Reading List (April 2017) (Patreon)

Thank you for your support this month. Here's what I've been reading and watching: 30 articles and videos that I can recommend. Grab a drink and settle in for essays, reviews, interviews, and analysis.

[Video | CC] Analysis: Taunting and Mind Games - Core-A looks at the psychology of mind games in fighting games. Like how you can goad opponents into doing certain moves, so you can take advantage of them. 

The pressure to stay in line - Veteran games journalist Kyle Orland talks about how a culture of rabid fans, hype, and consensus leads to some pretty homogeneous reviews. 

[Video | CC] The Witness - Noclip Documentary  - NoClip chats to Jonathan Blow about his puzzling maze game, and also his background. Spelunky creator Derek Yu is also interviewed, in an hour-long video. 

Q&A: Design lessons learned from a decade at Nintendo's EAD - This interview with an ex-Nintendo designer doesn't give up many design secrets or anything, but the stuff in company culture will intrigue Nintendo needs (like me). 

[Video] How Ratchet Lost Its Edge - 2002 Original VS 2016 Reboot Comparison - GamingBrit utterly wrecks the Ratchet reboot in this 80 minute video, by showing just how much it changed from the original. I helped out a little with this one.

[Video] What Happened to Mass Effect Andromeda's Animation? - Dan at ExtraCredits has a brilliant video looking at the use of animation in conversation systems for games like The Witcher and Mass Effect.

Tim Schafer Talks Shyness, Comebacks and Being Asked Not to Touch George Lucas - Nice interview with Tim. I like this quote about his games: "It's going to be serious from 10,000 feet in the air, but it's going to be funny on the ground"

A Tale of Two Open-Worlds: comparing "exploration" and "activity" sandboxes - Interesting way to divide up open world games. Dug this up after playing Breath of the Wild, and realising that we need more exploration sandboxes!

How Hitman’s Hokkaido level was made - More Hitman level design analysis. Will it ever end? Hopefully not. This time, we're in Japan for a futuristic hospital inside a mountain. I like the idea of Hitman levels having different shapes: horizontal, vertical, and spiral. Hm...

[Video] Passengers, Rearranged - My favourite Nerdwriter video in a while. He takes the iffy sci-fi movie Passengers, and looks at how it could be made better simply by shifting around the film's acts. 

How Ghosts ’N Goblins helped video games find comedy in failure - A new Patron passed this along. It's about how Capcom used animation and level design to turn Goblins's many deaths into funny moments. 

[Video] The making of BAFTA-winning game OlliOlli - Nice video on the cute Vita skateboarding game OlliOlli. There's a nice bit about how, when presented with all the buttons on a Vita, the devs tried to put actions on every button. Eventually, they went with a versatile verb situation and put everything on the X button. 

'Make me think, make me move': New Doom's deceptively simple design - If you're still not sick of Doom after all my hype, this interview with Marty Stratton is good. It's about combat design, and cutting anything that didn't fit the creative vision. 

[Video | CC] Making Of Part One: Beginning Hours - Capcom's documentary series on Resident Evil 7. Talks about going back to franchise's roots, and things that didn't make the cut like a family dog, and a mechanic that had you holding your breath. 

The art and joy of video game photography - Nice piece on photography in games, from Firewatch's finite film roll to Prompto's endless snapping in Final Fantasy 15. 

Game Over, Uwe Boll - German filmmaker Uwe Bill reflects on his career of making truly horrible video game movies. He owns a restaurant now, so the nightmare is finally over. 

Inside the Resilient ‘Team Fortress 2’ Community on the PlayStation 3 - Waypoint talks to the people who are still playing TF2 on Sony's last gen console. To be honest, I liked Team Fortress best when it was pure and hat-less. Maybe I should join them. 

[Video] Super Mario - Low Poly (Evolution of Characters in Games) - You just know that this video, looking at how Mario's 3D model has evolved from 64 to 3D World, would be up my alley. There's another, on Sonic, too. 

[Video | CC] The History of Persona - Get up to speed on the history of this kooky Japanese RPG series, with a handy retrospective from Gamespot. Seems like the series really shifted for P3 with the addition of social links and time management. 

[Video | CC] Comparing World Design and Gameplay of Yooka Laylee and Banjo Kazooie - Ceave Gaming looks at how Rare and ex-Rare handle level design in these to collect-a-thon platformers. 

[Video] Yooka Laylee - Really Freakin' Clever - And RFC goes into more depth on the game's evolving levels. In the game, you can use currency to unlock new levels, or add new challenges to old levels. 

SWAT 4's Fairfax Residence: The Basement That Led to Bioshock - Seems like Irrational's love for creepy environmental storytelling isn't just found in System Shock and Bioshock. Even this tactical police shooter aimed to freak you out. 

From Donkey Kong to Snake Pass: the music of David Wise - Enjoyed this interview with the dude who made the incredible soundtracks for the Donkey Kong Country games. Glad to see him make a comeback.

Visual Fix - The huge, detailed breakdown of the Dreadful Whale ship from Dishonored 2, written by a Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy, that you didn't know you wanted. 

[Video] Review: Metal Gear Solid 3 Pachislots - We've all heard about the quirky / heart-breaking MGS 4 Pachinko machine. Well, Super Bunnyhop actually travelled to Japan to play and review it.

Art of the Title: Full Throttle - The excellent Art of the Title looks at the killer intro to 1995's Full Throttle. I gotta say, that game had a brilliant opener. "Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen" is one of the best opening lines in games. 

Development by expo: How Ghost Town built Overcooked - The Overcooked developers talk about how taking their game to expos, and seeing strangers play, completely changed the design of the game. 

Take Aways: Flinthook - Zack Bell shares some design lessons learned from the new roguelite shooty-bang platformer Flinthook. 

[Video] Welcome To My Life - And finish off with this lovely little faux documentary thing from Cartoon Network.