Reading List (August 2022) (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Is it just me or is 2022 going impossibly fast? August over... already!? Ah well, time for another instalment of everyone's favourite Patreon reward: the reading list! 25 articles and videos, hand-picked by yours truly. Get reading and watching (or saving to Pocket and then instantly forget about them).

The Design of Games

[Watch | 12 mins] The Redesign That Saved Deathloop - "Before Deathloop was released to critical acclaim, early playtesters found the game so incomprehensible that it required a redesign in order to save the game from utter disaster."

[Watch | CC | 4 mins] Stop for Big Moments! - If you haven't seen: Smash Bros director Masahiro Sakurai has started a game design YouTube channel. This is one of his first, on the power of hit-stop.

The Business of Games

[Watch | 7 mins] The Dark Side Of Game Development - Thomas Brush talks about the challenging mental toll of indie game dev.

[Watch | CC | 18 mins] The Games Industry Is Failing the Working Class - "Why are so few working class people employed by the games industry?" People Make Games freelancer Sam Greer explains all.

[Read] Video Game Guide Writers Help Keep the Lights On But Get No Respect - "Plagiarism and poor pay are common in the world that produces the guides and walkthroughs that so many of us rely on every day."

[Read] Mental Health and Community Management - "Community management comes with a lot of emotional work - from being the bearer of bad news, to mitigating toxic behaviour, to being a lightning rod for frustrated players".

[Read] Why Did ‘Stray,’ a Video Game About a Cat, Become This Year’s Surprise Hit? - "Cats are undeniably cute, but that hardly explains why grandparents who haven't touched a video game in decades are interested in Stray".

The Development of Games

[Watch | CC | 20 mins] How Barks Make Videogame NPCs Look Smarter - "It doesn't matter how intelligent your video game AI is if the player doesn't understand it. One of the simplest and most effective ways of communicating intelligence is simply to have it say what it thinks aloud".

[Watch | 15 mins] I built a 3D engine in 2D - A slightly bonkers video, showing how to use maths and magic to make a 3D world in Game Maker.

[Watch | 12 mins] Simulating an Entire Car Engine - "Quite possibly the dumbest project I've ever undertaken: a physically realistic internal combustion engine simulation."

[Watch | 8 mins] How to Earn Top Ranks in Game Jams - A high-ranking GMTK Game Jammer reveals some awesome tricks for getting noticed during game jams.

[Watch | 10 mins] We Went Undercover to Win a Massive Game Jam - Jonas Tyroller (Will You Snail) sneakily snuck into the GMTK Game Jam under a pseudonym, and still managed to hit the top 100 - easily proving his game dev skills.

The Playing of Games

[Read] Thinky Puzzles Quarterly - A list of cute, free, and clever grid-based puzzle games.

[Read] Wholesome Games Are Awkwardly Comfortable Depicting Violence Against Animals - "I believe this problem stems from a larger societal view toward animals that too often disregards their well-being".

[Read] I Refused To Play "Boy Games," Until I Realized I Was Missing Out - "The recurring idea of forging connections as a means of survival found in "masculine" games is universal--even if it took me a couple decades to figure that out."

[Read] Can we really only be wowed by something once? - "Our strongest gaming memories always tend to be in the past, often far in the past. And all we've been doing ever since, really, is chasing experiences like it".

The Art of Games

[Watch | 15 mins] How Music Can Make a Game  - HeavyEyed looks at the art of video game needle drops. With spoilers for Life is Strange and Metal Gear Solid V.

[Watch | 11 mins] Cuphead: Paper vs Puppet - Dan Root looks at the vastly different animation styles use in Cuphead: the game, and Cuphead: the TV show. I contributed about 2 seconds of footage to this one!

[Watch | 17 mins] Redeeming Nero - From Devil May Cry 4 to 5, Nero got one of the biggest glow-ups in gaming. The 'Brit breaks it down.

The History of Games

[Watch | 10 mins] The Waves of Wave Race 64 - This N64 game's "amazing looking water physics still hold up all these years later". Modern Vintage Gamer breaks down how they work.

[Read] Does Braid deserve its status as the iconic breakthrough indie game? - "It has a reputation as more than just a clever puzzler with a mind-bending rewind mechanic—it was seen as a changing of the guard".

[Read] The Making Of Split/Second - "How do you 'out-Burnout' Burnout?"

Beyond Games

[Watch | 20 mins] What Makes Better Call Saul Better - Thomas Flight looks at how "Better Call Saul uses visual storytelling, to show instead of tell."

[Read] How I Used DALL·E 2 to Generate The Logo for OctoSQL - The ethics of replacing designers with AI are iffy - but this was still an interesting read.

[Watch | CC | 14 mins] Going to Comic-Con as an Introvert Filmmaker - The director of Shazam gives a behind-the-scenes tour of Comic-Con. As a fellow introvert, his honesty about needing time to rest and recover was really heart-warming. (Also his brother is the dude who made Iconoclasts? What?!)

[Watch | CC | 8 mins] Something strange you should know about color  - An interesting video about the weird way hue, value, and saturation work together - and how digital graphics editors struggle to visualise it.