Jay McGavren's Journal

Design Notes on Various Games

Hopefully you’ve seen my analysis of Subnautica: Below Zero. There are many other noteworthy puzzles, mechanics, and conventions in games, but most games don’t warrant a blog post unto themselves. This post is a catch-all for other patterns I want to record.

This will be a living document, so expect edits and additions over time. (Yeah, that’s not how blog posts are supposed to work. Send me some traffic and I’ll start following the rules.)

An Interview with Aureus, Roadwarden's Creator

Roadwarden is a “graphical text adventure” set in a dark fantasy world. I had the audacity to share my previous analysis post with Aureus, the game’s creator, and he offered to answer any questions I might have.

I don’t think he knew what he was signing up for! But he was incredibly generous with his time, and I asked if I could share his answers here on the blog so other aspiring creators can learn as well. So here’s an interview with Aureus, creator and developer of Roadwarden!

(Mild spoilers within!)

Game Design Analysis - Roadwarden

Hopefully you’ve seen my game design analysis of Subnautica: Below Zero. Here’s another, for Roadwarden. It’s an important game to me, as I hope to publish a text adventure myself at some point.

I wrote this while playing, and some of it reflects the mechanics I hoped the game had, rather than what it actually has. No disparagement is intended; this is a rock-solid game and its author’s choices were likely necessary and correct, grounded in reality rather than my fantasy of the perfect game.

[Edit: I shared this post with Aureus, the game’s creator, and he graciously answered a ton of my questions himself! Check out the interview in this follow-up post!]

Subnautica Below Zero Game Design Analysis

Ever since I became serious about game development, I’ve been picking games I play apart as I go. Dissecting the controls, the menus, the progression gating. Subnautica: Below Zero is my latest obsession. Here’s a catalog of things I noted as I played.

Advice for New Developers

I had a new reader message me today, and I think my reply could help other beginning coders as well (whether in Ruby, Go, or any other language). So I thought I’d share it here.