GameMakersToolkit
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Reading List (February 2018)
🕑 Added 2018-02-17 15:00:01 +0000 UTC Hello! Welcome to your Reading List for February 2018.This is a collection of links to stuff I enjoyed in the past few weeks. Sometimes it’s a video. Sometimes it’s an article! Whatever the case, it’s always interesting.
Lemme know if you hate this new format. I just didn’t feel like there was a lot of value to me commenting on every link - but I also didn’t want to just paste a random list of URLs. Hopefully this middle ground is okay!
Designer notes
Read - The designers of the ultra hard Celeste explain why you can cheat your way to victory.
Read - Gamasutra lists seven influential immersive sims, for anyone curious about this niche genre.
Watch - NIKMOE reckons Mario Odyssey has four different endings. Here’s how that works.
Watch - KingK explains the feedback loop that makes the Monster Hunter games so addictive.
Watch - Turbo Button talks us through the rewarding combat system of PS2 classic God Hand.
Read - Eurogamer looks at the creation of a potential new genre: the Battle Royale game.
Read - Amy Henig (Uncharted) and Sean Vanaman (Firewatch) have a candid conversation about making games.
Watch - Mr B Tongue returns with another video on violence and war in games - and how it relates to real world conflict.
Analyse This
Watch - Campster’s got a take on Getting Over it with Bennet Foddy that’s worth checking out.
Watch - If, like me, you found Noah Gervais through his video on Call of Duty’s campaigns, this follow-up will be a must watch.
Business lunch
Read - Ralph Koster crunches the data to find the cost of making games.
Watch - Extra Credits claims that $60 is way too cheap for modern day games.
Watch - And explains why triple A games cost so much to make.
Watch - Jim Sterling’s got a rebuttal that’s well worth watching, too.
Comedy central
Watch (CC) - This dude’s trying way too hard to be Egorapter and JonTron but oh well, his video on Super Princess Peach is good.
Watch - The ever brilliant Super Butterbuns walks you through the basics of Resident Evil 7.
History lesson
Read - Kotaku goes deep on the history of Atari and its complicated relationship with its female employees - all in light of the Nolan Bushnell controversy.
Watch - If you still don’t know the story of Tetris, let The Gaming Historian explain it through gorgeous illustrations.
Watch - Siegarettes wants you to know that the video game classics aren’t always classic.
Culture club
Watch - Game Score Fanfare tackles the Yoshi games, which use music to evoke childhood and play.
Read - Gamasutra chats to Atlus to find out how Yakuza gets translated. There’s some stuff about Yakuza 6 I wish I didn’t read in there, so heads up.
Watch - Super Bunnyhop looks back at 2017 - the year Japan dominated the video game market.
Read - The Psychology of Games asks: why do people play jobs?
Read - A touching tale of parenthood and sacrifice, through the lens of 9999 Mario Odyssey coins.
Watch - I’m slightly obsessed with this series, that explains how to catch all the Pokemon in any given game. Make full use of YouTube’s speed settings.
Beyond games
Watch - Thomas Flight examines the end of La La Land and Whiplash, to figure out how director Damien Chazelle crafts an ending
Watch - Lindsay Ellis destroys Netflix’s Bright like it’s a paper cup.
Watch - Gavin from the SlowMoGuys points his phantom at an old CRT and a copy of Super Mario Bros to explain how TVs work.
Watch - Everyone knows Netflix changes its recommendations to suit you: but it goes way beyond just picking films for you.
Read - Some interesting thoughts about the perils of relying on world-building in fiction. There are some good links to click through to, as well.
Read - This Buzzfeed simulation of a Twitterstorm is the most accurate thing I’ve ever read.
Read - You know those films that are based on a true story? This site lets you go, scene by scene, through each movie to check their veracity.
Watch - I didn’t understand Meltdown and Spectre (the bugs affecting processors). Now I do. Thanks, internet!
Comments
Christopher Spong
Hey Mark, I'm reading a book called Blood, Sweat and Pixles by Jason Schreier. It looks into the development of games from developers and their story to building iconic games like Uncahrted 4, The Witcher 3, Stardew Valley. I know you use quotes in your videos to help tell the story and this book is chock-full of them. If you ever did a video on the games the book covers it could be useful for you, but also its a good and short read.
Mark M
Love these reading lists, I save them and work my way through them. Just read the conversation between Amy Hennig and Sean Vanaman and really enjoyed it. I like the new format and appreciate the 'read/watch', important distinction. Seems like you're able to offer a little commentary in the condensed format anyway so I'm all for it.
Game Maker's Toolkit
Whoops, thanks!
Nktakumi
Hi Mark, don't forget to tag #readinglist on this post!
Nyuu3
I don't mind if you cut back on the commentary a bit, but I did quite enjoy it.
Alejandro Verdugo
I really liked the old format, and found myself the titles/commentary you would give each one. Though, to be fair, I imagine this one took less of your time to make?
Turbo Button
You gotta stop recommending that Turbo Button guy
Jakub Pander
I must say I like both formats. From the new one: the Tags and one line summaries makes it much smoother From the old one: your personal comment made those links more appealing From both: good quality and interesting materials for designer :) While I believe it would quite a challenge for Mark to make his comments into such one-liners I would'nt mind going back to the old format. Just keep it up!
Calliope Rannis
I will say, I found it a lot more likely for me to read some of the content present in the old format. In the shorter format, none of them were quite seductive enough - tho I will keep the email for now to see if my mind changes later, it might just be late in the day for me.
I prefer the OLD one. The after reading the commentaries for each video/article the titles were an easy and fast way to search for the ones I liked the most.
Casting a vote for the old format. I guess I enjoy reading your summaries as much as the content you link to. Found that I clicked fewer links this month -- would be interesting to compare click-through rates from the email, if you have that data.
Matt Cramp
I have to say, I find Jim Sterling a bit hard to watch these days, ever since he did a video on the toxicity of player-dev interaction where he opened by minimising his role as a Shouty Man on YouTube in driving that toxicity, and then suggested that AAA publishers deserved it.
Alfredo MR
I prefer the new format, mkes for a faster scanning and I like the "read" "watch".
Nice idea, the "Read" and "Watch" tags! Will read/watch!
