Reading List May 2021 (Patreon)

It's reading list time again, folks! This is a bit more of an eclectic mix than usual — lot of social commentary, lot of gaming adjacent stuff — but this month still produced a bunch of fascinating articles and videos for you to check out! Give it a look!

Second Opinions

Whenever I finish a review, I usually end up watching a few other reviews or other related content afterwards. Here’s some of the best stuff other people have had to say about the games I’ve been talking about lately!

Gnosia Creators on the Cult Hit That’s Finally Coming to the US by Eric Van Allen: Back when Gnosia first came out, Allen did an interview with the devs discussing the game’s initial rise to popularity, its time loop narrative, and its translation over to a Western audience.

The Soundlings Sound Off on Knockout City’s Music by Abram Buehner: Knockout City has got a surprisingly baller (heh) soundtrack, and a lot of people have been chatting with the composers behind the game. My personal favorite of these interviews was the one conducted by Buehner at CBR.

Can We Make Better Tutorials for Complex Games? by Game Maker's Toolkit: This might seem like an odd one to end up in this category, but it was downright prescient having this video pop up on my feed while I was reviewing Slipways. There's so much this video is talking about that I was literally experiencing in real time while playing the game! Pay particular attention to the section about spacing tutorials out across DLC/multiple playthroughs, because Slipways is a perfect example of that method in action.

Gaming-Adjacent

While not strictly about video games, I did come across some fascinating articles on other adjacent games articles, from chess to a grand melee between comics artists.

Garry Kasparov, the Greatest Chess Player in History, Talks the Game of Kings in the Computer Age by Rich Stanton: Stanton interviewed one of the greatest living chess players about their history using computer software to help them improve at the game, as well as Kasparov’s own newest tool designed to teach people to play chess.

Comic Artists Are Waging a War, and We Joined the Frontlines by People Make Games: The minds behind the comic Kill Six Billion Demons have started a fascinating competition: a war between artists’ OCs, told entirely through their comics. It’s a sort of massive chess game, but instead of taking the other side’s pieces with predefined rules, when artists clash, they both draw out a comic of how their side would win, then everyone votes on which one becomes canon. It’s a fascinating game, and People Make Games went and participated in a round to show how it works!

Mass Effect!

I’ve been spending a fair chunk of this month diving back into Mass Effect with Legendary Edition’s release. I don’t have a particular video I’m burning to make as I play through it, but that doesn’t mean other people haven’t had things to say!

Mass Effect 2: Overlord Should Have Stayed in 2010 by M. Wesley Alvey: Alvey discussed one of Mass Effect 2’s big DLC missions, how it drops the ball in representing autistic characters, and most importantly, what its narrative has to say about their agency.

Mass Effect’s Revival Reminds Us It’s Time to Abolish the Space Police by Yussef Cole: Shepard being effectively a space cop has always been a bit of a tongue in cheek joke, but in 2021 with a very different political landscape than the one Mass Effect first came out in, there are a few ramifications with that dynamic to wrestle with.

Every Mass Effect Trilogy Character Ranked By Moral Reprehensibility by Ty Galiz-Rowe: Now for something more lighthearted: a game of Your Fave is Problematic with Galiz-Rowe, who’s here to roast your personal favorite Mass Effect character with their personal failings.

Everything Else

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 Vs. Joseph Campbell by Noah Caldwell-Gervais: Caldwell-Gervais took an epic deep dive into the KotOR series, specifically looking at how the first game so perfectly maps itself to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (which Star Wars is rather infamously adherent to), and then how the second utterly denies it. And if you’re familiar with the series, you know that’s a design decision that very much echoes the narrative. I’m a little biased as an English major, but this is one of the coolest things I’ve watched all year.

L.A. Noire Is an Insightful Game About Power, and a Product of Its Misuse by Cameron Kunzelman: Kunzelman checked out L.A. Noire on its tenth anniversary and discussed both the game’s merits as a title of noir fiction and the studio conditions that produced it. The parallels they find are poetic.

I Keep Returning to Hollow Knight by Just Write: Just Write ruminated on the highly specific reasons why Hollow Knight is the perfect game he can’t stop coming back to and on how the game exists right at the crossroads between AAA and indie titles.

Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit by Summoning Salt: Salt went deep into the multi-year quest for the perfect Super Mario speedrun, which required the community to achieve the seemingly impossible time after time...after time.

City Builders with a Twist Are My New Favorite Genre by Christopher Livingston: In what might as well be a city builder themed Games Under Five Hours, Livingston dove into all the weirdest, coolest, most interesting indie city builders coming out right now. Every single one on this list sounds fascinating!

How the Designer of VVVVVV and Dicey Dungeons Fell in Love with Roblox by Patrick Klepek: Roblox has been far bigger than people give it credit for since I was a kid, and more and more people have been writing about it. The latest look at the game was an interview Klepek did with Terry Cavanagh about the time he’s spent exploring the game and designing content for it.

Mario Kart and the Doppler Effect by Scruffy: In a fantastically edited video, Scruffy went into the mechanics of a highly specific audio system behind Mario Kart’s use of the doppler effect.

How the Role of Women Has Evolved in the Yakuza Series by Alan Wen: Yakuza has rightly picked up a reputation for being mostly about tough’n’gruff capital-d Dudes doing hypermasculine dude things like karaoke with their bros, but as Wen gets into, the series has been a little more uneven at representing its female characters.

‘A Wonderful Escape:’ The Rise of Gaming Parents — and Grandparents by Lucy Campbell: Campbell covered the recent surge of older gamers and related a dozen anecdotes about what’s been drawing them to the hobby.

I Want More of Phantom Brigade’s Simultaneous Turns by Sin Vega: Vega recently checked out the mech strategy game Phantom Brigade, diving into its place in the larger “simulturn” genre of strategy games along the way.

The Games Industry Just Talked About Outsourcing Crunch and Totally Missed the Point by Chris Bratt: Bratt highlighted a recent conference panel that tried to discuss the issue of AAA companies outsourcing their work to other hard-crunching companies in other countries and mostly ended up dancing around it instead. Overall, they weren’t impressed. It's also a follow-up to another People Make Games video (who appear elsewhere on this list, as well), and both are worth checking out.

How Silent Hill 2 Defined the Sound of Horror by HeavyEyed: HeavyEyed discussed how Silent Hill 2’s sound design stood apart from other horror games between its use of unconventional sounds as alien as the game’s horror-filled mindscapes and silence.

RollerCoaster Tycoon | Noclip Greatest Hits by Noclip: You’re probably familiar with Noclip, but you might not know that they’ve started a new series where their patrons vote for a new series every few months, and then Noclip runs through the entire history of that franchise. First up, RollerCoaster Tycoon!

Q&A: Leslee Sullivant, TikTok’s Game Development Truth-Teller by Bryant Francis: Francis got a chance to interview Sullivant, a developer who’s been making some hilariously biting critiques of the industry on her TikTok, discussing her experiences speaking out about conditions in the industry.