Video game design and culture notes by Robert Yang
CONTENT WARNING: This post is mostly "SFW" (Safe For Work) but the pictures are somewhat spicy, though Instagram-safe. Radiator Forever is a new ongoing re-remaster / re-re-release of my short experimental gay games. I'm putting them all in one collection / package!... Or at least, that's the idea. You can play it on Steam (login required) or on Itch , but use those direct links because it's…
look at how laid-back I am Recently I spoke to Radio New Zealand (RNZ) journalist Ke-Xin Li about... Americans. The radio segment is called "First Up: Increase in number of Americans granted New Zealand citizenship" if you want to hear my lovely voice, and the article is "Slower pace sees more Americans eye 'laid-back' Kiwi lifestyle" if you prefer to read my lovely voice. The reporter found me…
Street Corner Orator, 1938 (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL) Cécile Richard is running the 2026 edition of Manifesto Jam . Time is running out to submit your brilliant bold game design manifesto that will change the world! Quick, hurry and manifest, before submissions close on June 15th! This year I've contributed a short little manifesto, called "A Game Is A Knife." Already I…
I have a new piece up at Rock Paper Shotgun about Dark Souls 2 (2014), but no prior Dark Souls experience is necessary to read it. It's about when I got hacked in Dark Souls 2. Basically a malicious multiplayer PvP invader can "inject" invalid items into your inventory, causing the game to crash if you try to open your inventory screen. In my case, my hacker injected me with 500 cursed swords,…
Freeplay Parallels in 2024 in Naarm Melbourne, Australia This year the oldest living art games non-profit in the world, Freeplay (Australia) , announced they were like a year away from shutting down, so they're running a survey on what to do . They have some money, enough for one last conference, or one last showcase? Or should they do something else? It's easy to see this as part of a broader…
overview of the Ocean intro level I made some levels for the 3D platformer game Big Hops by Luckshot Games , and it's finally released! You can now play it on Steam , Switch , and PS5 . So far the game is getting 7s, 8s, and 9s. Most players like the level design, though some kinda hate it, which is fair -- we went for a chill cozy-ish hands-off no-combat experience that won't hit for everyone,…
"One Need Not Be A House" is a large non-linear concrete bunker island / brick brutalism map that I made for Quake Brutalism Jam 3 -- a huge single player mega mod for Quake 1 with 77 (!!!) modernist-inspired levels made by the community. You can download and play it for free here, as part of the QBJ3 mod at the Quake community hub Slipseer . This time the jam organizers even made a 100% free…
I haven't done one of these end-of-the-year blog roundups since December 2018 . This blog is now 16 years old. Maybe now's a good time to catch up over the past 6 years of my life?? Here's my "greatest hits" / notable blog posts since 2019 , along with some commentary with the benefit of substantial hindsight. ⭐ = Gay game release / artist statement. 2019 Thick skin: complexion, realism, and labor…
Rainbows Are Carnivores is a gay fishing / aquaculture romance video game about using your pole to catch some high quality hogs. "Hog” is, of course, angler slang for a big fish, like a rainbow trout. It could also refer to the many rainbow men who happen to inhabit this video game lake. You can play the game for free in your web browser , on desktop or mobile. Though I must warn you, it's a bit…
talking to the "Inquisitor" at the beginning of the game Dread Delusion (2024) by Lovely Hellplace is a retro-style indie first person RPG about exploring strange floating islands and talking to the NPCs who live there. It takes about 15-20 hours to complete. inventory screen Many compare it to The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, with its emphasis on charming low poly 3D world design and worldbuilding.…
So I've now been playing the weird MMO known as TikTok for more than a month, and I thought I should reflect on my time there. In contrast to my first week on TikTok where I posted every day , I've now been uploading videos every 2-4 days. Which is much better. I highly recommend not posting every day, everywhere. I've been making more local Australia / New Zealand game industry event vlogs.…
In about 2 weeks, I'll be giving a keynote at Freeplay Angles 2025 , an indie video game festival in Melbourne, Australia, running from July 31 - August 2, 2025. I'd give a hint for what my keynote's about, but I'm still in the middle of writing it, so you'll just have to wait in suspense a little while longer. (It'll probably have some sex in it I don't know)... For now, some logistics: I'll be…
