Nicholas O / Essay Games
@essaygames
Assistant Professor, Game Arts @ Pratt Institute Founder of Essay Games (he/him) Bundle of Joy (Narrative Wario Ware Dad-Simulator):
Had a good time dev’ing today, was able to wrap up loose ends of the NPC dialog system. Ended kinda funky though because I realized the system I made accounted for only one NPC speaker at a time. But encounters will often have multiple speakers… so I’ll have to figure that out later.
I had my first semi-studio day in some time and I'm diving back into my project to refactor a ton of code based on some re-design ideas for the next project. This rewriting will hopefully also pair down a lot of edge cases and overly-deterministic interactions/gated content. Also I made this:
There’s only one proper way to celebrate America at 250: Salt N’ Peppa
So proud to be part of the team contributing to @godot.foundation’s Nodeletter! Make sure to go subscribe: godot.news/subscription...
Really funny to see @caraellison.bsky.social’s book out in the wild as part of a local stoop sale.
Official vision statement published by @godotengine.org foundation. godot.foundation/policies-and... The two points that really stand out to me are “small and medium teams” and “for hardware people own.” Those two pillars are going to become increasingly important in post-AAA game dev imho.
Bundle of Joy is on sale AGAIN as part of the Steam Summer Sale starting today! There's been so much wonderful recent support for my Dad-simulator minigame project & it's great to see it find new audiences. Thanks for sharing and leave a review if you can! store.steampowered.com/app/3138370/...
It’s done! So many good questions and conversations with fellow attendees and can’t wait to keep the convo going today and tomorrow. Here’s me, the coward (thx Matthew Baloušek for the pic!)
Really great to check out @selkieharbour.com and @deconstructeam.bsky.social’s Virtue of a Sledgehammer at Tribeca games! Can’t wait for the whole game!
Amidst a stack of random SD and Compact Flash cards the one, the only. An original FFT: Advance cartridge. Now just need to find a GBA to play this bad boy on. 2:14 PM · May 28, 2026
Junk Jet #5 An incredible German net artist publication featuring a lot of heavy hitters. One of many semi-glossy higher-end zines made in the early 2010s.
For some reason, I have a backup version of windows 7. Just in case, y’know
Next is the Bad at Sports LP! Made in collaboration with Columbia College Chicago, a record of contributors and writers talking about their work and their perspective of writing about contemporary art. Made for a big anniversary/-archive effort in 2012.
Ok up first: a small catalog of a Sokol show by (now IG famous) Jaakko Pallasvuo that features a short essay about making videos with my high school best friend.
Moving studio storage stuff into my office to start my summer and can’t wait to dig through my archive of zines, flyers, notebooks, and other printer ephemera I’ve had stored for over 3 years. Will try to share in a thread.
I didn't succumb to the faerie magic, and now... maybe I regret it?
I couldn’t stay for super long for the amazing senior showcase at @wonderville.nyc this afternoon but I am so immensely inspired by our students and feel so lucky to call @everest.bsky.social (and all the Game Arts faculty) a colleague.
As a kind of celebration of recent good news, I'm proud to officially be a paying dues member of @videogameworkers.bsky.social. Excited to join the ranks and looking forward to connecting with other members in the 5-boroughs (and beyond).
I genuinely have the best students. A lovely message to come into school on Monday.
I announced this a little while ago but to make things a bit more official, I'm going to be speaking at NarraScope on Saturday morning (June 13th). I'm very excited to talk about over-reliance on branching narrative, false agency, and pairing narrative with gameplay (and how I struggle doing that)!
The Pratt Game Arts Senior showcase is happening once again at @wonderville.nyc on May 17th, 3-6pm! I cannot wait for y'all to check out the amazing projects our seniors have made. s/o to @everest.bsky.social for the excellent poster and leadership!