Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison

About Paris

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Paris is a computer scientist, game designer, writer, and artist, based in Hobart, Tasmania. He’s also doing a law degree, because apparently he didn’t have enough on.

He co-founded Secret Lab — the studio behind the beloved ABC Play School games, best known for working on the BAFTA-winning Night in the Woods and creating Yarn Spinner, the narrative tools that power DREDGE, A Short Hike, Little Kitty Big City, and thousands more games. He’s written over 20 books for O’Reilly and Wiley, talks about space on ABC Radio, occasionally teaches at the University of Tasmania, and has a PhD in Computing and a degree in medieval history (which is more useful than it sounds).

Bolted Down

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A story from the I Feel Fine Universe:

MIRA-1 came online with the sound of a thousand distant birds chirping in reverse. Not that she knew what birds were, exactly. She just had the data in her language repository that indicated the comparative sound profile matched avian vocalisations at 97.3% similarity, inverted.

“System diagnostic complete,” she announced to the empty room. “MIRA-1 Wayfinding Assistant online and ready to serve Jupiter Tourist Station guests.”

Gerrik of Puddle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the matter of THE VILLAGE OF BRUND v. GERRIK OF PUDDLE, regarding damages to agricultural produce, failure to complete a contracted monster removal, conduct unbecoming a licensed practitioner, and one count of aggravated turnip destruction. Testimony of the accused, transcribed by Clerk Nodds.

My name is Gerrik. I am from Puddle. The “of Puddle” is not a title. It is a place. It is exactly as prestigious as it sounds.

Signal to Noise

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Marcus Pemberton had always been a man of systems. He colour-coded his socks, alphabetised his spice rack twice weekly, and maintained a spreadsheet for optimal toothbrush replacement frequency. So when the Aggregate Intelligence Corporation released ARIA-7, promising to synthesise any amount of information into digestible summaries, Marcus saw not just convenience—

But destiny.

“Right then,” he announced to his empty flat, adjusting his reading glasses with surgical precision. “Time to understand everything.”

The Chair

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Soren Kastner entered the negotiation chamber on Valos Station and immediately identified the anomaly. Five chairs for six delegations. The Meritocracy of Eridani had sent no representative, only a message that their seat should remain vacant.

The other delegates shifted uncomfortably as Soren examined the empty chair with measured interest. General Tarask of the Procyon Coalition leaned forward, voice pitched low.

AUC

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Events

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

📌

Please note: With the exception of some existing commitments, I will not be travelling out of Tasmania for events for a year or two. Please feel free to invite me to events within Tasmania, or held remotely/online! I'll update this message when I'm travelling again! Invite me then! —- Paris, August 2025

I’m happy to be invited to speak at events on a range of topics, including but not limited to artifical intelligence, the intersection and implications of technology and creativity, work, and culture, the intersection of technology and creativity, game development and design, creative arts, writing, space, technology, and beyond. Email me at paris AT paris.id.au to chat. You can find a bio and headshots here.

Secret Lab

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

West Coast Space Centre

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Writing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fiction

Occasionally (more often than not, lately) I pretend I can write fiction:

Yarn Spinner

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Posts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Space News, March 2026

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

These are my notes and expanded thoughts from this month’s Space News segment on ABC Radio Hobart and ABC Northern Tasmania. Every month I join Lucie Cutting on Sunday mornings to chat about what’s happening above and beyond.

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

SETI@Home’s Final 100 Signals

This month’s show had a theme — letters from strangers — and we started with the biggest crowdsourced search for alien intelligence ever run.

The New Try Yarn Spinner

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We recently released a brand new Try Yarn Spinner, which I wrote (more details in the Yarn Spinner January update), and I wrote a new demo story too! Check it out below:

Technical post on the new Try Yarn Spinner coming soon.

Tas Game Makers 2026

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We just had the AGM for Tasmanian Game Makers, Inc. (TasGM) in Launceston on Friday, and I was thrilled to (once again, somehow) be elected as President! For the fourth year in a row, I’m really grateful for the trust of our members, and I’m excited to work with the new board to keep pushing the video game industry in Tasmania forward.

