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 1d
The secret to early retirement; dine out rarely, fly economy and be a Google employee making $390,000/year married to a fellow Google employee 17 years older than you who likely makes twice as much as you.
37-year-old quit her $390,000 Google job after saving up $1.5 million—see the 'no buy checklist' that helps her spend less
She left a $390,000-a-year job and now uses a simple set of rules to make her savings last in Switzerland.
www.cnbc.com
December 1, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
mapleqb.bsky.social
SO... I'm pretty much done with Fortnite. There were statements made by Tim Sweeney saying that AI usage doesn't need to be disclosed, and then AI usage was found all over this current season- from art to sprays to in-game songs. Between that, and the upcoming shitty wizard collab... Yeah, I'm done.
An image of a poster in the current Fortnite map. It shows a Yeti relaxing in a hammock. Notably, the Yeti has 4 toes on one foot and 5 on the other, indicating AI usage. An image of a poster on the current Fortnite map. The image shows a Tomato-headed character wearing a suit as if he was in a talk show. The art has strange proportions and odd details, along with many other markers of generative AI usage. A screenshot of a spray included in the current Fortnite battlepass. The spray depicts Marty McFly from Back to the Future, but it is using a filter that gives him the appearance of Studio Ghibli art. That, combined with other details in the background like improperly sized clock hands, are markers of generative AI usage. A screenshot of an album cover for a song called Latata by a group called Mic Drop. Mic Drop is a generative AI-using song library, and Fortnite has included an emote that uses this AI-generated song as a music track.
November 30, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
deconstructeam.bsky.social
Good thing about bite-sized games is that they're usually pretty cheap. Come see what the buzz is about for less than 3 bucks!

store.steampowered.com/app/3541130/...
November 18, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
alannamode.bsky.social
Anyway, here are my posts about DnA Creative being "Narrative QA" for games, film, television, and creatives + IPs at large.

Feel free to reach out if you'd actually like us to work on your projects. We do terrific stuff! 😁

Site + Contact: www.dnacreative.ca
Case Studies: dnacreative.notion.site
A post of mine from LinkedIn: What if your narrative team had its own dedicated QA support? A discussion on Bluesky about creative writing (and the related incompetence of AI) brought up a great thing that DnA Creative Inc. does that I realize I don't talk about enough - specifically narrative support. Coming from film and into games, Delaney and I have built up our expertise particularly in roles like script supervisor, script coordinator, data wrangler, producer and more. So now as part of our lore and knowledge management work we: - compile & help ratify scattered details into a comprehensive source - write up internal wiki articles, even summarizing content that may not have been documented before - identify plot holes or continuity errors the team can address - build and maintain character, location & item databases for reference - create choice & consequence breakdowns for storylines and conversations Our role is to *support* the writers, flag issues effectively, and provide them with the tools they need to do their best work. We learn the content, becoming their reliable archivists and making connections that present the whole story as a more legible and tightly-woven tapestry. Continuation of the first post: On Code 8 we made a labelling system to denote canon info vs. promising yet unconfirmed ideas. For visual novel Love Shore we took 80+ page scripts and wrote full choice + consequence breakdowns (see below!) As a bonus, it became a base for the walkthrough we made on the public Fandom wiki for players Tracking, documenting and maintaining it all is a huge advantage, that’s why we offer to work with studios throughout development! (The post shows links to more case studies and to our contact info, as well as an image of a story lore page.) A post of mine from LinkedIn: An opportunity to dunk on GenAI *and* uplift the value of DnA Creative's work? Don't mind if I do! 😁 Strap in for a long post my friends 💁🏾‍♀️ This article covering GenAI policies from Embracer's annual report caught my eye. Particularly where they claim that "as AI models become more powerful, we can leverage their capacity also in the creative process, for example, by identifying inconsistencies in scripts and storytelling." Ha! This is, objectively, not something GenAI/LLMs are truly capable of. I know because being proficient at it is part of my job and the business we've built. I've mentioned how as Lore Managers we sometimes fulfill a sort of 'narrative QA' role for teams, identifying continuity errors while building out their source of truth. Something like ChatGPT can scrape documents and tell you info based on the content - but it doesn't "know" anything. It can't "learn" like a person, it can only consume, memorize, combine, and regurgitate based on a set of your instructions (prompts). Continuity and inconsistencies are not so simple (ask any script supervisor!). Sometimes they involve an absence of information; seemingly correct info that unfortunately conflicts in certain contexts; a minor error that branches into larger additional issues; or worse, something MEANT to be conflicting or mysterious in the story that a bot wouldn't understand. GenAI can't tell right from wrong, adjudicate information, or seek answers from key knowledge holders, and there's no evidence it'll be able to. A continuation of the second post: I've told folks to pay attention to the use of conjectural language when it comes to things that techbros are pushing. "As AI becomes more powerful", overuse of words like eventually, might, suspect, could - it's all intentional obfuscation. Embracer themselves even note that GenAI may produce "unethical, biased, discriminatory or completely wrong results" - but hey forget all that logic and focus on how capable it'll be in the undefined future, based on no evidence at all! (No thanks) If you're interested in actually uplifting the creative process and removing barriers for your team to do their best work through documentation and knowledge management, you know where to find us. Until then, stay alert when it comes to those empty AI promises! (The post then shows links to our other work and ways to contact DnA Creative.)
November 30, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
thatwitchmia.bsky.social
I don't know which AP departments need to hear this (or which freelancers chasing payment, for that matter), but the payment date falling on a holiday does not mean that you're exempt from delivering the payment on time. NET terms are calendar days, not business days.
November 30, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
developerdamien.bsky.social
All of my games are on sale for a week but additionally itchio's not taking their cut for the next 24 hours, so check out my games and other projects here as they're all half off!

