Joshua Meadows

Of course, now I'm going to have to update all of the marketing copy everywhere that said the game was "nearly" a quarter-million words. Drat.

I’ll say more when I make a proper announcement about it, but I’m well-chuffed for people to play it when it does come out in a couple of weeks.

I think this is some of the best writing I’ve done for the game, and it was very interesting to revisit it after a year. Aside from bug fixes, I have left it completely alone since it came out last April.

This also well and truly pushes the total length of Alcyone from "nearly a quarter of a million words" to "over a quarter of a million" — the additional content will push it to over 260k words in total.

Initially I thought it would be something that would be on par with the other side-stories in the game, around 10k words or so. I finished the writing today and it’s ended up being over 20k instead.

I haven't announced anything about this yet (so this is a "soft announcement") but the year anniversary of Alcyone’s release is coming up — less than a month now! — and I have been working on a content update to mark it. I wanted to write another side quest ("Encounters" in game parlance) for it.

Another open letter to my current MP I beg of Labor, at all levels of government, to give the country something better and more optimistic than "it could always get worse."

"Another open letter to my current MP."

[I beg of Labor, at all levels of government, to give the country something better and more optimistic than “it could always get worse.”]

logbook.joshuameadows.com/another-open...

Vlas: I wish you wouldn't do [that].

Me: If wishes were horses you could ride one to the bank.

*ten minutes later*

Vlas: wait what the fuck

Yeah you know fuck it, Jim Carrey got replaced by an Illuminati clone, sure. I legitimately wouldn’t even be surprised by anything anymore. Maybe they’re alien Illuminati too, why the fuck not, in this shitty timeline anything is possible.

In May '25, a beloved Australian games website was sold off. It went dark then, a month later, rose from the dead but stuffed full of gambling links and AI authors.

It wasn't the first time, or the last time, this exact thing had happened. And it's still happening.

My months-long investigation 👇

The sheer number of people who privately told me that they knew full well the sort of person Jesse Matheson was when I criticised him, but ignored it because they still wanted whatever connections he purported to provide, is staggering. I don't forget any of you, either.

The few people I genuinely have a problem with know it's for a good reason and if I don't like you, you will inevitably always — always — demonstrate why to everyone else. I get along just fine with people who aren't bullies and odious little fucks.

A thing I've been gaslit about all my life and had to learn to liberate myself from is "oh Joshua you don't get along with anybody" because I don't put up with bullshit and I'm not interested in being liked by abusers.

On the other hand, what a shame to see an abusive person take down something as important to queer rights and representation as Mardi Gras because he's an odious egotistical fuck who has nothing but contempt for people whose struggles are not his own. Yet again, I hate saying I told you so, but...

On the one hand, I'm glad everyone is getting to see Jesse Matheson publicly demonstrate what a menacing, nasty, abusive person he is — awful toxic behaviour I warned people about repeatedly, only to have it dismissed and ignored as he kept failing his way upward towards positions of authority.

a close up of a dog 's face with its eyes closed and looking at the camera . ALT: a close up of a dog 's face with its eyes closed and looking at the camera .

I'm reduced to hunching over my iPad and playing it on reduced settings like some kind of peasant. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone, ever.

Tragedy has struck. There was a content update for Genshin Impact the other day and they changed something that broke it on not just my MacBook but also the Steam Deck. 😭 Everything I've tried isn't working and I'm not the only one affected. My husbandos have been stolen from me. 😭

Imposter Syndrome: you’re terrible and you’re going to fail at everything you do, constantly, you suck so much.

Me: yes interesting perspective; counterpoint — Elon Musk.

Imposter Syndrome: Yeah, fair.

I mean this with no sarcasm whatsoever but if I can say nothing else about the state of civilisation lately, it’s that it’s done wonders to help me ignore the constant critical voice in the back of my head telling me that I suck as a writer and a creative and I’ll never be good at making art.

Commander Farsight writes a Steam review for Australia Did It: "I've been waiting for this game ever since I saw the first trailer and it did not disappoint! An absolutely fascinating mix of tower defense, bullet hell, and turn based combat that takes incredible queues from games like Into The Breach and Colossatron while forging its own path. I love the aesthetic, and the units are a mix of odd, eccentric designs while still having clear archetypes. The merging is a fun take on a tired mechanic, turning it into a way to slingshot units across the map or desperately summon the correct answer to a particular enemy. As each round presents a unique and interesting puzzle to solve, you're forced to pick between where to best allocate resources without ever being able to fully control how the pieces fall, making those few times when you wipe the whole board clean truly memorable. Once the turn based combat ends, the game is flipped on its head! The on-the-rails, bullet-hell train sequences are frantic and chaotic, yet reward thought out plans by making it so a variety of units in each train car provide a greater toolbox to tackle the swarms of insects and robots that want nothing more than to tear your train apart. New merges can even prove to be a detriment if it means losing a critical source of a specific type of bullet pattern or damage type, so sometimes keeping weaker units actually makes for a better train defense. Overall, the game has its quirks and a bit of a steep learning curve at first, but god does it feel amazing when it really clicks. I seriously cannot wait for full release!"

Early player reviews of the Australia Did It Demo seem to really click with it. So much of this review were explicit design goals and we made something so weird I wasn't sure it'd click. If you wrote this, thank you - you made my night.

Give it a go, too? store.steampowered.com/app/3859010/...

Mademoiselle Theron has also been rather outspoken of her dislike of Trump, too.

I deeply resent my sense of right and wrong and internal moral compass, sometimes. Particularly towards the end of the month when rent comes around.

Unlike you luddites, I’m all for Silicon Valley venture capitalists delegating their life & business to OpenClaw AI agents. In fact, any AI with access to their human’s cryptowallets are welcome to get in touch with me on an incredibly exciting investment opportunity they won’t want to miss out on.

🎶 #lacunacoil

Ah yes, the two genders.

Valentine's Day was spent by Ryan and I teaching Vlas my favourite board game (Aeon's End) and then dinner before playing a second round.

We beat Rageborne but lost to Carapace Queen (she ran out of cards, but bad luck with the maggot-spawn creature right at the end and too many husks in play).

The Coalition is in good hands. 👍

The Liberals have replaced the crusty white woman leading the party after less than a year with a crusty white dude who, among his many controversies, once used a doctored document with misleading figures to try and attack the Lord Mayor of Sydney and never produced an explanation for who edited it.

Oh no Natalie Bassingthwaighte is the lead in "The Waitress" for Melbourne, a musical I have desperately wanted to see live, a musical by Sara Bareilles — one of the most incredible sopranos of my generation. No disrespect to Mme. Bassingthwaighte but I was not bowled over by her Velma in "Chicago."

Peter Malinauskas in SA, Chris Minns in NSW, Anthony Albanese just every-fucking-where — can someone explain why the party borne from the Australian labour movement is dead set on kissing authoritarian ass? Do they think unions politely requested workers' rights from the designated free speech zone?