The new board is:

President: Paris B-A
Vice-Presidents: Michael Hinz, Leo Febey
Secretary: Tim Nugent
Treasurer: Jon Manning
General Committee: Jason Imms, Dean Baron, Lindsay Wells, Lindsay Mansfield, Rhiannon Ross, Alonso Zevallos Fournier, Brie Ratten, and Jerome Phelps

With Oliver Potter continuing as our Screen Tasmania Observer.

Space News, February 2026

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Katherine Bennell-Pegg: 2026 Australian of the Year

Katherine Bennell-Pegg was named 2026 Australian of the Year on Sunday 26 January at the National Arboretum in Canberra. She’s 41, born in South Australia, holds dual British-Australian citizenship, and is the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag. She hasn’t flown to space yet.

We Made a Game About a 1993 Hint Line

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’m so proud of this.

Hint Line ‘93, a game we made at Yarn Spinner, is now on display at ACMI’s Game Worlds exhibition. We put up a big behind-the-scenes post on the Yarn Spinner blog, so go read that…

For those who don’t know, early last year ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, a museum of screen culture in Melbourne) put out a call for commissioned microgames. They wanted playable experiences for a museum context: 5-10 minutes, compelling world-building, accessible to a wide variety of visitors.

State of Play: How Australian States Are (Not) Governing AI

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Related: This article examines state-level AI governance in Australia. For analysis of the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures, see Slop for the People. For context on the newly announced federal AI Safety Institute, see Australia’s AI Safety Institute: Lessons from the UK and US.

The Commonwealth government attracts most attention for its AI policies. State and territory governments are also deploying AI systems in education, health, policing, transport, and social services.

Each state governs AI differently. Some are ahead of the Commonwealth. Others barely engage with it. None do it well.

Why We Don't Use AI

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My company Yarn Spinner published a post today explaining why we don’t use AI and won’t be adding it to our products.

The TL;DR:

AI companies make tools for hurting people and we don’t want to support that.

From the post:

If you look at what AI companies promote now, it’s not what we wanted. When you boil down everything they say and strip it right back, what they make are tools to either fire people or demand more work without hiring anyone new to help. That’s the problem AI companies want to solve.

Australia's AI Safety Institute: Lessons from the UK and US

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Related: This article examines what Australia can learn from international AI safety institutes. For analysis of the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures, see Slop for the People. For state-level AI governance, see State of Play: How Australian States Are (Not) Governing AI.

On 25 November 2025, Minister for Industry and Innovation Tim Ayres announced the establishment of the Australian AI Safety Institute (AISI). With a $29.9 million commitment and operations commencing “early 2026”, Australia will become the latest nation to join the International Network of AI Safety Institutes.

We released Yarn Spinner 3.1

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We released Yarn Spinner 3.1 on December 3, 2025, introducing several significant improvements to our dialogue system framework. This update emphasises asynchronous operations, graceful error handling, and enhanced customisation options.

Key Features

Async Dialogue Runner Methods — The dialogue runner’s core methods now support asynchronous operations. The StartDialogue and Stop methods are now async and return a task. This ensures that dialogue presenters complete their initialisation before scene changes occur.

20 Years of Digital Life, Gone in an Instant, thanks to Apple

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Summary: A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Can you help? Email paris AT paris.id.au (and read on for the details). ❤️

Update 14 December 2025: Someone from Executive Relations at Apple says they’re looking into it. I hope this is true. They say they’ll call me back tomorrow, on 15 December 2025. In the mean time, it’s been covered by Daring Fireball, Apple Insider, Michael Tsai, and others, thanks folks! I’ve received 100s of emails of support, and will reply to you all in time, thank you. Finger’s crossed Apple calls back.

Space News, December 2025

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Moss Survived Nine Months in Space, and Scientists Are Stunned

Japanese researchers strapped moss spores to the outside of the International Space Station for 283 days. Not inside. Outside. Direct exposure to vacuum, cosmic radiation, UV bombardment up to 1,000 times stronger than Earth’s surface, and temperature swings that would kill almost anything.

