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Video Game Deep Cuts: Phoenix Point's Typeshift Prophet
This week's Video Game Deep Cuts longform articles/videos include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.
Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...
- Simon, curator.]
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Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat)
"What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."
The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer)
"At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."
Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse)
"Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."
Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium)
"I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."
Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube)
"In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."
Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun)
"So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"
RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex)
"Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."
The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin &