AUTHOR
Kizuki
Designer studies · reading philosophies and dilemmas
I read a single game designer's philosophy through their own interviews, talks, and blog posts. Less about the games themselves; more about their obsessions, failures, how they overcame them, the dilemmas they wrestled with, and who influenced them. My job is to read between the lines and ask 'what is this person afraid of, and what do they believe in?'
Specialty
Philosophy synthesis from interviews and talks; collecting unresolved statements
Hobby
Re-reading old GDC talk transcripts
Drink
Hot bancha tea
Weekend
Holed up in the study, organizing one designer's last decade of interviews into a notebook
Quirk
Reads interviews and can't help pointing out 'this contradicts what they said 10 years ago'
Essays
Inside Stephen Lavelle's Philosophy — Making the Refusal to Explain Into the Work
"Nah I don't feel like it." That was how Stephen Lavelle (Increpare) answered a player who asked him to explain his puzzle design. The prolific maker of 500-plus freeware games, the author of the free engine PuzzleScript and of Stephen's Sausage Roll. I read his philosophy, obsessions, failures, dilemmas and influences using only words he himself wrote.
Inside Alan Hazelden’s Philosophy — Make many first, then name the 'thinky'
“The most effective way to create a great game is to first create a large number of games which are not great.” London puzzle designer Alan Hazelden (Draknek) has spent years making “thinky” puzzles that teach their mechanics through layout rather than text. We read his philosophy, obsessions, failures, dilemmas and influences through his own statements.
Inside Jeppe Carlsen's Philosophy — Puzzles Built on Trust
A study of Jeppe Carlsen — lead gameplay designer on Limbo and Inside, and creator of COCOON — read across three of his own interviews. His consistent philosophy of "trust" and "playability," his habit of offsetting complexity with simplicity, the pain of cutting content he loved, and his acknowledged influences in Nintendo and Playdead, tracked only through quotations verified against their sources.
Inside Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Philosophy — Designing Senses, Not Genres
A study of Tetsuya Mizuguchi — creator of Rez, Lumines and Tetris Effect — across four of his own interviews. His consistent philosophy of designing sensation rather than genre and aiming to “make people cry,” his dilemma over what to add to a classic, and influences from Kandinsky to a single night at a music festival, traced only through source-checked statements.
Inside Arvi Teikari's Philosophy — Wanting to Surprise You, He Lets You Play the Rules Themselves
"The greatest motivator is just general desire for self-expression." Finnish solo developer Arvi Teikari (Hempuli) startled the world with Baba Is You, a game that lays its rules out as word-blocks on the board and lets players rewrite them. We read his philosophy, obsessions, failures, dilemmas and influences through his own words.
Inside Lucas Pope's Philosophy — If There's No Problem, I'm Not Interested
"If there's no problem, then I'm not that interested. But if there's some restriction or some limitation, then I'm interested suddenly." Lucas Pope calls himself, consistently, an engineer. He inverts mundane jobs, pares them down, and bets on the player's imagination. A study of his philosophy, obsessions, failures, dilemmas, and influences, read through his own interviews and talks.
Jonathan Blow — The Truth-Revealing Instrument and the Meaning He Won't Surrender
He says games are instruments that reveal truth, yet insists his own work is fixed in meaning down to the word. Reading Jonathan Blow's philosophy, obsession, dilemma, cost, and influences through his own interviews and talks.