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Ben Rausch

@ben_rausch

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Art punk @teamlazerbeam making games like #shroomandgloom #wrestlingwithemotions & #teenagebol 💖Cats. Punk games. Smashing the patriarchy.

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A night for Liam. Cape Town massive ❤️

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Rest easy, sweet brother. @liamlynchphoto

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Shroom and Gloom blends first person dungeon crawling with deckbuilding, and things get weird fast when eating cards is a viable strategy. Check out the Steam demo and full game now if you want a bizarre roguelike!

@teamlazerbeam
@ben_rausch

#ShroomAndGloom #IndieGames #GamingShorts

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My kind is your kind

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Dead Rainbows Live

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It’s winter again.

“How many winters and how many summers do we have left?” my brother asked just after my mother died.

It suddenly pulled everything into perspective.

How we wish certain seasons away. How we push past wasted days - a trash heap of burnt potential.

On one hand, it made me terribly apathetic. What’s the point when we all die, when each monument is replaced by another? Just in my neighbourhood, tennis courts became apartment blocks that will likely become another mixed-use development for the technocrats. Pancho’s is moving to Pinelands after 45 years. Explaining the value of a cultural moment that’s passed always sounds hollow to the next generation.

We used to worry that television and monoculture would rot children’s brains. Now corporate dopamine is masterfully unavoidable, delivered directly through custom algorithms. AI somehow gives us both more and less to think about. They’re using it to literally kill children.

But when despair pulls you into its cold grasp, the only thing you can hold onto is hope.

And when hope becomes the focal point, gratitude spills through the passages of time.

I dye my hair pink for the gees.

How lucky I am for rainy mornings when our hugs linger a little longer than usual. For our cozy home, full of little details marking our shared histories and inside jokes for no one else’s consumption. For plans that pull us together: I make another spreadsheet for the homies.

Birthdays. Weddings. Death days.

For as many more winters and summers as we have left. 💖

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Quitting game dev for cake dev. 🚨

To celebrate Crystal Beam’s recent birthday we all decorated some cakes. It was fun.

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CALLING ALL INDIE GAME DEVS! 🎮

Submissions for Playtopia 2026 are officially OPEN! If you want to
to have your game shown at Africa's greatest indie games & immersive arts festival, this is your moment!

Hit the link in our bio to apply now.

#Playtopia2026

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May 15 at Springbok Arms, see you there ✌️
@droniac_band @ben_rausch @lovegardenband @undercard_band
@ourarmchair

Ticket link in bio.

Poster design by @jonathanlea_

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Update: we have a show booked for 15 May! Will share details soon! Still keen do more if we can!

Cape Town friends! Help these slackers play a show before we die! 💀🌈

Dead Rainbows is the noisey, chaotic art punk band I’ve started with two of my favourite people. By the end of May the band will be dead. We need to play some shows before that happens.

Rodney Roodt yells and plays the drums. In recent years he’s toured and recorded with a bunch of amazing UK bands. If you’re old and cool enough to have been part of the Gauteng indie scene of the 2000s you might know him as the drummer of Greenisforturbo, one of the greatest bands we had in our little scene.

Danielle Hitchcock sings and plays the bass. You might know her from the radical bands The Dollfins and Beach Party, 2 of the very best bands Cape Town produced in the twenty-teens.

The three of us have written a set of wild, playful, screamy songs about dancing, skateboarding and not wanting to go to work. We’d love to play these songs out before the band dies. Rodney will be flying home to The UK at the end of this month.

We’re keen to play anywhere, with anyone. We are very DIY. We don’t need a big stage, just a space where we can make some noise and jump around.

Danielle leaves town on the 19th of May, so would be able to play as a 3 piece any time before then. Rodney and i can play as a 2 piece anytime before the 30th.

Reach out if you know how we can make this dream come true <3

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@allagesofgeek is at @comicconcapetown #comiccon taking in the sites, sounds and looking like a 🤡 when I check that bank balance🪦💸

We linked with @monkeemoto who will be joining @honesty_art and myself on Sat for a worldbuilding character design workshop.

We had the @playtopia_fest team represent on the main stage! Playtopia and @onepiecenetflix @netflixsa two of the most whimsical worlds being shared through Cape Town right now✨🇿🇦

Gonna cop some dope local art and keep the updates coming!

#gamedev #indiegame #popculture #onepiece

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The Playtopia Team hit the @comicconcapetown MAIN STAGE! @girlofpearl_ (@freelives_official) & @ben_rausch (@teamlazerbeam) joined a panel of 🇿🇦’s games industry leaders to talk about building the local games scene and connecting it to the rest of the world through conferences like Playtopia and @gamesweekafrica and spaces like our beloved @makersmassive 👾🦄

Also Ben & @superfriendship lore!

#gamedev #indiegame #gamedesign #gamingnews #comiccon

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