Simone Giertz made a proud parent machine
— voiced by Adam Savage; don’t miss the very sweet moment with her real parents at the end #LIKELIKE’s Online Museum of Multiplayer Art
— a playful lo-fi multiplayer gallery of virtual installations #Panic Podcast on Sidetalkin’
— Cabel Sasser was behind the delightful 2004-era meme mocking the Nokia N-Gage #Vemos
— new Netflix Party-esque Chrome add-on for synchronized viewing parties from popular streaming services via Web Curios #Fiona Apple’s Release the Bold Cutters is out tonight
— her first in eight years, and it’s getting great early reviews #Devs is very good and you should watch it
— just watched the series finale, the short-run series by Ex Machina/Annihilation’s Alex Garland is the best since Russian Doll #Ars Technica on the Half-Life improv scene
— games provide a perfect setting for endless comedy riffing #Pass the Pepper
— over-the-top Rube Goldberg device made from household objects with incredible comedic timing via Colossal #Naomi Kritzer reflects on her 2015 short story about a food blogger living through a pandemic
— it’s incredibly uncanny to read now, like a parallel universe to ours via MetaFilter #Glitch launches paid subscriptions
— boost Glitch apps so they never sleep, with additional resources and no rate limits #ZOOOOOM.US
— a screensaver simulating a neverending Zoom call with a rotating cast of characters via Jason Cosper #Finland adds demoscene to National Inventory of Living Heritage
— “the first time that a digital culture is listed as UNESCO intangible world cultural heritage, anywhere, ever” #The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder
— Wired profiles a Cloudflare cofounder whose personality shifted after a degenerative brain disease via @nbashaw #Fan-made Minecraft Disneyland recreation is opening California Adventure on April 24
— can’t recommend this enough, the Disneyland rides are incredibly charming #Our Pandemic Summer
— another must-read Ed Yong piece on the near future and weathering the next stages of the pandemic #Kickstarting Flatter Me: A Compliment Battle Card Game
Three years ago, my wife Ami designed and developed her first game, a charming conversational card game called You Think You Know Me, which went on to sell over 9,000 copies around the world and now close to selling out its second print run.
I loved helping out with the package and card design for You Think You Know Me, a return to my pre-web career in desktop publishing and print production, as well as making the official homepage to support it. (The cards are all CSS!)
The followup to her first game is Flatter Me, a new game where you compete with friends to give compliments, with rules similar to the classic card game of War. It takes literally seconds to learn, explained in full in the project video below.
Each of the 250 cards have a unique compliment on them, which you can give away as little tokens of affection.
Once again, I helped out with the packaging and card designs, and if it hits its goal, you can expect to see a site at flatterme.cards once it’s officially on sale.
I know I’m biased, but Ami’s games have a gentle sweetness that really resonates with me. They’re all designed to bring people together, whether it’s by learning more about people you love or simply by telling them how much they mean to you.
Her games have rules and win conditions like any other card game, but they’re so quick and easy to understand that they become a convenient framework to enrich the connections between friends, family, and partners.
Flatter Me is now funding on Kickstarter, currently at 95% funded (!) with three days to go, and I’d love it if you checked it out or helped spread the word. Thanks!