Sundays are the time to hope that the plumber has ordered a novel sink part. My sink is apparently “custom”. “Why can’t I just be normal?!” I scream in noiseless longing. Armitage Shanks would never do that. Before I get excited about no longer having to wash my bowl of noodles in the same place I brush my teeth, let’s read this week’s best articles about gaming (and things related to gaming!)
For AftermathLuke Plunkett spoke to “Albert”, an anonymous industry veteran, about the difficulties of creating a demo for a enormous presentation or event – even though you sometimes know it’s “100% grade A bullshit”.
In fact, now that I think about it, I was in the studio (if not directly involved) in a trailer that was 100% Grade A crap. Basically, our publisher really wanted to show something and despite the fact that our next project wasn’t even in the pitch phase, let alone production, we asked an outside team to create a trailer to build buzz. It was completely separated from anything we hoped to do, and its development was so early that we couldn’t aid but mislead or tie our hands. This one sucked. Fortunately, it didn’t take up a ton of our resources and time, but it was still demoralizing because we had nothing to do with it and we all knew that these would be promises that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to keep.
For Unwinnable, Jay Castello wrote about “Supergiant Junkman, Better Underground.” These are the landscapes and characters from my favorite Supergiant game, Pyre.
However, unlike the spaces in the Hades games, the downside is not an endless maze of rooms filled solely with enemies (and the occasional Charon’s shop). The downside is the world. Escaping this place is a journey that takes the Nightwings through a variety of bejeweled, misty-lit environments, each with its own mood. This requires a car, a home base that is both comfortable and crowded. This gives all the characters a sense of support, a place in the world, which gives them vital narrative weight.
For Guardian, Keith Stuart spoke to enthusiasts creating a replica of the PDP-10 mainframe computer – the same series that powered the prehistoric game SpaceWar! was designed.
The attention to detail is wild. The front lights are not just for show purposes. As in the original machine, they indicate the instructions being executed, a compact amount of CPU signals, and the contents of memory. Vermeulen calls this watching the computer’s heartbeat. This element was taken very seriously. “Two people spent months on one specific problem,” Vermeulen says. “As you know, LEDs turn on and off, but incandescent bulbs kind of glow. So a whole study was carried out to make the LEDs simulate the glow of the original lamps. And then we found out that different lamps from different years had different burning times. Measurements were taken, math was applied, but we added lamp glow. More CPU time is spent simulating this than simulating the original CPU!”
The House of the Dragon is back! The first season was great! I understand that you are twice as shy at this point, but I think you should try it. You could just absorb it all by proxy, via Glidus excellent summary videosthough.
‘Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs. Actual Middle Eastern Music‘ is a movie that Brendy recommended after talking about Metal Slug Tactics.
Ed sent this to me. While waiting for Shadow Of The Erdtree, why not play it With Soft Word? “The Dark Souls of Word Processors.” One typo and the game is over. I’m so mildly amused by this that I don’t even mind this gross oversimplification of FromSoft’s design ethos. In this seven-hour video essay, I will discuss…
There’s music this week Previous industries by Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave and STILL RIFT. I once had an enlightening conversation with Open Mike before a show about linguistic determinism and the work of Robert Anton Wilson. Ziggy Starfish is still the most exuberant song ever written about social anxiety. Thank you Michael Eagle and thank you readers. Have a nice weekend!
