Reading List (December 2022) (Patreon)

Merry Christmas! My gift to you this year... a bunch of awesome articles and videos on all things gaming. Hope you have a wonderful Xmas break, if you celebrate that sort of thing - and I'll be back soon with a big run-down of the year's stats and data.

The Design of Games

[Read] The art of the start: how the best games grab us immediately - "The best kind, I think, are able to successfully capture and distill the experience of the game as a whole."

[Watch | CC | 5 mins] The Fiend's Cauldron - Masahiro Sakurai breaks down the design of this Kid Icarus mechanic, where you can place a wager on how tough the game should be.

[Read] Limited Inventory and Staggered Saves - "This situation could be corrected if you returned to an earlier save and used your resources differently. So, do you save the game?"

[Watch | CC | 14 mins] Who Got Me Invested in God of War Ragnarök - Kyle Bosman spotted a weird role in Ragnarök's credits: player investment design. What the heck do they do?

The Development of Games

[Watch | 8 mins] Our Next Big Indie Game - Jonas (Will You Snail) and Paul (The Ramp) are working on a new game - this fast-paced, interesting dev log series already has three episodes to enjoy.

[Watch | CC | 6 mins] Eight Hit Stop Techniques - "I've talked about hit stop before, but this time I'll be sharing specific details of the hit stop techniques used in Smash Bros. Ultimate."

[Watch | 8 mins] Improve your Platformer’s Jump - "We'll talk about the tips and tricks you can use to improve your jump and unity 2D movement, such as coyote time, double jumps, and variable jump height."

[Watch | CC | 35 mins] Why Did Link's Cel Shading Disappear? - There's a weird spot in BOTW, where Link is no longer cel shaded. Explaining this glitch leads to an interesting journey through modern computer graphics.

The Playing of Games

[Read] Arkham City: On Place and Control - "As Batman battles through the night, the shifting political landscape of Arkham City inscribes itself across the bodies of its inmates, just as much as across the physical environment."

[Watch | CC | 23 mins] Should We Compare Games To Each Other? - "One of the primary ways we talk about games is by comparing them to other titles--sometimes ones that are similar and sometimes ones that aren't."

[Read] The endgame of city building simulations - City builders are good at cities - but what about the people who live inside them?

[Read] I didn’t get my son’s favourite video game – but it got me - "Since then, he has harangued me about trying Outer Wilds, which he claims is the most profound gameplaying experience of his life."

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] The Existential Nightmare of Fortnite - "Recently I watched something that truly reminded me of how I'm getting older; of how quickly time is marching forward, and how I'm losing touch with a medium I love".

[Read] Graphical Settings Are The Bane Of My Existence Thanks To OCD - "For people like me with ADHD and OCD, having too many options to choose from can soon become a problem. It’s why I seldom touch PC gaming outside small indies and visual novels".

The Art of Games

[Read] Pentiment’s defining detail is its fonts - "Pentiment is not a voiced video game, so its fonts take the place of voices."

[Watch | 14 mins] Exploring Worlds - What Death's Door Can Learn From Hollow Knight - "A case study examining the environmental storytelling & creature lore of The Mantis Village in Hollow Knight & The Overgrown Ruins in Death’s Door."

[Watch | CC | 31 mins] Old 3D Pokémon Games Hit Harder - By comparing the new Pokemon game on Switch, with the older 3D titles on GameCube, Daryl's got a theory for why those old games felt better.

[Read] Moving Kratos: A deep dive into God of War Ragnarök's animation - Polygon talks to Santa Monica's animation director, Bruno Velazquez.

[Watch | CC | 11 mins] Animating Arms - "Even if you've never animated in your life, how do you convey personality and emotion while overcoming technical issues and body mechanics?"

The History of Games

[Read] The birth pangs of the Grand Theft Auto franchise - "Its creators, Dundee-based DMA Design, were far from confident about GTA's prospects as they struggled with creative and technical problems during its development in the 1990s."

Beyond Games

[Watch | CC | 22 mins] Marvel's Defenders of The Status Quo - "Superheroes usually manage to roll back the various apocalypses but rarely use their powers to build a better world."