Reading List (January 2020) (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first Reading List for the new year. 

Starting with this one, I’m going to reduce the number of videos and articles from 30 to 25. To be perfectly honest, I would get to making the reading list each month and check how many things I’d saved… to find about 25 pieces. Then I’d have to quickly search for a few more to pad out the numbers!

As always, quality is better than quantity and I’d rather serve up 25 things I’ve actually read and enjoyed than 30 things I can’t completely recommend. Hope that’s acceptable! As always, feel free to drop interesting videos and articles in the comments below, for others to find.

You’re the best, speak soon

Mark

Top Pick

[Watch | 14 mins] How scrolling textures gave Super Mario Galaxy 2 its charm - This is a deep, nerdy, technical look at texture implementation and yet I happily watched the whole thing. You’ll never look at water in a Mario game in the same way.

Designer Notes

[Read] How Planet Zoo narrowed 2 million animals down to 76 - This article refers to its interview with Frontier Development as a “duck-billed chatypus” and that’s reason enough to check out this problem-solving piece. “Tagged with: Tapirs”

[Watch | CC | 37 mins] The Untold Story Behind the Design of Transistor - Noclip’s first documentary of the year is on Transistor: Supergiant’s second game. Check Noclip’s back catalogue for videos on Bastion, and the early access process of launching Hades. 

[Read] VVVVVV’s source code is now public, 10 year anniversary jam happening now! - Terry Cavanagh has released the source for for his seminal gravity-flip platfomer VVVVVV. Much of the conversation online turned to his shonky, but perfectly playable programming code. Read more on that, here.

[Read] The making of Disco Elysium: How ZA/UM created one of the most original RPGs of the decade - Wondering where the wildly outlandish RPG Disco Elysium came from? Edge Magzine (via GameRadar) talks to the game’s Estonian developers. 

[Read] Here are your finalists for the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards! - If you want to put your finger on the pulse of indie games, you’ve gotta sample the IGF nominees. Top noms this year include Mutazione, Eliza, and A Short Hike. I’ve got some games to play!

Critical Hit

[Read] Can real-time strategy come back from the brink of death? - PC Gamer reckons we’re spoiled with turn-based tactics, 4X and grand strategy games, but RTSes are nowhere to be found. What gives?

[Watch | 22 mins] Star Wars: The Franchise Strikes Back - Errant Signal looks at EA’s recent collection of Star Wars games specifically the two Battlefront games and Jedi Fallen Order. The part comparing A New Hope’s genre-mixing filmmaking with Fallen Order’s mechanic mash-up is top notch.

[Read] A Melancholy Journey Through the Lost American Dream - Kentucky Route Zero has finally wrapped up with its final episode. Slate says the saga “perfectly captures quiet economic desperation”.

[Read] How the Photo Mode Became a Homogenized Feature of Commodified Games - Vice looks at the different types of photo modes in games - from diegetic in-world cameras to ghostly no-clip modes. 

[Read] Radio Ga Ga: An Exploration of Video Game Radio Stations - To me, games like Grand Theft Auto and Fallout 3 woudn’t be the same without their radio stations. EGM explores their history and use.

Culture Club

[Read] Destiny Has a Historian, And His Full-Time Job is Making Lore Videos - Patrick Klepek talks to James Byford: a man who’s made his full time job out of untangling Bungie’s complex lore. (I assumed from the title that he’s actually employed by Bungie, but that’s not the case). 

[Read] Players Are Pushing Their Bodies to the Limit Speedrunning Nintendo's Fitness Game - As soon as I saw Ring Fit Adventure (a Switch fitness game where you flex a giant ring to perform actions), I thought about the challenges of speedrunning such a game. Here are the results.

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] What Minecraft Is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games - Razbuten continues his investigate of non-gamer reactions to games with one of the biggest games in the universe. Watch his wife think she’s built a perfectly good house to fend off zombies - only to realise she forgot to make a roof. Whoops!

[Watch | 19 mins] Can I Beat The Last of Us on Grounded Without Guns or the Bow? - Most of these challenge videos are pretty annoying, but I really like Adam McDermott’s stuff and happily watched him struggle through Naughty Dog’s zombie epic with his fists.

History Corner

[Read] The man who made Wolfenstein - No, not John Carmack. The other Wolfenstein: a stealth game progenitor. 

Business Lunch

[Read] How Game Companies Use Credits To Reward, Or Punish, Developers - “Many studios have policies in place to only credit developers who were still employed by the studio when the game releases,” says Kotaku. Rockstar told Kotaku last year that it uses the game’s credits in this way because it wants employees to stick it out and “get to the finish line,” essentially punishing those who leave the studio’s culture of crunch.” Yeesh.

[Read | Long Read] The Cost Of Being A Woman Who Covers Video Games - Kotaku looks at a decade of abuse, harassment, terror, and progress. 

Art and Audio

[Watch | CC | 12 mins] My Favorite Game Animation of 2019 - Hey, someone finally has something nice to say about Anthem! That’s refreshing. 

[Watch | CC | 9 mins] The Five Fundamentals of Game Animation - Dan Root has kicked off a series looking at five fundamentals. Different to the 12 principles of animation, this five are specifically designed for the unique needs of games.

[Read] 30 little touches in The Witcher 3 that show its amazing attention to detail - Not all animation, but many of these choices show the detail made by CD Projekt’s artists.

[Watch | 11 mins] Dithering on the Sega Genesis with Composite Video - A really interesting video that shows how Sega and (ahem) Mega Drive developers used the natural defects of crappy old CRT televisions to create transparencies and shading. 

[Watch | CC | 8 mins] How Trico Was Animated - Dan Root’s back, this time looking at Fumito Ueda’s bird/dog/camel/cat/thing. Lots of detailed technical stuff in here.

Beyond Bytes

[Watch | 28 mins] "You Couldn't Make Blazing Saddles Today!" - Not what you’re expecting! Not about PC culture and whatnot (for the most part), but about the scathing satire of Mel Brooks’ movie. 

[Read] Why The Witcher Is Better Than Game of Thrones - I checked out The Witcher on Netflix simply to see how it adapted the games (I know, I know, it’s mainly based on the books). I ended up really enjoying it, and this article basically sums up why.  Though, this video about the show's wonky plotting is on the money, too.