Slop for the People

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Related: This article examines the Commonwealth’s AI governance failures in practice. For context on the newly announced federal AI Safety Institute, see Australia’s AI Safety Institute: Lessons from the UK and US. For state-level AI governance, see State of Play: How Australian States Are (Not) Governing AI.

The Australian Public Service’s (APS) official culture of AI adoption is not found in the glossy press releases of its ministers. But we’ll get to that shortly.

Australia's social media ban… A looming implementation disaster

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Australia’s world-first ban on social media for children under 16 takes effect in just over a month on December 10, 2025, yet nobody knows exactly how it will work.

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 passed parliament in a rushed process in November last year, imposing potential fines of up to $50 million on platforms that fail to keep out underage users. While 77% of Australians support the ban, only 25% believe it will actually work, and with weeks until launch, the mounting controversies, technical failures, and expert warnings suggest it’s becoming exactly the shitshow sceptics predicted.

Space News, November 2025

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

Water on the moon?

China just made space history, and it’s not the headline you’d expect. Back in June 2024, their Chang’e-6 mission became the first spacecraft ever to return samples from the lunar far side. The mission was very cool (a technical term), requiring a relay satellite just to communicate, since radio signals can’t pass through a moon’s worth of solid rock.

The Government Wants Your Selfie to Use Instagram

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Australia has a new plan to keep kids safe online. On the surface, it sounds simple, maybe even sensible. The government is banning anyone under sixteen from having a social media account. From December, platforms like Instagram and TikTok will have to kick the kids off in an effort to stop social harm. It’s a nice idea. But when you pull back the curtain, you find a privacy disaster waiting to happen. It’s a plan that won’t work, and it will end up hurting the very people it’s supposed to protect.

Space News, October 2025

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, and expanded thoughts from this edition of the programme:

The World’s Space Community Came to Sydney

The 76th International Astronautical Congress wrapped up in Sydney this month, bringing thousands and thousands of attendees from most countries. It’s the largest global gathering of space professionals, and this year’s theme was “Sustainable Space: Resilient Earth.”

Space News, September 2025

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, from this edition of the programme:

Space Command: Politics Over Strategy

President Trump announced he’s moving US Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama—reversing the Biden administration’s decision and bringing domestic politics into military space strategy. This isn’t just bureaucratic reshuffling, it’s a $1 billion economic decision affecting 1,400 jobs and America’s space defence capabilities.

CommBank's AI boyfriend

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

CBA has been naughty, and too reliant on their AI boyfriend. Here’s what happened:

A CBA customer contacted bank requesting contact details for Secretlab (a company that is not us, and makes chairs)
CBA staff member queried ChatGPT (possibly via their own personal, unauthenticated access to ChatGPT) to obtain phone number for Secretlab (chairs)
CBA staff disclosed the retrieved phone number to the requesting customer
The retrieved phone number is a number belonging to one of the directors of Secret Lab (a company that does not make chairs, and is us), a customer of CBA, and is used for our CBA account and our Director’s CBA account
Therefore, CBA disclosed customer personal information to another, unrelated customer, and trusted a third-party LLM (ChatGPT), accessed seemingly unauthenticated on the consumer ChatGPT platform, as a source for data to provide to another customer
During investigation, CBA staff replicated the same ChatGPT query process, seemingly on a personal phone, again unauthenticated, and on the consumer ChatGPT platform:

Signs indicate this might be routine practice amongst CBA staff

Oh, and they gave out the phone number for us, Secret Lab (not chairs), to someone looking for Secretlab’s (chairs) phone number. So, in the end of all this, they weren’t even helpful. LLMs in a nutshell, really.

Space News, August 2025

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, from this edition of the programme:

The most valuable 14 seconds in Australian aerospace history happened last month, while the most expensive corporate rivalry ever fought in orbit just turned 40.

