Go ahead. Check our work.
A good argument gives you something to say. A traceable one gives you somewhere to go when someone says: prove it.
Take the argument further.
You should be able to do more with a piece of games criticism than agree with it. Follow a source. Question a number. Take an idea into a design discussion and know where to look when someone pushes back. That is the value of the research behind Drift and Boreal.
We love games enough to spend time on the difficult parts: the ending a business needs to keep open, the remaster that rewrites a memory, the preservation project that has to choose what survives. Understanding those decisions makes playing—and talking about games—more rewarding.
The research is yours to follow.
The source layer came first. The essays grew out of it. Here is what you can trace:
- 744 sources in the bibliography, each with its own stable identifier and record. Duplicate citations are consolidated; original and archive URLs are recorded separately.
- 252 research documents across 42 topics, covering the processes, economics and design questions behind the articles.
- Thirty articles, carrying 690 source references to 439 distinct sources between them.
- Zero unresolved source identifiers. Each reference points to an existing bibliography record. That establishes traceability; confirmation of the underlying claims is separate.
See what each decision costs.
A studio needs another season. A story needs an ending. An archive needs a stable version. Players remember several. Our criticism follows those competing demands closely enough for you to see why a decision makes sense—and what it gives up.
You get the facts behind the disagreement, the stakes on both sides, and a better question to bring back to it. The judgment is yours to make.
The gaps are on the page, too.
All thirty articles currently carry sources_verified = false. Their Provenance sections
name the dated examples and details that still need confirmation against primary sources. A source
reference gives you a trail to follow; it does not mean every claim has been independently verified.
The planned claim ledger is also unfinished. It is intended to pair individual claims with verbatim supporting evidence. For now, figures resolve to source records, not to entries in that ledger.
Read the limits as closely as the argument. We publish them so you can decide what to rely on, what to question, and what to check next.
Take the work into your own workflow.
Every article has a Markdown version with its source identifiers intact. Use it in your notes, quote it in a discussion, or give it to an agent with the references attached. See the access guide for the available formats and developer endpoints.
Making a game of your own?
Our game design and production consulting focuses on the decisions that faster tools make more urgent: reviewing generated assets, budgeting interactive narratives, and deciding what an AI-assisted pipeline still needs a person to judge.
Start with the research brief below. Bring a sharper set of questions to the work you are shipping.
Our connections to games
This site is linked to the published games Pasta Ninja, The Money Grid and PhoneTag. Relevant articles disclose those connections in their own text.
Bring a sharper eye to your next game.
Making games while the tools keep changing? Get our research brief on AI, game design and production. See what generated assets and faster answers mean for the work—and bring better questions to your next design discussion.
Occasional dispatches, when there is something worth your attention.