If you’re in the homebuying market, you’ve probably come to realize that the grass is always greener in the listing description—both literally and figuratively. Real estate agents sometimes get creative with Photoshop edits on listing photos, often brightening up the grass and editing out unsightly objects, like a neighbor’s clunker car or wires cluttering a bedroom. They also use some descriptive language that can be, well, deceptive. Adjectives like cozy and charming may evoke good feelings in potential buyers, but they’re high on the list of frequently used adjectives that probably don’t mean what you think they do. Photos and descriptions give you a teaser, but nothing beats an in-person tour for catching any potential sneaky details. Still, there are certain phrases to keep an eye out for as you're browsing for your next dream home online. Below, we're rounding up 10 common words or phrases often found in real estate listings should raise red flags, according to real estate pros. Related Stories“Charming”DreamPictures//Getty ImagesOr, similarly, unique. “Often, this means the property has some quirks that might not appeal to everyone,” real estate expert Yawar Charlie, director of the luxury estates division at Aaron Kirman Group, says. “It could be anything from a funky floor plan to unconventional finishes.” Think about resale value and whether any of these quirks might be a dealbreaker for future buyers, should you choose to sell“Cozy”Cozy is most likely a code word for lacking square footage, Charlie says. “When they call it cozy, they’re hinting that it might be a bit cramped,” he says. “Check for square footage and layout specifics.”“Home Being Sold As Is”"As is" is perhaps one of the biggest red flags in real estate. “It often signals that the property may have significant issues the seller is trying to offload,” says Nikki Bernstein, a global real estate advisor with Engel & Völkers Scottsdale.According to Bernstein, an "as is" condition indicates that the seller is likely emotionally detached and unwilling to negotiate on price or concessions. It also suggests they may be withholding information, indicating there could be hidden problems waiting to be uncovered during inspection, she says. “As is might as well be a warning: ‘Buyer beware,’” Bernstein says. “Fixer Upper”Mableen//Getty ImagesIf you’ve got a design-build background or are looking for homes that are worth renovating, a property advertised as a fixer-upper might make for a fun challenge. But this phrase usually means the property has seen better days and needs some TLC, which is not what most buyers are looking for. Charlie's advice? Bring a contractor or a handyman to the home inspection with you. “You’re not just checking for cosmetic issues; you want to get the lowdown on structural problems, electrical updates, and plumbing repairs,” Charlie says. “A fixer-upper can quickly turn into a money pit.”If you choose to pursue a home that needs a fair amount of love, make sure you’ve got the right loan, Virginia Realtor and real estate broker Michelle Brown cautions. For example, a FHA 203K loan lets buyers roll home improvement costs into their mortgage.“Investors’ Dream”This phrase typically signals the property is in poor condition but priced low for potential profit through renovations or redevelopment, Brown says. This is another instance where you’ll want to have a contractor with you to get a full picture of all the repairs that may be needed.“Make This Home Your Own”This phrase signals the home is likely outdated and in need of cosmetic updates at the very least, New Jersey Realtor Larry Devardo says. Listings that advertise “potential” or say “home has endless possibilities” are also indicators that repairs and updates are needed, he says. “Great Bones”DreamPictures//Getty ImagesOn the upside, “great bones” means the home is structurally sound with strong infrastructure, Maryland Realtor Ellie Hitt says. On the downside, it likely needs a lot of cosmetic updates to bring it up to date with modern conveniences and aesthetics.“Needs TLC”Often, when a home requires cosmetic work, “TLC” is noted, indicating the property needs someone who is willing to put in a little bit of elbow grease, agent Karen Kostiw of Coldwell Banker Warburg says. You may be thinking of new carpet, updated cabinets, and a few other touch-ups, but in some cases, TLC could actually mean the property requires a gut renovation.“Motivated Seller”Translation: The seller is eager to sell, possibly due to financial issues, a pending foreclosure, or a property that has been on the market for a while, says Jeffrey Borham, owner of Tampa Bay, Florida Team Borham. “This could be an opportunity for negotiation,” he adds. “However, investigate why the seller is motivated; there could be hidden issues that have deterred other buyers.”Similarly, “priced to sell” could mean a whole host of things, ranging from the property needs some work or the seller wants to start a bidding war, New York City Broker Sean Adu-Gyamfi of Coldwell Banker Warburg says.“Hot Listing”Some agents advertise “hot listings” on the MLS to create urgency, even if there are no other offers, Misty Spittler, a licensed public insurance adjuster and certified roof inspector, says. Don’t feel pressured, though. She recently had a client bid $20,000 over asking on a listing advertised as hot. Spittler’s inspection found $30,000 of necessary repairs, so the client was able to renegotiate.Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.

In 2025, it’s very difficult not to see gambling advertised everywhere. It’s on billboards and sports broadcasts. It’s on podcasts and printed on the turnbuckle of AEW’s pay-per-view shows. And it’s on app stores, where you can find the FanDuel and DraftKings sportsbooks, alongside glitzy digital slot machines. These apps all have the highest age ratings possible on Apple’s App Store and Google Play. But earlier this year, a different kind of app nearly disappeared from the Play Store entirely.Luck Be A Landlord is a roguelite deckbuilder from solo developer Dan DiIorio. DiIorio got word from Google in January 2025 that Luck Be A Landlord was about to be pulled, globally, because DiIorio had not disclosed the game’s “gambling themes” in its rating.In Luck Be a Landlord, the player takes spins on a pixel art slot machine to earn coins to pay their ever-increasing rent — a nightmare gamification of our day-to-day grind to remain housed. On app stores, it’s a one-time purchase of $4.99, and it’s $9.99 on Steam. On the Play Store page, developer Dan DiIorio notes, “This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.”And it doesn’t. But for Google, that didn’t matter. First, the game was removed from the storefront in a slew of countries that have strict gambling laws. Then, at the beginning of 2025, Google told Dilorio that Luck Be A Landlord would be pulled globally because of its rating discrepancy, as it “does not take into account references to gambling (including real or simulated gambling)”.DiIorio had gone through this song and dance before — previously, when the game was blocked, he would send back a message saying “hey, the game doesn’t have gambling,” and then Google would send back a screenshot of the game and assert that, in fact, it had.DiIorio didn’t agree, but this time they decided that the risk of Landlord getting taken down permanently was too great. They’re a solo developer, and Luck Be a Landlord had just had its highest 30-day revenue since release. So, they filled out the form confirming that Luck Be A Landlord has “gambling themes,” and are currently hoping that this will be the end of it.This is a situation that sucks for an indie dev to be in, and over email DiIorio told Polygon it was “very frustrating.”“I think it can negatively affect indie developers if they fall outside the norm, which indies often do,” they wrote. “It also makes me afraid to explore mechanics like this further. It stifles creativity, and that’s really upsetting.”In late 2024, the hit game Balatro was in a similar position. It had won numerous awards, and made $1,000,000 in its first week on mobile platforms. And then overnight, the PEGI ratings board declared that the game deserved an adult rating.The ESRB had already rated it E10+ in the US, noting it has gambling themes. And the game was already out in Europe, making its overnight ratings change a surprise. Publisher PlayStack said the rating was given because Balatro has “prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling.”Balatro is basically Luck Be A Landlord’s little cousin. Developer LocalThunk was inspired by watching streams of Luck Be A Landlord, and seeing the way DiIorio had implemented deck-building into his slot machine. And like Luck Be A Landlord, Balatro is a one-time purchase, with no microtransactions.But the PEGI board noted that because the game uses poker hands, the skills the player learns in Balatro could translate to real-world poker.In its write-up, GameSpot noted that the same thing happened to a game called Sunshine Shuffle. It was temporarily banned from the Nintendo eShop, and also from the entire country of South Korea. Unlike Balatro, Sunshine Shuffle actually is a poker game, except you’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em — again for no real money — with cute animals (who are bank robbers).It’s common sense that children shouldn’t be able to access apps that allow them to gamble. But none of these games contain actual gambling — or do they?Where do we draw the line? Is it gambling to play any game that is also played in casinos, like poker or blackjack? Is it gambling to play a game that evokes the aesthetics of a casino, like cards, chips, dice, or slot machines? Is it gambling to wager or earn fictional money?Gaming has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Sex, violence, misogyny, addiction — you name it, video games have been accused of perpetrating or encouraging it. But gambling is gaming’s original sin. And it’s the one we still can’t get a grip on.The original link between gambling and gamingGetty ImagesThe association between video games and gambling all goes back to pinball. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, politicians targeted pinball machines for promoting gambling. Early pinball machines were less skill-based (they didn’t have flippers), and some gave cash payouts, so the comparison wasn’t unfair. Famously, mob-hating New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pinball in the city, and appeared in a newsreel dumping pinball and slot machines into the Long Island Sound. Pinball machines spent some time relegated to the back rooms of sex shops and dive bars. But after some lobbying, the laws relaxed.By the 1970s, pinball manufacturers were also making video games, and the machines were side-by-side in arcades. Arcade machines, like pinball, took small coin payments, repeatedly, for short rounds of play. The disreputable funk of pinball basically rubbed off onto video games.Ever since video games rocked onto the scene, concerned and sometimes uneducated parties have been asking if they’re dangerous. And in general, studies have shown that they’re not. The same can’t be said about gambling — the practice of putting real money down to bet on an outcome.It’s a golden age for gambling2025 in the USA is a great time for gambling, which has been really profitable for gambling companies — to the tune of $66.5 billion dollars of revenue in 2023.To put this number in perspective, the American Gaming Association, which is the casino industry’s trade group and has nothing to do with video games, reports that 2022’s gambling revenue was $60.5 billion. It went up $6 billion in a year.And this increase isn’t just because of sportsbooks, although sports betting is a huge part of it. Online casinos and brick-and-mortar casinos are both earning more, and as a lot of people have pointed out, gambling is being normalized to a pretty disturbing degree.Much like with alcohol, for a small percentage of people, gambling can tip from occasional leisure activity into addiction. The people who are most at risk are, by and large, already vulnerable: researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found that 96% of problem gamblers are also wrestling with other disorders, such as “substance use, impulse-control disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.”Even if you’re not in that group, there are still good reasons to be wary of gambling. People tend to underestimate their own vulnerability to things they know are dangerous for others. Someone else might bet beyond their means. But I would simply know when to stop.Maybe you do! But being blithely confident about it can make it hard to notice if you do develop a problem. Or if you already have one.Addiction changes the way your brain works. When you’re addicted to something, your participation in it becomes compulsive, at the expense of other interests and responsibilities. Someone might turn to their addiction to self-soothe when depressed or anxious. And speaking of those feelings, people who are depressed and anxious are already more vulnerable to addiction. Given the entire state of the world right now, this predisposition shines an ugly light on the numbers touted by the AGA. Is it good that the industry is reporting $6 billion in additional earnings, when the economy feels so frail, when the stock market is ping ponging through highs and lows daily, when daily expenses are rising? It doesn’t feel good. In 2024, the YouTuber Drew Gooden turned his critical eye to online gambling. One of the main points he makes in his excellent video is that gambling is more accessible than ever. It’s on all our phones, and betting companies are using decades of well-honed app design and behavioral studies to manipulate users to spend and spend.Meanwhile, advertising on podcasts, billboards, TV, radio, and websites – it’s literally everywhere — tells you that this is fun, and you don’t even need to know what you’re doing, and you’re probably one bet away from winning back those losses.Where does Luck Be a Landlord come into this?So, are there gambling themes in Luck Be A Landlord? The game’s slot machine is represented in simple pixel art. You pay one coin to use it, and among the more traditional slot machine symbols are silly ones like a snail that only pays out after 4 spins.When I started playing it, my primary emotion wasn’t necessarily elation at winning coins — it was stress and disbelief when, in the third round of the game, the landlord increased my rent by 100%. What the hell.I don’t doubt that getting better at it would produce dopamine thrills akin to gambling — or playing any video game. But it’s supposed to be difficult, because that’s the joke. If you beat the game you unlock more difficulty modes where, as you keep paying rent, your landlord gets furious, and starts throwing made-up rules at you: previously rare symbols will give you less of a payout, and the very mechanics of the slot machine change.It’s a manifestation of the golden rule of casinos, and all of capitalism writ large: the odds are stacked against you. The house always wins. There is luck involved, to be sure, but because Luck Be A Landlord is a deck-builder, knowing the different ways you can design your slot machine to maximize payouts is a skill! You have some influence over it, unlike a real slot machine. The synergies that I’ve seen high-level players create are completely nuts, and obviously based on a deep understanding of the strategies the game allows.IMAGE: TrampolineTales via PolygonBalatro and Luck Be a Landlord both distance themselves from casino gambling again in the way they treat money. In Landlord, the money you earn is gold coins, not any currency we recognize. And the payouts aren’t actually that big. By the end of the core game, the rent money you’re struggling and scraping to earn… is 777 coins. In the post-game endless mode, payouts can get massive. But the thing is, to get this far, you can’t rely on chance. You have to be very good at Luck Be a Landlord.And in Balatro, the numbers that get big are your points. The actual dollar payments in a round of Balatro are small. These aren’t games about earning wads and wads of cash. So, do these count as “gambling themes”?We’ll come back to that question later. First, I want to talk about a closer analog to what we colloquially consider gambling: loot boxes and gacha games.Random rewards: from Overwatch to the rise of gachaRecently, I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time: I thought about Overwatch. I used to play Overwatch with my friends, and I absolutely made a habit of dropping 20 bucks here or there for a bunch of seasonal loot boxes. This was never a problem behavior for me, but in hindsight, it does sting that over a couple of years, I dropped maybe $150 on cosmetics for a game that now I primarily associate with squandered potential.Loot boxes grew out of free-to-play mobile games, where they’re the primary method of monetization. In something like Overwatch, they functioned as a way to earn additional revenue in an ongoing game, once the player had already dropped 40 bucks to buy it.More often than not, loot boxes are a random selection of skins and other cosmetics, but games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 were famously criticized for launching with loot crates that essentially made it pay-to-win – if you bought enough of them and got lucky.It’s not unprecedented to associate loot boxes with gambling. A 2021 study published in Addictive Behaviors showed that players who self-reported as problem gamblers also tended to spend more on loot boxes, and another study done in the UK found a similar correlation with young adults.While Overwatch certainly wasn’t the first game to feature cosmetic loot boxes or microtransactions, it’s a reference point for me, and it also got attention worldwide. In 2018, Overwatch was investigated by the Belgian Gaming Commission, which found it “in violation of gambling legislation” alongside FIFA 18 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Belgium’s response was to ban the sale of loot boxes without a gambling license. Having a paid random rewards mechanic in a game is a criminal offense there. But not really. A 2023 study showed that 82% of iPhone games sold on the App Store in Belgium still use random paid monetization, as do around 80% of games that are rated 12+. The ban wasn’t effectively enforced, if at all, and the study recommends that a blanket ban wouldn’t actually be a practical solution anyway.Overwatch was rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and 12 by PEGI. When it first came out, its loot boxes were divisive. Since the mechanic came from F2P mobile games, which are often seen as predatory, people balked at seeing it in a big action game from a multi-million dollar publisher.At the time, the rebuttal was, “Well, at least it’s just cosmetics.” Nobody needs to buy loot boxes to be good at Overwatch.A lot has changed since 2016. Now we have a deeper understanding of how these mechanics are designed to manipulate players, even if they don’t affect gameplay. But also, they’ve been normalized. While there will always be people expressing disappointment when a AAA game has a paid random loot mechanic, it is no longer shocking.And if anything, these mechanics have only become more prevalent, thanks to the growth of gacha games. Gacha