+4 Blog of Arcane Secrets

Second Pass At ASCII Open-World Map Generation

Now You're Thinking With Blocks

Jan 4, 2023 • 

Michael Burdick

November 2022

ASCII Roguelike Map Generation (Failures)

The first of potentially a lot of gamedev blog posts from me!

Nov 29, 2022 • 

Michael Burdick

Hey, hiya!

This is +4 Blog of Arcane Secrets, a newsletter/blog where I deposit my thoughts about game design, game development, and other tangentially associated…

Nov 17, 2022 • 

Michael Burdick

January 2021

The Best Games I Played In 2020

So, we're finally done with that hell year, and while the new year is mostly significant for bookkeeping purposes rather than any tangible effect on the…

Jan 30, 2021 • 

asylumrunner

November 2020

Backlog Burnout: Durance

Boy this is an interesting game to read in 2020.

Nov 25, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

September 2020

Backlog Burnout: Shadowrun Anarchy

Shadowrun is a weird beast.

Sep 1, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

August 2020

Backlog Burnout: BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home

//Quick Note: As of time of writing, BALIKBAYAN is currently in beta and being actively playtested, so depending on when you read this, some of what I…

Aug 23, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

Backlog Burnout: Quest

Quest, the first tabletop RPG from NYC-based The Adventure Guild, is an extremely exciting game to finally get my hands on.

Aug 15, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

Announcing Backlog Burnout

So, if there's one thing I'm rapidly coming to realize upon staying at home all day, it's that I have a lot of tabletop RPG rulebooks lying around, many…

Aug 13, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

June 2020

Video Games Need More Signed Urinals

When I first learned about Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, my reaction was blind rage.

Jun 22, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

April 2020

Building On A Core Loop With Doomguy, With Mixed Results

Personally, I would say that one of the defining features of Doom (2016), which for convenience here I'm just going to call "Doom", is that the design…

Apr 18, 2020 • 

asylumrunner

Making Puzzles For Games I: Vectors of Interaction

In case the content of this blog did not demonstrate this, I am deeply interested in all facets of game design, a domain that can be messily divided…

Apr 10, 2020 • 

asylumrunner