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Orteil

Part of tumblr.com

hey, i’m orteil! i made Cookie Clicker. it was an accident

stories
having a discord server for your group or any other sort of external community is for tryhards and…

orteil42:

could an MMO be built with an explicit direction to shun metagaming. what if you sent a cease-and-desist to any attempt at a wiki or datamining resource. could we rely on the playerbase to be annoying enough to pressure each other not to peek at information online. looking up a loot table or a dungeon map should be regarded as an infraction on the level of wallhacking

having a discord server for your group or any other sort of external community is for tryhards and possibly conspiring cheaters. you WILL meet up by hauling your ass to the ingame guild halls

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/816623082497359872
could an MMO be built with an explicit direction to shun metagaming. what if you sent a…

could an MMO be built with an explicit direction to shun metagaming. what if you sent a cease-and-desist to any attempt at a wiki or datamining resource. could we rely on the playerbase to be annoying enough to pressure each other not to peek at information online. looking up a loot table or a dungeon map should be regarded as an infraction on the level of wallhacking

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/816622800194371584
tode
tode

towed. taud

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/816010226066145280
another type of game i often itch to make is something social and online like neopets/gaia…

another type of game i often itch to make is something social and online like neopets/gaia online/kingdom of loathing or perhaps some sort of MUD and i know it’d be hype and a lot of fun but unfortunately i have to weigh the ongoing commitment that would require against how i personally fare with things that demand regular upkeep. absolutely NOT a set-it-and-forget-it kind of project. bro that’s like having a child

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/814451685653118976
i can’t overstate how much this used to be the default on blogging platforms. blogging used to…

palant1r:

andmaybegayer:

it still makes me go insane that somehow no social media site bothers to implement interleaved text and images. Fediverse cannot support it broadly, Bluesky can’t handle it, Facebook can’t do it, Twitter can’t do it, fucking, LinkedIn doesn’t do this, somehow only Tumblr has this, and it barely even counts as a popular social media site.

well you see we’re the new pdf

i can’t overstate how much this used to be the default on blogging platforms. blogging used to involve as much mixed content as you felt like. the goofy defunct french blog platforms (Skyblog, U-blog) where i was making my first posts in 2004 had that. you could embed media or javascript or applets or anything you wanted. the reason this feels like a unique tumblr-only feature now is that rotten as it is tumblr is one of very few remaining blogging platforms in 2026. everything else is microblogging now. everything else is twitter now

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/814369340630679552
Just thought it’d be funny to let you know that now I’m a teacher, I CONSTANTLY have to turn your game off on student screens when they are supposed to be doing something else. Years ago I was the student constantly playing cookie clicker instead of doing work. They didn’t believe me when I said I could send an ask to your blog about it so here I am lol.

guilt about the damage i've indirectly caused to the education system almost completely counterbalanced by knowing how much my game is also gunking up corporate workplaces if i'm honest

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/814169296476454912
multiple people telling me i should just make both games at the same time to which i must say: do…

orteil42:

orteil42:

my biggest game dev hurdle remains indecision. i have projects, some existing (NeverEnding Legacy for instance) and some pending, that i could take in two mutually exclusive directions. my instinct is often to make them browser games, with low technical stakes and idle gameplay; i’ve already proven myself in that field, it feels easy and natural. at the same time i quickly start asking myself - what’s stopping me from taking it further? i could make a desktop game with the same premise, but without the limitations. i want to make something where you walk around! active real-time gameplay! grass and forests! no restriction on save file sizes, big persistent worlds! room to breathe! 3d shaders! multiplayer! and then i remember i also think it’s nice to have little timewasters that load in 2 seconds on your phone, something free and non-predatory outside of appstore ecosystems; in the face of ultramonetized web and mobile games it’s up to me to normalize an alternative. both options are attractive for their own reasons, and i’m not sure anyone else’s input can help me decide between the two either

another thing is a web game can just be released as iterative updates on a prototype and even if it doesn’t really go anywhere and remains experimental people can still play it and generally not feel ripped off. if you do the same thing with a desktop game it ends up with perma-early access and Mixed reviews that say “do not play this game. dev abandoned it” or alternatively: years of posting dev screenshots with zero actual release because i bit off more than i could chew and got lost in the minutiae of building it rather than publishing it. do i really have what it takes to make a full-blown game. neurotransmitters-wise i mean

multiple people telling me i should just make both games at the same time to which i must say: do you hear yourself. look at me. genuinely take a good honest look at me

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/813904059529576448
another thing is a web game can just be released as iterative updates on a prototype and even if it…

orteil42:

my biggest game dev hurdle remains indecision. i have projects, some existing (NeverEnding Legacy for instance) and some pending, that i could take in two mutually exclusive directions. my instinct is often to make them browser games, with low technical stakes and idle gameplay; i’ve already proven myself in that field, it feels easy and natural. at the same time i quickly start asking myself - what’s stopping me from taking it further? i could make a desktop game with the same premise, but without the limitations. i want to make something where you walk around! active real-time gameplay! grass and forests! no restriction on save file sizes, big persistent worlds! room to breathe! 3d shaders! multiplayer! and then i remember i also think it’s nice to have little timewasters that load in 2 seconds on your phone, something free and non-predatory outside of appstore ecosystems; in the face of ultramonetized web and mobile games it’s up to me to normalize an alternative. both options are attractive for their own reasons, and i’m not sure anyone else’s input can help me decide between the two either

another thing is a web game can just be released as iterative updates on a prototype and even if it doesn’t really go anywhere and remains experimental people can still play it and generally not feel ripped off. if you do the same thing with a desktop game it ends up with perma-early access and Mixed reviews that say “do not play this game. dev abandoned it” or alternatively: years of posting dev screenshots with zero actual release because i bit off more than i could chew and got lost in the minutiae of building it rather than publishing it. do i really have what it takes to make a full-blown game. neurotransmitters-wise i mean

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/813902658866970624
my biggest game dev hurdle remains indecision. i have projects, some existing (NeverEnding Legacy…

my biggest game dev hurdle remains indecision. i have projects, some existing (NeverEnding Legacy for instance) and some pending, that i could take in two mutually exclusive directions. my instinct is often to make them browser games, with low technical stakes and idle gameplay; i’ve already proven myself in that field, it feels easy and natural. at the same time i quickly start asking myself - what’s stopping me from taking it further? i could make a desktop game with the same premise, but without the limitations. i want to make something where you walk around! active real-time gameplay! grass and forests! no restriction on save file sizes, big persistent worlds! room to breathe! 3d shaders! multiplayer! and then i remember i also think it’s nice to have little timewasters that load in 2 seconds on your phone, something free and non-predatory outside of appstore ecosystems; in the face of ultramonetized web and mobile games it’s up to me to normalize an alternative. both options are attractive for their own reasons, and i’m not sure anyone else’s input can help me decide between the two either

https://orteil42.tumblr.com/post/813901514576920576