Reading List (June 2021) (Patreon)

Hello everyone! Hope the world is treating you right. Here's a handful of articles and and videos to check out this weekend.

Design Notes

[Watch | CC | 24 mins] Loop Hero Developers Reveal the Design Origins of their Breakthrough Hit - Noclip talks to the designers of this new indie darling.

[Read] It began as an AI-fueled dungeon game. Then it got much darker - Ars Technica looks at the unique history of AI Dungeon.

[Watch | 8 mins] Easy Modes Aren't Easy - Designing Dynamic Difficulty - Nice to see Extra Credits hop on the "accessibility doesn't destroy artistic vision" train. Choo choo!

[Read] Design Deep Dive: Valheim - Game designer Jeff Vogel breaks down the intentionally frustrating design of Valheim.

[Watch | CC | 13 mins] How Resident Evil Village's Scariest Level Works - Writing on Games breaks down the memorable escape room section from Resi 8.

Critical Hit

[Read] The Death of Adventure Games that Never Was - Is the adventure game really dead, or should this pithy phrase be binned?

[Watch | 16 mins] A Love Letter to Level Editors - From Portal 2 to LittleBigPlanet, what's the appeal of games that let you make new levels?

[Read] Feeding The Chimera - Unwinnable touches on the madlibs design of Biomutant

[Read] SimCities and SimCrises - The transcript of a talk given at a conference for city planners and architects, about how "games can facilitate more effective and inclusive city-making".

[Watch | CC | 21 mins] The Game That Won’t Let You See All Of It - Jacob Geller borrows the mechanic of Before Your Eyes, to talk about Before Your Eyes.

Culture Club

[Watch | CC | 40 mins] E3 2021 (basically) happened - If you missed E3 this year (because, for example, you were running a game jam), this 40 minute run down will tell you pretty much everything that happened.

[Read] Making Friends With the Grim Reaper - Connie Ricketts talks about using The Sims to process her grief.

Code Monkeys

[Read] Unreal Engine 5: Nanite: What is it, and why does it matter? - If you're curious about how UE5 works, fellow Patron Guitar Kid's got you covered.

[Watch | CC | 24 mins] How Forza's Drivatar Actually Works - Forza's got one of the only true uses of machine learning in video games. AI and Games explains what's going on under the bonnet.

History Corner

[Read] Metroid’s Justin Bailey Is A Real Person; Here’s Why He Hasn’t Spoken Up - It's one of gaming's most famous passwords. So just who is Justin Bailey?

[Read] Sonic the Hedgehog: 'I'd never seen anything like it in a video game' - The Beeb talks to Tom Kalinske, who helped come up with a platformer mascot to overthrow Mario.

[Read] Raw Pixels - A look at how old TVs changed the way retro games look (and why it's so hard to emulate the true experience).

Indie Nation

[Read] Parasocial Nintendo Complex: 10 Years of Game Dev - Even the Ocean designer Melos Han-Tani reflects on a decade of game development.

[Read] 7 Tips for Gently Giving Game Jam Feedback - This was shared in the game jam bit of the GMTK Discord, but it's good advice in general. How to provide constructive criticism.

[Read] Meet the game makers determined to stop development from ruining lives - "The devs behind The Long Dark, Minit, John Wick Hex, and more, talk about tackling crunch and overwork."

Art and Audio

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] Follow through & overlapping action - New Frame Plus continues its 12 Principles of Animation series, with a look at resolving actions without a weird, dead stop.

[Watch | 8 mins] The most overused game graphic you never noticed - An introduction to the world of "texture archeology": the art of finding the source material for early 3D gaming's textures.

[Watch | CC | 9 mins] Mario Kart and the Doppler Effect - A beautifully produced video on a cool audio effect.

Beyond Bytes

[Watch | 54 mins] Why Is It So Hard To End A Trilogy - The third part of a movie trilogy is often awful - Patrick H Willems explains (while wrapping up his own overarching YouTube narrative).

[Watch | 12 mins] Comic Artists Are Waging a War, and We Joined the Frontlines - People Make Games explores "War for Rayuba," one of the largest Original Character Tournaments in the world.

[Watch | CC | 21 mins] Why Mass Effect Should Be the Next Game of Thrones - Lessons from the Screenplay makes the argument for why Mass Effect shouldn't be a movie - it should be an epic HBO-level series.