Reading List (April 2021) (Patreon)

Hey all! Bit of a leaner list this month (that's what happens when the games industry slows to a crawl, I guess!) but still got some fab stuff to read and watch. As always, recommendations in the comments, on Twitter, and on Discord are always welcome.

Designer Notes

[Read] What role does game difficulty play? - Accessibility awareness site Can I Play That? tackles difficulty and developer vision.

[Read] The Man Who Invented Majora's Mask Reflects on 30 Years at Nintendo - Takaya Imamura just left Nintendo. IGN asks him about his time there.

[Watch | CC | 25 mins] Astro's Playroom: From PS5 Tech Demo to PlayStation Nostalgia Trip - Noclip talks to the devs behind Astro's Playroom. I love the way Danny placed the interview clips into the game footage.

Critical Hit

[Read] The Exquisite Liminality Of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Kate Gray reckons SS is "about breaking through boundaries, dwelling in the spaces in-between, and the tension of transition".

[Watch | CC | 27 mins] Games That Save the Best for Last - Most games put their best foot forward - Jacob Geller's fascinated with the games that put it last.

[Watch | CC | 29 mins] The Hidden Game Within Microsoft Flight Simulator - Writing on Games goes to ground in Flight Simulator, and explores the world from a perspective that's not entirely intended.

[Read] On Hades and Fatherhood - In this piece, which discusses physical and emotional abuse, the author compares their own experiences with the story of Hades.

[Watch | CC | 20 mins] The Style of Bayonetta - Eurothug makes her case for Bayonetta as a "camp masterpiece".

[Read] Seeking alternatives to revenge narratives in games - Many games are about revenge. Malindy Hetfeld looks at games that break this cycle.

[Watch | CC | mins] Why are Water Levels so Bad? - Mark Flynn explores the dreaded water level, and asks "what makes them suck so hard?"

Code Monkeys

[Play] The Nothings Suite - A weird gallery of not-games, where the artist went into different game engines as possible and put in the minimum amount of effort to get a playable executable. Many are blank screens, Unity's is iconic, UE4 takes ages to load.

[Watch | 14 mins] I was the developer of Shantae for the Nintendo Switch - Modern Vintage Gamer made his own Game Boy emulator to port Shantae to Switch. He shares the process in this interesting video.

History Corner

[Read] How Unreal Tournament mods created a wave of successful indie studios - A look at "the mod scene that gave us everything from Killing Floor to Alien Swarm to Sanctum".

[Read] How Mortal Kombat invented the ESRB - You've probably heard this story by now. But just in case, here's a new Polygon piece on the moral panic that changed game ratings.

[Watch | 4 hours] The Oral History Of PopCap Games - Yeah, it's a beast! Contains interviews with loads of key PopCap figures and covers everything from the making of Peggle to life as an EA studio.

[Read] Meet the original streamer, who ran his own public access gaming show in 1993 - Zot the Avenger played games before an audience on "Access Tucson in Arizona almost 20 years before Twitch.tv was born."

[Read] Before Genshin Impact: A brief history of Chinese RPGs - A slice of gaming history that most of us will have absolutely no knowledge of. Pretty bonkers.

[Read] The 16 year quest to unlock R-Type Final's 101 ships - Tony Coles shares his story of fully unlocking everything in a great shmup.

How Games Get Made

[Watch | 6 mins] How does the Production Pipeline work in a AAA Game Studio? - A PlayStation game designer walks us through the phases of production in game dev.

[Watch | CC | 6 mins] Why Great Ace Attorney Couldn't Be Localised Sooner - A cute video exploring the legal troubles that led to the character "Herlock Sholmes".

[Watch | CC | 9 mins] Nintendo's ridiculous 20 year lawsuit - Why a professional spoon-bender sued the Pokemon publisher.

[Read] A year into the pandemic, game developers reflect on burnout, mental health and avoiding crunch - The Washington Post speaks to game makers about building games in Covid times.