Reading List February 2023

The reading list is back! This time, we have a game development documentary almost too big to be believed — I'm talking the Lord of the Rings behind-the-scenes scale of massive — as well as interviews on Hi-Fi Rush, psychological analyses of Bioware characters, and more.

Second Opinions

Why the Successful Surprise Launch of Hi-Fi Rush Matters So Much by Trone Dowd: Dowd talks about the implications of Hi-Fi Rush’s success, using it as yet another datapoint supporting the argument that there’s a rabid audience (me) out there for smaller, cheaper to make games.

The Surprising Journey Of Hi-Fi Rush’s Development by MinnMax: Ben Hanson of MinnMax interviewed John Johanas, director of Hi-Fi Rush, about the game’s development, talking prototypes, inspirations, parodying the game development process, and more.

How a Designer Known For Horror Made the Musical Gaming Triumph Hi-Fi Rush by Patrick Klepek: Vice also got a chance to interview Johanas, discussing Hi-Fi Rush’s signature art style and how they incorporated its rhythm aspects.

A Reading List All of Its Own

Double Fine dropped one of the biggest and most in-depth documentaries of a game’s development produced to date. PsychOdyssey is a 32-part behemoth recording the creation of not just Psychonauts 2, but the studio’s formation around the original, a VR spinoff, and more, following more than a decade of work at the company.

Double Fine PsychOdyssey — EP01: “The Color of the Sky in Your World”

Analytical Lenses

This month, we have a couple of articles that took a look at games through a very specific and unique lens, whether that’s a way to analyze other games for inspiration (or your own game for solutions) or applying real life psychology to fictional characters.

How To Analyze a Video Game by Game Maker’s Toolkit: Mark Brown detailed the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) process, a common way some developers use to analyze and take inspiration from their peers.

Meet The Actual Therapist Using Dragon Age To Teach Relationship Skills by Lauren Morton: Morton interviewed Dr. Mick, a therapist that has been streaming and clipping his runs of various BioWare rpgs, giving life lessons and psychological analyses of each game’s characters along the way.

Everything Else

Why God of War Challenged Fate, Then Did It Again by Jacob Geller: We now have two God of War 2s, and Jacob Geller took this funny little shower thought and turned it into a full on analysis of how the franchise has changed over the years, comparing pacing, themes, and each game’s distinctive camerawork.

I Miss Arkham City by Micah Edmonds: Edmonds critiqued Arkham City, discussing how the game’s been covered by critics and fans, the many, many issues of its narrative, and his growing lifelong relation with the game.

We Need To Fix Black Hair in Video Games — The Blessing Show by Blessing Adeoye Jr.: Adeoye tackled the topic of black hair in video games, why it’s important, and what games are (or aren’t) doing to emulate this central part of black culture.

Lifelong Friends are Made in Dead and Dying Games by Brian Lee-Mounger Hendershot: Hendershot used long-”dead” f2p FPS Dirty Bomb to talk about how an online game’s most ardent fans often build their own close-knit communities long after a developer has left the game behind.

The Inside Story of How Hyper Light Breaker Became an Open World Roguelike by Noclip: Noclip’s second embedded project on Hyper Light Breaker hits a dramatic shift as the game switches genres mid-development.

I Love Note-Taking Games and I Don’t Care if That Sounds Boring by Clayton Ashley: Ashley pined for an older age of video games when a notebook was an essential tool to keep on your desk and championed the games that still carry the note-taking torch.

Wario Land 3: The Best Nintendo Game by hotcyder: Hotcyder went back to his favorite series and compared Wario Land 3 to many of Nintendo’s other best-known properties, tracing the lineage of the company’s most famous design concepts and how Wario Land incorporates each.

I Love Racing Games, They Suck! by Raycevick: Raycevick took the racing genre to task for bugs, poor online experiences, and a misguided ethos towards innovation.

A Whole New World of Warcraft: The Board Game by Orrin Grey: Grey highlighted a curious moment of gaming history with Fantasy Flight’s 2005 World of Warcraft board game, a game that was a flop and they don’t particularly recommend, but is still a fascinating moment in history when board games and video games intersected to create a monstrously huge game.

Using a Hot-Swappable Keyboard Cherry-Pilled Me Into a Custom Keyboard Obsession by Wes Fenlon: Fenlon recently got into modding their mechanical keyboard. I mean really into it. And they took their experiences to create a beginner’s guide to making the keyboard of your dreams…and then dreaming about a crazier keyboard.

One Day, This Videogame Will Be Perfect by Reid McCarter: McCarter used the most recent Dead Space remaster to talk about the industry’s current obsession with remaking any and every game that ever made a buck.

The One Who Pulls the Sword Out Will Be Crowned King: An Allegory for My Issues With MMOs and Why I Liked it Anyways by Emma Shannon: Shannon compared The One Who Pulls the Sword Out Will Be Crowned King, a game that gets harder for every player any time someone beats it, to the endless content bloat of MMOs, and how the former makes itself accessible while the latter becomes prohibitively difficult to jump into.

The Wholesome Bubba Project: Countering Toxicity in Dead By Daylight by Pim’s Crypt: Pim set off on a one-person quest to combat Dead By Daylight’s community toxicity through non-combative “wholesome” play, then made a video detailing the results.