Graye Smith

A game designer’s reflection on Spire’s End, a dark solo card adventure by Favad Games. Rather than a traditional review, this piece explores why the game works so well despite relying on tight narrative constraints, how its episodic structure resembles a graphic novel experienced from inside the protagonist’s mind, and what it taught me about design tradeoffs, replayability, and learning from other indie creators.

One year ago, a belief that games could tell deeper, interactive stories became Average Joe Hero. This reflective post looks back on a year of building games from nothing—through setbacks, creative challenges, and personal disruption—and looks ahead to a focused Year Two. It’s about endurance, intentional design, and creating intricate games for players who enjoy mystery, depth, and discovery over hype.

I need help assessing a game created entirely by ChatGPT. Now, I'm completely capable of play testing this game and making notes about what it lacks and what it needs, but I'd actually prefer having this be a community experience. Afterall, LLMs have absorbed everything we've written, it's only fair we group together to criticize its work, right? Not that it'll do much good. ChatGPT is completely immune to any ridicule or attempts to make it feel stupid or inept. Dammit. The rest of this post...