Todd Fast

I make software platforms and board games

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

There is no such thing as profit. It's just a mathematical artifact of choosing a biased (and often selfish) coordinate system.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

If you want to believe in something absolute, become a physicist. Everything else is bullshit of our own making.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

This: https://t.co/90doJ24K1Q

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

If they were real, Vulcans would be freaking *ruthless*.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Pretty sure Ye's latest mental health slip is at least as much a slip of the mask exposing the conversations that are happening openly in an inner circle of elite American fascists.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Dealing with the effects of #ADHD is tough—not least for family and friends. Stay strong. #midjourney #midjourneyAi #midjourneyart

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

I'm so fed up with Trello's awful usability. I spend so many clicks undoing the things it wrongly assumes I want to do next.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Really digging Andor vs the mess that was Book of Boba Fett. And finally Stellan Skarsgard in a non-villain role 🤞. #Andor

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Color me grumpy, but I’m just sick of the years-long Wingspan-chasing glut of forest-/animal-themed board games. I appreciate the attempt to find more inclusive themes, and that’s important. But they just feel so *lazy* at this point. The world is full of inspiration; go find it!

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Google has been using image captchas for years to train AI/ML models to recognize real-world objects in the pictures. But holy moly, with the rise of ISMs like StableDiffusion & DALL-E I just realized that maybe those captcha images we've been clicking were *generated* by AI...🤯

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Elrond looks creepily similar to Matt Gaetz. <shudder> The coif in particular is not helping. #RingsOfPower #Elrond

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

One of the worst things about being in the office aside from the noise, constant distractions, and performative BS from colleagues, is the cologne/perfume. No one is going to tell you how much they hate it, but instead please just shower frequently and lay off the stench.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

@Microsoft has mismanaged @Minecraft so utterly when it comes to parental controls, identity and account management, digital purchases, and clear communication about realms. It might be just desserts if victims were its normal enterprise dupes, but it’s kids and their parents.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Sports metaphors have been cringey in the #business world for years, but I beg you, let's not replace them with even more cringey colonization metaphors.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Digging the milieu here. Not at all the same, but reminds me of a backstory for one of mine I should share…

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Retail shipping really gouges customers. Tried to ship my copy of Tainted Grail IL -> CA and USPS wants $95! UPS $63. Yes it’s heavy (30lbs) but it didn’t cost nearly that much to ship it to me—from freaking China. Why can I put the same weight into flat rate boxes for $40?

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Is ludommelier a word?

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Hell yes. https://t.co/XkC7PEfqaG

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

When you talk with children or elderly relatives, you realize that despite their wonderful personalities and presence, they’re not 100% “there”. And that makes you realize that no one is 100% here. Not right now. Not ever.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

And thus some advice: Usually the dynamics of real-world systems from which a designer might draw a theme don’t make for interesting games, often lacking decision space, so they’ll usually lead the design astray if hewn to closely. Artistic license in system design is necessary.

[Todd Fast @toddfast]

Board games are dynamic by nature—they are systems that change in time. The question of theme-first vs mechanism-first design is moot, since there can be no game at all without mechanisms that embody dynamics. Starting with a theme only works when that theme is itself dynamical.