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Reading List (April 2024)
🕑 Added 2024-04-25 11:57:04 +0000 UTCHello Patrons!
April has been a month for travel, recovery, and working on a ridiculous list with 100 games. It's taking a little longer than expected so thanks for your patience!
Until then, articles, videos, and podcasts! Enjoy!
Design
[Read] How Super Mario Bros. Wonder's devs narrowed down 2000 ideas for its effects - "Can't you make this so instead of going to another area, the environment itself changes?"
[Watch | 14 mins] The Economics of Monster Encounters - SOMA developer Thomas Grip explains "how the gameplay economics can drive games away from their intended themes.
[Watch | 11 mins] Why "Perfect" Games Are Boring - "People have been complaining about the imperfections and inefficiencies of Dragon's Dogma 2. I think the way we talk about games as a medium is weird."
[Watch | 11 mins] The Power of asking "Why?" - I've been enjoying watching the channel Wintergarten, which is about a man who is going mad by building a marble-based music machine. It's not game design, but his new design-thinking approach is relevant.
Development
[Watch | CC | 1 hr, 20 mins] The Making of Pentiment - Noclip travels "to Obsidian Entertainment to talk to the small team behind this award winning historical role-playing game.
[Read] Behind the Code: Designing Raz's Jump - Double Fine goes DEEP on the code that drives Raz's jump in Psychonauts 2.
[Watch | CC | 29 mins] How Doki Doki Literature Club! Was Made and Why its Release Caused Misery - “Discover more about its creator Dan Salvato and how he went from being a professional Super Smash Bros. Melee Link player to being a public face of an enormously popular brand overnight”.
Business
[Watch | CC | 10 mins] If AAA is No Longer Profitable... Make Smaller Games - "The gaming industry has experienced several months year of studio layoffs, consolidation, and closures which has begged the natural question of... why?"
[Read] What the game industry must do to prevent occupational burnout - "Game industry working conditions are improving, but occupational burnout still runs amok. Studios and workers have the power to slow it down."
[Read] "Guess I'll just piss on the floor": Baldur's Gate 3's top TikTok tips - "Larian creative content manager Ben Maltz-Jones on running your TikTok like a fan account and other takeaways for the social media platform".
[Read] That Tricky Platformer About Climbing Mt. Anxiety But That's Not The Name Of The Mountain - "At the heart of every aspect of game development sits a very simple truth: any truly successful game can be described in one or two sentences."
Culture
[Read] The race to finish 80,000 levels of Super Mario Maker - "A small team of skilled players set themselves a near-impossible task: to complete every level of Super Mario Maker before Nintendo shut its servers. Did they manage it?"
[Listen] Jack Thompson, Former lawyer, "anti-video-game activist." - The My Perfect Console podcast welcomes a surprising guest - a lawyer who dedicated his career to fighting against games. It's a fascinating chat.
[Watch | 2 hours] The Bizarre World of Fake Video Games - "A deep dive into the strange world of fake video games, from demakes to gaming creepy pastas, and much more."
[Watch | 17 mins] Fallout TV Show - Fallout creator Tim Cain talks about attending the TV show's premiere. He's also got a review but I haven't finished the series yet so am avoiding spoilers!
[Read] Mario meets Pareto - What is the definitively best character and kart combination in Mario Kart? This fancy HTML 5 website uses maths to find the true answer.
Critique
[Read] Abandon All Delusions Of Control - "Dragon's Dogma 2 is not readily "solvable" and you can't min-max it. You will make mistakes. You will be scraped and bruised and scarred."
[Read] Ueda, Buddha & Me - "Many shouldn’t play this game. You spend a dozen hours issuing commands to a giant bird-dog-cat thing who won’t listen to you."
[Watch | CC | 10 mins] The Joy of Video Making in Content Warning - "I take a quick look at Landfall's latest Content Warning, and how its quirky in-game video camera taps into the lost art of Machinima."
[Read] ‘Dragon’s Dogma 2’ is a Game Of The Year contender – and it’s all thanks to grabbing - "When you realise [the grab mechanic] can be used to throw just about anything, living or inanimate, a whole new world opens up."
Artistry
[Watch | CC | 13 mins] What Are Animation Smears REALLY For? - Doodly breaks down the different ways that smears are used in animation - in animation and in games.
[Watch | 59 mins] When The Faithful Adaptation Is Actually Worse - Patrick H. Willems compares the two Hollywood adaptations of Super Mario Bros.
[Read] How Years of Grieving Led Abubakar Salim to Honor His Father By Making a Video Game - Tales of Kenzera: ZAU director Abubakar Salim explains how grief contributed to game dev.
[Read] The poignant story behind Monument Valley 2’s music - "Todd Baker composed the soundtrack for the indie puzzler as he was living through the loss of his mother. On the series’ 10th anniversary, he reflects on the experience".
History
[Read] RollerCoaster Tycoon at 25 - Real-world rollercoaster designers and the game’s creator, Chris Sawyer, reflect on the impact of the primitive-looking theme park sim that became a late 90s icon”.
[Read] Consolevania turns 20: Robert Florence and Ryan Macleod on making comedy out of video games - I loved Consolevania growing up. This grotty Glaswegian comedy series did gaming YouTube before YouTube existed. Here's an interview with its creators.
[Watch | 15 mins] Why the limitations of the N64 and PS1 mattered - Modern Vintage Gamer looks at the technical limitations that drove early 3D graphics, and how the best developers worked within those rules to make incredible games.
Beyond Games
[Watch | 8 mins] How Shōgun Makes Translation Exciting - Nerdwriter talks about how interpretation is used as a storytelling device in the (fantastic) TV series Shōgun.
[Watch | CC | 18 mins] What wheelbarrows can teach us about world history - "I use the example of the wheelbarrow to talk about some general points about the history of technology".
[Read] They're Looting The Internet - "This is the state of the modern internet — ultra-profitable platforms outright abdicating any responsibility toward the customer".
Comments
Germanos
Thanks Mark!
cptnoremac
It does NOT beg the question. Begging the question is when you assume the conclusion you're trying to make in your argument. It has nothing at all to do with asking questions.
jt
As usual, an incredible list - super educational and inspiring. Thanks for sharing all of these!
Mox
OMG! You recommending Wintergarten is such a collision of worlds for me.
