Category: News

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The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from video game industry ‘watcher’ Simon Carless (GDC, Gamasutra co-runner), rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend.

This week’s highlights include a look at the U.S. grandmaster vying for the world chess championships, a diary playing through Bethesda’s oddly emergent Fallout 76, and a host of other notable pieces.

Heck, and there’s all kinds of other neat contemporary game reviews & classic game articles in addition to the above. All good stuff! And thanks for carrying on reading all these wonderful writers – I know they appreciate it.

Until next time…

– Simon, curator.]

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For a WoW veteran, World of Warcraft: Classic is like coming home (Christos Reid / RockPaperShotgun – ARTICLE)
“In 2017 Blizzard announced World of Warcraft: Classic, a way to play WoW near-as-dammit as it was when it first came out… Blizzard have made no secret of how they feel about unauthorised versions of the game, but the time has finally arrived for an official one. The BlizzCon demo this week presented us with a playable leap back through time.”

GDC Live Q&A: Lucas Pope and Return of the Obra Dinn (Bryant Francis / GDC Twitch / YouTube – VIDEO)
“GDC talks to Lucas Pope about the development of Return of the Obra Dinn. [SIMON’S NOTE: Bryant & friends are now doing weekly streams with neat game developers on the GDC Twitch, later archived on YouTube – here’s the first one!]”

Microsoft, Nintendo Remain Committed to E3, Despite PlayStation’s Departure (Brian Crecente / Variety – ARTICLE)
“Both Nintendo and Microsoft remain committed to the effectiveness of the E3 video game expo held each year in Los Angeles, despite news first reported by Variety that PlayStation’s decision to not attend next year’s show. [SIMON’S NOTE: some notable things happening here.]”

The Xbox startup sound (Twenty Thousand Hertz – PODCAST)
“The Xbox startup sound is an audio logo that’s become synonymous with the game console. But its origins are rooted in solving a logistical problem; how to entertain gamers while they wait for their machines to finish booting up. Featuring Sound Designer and Composer Brian Schmidt and Sound Designer, Composer and Berklee Professor, Michael Sweet.”

Fallout 76 Journal, Day 1: Welcome to the wasteland (Andrew Webster / The Verge – ARTICLE)
“Today marks the launch of Fallout 76, the first online-only, multiplayer-focused entry in the post-apocalyptic series. Given its massive size and ever-evolving world, instead of a traditional review, we’ll run a series of journal entries chronicling our adventures in Bethesda’s devastated version of West Virginia. Expect to see new entries every other day for the next few weeks. [SIMON’S NOTE: here’s Part 2, too!]”

Microsoft’s New Studio Acquisitions Show How Much Xbox Has Changed (Jason Schreier / Kotaku – ARTICLE)
“Truth is, as Team Xbox has been signaling for quite some time now, and as we’ve gathered from our own conversations with both people in and outside of the company, Microsoft is no longer interested in competing directly with Sony… The PS4 has outperformed the Xbox One so resoundingly, Microsoft stopped providing hardware sales figures.”

How we fit an NES game into 40 Kilobytes (Morphcat Games / YouTube – VIDEO)
“[SIMON’S NOTE: Good to see a retro game – in this case Micro Mages, a new platform game for the NES with up to four players simultaneously – be so transparent about how it’s being constructed].”

Hidengen – episode 1: board game cafes (Archipel / YouTube – VIDEO)
“Hidengen is a new series about the board game scene in Japan, led by graphic and game designer YACOYON, who will make us discover various protagonists of the local “analog game” (also referred to as “hidengen game”) industry. The first episode of this series is themed around board game cafes, which are places where people can gather to discover, learn and play games.”

How Aardman made a WWI game look like an oil painting (Nick Summers / Engadget – ARTICLE)
“Most video games set in the First or Second World War shoot for gritty realism… 11-11: Memories Retold is different. The story-driven experience, set during the last two years of World War I, has a painterly art style inspired by artists such as Claude Monet and Joseph Mallord William Turner. Every scene is created with tiny brushstrokes that slowly move, transform and dissolve.”