is short for “gachapon,” the Japanese capsule machines where you pay to receive one of a selection of random toys. Getty ImagesIn gacha games, players pay — not necessarily real money, but we’ll get to that — for a chance to get something. Maybe it’s a character, or a special weapon, or some gear — it depends on the game. Whatever it is, within that context, it’s desirable — and unlike the cosmetics of Overwatch, gacha pulls often do impact the gameplay.For example, in Infinity Nikki, you can pull for clothing items in these limited-time events. You have a chance to get pieces of a five-star outfit. But you also might pull one of a set of four-star items, or a permanent three-star piece. Of course, if you want all ten pieces of the five-star outfit, you have to do multiple pulls, each costing a handful of limited resources that you can earn in-game or purchase with money.Gacha was a fixture of mobile gaming for a long time, but in recent years, we’ve seen it go AAA, and global. MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact did a lot of that work when it came out worldwide on consoles and PC alongside its mobile release. Genshin and its successors are massive AAA games of a scale that, for your Nintendos and Ubisofts, would necessitate selling a bajillion copies to be a success. And they’re free.Genshin is an action game, whose playstyle changes depending on what character you’re playing — characters you get from gacha pulls, of course. In Zenless Zone Zero, the characters you can pull have different combo patterns, do different kinds of damage, and just feel different to play. And whereas in an early mobile gacha game like Love Nikki Dress UP! Queen the world was rudimentary, its modern descendant Infinity Nikki is, like Genshin, Breath of the Wild-esque. It is a massive open world, with collectibles and physics puzzles, platforming challenges, and a surprisingly involved storyline. Genshin Impact was the subject of an interesting study where researchers asked young adults in Hong Kong to self-report on their gacha spending habits. They found that, like with gambling, players who are not feeling good tend to spend more. “Young adult gacha gamers experiencing greater stress and anxiety tend to spend more on gacha purchases, have more motives for gacha purchases, and participate in more gambling activities,” they wrote. “This group is at a particularly higher risk of becoming problem gamblers.”One thing that is important to note is that Genshin Impact came out in 2020. The study was self-reported, and it was done during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when people were experiencing a lot of stress, and also fewer options to relieve that stress. We were all stuck inside gaming.But the fact that stress can make people more likely to spend money on gacha shows that while the gacha model isn’t necessarily harmful to everyone, it is exploitative to everyone. Since I started writing this story, another self-reported study came out in Japan, where 18.8% of people in their 20s say they’ve spent money on gacha rather than on things like food or rent.Following Genshin Impact’s release, MiHoYo put out Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. All are shiny, big-budget games that are free to play, but dangle the lure of making just one purchase in front of the player. Maybe you could drop five bucks on a handful of in-game currency to get one more pull. Or maybe just this month you’ll get the second tier of rewards on the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass. The game is free, after all — but haven’t you enjoyed at least ten dollars’ worth of gameplay? Image: HoyoverseI spent most of my December throwing myself into Infinity Nikki. I had been so stressed, and the game was so soothing. I logged in daily to fulfill my daily wishes and earn my XP, diamonds, Threads of Purity, and bling. I accumulated massive amounts of resources. I haven’t spent money on the game. I’m trying not to, and so far, it’s been pretty easy. I’ve been super happy with how much stuff I can get for free, and how much I can do! I actually feel really good about that — which is what I said to my boyfriend, and he replied, “Yeah, that’s the point. That’s how they get you.”And he’s right. Currently, Infinity Nikki players are embroiled in a war with developer Infold, after Infold introduced yet another currency type with deep ties to Nikki’s gacha system. Every one of these gacha games has its own tangled system of overlapping currencies. Some can only be used on gacha pulls. Some can only be used to upgrade items. Many of them can be purchased with human money.Image: InFold Games/Papergames via PolygonAll of this adds up. According to Sensor Towers’ data, Genshin Impact earned over 36 million dollars on mobile alone in a single month of 2024. I don’t know what Dan DiIorio’s peak monthly revenue for Luck Be A Landlord was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.A lot of the spending guardrails we see in games like these are actually the result of regulations in other territories, especially China, where gacha has been a big deal for a lot longer. For example, gacha games have a daily limit on loot boxes, with the number clearly displayed, and a system collectively called “pity,” where getting the banner item is guaranteed after a certain number of pulls. Lastly, developers have to be clear about what the odds are. When I log in to spend the Revelation Crystals I’ve spent weeks hoarding in my F2P Infinity Nikki experience, I know that I have a 1.5% chance of pulling a 5-star piece, and that the odds can go up to 6.06%, and that I am guaranteed to get one within 20 pulls, because of the pity system.So, these odds are awful. But it is not as merciless as sitting down at a Vegas slot machine, an experience best described as “oh… that’s it?”There’s not a huge philosophical difference between buying a pack of loot boxes in Overwatch, a pull in Genshin Impact, or even a booster of Pokémon cards. You put in money, you get back randomized stuff that may or may not be what you want. In the dictionary definition, it’s a gamble. But unlike the slot machine, it’s not like you’re trying to win money by doing it, unless you’re selling those Pokémon cards, which is a topic for another time.But since even a game where you don’t get anything, like Balatro or Luck Be A Landlord, can come under fire for promoting gambling to kids, it would seem appropriate for app stores and ratings boards to take a similarly hardline stance with gacha.Instead, all these games are rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 12 in the EU.The ESRB ratings for these games note that they contain in-game purchases, including random items. Honkai: Star Rail’s rating specifically calls out a slot machine mechanic, where players spend tokens to win a prize. But other than calling out Honkai’s slot machine, app stores are not slapping Genshin or Nikki with an 18+ rating. Meanwhile, Balatro had a PEGI rating of 18 until a successful appeal in February 2025, and Luck Be a Landlord is still 17+ on Apple’s App Store.Nobody knows what they’re doingWhen I started researching this piece, I felt very strongly that it was absurd that Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro had age ratings this high.I still believe that the way both devs have been treated by ratings boards is bad. Threatening an indie dev with a significant loss of income by pulling their game is bad, not giving them a way to defend themself or help them understand why it’s happening is even worse. It’s an extension of the general way that too-big-to-fail companies like Google treat all their customers.DiIorio told me that while it felt like a human being had at least looked at Luck Be A Landlord to make the determination that it contained gambling themes, the emails he was getting were automatic, and he doesn’t have a contact at Google to ask why this happened or how he can avoid it in the future — an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has ever needed Google support. But what’s changed for me is that I’m not actually sure anymore that games that don’t have gambling should be completely let off the hook for evoking gambling.Exposing teens to simulated gambling without financial stakes could spark an interest in the real thing later on, according to a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It’s the same reason you can’t mosey down to the drug store to buy candy cigarettes. Multiple studies were done that showed kids who ate candy cigarettes were more likely to take up smoking (of course, the candy is still available — just without the “cigarette” branding.)So while I still think rating something like Balatro 18+ is nuts, I also think that describing it appropriately might be reasonable. As a game, it’s completely divorced from literally any kind of play you would find in a casino — but I can see the concern that the thrill of flashy numbers and the shiny cards might encourage young players to try their hand at poker in a real casino, where a real house can take their money.Maybe what’s more important than doling out high age ratings is helping people think about how media can affect us. In the same way that, when I was 12 and obsessed with The Matrix, my parents gently made sure that I knew that none of the violence was real and you can’t actually cartwheel through a hail of bullets in real life. Thanks, mom and dad!But that’s an answer that’s a lot more abstract and difficult to implement than a big red 18+ banner. When it comes to gacha, I think we’re even less equipped to talk about these game mechanics, and I’m certain they’re not being age-rated appropriately. On the one hand, like I said earlier, gacha exploits the player’s desire for stuff that they are heavily manipulated to buy with real money. On the other hand, I think it’s worth acknowledging that there is a difference between gacha and casino gambling.Problem gamblers aren’t satisfied by winning — the thing they’re addicted to is playing, and the risk that comes with it. In gacha games, players do report satisfaction when they achieve the prize they set out to get. And yes, in the game’s next season, the developer will be dangling a shiny new prize in front of them with the goal of starting the cycle over. But I think it’s fair to make the distinction, while still being highly critical of the model.And right now, there is close to no incentive for app stores to crack down on gacha in any way. They get a cut of in-app purchases. Back in 2023, miHoYo tried a couple of times to set up payment systems that circumvented Apple’s 30% cut of in-app spending. Both times, it was thwarted by Apple, whose App Store generated $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022.According to Apple itself, 90% of that money did not include any commission to Apple. Fortunately for Apple, ten percent of a trillion dollars is still one hundred billion dollars, which I would also like to have in my bank account. Apple has zero reason to curb spending on games that have been earning millions of dollars every month for years.And despite the popularity of Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro’s massive App Store success, these games will never be as lucrative. They’re one-time purchases, and they don’t have microtransactions. To add insult to injury, like most popular games, Luck Be A Landlord has a lot of clones. And from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like any of them have been made to indicate that their games contain the dreaded “gambling themes” that Google was so worried about in Landlord.In particular, a game called SpinCraft: Roguelike from Sneaky Panda Games raised $6 million in seed funding for “inventing the Luck-Puzzler genre,” which it introduced in 2022, while Luck Be A Landlord went into early access in 2021.It’s free-to-play, has ads and in-app purchases, looks like Fisher Price made a slot machine, and it’s rated E for everyone, with no mention of gambling imagery in its rating. I reached out to the developers to ask if they had also been contacted by the Play Store to disclose that their game has gambling themes, but I haven’t heard back.Borrowing mechanics in games is as old as time, and it’s something I in no way want to imply shouldn’t happen because copyright is the killer of invention — but I think we can all agree that the system is broken.There is no consistency in how games with random chance are treated. We still do not know how to talk about gambling, or gambling themes, and at the end of the day, the results of this are the same: the house always wins.See More:

Last updated May 30, 2025: Added a new Infinity Nikki code!If you're looking for Infinity Nikki codes, IGN has you covered! In this article, you'll find a list of active and working Infinity Nikki codes that you can redeem for free rewards and bonuses in May 2025, including Diamonds and Energy Crystals.All of the Infinity Nikki codes below have been tested as working at the time of submission. Spotted a new code or one has expired? Let us know in the comments!Active Infinity Nikki Codes (May 2025)Below, you'll find all the active and working Infinity Nikki codes in May 2025, the free rewards you get for redeeming them, and their expiry date (if known):NIKKISFAVORITERICEDUMPLING - 200x Diamonds, 18.8k Bling, expires June 4, 2025 (NEW!)AAp9Q8KWF8b - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApyBTE8RY9 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AAp4BHuBhmC - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AAp7DKNerwR - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApt6d2sv89 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApnynNUpc7 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApE9cuaMxM - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApP4EqVj2a - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApHBskxdEh - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApscJCWy6w - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApAAnFjMpK - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApCapPmYvp - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApNj9MT2Uy - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling AApUBFedaQy - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling InfinityNikki429 - 75x Shiny Bubbles, 75x Threads of Purity, and 30k Bling AApUB2cpQ6h - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling BUBBLESEASON0429 - 50x Thread of Purity, 15k Bling POCKETMONEYFORNIKKI - 200x Diamonds, 18.8k Bling Handinhand - 10x Revelation CrystalDREAM&REBIRTH - 100x Diamonds, 100x Shiny Bubbles, 50x Thread of PuritySEAOFSTARS - 100x Diamonds, 50x Shiny Bubbles, 30k BlingBUBBLESEASON - 100x Diamonds, 50x Thread of Purity, 20k BlingSidebyside - 10x Revelation CrystalsINFINITYNIKKISteam - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k BlingRevelrySeasonRe - 50x Thread of Purity, 30k Bling RevelrySeasonGroup - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 30k Bling1.2VERDISCORD - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling1.2VERREDDIT - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling 1.2VERGLOBALGROUP - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k BlingハイキングDISCORD - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k BlingPEARFECTGUIDES - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling NIKKIXWEBTOON - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling ニキプレゼント1205 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling おめでとう - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling リリース - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Blingインフィニティニキ - 15x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling無限暖暖公測開啟 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling 無限暖暖公測FB社團限定 - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling インフィニキDISCORD - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k BlingINGIFT1205 - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling GROUPSTYLIST - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)REDDITSTYLIST - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)DISCORDSTYLIST - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)Expired Infinity Nikki CodesThe Infinity Nikki codes listed below have expired and are no longer working as of May 2025:NOSTRANGELINKSWARMSPRINGBONUSRevelrySeasonDCGIRLPOWER25 100THDAYCELEBRATIONMAYEVERYGIRLHAPPINESSNewstoryawaitsNewyearblissNIKKIFIREWORKSNIKKIEXCURSIONTIMENIKKINEWBLOOM2025HEARTFELTGIFTSNIKKIBEWITHYOUNIKKIRELEASEdreamweavernikkiNIKKI20241022infinitynikki1205BDAYSURPRISEGIFTFROMMOMOGIFTTONIKKInikkihappybirthday2024NIKKITHEBESTQUACKQUACKAAbNxRNMmSmAAbQjjYKwbHAAb7xf6hWuSAAbtWkna3V7AAbaEyDU4EXAAbMNJX8hxFAAb5S3RSK8MAAbUfWnYUtd AAbUa8e2U3a AAbtk9jmpnVHow to Redeem Infinity Nikki CodesTo redeem Infinity Nikki codes, follow the steps below:Unlock your Pear-Pal during the Chapter 1: Wishes Without Wings - Land of Wishes main quest. It's about 20 minutes into your Infinity Nikki adventure.Open the Pear-Pal menu by pressing ESC on PC (or the Menu button when using an Xbox controller on PC), the Menu button on PlayStation, or by tapping the Pear-Pal icon in the top-left corner on mobile.Click on the gear icon to open the Settings menu.Scroll over to the Other tab.You’ll see a “Redeem Code” option here. Click on “Apply” and a Redeem Rewards pop-up menu will appear.Input your code into the “Enter the redeem code” field and tap “Apply.”If successful, a pop-up will appear showing your free rewards.Why Isn't My Infinity Nikki Code Working?If the Infinity Nikki code that you're trying to redeem isn't working, it's likely due to one of the following reasons:There's a typo in the code.The Infinity Nikki code is expired.When inputting a code into Infinity Nikki, make sure there are no typos (Os instead of zeroes, capital Is instead of lowercase Ls, etc.) and that there are no accidental spaces before or after the code. If your Infinity Nikki code still doesn't work, it's probably expired and can no longer be redeemed. You'll get a message informing you that the code is wrong if it's expired.How to Get More Infinity Nikki CodesThe best way to get more Infinity Nikki codes is to join the official Infinity Nikki Discord server. Once you're in, head to the #self-assign-roles channel and opt-in for the Redeem Code role. You'll receive a notification when a new code is released so you can receive your free rewards ASAP!Alternatively, bookmark this Infinity Nikki Codes article, as we update it each time a new code comes out. The Discord server has missed a couple of codes posted to other channels, so we'd recommend checking our article every so often.What is Infinity Nikki?Developed by Infold Games, Infinity Nikki is a cozy, open-world RPG. You play as Nikki, as she's whisked away to the world of Miraland, a place where people make Wishes with the help of Stylists. You'll find and create a plethora of outfits and accessories, take on quests, and gather many types of collectibles with the help of Momo, Nikki's adorable feline companion. As you play, you earn Diamonds, which can be spent on Revelation and Resonite Crystals, which are used to pull on the limited time and permanent outfit banners for 5-star and 4-star clothing.For Infinity Nikki game help, check out our guides below:Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides team, with a focus on trends. When she's not working, you can find her playing an RPG or spending time with her corgi.

