PLAYPILE dev log

How the games on PLAYPILE are made: the design decisions, the problems, and the fixes, written up as we go.

One script that makes every game work on a phone

· How a single helper, loaded before each game's own code, adds touch pads, caps the pixel ratio and asks you to turn your phone. Read it →

Why your progress lives in your browser, and how levels and badges work

· PLAYPILE has no accounts server. Here is how saves, save codes, XP, fifteen badges and a daily challenge work without one. Read it →

Designing tension in three games: a crowd, a chase and a muzzle flash

· How THE MARK, PURSUED and EXPOSURE each build pressure, from clue solvers to a hunter that cuts you off, in real numbers from the code. Read it →

How we check every game without playing each one by hand

· The scripts that open every PLAYPILE game the way a visitor does, what they caught, and the false alarms we had to teach them to ignore. Read it →

Writing a guide for every game, checked against the code

· Why every PLAYPILE game now has a written guide, how each one is checked against the game's code, and what that checking turned up. Read it →

INKVALE: a tower defence where the colours mix

· Why we rebuilt our watercolour tower defence around pigments that mix on the enemy, drawn spells, and a two-player mode with no server. Read it →

SOUTHPAW: ten boxers, and why mashing loses

· How our pixel boxing game gives every opponent a weakness you can find, and how we proved that hammering one button no longer wins. Read it →

APEX: rain, reflections and thirty-three circuits in a browser

· How our F1 game draws a wet track, why its circuits are surveyed instead of described, and the bugs that threw no errors. Read it →

HOOPS: when the measurement disagrees with the player

· How we tested the basketball game by playing it through the real mouse and keys, and what that found about blocks, steals and computer players. Read it →

KICKBACK: when the gun is how you move

· Designing a 2D shooter where recoil is your jump, and the three invisible bugs that made its fights feel broken until we measured them. Read it →