i’ve always been so impressed by the work that nolen creates. i think there’s a mix of both whimsy / fun and dedication / neuroticism which i am personally such a fan of. his voice is so unique (a beautiful blend of earnest and humorous) and also optimistic. i also really appreciated his vulnerability in previous posts on addiction (something i’ve personally struggled with), that genuinely bring me to tears. and as silly as this game is, the level of love put into this game also brings me to tears.

i could talk about how interesting it is to see someone thoroughly break down the system design of a very uniquely constrained problem both real (how should an individual creator + developer design a system that has a real chance of being very viral?) and somewhat self-constrained (how do you make something in one process to prove myself to a hacker news comment?). i could talk about the appreciation for the ways inspiration have hit him to create this site (starcraft x chess is not something i’d ever imagined).

but i think he captures the ethos i want to bring when building things in my life better than i ever could.

When I finished I wasn’t sure what I needed to call the project a success.

One feature I added to One Million Chessboards was piece achievements. Some were simple, like an achievement for capturing a king. But some were harder to find.

A few days in, Ali found the trickiest achievement - a piece is granted “self-hating” if it captures a lot of pieces of its own kind and no other pieces

This wasn’t my biggest hidden feature, and it was far from the hardest one to add (that’d be rollback!). But it wasn’t something that I needed to add - I’d guess under 0.1% of players ever saw it.

Ali noticed that - and told me that it was in that moment that they thought ‘I think this game was made with love!’

I don’t think I can ask for anything more.

he did it for the love of the game 🥹.

and now, a haiku!

to make, to create
is simply the excercise
of offering your soul