Tom Francis
pentadact.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2012
Tom Francis is the indie developer behind Gunpoint who writes about game design, development advice and small game projects.
What HN saysHN links it for game design and indie development posts; commenters give no opinion on the writing in the comments shown.
15HN people shared it
3linked it in comments
14stories submitted
564story points
8 months agolast shared
2012people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 115 years of indie dev in 4 bits of advice3 people · 4 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 2Dad and the Egg Controller2 people · 363 points · first shared 2018 · 49 comments on HN
- 3A Woman’s Life in Search Queries (2006)2 people · 6 points · first shared 2014 · 1 comments on HN
- 4How to explain your game to an asshole1 people · 180 points · first shared 2012 · 36 comments on HN
- 5Gunpoint (indy game) successful - author quits day job1 people · 5 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 6Gridcannon: A Single Player Game with Regular Playing Cards (2019)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7Unity's Trap1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 8Video Tutorial: Make a Game with No Experience1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 9Making Gunpoint’s Save System1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 10Five Problems with Chess1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 112012 07 13 shopstorm a spelunky story1 people · first shared 2018
- 127113911 people · first shared 2016
- 13Homepage1 people · first shared 2017
What HN people wrote when they linked it
theknarf · 2017-07-25
Let's see. Often when I find something interesting on HN or Reddit I might see if the author writes other interesting posts and subscribe to their blog on Feedly. I currently have a few hundred sources that I subscribe to so it might be a bit hard for me to choose which "blogs" I'd promote. But there are some:
- https://blog.codinghorror.com/
- http://www.pentadact.com/
- http://procworld.blogspot.no/
- https://moviecode.tumblr.com/
- http://hackaday.com/
- https://research.googleblog.com/
- https://gpuofthebrain.com/
- https://xkcd.com/
- http://oglaf.com/
This is an almost random selection of some of the blogs that I subscribe to.
danShumway · 2018-08-15
On the game side of things, also check out Spelunky.
A lot of effort has gone into making interactions consistent and universal, so really interesting stuff can happen and it's not difficult to figure out why it happened.[0]
Spelunky was a big motivator for me to think more about building what I think of as these kind of "honest" systems, for lack of a better word.
[0]: https://www.pentadact.com/2012-07-13-shopstorm-a-spelunky-story/
brudgers · 2016-04-21
Hosted search history: http://www.pentadact.com/711391.htm