And we're off! First class of 2026 saw three pre-teens starting their first #visualnovel with its first choice point, visuals for the speakers and scene backgrounds, and background music. Not bad for one hour!

Hey all,

I have a friend who's been trying to get on Mastodon but tells me that it doesn't seem to play well with screen readers. I know there are plenty of people on the fedi who do use screen readers, but I have no experience with them myself, so I can't really direct him.

Can someone who does use a #ScreenReader point me in the direction of some resources that might be useful?
#AskFedi #a11y

Playing with #godot for the first time, and accidentally set some bullets to be rigid objects in the 2D physics engine rather than 2D 'areas'.

Which was actually hilarious, because rather than making the enemies dissappear like a normal boring game, the 1kg bullets travelling at several meters per second effective speed smacked the enemies off the screen spinning violently.

I'm sort of convinced that a huge number of action game mechanics start as 'happy accidents' like this.

Last chance to sign up the under 18 budding #visualnovel author in your life for an online five week introduction to writing #interactivefiction - the courses start next week! thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

You know how to get people to leave platforms run by evil people?

Yes, that's right, by offering better alternatives and being super friendly and welcoming and actively working on recruiting people and evangelizing for the better platforms and most importantly by not being gatekeeping misers.

@maikel@vmst.io @RiversideBryan@pixelfed.social ​To be clear, this isn't me casting shade at Mastodon; there's reasons for doing it that way and they are by no means the only ActivityPub server that doesn't implement the client to server API. But it is a pain when it comes to wanting to standardize anything end to end.

@maikel@vmst.io @RiversideBryan@pixelfed.social I think that the ActivityPub API being discussed there is the client API which (last I checked) Mastodon does not implement. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub server API to allow federation between servers​ but that doesn't help with e2ee because well, it ain't end to end encrypted if it isn't encrypted by the client.

To my considerable surprise, we're launching an adult introduction to #visualnovel writing courses here at VisualInk. Someone has offered to pay my 1-1 mentoring rates for an introduction, so now we’re at the stage of seeing if other people are interested at times that can work as this is the kind of thing that is most fun in a small group setting - and to share out the cost to something more reasonable!

So if you’re interested or know anyone who might be drop a message and we can talk.

@maikel@vmst.io 😱 ​And I thought our local hospital was bad at communication...

I'm running courses for under 18s on creating #interactivefiction (specifically, #visualnovels ) but I just had a request from one of the parents for an adult version of the course.

Would you, or anyone you know be interested in a short course on writing interactive fiction? Would probably run at around 5 hours over 5 weeks, homework optional, costing around 55 GBP.

More about me/the existing courses at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

(Please share if this seems even vaguely interesting)

(everyone's different, so adjust to taste)

• Check for 'comfort' entertainment: I often reread a few books I've had since being a teenager (known comfort) or trashy fanfiction (new but I don't feel bad about not paying full attention) to provide enough distraction to rest in these situations.
• Depending on the relational dynamics, either offer to screen comms or suggest do not disturb for notifications with checks at specific times of day. Even people wanting to support can be a huge drain.
• Avoid the news if possible. Stuff out there can be important and meaningful, but sometimes we don't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with it.

I'm running courses for under 18s on creating #interactivefiction (specifically, #visualnovels ) but I just had a request from one of the parents for an adult version of the course.

Would you, or anyone you know be interested in a short course on writing interactive fiction? Would probably run at around 5 hours over 5 weeks, homework optional, costing around 55 GBP.

More about me/the existing courses at thinkersmeetup.com/scholars/...

(Please share if this seems even vaguely interesting)