I'm Bruno Dias, a São Paulo-based designer (systems, narrative, mechanics) and writer working in video games. Azhdarchid (named after the family of large pterosaurs) is my personal blog; I also have a more professional landing page at brunodias.dev.
You may know me from such video games as Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Neo Cab, Pathologic 2 and 3, or Fallen London—you can see my full credits on MobyGames. I also edit the Game Narrative Reader, a link anthology of great essays about video game narrative design on the web.
For my sins, you can find me on Bluesky (@brunodias.dev) and on the Fediverse (@bruno@azhdarchid.online). For my cinema sins, I'm also on Letterboxd (notbrunoagain).
Posts
- Reinventing a Fourth Website Piecemeal and from First Principles Using Junk Found Lying on the Side of the Road
- Azhdarchid now supports Webmentions
- How I Moved my Blog off Bear and it Only Cost Me Three Days of Intense Yak Shaving
- The Game Narrative Reader, Zeroth Edition
- A Video Game Writer's Toolkit
- How to Run a Story Breaking Session
- YOU MUST FREE YOURSELF FROM THE TYRANNY OF "MEANINGFUL CHOICES"
- Specimen C20/NA/1415600.01 – American Broad Twill Ware
- Imagining the Car but not the Traffic Jam
- A Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager, Part 4
- A Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager, Part 3
- A Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager, Part 2
- A Unified Theory of Star Trek: Voyager, Part 1
- A Design Genealogy in Ten Lessons
- My Games of the Year for 2025
- Thematic expression in game design, or: Why Dune (1992) rules
- So I played the Séance of Blake Manor
- I've set up an email newsletter
- The São Paulo Interpretation of Immersive Sims
- Against 'Metroidbrania': a Landscape of Knowledge Games
- Impressions of the Magic Arena Powered Cube
- A spotter's guide to text games
- KINOPHOBIA is out now!
- The 2025 Interactive Fiction Competition Is Over
- So You Want to Write Iambic Pentameter
- Jay Graber Confuses the Gas and Brake Pedals
- Delusions of a Protocol
- Reviewing some IFComp games, part 8 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp games, Part 7 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp games, part 6 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp games, part 5 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp Games, part 4 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp games, part 3 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp games, part 2 of ???
- Reviewing some IFComp Games, Part 1 of ???
- Opening up slots for portfolio review and writing tutoring
- Slop comes for everything you love
- A Relaxing Stroll Through Hallownest
- Sometimes nuance is bad actually
- Decks I've been Playing: Acererak Storm
- Impressions on the Magic Arena 'Chromatic' Cube
- Are LLMs 'useful'?
- The Tonitruator is Leaking Again: On writing setting terminology that you can take seriously
- Randomness in Narrative Video Games: Aesthetics of Different Random Systems
- Decks I've been playing: Show & Tamiyo
- Every Recurring Character Archetype in 'The White Lotus'
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, part 25: What if role assignment doesn't matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, part 24: 2007 Worlds, Lorwyn, and the birth of midrange
- A specifically clever bit of writing in a generally not too clever tv show
- Impressions on the current Magic Arena cube
- Your Weapon is not my Weapon: on Monster Hunter's 'Combat Landscape'
- How to get into (or catch up with) the mainline Pokémon games
- Why can't you be more like your older brother?
- You do not gotta hand it to MiHoYo
- It's odd and fascinating how chess people don't seem to think critically about chess
- On quality, polish, fidelity
- Five Favorite things from 2024
- The Ballad of Nick Nurse
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Part 23: Magic Changes Forever; Nobody Notices
- Microsoft is basically discontinuing Windows. What will happen, then?
- Mid-October Link Roundup
- On enjoying my work
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Supplemental: Commander's Road to Hell
- Goodbye, Cohost
- Late September Link Roundup
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Part 22: On my upkeep, suspended Lotus triggers
- One of the oddest sports stories of the year is quietly brewing in the world of chess
- On Cohost shutting down
- Chess for Game Designers, Part 1
- what happens when you get a 3d printer
- those goose-necked electric-arc contraptions that probably hurt your retinas just like a tac welder
- Magic Item: Truly Immovable Rod
- 2023: The Year in Fallen London, Part 2
- Fallen London: The Making of Irem
- The Ten Principles of Good Game Design
- 2023: The Year in Fallen London, part 1
- The Fallen London approach to worldbuilding, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the lore
- The Ancient Secrets of Writing Item Descriptions
- ship of theseusing it
- of flags and tlds
- The Recent History of the Philadelphia 76ers, or: The Basketball Gods are Real and they are Angry, part 4: The Simmons Saga
- There are three problems an animal needs to solve to evolve into being a really, really large flyer
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 21: The Era of Business Decisions
- technology is never just technology
- The Recent History of the Philadelphia 76ers, or: The Basketball Gods are Real and they are Angry, part 3: Definitive Proof of a Curse
- The Recent History of the Philadelphia 76ers, or: The Basketball Gods are Real and they are Angry, part 2: A Tale of Two Fluids
- The Recent History of the Philadelphia 76ers; or: The Basketball Gods are Real, and they are Angry; part 1: The Colangeli
- The Ballad of Sam Hinkie, or: What if Less Wrong bought a sports franchise
- Topology of Hitman levels
- a sous vide machine and a pacojet are, philosophically, the same thing
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Part 20: What if I didn't cast any spells?
- One of my favorite game design things
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 19: Three Stories about Kamigawa Block
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 18: Mark Rosewater Breaks Magic
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 17: What if Onslaught doesn't matter?
- In this house...
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 16: What if Card Advantage Doesn't Matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 15: We Didn't Start the Fires; or: Opposition Research
- Starfleet replicator regression test suite
- Starfleet replicator stress test suite
- The Ancient Secrets of Naming Things
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 14: EOTFOFYL
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 13: Mark Rosewater Succeds, Perhaps too Well, in Not Breaking Magic
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 12: Mark Rosewater Breaks Magic
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 11: A Game of Zones
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 10: Whirlwind Tour of Tempest-era Standard
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 9: What if Nothing Matters?
- A Compleat History of the Magic Metagame, Appendix A: A Brief Introduction to Magic's Formats
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 8: What if my 60th card doesn't matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 7: What if my opponent's cards don't matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 6: What if playing good cards doesn't matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 5: What if life total doesn't matter?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 4: What if You Didn't Cast Any Spells?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: The Gathering Metagame, Chapter 3: What if I Played Good Cards And Not Bad Cards?
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 2: NOW That's What I Call Magic
- A Compleat History of the Magic: the Gathering Metagame, Chapter 1: Magic as Dr Richard Garfield, PhD Intended
- i have to talk about this fucking show sorry
- Every Sandman story arc, ranked
- every major casting decision and performance in Sandman (2022), ranked
- Phylogenetic facts ranked in order of how disturbing they are