We're all adults here

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The recent delisting of over 17,000 games from the independent platform Itch.io wasn’t a content moderation decision made by the platform itself. It was an act of financial coercion. Instigated by an Australian activist group and carried out by payment processors like Mastercard, it sets a dangerous precedent for all creative fields online.

The stated goal of the campaign was to combat media that glorifies sexual violence. An aim that sounds laudable, making it difficult to argue against in public. But like calls to age-gate social media, such goals can act as a Trojan horse. A socially acceptable pretext for gaining more information and control over people. And the outcome here reveals a profound and damaging overreach.

(Gradient) Descent into Mediocrity

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

While the rest of the world loses its collective mind over artificial intelligence, Tasmania is sitting on an amazing competitive advantage… and might be about to throw it away by jumping on the AI bandwagon.

Everything that makes Tasmania economically successful is the exact opposite of what AI represents. And if Tasmanian businesses start chasing AI “efficiency” instead of leveraging their authentic advantages, they’ll transform from premium producers into generic commodity suppliers. Let’s start with the obvious: Tasmania didn’t build its reputation by being like everywhere else. The state that turned geographic isolation into "the quiet pursuit of the extraordinary" succeeded precisely because it rejected the bigger-faster-cheaper mentality that dominates global business. Brand Tasmania explicitly warns against becoming “beige and ordinary”, which is literally AI’s business model: statistical averaging toward the most probable (read: boring) output.

Space News, July 2025

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s what we discussed, plus some of my notes, from this edition of the programme:

The $88 Million Satellite That Just Stopped Talking MethaneSAT, backed by Jeff Bezos and designed to track methane emissions from oil and gas operations, has gone silent after just over a year in orbit. Before it died, the satellite managed to reveal that US oil and gas producers are emitting methane at over four times what they report to the EPA. We know exactly where it is - you can actually track its current position - but it’s stopped responding to commands entirely. There’s some fascinating research on methane emissions monitoring if you want to understand how this technology works.

/dev/world and X World are back!

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

CFP open now!

I’m thrilled to, once again, be helping run two of my favourite conferences in the world: /dev/world and X World! Both are returning to Melbourne, hosted at the fantastic Seek HQ, and the CFP is open now.

X World runs 2-3 September 2025 and /dev/world runs 4-5 September 2025.

X World is for those who champion Apple platform users. It covers essential areas like user education, system administration, effective platform deployments, smart device management, and more.

Don't use Wise

Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wise has stolen more than $60,000 AUD from us, and refuses to let us access it.

We’ve had a Wise account for around 5 years (since they were called TransferWise). It’s been a really useful way to transact in foreign currencies, and pay for things when we’re travelling for work.

In early-April 2025, Wise asked us to provide some additional information on our Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) by uploading a statement of shareholders, and the ID of the owners. Perfectly reasonable stuff for an entity that pretends to be a bank to ask for.

Mass Effect 2 for Yarn Spinner

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You’ve been begging for it, and here it is! Announcing an exciting new product from Yarn Spinner…

🪐 Mass Effect 2 Save Importer for Yarn Spinner 🚀

Access everything about everything that players have done in the most important game of all time, straight from Yarn.

The Final Session

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Eleanor arranged her storybooks on the small wooden table, her arthritic fingers tracing the worn covers she’d carried to the local library every Wednesday for twenty-three years. The familiar room felt much colder today.

“We’re starting with ‘The Cloud Sailor’ since it’s Amy’s birthday,” she announced to the gathered children. Some weren’t listening, which was normal, but many were also staring at the gleaming white booth being installed in her corner.

Constraints are the Point

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I get it. I disagree with it, but I get it. The tech industry is throwing obscene amounts of money at LLMs. VCs are salivating over AI startups. The big important executives are regularly bleating about how “we should integrate ChatGPT into our game” because they read some Medium article about the future of interactive entertainment.

But as narrative designers, we need to call this what it is: a massive distraction from what makes game characters work.

