Douglas

@dmgregory

Game design professor, math and science geek. Did spreadsheety stuff for Splinter Cell Blacklist, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and Far Cry 6. Moderator on gamedev.stackexchange.com Formerly @D_M_Gregory on Twitter (he/him/his)

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Douglas@dmgregory· 11d

Oh no! I make monthly recurring donations to Wikipedia — going to write to them to say I'm not comfortable donating to an organization engaging in union-busting. (Reposting with alt text)

Post from Tamzin @tamzin@wikis.world

Your #Wikipedia donations at work. The #WikimediaFoundation asks for your money to keep the lights on, & then spends it on notorious union-busting law firm Jones Day so its board members can recite generic anti-union rhetoric to justify ignoring supermajority support for unionization.

If you consider yourself pro-union and have donated to the WMF, you can contact donate@wikimedia.org to let them know you do not want your donor money being spent on their and Jones Day's union-busting.

Douglas@dmgregory· 15d

...and also a good excuse for some #spreadsheet play to quantify and compare the consequences of different mechanics... 🤓

Tables of success chance for rolling a pool of one die against a difficulty class of 2-12, for different deice ranging from a d4 through a d12.

Additional tables show higher success rates when using a "downshift" mechanic.

The same tables, now for a pool of two dice.

Douglas@dmgregory· 15d

Reposting with alt text:

HOW WE DISAPPEAR

I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing between two kinds of soap.

Everyone here is doing this, filling carts with small comforts while somewhere a child goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats, while men make decisions about who gets to live.

I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear.

Alessandra Olanow

Douglas@dmgregory· 18d

Resharing the quoted image with alt text:

r/vibecoding 2h ago

ryan_almasu

The first 80% of vibe coding feels fast. The last 20% has been exhausting.

I really enjoy vibe coding. It helped me turn ideas into working software much faster than I could before.

But my biggest pain started after the app already looked finished.

Authentication was working, but then I had to think about authorization and whether every user could access only their own data. Checkout was working, but billing also needed webhooks, retries, duplicate-event protection, subscription states, refunds, and access control.

Then came database migrations, error handling, rate limits, security policies, tests, monitoring, deployment differences, and making sure one Al-generated change didn't quietly break something elsewhere.

The hardest part has been maintainability. As the codebase grows, the Al sometimes solves the immediate problem without understanding the wider architecture. A small feature can introduce duplicate logic, inconsistent patterns, or files that become difficult to reason about later.

At some point, it stops feeling like "describe the feature and ship it." You start managing context, boundaries, conventions, and all the boring systems that users never see but depend on.

I still think vibe coding is incredibly useful. I just underestimated how large the gap is between an app that works in a demo and one I would feel comfortable giving to real users.

For people who have taken a vibe-coded app beyond the prototype stage, how do you keep the codebase understandable and prevent each new feature from making it more fragile?

Douglas@dmgregory· 19d

🤝 shipped a physical, disk based video game with no constant idea of "up"

Wii disc for "Flip's Twisted World" showing the titular character standing sideways with a castle in the background.

Douglas@dmgregory· 20d

Sid Meier calls this his Covert Action Rule: "it's better to have one good game than two great games" Screenshots from en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwi...

The mistake I think I made in Covert Action is actually having two games in there kind of competing with each other. There was kind of an action game where you break into a building and do all sorts of picking up clues and things like that, and then there was the story which involved a plot where you had to figure out who the mastermind was and the different roles and what cities they were in, and it was a kind of an involved mystery-type plot.