Don't Rank Cuomo is a free short web game about not voting for / not "ranking" Andrew Cuomo, a corrupt disgraced neoliberal New York politician who's unfortunately running for mayor of New York City. (For more info, see the Times Union's June 15th op-ed: "Don't rank Andrew Cuomo." ) I made the game in an afternoon, after getting bombarded again with NYC mayoral race discourse on Bluesky even…
A week ago I threatened to make some TikToks . I set a personal goal to make one TikTok a day, just simple basic daily vlog stuff of whatever I was already doing. And now it's been a week and I've done it. I now have a modest following and a TikTok profile page (@radiatoryang) with a full grid of videos. I feel a lot more capable with the video editing tool now, and sometimes I even have a little…
So I've finally done it. I've made a TikTok account (@radiatoryang) . Forgive me. I still prefer text over video, and I certainly don't intend to "pivot to video"... but it was feeling increasingly foolish to lack the video skills / cultural context of virtually everyone under 30 in the entire world. Now I'm not a total stranger to making video. I used to do weekly level design streams called…
photo of a random 2000s era US cybercafe (This personal essay was written for LAN Party, a nice photo book about LAN gaming culture curated / edited by merritt k , along with many more essays like this one. You should buy the book and give it nice reviews. For this blog post version, I've made a few edits and added some pictures / links.) After School Sometimes on Fridays after school, a bunch of…
Down here in the other hemisphere, Australians and New Zealanders are approaching winter... which means it's time to leave the beach and attend some game developer events. I'll be participating in a few public events this season: June 7-8, 2025: Frosty Games Fest @ online. We'll be premiering some Tryhard gameplay footage at this upcoming fresh new exciting Australia / New Zealand themed online…
(This post is adapted from my micro talk "Teaching and Rethinking Level Design" at the GDC 2025 Educators Soapbox session. That's why it mentions "students" in the slide above.) People want to do level design. They grow up playing games like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite — all 3D games with 3D worlds. And to create 3D worlds, supposedly you need this thing called “level design.” Then when you search…
In our upcoming game Tryhard , we have cutscenes and dialogue and level scripting like many other RPGs. This dev log is about how we’re implementing some of that stuff in the game. (Note that I'm writing this post mostly for fellow Unity game devs, but even if you don't happen to be a dev, maybe you'll appreciate this technical behind-the-scenes look anyway? Just let all the game dev words and…
Yep I'm attending GDC 2025. (For better or worse , I've made too many commitments to cancel.) The best way to contact me is to @ me on BlueSky or email me ( yang.robert.w [AT] gmail ). You can also probably just find me lounging in the Yerba Buena Gardens on most non-rainy noon-afternoons. If you're press / journalist / podcaster / creator / TikToker / YouTuber / writer etc. and you need content…
Now that we’ve announced our upcoming game Tryhard (... WISHLIST ON STEAM? ) I can talk more openly about our design and development process for it. Today's post is about the game's setting, world, and worldbuilding. Like many RPGs, Tryhard has an explorable 3D town hub where you can talk to NPCs, visit shops, and randomly barge into homes to steal things. These RPG towns usually exist in a…
Welcome back to Radiator University! Although it's been 7 years since we last offered any courses , we wish to assure you that we're absolutely open for business and/or scholarship, thanks to a fresh funding injection from Hegemony Capital, which will never compromise our academic mission in any way. Here's a sample of our new course offerings for the upcoming Spring 2025 semester: AG 3532 -…
V Buckenham has declared that this is the year of the blog . I suppose I shall answer the call. It must be so. I used to blog with shocking regularity -- at my peak (or my lowest point?) I was writing 2-3 posts a week. I can't imagine doing that now. But maybe I can commit to a 2-3 posts "every now and then"? *** As long as we're strolling down memory lane: my most loyal readers may recall this…
Tryhard is an upcoming sports RPG about managing an underdog rugby club in New Zealand. We're still quite early in development. But for now, it'd really help us if you wishlisted the game on Steam or idled in the Discord , mostly so we can show those stats to convince rich people to give us money to finish making the game. If you're interested in why we're making this game / what's going on... For…
Just a brief update here -- I recently had the honor of participating in Rock Paper Shotgun's "what's on your bookshelf" interview series. It's one of my favorite gaming journalism things happening at the moment, full of interesting book recs and observations from smart people like Alice Bell , Josh Sawyer , and Xalavier Nelson Jr . Check out the full series listing here . The implication is that…