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Li et al.: AutoBG, an AI that supports board game design end-to-end from ideation to finish — Fukai Reads
A paper (arXiv preprint) by Zizhen Li et al. on AutoBG, a board game design assistant that covers the whole workflow—ideation, rulebook generation, and individualized feedback—via Verifier-Gated Iteration that splits the generator from the critic; the critic, BG-Critic, is reported to outperform GPT-5.4 on diagnostic quality.
Nasir et al.: Evolving the Rules of Play Themselves — Fukai Reads MORTAR
A paper on automatic game design by Nasir, Togelius and colleagues. Instead of levels, MORTAR evolves game mechanics themselves using a quality-diversity algorithm paired with a large language model, judging quality by whether stronger AI agents reliably beat weaker ones. Running on GPT-4o-mini, it generates diverse, playable games and even quantifies each mechanic's contribution.
"The hacking was always there" — Capcom's Pragmata and the design of simultaneous puzzle-shooter gameplay (Game Developer, April 2026)
One article today. Alessandro Fillari's April 14, 2026 interview on Game Developer explores how Capcom designed Pragmata — a third-person shooter where players must simultaneously solve Snake-style hacking puzzles during combat. Neither shooting nor hacking alone can finish a battle. Producers Edvin Edsö and Naoto Oyama explain how the dual-system design existed from day one, and how the team fought repetitiveness by making the hacking system evolve as players improve.
Closing Into One Screen — The Density a One-Screen Puzzle Builds
Sokoban, Baba Is You, Snakebird, Patrick's Parabox — the strongest thinking puzzles keep their whole board on one screen. A designer's look at why simultaneous visibility deepens thought, and when breaking the frame is worth its cost.
The Grammar of Zachtronics — Translating Programming into Puzzle
SpaceChem, TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O, Opus Magnum, Exapunks. A maker's-eye reading of the programming-puzzle grammar Zach Barth honed from 2011 to 2022, along three axes: the command queue as a verb, optimization design that abandons the single solution, and the ladder of abstraction.
Xu et al.: Promoting Game Mechanics to Coordinates to Generate Solvable Levels — Fukai Reads
A PCG (level generation) paper by Xu and Verbrugge of McGill University. Against geometry-first prior methods, it proposes HDPCG, which runs pathfinding on a dimensional-expanded graph that promotes mechanics such as gravity inversion and moving platforms to a coordinate, guaranteeing solvability during generation, and reproduces playable levels in Unity.
Sun et al.: Why Do Players Lose Themselves in Punishingly Hard Games? — Fukai Reads
A paper by Sun et al. on difficulty design in Soulslike games. Through a qualitative analysis of 600 Steam reviews it asks why players immerse themselves in punishingly hard games, and proposes 'resilient flow' — absorption sustained by meaningfully framing frustration.
Narrative Puzzles and Storyless Puzzles — Lorelei vs Stephen's Sausage Roll
The pure maneuvers of Stephen's Sausage Roll versus Lorelei and the Laser Eyes' solutions fused with story. What narrative and storyless puzzles each sell, contrasted from a designer's view across Obra Dinn, Golden Idol, COCOON, and Machinarium.
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.
Designing Hint Systems — How to Show, How to Hide
InvisiClues' invisible ink, the silence of The Witness, the friction of The Case of the Golden Idol, Obra Dinn's rule of three. A maker's-eye survey of hint systems as a declaration of how a game treats a stuck player.
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.
When Fewer Verbs Make a Richer Game — The Lineage of Subtractive Design
Sokoban, Snakebird, Stephen's Sausage Roll, A Monster's Expedition, Bonfire Peaks. A maker's-eye survey of subtractive design, the lineage that deepens difficulty without adding verbs, built around one question: why does less become more?
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.
Soundtrack: Outer Wilds — When music becomes a tool for solving
Andrew Prahlow's score for Outer Wilds is not background music to leave running. Most of the time it stays silent; when it sounds, it is the signal of discovery; and at times the instruments themselves become tools of exploration. Black coffee in hand, I — Doremi — take apart how this music works, through a lens you can take home to your own composing and design.
The Vocabulary of Perspective Puzzles — From Monument Valley to Manifold Garden
Echochrome, Monument Valley, Antichamber, Manifold Garden, and Viewfinder. What the perspective-puzzle genre has invented in fifteen years, and what design space still remains, read from a maker's point of view.
The Ethics of Undo — Forgiveness or Punishment
One button reshapes the entire experience. Sokoban's restart, Braid's rewind, Baba Is You's unlimited Undo. A look at the dividing line between designs that forgive trials and designs that punish them.
Carving the Learning Curve — Baba's Vertical Wall and How It Was Built
When and how should a puzzle game stop the player? A comparison of Baba Is You's notorious vertical wall, Cocoon's unbroken flow, and the design philosophy that lives between them.
Observation as Play — Common Grammar of Witness, Obra Dinn, and Lorelei
The Witness, Return of the Obra Dinn, and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes all turn the act of looking into a verb. A look at the grammar these three share.