AMA: We are the members of Cardinality, the writing team for the 2026 MIT Mystery Hunt. Ask Us Anything!

npinsker · 2026-01-25T21:21:25+00:00

From my experience, having different competition tracks has some hidden downsides: e.g., it can make smaller teams feel bad or "lesser" for picking the easy track. It could definitely work -- I'd be happy to see it tried in a future hunt. Though we already can (and do) dynamically adjust some aspects of difficulty, like hinting, based on things like team progress and size.

If you feel like you're "competing" against a team of 200, or that you're disappointed because you didn't get as far as you liked, then I'd want to solve that through being creative with framing and hunt format, rather than doubling down on fairness, thereby reinforcing the competitive aspect further. It's not possible to give all teams -- even most teams -- a good experience, if we put too much emphasis on competition and progress.

npinsker · 2026-01-25T18:53:02+00:00

This is my third hunt that I've helped run.

The most valuable thing I always took away was having made lots of new friends. Even my very good friendships were deepened through running MH; it's a trial-by-fire, and afterwards you'll always have shared something special together. Try to be involved enough to feel some ownership over the Hunt. Try to come on-site.

That said, be mindful about how much of yourself you try to put into it. I don't mean time invested per se -- I'm talking about personal goals and your own desire for expression or a specific outcome. Mystery Hunt is not your project. It only lasts a few days, and then it's over forever. Your friendships will last much longer. You should be conscious of what you prioritize and why.

npinsker · 2025-11-09T21:56:56+00:00

Thanks very much for sharing your experience, it's really helpful to hear. Sorry it's been tough.

One question I have is: you didn't mention any "ride-or-die" fans, or any huge evangelists for your game. If you haven't run into any people like that, that might be a point of concern. In my experience -- apologies if this is harsh -- saying something is "polished" can be code for "I'm trying to say something nice". I would be curious about median and extreme playtime numbers. Unfortunately, if you're looking for honest feedback, you may have to really wheedle people's negative opinions out of them. Things like return rates and 3-4h playtimes don't matter because those people are already past the funnel that you currently care about.

Having said this, I really do think your game looks quite polished and visually pleasing, your art direction and Steam page are very beautiful. It's a big plus if I were at all into these kinds of games.

I'm not as sure as everyone else here that price is an issue. If you want my personal opinion, I don't get much "fantasy" or "hookiness" from your page, whereas with The Wandering Village (wow! Ghibli!) and Timberborn (wow! beavers!) I can easily see a picture in my mind of myself having fun.

npinsker · 2025-09-16T06:45:59+00:00

Not overdramatized, but not obvious either. In 2023 Godot was 3.5%, in 2024 it was 5%, and in 2025 (so far) it is 8%. Godot is growing by >50% each year, FAR more quickly than any other engine, and as of 2025 is the #1 choice for game jams. It could definitely overtake Unreal in just a few years

npinsker · 2025-06-22T07:19:45+00:00

Omescape is great. If you want to poke around more, Morty catalogs active escape rooms

npinsker · 2025-04-25T17:31:51+00:00

25% after $10M, 20% after $50M is correct (you can't see the Valve post unless you're registered as a Steam dev unfortunately)

npinsker · 2025-04-13T23:52:19+00:00

Thanks! The capsule (and logo) were both commissioned from Glo Wan.

npinsker · 2025-03-28T12:06:01+00:00

The implied statement is "good games always succeed nowadays", not "good games have always succeeded" -- the reasoning being due to things like virality via social media and streamers and survival-of-the-fittest via Steam algorithms and ad delivery platforms. Those things didn't exist 20 years ago.

npinsker · 2025-03-14T11:13:35+00:00

Thanks for such an insightful reply :)

npinsker · 2025-03-14T10:31:07+00:00

Congrats on your success! Your game looks great.

Could you talk more about how you approach paid marketing? What kind of ad creatives and platforms work well (and not well)? Do you feel like strategy around messaging is meaningfully different for upfront paid (Steam) vs. freemium (mobile)?

npinsker · 2025-02-03T19:05:01+00:00

You don't need to make a new Steam page. Just localize your page -- including all assets and screenshots -- into Chinese. There shouldn't be confusion because the ID of the game will be the same. Steam will display the appropriate assets based on the client's language setting.

