{"id":10316,"date":"2018-01-15T03:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/313018"},"modified":"2018-01-15T03:55:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T03:55:00","slug":"video-game-deep-cuts-getting-over-desert-golfs-loot-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/01\/15\/video-game-deep-cuts-getting-over-desert-golfs-loot-boxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Game Deep Cuts: Getting Over Desert Golf’s Loot Boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u2019s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.<\/small><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"[Video Game Deep Cuts is\u00a0a weekly newsletter<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0from curator\/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n

This week’s highlights include how Bennett Foddy Got Over It, the crazy new(ish) ending for Desert Golf, and some (slightly) nicer loot box implementations.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wow, I think we’re FINALLY mopped up on the ‘best of the year’ round-ups from 2017 – there’s some great leftover niche examples in here, from escape rooms to soundtracks to MMOs – and we’re getting way into the 2018 spirit now.<\/p>\n

Go click on all the links, and see you next weekend, folks!
–\u00a0Simon<\/a>, curator.]<\/p>\n

——————<\/p>\n

The Gaming Dynasty That Began In A West London Flat<\/a>\u00a0(Harry Rosehill \/ Londonist)<\/em>
“Living in a flat in west London in the early seventies, good friends Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson would while away the long evenings with their favourite hobby; playing board games. It was particularly niche back then, but somehow the two managed to turn their hobby into a million pound business.”<\/p>\n

Hellblade and Living with Psychosis | Sidcourse<\/a>\u00a0(Leonardo Da Sidci \/ YouTube – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“In this episode of the Sidcourse, we take a personal look at Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and living with psychosis. Video games are a unique medium and through it, developers are able to craft experiences that allow players to empathise with different situations. In recent years, it’s been an incredible medium to address the topic of mental health.”<\/p>\n

In Search of the First Video Game Commercial<\/a>\u00a0(Kate Willaert \/ Video Game History Foundation – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“Before\u00a0Pong\u00a0there was Odyssey, the first home video game console. When Magnavox released it in the fall of 1972, they encountered a number of obstacles in educating consumers about this brand new technology. Odyssey creator Ralph Baer recounted in his book,\u00a0Videogames: In The Beginning. [SIMON’S NOTE: another\u00a0VGHF Writing Fund<\/a>\u00a0product – go\u00a0back VGHF<\/a>\u00a0today!]”<\/p>\n

How do you do ‘loot boxes’ right? F2P MMO game devs weigh in<\/a>\u00a0(Alan Bradley \/ Gamasutra – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“As much as recent high-profile stumbles have been monopolizing coverage, there are a huge number of smaller developers that have been doing loot boxes elegantly for a long time, and they often\u00a0rely on them to keep the lights on and to continue development\/support.”<\/p>\n

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2017<\/a>\u00a0(Eric Swain \/ Critical Distance – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“Understanding 2017 needed no such effort. The violence against truth, knowledge and wisdom intruded into our lives on a daily basis. We are a site dedicated to spreading what pieces of truth, intelligence and wisdom on the medium of games as we can gather. The powers that be in 2017 seemed to be against those ideals.”<\/p>\n

The rise, fall, and rise of MDickie\u2014or, how to be the best worst game developer<\/a>(Chris Stokel-Walker \/ Ars Technica – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“Recently, Mat Dickie boarded a train out of London and came across a kid, face-down in a smartphone game, sitting in Dickie’s ticketed seat. As the furious tapping played out in front of him, Dickie contemplated whether he should hassle this transit gamer or just find an empty spot elsewhere. The solution ultimately revealed itself when the developer got close enough to catch a glimpse of the boy’s screen:\u00a0Wrestling Revolution 3D.”<\/p>\n

Prey & Immersive Sim Design (Ricardo Bare & Raphael Colantonio)<\/a>\u00a0(Noclip \/ YouTube – VIDEO)<\/em>
“Back in March we sat down with Ricardo Bare & Raphael Colantonio (who has since left Arkane) about the difficulty in designing immersive sims, and the long journey both they and the Prey IP took to get to this point.”<\/p>\n

Are arcade shooters really dead?<\/a>\u00a0(Matt Suckley \/ PC Gamer – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“In June of last year, Housemarque launched an arcade shooter named Nex Machina. After years of Sony exclusives like Resogun, Nex Machina gave PC players their first taste of Housemarque’s style of refined twin-stick shooter since The Reap came out in 1997.”<\/p>\n