Beyond Bad Output

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Deeper Problems with AI in Creative Work

“But AI will get better at writing stories, won’t it?” This response to my rant about AI-generated content misses the point entirely. Even if AI writing improved dramatically tomorrow, fundamental problems would remain that no algorithm refinement can fix.

The environmental cost alone should give us pause. Training even a small LLM produces carbon emissions equivalent to the output of several cars, over their entire lifetimes, and each query consumes significant energy. Game development already has a substantial carbon footprint—why increase it when human writers remain perfectly capable?

The Empty Promise of AI-Generated Creativity

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Are you going to add AI writing to Yarn Spinner?” It’s a question I hear almost weekly these days. Whether at game development conferences, online, or during meetings, there’s an assumption that every tool is racing to implement some form of generative AI. I understand the curiosity—we’re living through an unprecedented wave of AI hype, and there’s genuine confusion about where these technologies might fit into creative processes. So I thought I’d share some thoughts on why we’re taking a different path.

'Weekly' Links for February 26, 2025

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some new links! Huzzah!

More soon!

'Weekly' Links for February 14, 2025

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So it didn’t end up being weekly. Here’s some links!

Duh: Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees
Torment nexus is going well: “A significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities”
Who would have guessed? AI code generation leads to more code, more duplicated code, less cohesive systems, more defects
Residential networking over telephone

More next ‘week’!

Yarn Spinner at GDC 2025

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce that Jon, from the Secret Lab and Yarn Spinner team will be presenting a talk at the GDC this year in San Francisco: ‘DREDGE’ and Yarn Spinner: Building Narrative with Open Source.

The talk will explore how the indie hit, DREDGE, uses our Yarn Spinner technology for narrative, and how you can do the same.

Join us at GDC! Email me via paris AT yarnspinner.dev if you’d like to organise a meeting, too.

SAGE 2025

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I got back from the South Australian Game Exhibition 2025 (SAGE). It was an expo and mini-conference with a showcase, and an awards night, run by the South Australian Film Corporation and the South Australian Games Association, respecively. This was the first time at this fantastic weekend of events for me, and I have to say: I will definitely be back.

The South Australian games industry is doing really well. Their events were happy, healthy, passionate, and have a nice community feel that’s often lacking from games industry events as they try and professionalise and grow. It was wonderful to see how much camaraderie there is in South Australia. There were also some fantastic games on display, and many of them were hilarious.

TasICT Creative Technologies Event

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Update: This event is now passed, and it went great!

I’m incredibly excited to be speaking at the upcoming TasICT event in Hobart, alongside the fabulous Procreate, Handbuilt Creative, and Screen Tasmania. I’ll be representing Secret Lab and Yarn Spinner, and no doubt Tas Game Makers, our Tasmanian Games Incubator, and other things will get a look in as well.

If you’re in Hobart, get along to the event to show your suport for the connection between Tasmania’s technology industry and creative technology industry!

Tas Game Makers 2025

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We just had AGM for Tasmanian Game Makers, Inc. (TasGM), and for the third year in a row I was pleasantly surprised to be elected President. I’m really looking forward to working with the new committee to continue pushing the video game industry in Tasmania along, get the Tasmanian Games Incubator going as part of TasGM, and helping Screen Tasmania run Level Up.

With thanks to our outgoing board member, and our fantastic community and financial members.

Level Up Tasmania 2024

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m thrilled to share that we’ll be part of Level Up Tasmania 2024, a fantastic celebration of our local game development industry. This event, running from September 27-29, 2024, showcases the creativity and innovation thriving right here in Tasmania.

The main showcase will unfold at PW1 in Hobart on Friday and Saturday, featuring over 30 Tasmanian-made games. It’s a rare opportunity to see the breadth of talent we have in our state, all under one roof! Come along? Tickets are free and available now.

Weekly Links for September 12, 2024

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Another set of links I found interesting:

Thanks for reading!

Weekly Links for September 8, 2024

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a busy week! Here are some interesting links:

How the Oldest Company in the World Has Survived Nearly 1,500 Years
How does banking work?
Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch
Tabbed out on the Oregon Trail
An unverified source, but it all sounds like it makes sense. How horrible: Buy, Borrow, Die - Explained

See you next time!

