The latest Video Game Deep Cuts roundup of the best writing & videos includes Disaster Report 4, Animal Crossing shenanigans, Mount & Blade II, & lots more besides.
[My Gamasutra colleagues had an editorial meeting in Animal Crossing - here’s evidence!]
We’re back again with Video Game Deep Cuts on Substack, folks. I got some good feedback on the revamped newsletter, so there’s going to be a couple of tweaks, hurrah.
Since I’m on sabbatical from the dayjob, I could actually make multiple of these ‘core’ free VGDC newsletters per week. But it’s a slippery slope timewise. So I’ll be keeping it to two newsletters per week (one for free, one for paid subscribers!) for now - enjoy!
- Simon, curator
The Final Fantasy VII Remake is here, it’s weird as heck, and yet it’s still “one of the most audacious [classic JRPG] remakes that we’ve ever seen in any medium.
Medieval ARPG Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is voraciously awaited and still in Early Access, but generally classified as ‘buggy but brilliant’.
The design anatomy of an individual DOOM Eternal combat encounter.
An epic delay for earthquake sim Disaster Report 4 (pictured) has led to “an absolute mess that’s well worth playing”.
Horror remake Resident Evil 3 might be a great way to deal with the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic. [Bonus review: why the game is ‘fun while it lasts’.
Also out & notable: Python-esque Renaissance adventure game The Procession to Calvary (Steam), the trash-cleaning beat-em-up Scrappers (Apple Arcade), mystic RPG card battler Ancient Enemy (Steam).
Yes, people are holding weddings in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. 📰 (And even hiring bouncers for turnip trading protection, haha.
A deep dive from the creator of Baba Is You into its sentence-based game design rules.
What to do if you’re running an escape room during a coronavirus outbreak.
Noted novelist Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore) is blogging the creation of a new text-based game with procedurally generated maps.
Going behind the scenes of the in-game locomotion in Valve’s acclaimed Half-Life: Alyx.
Why pro video game streamer is one of the most coronavirus-resistant jobs out there.
How 30 different people play Level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.
A detailed cultural history of Trilobyte’s ‘90s FMV adventure The 7th Guest.
‘The Uncredited’ discusses “the rise of the American computer game industry from the point of view of three women who worked… at Sierra On-Line.”
First-hand sources on the creation of the surprisingly good console port Doom 64. [Bonus: how - technically - the game was brought to new consoles.
Implausibly, PONG Quest exists, & uses the phrase “humanized paddle” in its official announce. *pokes corpse of Atari experimentally*
How China’s game industry is coping with - and reacting to - Covid-19.
A feature-length compilation of star YouTube game essayists on ‘how we talk about games’.
The five deadly sins of game attractiveness, from a dev perspective.
Bitesized new streaming network Quibi has a daily video game culture show, Speedrun.
Borderlands 3 is the latest title to include in-game ‘citizen science’, “helping advance medical research by mapping the human gut microbiome.”
Who’s roving the U.S. buying Switches & flipping them on eBay? This guy.
For those interested in a paid subscription to Video Game Deep Cuts, the latest bonus is the debut of our subscriber game club! First up is an analysis/giveaway of PS1-style horror game Night Of The Consumers.
Until next time!
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