The Swapper
moderate spoilers Space is fucking cool. I mean there’s a lot more to say about The Swapper, but I think that may be its most lasting impression of the game on my mind. No other 2d platformer has captured the…
Category World Design
Neverending Nightmares
[moderate spoilers for Neverending Nightmares] I like dreams, and stories about them. Though they never capture quite what it feels like to exist in a dream space, though they never quite emulate that constantly shifting boundary that builds itself based…
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons of the Same Father: That’s What Makes Them Brothers
[Ending spoilers for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons] I originally chose Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons as a game to write about because Transistor had taken a day or two longer than expected and I wanted something I…
Transistor and Bastion
[extensive spoilers for both Transistor and Bastion] It’s hard to put a name to the relationship between Transistor and Bastion. Is Transistor a successor? A spiritual sequel? A sister game? The relationship between the two is similar to that between…
Dark Souls
People in dreams are perceived in reverse order. When we are awake, we see a face, a body, a set of mannerisms, a manner of dress, and we recognize the familiar, and we put a name to the person. In…
A Painless Death
Sometime within the past 15 years or so, game developers collectively came to the realization that death sucks. They reacted to this by making games easier, by reducing the consequence for failure, by allowing the player to quickly get back…
Detraining
There is a process which repeats, a cycle with no end in sight. As my skill grows, my ability to recognize my own flaws grows with it, and thus, from my perspective, it appears that I’m not growing more skillful…
At The Gates
Games seldom allow you to experience them all at once or in any order you choose. Though open-world design has become more popular, there are usually some obstacles to exploring the world in its entirety, even if in some cases…
Starbound
I’m dropped on a planet with nothing but a few simple imperatives to point the way. The sensation is familiar, but the world is a stranger. Mushrooms grow maybe 30 feet tall here. Strange creatures wander around, and some of…
Crafting the Path
It is often observed that playing games and making games are different activities. This is kind of obvious, but whatever the technical college advertisements might have you believe, there is more involved in developing a game than playing through it…