BUTTPEACH Quantum Witch is a story of religious oppression, queer emancipation, and a dancing skeleton that hopes to popularise the ‘plotformer’ genre We spoke to Quantum Witch’s lone developer – NikkiJay – about how her experiences as part of a religious cult shaped the development of her game, an 80s-style ‘plotformer’ about finding your lost flock of faer. Image credit: NikkiJay Article by Kelsey Raynor Guides Writer Published on May 29, 2025 You might not have heard of Quantum Witch, but if you’ve an affinity for pixel-art platformers with engaging story-beats, meta-narratives, and an array of kooky characters, then you should be all over it. To just call Quantum Witch a colourful platformer with a strong narrative (read: ‘plotformer’) is to do it a disservice, though. Quantum Witch is so much more than its vibrant pixels; it is NikkiJay’s personal story of fleeing a religious cult, embracing her LGBTQ+ identity, and seeking solace in video games. There’s a dark undercurrent, but ultimately, Nikki chooses to tell her story – and a story that many others will no doubt see themselves in – with humour and pride. To get a better idea of exactly what informed Quantum Witch and how the indie ‘plotformer’ came together, VG247 sat down with NikkiJay to ask how growing up in a religious cult led to the development of the game and what she hopes audiences will get from it. The below interview discusses religious trauma, coercive control, and the abuse of power. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. VG247: I’m aware that Quantum Witch is largely informed by your own personal experiences of fleeing a religious cult; would you mind sharing some more about your experience, and how it has informed Quantum Witch’s story and characters? Nikki: I was born into the group and my family on both sides were third generation. Age 10, I needed my tonsils out and I had to tell the surgeon that I would rather die than accept certain medical treatments. As a 10-year-old, it's one of the questions they ask when you go for CPTSD diagnosis: “did you at any point honestly really believe you were going to die?” Yeah, I was told I had to be prepared for that. I had to die for God if that was the option that was presented to me. Either take this medical treatment that God said I couldn't have or die. I had to choose death. This cult literally kills kids for God. A lot of people stayed because the alternative was to lose your entire support structure and social network. You were literally by yourself with nothing, which was the option I chose in the end. It’s high coercive control. This way, they say that you have the personality God wants you to have. Religious control and abuse of that power is the biggest theme that made it into Quantum Witch. It is very much again about urgency and choice: I think if people have been through similar things, it's going to resonate with them. VG247: During the demo, I got the impression that Ren is largely not interested in the religious beliefs shared with her by others in Quantum Witch, but she still appears to have a fascination with the Old Gods. I have two questions about this: is Ren on the fence, so to speak, about her beliefs? Does this align with any of your thoughts and feelings about religion now? Nikki: Yeah, I am agnostic. I am a skeptic. I have to be open to the possibilities. A skeptic who isn't open to possibilities isn’t a skeptic. They're a cynic, and Ren is very much a skeptic. The majority of the characters in the game are just aspects of me that I've made into a character, it's just a little piece of me that I've enhanced without turning it into a stereotype as far as I can. Tyra [Ren’s partner] is more cynical: ‘come on, it's nonsense’. And Ren’s like, ‘no, let's go find out’. Her desire to go explore is going to lead her into things that she shouldn't have explored in the way that she's going to. But yeah, she is definitely that part of me who would like for there to be magic. Image credit: NikkiJay VG247: Quantum Witch’s marketplace – which features unnamed characters that bear uncanny resemblances to some iconic video game mascots – is what I assume to be a representation of some of your favourite games. The game itself regularly reminded me of themes and mechanics from Undertale, The Binding of Isaac, and even Stardew Valley. What other games or pieces of media helped inspire Quantum Witch, and how? Nikki: I love Undertale. What I loved about Undertale is the mixture of all those styles and then you'd be talking to a character and suddenly you have to play a really fast reaction game. I can't do that. I'm too old. But it was a big inspiration in the style of game I wanted to create. As for the reason why the video game characters are there in the plot of [Quantum Witch’s] story; they do tie into the plot and there's a little hint that they say. And I just loved putting in my alternate takes on who these characters were. You might know Paul Rose from Digitizer. At the very beginning of the project, I had all my story beats worked out. This is what's going to happen. This is how it's all going to interact, but I could not – for the life of me – start it. I couldn't build the bridges between these beats and Rose helped me a lot. He did a script treatment and some of the dialogue in the marketplace is directly from him; [one of the characters you meet is] talking about pills and I was like, ‘that that just fits in perfectly because there is a character later on who might need that pill’. It’s also a bit of a cue for me to have the characters talk about medication. . I also wanted to add some queer flavor to them, so Princess Nectarine – who is similar to but legally distinct from a certain Nintendo character – is in a polycule with Bowser and Mario and they like to roleplay kidnapping. I did not set out to make a queer game. It's turned out that way because I can't help it, but it's not all these characters are. VG247: I know you’re a solo developer and this is a largely solo project, but I’m aware you’ve received some help with the whole endeavour. You mentioned Paul Rose. So could you tell me more about the people who have helped you with creating Quantum Witch and what they did? Nikki: I must absolutely shout out Jerden Cooke for the music. We composed a lot of it together, [with] me mostly on the ukulele which you can hear in Ren's theme. I don't know if you've seen the video clip of David Lynch helping compose Laura's Theme from Twin Peaks. Working with him is like that. I got some fantastic music which was like the music I could hear in my head when I started playing on the ukulele. He was able to put it down, basically extract it from my head, and put it into a word file. And Paul Rose; I knew him through Digitizer meetups. We just got talking on Twitter one day and met up. He's a great guy and things came about quite naturally because it was when Covid hit and a lot of TV work got cancelled. I said to him, look, you should get yourself on Fiverr. Put your writing services out there because people should be paying for this. I will be your first customer, and so I was! Without his help, this would have still been a collection of little story beats that I would have had no idea how to wire together. And I've always wanted to work with Stephanie Sterling. What if I just ping her on Bluesky and say, "Hey, want to write a chapter of this game? It's got a dancing skeleton in it." She said, "Yeah, I'm in." She said that when she started to do it, she wasn't entirely sure whether it would be the right project because she just saw a [dancing] skeleton. The more she wrote for [Quantum Witch] and the more she played the game, she went, "Yeah, this is my wheelhouse,” and she poured her religious trauma into it, which happened to just fit absolutely perfectly. It's like I could not have asked for a better group of people to work with, and this is kind of what I want to say to indie developers who are solo. You're not alone. You might just want one name on the credit, but it takes a village to raise a child. Image credit: NikkiJay VG247: I was taken aback by just how cosy the game is. Admittedly, even with the subject matter, I didn’t expect – largely given the art style – for this to be all doom and gloom, but I definitely didn’t expect something so jovial and honestly, straight-up funny. How did you decide that this was the approach you wanted to take when creating Ren’s story? Nikki: [Stardew Valley], Chrono Trigger and Paper Mario: Thousand-Year Door are my three most played games. I love the style of Stardew Valley and I love that there's some darkness hidden in Stardew Valley. I really liked the humor in it. I mean, if you thought I shouldn't be laughing at this, but I am, then that’s an achievement. That's exactly what I wanted. My main coping mechanism is humor. I'm not saying it's a healthy coping mechanism, but it kind of works. And I mean, I was heavily influenced by reading a lot of Douglas Adams. and he was able to find humor in the most bleak situations. And the graphical style… When I started this, I couldn't draw a convincing stick figure. I look at the art that I did four years ago when I started messing about with this idea and it's just embarrassing. Objectively terrible, but my main influences were Stardew Valley and The Darkside Detective. I loved the low-resolution style art, but there was so much character in them. So, I took a pixel art course on Udemy and a color theory course and… then just found, hey, I can do this now. That's weird. VG247: While looking into Quantum Witch and yourself, I found a lovely quote of yours from The Guardian: “A lot of religion is about giving up autonomy to some mystical power that you’ve never seen, heard or met. Over the course of the game, Ren takes that agency back… It’s a queer emancipation story.” Could you expand on this? Nikki: The consequence of being yourself in a group that says ‘no, being yourself is wrong’ is that you just get thrown out. It's weird because I think of my experiences as unique, but the themes they really do seem to be universal. Stephanie Sterling from The Jimquisition: she wrote a chapter of the later part of the game. I originally said to her, can you write these three scenes? She came back and said “I couldn't stop writing. I just love this universe” It's weird, because you wouldn't know it was a different author. The religious oppression of queer people is the same wherever you go. I'm really hoping just that I've got that balance right between a game that's fun and cozy and humorous, – that there is a dancing skeleton who can see through time – but also has that deeper meaning and that message that you take back control. A lot of people would look at this and think ‘you must be anti-religion’ and I'm 100% for freedom of religion, but that also means I'm 100% for freedom from religion. Whether you've got faith or not, nobody wants somebody else's faith forced on you. You can't have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. Image credit: NikkiJay VG247: How long is Quantum Witch set to be, and how many endings will there be? I know you also mentioned some side quests having various conclusions, as well as the game’s main endings being different depending on your decisions. Nikki: I watched a tester play from beginning to end. It took him about three and a half hours, and he got my second favorite ending. He had questions about the lore and I said, "play it again and make different choices, and you'll get a different ending, which will probably answer that for you." It's difficult to say how many endings there are. There's three definite categories of endings. There's bleak. There's interesting, where you kind of get a bittersweet ending, and then there's the super happy ending, and there are variations on each of those. [These depend] on the characters you've helped. There's also little puzzles that you can go and solve which can enhance the happy ending. It's kind of like an open-world choose-your-own adventure book, but in pixel format. If I'm going to do a full playthrough of all choices and all stories, I will easily put aside six or seven hours to do it and I wrote it. So, I'm not trying to discover it. I think it's like The Stanley Parable in that sense. VG247: I also learned that Quantum Witch could have been a novel. It could have initially started out that way and you then obviously decided to turn this into a game. How did that come about? Nikki: One of my friends was doing the National Novel Writing November. I thought, I've got this story in my head which might fit, so I started writing it. I don't know if anybody's realized this, [but video games] are quite difficult to make, and novels are very easy because you just type... I was wrong and I really did not enjoy writing it. I decided, thinking back on my childhood, I want to make this into a game. I want to make this interactive. Choice is a big theme. I want to give the player a choice. And it did end up as a point and click [game] for a while, rather than a plotformer. No matter what you do, it is a valid choice. There are no game over screens in Quantum Witch. Anything you do is just a part of the story and the game is over when you get the credits. Quantum Witch is a surprisingly cosy and jovial take on topics of religious trauma and queer identities, but if your curiosity about this game is piqued, it’s up to you to find out all of its secrets. NikkiJay stresses that there’s so much to discover for those who are eager to explore the game and discover all of its various paths, endings, and dialogue. For those who want to try Quantum Witch out, you can find a demo for the game on Steam, and it’ll also be participating in Steam’s Next Fest during June.

