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Reading List (June 2018)
🕑 Added 2018-06-26 08:50:48 +0000 UTCHello everybody! June was a big month - I made two videos and went on holiday. But I still found time to read and watch interesting stuff on games (and more). Here’s what I think you should sample this month.
Top pick
[Read] Playing Videos Games With My Son Isn’t What I Thought it Would Be - A really interesting look at how creative games, such as Minecraft, have changed the way children think about games.
Creation
[Watch] How Thief’s Stealth System Almost Didn’t Work - Ars Technica talks to Paul Neurath about the troubled development of Thief’s artificially intelligent guards.
[Read] Controller Rumble - God of War designer Vince Napoli goes deep on controller rumble. “rumble can be used pretty effectively as a communication device - signalling the completion of a charge, the replenishment of a cooldown, or a critical health state”.
[Read] How Minit’s team found creativity through limitations - Minit puts huge restrictions on the player (the game resets every 60 seconds). But the four person team also faced huge limitations.
[Read] Reading in strategy games - A quick read on how strategy games display critical information. A topic I want to cover in the future.
[Read] I Never Get Tired of Learning Game Dev Tricks and Hacks - Same, Danielle. Same.
[Read] What horror game creators think about jump scares - How to effectively scare the pants off your players.
Criticism
[Watch] Why You Should Play Yakuza - I love the wild, funny, super serious, super silly Yakuza games. Here’s a good primer for why you should invest a few hundred hours into this series.
[Watch] Wolfenstein 2 - How to Fail at Level Design - A very in-depth look at a level design mistake in Wolfenstein 2.
[Watch] Mario Tennis Aces As a Fighting Game - How does the new Mario Tennis compare to the likes of Street Fighter and Smash Bros? BriHard explains
[Read] The Bad Jokes Games Rely on Are Worse Than No Humor at All - Rob Zacny reckons humour more often hurts games than helps them.
[Watch] How Metroid Fusion Creates Fear - Dan Root continues his look at atmosphere in the Metroid games, this time looking at the spooky survival gem Metroid Fusion.
[Watch] New Frame Plus - And another Dan, Daniel Floyd (the ex-squeaky voice of Extra Credits) has launched his own animation channel. Subscribe now.
Culture
[Watch] Communities are Individuals - We often think of gaming communities as monolithic, singular entities. Raycevick argues against that view.
[Watch | CC] When BioShock Was My Only Friend - NakeyJakey spins a yarn about his childhood
[Read] Ubisoft games are political, says CEO - just not the way you think - Ubisoft has always said its games are apolitical, despite their settings, imagery, and timing. Here’s the pres on the company’s wishy-washy position.
[Read] How to Start Speedrunning Video Games - Not sure I could ever do this hobby myself. But hey, knock yourself out.
Classics
[Watch | CC] Chicken-o-meter - Ahoy looks at the weird history of health bars in games. Bring back Chicken-o-meters, I say.
[Watch | CC] The History of Bethesda Game Studios - Another huge documentary from Noclip. Check the channel for more, on stuff like quest design in Elder Scrolls and the making of the upcoming Fallout 76.
[Watch | CC] The fist non-Valve game on Steam - Chris Bratt, of Eurogamer’s Here’s a Thing, has started his own channel. Here’s his first video.
[Read] Classic Games Would Be More Fun If They Copied Mega Man’s Rewind Feature - Patrick Klepeck enjoyed this interesting feature in the new Mega Man collection.
[Watch] Pikmin's Interactive Soundtrack - “The music throughout the Pikmin series shifts and evolves naturally to fit the moment-to-moment action on screen”. Here’s how it works.
Other media
[Watch | CC] When the Book is Better than the Movie - Lindsay Ellis teams up with PBS for a chat about adaptations.
[Watch] Requiem for an Editor - Requiem for a Dream needed some seriously smart editing. Here’s how it went down.
[Watch | CC] The Ideology of the First Order - Lindsay again, this time talking Star Wars
[Watch] The Problem with DC Action Scenes - They suck, basically.
[Watch] The Trouble With Hollywood’s Gender Flips - Changing Ghostbusters and burglars into women isn’t without issue.
[Watch | CC] Abduction as Romance - Another troubling trope from the world of movies, broken down by Pop Culture Detective.
[Watch] Animation is Limitless - A love letter to a medium where imagination can run wild. Applies to games too, ultimately.
Everything else
[Read] YouTube’s top creators are burning out and breaking down en masse - I’ve certainly had my own (minor) struggles with mental health on YouTube, so I found this very interesting.
[Read] The Right Way to Respond to Negative Feedback - I’ve also had to deal with my fair share of negative feedback, so this has proven useful!
[Read] Living alone and liking it - A Bachelor pad is a pretty normal thing for a man. For a woman? Something else entirely. Really interesting look at the history, architecture, and reaction to women who live alone.
Comments
OSW Review
Thanks Mark! With regards to dealing with criticism, lately I've tried a more understanding response. [the more expletives a comment has, the less inclined I am to respond or take it seriously, and possibly dismiss it outright]. I take the kernel of the issue (eg production time for videos is too long) and explain why it's the case. I find that a lot of mean commenters don't actually expect you to read, let alone write back, and they're usually much kinder when you do. I always imagine those with negative comments have had a bad day or are really annoyed by something else, and is venting in our direction (actually posting it makes 'em feel better and they think no more about it). Responding with kindness and explanations usually leads to an apology and everyone's friends again. Especially with gaming, there's a high liklihood that meanies are teenage edgelords who won't respond to anything but a tirade of curses right back at them, Xbox Live style; but as a curator of incredible video essays, they are not your target audience and never will be, so they absolutely do not matter. I've replied to especially mean comments 1-2 days later and they're generally a bit embarrassed by what they spewed into the comments section. I can't imagine much of any criticism would be warranted. You're doing an incredible job, and every video shows you why you are worth financially supporting. Keep up the great work!
Matt Glanville
There's a great tidbit in that Thief video, right here: <a href="https://youtu.be/qzD9ldLoc3c?t=2m7s" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/qzD9ldLoc3c?t=2m7s</a> To summarise it briefly here, the developers knew that they were innovating in the gameplay and asking players to do things they weren't familiar with in a game. So calling the game "Thief" and doubling down on that idea meant there was a defined and focused context. And the game met them halfway, so it was approachable.
