Alex Morgan
Alex Morgan is the editor behind Food Arcade. Alex writes about browser gaming, arcade mechanics and game design, and plays every game on this site before it is published.
Alex Morgan is the editorial voice of Food Arcade and the person who plays every game on this site before it goes live. Alex has spent more than eight years working with browser games — writing about them, testing them, analysing how their systems are put together and explaining those systems to players who want to get better.
That background shapes how this site is written. Articles here start from mechanics rather than opinion: how a combo timer actually behaves, why a difficulty ramp flattens out, what a spawn pattern is asking the player to do. Where a claim can be checked against the game code on this site, it is checked against the game code on this site.
Alex is a fictional editorial persona used as a consistent byline for Food Arcade's content. The expertise described here reflects the standards this site's articles are held to, and the site does not claim degrees, employers, awards or professional memberships on Alex's behalf.
Areas of expertise
- Browser gaming and the HTML5 canvas
- Arcade mechanics: combos, multipliers, difficulty curves
- Cooking and time-management game design
- Game testing and balance analysis
- Interactive content and UX writing
- Web accessibility for games
How the games here get tested
Every game published on Food Arcade is played to a game-over state on all four difficulty presets before it goes live, on a desktop browser and on a phone. That test checks the things a player will notice first: that the controls respond, that the score and combo readouts match what actually happened, that pause and restart behave, that the local high score is written, and that the touch buttons do not overlap the score display in either orientation.
It also checks the things a player should never have to notice. Does the difficulty ramp flatten out, or does it run away? Is every generated gap actually jumpable at the current speed? Does the game pause itself when the browser tab is hidden? Does anything in the run depend on a frame rate assumption? Those checks are why the difficulty curves on this site have ceilings and why the level generator sizes its gaps from the character's real jump reach rather than from a constant.
Published guides
20 pillar guides and 50 supporting articles, all written and edited under the site's editorial policy. Most recent first:
- How Web Audio Creates Original Game Sounds
How the Web Audio API synthesises arcade sounds: oscillators and envelopes, filtered noise, pitch mapping to game state, autoplay handling and volume discipline.
- How Browser Games Stay Fast on Low-End Phones
The performance techniques that keep canvas games fast on constrained devices: pixel ratio caps, pooling, culling, particle budgets, DOM discipline and visibility handling.
- How Touch Controls Work in Browser Games
How touch controls are implemented: pointer event handling, virtual button state, drag steering, layout placement, target sizing and interruption handling.
- How Canvas Handles Collectibles
How canvas games manage collectibles efficiently: the draw order, emoji glyph rendering, off-screen culling, object pooling and allocation-free collision tests.
- How HTML5 Food Games Work
The technology stack behind HTML5 arcade games: canvas rendering, requestAnimationFrame, delta time, Web Audio synthesis, Pointer Events and LocalStorage.
- How Particle Effects Support Gameplay Feedback
How particle systems support feedback: colour-matched bursts, text as particles, hard budget caps, object pooling and reduced-motion behaviour.
- Designing Game Over Screens That Help Players
How to design a game over screen that teaches: specific failure causes, multi-dimensional record display, highlighted improvements and frictionless retry.
- How Difficulty Presets Should Be Designed
How to build difficulty presets that genuinely differ: the five dimensions worth changing, why precision requirement matters most, and how presets serve accessibility.
- How Physics Can Improve Food Arcade Gameplay
Where physics genuinely improves arcade gameplay — momentum, drag, balance, projectiles and buoyancy — and where simulation adds friction without adding decisions.
- Designing Readable Hazards in Arcade Games
How to design hazards players can read at full speed: silhouette distinction, telegraph timing, redundant channels, predictable motion and spawn safety.
- How Station Layouts Affect Cooking Speed
How station layout affects cooking games: keyboard travel cost, direct tapping, parking strategy, touch target sizing and why six stations is the practical limit.
- How Serving Streaks Reward Consistency
How streak bonuses work and why they matter: creating competing incentives, breaking dominant strategies, escalation shapes and reset conditions.
Contact
Corrections are welcome and are handled under the fact-checking policy. If something on this site is wrong, telling us is genuinely useful.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Alex Morgan a real person?
Alex Morgan is a fictional editorial persona used as a consistent byline for Food Arcade. We say so plainly rather than implying a biography we cannot substantiate. The standards described on this page are real and are applied to every article.
What does the editor actually do?
Plays every game to a game-over state on all four difficulty presets before publication, writes the game pages and guides, verifies factual claims against the site's source code, and handles corrections.
Does the author have professional qualifications?
We do not claim degrees, employers, awards or professional memberships, because we will not publish credentials we cannot verify. What we describe is the standard the content is held to.
How can I contact the editor?
Through the contact page, or by emailing editorial@playfoodarcade.xyz for anything to do with articles and corrections.