The Quixotic Engineer

Like many other game designers with a systems bent, I have spent copious enjoyable hours this year with the breakout indie hit Balatro. It’s usually described as a “poker roguelike”, which is a perfect logline for onboarding curious new players. Framed this way, it makes sense that it often invites comparison to Slay The Spire, another hugely popular deckbuilding roguelike.

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My daughter (age 6) is aware that her daddy makes video games, though with somewhat abstract notions of what that actually entails. She has often asked if we could make a game together, which led me to research various child-friendly gamedev tools. On a whim I picked up Game Builder Garage, a game-making toolkit released for the Switch in 2021. I hadn’t heard much about it since its release, but generally trusted Nintendo’s ability to appeal to young children.

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Wanted to share a bit of news about what I’ve been up to since shipping The Last of Us Part I remake in 2022. I’ve had the privilege to continue in the role of game director on The Last of Us Part II Remastered. I helped oversee porting the game to the PlayStation 5, including various technical enhancements and DualSense controller integration. We also added a whole slate of new features: lost levels with developer commentary, a guitar free play mode, new bonus skins, audio descriptions for cinematics, and much more.

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Diagram via LoL Esports

Back in 2011, a friend gently guided me through the steep learning curve of League of Legends, and I’ve been playing it on and off ever since. For about as long, I’ve been casually following the competitive LoL esports scene, especially enjoying the Worlds championship tournament that caps off each year. Worlds 2023 has been particularly great thanks to a big change: Riot Games replaced the traditional “groups” stage with a “Swiss” format stage instead. Examining this change through a game design lens helps reveal why it has been so successful and impactful.

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At the beginning of 2022, I embarked on a project of drawing once per week for the entire year. On Christmas day I completed my 52^nd and final sketch.

Among all the possible hobbies out there, why pursue sketching? I think on some level it’s an opportunity to revisit a beloved childhood hobby. Growing up in Quebec, I pored over my local library’s collection of Franco-Belgian bandes dessinées and Japanese manga imported from France (before it was widely available in English), then spent hours trying to recreate Akira Toriyama’s spiky-haired characters and incredible action shots. When this passtime suddenly became embarrassing in my self-conscious teenage years, I abandoned it entirely.

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