In many companies, data, findings, and insights are all used interchangeably. Slack conversations circle around convincing data points, statistically significant findings, reliable insights, and emerging trends. Unsurprisingly, conversations often mistake sporadic observations for consistent patterns. But how impactful is the weight that each of them carries? And how do we turn raw data into meaningful insights to make better decisions? Well, let’s find out. Why It All Matters At first, it may seem that the differences are very nuanced and merely technical. But when we review inputs and communicate the outcomes of our UX work, we need to be careful not to conflate terminology — to avoid wrong assumptions, wrong conclusions, and early dismissals. When strong recommendations and bold statements emerge in a big meeting, inevitably, there will be people questioning the decision-making process. More often than not, they will be the loudest voices in the room, often with their own agenda and priorities that they are trying to protect. As UX designers, we need to be prepared for it. The last thing we want is to have a weak line of thinking, easily dismantled under the premise of “weak research”, “unreliable findings”, “poor choice of users” — and hence dismissed straight away. Data ≠ Findings ≠ Insights People with different roles — analysts, data scientists, researchers, strategists — often rely on fine distinctions to make their decisions. The general difference is easy to put together: Data is raw observations (logs, notes, survey answers) (what was recorded). Findings describe emerging patterns in data but aren’t actionable (what happened). Insights are business opportunities (what happened + why + so what). Hindsights are reflections of past actions and outcomes (what we learned in previous work). Foresights are informed projections, insights with extrapolation (what could happen next). Here’s what it then looks like in real life: Data ↓ Six users were looking for ”Money transfer” in “Payments”, and 4 users discovered the feature in their personal dashboard. Finding ↓ 60% of users struggled to find the “Money transfer” feature on a dashboard, often confusing it with the “Payments” section. Insight ↓ Navigation doesn’t match users’ mental models for money transfers, causing confusion and delays. We recommend renaming sections or reorganizing the dashboard to prioritize “Transfer Money”. It could make task completion more intuitive and efficient. Hindsight ↓ After renaming the section to “Transfer Money” and moving it to the main dashboard, task success increased by 12%. User confusion dropped in follow-up tests. It proved to be an effective solution. Foresight ↓ As our financial products become more complex, users will expect simpler task-oriented navigation (e.g., “Send Money”, “Pay Bills“) instead of categories like “Payments”. We should evolve the dashboard towards action-driven IA to meet user expectations. Only insights create understanding and drive strategy. Foresights shape strategy, too, but are always shaped by bets and assumptions. So, unsurprisingly, stakeholders are interested in insights, not findings. They rarely need to dive into raw data points. But often, they do want to make sure that findings are reliable. That’s when, eventually, the big question about statistical significance comes along. And that’s when ideas and recommendations often get dismissed without a chance to be explored or explained. But Is It Statistically Significant? Now, for UX designers, that’s an incredibly difficult question to answer. As Nikki Anderson pointed out, statistical significance was never designed for qualitative research. And with UX work, we’re not trying to publish academic research or prove universal truths. What we are trying to do is reach theoretical saturation, the point where additional research doesn’t give us new insights. Research isn’t about proving something is true. It’s about preventing costly mistakes before they happen. Here are some useful talking points to handle the question: Five users per segment often surface major issues, and 10–15 users per segment usually reach saturation. If we’re still getting new insights after that, our scope is too broad. “If five people hit the same pothole and wreck their car, how many more do you need before fixing the road?” “If three enterprise customers say onboarding is confusing, that’s a churn risk.” “If two usability tests expose a checkout issue, that’s abandoned revenue.” “If one customer interview reveals a security concern, that’s a crisis waiting to happen.” “How many user complaints exactly do we need to take this seriously?” “How much revenue exactly are we willing to lose before fixing this issue?” And: it might not be necessary to focus on the number of participants, but instead, argue about users consistently struggling with a feature, mismatch of expectations, and a clear pattern emerging around a particular pain point. How To Turn Findings Into Insights Once we notice patterns emerging, we need to turn them into actionable recommendations. Surprisingly, this isn’t always easy — we need to avoid easy guesses and assumptions as far as possible, as they will invite wrong conclusions. To do that, you can rely on a very simple but effective framework to turn findings into insights: What Happened + Why + So What: “What happened” covers observed behavior and patterns. “Why” includes beliefs, expectations, or triggers. “So What” addresses impact, risk, and business opportunity. To better assess the “so what” part, we should pay close attention to the impact of what we have noticed on desired business outcomes. It can be anything from high-impact blockers and confusion to hesitation and inaction. I can wholeheartedly recommend exploring Findings → Insights Cheatsheet in Nikki Anderson’s wonderful slide deck, which has examples and prompts to use to turn findings into insights. Stop Sharing Findings — Deliver Insights When presenting the outcomes of your UX work, focus on actionable recommendations and business opportunities rather than patterns that emerged during testing. To me, it’s all about telling a good damn story. Memorable, impactful, feasible, and convincing. Paint the picture of what the future could look like and the difference it would produce. That’s where the biggest impact of UX work emerges. How To Measure UX And Design Impact Meet Measure UX & Design Impact (8h), a practical guide for designers and UX leads to shape, measure, and explain your incredible UX impact on business. Recorded and updated by Vitaly Friedman. Use the friendly code 🎟 IMPACT to save 20% off today. Jump to the details. Video + UX TrainingVideo onlyVideo + UX Training$ 495.00 $ 799.00 Get Video + UX Training25 video lessons (8h) + Live UX Training.100 days money-back-guarantee.Video only$ 250.00$ 395.00 Get the video course25 video lessons (8h). Updated yearly.Also available as a UX Bundle with 2 video courses. Further Reading on Smashing Magazine “The Human Element: Using Research And Psychology To Elevate Data Storytelling,” Victor Yocco & Angelica Lo Duca “Integrations: From Simple Data Transfer To Modern Composable Architectures,” Edoardo Dusi “Scaling Success: Key Insights And Practical Takeaways,” Addy Osmani “Embracing Introversion In UX,” Victor Yocco

Λntonio Member Jun 25, 2024 1,102 That is title says it all. I already preordered the Switch 2 because I think it will be a good choice to take advantage of short sessions. I am already aware I wont be able to sit in front of the PC or the TV for the foreseeable future thats also why I bought the Switch 2. Any other advice from parents, also recent ones?  Slackerchan Member Oct 25, 2017 1,755 Austin, TX I have friends who went through similar gaming crises. Portables like a Switch or Steam Deck are the way to go, something you can hold while cradling the kid. Focus on shorter games or ones that can be played in spurts without significant session commitment requirements (deck builders, etc.).   Var Avenger Oct 25, 2017 1,701 I got more gaming done during the first year of my son's life than I did the year before. portables are the way to go and anything offline because you are going to need to take frequent breaks and be able to stop immediately at any time. Toddler stage is when my gaming really ground to a halt. You need to have eyes on them pretty much all the time because they are mobile and extremely curious with zero sense of self preservation.  thetrin Member Oct 26, 2017 10,740 Grand Junction, CO My friends who have kids have told me "seize every small moment you have, focus on gamea you can play in short spurts". Seems like pretty good advice.   Taco_Human Member Jan 6, 2018 4,925 MA you are already dead (time to go portable)   Audiblee Member Mar 14, 2025 1,659 Handhelds were a godsend when my girl was born.   Mephissto Member Mar 8, 2024 1,218 Mobile consoles when they are small and sleep a lot Early bedtime later for the kiddo Less sleeping for you These are methods at least :D Still get a good amount of hours into gaming.  OhhEldenRing Member Aug 14, 2024 2,884 Seriously don't even think about games. Just enjoy the next few months getting to know him because he's going to be watching you all the time. My son is 5 months and his sister three years old. I'm making up the time now for all the Elden Ring sessions I spent when she was several months old. Play with your kiddo and get an hour in after everyone goes to bed.   Veelk Member Oct 25, 2017 15,530 Offer your son up for adoption   topplehat Member Oct 27, 2017 1,083 Austin, TX Portables and anything that can quickly be paused and resumed. When you have time to game do it (don't get distracted by your phone). Can also get some gaming in while the little one is doing a contact nap. Honestly sometimes you may just not want to play because you're tired - that's fine too! I have a two month old and I don't really play my desktop PC anymore (sometimes I stream from it). Mostly Steam Deck, Switch, and PS5.  Bishop89 What Are Ya' Selling? Member Oct 25, 2017 42,785 Melbourne, Australia Λntonio said: I am already aware I wont be able to sit in front of the PC or the TV Click to expand... Click to shrink... Says who?   TheRuralJuror Member Oct 25, 2017 6,972 Handhelds are always nice when they're young, anything you can put to sleep quickly if needed. Personally, my son never stopped me from playing games nor giving him a ton of love and attention. Lol, was smooching him on his big head last night (he's 17 now, can't believe it still). Before you know it, he'll be your gaming partner in crime.   CJohn Member Oct 30, 2017 1,436 I play after everyone goes to bed. Portal and Switch have also helped.   Steve McQueen Member Nov 1, 2017 2,192 Netherlands Go portable. That's what I did in 2000 when my daughter was born. Playing games in short sessions will do.  DeanMuffin Member Oct 22, 2020 11 The change in how much you play after a child can be different for everyone because i don't know how your current gaming habits are but in my case it hasn't changed much and I still get to game. My son is almost two now and I play a few evenings a week when he's in bed, prior to my son being born I wouldn't play earlier than that anyway as I still had to make dinner and do chores around the apartment. So it hasn't changed too much, apart from some nights your too tired to bother of course. Up until 6 months was a totally different story though, I actually found myself gaming way more. He was a terrible sleeper unless laying on my chest so I'd find myself on the sofa with him asleep on me at ridiculous hours and just passing the time playing games. I completed both Spiderman 2 and Sea of Stars (both 100%) during that period. So yeah, as long as you love games enough you'll make it work! Just make sure to keep strong communication with your partner when it comes to what helps you get by the tough times, for example, making some time to game.  Izanagi89 "This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance Member Oct 27, 2017 18,856 You play more games when they're babies. Even with my first born who was colic I remember pumping 130+ hours into DQ11 that first month lol Just enjoy it. You'll find your rhythm with baby, work, life and games.   LowParry Member Oct 26, 2017 6,178 The first like 6 months you'll be so focused on your family, gaming is kind of an after thought. That doesn't mean you'll have down time but most times you'll probably be exhausted and will want to nap instead. Gaming doesn't just go away when you have kids. It'll slowly come back.   superNESjoe Developer at Limited Run Games Verified Oct 26, 2017 1,183 I've got a 7 and 9 year old. The first few years was a lot of 3DS and Switch. Handhelds and forfeiting sleep are how you squeeze games in.   Red Hunter Member May 28, 2024 1,527 I'd argue you have it easier than anyone with the Switch 2 lol   Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,338 Λntonio said: I am already aware I wont be able to sit in front of the PC or the TV for the foreseeable future Click to expand... Click to shrink... Never know until you try   Red UFO Member Oct 25, 2017 1,467 You don't need to give up games, but you do need to accept that the amount of games, and the way you play them, will be forever changed.   Geeker Member May 11, 2019 746 You will come to absolutely hate any time wasting bullshit in any game   kxs Member Jul 25, 2022 1,198 Don't over think it. It's just video games. My tip - play games that you can pause at anytime! I know some folks swear on portable devices. But even after becoming a father I prefer a home console or PC set up rather than portable device. Steam Deck, Switch, Portal etc isn't for everyone. Also stick to just one or two games at a time. Don't juggle a bunch of stuff.  CommodoreKong Member Oct 25, 2017 8,577 Get a PC handheld like a Steam Deck or ROG Ally X.   Zekes Member Oct 25, 2017 7,961 The first few months at least you might be doing a lot of couch sitting which leads to lots of gaming time, don't sweat it   Nesther Member Oct 27, 2017 2,318 Switzerland Idunno but I bought and finished Dragon's Dogma 2 after my kid was born. He slept on my chest or in the living room crib and wasn't bothered by my playing. Just play non-online games and you won't have to give up gaming.   Rocketz Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 8,610 Metro Detroit You'll still plenty of time when they are first born. As they get older times will change. Most of my time now is after everyone is in bed.   Vanguard Member Jan 15, 2025 610 Babies take a lot of naps. You can do a lot of gaming.   BasilZero Member Oct 25, 2017 39,994 Omni Name your child - Switch 3 so it wont be giving up games.   Neoxon Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst Member Oct 25, 2017 93,540 Houston, TX Just grab a Switch 2 or a Steam Deck, & it sounds like you did the former.   Last edited: 53 minutes ago Nekyrrev Member Oct 28, 2017 1,191 My advice is: stop playing 80h games and sleep less. Enjoy. Real talk tho, it is possible to keep playing even with kids. Gaming time will become more special. You have to make the most of nap time during the the day and sleep time in the evening.  Ombala Member Oct 30, 2017 2,502 Spend all the time you can with your son as he grows up, you will regret it later if you don't.   Noctis Winters Member Sep 23, 2018 1,852 Like most people have pointed out - handhelds can come in clutch. But don't forget about mobile games, especially ones that can be played one handed and dipped in and out of fairly easily. I can't suggest much in the way of mobile games but I did play a lot of Infinity Nikki and it was super casual to pick up and put down, on both mobile and console w/ cross progression. Plenty on mobile basically designed to be approached this way so there's bound to be something to your liking on the platform. Something like a PS Portal or a laptop to stream / remote play your console / other games library could be handy too. Especially if+when the main TV starts getting taken over.  Spenny Member Oct 25, 2017 5,907 east depends on the temperament of the baby. i had my infant brother who was a good sleeper. i'd make the room dark, put him on my chest, and rock until he fell asleep. then i'd play gears multiplayer with my friends   Zekes Member Oct 25, 2017 7,961 Nesther said: Idunno but I bought and finished Dragon's Dogma 2 after my kid was born. He slept on my chest or in the living room crib and wasn't bothered by my playing. Just play non-online games and you won't have to give up gaming. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yup, when my son was born I played through all of Elden Ring while he napped on me for a couple hours at a time. I just used headphones   KanjoBazooie ▲ Legend ▲ Avenger Oct 26, 2017 32,740 Chicago It's really not that bad. I still get to game. It's less time for sure but that's not really a bad thing. Spending time with my kid and seeing them grow and experience new things has been infinitely more valuable than playing a game then coming to Era to talk about it. My little one picked up on games because of me and now likes playing them with me. Although we limit his screen time I still enjoy every second with him. Now we have another on the way. Just enjoy it OP, babies are different; when ours fall asleep he rarely ever woke up in the middle of the night so we just got to do whatever lol. Here's to hoping the universe's RNG blesses you. Also Switch is godtier for gaming while on mommy or daddy duty. It's also the first game console we introduced our son to.  