It’s almost the end of January 2026, a month that has seemingly lasted years. I see this as more of a project blog than a personal blog so I’ll just say, I’ve had a few distractions! But: I’ve also released some work I’m excited about and I’m glad you’ve stopped by to hear about it.

First: Garrett and I made a new game as Brainfruit, and you can play it before you even finish reading this! A Jackpot of Skulls spins a tale of rivalry and redemption through the classic narrative medium of a slot machine. Build your realm back piece by piece and see where it takes you! There’s a ton of writing packed into this game and perhaps … if the blogging gods are kind … I’ll do another post about how we managed it all before too long. In the meantime, you can and should enjoy Garrett’s beautiful cover image.

A Jackpot of Skulls hero image. A slot machine displaying three skulls stands alone on a blasted landscape.

A Jackpot of Skulls was part of the inaugural _update() jam, initiated by designer, Finji cofounder, and pico-8 auteur Adam Atomic to give a handful of game designers the same base graphics and rendering constraints then see what came of it. The results were all so different from each other! Adam himself made Frogwell, a deep frog-focused platformer (three words: tongue grappling hook) and Rémy from Punkcake made Bird Watcher, a beguiling open-world mystery box full of beautiful emergent interactions and a genius flight animation cycle. If you’re a pico-head and curious to explore the jam template yourself, Adam uploaded it to the BBS here.

That’s not all! On January 8th, Puzzmo published what I believe is now my fifth (?!) mid-sized crossword for the site, “Digital Governance”. You can solve it right there on Puzzmo because I pulled some strings to get archive access enabled. Who knows, there could even be ANOTHER Puzzmo announcement on this very blog quite soon.

A preview image for a mid-sized crossword puzzle titled "Digital Governance", by Rob Dubbin, edited by Madeline Kaplan

Lastly for now, I want to highlight the 2025 Games of the Year episode we recorded for The Secret Lives of Games podcast, formerly Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games, now blessedly rebranded to its less-phallic former subtitle. This episode is always a joy to participate in and the collective’s picks did not disappoint. If you’re looking for something new to play (and have a long drive ahead or a lot of dishes to do or something) I guarantee you’ll find it in these three hours. If I’m wrong about that, well, then I solemnly vow not to blog again until September.

Like and subscribe you jackals! See you soonish!