cannibalinteractive.itch.io
A series of white grid squares among a brown background. A white at sign is in the tile in the center of the screen. A low-res first person 3D view of golf on the green. The text box asks "How will you swing?" with the choices of Cautious approach, Moderation, and Full send it. A shop menu full of food items. Some make clear sense like A Burger, Curly Fries, and Cola Blast. The highlighted item is "The Big Fucko". A JRPG battle where it's eight enemies against the player's party of five. The action menu shows Attack, Skills, Passive, and Guard.
November 28, 2025 at 8:23 AM
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
It's a sin to ask the player, "Did you get all that?" and have the cursor default to 'No.'
November 30, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
duckvalentine.bsky.social
My dad had many issues and his situation was quite complex, but I do believe if this country had functional social support systems for the ill and elderly, he would not have died miserable and alone this year.
unlawfulentries.bsky.social Anna O. Law @unlawfulentries.bsky.social · 1d
Very hard eldercare and logistics is a subject I have extensive experience with. This article nails why it's so hard, including logistics, $, coordination w/ family, $ again, & no one wants to hear you talk about it. The author acknowledges she had a lot of resources others won't. Gift link:
Opinion | The People Holding Everyone Together Are Coming Apart
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
jethanded-wyvern.bsky.social
Heyo hypothetical question what do you do to receive money internationally as a writer in Venezuela if PayPal decides to just up and ban your account, "GG no re, get lost you disgusting pornographer"?

Asking for a friend that must got their PayPal suspended because PayPal decided to just do that.
November 29, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
michaelhobbes.bsky.social
Even by the standards of anti-woke journalism this is lazy dreck. The first piece of "evidence" that older gamers are mad about wokeness is a random Reddit comment — that isn't a complaint about wokeness.
www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2025/11/2...
Some older gamers feel “Generation Stranger Things” are gatecrashing a party they have no business attending. These hold-outs – who often self-identify as “grognards” (“grumblers” in French) – accuse D&D of disparaging veteran gamers. “Feels like everything is focus-grouped into an inclusive oblivion. Races and classes in a fantasy, make-believe, role-playing game are gradually being reduced to aesthetics,” wrote one gamer. I wouldn’t call the design trend “woke” because that’s not a good way to describe anything. Now what I would say is that some of it is borderline queerness as a fashion statement. The actual bad thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of it is just so creatively bland. Feels like everything is focus-grouped into an inclusive oblivion. Races and classes in a fantasy, make-believe, role playing game are gradually being reduced to aesthetics. At a certain point people should accept they don’t want to play a game and just want to make campfire stories with friends. The de-monsterification of things like goblins and orcs is also a travesty. Not everything has to be a morally grey soup. Some things can just be inherently evil, and that’s okay.
November 30, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
mollyjongfast.bsky.social
Imagine if they just subsidized newspapers and magazines the way they’re subsidizing this slop
karoline.bsky.social Karoline @karoline.bsky.social · 2d
"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."
Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive?
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?
www.windowscentral.com
November 30, 2025 at 12:35 PM
nickmanwrites.bsky.social
It has been [0] days since I have wanted to punch Tim Sweeney in the face.

[1]
ign.com IGN @ign.com · 4d
"Why stop at AI use? We could have mandatory disclosures for what shampoo brand the developer uses" — Epic boss Tim Sweeney says Steam should ditch its AI generated content disclosure. https://bit.ly/4a193vt
November 30, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Nick Mangiaracina
cabel.panic.com
"oh, don't forget to highlight, in bright red, the two-letter word in the tagline! the two letter word that's kind of the whole point of this clever ad campaign! the two letter word that links this show to the horror movie of the same name!"

"no problem boss. i'm on it"
an ad for the new series “welcome to derry” with the tagline “go back to where IT all began“, except somehow, they highlighted the word “to“ instead of “it“
November 29, 2025 at 8:51 PM