Reading List (November 2023) (Patreon)

Hey all! Welcome back to the Reading List.

I’m calling this one ‘the bummer list’ - it’s hard not to notice that while 2023 has delivered some incredible games, it has come at the frankly unsustainable cost of game developers (and members of the media). With so many layoffs and company closures, it makes you wonder how this industry will stay afloat in the future.

Read all about it - and lots of other, much more fun stuff - below.

Mark

The Design of Games

[Watch | CC | 41 mins] How I designed Jetpack Joyride - Luke Muscat designed some of mobile’s most addictive games. Here’s how Jetpack Joyride came together.

[Read] The making of The Making of Karateka - "Retro collections give you the "what?" - here's the game - but we want to do the "when?" and the "who?" and the "how?". And, importantly, the "why?"."

[Read] The Subversive Genius of ‘Far Cry 2,’ 15 Years Later - "In 2008, Ubisoft’s trailblazing open-world first-person shooter started conversations about video games that still haven’t subsided"

[Read] Now Is The Time For Universal Video Game Accessibility Guidelines - "Yeah, there is a set of developer-friendly guidelines published by a group of studios, academics, and specialists to make implementing these features more straightforward, but they haven’t been widely adopted."

[Read] How Slay The Spire saved digital card games from stagnation - "To be a good designer, you have to have very, very strong opinions. Show me a game designer who gives a thumbs-up to most things, and I suspect that’s probably someone who doesn’t have a very good game design sense".

[Watch | CC | 34 mins] Difficulty is Weird - "I wanted to take a little time exploring some of the major approaches by diving into everything from The Witcher 3 to Resident Evil 4 to Dark Souls in order to figure out what I like and dislike about each of them."

[Watch | CC | 12 mins] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - In the final instalment of Sakura’s game-by-game career retrospective, he talks about making "Everybody is Here" happen in Ultimate.

[Read] Press X To Die – How Playable Deaths Shatter the Illusion of Choice - "What if I told you there’s an alternative to the traditional game over? A scenario where the player has objectively, irrevocably, failed, and there is nothing they can do about it. And yet the game continues."

[Read] Little monsters: why indie developers make the best horror games - "In gaming as in cinema, all of the most personal, creative and risk-taking horror can be found away from the mainstream. And happily it’s also a genre in which budget constraints can be turned into an advantage."

The Business of Games

[Read] We pitched Trash Goblin to 76 publishers and nobody said yes… - "We pitched to 76 publishers over 9 months, got to offers with 2, contract negotiations with 1, and nobody signed it so we announced it ourselves"

[Read] What can we learn from Lethal Company's huge success? - "Lethal Company also concentrates on co-op ‘looting and panicking’ rather than heavy gunplay. It’s a refreshing change that makes it very accessible to lower-skill players."

[Read] Video game company layoffs are creating an industry crisis - "Wizards of the Coast canceled multiple projects and laid off a dozen people; game engine maker Unity Technologies cut 300 people; Microsoft laid off a staggering 10,000 people".

[Watch | CC | 14 mins] The "BEST" Year For Games - "What does "best year for games" even mean and what is the cost of such a groundbreaking year."

[Watch | CC | 7 mins] Fighter Reveal Videos - "I'd like to think that Smash Bros. fighter reveals have made for some momentous occasions in the game industry—and today I'll show how we made them!"

[Read] Why Me? A Narrative Feature About Games Media Layoffs - "A mutual of mine once made a comment about how difficult it was to work in an industry where "everyone" has been laid off "at least twice." A year after that, I can say I know the feeling."

[Read] Machine killer - "It’s been another one of those months in games media. Hell, it’s been one of those weeks: layoffs at Kotaku, a firing and solidarity walkout at The Escapist, the effective closure of Uppercut".

The Development of Games

[Watch | 1 hour] How AI Will Make Full On Video Games - "We'll talk about why AI generated games are much closer than a lot of you may think, what it means for the future and how to cope with it as a game developer."

[Watch | CC | 28 mins] The AI of Marvel's Spider-Man - "In this episode we dig in and find out how the development team built AI systems to handle melee and ranged combat, civilians, open-world crimes, boss battles, traffic and more". Check the channel for another video on procedurally generating New York.

