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Reading List (February 2020)
🕑 Added 2020-02-22 08:49:58 +0000 UTCHello! Sorry for the radio silence for much of this month. It’s been a busy one.
I took a brief Valentine’s holiday, spent a couple days at a studio to consult on an upcoming game I can’t name, and hopped the train to London to be a judge for a prestigious award that I, uh, also can’t name!
That was all happily in planned into the schedule.
What I couldn’t plan for was a member of my family suddenly becoming gravely ill, requiring multiple trips to various hospitals, and needing to look after other family members. Just yesterday I spent 12 hours straight in hospitals, so I’m pretty exhausted this morning.
I appreciate your patience in this time. I’ve been working on a big video in every spare moment and I really hope to get it out before the end of the month. For now though, some juicy links.
Top Pick
[Read] King Knight’s Mobility - Yacht Club breaks down the mobility design of its final Shovel Knight hero, King Knight. This is a really fascinating read because it shows just how much iteration, problem solving, and change was required to get this character to work.
Designer Notes
[Watch | 17 mins] The Feature That Almost Sank Disco Elysium - Gamespot’s Audio Logs series is a great bunch of videos. This one gets ZA/UM’s lead designer to talk about the troublesome Thought Cabinet mechanic in last year’s bonkers RPG.
[Read] Luigi's Mansion 3 Developers On Money, Moral Choices And Luigi's Approach To Heroism - Kotaku asked the developers behind Luigi’s Mansion 3 some very thoughtful questions, and received some very interesting answers. Bonus Link to the Past development history from Nintendo, too.
[Watch | 15 mins] The Making of Titanfall 2’s Effect and Cause - GameBrain talks to Respawn Entertainment’s senior designer about the tech and design of Titanfall 2’s famously fun time travel level.
Critical Hit
[Watch | CC | 18 mins] Examining CD Projekt Red's Overlooked Witcher Game - Hamish looks at that one Witcher game no one actually played, and gives it a deserving critical appraisal.
[Watch | 16 mins] The Smash Bros. Game That Changed Everything - While Smash Brawl is sometimes seen as the black sheep of the franchise, Alax gives a pretty compelling argument for why it was the most important and impactful entry.
(Note: There are allegations that RelaxAlax is an abuser and racist. I might stop including him in the reading list. Lemme know what you think)
Culture Club
[Watch | CC | 15 mins] Meeting Blitzchung, the Hearthstone pro banned for his politics - People Make Games travelled to Hong Kong to chat to a player who got in trouble for speaking out. Impressive journalism right here.
[Watch | CC | 23 mins] Emulation, the Law, and You: Where the Hobby Ends and Crime Begins - Is it really true that if you have the original cartridge, you can download ROMs legally? That myth and more, broken down.
[Read] Meet the musicians who compose in Mario Paint - Forget Dreams, this here is the real user-generated powerhouse.
[Read] A new wave of indies are using games to explore climate change - Looking at games like Beyond Blue, Bee Simulator, and Temtem. There’s no bigger topic for games to tackle right now.
[Watch | CC | 6 mins] The truth behind "My Body is Ready" - Here’s the full story behind Reggie’s meme-icilous remark from E3.
History Corner
[Watch | CC | 17 mins] King's Questrospective - How Roberta Williams Designed A Game Changer - Worth it for the pun title alone. But also stellar knowledge from Sierra expert PushingUpRoses.
[Read | Long Read] Making Crash Bandicoot - This massive 13-part series of blog posts from ex-Naughty Dog Andy Gavin goes deep into the game’s creation, the problem of “Sonic’s Ass”, localising the game, tech troubles, and more.
[Read] How Westwood's Long-Lost Blade Runner Adventure Game Landed on GOG - "For years everyone, including us, thought it was impossible to release due to scattered rights, technical issues, and lost source code”. Things change.
[Read] A history of Simlish, the language that defined The Sims - For a long time I just thought they were speaking Swedish.
Business Lunch
[Read] What Does It Really Mean to Be an Indie Game? - A look at Jesper Juul’s new book, which aims to break down what independent games really are, and looks into their “quest for authenticity”.