Designer Interview: The aesthetics of frustration in\u00a0Getting Over It<\/a>\u00a0(Alex Wiltshire \/ Gamasutra – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“Foddy\u2019s own experience is illustrative of the continual tussle that plays in the heart of\u00a0Getting Over Itbetween its willfully infuriating game design and human psychology. It\u2019s a space in which a daunting situation causes you to choke, to fail to perform a move you\u2019ve perfected in any other circumstance, and something Foddy has explored across such previous games as\u00a0QWOP,\u00a0CLOP,\u00a0GIRP\u00a0and\u00a0Get On Top.”<\/p>\n

OSVOSTOTY 2017: Ryan’s Picks<\/a>\u00a0(Ryan Paquet \/ Original Sound Version – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“2017 flew by and was a very memorable year for game music, much like\u00a02016<\/a>! Personally, I am a huge film score fan, and have a deep appreciation for video game soundtracks that feature an orchestral sound. Not surprising my choice for game soundtrack of the year checked that box. [SIMON’S NOTE: all of\u00a0the ‘Soundtrack Of The Year’ picks<\/a>\u00a0at OSV are very interesting.]”<\/p>\n

The making of Supreme Commander<\/a>\u00a0(Graeme Mason \/ Eurogamer – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“I interviewed its designer and coder, Chris Taylor, a few years ago to discuss this trailblazing game [Total Annihilation]; now we’re chatting again, only this time to celebrate Total Annihilation’s spiritual follow-up, Supreme Commander, released just over ten years ago.”<\/p>\n

Massively OP’s 2017 Awards Debrief And Annual Recap<\/a>\u00a0(Massively Overpowered – ARTICLE<\/em>)
“As we did in\u00a02014<\/a>,\u00a02015<\/a>, and\u00a02016<\/a>, today I\u2019m going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from the end of 2017. We gave out\u00a019 formal awards<\/a>\u00a0this past year, all in addition to dozens of other recaps, roundups, listicles,\u00a0predictions<\/a>,\u00a0bloopers<\/a>,\u00a0oddities<\/a>, polls, provocations, and retrospectives. It was by far our biggest content dump to date, even bigger than last year! [SIMON’S NOTE: As I said on Twitter, Massively OP is super overlooked as an excellent documenter of today’s MMO news and culture.]”<\/p>\n

One Player’s 21,000 Hole Quest to Beat the Seemingly Endless ‘Desert Golf’<\/a>(Patrick Klepek \/ Waypoint – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“This week, Luke Yagnow joined an elite club, becoming the second (known) person to beat\u00a0Desert Golfing, a game not meant to be beaten. After four years of patience, somewhere between 300 and 400 hours of persistence, and help from the designer of the game, Yagnow has finally achieved his goal. There\u2019s no more\u00a0Desert Golfing\u00a0to play.”<\/p>\n

Devs answer: What were the overlooked gems of 2017?<\/a>\u00a0(Alan Bradley \/ Gamasutra – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“I reached out to devs in a number of different roles across the industry and asked them what overlooked games from 2017 they\u2019d most like to highlight, and was rewarded with an excellent, diverse list of hidden gems.”<\/p>\n

2017 Golden Lock-In Awards<\/a>\u00a0(David Spira \/ Room Escape Artist – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“We played and reviewed 258 room escapes in 2017.\u00a0Our escape rate was 96.12%. That\u2019s 10 losses, including one game that appears on this list. We traveled more than 58,000 miles in search of the finest escape rooms in the world.”<\/p>\n

Amid a rising tide of games, devs reflect on state of the Switch market<\/a>\u00a0(Joel Couture \/ Gamasutra – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“With so many positive claims coming from developers, it almost seems foolish for others not to develop for the\u00a0Switch. However, with a new console comes new software needs, new controller concerns, new companies to deal with, and all kinds of other factors that devs will want to consider.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe least-worst idea we had\u201d\u2014The creation of the\u00a0Age of Empires\u00a0empire<\/a>\u00a0(Richard C Moss \/ Ars Technica – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“With\u00a0a new\u00a0Age\u00a0game in development<\/a>\u00a0and a “definitive edition<\/a>” reboot of the original just around the corner\u2014and given\u00a0our recent foray<\/a>\u00a0into the evolution of the entire real-time strategy genre\u2014we thought it’d be interesting to dig into the history of\u00a0this\u00a0RTS series. After all, RTS games like\u00a0Age\u00a0have introduced millions of impressionable youths to the delights of… well, history.”<\/p>\n