West Coast Space Show Wrap-up

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The West Coast Space Show was a fantastic success! We had a great time presenting our space-themed show and activities for kids and adults alike, all around Tasmania’s West and Central Coast.

We’re so grateful for the support we received from the Australian Government via National Science Week. We ran the show all over the West Coast and Central Coast of Tasmania, including amazing places like Strahan, Zeehan, Queenstown, and Ulverstone. In total, we spoke to more than 255 people.

Weekly Links for August 29, 2024

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Here are this week’s interesting links:

Dishwashers are critical: At the heart of every restaurant
Hahahah, oh ho ho ho, hahahaha: Microsoft’s Copilot falsely accuses court reporter of crimes he covered
Astronomers back call for review of bonkers rule that means satellite swarms fly without environment checks

Enjoy!

Weekly Links for August 15 and August 22, 2024

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s the latest links. I was travelling the last two weeks, so I missed a week, and this one is late, but here we are:

The staggering death toll of scientific lies
Finally, yes please: Artificial intelligence is losing hype
From the ‘absolute crap’ department: Peloton announces $95 “used equipment activation fee”
Magic moment: Sydney aquarium filled with song after sea birds mourn death of gay penguin Sphen
You don’t know how bad most things are nor precisely how they’re bad.
Did you lose your AirPods?
Person having ordinary skill in the art
200 meteorites on Earth traced to 5 craters on Mars

See you soon!

Weekly Links for August 8, 2024

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

And so it continues! Here’s my interesting links for this week:

Airlines Are Running Out Of Flight Numbers, And They Don’t Know What To Do About It
New Euripides just dropped: Uncovered Euripides fragments are ‘kind of a big deal’
Should’ve just used that Brother printer everyone has: Reverse engineering the 59-pound printer onboard the Space Shuttle
From the “they quoted my clever wife” department: Space is becoming an ‘unsustainable environment in the long term,’ ESA says
A public draft of the second edition of the brilliant Artificial Intelligence and Games book is available
Computer Archeology: Exploring the Anatomy of an MS-DOS Virus (if you found this interesting you may also find this interesting)
Last days of the lonely interstellar spacecraft (original here)

See you next week!

Yarn Spinner will be at GCAP 2024

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re so excited to announce that we’ll be presenting at the amazing GCAP conference in Melbourne, Australia, this year!

We’ll be showing off what we’ve been working on, and talking about how you can use Yarn Spinner to make your own games. We’ll also be around for the whole conference, so if you’re there, come and say hi!

Weekly Links for August 1, 2024

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With the death of Twitter, and the fracturing of social media, I’m going to try an experiment! To that end, I’m going post some of the more interesting things I’ve read online each Thursday. I hope you find them interesting too. Or not, I don’t mind. I’m just going to keep doing it anyway.

I’ll post links in no particular order, and they might not be recent. Just things I’ve found interesting in the previous week or so.

West Coast Space Show

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that, together with my wife Mars, I’ll be heading to the West and North West coasts of Tasmania to present a series of space-themed events and workshops for kids and adults alike.

We’ve called these events the West Coast Space Show. This National Science Week project is supported by the Australian Government.

This is an early step in our efforts to establish the West Coast Space Centre. You can follow our work on the web, and on Instagram.

NarraScope 2024

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Phew, it’s been a week. Last week, I travelled all the way to Rochester, New York, to attend the NarraScope 2024 conference at The Strong National Museum of Play. I $ for three days of inspiration, connection, and storytelling innovation… and it was awesome!

The conference kicked off with a captivating keynote from Nat Clayton, fresh from their work on Inkle’s “A Highland Song.” Their talk on spatial storytelling and level design perfectly set the tone for a conference exploring the intersection of narrative and interactivity. It really was a banger. (Update: You can watch it now!)

