SERIAL
The Nature of Play
3 episodes · updated 2026-07-11
Much of game design's vocabulary is borrowed from century-old philosophy. In this serial, Komugi reads philosophers' texts through a maker's eyes — the magic circle, order and tension — checking the nature of play against the originals.
Episodes
- Ep. 3Does Play Have a Point? — Camus and the Roguelike Death Loop2026-07-11
I've died 38 times in a roguelike and I'm still diving back in. I bring home almost nothing I built up, so why is this repetition fun? In this matching installment I lay Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus — his head-on argument about endless repetition — over the death loop of Hades.
- Ep. 2Reading 'Homo Ludens' Chapter by Chapter — The Order and Tension Play Creates2026-07-10
Last time's 'magic circle' was only the entrance. From here I read the classic on play, 'Homo Ludens,' one chapter at a time, as a maker. Of the traits Huizinga lists in Chapter 1, two pillars I hadn't touched yet - order and tension - tested against Tetris and my own puzzles.
- Ep. 1What Is Play? — Starting with Huizinga's Magic Circle2026-07-10
Making puzzles keeps bringing me back to the most basic question: what is play? What is fun? In this new series, I go ask the philosophers. Part 1 is Huizinga's magic circle — why people get dead serious inside a simple drawn line.