November 2026 IGC Updates (Patreon)

Greetings, and welcome to new members, too!

Here's a quick look at what's coming up in the Indie Game Clinic community this month, and a round-up of some of what happened in October in case you missed anything.

November Stream Schedule

• 6th: Firewall - Defend the Grid

• 10th: Ruin Work / Into the Storm / March March / Crownbreakers

• 12th: Submarine Darkness & Call From the Depths

• 17th: Subtext, Witch Slide

• 19th: Starmax, Ignition Protocol, Particle Collectotron

• 24th: Elandrake, Rowan Needs Shinis, Feed the Market

• 26th: Nokos Noodles, PinBomb, Corn Maze From Hell

❓ Members' Q&A Stream [Nov 5th, 4pm GMT]

This month we're going to try doing the Patron's Q&A as a stream. I've scheduled this for 4pm my time on Thursday, as these later streams seem to accommodate more people. There will be an edited down version which will go up on the Patron library a week or two later.

Also Coming Up in November (Plus an A.I. Disclosure)

Tom and I still owe you that Engelstein episode of Game Developer's Library - it's on it's way, we've both just been up against it in terms of workload in both our jobs. There's a good chance this podcast will have to commit to a less regular format if it's going to keep going.

You will notice a few more stream clips this month, scheduled for Wednesdays and Saturdays. I've been sitting on a lot of footage from recent streams which I wanted to cut down into more manageable clips, and I just didn't have the time to do it myself. I've applied for a £30k grant from Arts Council England to partially go toward editing assistance in 2027. Until that happens, I've worked out how to use Claude for pre-editing [nothing generative, just analysing subtitles to find the best bits of a stream before I make more specific edits, and also dropping markers for me when a different game is mentioned, so I remember to show the game being referenced].

I know this is a touchy topic, so I'm happy to discuss the specifics of it more with any of you over in the AI Discussion Containment channel on Discord. You can rest assured that nothing that you see, hear, or read from me will have been generated using an LLM. My interest in the technology is in helping eliminate time-consuming stuff (in this case, I recently analysed my own working hours when applying for a grant and found out I was spending >40% of my time editing). Hopefully editing streams into clips can be something I eventually get to outsource to a human who wants to do that... but currently this Patreon would need to be making twice as much to be able to safely and reliably accomodate a fulltime employee in that role. Hopefully we can get there eventually, though (ideally the Arts Council Grant will sort that for us, so fingers crossed).

I'll try to keep the titles/thumbnails of these streams reasonably indicative of what they're about. Some are meant to showcase how a game does something particularly well. Others are asides on more general topics. I wanted to make sure that the games I'm genuinely impressed by get shown again in this format so they get the best chance of being seen by a wider audience, and to make sure that the tone of those short-form clips learns more toward positive, celebratory, and "learning from good examples".

So yeah, there's the AI disclosure, and a general "don't be surprised if you see clips of a game from months ago". This is something I've been meaning to do for a while (putting out more clips) but I just haven't been able to find the time (or help) to do so.

In Case You Missed It in October

• my approach to Progression design in Golem Gourmet.

• the highlights of our 4 Stream Deckbuilder week on IUTK.

• Patron Q&A videos covering art direction, strategy game design, and a specific game about racoon burglars!

• a ONE MORE RUN episode about Despot's Game & Several Other Autobattlers.

🔐 Bonus BTS Material: Book Chapter Drafts

Folks in the 🟠 and 🟣 membership tiers should be able to expect a big chunk of book draft at least once a month in the run-up to me submitting the manuscript for Game Design for Indie Developers. I haven't quite worked out which chapter to drop this month, but it should be online for you in the 3rd week of the month.

Thanks for your continued support!

- JBW