Announcing Volume 1!

A New Journal Featuring Independent Game Designers writing about their Games' Designs

After Journey's End

and

Melos Han-Tani

May 13, 2024

Introducing “After Journey’s End”

Hi! Welcome to “After Journey’s End,” a new, free journal (launching May 20th, here) consisting of “Independent Game Designers writing about their Games’ Designs.” Why this focus? While there’s no shortage of designer blogs on game design, there are few centralized ways of finding those blogs, and even fewer that are solely about reflecting on designing a specific aspect of a game, as an individual or tiny (< 5) team where each person has a near-full understanding of the game.

If a reader finds a resource, it might only a book chapter, a GDC talk, a stray blog post. And it’s easy to read a convincing designer’s words and believe “Yes! That’s how all games should be designed!” But, designing a game is partially an expression of that person’s way of living: so to approach ‘what game design is,’ we need to contrast multiple designers’ processes. And ideally, the designer’s writing should focus on particular decisions (rather than abstractions), to be easy for readers to visualize and understand.

I hope this journal can expose you to a variety of independent game designers! I see this journal as standing in contrast, but not necessarily in conflict, to some predominant forms of writing about game design, in particular:

Critical writing: Reviews, Essays, YouTube videos
Conference Talks
Theoretical texts: Books like “Theory of Fun”, “Game Feel”, “Art of Game Design”, or How-To Make A ___ Game-style guides which abstract frameworks from practical experience

I can’t lie: part of my personal motivation is to push back against the trend of “people who don’t design games talking about how to design a game.” While not all bad, at worst this style of writing fosters a kind of overbearing design prescriptivism (“This is good/bad design”), which comes to bear in frustrating reviews on our work, or perfectionism in budding designers.

These problems stem from idealizing the design process, rather than viewing it as something done by humans going through a process of prototyping, revisions, self-doubt, and breakthroughs. I hope this journal can help us form better pictures of what game design is like, whether we’re players or designers.

The Contributors!

Without further ado… I’d like to introduce the other designers who generously contributed a piece to this journal! Perhaps you’ll recognize some names. Each game designer works in different spaces, but each with a personal flair and love for the medium that shines through in their games. Why not check out their games or blogs while you wait for the journal to release on May 20th, 2024?

Posts also sometimes have “Bounties” at the end, which are games the creator would like to see made by someone else some day.

Here’s a Backloggd list of the games.

Bryce Bucher, Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia (2021): Putting Myself in Fish Hell (Twitter)

Bobo The Cat, on Bobo the Cat (2022): Placing Enemies (Twitter)

Dari, on I HATE YOU, PLEASE SUFFER (2023) - “I want you to live a normal life and die a normal death.” (Itch.io, Writing)

Deniz Amasya, INFINITE RED: The Day The Earth Stood Still (2023, Mode Gone): My Best Friend is an Electric Box (Twitter, Website/Blog)

John Thyer, on A Dark Place (2023): Presentation in Minimalist Text Games (Twitter, Blog)

Melos Han-Tani, Sephonie (2022, Analgesic Productions): Embodying Expression Through ONYX Linking (Twitter, Blog)

Stuffed Wombat, on Mosa Lina (2023): Ramifications of Radical Randomness (Twitter, Blog)

Sylvie, on Sylvie RPG (2024): Reacting to Playtests (Twitter, Cohost, Blog)

Toby Alden, on I'm a Grown UP !! Dreamy Sweetie The Devil Slayer (2023): Following Quest Chains Through the Mist of Design (Twitter, Blog, Cohost)

Todd Luke, on 24 Killers (2023): Footprints in the Sand (Twitter)

Besides word length and a requirement that the writing must aim to be about a specific aspect of a released game they designed from start to finish - there’s no editorial process to this journal, thus, I hope that each person’s unique voice shines through. And as a final note, this journal is not a ‘collective’ - this introductory post is not representative of these designers’ views, rather, this introductory post is an outline of my personal motivations.