He doesn’t lard his work with tutorials, and his alien art style can be downright intimidating, and yet, games like Zaga-33 and 868-HACK are immensely accessible - warm, even. Nominated multiple times for the IGF’s Nuovo and Excellence in Design Awards, Brough focuses on the roguelike genre, simplifying its notorious complexity with confined stages and limited abilities. If creator Derek Yu is like early Terrence Malick, publishing a new masterpiece every decade or so, then Michael Brough is like late-career Malick: a fearless, productive, and intensely focused creator, releasing something new nearly every year of this decade.
