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APR 02, 2026
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9 MIN READ
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STUDIO PHILOSOPHY
I Took A Meeting With A Publisher And I'm Sorry.
I know what we said. I know what's painted on the break room wall — "NEVER LET THE GOOSE INSIDE" — in Beatrix's handwriting, which manages to be both calligraphic and threatening. I know. But they sent a calendar invite that just said "quick chat" and I have a problem with quick chats, which is that I cannot say no to one. It is a documented condition. There is a Wikipedia article about it. I wrote it.
So I took the meeting. They had slides. They had the kind of slides that make you feel slightly insane for ever having opinions. There was a deck titled "Synergies" and another one titled "Synergies (Continued)" and a third one, somehow, called "Synergies: A Reckoning"...
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MAR 24, 2026
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6 MIN
"Funny On Purpose" Is Not A Genre. It's A Mistake They Let Me Make.
Every six months a journalist asks me what "genre" our games are in and every six months I say "comedy" and every six months they squint at me like I've just produced a small lizard from my pocket. There is no comedy genre, they tell me, gently, the way you'd correct a child about a horse. There is "narrative." There is "casual." There is, somehow, "cozy." But not comedy. I have been told this so many times that I have started to believe it is a coordinated bit, and that one day they will all tell me at once and I will laugh and we will be friends.
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MAR 11, 2026
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4 MIN
I Have Been Asked To Stop Mentioning The Concept.
Beatrix has issued what she's calling "a final-final-FINAL warning" about The Concept. The Concept, for new readers, is the mascot I proposed in 2021: the abstract concept of comedy itself, unrendered, present only as a feeling in the viewer's chest. I still think about it every day. I know we picked the goldfish. I love the goldfish. The goldfish is right and good. But sometimes, late at night, when the studio is quiet and Janet the Roomba is doing her rounds, I open the old folder and I look at the brief and I feel things. Big things. Unmarketable things.
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FEB 28, 2026
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7 MIN
Why The Goldfish Doesn't Have A Name (And Won't).
People want it to have a name. They write to us. "What's the goldfish called?" Some are very polite. Some are not. One person sent us a 12-page document arguing that the goldfish should be called "Bartholomew" and included a hand-drawn family tree connecting it to a Tudor king. I read all 12 pages. I read them twice. I am not naming the goldfish Bartholomew. The goldfish is unnamed because the moment you name a thing, you decide what it is. The goldfish refuses to be decided. That's its whole deal. That's the bit. That's the load-bearing pillar of our entire visual identity, and I will protect it with my life and also Beatrix's life if it comes to that.
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FEB 14, 2026
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5 MIN
The Arcade In New Jersey Doesn't Exist (Don't Tell Beatrix).
Beatrix doesn't read my blog. This is, statistically, the safest place in the world to admit that the arcade in New Jersey is not, technically, a real arcade. It is, technically, my mother's basement. There is one (1) cabinet down there. It's a Galaga. The Galaga is broken. I sit next to the broken Galaga for a week at a time and I think about games. This is what I call "research." This is what Beatrix calls "Mort's bullshit." Both of us are correct. The thing is, the games get better when I come back. I cannot explain it. Neither can Beatrix, which is the only reason she lets me keep doing it.
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