GMTK Digest - June 2024 (Patreon)

Hello!

Welcome back to the GMTK Digest. This is my monthly catch-up session for all-things gaming. You'll get to hear about some new releases, the biggest headlines, and loads of articles and videos that I think you'll enjoy.

June marks E3-ish season, so all three platforms had a showcase of upcoming games. Let's start with those conference breakdowns...

Headlines

Nintendo Direct June 2024: Everything Announced - Nintendo gave us a look at its first Zelda-led Zelda game. The Princess can magic up tables, enemies, and more to solve problems in whatever way the player sees fit. Also Metroid Prime 4 is coming out in 2025.

Everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase - Microsoft had a lot to show. DOOM: The Dark Ages has a shotgun that shoots bones, South of Midnight takes us to the bayou, and Gears of War: E-Day is a prequel to the whole series. But how many of these developers will still have a job next year?

Everything announced at PlayStation's State of Play - There's only one game I care about here: Astro Bot! Sony's best-kept secret is getting a proper PS5 adventure. Other Sony games are coming to PC.

Streamer Dr Disrespect axed by his gaming company - The Twitch star was booted out of his own company, and dropped by sponsors, after admitting to sending inappropriate messages to a minor in 2017. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Sims competitor Life by You has been canceled - Paradox (Crusader Kings) has been hard at work on its own version of The Sims. It was almost ready for an Early Access release... before the studio cancelled the whole thing. The firm wasn't satisfied with where the game was going and decided it would take far too long to fix it.

New releases

Still Wakes the Deep

The Chinese Room (Everybody's Gone to the Rapture) returns with a psychological horror game set on an oil rig in the North Sea. Sounds like a nightmare. PC Gamer calls it "An emotive story that is equal parts terrifying and traumatic."

Leap Year

This short platformer is a good example of a "Metroidbrainia" - i.e. a game where you make progress by learning more about the world. You'll need to figure out the game's esoteric rules (such as... falling for more than two tiles will kill you) to stay alive and find the exit.

Riven

I loved the Myst remake from a few years back, so I'm really looking forward to diving into this reimagined version of the sequel, Riven, this weekend. I completely missed (myst?) this genre of esoteric first-person mystery games upon release - but now I can't get enough of them.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

It's the DLC that has reinvigorated the difficulty debate once again. It's also just very FromSoftware to release a bit of downloadable content that can't even be started unless you found and killed a completely optional boss, hidden in the depths of the base game. You also need to be at least level 120 to not get immediately turned into a red mist (myst?) when you start exploring.

Push The Cat with WASD

A shout-out to this Baba Is You-like puzzle game, which started life as a GMTK Game Jam entry. Like Baba, you'll change the letters in the level in order to rewrite the rules of the universe. A real headscratcher. Sounds good.

Also released this month: A remake of Luigi's Mansion 2 on Switch, a flashy update to Shin Megami Tensei V (Vengeance), the final Destiny 2 content, and a new Super Monkey Ball entry from the people who usually make Yakuza. I wonder if AiAi can crush a bicycle into a dude's face.

Reading List

Design

[Read] Some thoughts about Large and "Large" Games - "I believe there are at least two kinds of Large Games that have been conflated in recent years."

[Watch | CC | 29 mins] Rewards Are Weird - "Rewards are ... one of the biggest drivers of player behaviour, for better and for worse, and I thought it'd be worthwhile to look into how they work in a lot of games".

[Read] Elden Ring’s Hidetaka Miyazaki on why he may never stop making games - "As Elden Ring’s much-anticipated final expansion is released, its designer gives a glimpse into how he crafts his harsh, beautiful, rewarding gameworlds".

[Read] Friday Facts #416 - Fluids 2.0 - The developers behind Factorio often write extremely detailed blog posts on the minutiae of the game's design. Here's one about lubricant.

[Watch | 5 mins] How Checklists Hurt Games - The Gaming Brit looks at how checklists in modern games compare to the adventures of old.

Development

[Read] What It's Like Making A Big Games Show Demo For The Press - "Essentially our publisher really, really wanted stuff to show and despite the fact that our next project wasn't even in the pitch phase, let alone production..."

[Read] 'Singles, not albums': A guide to making smaller games - "Tony Gowland talks us through the benefits and best practices of developing more focused and frequent releases"

[Watch | 39 mins] Exploring the AI of Dark Souls - "Dark Souls is known for its ruthless and relentless enemy AI characters. It's time to find out how they really work, and how they continue to surprise players over a decade later."

[Watch | 10 mins] RNG on the NES - "In this episode I tackle Random Numbers on the NES and show a good way to implement RNG on 8-bit retro systems."

[Watch | 7 mins] When working on your game makes it worse (in some ways) - " I explore how game dev teams get excited about a game at the start and then lose faith in the middle."

[Read] How gamification took over the world - "It’s a thought that occurs to every video-game player at some point: What if the weird, hyper-focused state I enter when playing in virtual worlds could somehow be applied to the real one?"

[Watch | CC | 15 mins] Why Backstory and Lore Make Bad Story Trailers - "Backstory and lore make for terrible story trailers for video games because they're talking about things that happened before the game, and they don't help the player understand the game itself."

Culture

[Watch | CC | 29 mins] The Real Reason Why Video Game Adaptations Are Good Now - "An analysis of Fallout, The Last of Us, and the philosophy of adapting video games"

[Watch | CC | 58 mins] We’re Celebrating the Wrong Indie Games - "Are Stray and Dave the Diver even indie games? What's an indie game? If a tree falls in the forest and Dave the Diver gets a Best Independent Game award nomination, can Geoff Keighley hear my screams?"

Artistry

[Watch | 1 hour, 36 mins] Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music - Farya Faraji goes deep on how music is made to sound vaguely Middle-Eastern, to western ears.

[Watch | CC | 42 mins] Analyzing Every Torture Scene in Call of Duty — All 46 of Them - Jacob Geller goes deep on COD's depiction of torture. Complete with a spreadsheet.

[Read] Deep Dive: How the animation of Little Kitty, Big City rejects realism to achieve authenticity - "'Cats are an animator's dream because they're arguably the most dynamic creatures on earth.'"

[Read] A guide to PSX Mega Man X backgrounds - A huge, super nerdy breakdown into the aesthetics of Mega Man's 32bit adventures.

[Read] The Quest for Very Wide Outlines - Wide, cartoony edges around 3D models are generally seen as impossible... or are they?

[Watch | 10 mins] Animators are Actors - Doodley explains how animators have to think about acting if they want to convey strong emotions.

History

[Read] LucasArts' Loom is a family-friendly classic with lessons for today's games - "I sense a growing appreciation for Loom among people who write about games. You don't have to look far for essays recognising Loom as a succinct, often beautiful experience".

[Read] From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction - "MUDs, Usenet, and open source all play a part in 50 years of IF history."

[Watch | 14 mins] Japanese Majora's Mask is VERY Different - Region Break breaks down the many differences between the Japanese and US versions of Zelda's darkest game.

[Watch | 1 hour, 21 mins] SHODAN is back! System Shock 2 leads Children of Doom: 1999! - Errant Signal continues his year-by-year history of the FPS, with this sci-fi sequel (and a bunch of other 1999 shooters).

Beyond Games

[Watch | CC | 21 mins] Earth has Terrible Worldbuilding - "With its long evolutionary history, detailed storyline, and complex magic system, [the Earth] is amazingly full of sloppy mistakes!"