Dean Hall

Chief Executive @RocketWerkz Video Game Studio. Be friendly! My tweets are law.

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

brb climbing mount everest

[Mārtiņš Upītis 🇱🇻 🇺🇦 @_martinsh]

A personal observation I want to share - I am doing a cloud rendering research for years. And only just now I feel like I can properly ‘see’ them. I can observe them in real world and I know what I am looking at, and notice elements I never saw before.
This genuinely feels like a superpower.
I bet people (shaderers, researchers, and artists) here who follow my work might share the same feeling on their fields?

In this pic of Kitten Space Agency vanilla clouds left, mine - right. Same performance.

[Anthony Eckert @EckertAnthony]

@Ahwoo_Official @rocket2guns Down with game stores next

Devs and Gamers take full control

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@Biggietronics @Ahwoo_Official It depends on a lot of variables. How much of Unity you use, the technical skill of your team, and how expansive your codebase is. If most of your code is outside Unity, it take be a couple of weeks. Our game torpedia was ported to “running” in a few weeks. Aotr was 1 month

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@EckertAnthony @Ahwoo_Official Agreed.

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@locust9 @Ahwoo_Official @rocketwerkz sorry i didnt see you at gamescom!

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

We at @Ahwoo_Official and @rocketwerkz have made the BRUTAL Framework, that Ludeon have used to make their engine, and us Kitten Space Agency, open source and free to use. Our industry is rotting from the core out. We plan to change it. https://t.co/DhJV2DINcE

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

Download for free at https://t.co/U8tlw7UIjp post on forums/discord with issues and feature requests/feedback.

Note is it very difficult and frustraiting. Intended.

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

I have been making a free SS13-like game using our internal BRUTAL engine. Its totally free. Has Xeno/Zombie/SCP modes. This guy did a good video https://t.co/FbX3gQxZW7 It has a new MP tech I have been working on for like fifteen years now lol. I need more players

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@Zimtok5 @MorchJosto Sure does!!

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

i typed "claude" in the claude terminal. it cost me a dollar

[John Romero 🤘🏽 @romero]

I’m so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs.

I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It’s a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history.

The people at id have done a great job moving that legacy forward. DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein are not easy names to carry on, especially in today’s industry. The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people.

A note on digital preservation: id's history is critically important to the history of games. I’ve preserved id’s complete early history from our start at Softdisk through to August 6, 1996, including materials and assets that, as far as I know, id itself no longer has. I hope someone is doing the same for the company’s ongoing legacy (the work, code, assets, stories and the people behind them).

I’m thinking of everyone at id today, and everyone else affected by yesterday’s layoffs. Romero Games was there a year ago. I know how devastating it is, and my heart's with all of you.

[George Broussard @georgebsocial]

I've seen comments like "the MS layoffs weren't so bad".

re: id software.

Reports are that 50% (95ish of 200) of the studio was laid off. Here are some quotes on other details:

“Tools, programming (except a couple), Quake Champions team, testing team. All gone.”

“Yeah seems like all they left was leadership and art/design. I think Xbox forgot quakecon is next month.”

It really does sound as if id is now a support team for Bethesda/others. Rip idTech, which was amazing. Maybe Machine Games will carry it on or maybe it will be dropped for future games?

But the read is that id is essentially dead. At least for the time being. Yes, the studio wasn't closed and half still have their jobs. That's great.

re: the studios set free by MS to be sold or mgmt returned. One view is this is great. For MS they get decent PR for being "good guys". But the truth is that in at least one case (and maybe others), retaining the IP in such a case was written into the original contract when MS purchased them. Second, these studios now are out of the MS lifeboat, on their own, and will have short time to find new deals or funding and they will make it or not. Never mind they sold to MS originally to avoid this grind and be 'safe'. Yes they have a second chance but more layoffs may simply be deferred and outside the current umbrella of today's layoff round, so MS doesn't really get the bad PR of simply shutting studios down. This means continual worry by the employees and stress for mgmt.

re: Arkane. Same as the above but timing and process is different due to French labor laws, etc.

The layoffs are still happening. A substantial portion of Obsidian was let go today (near 1/3). Worries that they now don't have the staff to complete current projects. Deep layoffs at Zenimax Online. Even Bethesda or Activision studios were hit (with a minor round and numbers that are small enough that it reads more like "everyone has to take a hit, even the star studios"). More details will emerge, but it's a lot of people.

So it's bad. Real bad. Good luck to all affected.

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

been an incredible journey so far

[Ahwoo @Ahwoo_Official]

Our first look at Kitten Space Agency is here.

Captured from real-time in-game footage from our May 2026 pre-alpha build, this early development teaser gives a first look at the game in motion. No pre-rendered cinematics.

Learn more: https://t.co/32zX0iGOft

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

Sorry to @JudithCollinsKC as I said “Minister Judith” in my speech. I got a bit word salad. Sometimes I skip words in my head as I am thinking of the next word. So proud of the team. It’s great to build on the work in space done so far in nz, and spread that digitally as well.

[RocketWerkz @rocketwerkz]

Kitten Space Agency has won the NZX Creative Technology Solution Award at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards.

As Dean Hall (@rocket2guns), CEO of @rocketwerkz and @Ahwoo_Official, said on stage: games can inspire, and inspiration should be free.

Thank you to everyone supporting the mission.

[RocketWerkz @rocketwerkz]

Kitten Space Agency has won the NZX Creative Technology Solution Award at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards.

As Dean Hall (@rocket2guns), CEO of @rocketwerkz and @Ahwoo_Official, said on stage: games can inspire, and inspiration should be free.

Thank you to everyone supporting the mission.

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@Truthful_ast Not sure yet! Blackrack is going to be continuing working on it. Next is likely heat haze and also more distant plumes, like you see with the real launches. Can’t wait to see what he cooks up!

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

Some screenshots of the new rocket plumes in Kitten Space Agency. I think we are the first/only to do volumetric plumes in this way. download free https://t.co/wjri0JnQkM

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

Any senior folks from epic layoffs who want to move to NZ and make games, visit https://t.co/cDcejZKJUs. If you want to help build a client email me [email protected]

[RocketWerkz @rocketwerkz]

@SurviveIcarus Icarus: Dangerous Horizons is available on STEAM now. (PC Edition)

🔗https://t.co/Z3e8Wpa91Y

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

@discepto @JarredEagley Yep!

[Dean Hall @rocket2guns]

Not photos. Screenshot from Kitten Space Agency and our volumetric + Instanced mesh planetary rings for saturn.