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Reading List (May 2020, Part 2)
🕑 Added 2020-05-28 11:00:00 +0000 UTCHello! Hope everyone is doing okay. Here's your second lot of articles and videos for May.
Top Pick
[Read | Long Read] Development of The Legend of Zelda - An absolutely humongous breakdown of the Zelda series, looking at how "how market conditions and the minds at Nintendo influenced the development of each Zelda game, both from a creative and business standpoint".
Designer Notes
[Read] How level designers craft iconic stealthy encounters - Gamasutra chats to level makers on games like Dishonored and Hitman to find out how sneaky rooms are built.
[Read] The road to Dungeons - Mojang explores the random level design of its new action RPG.
[Watch | CC | 1 hour, 20 mins] The Untold History of Arkane - Danny talks to Arkane, with a focus on the huge middle period where the studio got tangled up in a series of unreleased games.
Critical Hit
[Watch | CC | 17 mins] The Post-Apocalyptic Aesthetic - Eurothug looks at the different ways video games depict the ruins of civilisation.
[Read] The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Female-Fronted First-Person Shooter - From Perfect Dark and No One Lives Forever to Gears 5 and Wolfenstein Youngblood.
[Watch | 31 mins] Global Warming, as Depicted by 30 Years of Strategy Games - Sid Meier has been talking about climate change since the very start.
[Watch | 35 mins] Resident Evil Remake Design - Charlie continues his Boss Keys-like "Road to the Rocket Launcher" series, this time with the excellent remake of Resi 1.
[Watch | 21 mins] Talking Anthropology, Creation Myths, & Religion with Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey - I'm not surprised that Bunnyhop was the one to go deep on this fascinating game, which comes from Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets.
Culture Club
[Read] What One Really Cool Jacket in CoD: Warzone Says About Video Games in 2020 - IGN's Joe Skrebels got obsessed with a pink puffy jacket in Call of Duty, so called up Infinity Ward to find out how it was made.
[Watch | 12 mins] Using Calculus to Go Fast in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - How do you calculate the absolute most efficient route through a room, for a robot speedruner to follow? This video explains all.
[Watch | 25 mins] How We Solved the Worst Minigame in Zelda's History - Similar to the above, but this time reverse engineering a Wind Waker mini-game to build a tool that can untangle its random logic.
[Read] Abt dropped by Audi over imposter controversy - As the lockdown pushes athletes into the realm of eSports, we've got some new problems: like getting someone else on another computer to pretend to be you. Hilarious.
[Watch | 20 mins] Inside Second Life's Most Expensive Brothel - Quinns explores a virtual brothel, and what's to know "what they're doing in there? And to who? And with what?"
[Watch | 7 mins] DeepMind Made A Superhuman AI For 57 Atari Games! - Two Minute Papers looks at a research project that uses deep learning artificial intelligence to beat Atari games. Jeez, what a cheat.
Code Monkeys
[Watch | 31 mins] Game Engine Developer Reacts to Unreal Engine 5 Demo - I struggled to understand that bonkers UE5 presentation. This guy (who worked on EA's Frostbite engine) helped me get it.
[Watch | 9 mins] How to Game Jam! - This should prove useful! Brackeys shares tips and tricks for making games in super short time periods.
[Watch | CC | 2 mins] Bug hunting with Obsidian - The makers of The Outer Worlds break down the story of one hard-to-find bug.
History Corner
[Watch | 17 mins] How the Game & Watch Impacted Nintendo's Handheld Gaming Product Vision - An interesting look at what Nintendo's first console (sort of) tells us about the rest.
[Watch | CC | 13 mins] Deep-Dive Analysis of FMV Cutscenes - I found this fascinating. How do you remaster cutscenes when all you've got is pixelated PC video and blobby PlayStation compression?
[Read | Long Read] When SimCity got serious - "From 1992 to 1994, a division called Maxis Business Simulations was responsible for making serious professional simulations that looked and played like Maxis games". Phil Salvador has the full, exhaustive history.
Business Lunch
[Watch | CC | 6 mins] Here's Why My Indie Game Went Viral on Steam - This chap shifted 200,000 copies of his cute fox game in the first week. Here, he shares some tips on what he did right.
Art and Audio
[Watch | CC | 9 mins] Why Mario's Triple Jump Animation Is So Good - Daniel Floyd looks at the iconic trampoline leap from Mario 64, and how it lived on into Galaxy and Odyssey.
Beyond Bytes
[Read] How One ‘Yesterday’ Screenwriter’s Dream Became Something Of A Nightmare - The story of the guy who came up with the idea of Yesterday (only one man remembers The Beatles), and how it got mangled by Hollywood.
[Watch | No Voice | 10 mins] Making a GOOGOL:1 Reduction with Lego Gears - Here's a LEGO clock that will take 5.2434e91 years to spin. Hopefully we'll be out of lockdown by then.
Comments
Rainer Gromansperg
Thanks for posting these, love getting more insight into the process.
Mathew Dyason
That Yesterday article is fascinating!