I think, individually, those each could have been good games. Together, they fought with each other. You would have this mystery that you were trying to solve, then you would be facing this action sequence, and you'd do this cool action thing, and you'd get on the building, and you'd say, "What was the mystery I was trying to solve?" Covert Action integrated a story and action poorly, because the action was actually too intense. In Pirates!, you would do a sword fight or a ship battle, and a minute or two later, you were kind of back on your way. In Covert Action, you'd spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out of [the mission], you had no idea of what was going on in the world.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 12

Here's one I just happened across while reading Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman's Rules of Play: blob tag. Playing it in an empty mall would give a real "cryptid hunting you through the backrooms" kinda vibe. 😱

Unit 3: PLAY | Games as the Play of Simulation

The Blob begins innocently enough as a mere individual playing a game of tag. As soon as she catches someone, she joins hands with him. Now he's part of the Blob too, and they both set out, hand-in- hand, in search of victims. Everyone the Blob catches (only the outside hand on either end of the Blob can snatch at players) joins hands with it and becomes part of the lengthening protoplasmic chain. And thus the insidious Blob keeps growing.

Unlike your run-of-the-mill, mad scientist-created Blobs, this one is not content to merely ooze along, seeking its prey. It gallops around the field, cornering stray runners and forcing them to join up....

Moreover (horrors), the Blob can split itself into parts and, with its superior communal intelligence, organize raiding parties on the lone few who have managed to escape. The thrilling climax occurs when there's only one player left to put up a heroic last-ditch stand on behalf of humanity. But alas, there is no defense against the Blob and humanity succumbs. (If that seems unfair, well, that's the plot.)

The moral of our story could well be, "You become what you fear." If you have the heart to destroy humanity again, you can have the last person caught start the Blob for the next game.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 7

Resharing with alt text:

With this move, Microsoft is slashing and burning 25 years of creativity, infrastructure and goodwill, said Amanda Farough and Mike Futter, game developers and industry analysts who host the Virtual Economy podcast. The message from the top is clear: Do not buy an Xbox.

Farough said that the rapid deaccessioning of Double Fine, Compulsion and Undead Labs, and the threat to Arkane Lyon, show that current Xbox executives still don't understand the industry

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 6

I wasn't satisfied with how sharp the main diagonal got with my first solution, so I found an alternative that leads to a more smeared-out point cloud: #GameDev #MathSky

Four more scatterplots showing increasing correlation with increasing "Power" values, but this time the main body of the point cloud is more diffuse in each, rather than densely clustered along a sharp diagonal line.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 6

I'm more worried about what happens to those equilibria as we keep dialing up the driving parameters...

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 4

Fun #GameDev StackExchange question this morning about generating random variables with a controllable degree of correlation, while still ensuring all potential pairs can occur: gamedev.stackexchange.com/q/217349/39518

A series of scatterplots of random variables a and b, each in the range 0 to 1.

The leftmost is labelled "Power = 1, Correlation = 0.0" and the points in the plot are uniformly distributed over the whole square area with only small random clumping.

Moving to the right, the Power and Correlation values increase, and the points in the plots are increasingly tightly clustered along the a = b diagonal, but outliers are still visible in all parts of the square plot areas.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 4

Lots of good points here.

chee:

i really don't like getting a message from someone and realizing halfway through it's ai generated

mimi: There's something really saddening, like a small betrayal

chee:

it feels non-consensual. i trusted you, and because we were talking i was taking your words in - and then it hits me that they aren't your words. now i have these computer words in my private people place

chee:

i think maybe it should be illegal for a computer to try to seem like a person

i was listening to an interview with someone falling in love with a chatbot, and it made me feel like the anthropomorphizing is downstream of the problem of computers pretending to be people at all

they don't have to be assistants, they don't have to talk in prose

when Natalia Talmina came in to talk about ai and conversation she mentioned that there's linguistics research that people adapt to each other's mental states when they are talking to each other

and maybe if you're adapting to the mental state of a machine that cannot think, that.. maybe that is bad

chee:
for me it's the "claude chose" and "claude decided"

and, like, i'm guilty of this myself. and i also say "the kettle doesn't wanna fuckin boil" but.. it's certainly different when the machine was designed to behave like a person and is sold as a person replacement
right?

