Reading List (April 2024) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons!

April has been a month for travel, recovery, and working on a ridiculous list with 100 games. It's taking a little longer than expected so thanks for your patience!

Until then, articles, videos, and podcasts! Enjoy!

Design

[Read] How Super Mario Bros. Wonder's devs narrowed down 2000 ideas for its effects - "Can't you make this so instead of going to another area, the environment itself changes?"

[Watch | 14 mins] The Economics of Monster Encounters - SOMA developer Thomas Grip explains "how the gameplay economics can drive games away from their intended themes.

[Watch | 11 mins] Why "Perfect" Games Are Boring - "People have been complaining about the imperfections and inefficiencies of Dragon's Dogma 2. I think the way we talk about games as a medium is weird."

[Watch | 11 mins] The Power of asking "Why?" - I've been enjoying watching the channel Wintergarten, which is about a man who is going mad by building a marble-based music machine. It's not game design, but his new design-thinking approach is relevant.

Development

[Watch | CC | 1 hr, 20 mins] The Making of Pentiment - Noclip travels "to Obsidian Entertainment to talk to the small team behind this award winning historical role-playing game.

[Read] Behind the Code: Designing Raz's Jump - Double Fine goes DEEP on the code that drives Raz's jump in Psychonauts 2.

[Watch | CC | 29 mins] How Doki Doki Literature Club! Was Made and Why its Release Caused Misery - “Discover more about its creator Dan Salvato and how he went from being a professional Super Smash Bros. Melee Link player to being a public face of an enormously popular brand overnight”.

Business

[Watch | CC | 10 mins] If AAA is No Longer Profitable... Make Smaller Games - "The gaming industry has experienced several months year of studio layoffs, consolidation, and closures which has begged the natural question of... why?"

[Read] What the game industry must do to prevent occupational burnout - "Game industry working conditions are improving, but occupational burnout still runs amok. Studios and workers have the power to slow it down."

[Read] "Guess I'll just piss on the floor": Baldur's Gate 3's top TikTok tips - "Larian creative content manager Ben Maltz-Jones on running your TikTok like a fan account and other takeaways for the social media platform".

[Read] That Tricky Platformer About Climbing Mt. Anxiety But That's Not The Name Of The Mountain - "At the heart of every aspect of game development sits a very simple truth: any truly successful game can be described in one or two sentences."

Culture

[Read] The race to finish 80,000 levels of Super Mario Maker - "A small team of skilled players set themselves a near-impossible task: to complete every level of Super Mario Maker before Nintendo shut its servers. Did they manage it?"

[Listen] Jack Thompson, Former lawyer, "anti-video-game activist." - The My Perfect Console podcast welcomes a surprising guest - a lawyer who dedicated his career to fighting against games. It's a fascinating chat.

[Watch | 2 hours] The Bizarre World of Fake Video Games - "A deep dive into the strange world of fake video games, from demakes to gaming creepy pastas, and much more."

[Watch | 17 mins] Fallout TV Show - Fallout creator Tim Cain talks about attending the TV show's premiere. He's also got a review but I haven't finished the series yet so am avoiding spoilers!

[Read] Mario meets Pareto - What is the definitively best character and kart combination in Mario Kart? This fancy HTML 5 website uses maths to find the true answer.

Critique

[Read] Abandon All Delusions Of Control - "Dragon's Dogma 2 is not readily "solvable" and you can't min-max it. You will make mistakes. You will be scraped and bruised and scarred."

[Read] Ueda, Buddha & Me - "Many shouldn’t play this game. You spend a dozen hours issuing commands to a giant bird-dog-cat thing who won’t listen to you."

[Watch | CC | 10 mins] The Joy of Video Making in Content Warning - "I take a quick look at Landfall's latest Content Warning, and how its quirky in-game video camera taps into the lost art of Machinima."

[Read] ‘Dragon’s Dogma 2’ is a Game Of The Year contender – and it’s all thanks to grabbing - "When you realise [the grab mechanic] can be used to throw just about anything, living or inanimate, a whole new world opens up."

Artistry

[Watch | CC | 13 mins] What Are Animation Smears REALLY For? - Doodly breaks down the different ways that smears are used in animation - in animation and in games.

[Watch | 59 mins] When The Faithful Adaptation Is Actually Worse - Patrick H. Willems compares the two Hollywood adaptations of Super Mario Bros.

[Read] How Years of Grieving Led Abubakar Salim to Honor His Father By Making a Video Game - Tales of Kenzera: ZAU director Abubakar Salim explains how grief contributed to game dev.

[Read] The poignant story behind Monument Valley 2’s music - "Todd Baker composed the soundtrack for the indie puzzler as he was living through the loss of his mother. On the series’ 10th anniversary, he reflects on the experience".

History

[Read] RollerCoaster Tycoon at 25 - Real-world rollercoaster designers and the game’s creator, Chris Sawyer, reflect on the impact of the primitive-looking theme park sim that became a late 90s icon”.

[Read] Consolevania turns 20: Robert Florence and Ryan Macleod on making comedy out of video games - I loved Consolevania growing up. This grotty Glaswegian comedy series did gaming YouTube before YouTube existed. Here's an interview with its creators.

[Watch | 15 mins] Why the limitations of the N64 and PS1 mattered - Modern Vintage Gamer looks at the technical limitations that drove early 3D graphics, and how the best developers worked within those rules to make incredible games.

Beyond Games

[Watch | 8 mins] How Shōgun Makes Translation Exciting - Nerdwriter talks about how interpretation is used as a storytelling device in the (fantastic) TV series Shōgun.

[Watch | CC | 18 mins] What wheelbarrows can teach us about world history - "I use the example of the wheelbarrow to talk about some general points about the history of technology".

[Read] They're Looting The Internet - "This is the state of the modern internet — ultra-profitable platforms outright abdicating any responsibility toward the customer".