Reading List (April 2020 - Part 2) (Patreon)

Hello, me again! Hope you're all okay, staying sane, and staying healthy. I've been obsessed with Ring Fit Adventure which has been a great way to get exercise while trapped in doors. 

Anyhoo, as promised here's another 25 articles and videos to sink your teeth into. Speak soon!

Top Pick

[Watch | CC | 20 mins] The Extraordinary Ordinary - Exploring Life Simulators - A tremendous video about the design of life sims - from Nintendogs to Persona to a Japanese summer holiday sim I've never heard of, but looks positively delightful. 

Designer Notes

[Watch | 11 mins] The Successful Game Developers Secrets! - I was invited to provide some tips to new game developers for this video. Also features other people who actually are game developers and therefore know what they're talking about.

[Watch | CC | 30 mins] The Outer Worlds: From Concept to Creation - Noclip has a huge documentary series on Obsidian's latest New Vegas-esque RPG. 

[Read] The best practices and design principles of VR development - We're many years into VR game development now, so devs have plenty of design tricks to share.

[Read] Developers of your favourite games share what they're most proud of making - A wholesome article where PC devs look back on the favourite moments of their careers.

[Watch | 1 hour] Reading the Rules of Baba Is You - Arvi Teikari explains how Baba is You works, from a technical level.

Critical Hit

[Watch | CC | 28 mins] The Story of Facade: The AI-Powered Interactive Drama - Tommy Thompson breaks down the tech of one of gaming's most audacious AI experiments: an interactive argument.

[Watch | CC | 13 mins] Getting Chased by an Unstoppable Monster: A Review - Nemesis. Mr X. The Xenomorph. Polygon ranks these invincible beasts, and others.

[Read] Why the 'Doom Eternal' Marauder Sucks So Bad - Doc Burford lays out an argument for why Eternal's most contentious monster is bad design. But! Over on Twitter, Taffer King makes a strong argument for why id software shouldn't change a thing.

[Watch | CC | 11 mins] How Dreams Can Inspire Empathy - Bumbling through the tutorial for Media Molecule's ambitious game development suit has opened Hamish Black's eyes on the challenges of making games.

[Watch | 13 mins] The Contradicting Design of Doom Eternal - Sorry, didn't mean to have another Eternal criticism on here. But this video points out a really simple, but important way that Eternal fails player expectations. P.S. I really like DOOM Eternal for the most part!

Culture Club

[Watch | 8 mins] Can You Play A Game of Tetris... Forever? - Austin looks at the patterns that let you play Tetris forever, provided you have infinite stamina and instantaneous reflexes. I'll get right on that, then. 

[Watch | 34 mins] The Bizarre Modern Reality of Sonic the Hedgehog - From cheeky console mascot to furry-favoured thirst target. What the heck is Sonic in 2020? Let's find out. 

[Read] One Man’s Two-Year Quest Not to Finish Final Fantasy VII - "In 2012, David Curry, a thirty-four-year-old cashier from Southern California, came across a post on an online forum by someone who went by the handle Dick Tree". Okay, good start.

[Read] Obsidian survival game promises ‘arachnophobia mode’ for players who hate spiders - Here's one accessibility options we can all get behind.

History Corner

[Watch | 13 mins] The Real-Life Kirby who Defended Donkey Kong in Court - Kirby is named, in part, after a lawyer who got Nintendo off the hook for copying King Kong.

[Read] The making of TIE Fighter: How being the bad guys changed Star Wars forever - "Without TIE Fighter, it's hard to imagine later games that pushed the boundaries of Star Wars, like Knights of the Old Republic 2, would have ever been made," says PC Gamer.

[Play] Auto Museum 64 - I love the idea of this! It's a playable museum featuring polygonal cars ripped out of Nintendo 64 games! Works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[Read | Long Read] Metal Gear Solid 2 Retrospective: Be Careful What You Wish For - A huge article about Kojima's sequel about sequels, Sons of Liberty. 

Business Lunch

[Read] How Blizzard, Ubisoft, and other studios went remote in the time of COVID-19 - How do you make a game from home? Find out

[Read] Who owns your game? - When you make a game at university, it can create a complicate ownership problem. Games Industry untangles the issue.

[Watch | CC | 14 mins] Croteam: Croatia's Game Dev Pioneers - Cloth Map travels to Croatia to meet the people behind Serious Sam and The Talos Principle.

[Watch | 15 mins] Did Nicalis Steal Cave Story? - It's an oft-repeated rumour. This video goes in-depth. 

Art and Audio

[Visit] Interface In Game - An interesting website that archives hundreds of screenshots of different interface ideas seen in video games.

[Watch | CC | 23 mins] FF7 vs FF7 Remake: Animation Comparison - Dan Floyd looks at just one cutscene in Final Fantasy 7 (the intro) to see what 20-odd years of improvements in video game animations look like.

[Watch | 12 mins] The clever science behind Luigi's Mansion - Thomas looks at some art and audio tricks that add some horror flavour to Nintendo's comical ghost-busting games.

Beyond Bytes

[Watch | CC | 30 mins] The Windows Me Experience: Was It THAT Bad? - There's something very cozy about watching Clint just futz about with a super old version of Windows. Like slipping into a warm bath.

[Watch | CC | 11 mins] This Video Has 6,550,664 Views - Tom Scott's little script trick has certainly racked up lots of views, but the video itself is a great chat about the rise and fall of Web 2.0's promises.

[Watch | 15 mins] 5 Bizarre Gameshows For You To Binge In Self-Isolation - A delight, as always, from Quinns.