it's different when it has the aesthetic of a conscious thing

we've learned over the past few decades to make deep meaningful connections with people entirely online, and these things emulate that very communication style

another thing: the length of a piece of writing used to be something of a signal. it took at least as long to write those words as the length of it, and if it's good writing then way way longer

used to be if someone sent me 20 paragraphs of text it was almost certainly worth reading, because even if it was bad it would be interesting

because this mfer just wrote 20 paragraphs

but now if something's long i tune out in anticipation. and even aesthetics long associated with effort (careful formatting, —, ;, proper capitalization) also make me wary now

the LLMs are getting better and better at generating things that seem right at first blush, but have subtle mistakes the kind a person never makes

Douglas@dmgregory· Jul 3

oh no

Bottom of the linked Reddit page, where a user has satirically described "thinking for themselves" as an AI hack learned from hours of working with ChatGPT.

There's an AI-generated "People also ask about" section that reads:

Experiences of using ChatGPT in your head

Using ChatGPT in your head is a fascinating concept that has sparked a variety of reactions among Redditors. Here are some insights and experiences shared by users:

Positive and Humorous Experiences

Simulated Thinking: Some users have found it amusing to simulate ChatGPT in their heads. One Redditor shared, "I've talked to him so much I can almost entirely accurately predict what he is going to say"

Show More

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 28

Also: there's a petition here, calling on #Pride Toronto to #DropTD and stop allowing companies investing in violence and surveilance tech to use our communities for #pinkwashing PR. "We are not your alibi" actionnetwork.org/petitions/40...

WE ARE NOT OUR ALIBI
SILENCE = COMPLICITY

TD bankrolls the genocide of Palestinians and then flies OUR flag to hide it. Saying nothing is how the cover works.

TD HOLDS

$42.9 BILLION

(nearly $1 of every $5 TD reports holding)

IN COMPANIES COMPLICIT IN "ISRAEL'S" GENOCIDAL APARTHEID STATE

NOT A SLICE. A FORTUNE

SIGN THE PETITION, TELL PRIDETO #DROPTD

WHAT TD'S RAINBOW HIDES

$42.98

held in firms complicit in "israel's genocidal apartheid state"

19%
of every dollar TD reports holding.

↑18.6 0/

and rising — TD grew this from 14.5% across 2025. That's a position, not an accident.

WHAT THOSE COMPANIES DO
46% MILITARY
16% SURVEILLANCE
16% SETTLEMENTS
10% RESOURCES
7% "SECURITY"

WHY THIS IS OUR FIGHT, TORONTO
TD holds Cellebrite — phone-crackers used by the RCMP and Canada's border agency — and Palantir, which creates surveillance technology used for ICE raids and predictive policing. Tested on Palestinians; aimed at migrants, protestors and trans people here. THE SAME TOOLS COME HOME

PINK WASHING
Corporations like TD appropriate queer visibility and Pride branding to launder their reputation and conceal their complicity in Israel's genocide against Palestinians, and in surveillance and policing here on Turtle Island. We refuse this weaponization of our identities.

SIGN THE PETITION, TELL PRIDE TORONTO

#DROPTD

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 28

More info about the protests here: www.noprideingenocide.org

No Pride for some of us, without liberation for all of us — Marsha P. Johnson

Heading: Our Demands

Publicly ban weapons manufacturers from any participation, whether in parades and events or through sponsorship.

Support Palestinians and their resistance against apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Publicly Condemn and Dismantle Pinkwashing and Homonationalism.

Publicly call for an end to arming Israel.

Cut ties with all corporate entities that profit from war, surveillance, detention and incarceration, environmental destruction, and individual/community displacement.

Ban police from marching and participating in Pride events and publicly denounce state violence inflicted on our communities.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 28

Good signs on my way to the Abolition #Pride rally today 😁🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️✊ www.noprideinpolicing.ca

Hand-painted sign in the colours of the trans flag:
"Trans is indigenous; transness is ancient"

The sign is attached to a cloth wagon with pins that say "he/him", "they/them" and "no hate".