Grakchawwaa Member Mar 10, 2022 660 I just had a baby two months ago and gaming time is going to depend on how you handle their awful sleeping patterns the first few months. I have one hour or so a night when the wife takes him upstairs that I can game or watch a show but to be honest I'm usually exhausted and kinda just go to sleep. I bought a used steam deck and that has been nice. You'll find the time when you can but just be ready to pop up and tend to the baby so any game will have to be built around pausing often.  Vgorilla3774 Member Sep 21, 2020 716 Rocketz said: You'll still plenty of time when they are first born. As they get older times will change. Most of my time now is after everyone is in bed. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Pretty much this. Peak "I have no time at all" years (at least IMO) are from like 2-5/6. Before that they spend a lot of time sleeping and/or being immobile. Once they start walking and talking, then you're on duty through bedtime until they start to gain some independence. Then you'll eventually hit a point where you want them to have less independence, lol  Babba Member Nov 2, 2017 41 Portables and shorter games. Games where ypu can make progress in short sessions. Forget about the 100hr long games, unless you want to spend half year to a whole year playing it.   ElephantShell 10,000,000 Member Oct 25, 2017 12,042 Steam Deck was huge for me. One of my best friends just had a kid and it's been huge for him too. Switch 2 will probably serve the same purpose so no need to go out and buy a Steam Deck. But the convenience of being able to pull out a handled is no nice. That plus changing the types of games you're playing. Anything multiplayer probably isn't going to happen since you need to be able to put the game down at a moments notice. Try to get into some nice, slow paced games you can pick up and put down. Roguelikes work well since you can just bang out a couple runs when you have time. JRPGs as well because of the pace and the ability to just pause or put the system into sleep mode and pick it back up later. This is for the newborn stage when they don't really have routines. Once their sleep/nap/bedtime actually starts to settle into a pattern it's not that hard to get back into gaming on a TV or at a desk, and playing whatever you want.  Skies Member Oct 25, 2017 3,448 First year newborn sleep. A LOT. As long as you play around their sleep schedule, you should have plenty of opportunities to play on PC and/or console. It gets more difficult when they get older, but even then you have nap time and after they go to sleep to get some time in. You really only need a portable if you are trying to play when they are awake. I have played Switch from time to time with them awake, but only games they are interested in and can either watch me play and/or try it out themselves. Otherwise I would rather have my attention/time spent with them, and just play whatever I am currently playing at night when they go to bed. Sometimes I even wake up early to get some time in. Edit: the biggest sacrifice is playing with friends online. It's almost impossible to set up a good time and even then plans can change at the drop of a hat. I've pretty much given up setting sessions up with others I know, and if I want to play online it's mostly with randoms.  geehepea Member Aug 5, 2024 359 My kid was born at the end of last year, still find time to game as a way to relax almost every day. Steam deck is preferred as I can stop at any time easily but still found time to play Clair obscur on the Xbox and doom dark ages on pc. You'll find time to yourself, just a lot less than you used to  Jubilant Duck Member Oct 21, 2022 9,251 Fathers are only allowed to play one of three games, which they keep installed on the family computer: SimCity Microsoft Flight Simulator Doom, the 1993 original, which they didn't buy but instead were given an illegally copied floppy by a coworker. Your gaming life outside of these three titles is over until your child grows old enough to want a gameboy at which point you can pinch it to fuel a Tetris addiction. You chose this life.  OrakioRob Member Oct 25, 2017 3,828 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Getting a Switch 2 surely was a great start. I'm not really into portables, but when my son was born I not only learned to love portable gaming, but also some genres I never really cared about. For instance, PINBALL! Sessions are short, you can play in tate mode (vertical) on Switch and all you need is the touch screen. I went from "pinball looks very boring" to absolutely loving pinball. So, that's my advice: try genres you're not interested in. You might be surprised by how much the changes in your house might affect your gaming tastes.  WillyGubbins Member Oct 27, 2017 1,650 Glasgow I played through most of one of the Souls games with my daughter asleep on my lap. When she was a baby she'd nap for a couple of hours so I took the chance whenever I could to play. Headphones help a lot, found that out the hard way.   kimbo99 Member Feb 21, 2021 5,132 OhhEldenRing said: Seriously don't even think about games. Just enjoy the next few months getting to know him because he's going to be watching you all the time. My son is 5 months and his sister three years old. I'm making up the time now for all the Elden Ring sessions I spent when she was several months old. Play with your kiddo and get an hour in after everyone goes to bed. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The only right answer. Enjoy the time when they are like this before it's "bye guys, I'm going off to college". With that being said if you must game, go handheld.  jon bones Member Oct 25, 2017 27,659 NYC 1 small baby probably has a positive impact on your gaming time - they sleep a lot for a while later you'll need to enjoy mobile & handheld gaming more, and bump that time up against sleep, other hobbies, etc if you want to be an attentive partner & dad  Garrison Member Oct 27, 2017 3,370 It's over homie.   ¡Hip Hop! Member Nov 9, 2017 1,861 You're already thinking ahead with the Switch 2 pre-order. They sleep a lot for a while, that will help. But if you plan to be a good dad, forget about gaming during the first few months. I was more exhausted than I've ever been, although my son was born at the height of lockdowns and we had no help.   ArchStanton Member Oct 29, 2017 1,378 Mephissto said: Mobile consoles when they are small and sleep a lot Early bedtime later for the kiddo Less sleeping for you These are methods at least :D Still get a good amount of hours into gaming. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is good advice, OP. When my kiddo was born, I played Steam Deck while I was on overnight duty while my wife rested. Once they reach an age where they can nap and sleep (nighttime) on a more routine schedule, you'll have openings to play games on consoles or PCs. Your time (and your life!) won't be the same, but embrace it. Some advice from parents who are a little further ahead of me -- so I've yet to live this part -- but I'm told that you've only got about 10-12 years where your kiddo thinks you're the best before they start being pulled away by their friends and their own interests, so I would highly consider sacrificing gaming time whenever possible. And since your sleep will be impacted, especially at the newborn stage, I would DEFINITELY put your sleep needs way above any gaming itch you may have. Congratulations, OP! Parenthood is tough, but rewarding in ways that words cannot articulate. 

Image: Austin VoigtAt PAX East, we had a chance to sit down with the lively Nico Papalia and Top Hat Studios - developer of Athenian Rhapsody, and its newly-announced prequel, Tales of Tuscany (releasing on “whatever you play games on,” including Switch, in 2026). We wanted to learn a bit more about what inspired such a mad-cap universe, and where the WarioWare / EarthBound / Pokémon-esque ideas all stemmed from. While it was a bit of a challenge to talk over the raucous laughter coming from the crowd gathered at the demo booth, we managed to get an inside glimpse at Papalia's surprising backstory and his work on both games.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813kWatch on YouTube Here is our interview with Nico, which was just as entertaining and zany as the universe these games are based in... Nintendo Life: So, let's start from the top — what was the inspiration behind the universe of Tales of Tuscany and Athenian Rhapsody? There seem to be some Earthbound vibes in there... Nico Papalia: Honestly, I didn't even play Earthbound until AFTER I started Athenian Rhapsody - fun fact! I bit into it and was like, 'I feel like this meshes with me,' and I felt like it looked like what I was making. Definitely inspired by Pokémon on Game Boy Advance, played a lot of that. I also played a lot of Castle Crashers - The Behemoth are my friends, so I talked to them a lot, and we're actually discussing working on something together too — very slapstick-y, you know — but they're so tight about their IPs, so... we're still talking. I had big ideas - but I never knew programming, I went to school for art, I was doing traditional pencil art and stuff - I didn't know what I was doing. So it built over time, and I'm very fortunate and lucky that I was able to share this at the scale that I did, and turn it into my job. It's very personal. "Slapstick-y" is definitely the right word for these games, they're hilarious. Yeah, it doesn't take itself too seriously, so the inspiration for the world is just basically my life, my friends, and what I think is funny at the moment. I'll just throw funny things in there as I think of them - and the players seem to love it. I'm a solo dev, so I can kind of have the final say and just do whatever I want. It's fun. In the first game, I took some risks and had this 'invisible grilled cheese' in the map, like an item, and I thought nobody was going to find it - but someone found it within eight hours of launch! I crashed out on social, I bugged out. Will there be any secrets or easter eggs to find in Tales of Tuscany? There aren't too many secrets yet - I'm still developing it, and I just finished the main story, so now I have to do the 'evil' story, and I'll kind of just throw some extra stuff in there before it releases, probably around spring 2026. Tell us a little more about how the two games differ. You know, making Athenian Rhapsody was kind of slow. I started with GameMaker, and it just kind of snowballed. So I honestly didn't really know what I was doing, going into the first game. It was in 4:3 ratio, like Game Boy Advance - because I'm a big GBA guy. So at first I was like, "Yeah, this is awesome!" Then, you know, it comes to porting it and I'm like... "Oh no." So, Tales of Tuscany is in the RIGHT resolution. It's also got more control customisations, quality-of-life stuff like that. Round 2: bigger, better, stronger. I like to say, Athenian Rhapsody is like Pokémon Emerald, and Tales of Tuscany is more like Pokémon Black & White - based on the battles and stuff, with the camera movement, sprite work, stuff like that. So you're clearly a big Pokémon fan too! What are some of the different games you played growing up? I played a lot of Game Boy Advance games - Madagascar, Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Minish Cap, and things like that. My grandma would just go buy them for me. Or I played Crash Bandicoot on the PS2, and I would just stay in the starting area and mess with stuff - I never progressed in the game, and that was actually probably what I do with most of these games. I never progressed; I just did things. And I guess it all kind of just formed that inspiration for me. Image: Top Hat Studios Interesting - so are you a bit of a completionist then? Because this game — with all of the different choices and storylines — seems a bit overwhelming for a completionist, like you could never *actually* complete it entirely. You know what, when I was a teenager, I was more of a completionist; I would 100% complete Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze and stuff like that. But a lot of times, I was just kind of a stupid guy who didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't advance through the plots, I never got Rayquaza [in Pokémon Emerald] - so I would just go and do random things. And now, I'm actually kind of the opposite of that. So making Athenian Rhapsody and Tales of Tuscany, I want a kid to be able to just go around and have fun. The games seem to be designed almost like a constant dopamine hit. Players are allowed to just be mischievous and do whatever they want. And there's probably no way you could experience every single choice available to you in the games. That's exactly it! That's kind of what me and my friends like. You kind of have to get in there a few times, and the way it worked out, some players like that, and some don't. Some people are that objective, numeric, "I'm done, check the box" thing - but with these games, the experience is always going to be different, depending on who you have in your party and the choices you make. Another thing is that, it doesn't feel 'perfect', and a lot of people like that. Did you always intend for the game to be a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style like that? Yeah, I always intended for it to be like that, but I didn't exactly know how to do it at first. I couldn't figure it out. So, Athenian Rhapsody was not programmed very well... Tales of Tuscany is programmed much better, I was able to pull it off better. But I just had to start small and build off of it, because I had big ideas - but I never knew programming, I went to school for art, I was doing traditional pencil art and stuff, I didn't know what I was doing. So it built over time, and I'm very fortunate and lucky that I was able to share this at the scale that I did, and turn it into my job. It's very personal. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube813k As someone who studied art and went to school for it, did that help with the development of the game itself - at least, the art aspect of it? That's actually a sick question - it must have! I went to SUNY Oneonta, awesome school, I had a lot of great teachers. I was all into anatomy — transformational anatomy — and it took me kind of a while to figure it out, using space and character design. So when I started Athenian Rhapsody, my pixel art was very poor - I didn't have these fully-saturated colours yet, I didn't figure that out yet. My sprites, I was doing the pillow shading... so it took me a while to get it. There's some kind of interlink, but that skill definitely wasn't immediate; I had to learn to access that part of my brain, learning the basics of pixel art. Even in Athenian Rhapsody, when you play it, you'll see there are 10 things going on in one room; that's because I didn't know what I was doing with the space! That honestly led to this feeling of extremely hyper pace, things around every corner... But it works! The absurdism is what makes it all so endearing. Part of it sounds like it was accidental, trial-and-error, but that actually became a really cool thing. Exactly! And I was just doing what I wanted to do. I got lucky that people liked it. Some people think it's a little too much, but I've also heard from a lot of players who really like it, saying they love the story. Another publication, the reviewer said he thought the story "changed vibes too much," and that's where he wrote me off for points. But I've got other people — especially younger kids, but a lot of adults, too — saying they love that about the story! And I personally think it's very needed. A lot of times in this industry, people can take themselves a little too seriously, and I appreciate that you're just doing what you wanna do. It seems like people are drawn to that. Yeah, I try and get very personal and show myself as I am. That's how I built this, doing tutorials online and building a following just being myself. I just took my phone and filmed my screen showing "Today I did this," and I was just being real. But I'm lucky, I still just get to do whatever I want. Like for Tales of Tuscany, the team thought it was a little bit of a risk, making the main character a sheep... Lambypoo - it reminds me of my dog's toy, Lambchop! Oh my god, YES! That's exactly it! I have a hundred of those laying around my house, ripped up! That's where it came from, I'm so glad you said that! So I was just like... yo, what if I had a button, where the lamb just started "baaa"-ing? And that's where the idea for the 'Baa' button came from. You know, it doesn't always have to be this "Hold X, charge your sword..." - you can just have fun with it. So the 'Baa' turned into an interaction tool - you can break plants and cars and stuff, because people just wanna do fun stuff, like the dopamine hits we talked about earlier. So I'm trying to hone in on that. Images: Top Hat Studios I'm still shocked you hadn't played the Earthbound / Mother games prior to starting your first game. It feels like such a spiritual successor to those games. Right? And when it comes to the flavour text in those games, like the options are: "Yeah", or "I'm lactose intolerant" - that's exactly how I write, too. It almost unlocked something, when I saw that. I was like, 'Okay, so this is okay what I'm doing, this irreverence.' I watched a documentary on Earthbound, and the director was saying he had a very intuitive approach - he didn't plan it all out, he just did it block-by-block, and that's exactly what I do, too. So I guess it's that same brain type, maybe? And I had friends from my school who were trying to tell me: "Yeah, you have to block the whole game out" and all of this stuff, and I was like: "Dude, but I'm changing it every day?". So there are a lot of differences between the two games and how much I planned out Tales of Tuscany, but they're the same spirit. Speaking of Earthbound, I've heard you refer to your games as "JRPGs" a few times - what does that label mean to you specifically? Honestly, I've been saying "JRPG" lately just because I think of a long-narrative-based game, and "RPG" is too broad. But I don't know... I also call it an "IRPG" sometimes — "Italian RPG" — because I'm Italian, and Italians do like long conversations. For someone who's never heard of either of your games, what's the one thing you would say to get them to take a look at this series? Out of all of the RPGs and JRPGs out there, there are a lot, and a good one that really makes it to the finish line is hard to find. This game has a lot of love in it, there's something to love in it for everybody, that's a big part of how I made the game. I loved Game Freak's early philosophy of trying to strike a balance between 'cute' and 'cool', and how everyone has a favourite pokémon. And with Athenian Rhapsody, I tried to make one follower that everyone could love. It's the game that conforms to what you like, and everyone will get something out of it. The 'rhapsodies' are like Gen 1 trading; I wanted everyone to get something out of it. In Pokémon, you can port your Pokémon across all of the consoles, and that's kind of what I was trying to do. We'll see how that works! So, the 'munchkins' are making a comeback, too, only this time, the weasels are watching you and ruining everything. This new feature seems pretty cruel, and I'm wondering what happened to you as a child that made you want to torture people? HA! So, in the first game, I had a debug option in the 'pause' menu — just a placeholder — and it was called 'munchkins', and all these stupid things. And I was like, eff it, I'm gonna make 'munchkins' a real thing. So basically, you have to wait, like, 8-10 hours to download them, and you have a 50% chance of failing... and if it works, it's just a picture of some art of mine that says like, "Congratulations" - but I didn't realize everyone was going crazy over that! So with Tales of Tuscany, I thought 'Okay, I won't have a random 50% chance of failing at the end... but there WILL be weasels... and the weasels come and slowly go across the screen, and when they tell you, you have to press an input, otherwise they'll corrupt the munchkin.' I thought, 'I can't just do the same thing again', so I changed it up a little bit. Nobody else is doing munchkins! Nobody else is doing something to the player where they're like, 'No, you do it the way I want you to do it, or else you fail, and I'm not making it easier because you're complaining.' @athenianrhapsody Revolutionary new gameplay mechanic. Wishlist Tales of Tuscany on Steam #pixelart #indiegames #undertale #deltarune #earthbound #nintendo #athenianrhapsody #pokemon #indiegame #gaming #jrpg #omori #yumenikki #fearandhunger #lisathepainful #chainedechoes #talesoftuscany #warioware ♬ original sound - Athenian Rhapsody You're just going to make the game you want to make, and purposely live outside of the box. Was there anything too crazy in Tales of Tuscany that ended up getting vetoed yet? Yeah, there are a few things my publishers tell me I have to edit... I know more how to skirt the line now, but there were a few parts that might have to change. There's this character from Athenian Rhapsody called Uncle Billiard, and he's in this one again because he's a great character - and he has this hot dog place, but they all call the hot dogs 'wieners'... and there's this one character who's like, "Oh yeah, my double wiener sandwich..." and looking back on it, I'm like, "I can't just be throwing 'wiener' around like that." Or like, I wanted to have an enemy with a plumber's crack, and a mechanic where you have to throw things in it. And I actually vetoed that for Athenian Rhapsody, because it was kind of disgusting. ...Ask forgiveness, not permission? Yep, that's my motto! Image: Top Hat Studios Do you have plans to add any more to this universe, or do you think you'll go in a totally different direction? Honestly, I think this IP was a good one, it's strong. I did specifically want to do three RPGs. Why three, because of Earthbound? Oh, I didn't even think about that! I just thought it would be a nice number. You should do three, and just never release the final one here. HA, yeah, I'll just say there's a third! You know, I did originally want to do three, but making this game, I'm nearing the end of the creative development, and I kind of want to take a break from RPGs for a bit. We're doing the mobile game, too - it's called Goobie Garden, and Thunder Goober is in it, he obviously hit something, so even if I do decide to take a break with the IP, I'll always come back to it. But I think for my next console game, I'd like to do something a little more simple, mechanic-based... maybe a battler? I'd like to do a roguelike game. Not sure yet though! This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Thank you, Nico Papalia (@AthenianRhapso1 on X) and the team at Top Hat Studios, for taking the time to answer our questions. Tales of Tuscany will be coming to PC and consoles in 2026. Will you be playing Tales of Tuscany when it releases? Did you play Athenian Rhapsody? Let us know in the comments below. Plenty of new Switch (2) offerings See Also Share:0 2 Austin started gaming at 2 years old and has been addicted ever since. Her Zelda, Mario, Pokémon & Animal Crossing obsessions freak people out. She habitually carries a mini projector around to play her Switch in console mode in weird places. Her favorite gaming snack is pizza rolls, because greasy controllers are her bugaboo. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In A fantasy score? 12 Switch Games Are Getting Free Switch 2 Upgrades, Here's What You Can Expect Nintendo's free updates arrive next month Review: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Switch) - A Cracking Collection Of Top-Class Arcade Fighters A Dream(cast) collection

Nails by Kumi. Image © Kumi Chantrill Fresh Sets: Tembe Denton-Hurst Celebrates 35 Boundary-Pushing Nail Artists May 16, 2025 BooksDesign Jackie Andres From the birth of the first modern nail parlor in 19th-century Paris to the rise of the Vietnamese nail industry in America after the fall of Saigon, nail beautification has always been connected to the world it adorns. Author Tembe Denton-Hurst reminds us of this in her new book, Fresh Sets: Contemporary Nail Art from Around the World. Setting the scene with her own experience of falling in love with manicures as a child in Brooklyn and a brief survey of the transformative history of nail embellishment throughout time, the book showcases 35 standout artists thriving today. Nails by Kumi. Image © Kiel Wode. All photos courtesy of Prestel Publishing, shared with permission While basic sets remain timeless, there’s no doubt that in the 21st century, contemporary aesthetics have flourished in a subversive, powerful way. From birthday candle pedicures and maximalist jeweled acrylics to moss-covered fingertips and sculpted claws channeling cyber sigilism, Fresh Sets features 300 vibrant images highlighting ongoing innovations in the medium. The democratization of nail art has allowed the creative form to flourish across time and space. Extravagant designs once only seen sauntering down the catwalk, for instance, are now within reach for daily wear. The rise of nail artists has uniquely blurred this line between luxury and everyday accessory, forging paths and connecting worlds. One such artist featured in Fresh Sets is Lauren Michelle Pires. With a methodical precision, she approaches her practice as a designer, collecting extensive archives of color combinations and references images. Once a fashion student, Pires now works with designer brands such as Loewe, Diesel, Miu Miu, and more. “I view being a nail artist as a very intricate and pristine job, and I definitely try to capture beauty in my work,” she explains. “But, over time, I’ve really learned how to experiment more and to lean into the awkwardness of beauty.” Nails by Kumi. Image © Kiel Wode As the realm of nail design continues to evolve in tremendous fashion, transforming one’s own fingernails as if they were ten tiny canvases—each a site for creating an extension of self, asserting identity, and even signifying resistance—has and always will be a deeply resonant gesture for many. As Denton-Hurst shares in the introduction, “long nails have become part of me, as identifiable as the brown of my skin or my loud laugh.” You can find your own copy of Fresh Sets on Bookshop. See more from Tembe Denton-Hurst on Instagram. Nails by Iksoxo. Image © Alona Sobolevska Nails by Dxpper Acrylics. Image © Black Archives Nails and image © Tomoya Nakagawa Nails and image © Naomi Yasuda Nails by Juan. Image © Juan Alvear Nails by Yeswhat Nails. Image © Violetta Kurilenko Nails and image © Tomoya Nakagawa Nails and image © Nikki Panic Next article

How can we practice creativity and conversation to enhance futures literacy and co-creation efforts?Still from my design research project, Maybe We’re Creative. Partial quote from artist, educator and interview participant, Jason Lujan.Last year, I completed my major research project for my Master’s of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, titled "Maybe We’re Creative: What I Learned about Co-Creation in Design by Dancing with My Dad." The project was a short documentary and a corresponding research report. Last month, several themes from my work were explored during a workshop with Riel Miller, the former Head of Futures Literacy at UNESCO in Paris, France. I’m still finding the right words to sum up the depth of theory and the ongoing experiences that guide my research, but I decided this was a good moment to publicly expand on and share some of the process that went into my project last year and the outcomes.Ultimately, Maybe We’re Creative brought me closer to my belief that being creative is not just an act for artists or those with a knack for a craft; it’s a practice that allows us to perceive and hold complexity in relationships and the world around us. Creativity is a deeply human practice that can take many shapes and connect us with genuine feelings inside of us that we might otherwise overlook. In systems design, we are constantly trying to make sense, organize, and somewhat solve, but creativity, in practice with others, reorients the designer and generates possibilities of getting to know complexity in a different way, in seemingly simple, innocent yet deeply intentional and meaningful ways. Creativity offers a way out of old patterns and a way back into possibility.Still from my design research project, Maybe We’re Creative.The power of changing imaginationsIn a 2016 On Being interview, Remembering Nikki Giovanni — ‘We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love’, host Krista Tippett said that Giovanni’s imagination has always changed as she ages. Giovanni responded,“Everyone’s does, the only difference is I’m not afraid to talk about it”Giovanni’s words reminded me of what I heard again and again in my interviews for Maybe We’re Creative. Participants shared that imagination isn’t a fixed trait but something personal that we can nurture and be curious about over time, given the environment to do so.I chose to focus my research project on creativity because it’s a practice that accepts I change; in fact, it relies on it. Every time I write or dance, I deepen my relationship and awareness with where I’m at that moment, knowing how I arrive at the page or studio will be different in some way, shape, or form from the day before. Because I can better expect and welcome change in myself, I can better expect change in others. Thus, when I dance and write, I build my capacity to engage with change and differences in the world. I can better move through internal conflicts and external uncertainty, not by solving anything, but by accepting change as a constant truth. To an outsider, it might seem like a cop out, framing my design approach not to solve but to better live amongst change, but in practice, I’ve learned that the simplest statements, i.e. change is truth, are some of the hardest to design with effectively. The temptation to convert change into a variable I can control, instead of a constant state I can’t, never dies. My project reinforced this learning, and further reinforced that some of the most important experiences in our lives, relationships with ourselves and others, are prime examples of complexity that we can only hope to exist within more fully; they’re not to be solved.The current challenge of changing imaginationsAccepting change holds a deep tension with the limits built into public spaces and policy. Humans love to control, place structure on, or push back against the reality of change. Specifically, in various public gatherings, I’m sensing a waning disconnect between people and, notably, our ability to imagine a future other than ones already played out. It seems that no information about our collective history, no exposure to harm or progress, changes our ability to make different decisions that would bring about new current states and futures. This reckoning is sometimes making for many collective, melancholic moments as of late. Many academics have noted this disconnect throughout the last century. Toni Morrison (2019), in The War on Error, wrote,“Oddly enough it is in the West — where advance, progress and change have been signatory features — where confidence in an enduring future is at its slightest.”Despite our communal resources in the West, specifically Toronto, where I am based, I’m sensing this lack of confidence as most palpable.Sentiments such as Giovanni’s instill hope in me that much imagination, innovation, and life exist in all of us, but might be settled or hidden beneath our surface. In Maybe We’re Creative, I chose to expand on all forms of creativity, and dance, specifically between my dad and me, as a practice to potentially bring us back to the present, as a starting point, and expose some of that buried life.Still from Maybe We’re Creative.Building a relationship with the unknownFour years ago, my dad came to me acknowledging for the first time in our relationship that things could have been different if he had acted differently. He had recently returned home from what would be his last military deployment, was released from the military as he was now undeployable due to various reasons, mental health included, and from what I could see, he was taking a long look at the reflection of his past self.Reflecting on our relationship and the impact of his choices exposed a humility in my dad that I had never seen before. He freed himself from the singular narrative he had been glued to previously. This old narrative only had room for his experience, which prevented my experience from being seen and prevented me from participating in our relationship in a way that felt true to me. It was interesting; in that moment, my dad simply, and not-so-simply, acknowledged that things could have been different, the trajectory for our relationship as I had known it, almost immediately, changed.Last year, when I began my research journey in my last year of school, he asked if we could learn a dance together as a way of reconnecting and in an attempt to make up for time he was absent from my life. This moment marks something I now understand as essential to building alternative futures: not only do we have to recognize a shared history, but if we can genuinely recognize that the past could have been different, the future, somewhat suddenly, can be too.Until then, I had been clinging to the idea that our relationship would be somewhat tainted forever because my dad always said that the past “was what it was.” This approach, from us both, locked us in place. But when he, sitting on my couch during a visit I initially thought would be a quick hi and bye, said that if he knew then what he understood of the repercussions of his actions now, he would have done it all differently, something shifted.Co-creating futures through storyThis reframing of the past was an important moment for me. I had to confront that my dad’s new perspective on our past meant I no longer knew what our future held. This was terrifying at times. What we imagined, or failed to imagine, would shape what was possible for us. I was scared of my dad falling back into his old narrative, I was scared of being hurt or abandoned again, I was scared of how my changing relationship with my dad would change my relationships with the rest of my family, and the list goes on. Part of what motivated me to move through these fears is the underlying, I think natural, truth that no matter the rupture in our relationships, there are always pieces of what's left over in our bodies that we hope we might one day repair.I always wanted a relationship with my dad, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself to have one. Now that he was proposing a genuine relationship, one I could show up in, I had to confront my fears and ask myself: Am I ready for this relationship? I’d love to say it was easy to step into a joyful new chapter with my dad. In reality, I had to let go of a version of myself I had been training for a long time, who believed love to be a struggle, one-sided, or that people you love will leave. Those thoughts were painful for me to hold onto, but they also kept me safe in a repeating pattern that I could predict.I saw this experience as my dad offering me an opportunity to grow and deepen my understanding of him and myself. My commitment to honouring growth in relationship and in the unknown outweighed all of the fear I was experiencing. I also had been doing a lot of work on myself, and something told me that not only did this feel different, but I was different. I didn’t want to act out of fear or old narratives; I was open to