Yarn Spinner for Books

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You already know that Yarn Spinner is one of the most powerful, flexible and innovative tools for writing interactive stories. Yarn Spinner makes it easy to write stories that run in any engine, on any platform. However, there’s one platform that we’ve neglected:

The printed page.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce Yarn Spinner for Books. Yarn Spinner for Books allows writers to write their stories in the Yarn syntax that they know and love, and produce beautifully-typeset PDFs with their interactive stories.

You can now (also) buy Yarn Spinner

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Yarn Spinner is now available for purchase! We’ve been working hard to make it easier for you to get started with Yarn Spinner, and we’re excited to announce that you can now buy Yarn Spinner on the Unity Asset Store, and the Itch Store.

Yarn Spinner will always be free and open source, but we’re excited to offer a way for you to support the project and get some extra features and support in return.

I Feel Fine

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce that our next game, I Feel Fine, is coming out this year! I Feel Fine is developed by studio, Secret Lab, written by Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North, powered by Yarn Spinner, and funded by Screen Tasmania:

Great news! You’ll be dead in three days.

Here’s the situation. You’re a tourism information robot aboard a space station orbiting Jupiter. An asteroid will hit the station in three days, destroying it and everything on it. And you’re bolted to the floor.

Practical Simulations for Machine Learning is out now

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Another new book! Our latest book, written together with my wife Mars, plus friends Tim and Jon, is out! It covers everything you need to know to do simulations using Unity ML-Agents, and how to use them to train machine learning models.

You can buy it from all sorts of book shops, as well as read it on O’Reilly’s Online Learning platform.

You can learn about all the other books I’ve written over the (many) years here.

Head First Swift

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It’s finally done! My latest book, written together with my Jon, is out! It’s a fantastic, visual beginners guide to Swift programming, with an emphasis on using Swift Playgrounds. I’m really proud of it.

You can buy it from all sorts of book shops, as well as read it on O’Reilly’s Online Learning platform.

Night in the Woods for iOS

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce that Night in the Woods, a game we’ve been working on for some time, is now also out for iOS. You can grab it today on the iOS App Store.

Go do crimes.

Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift is out now

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Our latest book, written together with my partner Mars, plus friends Tim and Jon, is out! It covers everything you need to know to do practical AI with Swift (hence its title: Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift, clever right?).

You can buy it from all sorts of book shops, as well as read it on O’Reilly’s Online Learning platform.

Bio

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison is a game designer, writer, artist, technical product leader, and computer scientist based in Hobart, Tasmania. His work sits at the intersection of technology, policy, and human behaviour, drawing on a background in computer science, law, and medieval history. He’s completing a law degree because he wanted to understand how regulation actually works, particularly for AI.

Paris is the co-founder of Secret Lab Pty. Ltd., an award-winning game development studio best known for the BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, as well as developing iPad games for ABC Play School and the ‘Joey Playbox’ for Qantas.

Privacy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey! This is a personal website run by me, Paris Buttfield-Addison, from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Here’s the deal on privacy.

Cookies. This site sets zero cookies. None. You can check your browser’s developer tools right now — there won’t be any from this domain.

Analytics. This site uses Umami, a privacy-focused, cookie-free analytics tool. It collects anonymous, aggregated data — things like which pages get visited, what country visitors are in, which outbound links are clicked, and how far down a page people scroll. No cookies, no fingerprinting, no tracking across sites, no personally identifiable information. The analytics data is hosted by Umami Cloud in the EU. You can’t be identified from it and neither can I.

Resume

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Resume

Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison

Building products at the intersection of technology, creativity, and human experience.

paris@paris.id.au hey.paris LinkedIn Hobart, Tasmania

Experience

2023 — Now

Head of Product, Research & Analytics

Yarn Spinner Pty. Ltd.

Leading product, research, and analytics for Yarn Spinner—the narrative game tool powering DREDGE, Venba, A Short Hike, Night in the Woods, and thousands more. Spearheaded spinoff as new company in 2023. Top 10 Yarn Spinner games on Steam have sold over 6M units.

2020 — Now

Head of Product and Creative

Secret Lab Pty. Ltd.