Stephan Bester

Christian. Father. Software engineer from the Cape of Good Hope. Loves games, cats, music and movies. Views are my own.

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

I've been working on this game since February last year. Thrilled to finally publish a demo. Check out my retro isometric adventure game, Stranded in Strife!

#demo #indiegame #newrelease #pixelart #gaming

[Stranded in Strife @StrandedStrife]

After a lot of playtesting and polishing, I'm excited to release the Chapter 1 Demo of Stranded in Strife!

You play as Wax, a robot crash-landed and stranded on a hostile alien planet. Play now for free on itch!

#indiegame #free #retro #pixelart #demo #indiegamedev #GodotEngine

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

As something of an arachnophobe, even drawing this anatomically questionable pixel art spider is a significant undertaking. @StrandedStrife #pixelart #spiders #retrogaming

[Stranded in Strife @StrandedStrife]

Wax's ship is not impressed with his crash landing. #pixelart #indiegame #gamedev #screenshot #gaming

[Stranded in Strife @StrandedStrife]

Watch the trailer for Stranded in Strife! Free Chapter1 demo on @itchio #indiegame #gamedev #trailer #pixelart

[Stephan Bester Music @SBesterMusic]

New game, with new music! I went for some Sega 16-bit era in this soundtrack.

[Kangmin Lee | 이강민 @kangminlee]

>promises free everything
>"uh we're actually out of money"

Socialism every time

[Petersome - The Campaigns @PetersomeGuy]

New patch time and this one made some big strides. It feels like the only issues left are polishing and content. Cool, because the game is so far along now. Bad, because polishing is annoying after a while
Try it: https://t.co/yJzGOkQmlb #solodev #gamedev #indiedev #strategy

[Handre @Handre]

Karl Marx gave humanity its most murderous idea: that human suffering stems not from scarcity and the human condition, but from private property itself. This bearded parasite—who never worked a day in his life and lived off Engels' textile fortune—convinced generations that voluntary exchange was exploitation while violent redistribution was justice.

The body count speaks for itself. Stalin's forced collectivization murdered 6 million Ukrainians through engineered famine. Mao's Great Leap Forward killed 45 million through sheer economic illiteracy. Pol Pot slaughtered a quarter of Cambodia's population. And every single time, the intellectuals proclaimed it "wasn't real socialism." The pattern is identical across continents and centuries: seize private property, centrally plan production, watch millions starve.

But the intellectual foundation was always rotten. Marx's labor theory of value—the notion that labor alone creates value—was already debunked by Austrian economists like Böhm-Bawerk before the ink was dry on Das Kapital. Value is subjective, determined by individual preferences in voluntary exchange. Marx simply couldn't grasp that the capitalist performs the crucial function of time preference—sacrificing present consumption for uncertain future returns.

Even "democratic socialism" in Western Europe required massive wealth transfers from productive individuals to bureaucratic parasites, creating permanent dependency classes and stagnating growth. Venezuela had the world's largest oil reserves and still managed to create toilet paper shortages. Cuba turned a Caribbean paradise into a floating prison where doctors flee on rafts.

Every socialist experiment ends the same way: empty shelves, secret police, and intellectuals explaining why the next attempt will be different.

[Robert Dolan 🇮🇱 @dolan_imho]

@dantypo Am I the only person who had ‘group projects’ in school?

Socialism is the worst group project you’ve ever heard of and the grade is pass or die.

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

A number of hours in, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 continues to impress. @WarhorseStudios is an extremely talented developer. The definition of an immersive experience! #gaming

[Acclaimed Journalist @Jonathan_Witt]

Call me crazy but people without children shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. If you aren’t deeply invested in the future your ability to determine it for other people shouldn’t be an option.

[Acclaimed Journalist @Jonathan_Witt]

Pride Rock. Bushveld. South Africa.

2006 vs 2025.

[Robert Duigan @uMarhobane]

The DA can't save South Africa

That's all - thanks for your attention

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

@CapePatriotic Fok nee

[Roland Schoeman @Rolandschoeman]

The DA is losing support because it’s drifting away from the values of ordinary South Africans. Aligning with global elites and liberal ideologies while most citizens are conservative and struggling daily is a mistake. People want safety, jobs, family stability, and real opportunity. Not political posturing. If the DA wants to grow, it needs to realign with the people, not with foreign agendas. @Our_DA @CilliersB @geordinhl

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

Finally!

These two QoL improvements alone are enough to make me update directly to Godot 4.6. 🤗

Of course, I gotta dig myself out of this crazy refactor rabbit hole I'm in first...

#gamedev #GodotEngine

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

@ErnstRoets Inb4 "colleague campuses"

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

@uMarhobane @CapeIndy I'm seeing a pattern.

[Chris Hart @chrishartZA]

Ordinary citizens will celebrate. Socialism is a burden and its removal a release. Socialism imposes poverty, unemployment and inequality by force, not the will of the people. SA’s lived experience since 1994

[Stephan Bester @StepBester]

I haven't watched a whole lot of movies on the plane, but #WeaponsMovie has by far been the best. Couldn't look away.