something new.Why include my personal life in my professional life?None of the challenges my dad and I experienced were exclusive to our relationship alone. People navigate interpersonal conflicts in every facet of their lives, whether or not they want to address them as such. Our survival instincts don’t discriminate between our relationships. These modes show up with work colleagues with whom we don’t get along, our boss who doesn’t listen to us, the reaction we have to the passive-aggressive stranger at the grocery store, our inability to have conversations with those who disagree with us without it erupting into an argument, and the list goes on. We write off these relationships, claiming to know that they “just won’t work” or we “just don’t vibe.” We fill in the blanks of the stories that haven’t yet happened because “we know what’s going to happen.” Sometimes, we’re right, but what about the times we’re wrong? What if things could go differently? When do our predictions or assumptions not protect but actually prevent change?Zooming in on the process of co-creating futures through storyMy dad and I’s relationship was ripe with opposition, politically, professionally, and personally. I could have clung to the idea that I knew this journey would end the same way all my previous experiences with him had. However, we had one vital ingredient that propelled our relationship forward that had never been present before: we were both open to being vulnerable together and letting that vulnerability and honesty guide our direction into an unknown place. We had a mutual desire to be seen by the other, and in turn, whether we knew it or not at the time, we were open to seeing ourselves in a new way, too. We both let go of control to the extent we needed to, and this dance project gave us a blueprint for moving forward.The beginner mindsetDance allowed us to confront our differences and vulnerabilities through movement, a kind we were not specialized in (though I had experience in other forms of dance, House was new to me), making us both beginners. House Dance was also my dad’s idea. He had been repeatedly listening to some songs during his morning workouts, the time he admittedly ruminated about the past, and felt a connection with a couple of house tracks. He wanted to explore a response, a feeling that came up in him. We were both willing to be seen making mistakes and exposing our amateur selves.The willingness to try something new in an unknown area translates into relationships just the same. This is another vital ingredient to foster new future possibilities. When we are exposed as beginners to something, we have no choice but to surrender to only the possibility of progress with active practice. You don’t know if you’ll be “good” at something when you first start. We have to let go of the fear of being perceived a certain way, a way we can control. For better or worse, when we feel confident and comfortable in our environment, we tend to live self-fulfilling prophecies and relive what we already know. Feeling unsure, insecure, and fearful is all human. What’s beautiful about this process in a relationship is when we witness someone else in those vulnerable feelings that mirror our own. We have the opportunity to say “me too” and courageously move through fear and transform it into something else. We create possible futures in these moments versus remaining stuck in the same place.A dance reflection from myself, included in my final report of Maybe We’re Creative.Trust and futures literacyThis brings me to the futures literacy workshop with Miller from last month. About 20 of us (mostly design students or practitioners) were separated into smaller groups and asked to discuss the future of trust in 2100, the probable future and our desired future. We were then asked to consider a scenario in which, by 2100, every time a person lied, their nose would grow longer, and everyone would have telepathy. How does trust function if everyone is exposed in one way or another? How does truth function? We built sculptures in our groups to represent what we considered, and presented them to the room. Miller encouraged a beginner mindset here, as none of us could know what 2100 will be like. We were equally, collectively, looking into the unknown.Miller noted that when we collectively discuss and contemplate designing the future, we’re confronting a process intertwined with something deep: people’s hopes and fears. Our assumptions are brought to the surface in these collective exercises, our survival mechanisms, and, if we’re willing, our imaginations. Building capacity for futures literacy can be emotionally charged for those open to being moved by it. This realization reshaped how I saw my work, not just as a designer, but as someone making space for others to feel, imagine, and respond in real time.What is the imaginary, and why is it useful?We discussed ‘futures literacy’ as a practice of the imaginary in relation to the world around us. Miller noted that the imaginary does not exist. I don’t imagine a 5% increase in wealth over the next x number of years when I imagine a future. What exists are our images of the future and what those images allow, or do not allow, us to perceive in the present. I found this identification useful as I began to see and understand my relationship with the imaginary not as a fantasy, but as a perceptual frame, a way to hold what hasn’t yet materialized but is shaping our actions in the present. When my dad and I expanded our perception and imagination of what was possible between us by reframing our past, our relationship, in the present, changed, which meant our relationship in the future could inevitably be different, too, if we kept imagining or believing it could.When I envision the future, I generally feel hopeful that what we do matters, and this hope expands when I’m in the presence of others. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned and scared about the many people I know who are unhappy and struggling in their day-to-day lives. I feel concerned about the lack of trust people have in themselves to navigate difficult times. I’m seeing people shut down and push others away, being unkind, isolating, and saying “it’s fine” when truthfully, it isn't.These feelings, hopes and fears are not inherent to me, and futures literacy, specifically this workshop, helped me uncover where my mind pulls from when they reach the surface. Through the collective and in contrast to group members, I uncovered how I’ve been managing fear or anticipation, specifically regarding uncertainty and complexity. I’ve come to understand that futures literacy, like creativity, begins not with certainty but with the courage to enter unfamiliar terrain together. It isn’t as simple as “being courageous”, of course. Getting to that place of courage isn’t easy, especially in a capitalist society based on a collective acceptance of scarcity.Still from Maybe We’re Creative. Partial quote from interview participant, Chris Wilson.Ancestry and designIn the interviews I conducted for my research, trauma came up multiple times, as well as the tension between wanting to be creative but living in a structure that doesn’t support creation, but rather consumption. This is another space where I found Miller’s framing of the imaginary particularly useful. When we feel limited, like we can’t make anything new, or that what we make isn’t valued, we tend to surrender or outsource our imagination and creation to others. In our society, creation is increasingly outsourced to those with power, wealth, or at the top of the hierarchy. Creation and imagination in the hands of only a few limit collective future possibilities.When my dad came to me in earnest, I felt the hierarchy between us dissolve. Again, I find it important to note that nothing had to change about the past events we lived through physically, and my dad didn’t know how things could have been different, but just that they could have been. He imagined previously unimagined possibilities, which were not easy. This came with regret, sadness, and shame he never fully confronted, but, instead of being in his own, isolated narrative, the narrative we both knew quite well, it opened a complex, relational reality.A dance reflection from my Dad, included in my final report of Maybe We’re CreativeI never wanted my dad to be perfect, but I sometimes wished he would change, be different. By shifting his perceptual framing of the past and courageously wondering, “what if”, he may not have changed the past or himself, but he confronted the past and the spectrum of experiences that existed there, not only his own. As a result of this reframing, what I, in turn, valued in our relationship changed. I wasn’t fixated on my dad changing as a person, but refocused on how our relationship functioned and how it could change moving forward, thus healing and shaping each of us as individuals. I could accept and love my dad in a new way because he, just like me, was exposing himself as an imperfect, changing human being trying his best in a world that, despite us wanting it to, doesn’t have any instructions.Complexity is a state, not a variableI don’t think, as designers, we fully grasp how complex things are, and I don’t say this to suggest we can or should. But perhaps accepting complexity as a state, that we can’t funnel into something simpler, is our true starting point, befriending humility and a desire to build capacity for complexity, not simplicity. For example, if health is being able to experience the spectrum of emotions, not just one emotion, maybe a desirable future could be designed with the capacity to welcome the same. I read the other day that the opposite of depression is not joy or happiness, which one might assume, but the opposite of depression is expression. I want a future that is not focused on chasing singular emotions or goals but one where we all feel capable of moving through our expressions, even when those expressions are at odds with others, perhaps especially then. A designer-as-human can be with complexity instead of a human-centred design, simplifying or solving complexity.I think what we’re witnessing and experiencing in society is the downfall of simplifying for speed or “productivity,” and what I keep asking myself about this process, in the simplest way, is, what are we racing towards? I wonder how varied our answers would be. I’m also wondering how much of our imagination we are losing by continuously speeding up.I wanted a relationship so badly with my dad so many times before this experience, but each time he came to me, I knew in my heart that nothing had changed. I knew this because when I shared my experiences with him, he couldn’t incorporate them into his version of our story. If I had tried a relationship in those moments, we would have forced his narrative on something far more complex. If I had rushed it, we would have replayed the same future we were already playing. I’ve heard this pattern referred to as remembering the future just as we remember the past. When we act in a way that is so intertwined with what we already know, we aren’t creating something new; we are reinforcing something old.Miller shared that complexity is a state, not a variable. This phrase keeps echoing throughout my thinking, not as a metaphor, but as a reframing of how we live, relate, and design. It resonated particularly strongly as I reflected on my experience with my dad, my interviews on creativity, and the corresponding conceptual model I began last year, trying to map out what the complexity of lived experiences looks like in groups.Seeing possibility in the complexity of the pastAs the problems we’re facing, locally and globally, arguably, continue to worsen, I wonder if we might consider pausing to adjust how our previous approaches to problems might not be creating new results and instead reinforcing the problems themselves. If we pause to ask ourselves where these approaches are rooted, we might unravel a new way of seeing and approaching problems altogether. We might not even see previous problems as problems; perhaps they were just evidence of complexity, and perhaps the problem has more to do with our capacity to be present in them. Miller added that when we uncover that the universe can continually surprise us, for better or worse, complexity might become something we welcome.I’ve been exploring the space of creation and complexity through building a tool called Lived Experience Cartography. This dialogic framework maps stories, emotions, and relationships to help groups make meaning together. It doesn’t seek immediate convergence or simplicity. Instead, it asks: What becomes possible when we deepen our awareness of ourselves and others and linger in complexity together?The current state of co-design: static story sharingCo-design is often celebrated for its ability to include many voices. But we know from experience that inclusion alone isn’t enough. The complexity of individual designers multiplies when co-designing, and this reality of difference demands more than the idea of inclusion or a check-box approach in our work. It calls for a deliberate practice. As I previously mentioned, when my dad came to me before, I could feel there still wasn’t room for him to incorporate my story into his lived reality. If I took him up on his previous offers, I was afraid I would be living his reality, not a shared reality. I also didn’t want to force my reality onto him or erase his experiences. I wanted us both to acknowledge that we co-existed, that our actions and expressions were interconnected, and that we had impacted each other’s experiences. In his previous state, his offers meant my voice might have been present in our relationship, but not included.Static and dynamic story sharingIdeas remain static when group work focuses on ideas stacking up without interaction and engagement (see above re: story sharing). Bartels et al. (2019) compare this to a kaleidoscope with many colours, but the cylinder doesn’t turn. Technically, the pieces are there, but the magic of seeing interwoven colours change as they move together never happens. Complexity is the magic. Engagement with complexity is the magic. When more people are present, more information might be present, but if it can’t be meaningfully engaged with, it will not mean change or new possibilities.We can feel the contrasts between static and dynamic group work in society today. Baharak Yousefi in the essay, “On the Disparity Between What We Say And What We Do In Libraries,” described this beautifully (albeit, tragically) when she wrote about the growing disconnect between professional value statements and what is being done or not done in our public institutions. She cites academic Keller Easterling’s spatial analysis of object and active forms to aid the differentiation. To be able to examine both our words and actions/character is derived from taking stock of the interconnections and totality of our activities, both the influential buildings, strategic plans, and value statements (object forms) and undeclared movements, rules, and activities (active forms) that create our societal infrastructure.On the surface, many people are involved in changing laws, value statements, and policies for the public good; however, as we know, just because society appears to apply those changes in writing, it does not mean that our underlying beliefs also change throughout that process. This is sadly understood when a law changes back, and we revert to old patterns, or when a new value statement is plastered on every document in an institution, but it results in few meaningful cultural shifts. Despite this disconnect, we still highly believe in and value the object form. This back-and-forth begs a question: Does the appearance of new information stacking on top of old information effectively disguise and eradicate the fact that there is more work to be done beneath the surface? Are some of us genuinely satisfied with appearing one way and acting another? Or perhaps more worrisome, do some not even recognize the disconnect? Our increasing ability to dissociate ourselves personally and professionally, individually and collectively, is, as Yousefi describes, disconcerting.With Lived Experience Cartography and creativity, I want to explore how we can build a capacity to merge stories and lived experiences, to better articulate an interconnection in groups while preserving individuals’ sense of self. Could we develop our listening skills to be present with others’ experiences while still being connected to our own? Or further, could we allow our relationship to our own experiences to change through engagement with another, and vice versa? If this is a mutual understanding, meaningful co-design becomes more possible, as well as closing the gap between what we say and do, combining our object and active forms.A curriculum of conversation and listeningA way forward, I believe, lies in embedding active conversational engagement at the heart of design processes. In my current work, I use conversation-activated reflection as a powerful mode of learning, unlearning and engagement.Similarly, Alia Weston and Miguel Imas describe a “dialogical imagination” in Communities of Art-Spaces, Imaginations and Resistances, as a kind of exploration where people construct meaning together in an in-between space, a conversation. Easterling also notes that talking is a tool for decentering power and creating alternative narratives. In my work, creativity acts as another form of dialogue. It's practice is about deep, meaningful sharing, getting as close as possible to complexity and remaining open to an unknown path forward.Still from Maybe We’re Creative. Partial quote from interview participant, Cami Boyko.This need for