Hey folks, a quirky handful of Hashtag content drops from the past couple of weeks. Here’s a paid Patreon post that includes a snippet of lore for The Infected that I’m working on, plus a smaller, funny idea I had. I also dropped an article today with…I don’t even know. 20? 30? Games to check out during Next Fest.
Speaking of Patreon, I also added a new perk to the Posh tier: the Discord Glitter Lounge! This is a spot for Posh and Swagger Patrons to hang out and bullshit. Try and figure out random things, like the morality & spirituality of tech review…
Creator Stack
Coffee & Code
See what’s possible with Xogot, the iPad and iPhone native version of the Godot game engine.
Ghost stories to scare indie developers
(Really great read from How To Market A Game)Lessons learned from 6+ years of Unity development
What’s a mechanic that looks easy—like enemy line of sight—but is actually a nightmare to code?
Trick For Reducing Vertex Count For Custom Unity Grass Renderer
I hate how other gamedevs are reacting to Megabonk
This one is kinda interesting because we were having an unrelated conversation in Discord today about people ragging on The Long Dark for working on part five of the story alongside the sequel to the game.
Gaming
Curator Updates (Link!)
Additions: Oceaneers, The Legend of Khiimori, Breakfall: Nuclear Winter, Bladesong, Bigfoot Life, Everwind, Winter Burrow, Snow Ash, Sheltered from the Storm, ASTROBOTANICA, Nova Antarctica, Cool Cool Water
Updated: Restore Your Island, Road to Vostok, ANGST: A Tale of Survival, Blind Descent, THE SIGNAL: Stranded on Sirenis, The Last Caretaker, Lost Skies, Native Hunter
SCUM finally made changes to the Encounter Manager
Winter Survival added beavers? And they interrupt your fishing? And this is somehow going to revive the game? At this point, I am entirely in a high-pitched questioning tone, and my head is sideways like a Golden Retriever.
VEIN popped a chonky update and the release date for Early Access. I’ll get it.
Speaking of The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis (they’ve got a demo available during Next Fest, in case you haven’t read my article yet!) - there’s an active Kickstarter campaign. Bout a third of the way there, with two weeks left to go - so if the demo impresses you, maybe toss them some cash? I do want to nitpick their page a little bit.
From the top!
Woof - mega bold to pop in both the EA and the 1.0 dates right at the Kickstarter, especially with backing at a crawl. Maybe the money isn’t a contributing factor to the production timeline?
Here’s a chunk of game description:
In The Signal, you build, craft, and prepare your base and gear to go on handcrafted extraction runs in six dangerous and varied biomes to advance the story. With you along the way is Sirenis, an enigmatic narrator that guides you on the search for your missing brother. The Signal rewards good decision making and thorough exploration of the world, built on a survival crafting core that focuses on creating meaningful gear, structures, and upgrades from minute 1. You'll have a customizable vehicle before your first death (well, maybe).
Guided by Sirenis, a sentient planet with her own motives, you'll explore handcrafted biomes, build streamlined bases, and uncover why everyone really keeps crashing here. You play The Signal by completing a series of increasingly difficult challenges that reveal more of the game's story, Sirenis' world, and crafting recipes as you progress.
Each new area you unlock will put your survival crafting skills to new tests, as you uncover a complex story that reveals the secrets of the planet. You'll discover new locations, battle interesting and engaging alien enemies, and expand your fledgling base into a compound. No punching trees here; if you're gonna survive on this planet, you have an arsenal to build.
This is a survival craft for people looking for more than frying pans and flower petals.
Wait a minute.
FIRST. WTF IS THIS? I mean. Clearly, it’s intended as some big ass GOTCHA, with the bolding and whatnot, but I don’t get it. I…no. Still don’t get it: weirdest “own” ever.
ANYWAY. Everything in that giant description screams a story-driven adventure that includes crafting and building, not actual “survival.”
Sounds like another case of adding the survival tag because it sells. Gameplay sounds structured, guided, and narratively gated: “handcrafted biomes,” “story progression,” “Sirenis guiding you,” “complete challenges.”
Even the “survival-sounding” bits (base building, resource gathering) are progression systems, not consequences/friction. You’re not surviving a hostile world; you’re completing chapters in one. Actually, further down the page, they go, “No punching trees for hours. No consulting wikis for recipes. No structural physics PhD required. The Signal's crafting is deep but intuitive: see material, understand use, build something meaningful. Like a badass machine gun or base of operations out the gate.” Followed by, you guessed it, the magical SCI-FI GUN OF MAKING SHIT MAGICALLY FAST.
So yeah: exploration-crafting adventure, lightly flavored with survival mechanics for marketing reach. It probably fits under “narrative exploration with survival systems,” but not survival as a core genre.
Which means it’ll be nudged off my plate.
To back Hashtag directly: Patreon keeps the lights on. If monthly subs aren’t your thing, consider Ko-Fi for one-offs, a Steam gift card, or share the newsletter link!
Have a Tab
Sitting at your desk gaming? Do this seated circulation boost!
70,000 users affected in Discord customer service breach
EA's monster buyout sets financial records – and sounds alarm bells | Opinion
The EA Sale Is Bad News For Everyone
(From earlier in the month, but!) Unity Reveals Nearly Decade-Old Security Flaw & Calls On Developers To Update Games
I think the next thing I want to get off my plate - in a good way!- is another Clap Back on the Patreon. I enjoy doing them, and there is some real nonsense gathering on the Chaos board. I’ll probably work this into a longer article later, but here’s a quick LOL WTF moment for you.
My keyword thing caught a hit on Paleolith, sure, OK. I checked the article and see:
Which I mean, OK. Like I said, I would rather get into it in an article, but I have so many thoughts: Valheim? Hardcore? RPG? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
But whatever, I scan the article and scoff, and at the end it kinda autorolls into the following article, and before I can click away, I see…:
I AM DEAD INSIDE OF LAUGHTER.
I have also learned that every game is BRUTAL/HARDCORE/CRUSHING - naturally, because they’re based on Valheim, the most brutal hardcore and definitely survival game in existence- and also they’re all RPGs and ALSO why am I bothering to come up with new titles for shit when I can use the exact same title each time and just thesaurus a word or three.
(Also, yes, you definitely click on Echoes Below and reply to this email with the hundred thousand ways it is most definitely exactly like Valheim and an RPG. I did see a tree AND an axe, so that must be it.)
- Jordan
P.S.: I respond to every email, so lemme know your questions, feedback, criticisms.