Polygon\u2019s 2017 Year in Review: video game essays from designers, authors and critics<\/a>\u00a0(Chris Suellentrop \/ Polygon – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“For a week, Polygon asked me to bring my fantasy universe to the real one. We\u2019ve invited a few of our favorite game developers, and a few of my favorite game-playing writers, to reflect on the games we played in 2017. Happy New Year! [SIMON’S NOTE: this is a stellar series of articles, so I’m linking them all:\u00a0Cara Ellison (Dreams)\u00a0on\u00a0What Remains of Edith Finch<\/a>\u00a0;\u00a0Ian Dallas (What Remains of Edith Finch)\u00a0on\u00a0Super Mario Odyssey<\/a>;\u00a0Charles Yu (novelist and\u00a0Westworld\u00a0writer) on\u00a0Universal Paperclips\u00a0and Subsurface Circula<\/a>r ;\u00a0Virginia Heffernan (Los Angeles Times columnist) on\u00a0Everything;\u00a0<\/a>Charles Webb (Mafia 3)\u00a0on\u00a0Nier: Automata<\/a>;\u00a0Ken Levine (BioShock)\u00a0on\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild;\u00a0<\/a>Ana Marie Cox (With Friends Like These\u00a0podcaster) on\u00a0BioShock Infinite\u00a0in the Trump era<\/a>;\u00a0Jacob Solomon (XCOM)\u00a0on\u00a0Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle<\/a>;\u00a0Halley Gross (The Last of Us Part 2)\u00a0on\u00a0PlayerUnknown\u2019s Battlegrounds;\u00a0<\/a>Steve Gaynor (Gone Home) on\u00a0Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus<\/a>;\u00a0Meg Jayanth (80 Days) on\u00a0Butterfly Soup\u00a0and\u00a0Dream Daddy;\u00a0<\/a>Amy Hennig (Uncharted) and Sean Vanaman (Firewatch)\u00a0on making games in 2017<\/a>.”]<\/p>\n

Star Citizen, I am disappointed<\/a>\u00a0(Robert Purchese \/ Eurogamer – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“tar Citizen is a bit like an Instagram account: what you see looks amazing but the reality is hollow. As it stands, at major milestone alpha 3.0, Star Citizen does not convince as a game. But as a picture-postcard-maker – as a demonstration of technology – it’s virtually peerless.”<\/p>\n

Running a Kickstarter project that\u2019s\u00a0late<\/a>\u00a0(Matej ‘Retro’ Jan \/ Retronator – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“It\u2019s been two and a half years since I launched my project\u00a0Pixel Art Academy\u00a0on Kickstarter. Anyone that runs a campaign has to set an estimate for delivery of the rewards. I estimated mine for September 2016. It\u2019s 2018 now, and I\u2019m nowhere near done.”<\/p>\n

Keiichi Tanaka explores the history behind Nintendo\u2019s now-legendary \u201cMOTHER\u201d<\/a>(Keiichi Tanaka \/ Denfaminicogamer – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“In this column, author Keiichi Tanaka talks with game creators of the 80s and 90s whose excitement and occasional excess helped shape the industry in its adolescence.\u00a0Episode 5 focuses on Shigesato Itoi, creator of one of the Famicom\u2019s finest RPGs: \u201cMOTHER\u201d. [SIMON’S NOTE: an artful cartoon, even!]”<\/p>\n

Classic Tools Retrospective: Tim Sweeney on the first version of the Unreal Editor<\/a>(David Lightbown \/ Gamasutra – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“The first article in this series was an\u00a0interview with John Romero about TEd<\/a>, the Tile Editor he created at Id Software, that went on to ship over 30 games.\u00a0For the second\u00a0article, I\u00a0am fortunate to have the opportunity to speak to\u00a0Tim Sweeney\u00a0about the first version of the\u00a0Unreal Editor, or\u00a0UnrealEd.\u00a0We spoke at the Unreal booth during the GamesCom\u00a02017 conference in Cologne, Germany.”<\/p>\n

The Tired Old Hack Alternative Game Of The Year Awards\u00a02017<\/a>\u00a0(Chris Scullion \/ Tired Old Hack – ARTICLE)<\/em>
“Well, 2017 is finally coming to an end, and you know what that means: it\u2019s time for every video game site to give its end-of-year awards.\u00a0I mean, it would be if most of them hadn\u2019t already posted their awards in early December so they could all enjoy well-deserved Christmas breaks.”<\/p>\n

——————<\/p>\n

[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 vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. 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!]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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