Video Game Deep Cuts: Dishonored Guardian's Credits

[Another odd week, & we're just about hanging in there. But in between the weirdness, there's a huge amount of good video game-centric content out there, and I've tried to reflect at least some of it here.

Some notable game-ish thoughts that are non-longform articles for this week - I totally love (and have ordered) this shmup T-shirt, watch out for ART BOSS (a new/awesome 'game art showcase' thing GDC is doing with iam8bit at GDC 2017!), check out IFComp winner Detectiveland from Robin Johnson, so happy that C64 music legend Rob Hubbard got an honorary degree from Abertay, it's interesting how opening crates is the new endorphin-fueled pseudogambling jam, & some of those PICO-8 demakes are out of control.

Oh, and relatedly, check out the new Pico Game Storybundle that I curated & sign up to the Tinyletter version of this newsletter to get it via email a day early, should you desire... anyhow, onward to the links.

- Simon Carless, curator.]

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'Uncharted' Creator Amy Hennig on Finding Her Calling and Taking 'Star Wars' Somewhere New (Laura A. Parker/Glixel)
"The walls of video game director Amy Hennig's writing room are full of secrets. There are photographs, movie stills, drawings, storyboards, and a few thousand neon Post-it notes filled with tiny scrawl. A giant felt board holds pinned rows of colorful cards, each labelled with a different scene title. "I need to see it all at once, laid out before me," she says, "and then step in when I want to zero in on a particular scene or level."

Q&A: 'Titanfall 2' Creator on What Makes a Great Shooter and Launching Against 'Call of Duty' (Chris Suellentrop/Glixel)
"Vince Zampella didn’t invent the military shooter, but he helped to perfect it. He’s making science-fiction shooters these days, as the chief executive of Respawn, which recently released the almost universally acclaimed Titanfall 2."

Games Are a Playground for Artificial Intelligence (Greg Noone/How We Got To Next)
"Childhood development experts are reaching a growing consensus on the value of play. As kids transition into adulthood, the ability for them to experiment in a safe environment has major benefits to emotional and cognitive development. Now AI researchers are beginning to recognize the same thing—that their creations benefit just as much as children do from a playground, where they can learn how to behave in the world."

Those Mysterious Symbols Hidden In 24 Games Have Crossed Over With 'Frog Fractions 2' (Patrick Klepek/Waypoint)
"Back in August, I reported on a mysterious set of symbols that had, at the time, shown up in 19 different games. No one knew what the symbols meant, and the developers who added them either stayed silent or pretended they didn't know what was going on. Since then, the symbols have expanded to five more games, including Firewatch. But with Firewatch, the endgame for this Internet goose chase may be in sight—and it might involve Frog Fractions 2."

Fashion Designer Maya Hansen Talks Her Dishonored 2 Designs (Maya Hansen/Paste)
"Last year, while writing about the first Dishonored, Gita Jackson was fascinated “that Arkane Studios thought so much about the world they were creating that they even thought about the fashion.” Dishonored 2 is now out, and if anything Arkane spent even more attention on how their characters dress."

Dishonored 2 director Harvey Smith on how to make video games feel alive (Matt Gerardi/Gameological)
"Back in October, I played one level from a nearly finished version of the game, a mission inside the mechanical mansion of Karnaca’s maniacal chief inventor. Afterward, I had the chance to speak with Harvey Smith, the game’s director and the series’ co-creator. He is a storied game designer whose work on titles that are rich in both atmosphere and player choice go back to 2000’s Deus Ex, the influence of which is still seeping into gaming at large."

The Charmer (Chris Koentges/ESPN)
"The kid begins each game the same way. Black headphones over his ears, he cocks the plunger and looks to the ceiling. Sometimes he grins. Sometimes he giggles. Sometimes he whispers a line from "King of the Hill" or a funny string of syllables like "Schipperke," an allusion to the rare Belgian breed of dog that waits for him at home. Sometimes you wonder whether he'll ever let go. Like he's awaiting instructions."

Alienware manager on Steam Machines lull: Windows 10 changed everything (Shaun Prescott/PC Gamer)
"In 2016, it’s rare for discussions about the future of PC gaming to include any mention of Steam Machines. Earlier this month, during an interview with Alienware co-founder and current general manager Frank Azor, I asked him why this was the case. His answer? Microsoft, basically."

Game Design Deep Dive: The folktale structure of Burly Men at Sea (Brooke Condolora/Gamasutra)
"Burly Men at Sea is constructed as a story-building game. In it, branching scenes combine to form a variable tale with a single, overarching theme. With each session, the player returns from one journey to set sail again, uncovering new paths for a series of kindred but distinct adventures."

Breaking games at tradeshows: Tales of a jerkface (Brandon Sheffield/ZAM)
"During my time as a game journalist, I broke tons of games at tradeshows. Tradeshow demos are shaky at best, and most of them have just gotten to “good enough” the night before the show. (I should know, our game Gunsport has been in this state several times, and broken as a result.) When I start to feel like I'd rather be doing something other than what the game asks, I start testing the boundaries of the game world, and that's when the trouble starts."

Choice, Consequence and Complicity (Alexis Kennedy / GDC / YouTube)
"In this 2016 GDC session, former Failbetter Games CEO Alexis Kennedy shares practical writing tricks for interactive stories and explains which narrative traps you can easily avoid avoid using examples from Fallen London and Sunless Sea."

