Reading List (June 2023) (Patreon)

Hello! This month I've been bouncing around Europe, playing more Zelda than is healthy (finally finished it!), making a big ol' video about The Sims (out soon), and reading and watching tonnes of game design criticism. Here's the best stuff I saw this month...

The Design of Games

[Read] Design review of Redfall by Arkane Studios Austin - "Playing a 75% finished game is more useful than playing a 100% finished game. You get to see more of the big broad strokes before they got quite resolved, the intent vs. the execution."

[Watch | CC | 11 mins] Tears of the Kingdom's new thing is actually pretty old - "This style of play dates back to original immersive sims like Prey and Thief, and the work of legendary developer Warren Spector."

[Watch | 15 mins] So, Does Tears of the Kingdom Fix the Weapon Breakage Issue? - "Not everyone liked Breath of the Wild's breakable weapons, and Tears of the Kingdom has not done away with the concept. But does the new "fuse" mechanic help alleviate the issue?"

[Read] The Creators of Disney’s New Platformer Explain the Hard Lessons of Making Games for Kids - "Too often, the developers of Disney Illusion Island would be “making game design solutions for game designers, not for players” and having to start over."

The Business of Games

[Read] Automation Isn't Coming To Save Us (Time) - "Even if we accept that automation, in principle, saves us time, we don't actually know if it works that way in practice."

[Read] Video game pitch decks: how you get them 'right'! - "Maybe you need funding to complete your game, or you don’t have any time or expertise (or money) to do comprehensive marketing, [or] negotiate with platforms".

[Watch | CC | 20 mins] The Unreal level I made to work on Bioshock Infinite - Level designer Steve Lee shows off his very-impressive pitch level for getting a job at Irrational.

[Watch | CC | 2 hours, 30 mins] Investigation: Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium? - "Following the explosive allegations that Disco Elysium has been stolen from its original creators, People Make Games uncovers a far more nuanced story than the one you may have heard so far."

The Playing of Games

[Watch | CC | mins] Games you can never play again. - The Cursed Judge looks at games you can't return to - from dead MMOs to delisted games to indie games that play with permanence.

[Read] The ‘JRPG’ label has always been othering - "Japanese RPGs were effectively shuttled into their own category, no longer just an RPG by conventional definitions. This was, allegedly, done for more categorical purposes, but still contributed to the subsequent “othering” of Japanese games".

[Read] The 12 best video games of 2023 (so far) - "Indie darlings, big-budget remakes, and, of course, Zelda all dot our list of the best games of the first half of the year."

[Watch | CC | 10 mins] Why Tears of the Kingdom is DEEPER Than You Think - "I discuss why The Depths can feel so restrictive at first—rendering the act of exploring and conquering the abyss all the more meaningful."

The Art of Games

[Read] I Know This Place: How Tears of the Kingdom Changes Everything About the Zelda Series - "The world has not returned to the status quo. The events of Breath of the Wild changed Hyrule irrevocably, along with everyone who lived in it, and there’s no going back."

[Watch | CC | 18 mins] The Animation of Sonic Frontiers - "'How does the animation in Sonic Frontiers compare to previous games in the series', he wondered, oblivious to the consequences."

[Read] No more ‘I took an arrow to the knee’: could AI write super-intelligent video game characters? - "A new experimental game demo full of sophisticated AI characters has some game writers worried about their jobs. Is AI really going to improve games, or the games industry?"

The History of Games

[Watch | 1 hour, 14 mins] Children of Doom 1998: Half-Life - Errant Signal continues his "one FPS a year" project, though this time also dedicates plenty of time to Unreal, SiN, and many more.

[Watch | CC | 37 mins] The Story of the First Video Game Cartridge - "Learn the story behind the first programmable home console - the Fairchild Channel F - and the team behind it."

[Watch | 21 mins] Why I Left Fallout 2 - Tim Cain is the latest game dev to start their own YouTube channel. It's full of stuff on Fallout, The Outer Worlds, and other games, so well worth a subscribe. This is my favourite video thus far.

[Watch | 16 mins] Sheng Long: The True Story Of Street Fighter’s Biggest Myth - "Ever since Street Fighter 2’s 1991 arcade debut, fans have passed around rumors of Sheng Long, a super secret character that could only be unlocked by playing the game at the highest skill level."

[Read | Long Read] System Shock: The oral history of a forward-thinking PC classic - "Countless studios have used Citadel Station as a star to steer by, measuring their own work against System Shock’s commitment to simulation, dense atmosphere, and method-ish refusal to break character."

Beyond Games

[Watch | 7 mins] Will AI Change Our Memories? - Nerdwriter considers what Photoshop's Generative Fill and Google's Magic Editor mean for photography.

[Read] AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born - "Generative AI models are changing the economy of the web, making it cheaper to generate lower-quality content. We’re just beginning to see the effects of these changes."

[Watch | CC | 10 mins] How Wes Anderson uses miniatures - "We spoke to Simon Weisse, prop maker and model marker for some of Wes Anderson’s recent projects, like The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City."

[Watch | No Voice | 15 mins] Behind the Scenes - Animating 1 Frame in Real Time - "I thought it would be cool to show you the actual process of animating a single frame [of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget] in real time"

[Watch | 14 mins] When your band finally goes mainstream - "Discover the captivating rise and near-destruction of Kings of Leon in their quest for global fame"