Reading List (January 2022) (Patreon)

And there we go! We're now all caught up from my brief bout with covid. Enjoy yet another reading list with some of the best games crit from around the internet. In particular, I know a fair few of you had a lot to say about Inscryption's later acts in the comments yesterday, so be sure to gobble up the second opinions that dive deeper into the game's later sections! But there's plenty more to enjoy, from discussions of vulnerability in games to banality and beyond.

Second Opinions

Opus: Echo of Starsong: The Kotaku Review by Sisi Jiang: Jiang came away from Opus last year deeply impressed by its story and heralded the game as one of 2021’s best releases.

Inscryption: Winning Isn’t Everything by Atma Phoenix and Andrew Sherman: I said there’d be a few Inscryption articles talking about the game’s broader themes, and here they are! Phoenix and Sherman discussed the overarching themes of the game’s narrative, how its various characters’ philosophies clash with each other, and how the game ultimately comments on the style of each “dungeon master” you encounter throughout the game. Obviously gets into full spoilers on the entirety of the game.

How Videogames Make The Ultimate Sacrifice by Adam Millard: Millard used Inscryption as a jumping off point to discuss how different games force players to make sacrifices, why it usually doesn’t work, and how some games manage to thread the needle and actually pull it off.

Inscryption Interview: Developer Daniel Mullins on Bringing New Life to 3D Retro Horror Games by Nicola Jean Kapron: Kapron interviewed Mullins on almost every aspect of the game, talking a lot about the various inspirations behind different artistic decisions Mullins made. Full spoilers ahead!

Stop Boasting About the Length of Your Game by Fraser Brown: Brown touched on a topic near and dear to First Five: please, for the love of god, game developers, stop acting like a multi-hundred hour game is a good thing.

Androids, Fires, and Spooky Subway Trains - Blips 9 by Errant Signal: Errant Signal did a wrapup analysis of several tiny indie games, including Silicon Dreams!

Making the Player Vulnerable

The standard video game is a power fantasy through and through, but two videos this month made some philosophical points about games that do the opposite and why they work.

Nature’s Harsh Truths in Outer Wilds and Rain World by Pixel a Day: Pixel a Day looked at two incredibly different games and discovered that both run on the same fundamental truth: nature exists with or without you and is a force both overwhelming and uncaring, but if you go with the flow instead of struggling, you can slowly master it.

Breaking the Barrier of Safety by The Checkpoints Show: TCS took a look at how some first person games immerse a player by beating the crap out of them to make them feel more mortal than your average FPS action hero.

Empty Spaces in Time

In a funny coincidence, there were two videos that talked specifically about dead space in games. The moments when there’s just nothing going on. Normally, these moments are largely anathema to me, but both videos make cases for the paradoxical appeal of such quiet, dull moments.

The Most Important Place in Gaming | Psych of Play by Daryl Talks Games: DTG focused on a very specific moment in games: the corpse run. The (often repeated) little space of downtime after failure as you go running back for a rematch with whatever challenge beat you down. Is it a zen moment of reflection, or an agonizingly long wait to get back to the good stuff? DTG finds merit in both views!

World of Warcraft and the Pleasure of Mundanity by Afterthoughts: Afterthoughts talked about the quiet moments in World of Warcraft — grinding, waiting for airships, travel — long periods of just nothing happening in the game, all in an ode to mundanity.

Everything Else

VR is NOT the Future of Video Games by Graythorn: Graythorn went on an incredibly entertaining journey discussing the weaknesses of VR and how it probably won’t replace normal games as we know them, but be its own fun thing.

Job Job: The Pieces Wouldn’t Fit by Kam Konek: Konek talked about how one of the latest Jackbox games, Job Job, successfully satirizes real world work culture — and they did it using Job Job’s rules, crafting the entire piece entirely out of words from past Uppercut articles.

The Universe is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die by HeavyEyed: HeavyEyed went on a deep dive into Outer Wilds’ music, discussing the ost’s genre roots and how a sparser soundtrack can create more impactful moments.

Time Loops Are a Weird Genre for an Anxious Time by Jenna Stoeber: Stoeber discussed the recent proliferation of time loop stories, using Hamlet-like Elsinore as her central pillar as she discusses genre themes and modern day anxieties alike.

Foxhole Players Are Striking Over ‘Increased Stress and Responsibility’ by Luke Plunkett: In an absolutely fascinating case of art mirroring life, Plunkett followed an evolving situation in the game Foxhole, which not only depicts the frontline of WWII, but also the logistical side of the war. And earlier this month, the entire war ground to a halt as those logistics players revolted en masse.

We Tracked Down the People Who Are Actually Buying Ubisoft’s NFTs by Patrick Klepek: Klepek interviewed a number of the people who grabbed Ubisoft’s NFTs about what motivated their purchases in a quest to answer just who the heck these things are for.

Project Zombid’s Chris Simpson Talks About a Decade of Zomboid, and Build 41 by Andy Brown: Brown talked to the creators of Project Zomboid about the game’s long development through early access, including the multi-year road to releasing the game’s current Build 41 update that suddenly launched the game to the top of the Steam charts.

How to Make a 19 Minute Video Game Medley in Less Than a Month by Jules Conroy: In 2019, Conroy (more broadly known as FamilyJules) did a giant metal medley going through every year of video game history. Much more recently, he compiled a bunch of documentary footage of himself working through the entire project in a month.

What Makes A Good Colossal Boss? By Design Doc: Design Doc went across genres to look at dang near every giant boss fight out there, talking about what worked in some games and didn’t in others.

Being Willfully Bad at Games by Ruth Cassidy: Cassidy talked about the overriding gaming mentality of ‘getting good’ at a game and how they’ve rejected it.

Hotline Miami Creators Break Down its Design & Legacy by Noclip: Noclip did their usual thing and interviewed the duo behind Hotline Miami about every aspect of both games from music to difficulty.

Gamers Don’t Want NFTs by Gita Jackson: What’s old is new again — Jackson details the many ways in which the current “NFT games” craze mirrors older forms of gaming microtransactions.

How Vampire Survivors Went From Obscurity to 27,000 People Playing at Once by Patrick Klepek: Klepek talked to the creator of recent hit Vampire Survivors about how the game went from 10 players to over 10,000 in a matter of weeks.