Guides, Games and Tangents
Game design and colour, storytelling and interactive fiction, productivity tools, and why online shopping is the way it is.
Why Did We Stop Teaching Children to Mix Colours?
Colour mixing used to be a hands-on staple of early education. Here's why it quietly disappeared from classrooms - and why that might matter more than it sounds.
Paint Colours Used to Have Names. What Happened?
Paint colours once had evocative, specific names that told you something real. Now they're often vague mood-words or nonsense poetry - and there are reasons for both.
Why Does Mixing Paint Feel So Different From Mixing Paint in Your Head?
Mixing paint looks simple until you try it. The gap between imagining a colour and actually producing it reveals something odd about how our brains model the physical world.
Why Your Saved Folders Are Full of Things You'll Never Use
We save links, files, and ideas constantly - but rarely return to them. Here's why the saving impulse feels productive even when it isn't.
Why Do We Describe Stories As 'Going Somewhere'?
Stories use movement as their core metaphor - journeys, paths, destinations - and it turns out this shapes not just how we talk about fiction, but how we experience it.
The Surprisingly Hard Problem of Mixing Colours on a Screen
Why does the same orange look completely different on your phone, your laptop, and a printed page? Colour is stranger than it looks.
Characters Who Remember You Are Rarer Than You Think
Most stories - on page, screen or stage - treat memory as a given. But genuine continuity of character is one of the hardest things fiction pulls off.
Why Factories in Games Feel So Satisfying (Even When They're Falling Apart)
There's something deeply pleasing about a well-run production line - even a virtual one. Here's why factory games scratch an itch that most games don't.
Your Reading List Is a Museum Nobody Visits
We save articles with the best of intentions. But saving isn't reading, and the list itself might be the problem.
The Choices That Stick: What Stories Teach Us About Consequence
A choice without consequences isn't really a choice. Here's why the best stories - on page, screen, or in your hands - understand that.