- 06 Dec, 2025 *
I’ve been forgetting to post about Paper Labyrinths! It’s been a difficult and busy year for me personally, which I can attribute the slow blogging here. We’ve had some really fascinating conversations on the show however, and hopefully you find them as unique as I do.
All of our episodes can be found at paperlabyrinths.com or your podcast aggregator of choice.
Episode 4 features Jason Grinblat and we talk a lot about Caves of Qud, what it’s like to write for a deeply systemic game that features both generated and directly authored text, bugs therein, and various ways the system implicitly communicates things to the player.
Episode 5 features Brian Bucklew, the other main co-creator of Caves of Qud, but in fact we nearly don’t talk a…
- 06 Dec, 2025 *
I’ve been forgetting to post about Paper Labyrinths! It’s been a difficult and busy year for me personally, which I can attribute the slow blogging here. We’ve had some really fascinating conversations on the show however, and hopefully you find them as unique as I do.
All of our episodes can be found at paperlabyrinths.com or your podcast aggregator of choice.
Episode 4 features Jason Grinblat and we talk a lot about Caves of Qud, what it’s like to write for a deeply systemic game that features both generated and directly authored text, bugs therein, and various ways the system implicitly communicates things to the player.
Episode 5 features Brian Bucklew, the other main co-creator of Caves of Qud, but in fact we nearly don’t talk about the game at all. Space travel and its discontents, and the texture of number sizes, big and small.
Episode 6 features Cameron Kunzelman and we go long about writing books and the business of Magic the Gathering. It reads as dull but Cameron’s positioning of Magic as the ultimate product of neoliberal management is really insightful, and I’ve spent a long time turning it over in my head since.
Episode 7 features Joannes Truyens and we talk a lot about the wiki-diving game/ARG hybrid of Neurocracy, and Michael Crichton. Turns out that a: Brendan is a big Crichton guy, and b: Crichton took some unfortunate swerves in his later life in his beliefs that I also spent a lot of time reading about afterward.
Episode 8 features Sophie Abromowitz, a comedian and friend of ours who writes for games like Hot Streak and Quacks of Quedlinburg. The three of us all know each other well so we go all over the place very quickly, including Fromsoft games, John le Carré novels, and the comedic practice of clowning.
Episode 9 features Andrew Shouldice, creator of TUNIC. We do eventually talk about manuals of course, but that conversation is preceded by general discussion of teaching people things, be it games or game design. Turns out: it’s really hard!
That’s it for the year! See you later!