#design
Game design notes: mechanics, systems, and the thinking behind them.
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What Is an Apartment Management Game? Tenants and Rent
The four verbs that define an apartment management game, the shapes it gets confused with, and which one on Steam is worth buying first.
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What Is a Chess Deckbuilder? Cards, Mana and Runs
A chess deckbuilder plays cards onto a board instead of moving a fixed army. The four card models, what mana is for, and the four you can play on Steam.
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The Psychology of Completion: Why Unfinished Games Nag You
A 2025 meta-analysis of 59 studies found no memory advantage for unfinished tasks, but a 67% tendency to resume them. What that means for game progress bars.
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10 Games With the Most Satisfying Progression Systems
Five kinds of progression across ten games: Outer Wilds keeps only what you know, Rogue Legacy 2 pays you more for a worse hero.
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Why Game Music Is So Memorable: The Neuroscience
The widely cited Sheffield 40% game-music recall stat has no source. What peer-reviewed memory research actually shows, and why agency may matter more.
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10 Games Set in Ordinary Places That Became Extraordinary
Papers, Please is set at one desk in a border booth and won the IGF Grand Prize. Ten games where an ordinary setting generated the mechanics, verified on Steam.
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Why Nostalgia Works So Well in Video Games
Nostalgia was a diagnosable disease from 1688 into the 20th century. Loneliness triggers it, and retro pixels are optional.
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Unpacking vs PowerWash Simulator vs Grandma Left Me a Building
Unpacking, PowerWash Simulator, and our upcoming Grandma Left Me a Building relax you in different ways. A design comparison, honest about which one is ours.
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How We Designed the Tenants of Grandma Left Me a Building
How we built the tenants of Grandma Left Me a Building: 46 shared traits, liked and disliked lists, four social tiers, and a hand-drawn goblin family.
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Color Psychology in Game Design: How Palettes Shape Emotion
How color palettes steer player emotion: peer-reviewed research on saturation and brightness, palette reads of six games, and why our cozy sim runs warm.
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10 Most Replayable Games and What Makes Every Run Different
Ten games where no two runs match, grouped by what creates the variety: synergy math, procedural levels, emergent simulation, and player-driven goals.
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Flow State in Games: Why You Lose Track of Time
Flow is the state where hours vanish into a game. Here is the science behind it, and how games like Tetris, Hades, and Stardew Valley engineer it.
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10 Games That Tell Their Whole Story Without a Single Word
Ten games that tell complete stories with zero dialogue, and exactly where each hides its narrative: architecture, animation, objects, color, and sound.
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Why Hand-Drawn Games Are Beating AAA Graphics
Hand-drawn games like Cuphead, Hollow Knight, and Hades keep beating photorealism. The real reasons: cost, readability, identity, and art that never ages.
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Why Do We Get Attached to Game Characters?
The psychology of NPC attachment: parasocial bonds, four peer-reviewed studies, and the design levers that make players care about game characters.
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A Short History of Management Sim Games
The history of management sim games, from Utopia in 1981 and SimCity to Two Point Hospital, plus where a modern apartment sim like ours fits in.
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Deckbuilding Games for Beginners: Where to Start
The best deckbuilding games for beginners: Slay the Spire, Balatro, Marvel Snap, Monster Train and Roguebook, plus what to play first and why each is gentle.
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Cozy Games With the Best Stories
Six cozy games where the writing is the reason to play, from Spiritfarer to Venba, plus one character-driven cozy sim in development at Overbaked.
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What Makes a Good Roguelike?
A good roguelike rests on meaningful runs, real variety, and readable deaths. Here is what separates a great roguelike from a merely hard game, with examples.
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What Is a Cozy Game? A Definition and Short History
A cozy game emphasizes safety, abundance and softness over challenge: low-stakes, usually non-violent, relaxing. A clear definition, short history, examples.
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Seven Deadly Sins Games: How the Sins Become a Mechanic
How video games use the seven deadly sins, from Darksiders III's bosses to Binding of Isaac's minibosses, plus Hellmate's seven hell floors to wishlist.
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Why Are Deckbuilders So Addictive?
Deckbuilders hook you with synergy, variance, and variable reward. Here is the design and psychology behind the one-more-run loop, and where Hellmate fits.
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What Makes a Good Management Sim Fun?
What makes a management sim fun, not just busywork: meaningful tradeoffs, real stakes, characters over columns, teaching difficulty, and legible feedback.
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Why Restoration Games Are So Satisfying
Restoration games satisfy because effort becomes visible: the endowed progress effect, the reward of the changed object, and how we use the loop in our sim.
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The Weirdest and Most Lovable NPCs in Cozy Games
The weirdest video game NPCs live in cozy games: Stardew's Krobus, a clay-faced rabbit, Spiritfarer's deer, plus the odd tenants we are designing.
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What Games Get Right (and Wrong) About Being a Landlord
A fair look at what games get right and wrong about being a landlord, from The Tenants to Landlord's Super, plus how Grandma Left Me a Building handles it.