Hitman 2 review: Accessible stealth oozing with style (Julie Muncy / Ars Technica – ARTICLE)
“Hitman 2 expands on those successes on all fronts. The stages are bigger and more elaborate, the rhythms of play have been smoothed out and made more full, and the systems underlying the missions are more robust, and more flexible, than ever. Hitman 2 feels like a mission statement: this is what Io can do with minimal outside help and full control over its properties.”

The American Grandmaster Who Could Become World Champion (Oliver Roeder / FiveThirtyEight – ARTICLE)
“If you search the archives for Caruana, one of his earliest mentions you’ll find is a television news segment from early 2001, when he was 8 years old and living in Brooklyn. “Here’s the story of a boy who could be the next Bobby Fischer,” the host says.”

Tetris Effect is a glorious love letter to Tetris (Andrew Webster / The Verge – ARTICLE)
“But despite being one of the most beloved and popular video games of all time, the current state of Tetris is rather dire… That’s what makes Tetris Effect so special: it’s a spectacular, strange ode to everything that’s so great about the block-falling puzzle game. It made me fall in love all over again.”

Dragalia Lost: Has Nintendo figured out Free-to-Play? (Florian Ziegler / Mobile Free To Play – ARTICLE)
“Both Pokemon Go and Fire Emblem Heroes are seen as something of a surprise hit, vastly outperforming expectations. Dragalia Lost, in turn, is a much more predictable marriage, with free to play ancient Cygames (of Rage of Bahamut fame) adding tried and proven monetization design and expert systems knowledge to Nintendo’s famous world building and quality standards.”

Two years on, Overwatch’s producers talk toxicity, crunch, and live game dev (Bryant Francis / Gamasutra – ARTICLE)
“So what’s powering Blizzard’s success with Overwatch? While we can’t deny the value of playable hamsters and robots who wear little hats, there’s also a lot to be said for the importance of production and leadership that’s able to respond to internal and external challenges. At Blizzcon, we were able to sit down for a chat with executive producer Chacko Sonny and producer Nicole Gillet to discuss how Blizzard is handling challenges ranging from player toxicity to industry-wide labor questions.”

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection sets a new standard for compilations (Martin Robinson / Eurogamer – ARTICLE)
“The SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, you might think, would be an excuse to wade in nostalgia and rake over old memories, a chance to sift through the differences between the seemingly infinite spins on The King of Fighters, or to dig deep into the beauty of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. It’s not – and understandably so, given the countless options that exist to enjoy those games – and is instead something else entirely. This is a concise, exquisitely presented tour through SNK’s pre-Neo Geo history.”

Hampering the search for real criticism: Discourse Empress of the World (Zoyander Street – ARTICLE)
“The wheel of discourse is always turning, always bringing us back to where we began. Today we find ourselves at a new high noon, as a freshly-launched videogames magazine publishes a “where is all the critical writing on games?” article. This is where we are reborn – in the frustrated wailing of sincere critics, leading to a surge in shares for thoughtful writing that had gone mostly ignored for years.” 

Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? (Jason Kottke / Kottke.org – ARTICLE)
“As John Green explains in this video, a few people are actually getting much better at the NES version of Tetris than anyone was back in the 90s. One of the reasons for this is that a smaller dedicated group working together can be more effective than a massive group of people working alone on a problem.”

From Pac-Mania to Fortnite fever: are video games becoming more addictive? (Alex Hern / The Guardian – ARTICLE)
“The problem is that little of what Hopson suggested in 2001 was that much of a surprise to developers of the day. The key difference was that they described the same techniques as achieving a different goal, a word that was noticeably absent from Hopson’s essay: “Fun.””

The 10 Best Video Games of 2018 (Alex Fitzpatrick & Eliana Dockterman & Patrick Lucas Austin / TIME – ARTICLE)
“As the world seems increasingly tumultuous and hostile, it’s only natural to seek some means of escape—if only for a few hours at a time. Luckily for those of us who prefer video games as our means of a temporary reprieve from reality, 2018 offered an embarrassment of riches.”