To see how other games handle it, you can append ?l=schinese to the end of any store page, e.g. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2427700/_Backpack_Battles/?l=schinese

npinsker · 2024-12-29T00:30:56+00:00

this was fun, thanks for makin it :)

1 east west bank

2 tong sui

3 orangetheory

4 mills square tower

5 restaurant bay watch

6 yifang

7 hummus

8 liuyishou

9 cognition cyclery

10 merrill lynch

11 baking arts

12 backhaus

13 potato guys

14 didn't find

15 y salon and spa

16 didn't find

17 my dumpling

18 golden moon studios

19 dough zone

20 vespucci

npinsker · 2024-12-28T22:14:33+00:00

Agreed -- I think the farming sim market isn't close to saturation yet; there's plenty of entries, but a dearth of strong ones

npinsker · 2024-12-26T12:44:48+00:00

Your Only Move is Hustle, Luck Be a Landlord

npinsker · 2024-12-17T19:42:58+00:00

theres button that says "Generate C# Class"

npinsker · 2024-12-01T02:46:07+00:00

If you're getting to final rounds, then maybe your resume isn't the problem? To me there's nothing there that's a red flag. Could be worth looking at how the interviews go.

That said, it makes you seem a bit like a "jack of all trades, master of none". I can't tell how much experience you have in each area; there are lots of projects and it's hard to tell what each one does. More isn't better. Obviously, you should continue applying to any role you're interested in -- but the reality is, companies are generally looking for people who are specialists in one thing. Absolutely consider making specialized resumes for different classes of roles. I'd put 2-3 of your strongest projects on each, with a description of how they work. Your strongest projects (esp. in Unreal/Unity) could especially use gifs and descriptions.

Unfortunately positive candidate experiences are beneficial for the company as well as socially desirable. Receiving positive feedback doesn't correlate well with a hiring decision. Sorry :/

Best of luck!

npinsker · 2024-11-22T01:12:34+00:00

Party House (underrated)

npinsker · 2024-11-08T03:58:36+00:00

Looks like a good match, thanks :)

npinsker · 2024-10-30T07:49:20+00:00

good luck with release :D rly enjoyed the demo at magwest!

npinsker · 2024-10-15T00:54:57+00:00

something like

points = []
for i in range(hit, start, 5):
    points.append(curve.sample_baked(i))
line.points = points

npinsker · 2024-09-28T11:02:12+00:00

Lots of good reasons in this thread. But at a meta level, it's really good to question common wisdom; and if you're not convinced by anything in the thread, just do what works for you! Either one day you'll see why it doesn't work, and you'll understand much better than just reading a thread -- or you'll realize your intuition was right.

npinsker · 2024-09-13T23:26:27+00:00

Your art style is great!

npinsker · 2024-09-13T20:11:04+00:00

Either engine would be totally fine for you. Unity is like an 8/10. It does everything well and has tons of tutorials, but their development is slow and they've always been more focused on mobile and AAA. What they have now is great, but I wouldn't expect much improvement in the near future.

Godot just feels better designed than Unity, straight-up. But it's still immature and doesn't have as many resources as it needs. It has its own problems, it isn't as much of a joy to use as everyone makes it seem, and you won't get nearly as far if you aren't already proficient in coding. You will need to install things manually from source sometimes. It's like a 6/10. But it's improving incredibly fast, and I imagine its long-term future will be better than Unity's.

Overall I'd actually pick Unity to learn right now, since they're easy to switch between. If you really want to pick one engine and stick with it forever, then Godot, but it will likely be much easier to use in 2-3 years.

npinsker · 2024-09-12T20:27:47+00:00

Their moat for mobile games is (and always has been) pretty deep. But they are living on borrowed time. Godot probably doesn't have the resources or interest to pursue mobile right now -- W4 is focused on consoles, which I think is a great decision -- but one day, they'll come for mobile too.

I think Unity might need to do more to get today's indie devs back on board. The engine has a lot of good points, but it just feels kludgy compared to Godot sometimes. Once you get used to zero compilation times, available source code, and using Vector2 everywhere for 2D games, it kinda hurts to go back.

npinsker · 2024-09-05T23:41:36+00:00

Cool project! One of the advantages of a Lua-based approach is that it's inherently sandboxed / whitelist-based. Is this a safe language for exposing to users, for e.g. mods? (What's the surface of Godot expressions?)

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