Trans flag sign with an image of Shadow the Hedgehog, reading "fight like you always have"

Flyer: Queer & Trans Insurgencies in Times of War, Imperialism, Policing, and Militarization

No Pride in Policing Coalition, Q4P, and Our Allies present:

Abolition Pride 2026

Pride March and Rally
Sunday, June 28
12:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Location: Grange Park (McCaul and Stephanie)

Opening Ceremony: 12:30 at Grange Park
Brianna Olsen Pitawanakwat (Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction) Officiating

Street March: Leaves Park at 1:00 pm Rally: Grange Park 2:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Drummers, art and creative and insurgent pedagogy, speakers, chants, Dj, poets, muscians and food

www.noprideinpolicing.ca

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 27

Scenes from the #trans march — happy #Pride!

A crowd of people waving flags and signs march south on Toronto's Yonge street.

Revelers sit in the windows of the second floor of a brick building, elaborately decorated with trans and rainbow flags and bundles of balloons.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 26

Getting set for the #trans march tonight at #Pride in Toronto. 😁🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Hand-painted sign "Binaries are for Computers"

Hand-written sign:

Even if…
You don't know who you are yet
You don't feel safe coming out
You wish you were marching with us but you don't feel ready

We'll be here marching for you!
Join us when you're ready.

It's never too late to become the person you wish that you could be!

(Marker illustration of the trans flag)

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 24

Quoting @nndgg.bsky.social's apt response, with added alt text:

I'm very sorry to hear that the direct and predictable results of your actions happened to you

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 22

This one's been the highlight for me so far... 😂

Receipt from Mary Brown's Chicken for guest "deblis"

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 21

Advertise your Bluesky account with a Simpsons image.

Still from the Homer³ short in The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI

A 3D model of Homer looks around with concern in a "cyberspace" environment with a green grid for a floor, and various equations and geometric primitives floating around him.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 20

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 18

Oh wow, this looks like it'll be so useful for debugging #shaders, and also for explaining / teaching them! #Godot #GameDev

Inline previews of text-based shader operations
I don't even see the code. All I see is fresnel, albedo, occlusion.

Image of shader code with two thumbnail images beside, showing what the value on each line looks like in the image. Credit to @Yuri Rubinsky

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 18

Thanks to everyone who came out to the @torontogamesweek.com closing party last night! It was a blast showing Last One Standing again — I'd forgotten the sheer energy of a full room of six players in fierce competition! Event build is here for anyone who wants it: dmgregory.itch.io/last-one-sta...

A red domino hops across a glossy wood table, leaving a trail of white dominoes behind it. Text says "RED is DOMINO-ATING".

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 18

I know the feeling. Mine's been stuck like this for months now on StackExchange...

Gamedev.StackExchange.com site header with an inbox icon showing negative one unread messages.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 18

A rapt audience for the biggest game of Gimbo I've seen yet! #TorontoGamesWeek #tgw

A full room and more crowded outside the glass wall focusing on a screen out of frame.

A bunch of colourful characters run around and crowd together on a white field populated by colourful noodle trees.

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 18

I'm demoing my #TOJam 2016 game Last One Standing at the @torontogamesweek.com closing party! Come play with us at the Demo Room! #TorontoGamesWeek #tgw26

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 17

Probably deleted for good reason, but heaven help me, I would watch this too. 😅

Cris DeLeon posts:

a movie where the zoo bars dril for hollering at the animals so he faces God and walks backwards into hell

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 16

This book — Salt & Straw — also has some interesting and inventive ice cream flavours I'm looking forward to making...

Cover of Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook, by Tyler Malek and JJ Goode.

Recipe for "Olde People" (Werthers & tea)

Recipe for Pumpkin Custard & Spiced Goat Cheese ice cream

Douglas@dmgregory· Jun 16

I... *may* have gone a little overboard on this StackExchange answer... 😅 gamedev.stackexchange.com/q/217315/39518 (In my defense, someone asked a pretty interesting question about what we can mathematically analyze / quantify about #GameBalance in a strategy game) #GameDesign #GraphTheory #MathSky