Space Harrier – Developer Interview Collection (SH 30th Anniversary book / BEEP! / Shmuplations – ARTICLE)
“In this collection of decade-spanning interviews, former and current Sega AM2 members discuss the making of Sega’s classic 3D shooting arcade game, Space Harrier. As with so many classic games of the era, many of Space Harrier’s most distinct and memorable traits were not merely conceived through ingenuity or vision but as pragmatic solutions to immediate problems, be they related to hardware, software, manpower or just keeping the higher-ups at bay.”

The Designer’s Designer (Jimmy Maher / The Digital Antiquarian – ARTICLE)
“Dan Bunten and his little company Ozark Softscape could look back on a tremendous 1984 as that year came to an end. Seven Cities of Gold had been a huge success, Electronic Arts’s biggest game of the year, doing much to keep the struggling publisher out of bankruptcy court by selling well over 100,000 copies. Bunten himself had become one the most sought-after interviewees in the industry. [SIMON’S NOTE: Don’t miss this.]”

 

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at tinyletter.com/vgdeepcuts – we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected] MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra & an advisor to indie publisher No More Robots, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

Creating emotionally engaging stories and cinematics requires narrative, visual, audio and gameplay elements to work together to support the game’s central themes. 

In this GDC 2012 talk, BioWare’s Jonathan Perry examines how BioWare has used contrast and context in Mass Effect and Dragon Age and how these techniques can be implemented across different departments to enhance the narrative and cinematic experience.

Perry discusses how contrast and context as tools can help teams develop stronger story themes, create content that supports those themes, and deliver the story in a meaningful way that doesn’t rely on lengthy exposition.

It was an insightful talk that’s still definitely worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.

11-11: Memories Retold is a unique collaboration between French studio Digixart and British animation giant Aardman Animation, a rare game that tackles the chaotic and brutal moments of World War I while exploring the personal stories that inspired game director Yoan Fanise. While many war games are dedicated to re-creating thrilling heroics and making sure players are having fun, 11-11 does its best to explore other important aspects of the war, even as its last veterans have passed away in the last decade.

So what’s it like to work on such an unusual game? Today on the GDC Twitch channel, game designer Francois Rizzo was kind enough share some of his insight from working on 11-11: Memories Retold, and broke down some of the processes used to design interactive historical moments. 

If you missed it, you can now click on the video up above to watch the conversation in full! And while you’re at it, be sure to follow the GDC Twitch channel for more developer interviews leading up to GDC 2019. 

Los Angeles-based studio Mythical Games has secured $16 million in funding which will help fuel its efforts to develop and co-produce games across mobile, PC and consoles. 

The studio was founded earlier in the year by former Activision CEO John Linden and CCO Jamie Jackson, with head of blockchain Rudy Koch (senior producer at Blizzard), and CPO Stephan Cunningham (Director, Global Product Management at Yahoo!). 

As announced in a press release, the investment was led by Galaxy Digital’s EOS VC Fund, with significant contributions from Javelin Venture Partners, DDC, Fenbushi, Noris, and OkCoin joining the round as well. 

The company is hoping to innovate through providing its proprietary Mythical platform to developers in order to help build player-owned economies on blockchains. According to the press release, the company will also focus on producing new tools for content creators and brands to customize and provide ownership of game assets.

“When you think of it, most video games take place inside a 2D or 3D space, so playing a game taking place inside a single dimension is very disturbing for both players and game designers!”

– Dr. Ludos discusses the novelty of creating 1 dimensional address bar games. 

Rock Paper Shotgun recently published an interview with some developers who create address bar games, which are meant to be played entirely within a website’s URL.

This is a neat example of developers thinking outside the box, introducing a genre of niche, experimental games worth exploring. 

One of the most well-known examples of an address bar game comes from Corey Johnson, who developed URL Hunter using JQuery back in 2011, initially by accident.

