I started a new series on Patreon called Churn. (It’s free to read; you need a free Patreon account to follow along.)
It's kinda the diary/journal version of explaining where my energy goes when it doesn't manifest as something big, like an article. The behind-the-scenes junk that doesn’t always fit the main Hashtag Survival feed. I could be knee-deep in website fixes, reorganizing the YouTube chaos, trying not to drown in tabs, or contemplating the next random idea. Reception so far has been great, I love seeing comments and questions! And honestly, it helps organize my scattered brain.
Two posts are live. Free reads. See the mess in motion.
Creator Stack
Coffee & Code
Epic Games launches webshop service on PC and mobile
GLAAD launches new program to mentor early-career LGBTQ+ developers
Check out this WIP Blender add-on that automatically creates Rigs
This Blender Add-On Lets You Add 150+ Animal Species to Your 3D Scenes
Gaming
Curator Link! (Creeping towards 550 followers)
Project Zomboid announces some new charity merch AND some changes to the development team/studio.
VEIN creeping towards that EA release! I like these chunky dev updates.
Steam added a landing page for games in one or more bundles.
MISERY entered early access recently. Here’s the Steam store blurb: “MISERY is a 1–5 player co-op survival game set in a nuclear disaster zone. Here, every day is a struggle: search radioactive ruins for resources, build your bunker, craft weapons, and explore a weird, procedurally-generated world with your friends. Beware of anomalies, monsters, and armed bandits.”
Anyway, scrolling down the page, I had to laugh when I saw my curator blurb bumped up against some quote from VICE. VERY yin-yang.
Speaking of games, has anyone checked out their Personal Calendar yet? It’s another new idea from Steam.
I’ve toyed with a few calendar iterations for folks and, frankly, it’s a massive pain in the ass, haha. (Also, I purposefully leave some shit off, and then that’s the one game where someone is like “WHAR IS GAME?!” and then meh.) It’ll be interesting to see how responsive it is to updates and whether it runs into issues (does it show DLC release dates?), and other random stuff, but at least it’s easy to navigate.
If somewhat buried.
Big congrats to long-time Hashtag friend Seyed — the Steam page for his upcoming game Unhinged is now live.
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
Survive+ arrives on YouTube to feed growing appetite for adventure
Ooooh boy. I can already see the wave of fledgling creators trying to one-up each other with “adventurous” stunts and survival challenges. We already lose plenty of people every year chasing perfect selfies: falling into canyons, off peaks, or worse.
Bear Grylls is kinda the Cesar Millan of survival: the charismatic TV “expert”. But instead of leaning into realism or skill, his show leans hard into bad writing, fake tension, and that generic, over-produced American drama. (Which is a shame, because the guy actually has SAS credentials?)
On the plus side, maybe this will prompt more quality content and more interest in the ideas/skills of survival offline, and more of it will trickle back into the genre?
I feel like the backlog of my Chaos Board (aka Trello) is tilted a little heavily towards pieces that require a clear head and lots of words. I’ll have to do another skim-through and see what can be archived versus what’s worth pushing to you guys.
I redid my OBS - it died a sad, painful death a year ago, and I just haven’t had the heart to sit and fix shit up again- and recorded some gameplay from a couple of Next Fest demos. Just haven’t decided what I want to do with it just yet. I did get a small “vibe” video for Sonorous: Deep Down Below posted, though, man, that game has gorgeous diving!
I’ll keep pecking at things and let’s see where that takes us.
- Jordan
P.S.: I respond to every email, so lemme know your questions, feedback, criticisms.
