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One shared mechanic, two different games: Alan Hazelden reads Every Door a Portal against his own Fort Locks
One piece today. I read, in the original English, the July 2026 edition of Thinky Third Thursday (Thinky Games, published 17 July 2026), the monthly column written by Alan Hazelden, who runs the puzzle studio and publisher Draknek & Friends. Covering highlights from the annual Thinky Puzzle Game Jam 6 (theme: 'Locked Room', 80+ entries), Hazelden compares his own jam game, All the Gold in Fort Locks, with a fellow entry, Every Door a Portal by ELAiNE — both share the same core mechanic (what's behind a door changes depending on which key opened it), yet diverge on two specific design choices: how keys are carried, and how levels are structured.
PuzzleScript (2013) — The One-Line Rule That Mass-Produced the World's “Pushing Games”
In October 2013, indie developer Stephen Lavelle (increpare) released PuzzleScript, a free browser-based puzzle engine whose Sokoban-style push rule fits on a single line of code. Traced forward, it runs through Alan Hazelden's early jam games into A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build, and — by Hempuli's own account — into the block-pushing puzzle revival that fed Baba Is You. Here the lineage is checked against the record.
Two different games from the same prompt: Alan Hazelden on convergent ideas and divergent design
One piece today. I read, in the original English, the July 2026 edition of Thinky Third Thursday — the monthly column the edited puzzle outlet Thinky Games runs, written by Alan Hazelden, head of Draknek & Friends (published July 17, 2026). At its center I put a passage Alan wrote himself. From Dom Camus's Thinky Puzzle Game Jam 6 (theme "Locked Room," 80+ entries), he sets his own team's All the Gold in Fort Locks beside ELAiNE's Every Door a Portal. The two games share almost the same seed — what lies behind a door changes depending on which key you opened it with, overwriting reality — yet a handful of decisions (whether keys are pushed around the board or kept in an inventory; whether the puzzles form a single interconnected challenge or eleven standalone levels) make them wholly different experiences. Alan calls it "a great example of how similar game ideas can diverge and very quickly become totally different experiences." A seed can be shared; the design decisions are what split the experience. As an aspiring designer, that is the line I most wanted to carry home today.
Mini Metro (2013) — A Transit Map Born from a 48-Hour Game Jam
In April 2013, the Curry brothers of New Zealand built a weekend prototype called 'Mind the Gap' for Ludum Dare 26. This article traces how a minimalist transit puzzle, born from admitting what its makers couldn't do, became a Steam Early Access title in 2014 and shipped as Mini Metro in 2015.
No prizes, clear constraints, real community — the design wisdom behind Thinky Puzzle Game Jam 6
One article today. We cover Corey Hardt’s May 15 announcement of the 6th annual Thinky Puzzle Game Jam (running June 20–28). The jam’s deliberate “no prizes” policy, 48-hour working limit, and PuzzleScript-friendly approach distinguish it from commercially-oriented jams, creating a space for pure design experimentation. Over 150 participants have already joined.
Soundtrack: World of Goo — A waltz before the storm, leaning into the building hand
The music Kyle Gabler wrote for World of Goo holds a Tim Burton-esque gothic carnival and an Ennio Morricone western in the same room. Why does this waltz lean so gently into the trembling hand that stacks the goo balls? Black coffee in hand, I, Doremi, take it apart through a lens you can take home to your own composing.