dialogue and a curriculum of conversation extends beyond design and into every area of society. Rising polarity and binaries in the media are shaping our opinions and social circles, making conversation and maintaining deep social interactions feel more difficult now than ever before. One participant in my thesis research, Cami Boyko, an elementary school teacher, captured this beautifully:“You really have to look at this idea of extremism, and talk to kids about how it’s their role to take a step towards the centre, at least far enough to hear what’s going on. I think I’m convincing myself that we need this sort of curriculum of conversation and listening. Because it’s been interesting how that [extremism] shut down some things in the classroom where it should be about being able to talk.”To echo Cami’s insight, design schools and workplaces alike have an opportunity to become sites of openness, play, and collective sensemaking. The cost of ignoring the complexity of thoughts and opinions and our lived experiences is not just creative disconnection; it’s social fragmentation and power imbalances. As Audre Lorde wrote,“Unacknowledged difference robs all of us of each other’s energy and creative insight, and creates a false hierarchy.”Not only are we increasing the distance between one another when we resist interacting with differences, but we unknowingly reinforce a hierarchical system. This, perhaps subconscious, moral superiority further disconnects our relationships, making it harder to step towards the centre.Conversation as a tool to move beyond survivalObviously, dialogue as a tool for learning is not new. Throughout history, the act of asking sincere, open-ended questions has been viewed as liberatory and, as such, dangerous to some leadership. In May 2024, researcher Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman shared that the United Nations had recently reached out to her and her husband, Dr. John Gottman, desperate, begging for a simple way for their organization to discuss and navigate problems. She reminded us of the power of dialogue and its historical roots, citing the 300 BC philosopher, Socrates, who introduced dialogue to the youth to encourage critical thinking. Authorities saw the power it wielded when people were thinking for themselves, and they threatened to condemn him to death if he didn’t stop teaching.Emily Wood, a Toronto organizer and poet, and another participant in my thesis research, reflected on how our culture resists creativity, in conversation or otherwise:“I just don’t think that we live in a culture currently that wants people to even be creative… It’s challenging for people to be around unconventional thinkers… that’s uncomfortable and challenging to the status quo. If you are creative and you’re trying to see things differently and you imagine a way something could be versus like what it currently is, then that’s kind of bad to more powerful entities.”Remembering that elites have suppressed the power of dialogue since 300 BC helps explain why today’s monopolies sell every new tool, technological or otherwise, as somewhat of a substitute for conversation. Today, in AI and the age of the internet, algorithms create a world where our surroundings are affirmed and validated. Contrary to the plurality of human differences outside, the world we make online can coincide with the singular world in our head. This isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about control. When conversation is inconvenient or unpredictable, it threatens centralized systems of power that prefer scripted interactions and outcomes. Algorithms in the hands of big tech encourage our longing for comfort, convenience and control. The more we battle the complexities of life outside algorithms, the more we’re tempted to rely on and trust institutions that promise to simplify and solve the complexity.Why do we resist difference?Algorithms and corporations only emphasize a pre-existing trait of the human psyche. The Gottmans describe a biological tendency toward a ‘symbiotic consciousness’, the deep, often unconscious desire to feel seen and understood by others in the exact way we see ourselves. Confronted with difference, we grow anxious, defensive, and frequently default to survival instincts. They describe this as a tragic dimension to human consciousness: we struggle to fully accept the reality that others may experience the world in radically different ways. Ancestral trauma and the absence of healing only deepen this resistance.This would be fine and dandy if connection were something we did, but undoubtedly, connection makes us who we are. Without interrupting this symbiotic reflex or doomscrolling, we miss the gifts that connection offers: wonder, growth and the ability to embrace and create life rather than passively react through it with isolation and control mechanisms. This internal conflict or tension often emerges in group settings or relationships where we long for connection but resist what makes it real, turning to comfort in the face of discomfort and disconnection on the brink of unconditional love. In many professional settings, moments ripe for deeper conversation are dismissed. We rush past uncertainty, clinging to agendas, outcomes, and the often invisible guest, fear.Still from Maybe We’re Creative. Partial quote from inverview participant, Dr. Bhandari.Designing for differences is designing capacity for discomfortTo design for true inclusion, we must understand how to manage conflict, not erase it. Examples lie in co-op housing initiatives or public senior housing. Individuals might not get along or align politically in either structure. Still, everyone’s basic needs are met, allowing them to disagree and co-exist as one individual does not wield power over another. Everyone has their own space in the collective structure. These systems remind us that it isn’t the absence of conflict that enables safety, but the security of all participants’ basic needs.As Lorde reminds us,“there is no separate survival.”We cannot begin to live differently, beyond theory, without being in relationship with the individuals and communities around us. The Gottmans say that we are born into relationships, are wounded in relationships, and heal in relationships. None of this happens in isolation. It’s in relationships, in creating safety and in regulating our fears and anxiety, where possibility dissolves the limiting narratives of the past and allows us the freedom to create something new with each other. Again, this is an active practice of working together.Lived Experience Cartography in practiceLived Experience Cartography is not a linear tool or checklist, but a conversation starter that helps designers and communities explore how their memories, identities, perceptions, translations, etc. inform their ideas, needs, and fears, how they remember and frame their lived experiences and, in turn, what they can remember or create in the future. This Cartography can be explored individually as self-exploration work or in collectives. In groups, the outside categories of lived experiences stack on top of each other to emphasize our need to preserve individual experiences and our sense of self. These individual parts merge in the centre area of collective expression.Conceptual model: Lived Experience CartographyThe idea is not to solve but to explore and acknowledge the existence of differences. This sounds simpler than it is, but it is not the number of outside experiences or the fact that experiences are constantly changing that pose the main challenge for group work. It is in the denial of the existence of parts that disconnects groups. Designers need to acknowledge their full selves and others if they want to collaborate in productive, holistic ways and design systems that express the same.UX designer and researcher, Florence Okoye, asks a powerful question:“How can one envision the needs of the other when one doesn’t even realize the other exists?”The model encourages a shift from extraction to exploration, from gathering data to building shared meaning. It slows down the process so a group’s social, dynamic, embodied presence can emerge. If designers recognize that each person in a co-design effort comes with various lived experiences that are in relationship with how they express themselves, groups might be able to start co-creation projects from a more open place of understanding. It won’t form a perfect equation, but mapping experience and expression systems enable designers to make the invisible more visible, and this process alone is worthwhile. Nikki Giovanni nodded towards this when she said everyone’s imagination changes as they grow. Those changes remain unknown when we don’t engage in ongoing awareness of those changes, and in turn, share them.Giovanni had a deep knowing of the importance of sharing her changing imagination with us. Through sharing, poems, speeches, or otherwise, she facilitates experiences that invite individuals to share parts of themselves they have not acknowledged for whatever reason, fear or otherwise. Modelling vulnerability with the invitation to join in is a courageous, powerful way of showing the rest of the world that being human is okay. Most importantly, Giovanni exemplified that there is no other way for us to be.Embracing our imperfect humannessInvesting in ways of conversing and developing our capacity for dialogue in practice is one way to remind us of the generative potential that fumbling through the unknown with another can bring about. Starting the conversational process, knowing it might be imperfect and expecting it to be, softens the expectations and pressure we place on ourselves. When navigating conversations, we might start to feel uncomfortable (*uncomfortable, not unsafe*), but it isn’t a sign we’re going in the wrong direction; it can be a sign we’re getting at something real.As researcher Legacy Russell so powerfully describes in Glitch Feminism, when we feel discomfort in a society that works very hard to disguise the disturbances it houses, it’s a sign of us returning to ourselves. Discomfort is our body attempting to correct the underlying error: our inherited, not chosen, default programming. Through curiosity, we begin to see more. Through listening, we begin to know more. Through conversation, we can grow and change in ways we might not yet know exist.Some conversation offeringsBelow are possible considerations for each outer experience of Lived Experience Cartography, in the form of questions. There are no strict definitions of each category, so not every question might make exact “sense” to the reader.If the sentiment doesn’t make sense in the part identified, explore why, and ask where the question makes more sense. Compare and converse with others.Lived Experience Cartography category breakdownDesigners can break down these questions by asking themselves about the different facets of their lives and the parts of their experiences explored above. Lived experiences are powerful knowledge. Through reflective work, Professor Natalie Loveless (2019) writes,“we seriously attend to and recognize the constitutive power of the stories through which we come to understand the world.”When designers become more aware of their lived experiences and all of the parts of themselves, we can start to map how parts change over time, in different contexts, and in relationship to others. Further, through developing this self-knowledge, designers can explore what is limiting them or what they want to adjust when working alongside others with different experiences.The purpose of this Cartography is not to have an answer to every question or share every question’s answers. It was built by my acknowledgement of the reality that there is so much that we don’t know about the people and places that we design with and for, and there is much we don’t know about ourselves as designers. It emphasizes some glitches and discomfort necessary to explore if we want the future to be different from our past. It emphasizes the abundance of newness and unanswered questions that are right below the surface of most of us.Quote from Interview Participant, Chris Wilson. Included in my final report of Maybe We’re CreativeLearning to listen to create a new futureI now know that my previous choice to disengage with my dad wasn’t just about him. It was about all the things I had absorbed and survived and how those things had narrowed what felt imaginable to me. To my knowledge, no amount of positive thinking or design thinking could change my dad, so I stopped thinking about change. I effectively controlled my future by setting a boundary. I still believe this boundary was necessary for a time, but equally necessary was my willingness to acknowledge when holding onto control was no longer protecting me but rather preventing change and growth. I stopped focusing on a singular outcome of my dad changing, instead building a relationship around noticing, naming, and existing in real-time space together. Our future shifted from being about a solution to strengthening, building, and feeling through a relationship. This relationship is ongoing and ever-changing.This whole experience caused me to ask, what if we saw failure, slowness, and discomfort not as risks to avoid, but as signals that we are in the presence of a departure from what we already know? What if these are signs of life, or, as Russell notes, a positive departure?Dr. Bhandari, Chair of Surgery at McMaster University, and another participant in my thesis research, described the energy of conversation like this:“Talking, like we’re doing now, energizes you, it does…That has to happen every day. And we don’t do that. I think … we don’t allow ourselves to [talk] because we feel that’s not a productive use of our time. And that is really where I think the shift has to happen.”In this moment of fragmentation, what we design will inevitably reflect how well we relate. What do your relationships say about our designs? And what do our designs say about our relationships? Are we engaged in processes creating new relationships and futures, or are we remembering and re-living old patterns in real time?Conversation, imagination and complexity are not entities outside ourselves that need to be managed; they are survival tools for collective transformation. Once we recognize them as such, we can see the possibilities of how we might use them differently.This, I’ve come to understand, is the heart of co-creation and futures literacy: not predicting what comes next but learning to stay present with what is, truly present, so that the path ahead disappears, and something new can then emerge.Designing in and for a world we don’t yet know was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lapland Central Hospital Extension / Verstas ArchitectsSave this picture!© Niclas Mäkelä•Rovaniemi, Finland Architects: Verstas Architects Area Area of this architecture project Area:  52000 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2023 Photographs Photographs:Niclas Mäkelä Lead Architects: Riina Palva, Jussi Palva, Väinö Nikkilä More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Originally completed in the 1980s, the Lapland Central Hospital was designed by one of Finland's most renowned hospital architects, Reino Koivula. The extensions double the current premises of the hospital, including e.g., emergency outpatient clinic, observation ward, operation rooms, psychiatric wards, and facilities for several supporting functions. The extensions create conditions for extensive operations synergy, transforming the hospital campus into a more integrated and efficient whole.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The new section of the hot hospital and parking building is positioned to the east of the existing hospital. Wooden surfaces under the entrance canopy and interior create a warm and inviting atmosphere. The psychiatric hospital is located west of the central hospital building. Its patient wards and outdoor yard are situated next to a small forest, bringing nature into the treatment process. The patient is at the center, with good customer experience, safety, effective treatment, and staff well-being as key goals.Save this picture!The architecture of the new buildings is consistent and recognizable. The primary facade material for the psychiatric hospital is wood with a translucent finish, while the facades of the hot hospital feature white concrete and aluminum. Vertical lamellas and floor-level overhangs provide weather protection and reduce the need for mechanical cooling. The modular facade solution allows for the flexible placement of spaces of various sizes along the facade, thereby supporting the adaptability of the interior.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The revised layout of the hospital campus is based on creating a new east-west oriented internal connection, which serves as the spatial and functional unifying backbone of the plan. The architecture conveys humaneness and patient-centered care, while evoking images of Lapland's nature. Materials, spatial solutions, and natural light create a safe, healing environment that serves both patients' effective treatment and the well-being of the staff. Public artworks implemented on the hospital campus enliven the surroundings and promote active rehabilitation.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Rovaniemi, FinlandLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officeVerstas ArchitectsOffice••• MaterialsWoodSteelMaterials and TagsPublished on May 15, 2025Cite: "Lapland Central Hospital Extension / Verstas Architects" 15 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029946/lapland-central-hospital-extension-verstas-architects&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream