Putting the “Advent” in Adventure Game Design
My wife likes advent calendars. Sorry, Advent calendars. I had to have Evon, raised Catholic as she was, explain to me today that Advent is a period that includes the four Sundays before Christmas, starting on Advent Sunday. It might be in November. There’s a wreath. It has a pink candle and three purple candles. […]
WILLIAM SHAKESPEART’S “TOMAS THE CARPENTER”
Upon yon hillock stands a warlike spirit, He of a day most markedly moderne; His martial stance as staunch as men can hear it, Tomas the Carpenter treads on the cairn. O, as his ample stride has meanness seen, Then query not his pride; it too is mean. A dayman’s pay he draws for all […]
How Gamers4Harris happened
By now, if you’re a game or puzzle fan, you might have seen Gamers4Harris. It’s a website where more than 1,100 game and puzzle creators have supported Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. People who make just about every popular game and puzzle are on here: D&D, Destiny, Marvel Snap, Magic, The Sims, Call of Cthulhu, […]
Amber Cook was a curious person
James Ernest, Amber Cook, Rhea Friesen, Dan Mushalko, Paul Peterson, and me at Origins 2016. Photos by Marie Poole. I’m gonna tell you a story about someone who you should know about. Her name was Amber Cook. She was the most curious person I ever met. This story will give you a window onto why. […]
the day we drove a car into the ocean: a rant about international shipping
I often use this space to talk about challenges I deal with. Most of them are personal challenges, stuff that’s in my head. But this post is about a real-world challenge that bedevils me and many folks I know. It has been crushing me for years. I honestly don’t know how other company heads deal […]
Why The Hunting of the Shark matters (to me)
Hey folks. I’m writing to tell you about our new book The Hunting of the Shark: Twenty Years of Lone Shark Puzzlehunts. It’s a massive puzzle compendium of all the major puzzlehunts we’ve run over the last two decades. I don’t think you’ll find a better puzzle collection anywhere. You can read all about it […]
Memories of Teeuwynn
It’s been a couple months since my former co-designer Teeuwynn Woodruff passed away unexpectedly. It’s taken me till now (and talking to her husband) to feel up to sharing this post I wrote in September. Even though we worked as a team for 20 years, Tey and I had a big falling out a decade […]
a new book that’s a bit different for me
After a couple years off, I’m returning to publishing this week. Not to my job; I’m still somewhat unsure about going off my leave of absence. But I have been writing a lot, and this week, I’m putting out a new book for preorder. It’s called Mindspaces. It’s part of a big charity thing I helped […]
my gap year
Lone Shark’s doing a Reddit AMA today. I was asked if I wanted to participate. I politely declined. Being public is not how my life works these days. However, since it’s possible people will ask about me, I’m dropping a few notes here about my work over the last 15 months. I’ve been on leave […]
an interim report
Hi there. For a year, I’ve been on a leave of absence from the company I co-founded, and absent from social media. I’d stay that way, but part of being accountable is the accounting of things, and a year is enough time to figure out something to say. I’ll try to do that here. I’m […]