[Read] Making A Skating Game Set In Palestine Has Become An Act Of Resistance - "But even with one of them living in a war zone, they are more determined than ever to make their game a reality."

[Read] Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Will Be ‘Riddled’ With Cheaters, but Why Are They So Hard to Stop? - "A reformed Valorant cheater who joined the 'Anti-Cheat Police Department' explains why."

[Watch | 6 mins] The REAL Reason Game Devs Burn Out - "Every game developer struggles with burnout, and in this video we look at the strategies 3 successful game developers used to avoid it to help you deal with game dev burnout."

[Read] Half-Life 3: The complete history of the greatest game never made - "The rumours, rhetoric, and running out of hope."

The Playing of Games

[Read] Yakuza’s Shopfronts Are One Of Life’s Little Pleasures - "Every time I play the [Yakuza] games there's one thing I like to do before anything else: walk around. In first-person mode, whenever possible."

[Read] Best Of All You Can Play The Whole Game Any Way You Want - "Every day, we are bombarded with images and information, horror stories and outrage."

[Read] Why gaming is so important to players with chronic pain - "Of all the platform holders, Nintendo does the least in terms of thinking about accessibility - even when it's updating a game released in the 1990s"

[Read] GTA games come alive when you turn on the radio - "I can't imagine GTA without radio. The radio wheel is as important - more important maybe - than the weapon wheel"

[Read] 9 bizarre things I learned about Cities: Skylines 2 by following this one citizen around for his entire life - "Zoom in on a single citizen for a few years and you'll see some pretty weird stuff—like that they are constantly swapping bodies."

[Read] The Best Games Of 2023 (So Far) - "So far, this list has five games that got an ultra-rare 10/10 score from GameSpot. At the same time, dozens of other 2023 releases excelled in their efforts to provide unmissable entertainment on various platforms."

The Art of Games

[Read] All The Mario World’s A Stage, and That’s Wonderful - "Mario didn’t start out as a proxy performer, but his games did go out of their way to establish that they are a layer removed from reality."

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] The Animation in Super Mario Wonder - "The animation in Mario Wonder has a lot to do with the fundamentals of elegance and fluidity."

[Read] Couples Therapy and ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ - "I want to focus on a pivotal late-game story moment that occurs between two characters" (Heavy spoilers for the new PS5 game)

[Watch | CC | 16 mins] Link from Ocarina of Time - Remake & Retrospective - "To celebrate The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's 25th Anniversary, we showcase our vision of Link in a hypothetical Ocarina of Time Visual Remake."

The History of Games

[Read] Molyneux And Minter - The Story Of The Lost GameCube Exclusive 'Unity' - "After roughly two years of work, Lionhead and Minter shockingly announced in 2004 that they had decided to cancel the project".

[Watch | 17 mins] The Lost Majora's Mask Notebook - The Hyrule Journals chronicles some info learned when interviewing the man who translated Zelda’s darkest entry.

[Read] SimCity: The Story of Pixels, Planning & Power Plants - "From NIMBYs to nuclear disaster, SimCity inspired a generation to zone and govern their own virtual worlds."

[Watch | CC | 1 hour] Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary - "To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the release of Half-Life we reunited the original development team to share their memories of creating Valve's first game."

[Watch | 12 mins] Quake II on the PlayStation 1 is an incredible port - "The result? A wonderfully executed game that is arguably the best FPS on the PS1."

[Read] Princess Daisy’s Long Road to Being Playable in Super Mario Bros. Wonder - "Daisy is, after all, the Luigi to Peach’s Mario in more ways than one, and many characters newer than her have already been given a playable role in mainline Mario games."

Beyond Games

[Watch | CC | 1 hour] 4.5 Billion Years in 1 Hour - "Every second shows about a million years of the planet’s evolution. Hop on a musical train ride and experience how long a billion years really is."

[Watch | CC | 17 mins] Best LEGO set of 2023 - "I go over the best LEGO sets when it comes to building experience, best functions, best value, best display and best budget LEGO sets"