![Screenshot of youtube.com: Beyond Tetris: The other games of Alexey Pajitnov [video]](https://hn.urlbox.com/shots/renders/2026/10/18/9ba83e4a-7741-40e8-9ae8-93f5e7c188ff.jpg)
Beyond Tetris: The other games of Alexey Pajitnov [video](youtube.com)
53 points by zdw | 5 comments
A two-hour YouTube video by RndStranger surveying the lesser-known games created by Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov.
#game-design on Hacker News
14 stories tagged game-design, newest first.
Samon: Designing a Zen Garden Raking Puzzle(gwern.net)
51 points by networked | 23 comments
A design document by Gwern for Samon, a one-stroke Zen garden sand-raking puzzle game, covering rules, solver experiments, level generation, and a playable prototype.
Time Travel in Braid (2015)(qntm.org)
93 points by Ariarule | 38 comments
A 2015 essay by qntm analyzing the time travel mechanics in the puzzle platformer game Braid.
City building games have a Soul Problem pt.2(radical-elements.com)
150 points by lexx | 143 comments
Blog post by Alex Lingris, the second part of an essay arguing city-building games like Cities: Skylines 2 lack soul.
![Screenshot of gameshelf.jmac.org: Grim Fandango Puzzle Document (1996) [pdf]](https://hn.urlbox.com/shots/renders/2026/9/21/229a1e85-e8e7-4cec-9cb7-54283f688fb3.jpg)
Grim Fandango Puzzle Document (1996) [pdf](gameshelf.jmac.org)
349 points by kelseyfrog | 89 comments
Scanned PDF of the 1996 internal puzzle design document for LucasArts' adventure game Grim Fandango.
Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles(arstechnica.com)
335 points by furcyd | 498 comments
Ars Technica preview of Jonathan Blow's puzzle game Order of the Sinking Star, which grew over a decade into roughly 1,400 puzzles.
Game design is simple(raphkoster.com)
481 points by vrnvu | 142 comments
Blog post by game designer Raph Koster arguing that game design is simple, actually, laying out his view of its fundamentals.
DOOMscrolling: The Game(ironicsans.ghost.io)
395 points by jfil | 92 comments
Ironic Sans newsletter post by David Friedman about creating a Doom-inspired game where the only control is scrolling.
Solitaire(localthunk.com)
444 points by goles | 142 comments
Blog post by LocalThunk, creator of Balatro, explaining how Klondike solitaire was the most important inspiration for the game's design and vibe.
The Sims Game Design Documents (1997)(donhopkins.com)
402 points by krykp | 56 comments
An Apache directory listing of PDF design documents from the development of The Sims (1997), hosted on Don Hopkins' site, covering goals, objects, people, simulator, and graphics.
Downpour is the game creation tool I have been working on for the past few years(v21.io)
356 points by surprisetalk | 63 comments
Blog post by V Buckenham announcing the release of Downpour, a mobile game-making tool built from photos and drawings.
I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions(twitter.com)
715 points by aa_is_op | 229 comments
A post on X by Gray Crawford showing chess pieces redesigned as geometric symbols that indicate each piece's attack directions.
Making small games, which is fun in itself(abagames.github.io)
376 points by breck | 67 comments
A chapter from an online book by abagames on the joys of making small browser games, citing the Small Game Manifesto and the author's 350+ games.
The fun factor of the video game Uplink(vertette.github.io)
333 points by syx | 83 comments
A personal blog post analyzing what makes the hacking video game Uplink fun, framed by the author's memories of discovering PC gaming.