Top all-time · #8261
Mark R Johnson
Personal blog · markrjohnsongames.comgamesprogramming
Mark R Johnson's personal blog at markrjohnsongames.com covers games and programming. Since 2020, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mark R Johnson's pages mainly for Ultima Ratio Regum, a procedurally generated game. Commenters cite it as an example of procedural world lore and of solo development.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Game studies, game design, game play
Most-linked posts?
- /games/ultima-ratio-regum/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-11-20
What Hacker News says?
Nice! I was wondering if it would be good for making ascii art assets for roguelike games (for example: https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/12/cogmind-ascii-art... or https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/ ) - some of the art you've made for oxide thinks it must be good for that!
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “Monodraw”Submitted Ultima Ratio Regum 0.9 Released as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> I think Dwarf Fortress has the story generation part. The aesthetics/graphics part not yet.. I suspect Ultima Ratio Regum is a step up from DF even in terms of procgen world lore. I mean the creator (author?) of that game wrote their PhD thesis on the subject https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “Film: Frame Interpolation for Large Motion”Submitted Interesting Map Geometry and Mathematics as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> ultima ratio regum Great game that: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “Reading more Ursula Le Guin (2019)”Submitted Ultima Ratio Regum 0.11: Buried Treasure as a story · 1 points
HN discussionDr Mark Johnson with Ultima Ratio Regum comes to mind: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “Ask HN: Why don't most CS academics make novel video games?”Submitted Ultima Ratio Regum 0.8 Released as a story · 1 points
HN discussionDwarf Fortress is two people + lots of donors but it's my favourite small team. Single person, Ultima Ratio Regum: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “Ask HN: What’s your favorite one person labor of love products/games/software”I've always found this game (in development) to be extremely impressive: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Comment linking /games/ultima-ratio-regum/
on “It is becoming difficult for me to be productive in Python”