Reading List (July 2023) (Patreon)

Hey! This has been a busy month for me. Most of my time was spent with the game jam. But I also popped down to Brighton for a few days to check out Develop. Still - I found plenty of time to read articles and watch videos about game design, development, and culture. Here's the best stuff I saw in July.

The Design of Games

[Watch | 15 mins] Alan Wake 2 And The 13 Year Journey To Make It - "Remedy’s Sam Lake joins us to discuss the long and winding road to making Alan Wake 2, the change in genre, and the introduction of a brand new co-protagonist."

[Read] What Makes Games Easy to Learn And Hard to Master - Marcin Jóźwik (SUPERHOT) tries to unpack this oft-repeated bit of game design wisdom.

[Read] Tears of the Kingdom shows that without change, accessibility in Nintendo games will remain accidental - "All of which paints a remarkably inaccessible picture in 2023, one made all the more ironic by a game that centres on a main character experiencing disability."

[Watch | CC | 30 mins] The Making of Vampire Survivors - Noclip uses a puppet to portray the reclusive developer Luca Galante.

[Watch | 23 mins] Missing: Power Weapons - "A staple of the 90s FPS, a touchstone to gaming's adolescence, and yet when it went missing... nobody seemed to even notice. Or was it that they simply didn't care?"

[Watch | CC | 1 hour, 27 mins] The Making of Immortality - "We talk to the cast of IMMORTALITY about the process of filming a video game."

The Business of Games

[Read | Long Read] How Roblox Grows: From Virtual Playground to Global Empire - A bit LinkedIn-y, but still an interesting deep dive into this weird, controversial metaversal megagame.

[Read] Pitch Template - "Pitching is one of those things that only gets easier as you do it, but before you do it it's basically one big opaque box of mysteries."

[Watch | CC | 9 mins] The Problem with Nintendo Developer Interviews - "The questions being asked in the company's official Ask the Developer interviews are often more descriptions of gameplay features rather than actual questions about development."

The Development of Games

[Watch | 8 mins] 24 Game Developers Make a Game - "This weekend me and 23 other developers got together to create a game in only 48 hours for the annual GMTK game jam."

[Watch | 4 mins] Why video game snow is so hard to get right - Stylised Station looks at displacement maps and tessellation and other complex stuff I won't pretend to grasp.

[Watch | 15 mins] The Secret of Into the Breach's AI - "Sometimes you just don't need super flashy AI in your game. You just need something that is 'good enough' for what your game is trying to do."

[Watch | CC | 15 mins] 9 ways to actually get game dev done on time - Steve Lee (Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite) shares 9 tips for keeping to a game dev schedule.

[Watch | 22 mins] Dear Game Developers, Stop Messing This Up! - "DeltaTime. This video is all about that mysterious variable that oh so many game developers seem to struggle with."

The Playing of Games

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] BABBDI: The Weirdest Game You Must Play - "Join me as I discuss this bizarre, concrete estate in all its brutalist and "liminal space" glory."

[Read] How Covid changed video game streaming forever - "In 2020, people of all ages and backgrounds were suddenly stuck at home, with many turning to streaming platforms to connect with their peers – transforming toxic spaces into inclusive environments".

[Watch | CC | 7 mins] This Video Game Belongs in a Museum - "What’s that one video game you’ve always wanted to play, but couldn’t? For me it was Multibowl: a competitive video game mixtape, curated by Bennett Foddy."

[Watch | CC | 19 mins] Descending Through ZK Map - "This is a video about the "anti-climbing" game, [fr0g] clan official server 24/7 zk map (for stranger). It's an odd game about going down that I find incredibly endearing."

[Read] The Tomb Raider reboot trilogy sent Crystal Dynamics on a quest to rediscover Lara Croft - "Lara's narrative arc was tough and put her through the ringer but travelling along with her, we experienced her growth, and came to understand the origins of her grit and her determination to survive."

The Art of Games

[Watch | CC | 34 mins] Rating every Smash Bros. series symbol - From the S-Tier Mushroom to the F-Tier "DK". Shoulda been a banana!

[Read] The best cities in video games - "So shut your curtains and block out the world as we take a tour through the best cities in video games. "

[Watch | Music Only | 14 mins] Shop Fusion Collab - A bonkers, brain-busting musical mash-up of different games, soundtracks, visual styles, and shops.

[Watch | CC | 22 mins] How Games Make Villains Sound Evil - "Music is a powerful tool that can be used to get people to feel a certain way, and I think some of the best examples of it being implemented effectively can be seen with villain themes."

[Watch | CC | 14 mins] Link has more animations than you think - "How many animations do you think Link needs [in TOTK] just to run around? Let's see if we can figure it out."

[Watch | CC | 26 mins] The Art of Travelling Far Away: Road Trip Video Games - "We're going on a tour to explore the connection between video games and classic American road trip narratives"

The History of Games

[Read] The untold history of Barbie Fashion Designer - "Barbie Fashion Designer was one of the first commercially successful video games marketed specifically to little girls"

[Read] A Chronology of First CD-ROM Games - "I've created a timeline of CD-ROM firsts, covering a wide variety of categories across multiple platforms and multiple years".

[Read] How romhacker infidelity ported the NES Zelda to the Super Nintendo - "Using emulator tools, infidelity rebuilt Zelda without its flickering sprites and with new high quality audio support and a laundry list of QoL fixes."

Beyond Games

[Watch | 11 mins] When a movie uses the subjective perspective - "Today we'll look at the way Christopher Nolan and other filmmakers use a subjective camera and other inventive techniques to put their audience into the heads of their protagonist.

[Watch | CC | 11 mins] How Margot Robbie Became Barbie - "Margot breaks down her entire process for the 'Barbie' movie, from the mental preparation for the role, to the fabulous pink wardrobe and so much more".

[Watch | CC | 10 mins] Why is North up? - "Has north always been up? What used to be up before north was up? Does it matter if a direction other than north is up?"