“I was working on some code and I accidentally created a bug that caused the URL address to rapidly change characters,” Johnson explains. “I kept thinking about it on my way home, so I stayed up that night fooling around with it until I had created URL Hunter.”

Johnson credits the inherent restrictions of the medium as its biggest appeal. “Seeing if I could make a game with these extreme limitations was the most interesting part of creating it,” he says. 

“You can’t program it like a terminal-based game because the address bar doesn’t use a monospaced font, so replacing a character causes all the other characters to move slightly. You have to be clever with how you do movement. Back in 2011, I could only get around 10 fps, which was tough to make look good.”

More recently, Ludum Dare 42 (a competitive 48 hour game jam) produced the address bar game Outrunning Space, an endless runner which pushes players back by every obstacle they fail to jump over until a game over is reached.

Its developer, who goes by Dr. Ludos, reveals that the limited amount of time he had to work on a game for Ludum Dare pushed his creative boundaries.

“It forced me to go all the way into minimalism. I chose to make an address bar game because it takes place in a 1D space. It’s quite a challenge to come up with game ideas that can function inside a screen of only 23 characters of width for a single unit of height!”

Dr. Ludos is convinced that address bar games have an incredible amount of potential ripe for other developers to explore.

“Address bar games are an under-explored field, so I think many designers could invent new kinds of 1D games if someone would like to organize a jam or competition centered on that theme.”

The two were having a larger conversation around address bar games, so sure to read the entire piece over at Rock Paper Shotgun, it’s well worth the read.

Priority Interrupt has open sourced the tech behind its first-person action roguelike, Delver, for public use after one of the developers announced the decision on Twitter. 

This could be a great tool for developers interested in learning a new engine, or curious to dig into the source code responsible for bringing Delver to life.

As an added bonus, it’s always nice when developers open source their tech to share with others. 

The source release doesn’t contain or cover the game data from Delver, and the game data remains subject to original copyright and applicable law.

It’s also worth mentioning that the source code release is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0, meaning the software can continue to be shared, edited, and distributed for free, and can be used for commercial use as well. 

Developers interested in delving into the engine can click here.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: San Francisco, California

Impulse Gear is looking for a Senior Narrative Writer to help push the boundaries of interactive storytelling in our next Virtual Reality game. Daily tasks will include story development, game dialogue and general narrative contribution. The ideal candidate will have previous success as a game writer or screenwriter, outstanding communication skills, a good understanding of story and game structure, and an absolute passion to tell great stories in various mediums.

This is a full time, on-site position.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with content designers, writers and creative staff in creating original narrative content and believable characters for a Virtual Reality game

• Collaborate with writers, designers and cinematic artists to write and edit compelling and unique dialogue for a diverse cast of characters

• Communicate story ideas and plans and advocate for excellent storytelling across the team and product

• Contribute to other creative areas of the narrative including secondary game content, recording actor performance of dialogue and writing content for marketing materials.

Requirements

• A minimum of 5 years of industry or related-industry experience as a game writer, screenwriter or story editor.

• Excellent written and verbal communication and “pitch” skills.

• Able to brainstorm and collaborate with a team.

• Direct experience creating personal narratives about characters struggling with everyday challenges; even if they are on the other side of the galaxy.

• Thorough knowledge of the story and game development process.

• Solid understanding of story and game structure and how they can integrate successfully.

• Passion for gaming and/or storytelling.

• Able to produce writing without constant supervision.

• Excellent organizational skills and ability to work well under tight deadlines.

• Deep understanding of interactive narrative and a desire to push the boundaries of storytelling.

• Experience with script writing/Final Draft.

Pluses

• College degree in screenwriting, creative writing, or similar discipline
• Experience as a game designer or narrative designer

Writing Sample

Please submit at least two professional samples demonstrating strong dialogue and characterization. Samples should represent cinematic writing, such as game cinematics, or film/television scenes. Avoid prose, such as short stories or character descriptions.

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.