[Read] Britain's Game Workers Are Largely White, Middle Class, and Depressed - Oh dear. The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment’s survey of game devs paints a pretty grim picture. But the Guardian has a slightly brighter outlook.
[Read] I Had to Abandon My Game After 4 Years And It Nearly Broke Me - The perils of solo indie development. Painful stuff, but important reading for anyone planning to make a game.
Art and Audio
[Watch | CC | 15 mins] The Animation of Phoenix Wright - Wait, what animation? Phoenix Wright is like a slideshow! That’s why Dan’s new video is so good.
[Watch | 19 mins] How The Wind Waker Defined Cel Shading - If you liked last month’s video about Super Mario Galaxy 2’s water textures, you’ll dig this.
[Watch | CC | 7 mins] Luigi’s Mansion’s Ghost Capture - Mix n Jam turns his Poltergust towards Luigi’s Mansion, to make a staggeringly accurate Unity recreation.
[Read] How Stanley Kubrick’s hexagonal carpet pattern is invading video games - The joy of hex
Beyond Bytes
[Watch | CC | 10 mins] The Visual Architecture of Parasite - The Oscar winning movie is all about verticality. This video explains it all.
[Watch | CC | 19 mins] The Tesla Stretch: How Branding Works - Tesla is like the new Apple in terms of cultish devotion and killer advertising.
[Watch | 37 mins] The Sad Story of Robert Zemeckis & His Wonderful Toys - Robert Zemeckis went from Back to the Future to Forrest Gump to The Polar Express and so on. Patrick tracks his wild career rollercoaster.
[Watch | 14 mins] Is Joker Cinema? - An interesting twist on the video essay, worth watching if only as a formalist experiment. Basically, it’s all told through careful layering of interview footage, not the essayist’s own voice.
[Watch | CC | 4 mins] How to make a movie look like one long shot - 1917 obviously isn’t shot in one long take (or even two). Here’s how the magic happens.
[Watch | 20 mins] Hollywood called me last year. Here’s how it fell apart - I found this very interesting, and as someone who has to figure out how to juggle YouTube and other projects, I can relate.
Comments
Tai-Lun Tseng
Hope you and your family are all good! Please do prioritize them before the work, we all understand that.
Malcolm
Best wishes to you and your family; they should always come before work. About RelaxAlax, he was definitely a very bad boyfriend, but whether that rises to the level of abuse is difficult to determine without more information. Seeing as the original allegations happened in May, it's doubtful that more information will be given. Personally, I think it's ok to include him in these lists if they remain one-time allegations.
Of course someones personality/behavior/views will influence how you perceive their work. Anything else would be strange.
cptnoremac
I don't know anything about RelaxAlax, but don't let someone's personal life influence your opinion of his or her work. It's a terrible habit the internet has. If someone's a bad person, don't be his friend; if he's bad at his job, don't consume his work. Leave the two separate.
sk8bit
Wishing you and your family all the best. You didn't have to give us these great lists still! Much appreciated.
Thanks so much for the update! Best wishes to you and your family. <3
Wander
I'd also also like to say that I thought your reading list was particularly interesting, this time around. I've got a lot to read and watch, now!
yeah not to broken-record this, but please take all the time you need for your family. We'll still be here :)
Wander
I would like to echo both Anna Egold and Artem Gordin. My best wishes to you and your family member in what sounds like a stressful time! I would also like to comment on RelaxAlax. I don't know the guy or his content, so I have no real agenda, but I did find a couple of tweets that are pretty damning on the racism front. https://i.imgur.com/TobwboW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/dNaVNfx.jpg Personally, I'd want to distance myself from someone who tweets things like that.
Artem Gordin
Please remember that your readers and viewers will always understand when you prioritize family and health over content. All the best to you and people around you!
Luis Guillermo Jimenez Gomez
Ditto what Anna Egold said. Hope you and your family are well.
Your content is worth waiting for and I hope your family member gets well soon.