The Origins Of The Walking Simulator (Graeme Mason/Eurogamer)
"If there's a genre of videogames today that diversifies players like no other, it's the walking simulator. Many examples have found favour, especially at Eurogamer, with Firewatch and, latterly, Virginia, both well-received. Yet for every praiseworthy voice, there are critics, keen to expose this style of game for being over-hyped, underwhelming and, frankly, boring. Like so much else in games, the walking simulator is not a new phenomenon, and its roots can be traced back to the 1980s."

Exploring The Motherlike: Or, The Genre That Never Was (Adam Nizam/Paste)
"Recently, a genre affectionately termed “Motherlikes” has been popping up in the fan lexicon on sites such as Tumblr and TV Tropes, referring to offbeat indie games that mixed surreal humor with creepiness. Inspired by the smash success of Undertale, I set out to speak to the people behind this wonderful new creation on their Mother influences. So imagine my surprise when I found out.. they had none."

Guns and Guardians: Playstyles in Destiny (Anders Drachen/Gamasutra)
"Given a huge and varied game like Destiny, it is of interest to see if there are any patterns in how people play the game. There can be a variety of reasons for this – for developers the focus can be on monitoring the players and checking no group emerges that has issues progressing, gaining insights into how to change the game to improve it, all the way to actively detect cheaters, bots and similar."

'Tomb Raider' Turns 20: The Complex Legacy of Lara Croft (Pete Keeley/Hollywood Reporter)
"Noah Hughes, the franchise creative director for Crystal Dynamics — the developer of the TR games since 2003 — spoke with THR about what it was like to take over such a huge franchise, Lara's legacy, and how the character has changed over the last two decades."

Scott Johnson 24 - 'The Chris Metzen Interview' (Scott Johnson/Soundcloud)
"The Chris Metzen Interview - Scott sits down with Chris and talks about the past, the present, and the future." [SIMON'S NOTE: more info here - 'Scott Johnson has a great interview with [Blizzard's] Chris Metzen about the events leading up to his retirement. A recap can't really do it justice, but we left some rough notes below to give you an idea of what was covered.']

The making of Dishonored's greatest mission, Lady Boyle's Last Party (Andy Kelly/PC Gamer)
"Ask any Dishonored fan what their favourite mission is and there’s a good chance they’ll say Lady Boyle’s Last Party. Your target is Lady Boyle herself, the setting a lavish masked ball in her opulent mansion, and there are countless ways to complete your objective."

Tales From 15 Years Of Xbox (Emma Bridle & Various/Rare)
"My favourite memory of making Kinect Sports is the complete shock to the system for our Test team. Think about it. Testers spend all day sitting down playing video games, we don't get out much. Then suddenly, Kinect Sports arrives as a game that actually involves a LOT of physical effort! Still, we were a helluva lot fitter after we launched..."

Place Of Residing Evil: Looking Back At Capcom’s Original Survival Horror (Ben Reeves/Game Informer)
"Fujiwara’s most significant contribution to the gaming industry, however, might be an often-overlooked RPG for Nintendo’s first console that never officially released outside Japan. Entitled Sweet Home, Fujiwara’s project sounds like a game bound for obscurity; it was an adaptation of a low-budget Japanese horror film that served as an early experiment in video game horror. In spite of all this, Sweet Home became a cult hit and went on to inspire the Resident Evil franchise as well as the entire survival horror genre."

The ups, downs and future of Tomonobu Itagaki's Devil's Third (James Mielke/Polygon)
"Originally set to be published by Microsoft on Xbox 360, Devil's Third saw more prerelease action than most games, moving to a multiplatform release including PC, then including mobile, then ultimately settling on an unlikely home in Wii U. For a game that took eight years to get there, the critical and commercial response was disappointing for all parties involved."

Discussing ‘The Last Guardian’ with Director Fumito Ueda (Mike Diver/Waypoint)
"Fumito Ueda's unexpectedly long journey is finally over. The Last Guardian, the game the director of Shadow of the Colossus and Ico began thinking about as long ago as 2005, is finished, releasing for PlayStation 4 in December. For a decade, this has been Ueda's life, and now, speaking to him in a London hotel, he doesn't know quite how to feel."

Tokido Speaks About Fairness and Input Lag in SFV (Anne Ellis/Red Bull eSports)
"At Red Bull Battle Grounds, a few surprise competitors hailing from Japan arrived to take place in the open bracket. One such player to completely take over the event was tournament mainstay Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi... At a moment where he wasn’t busy crushing hopes and dreams, he managed to share a few words on the current state of the game."

Where Credit Is Due – Video Game Credits That Innovate (Michael Leri/Game Informer)
"You just conquered the last boss or finished off a trilogy. Besides your initial excitement and maybe an achievement or trophy, what is left? Most likely a plain, black screen scrolling through the names of hundreds of talented people... As games mature and embrace what makes them unique, credits need to evolve to reflect the interactivity that makes them special (while still giving proper recognition to creators). Here are lessons that the industry needs to learn about end-game credits from games that got it right."

Gamasutra Plays Dishonored 2 with creative director Harvey Smith (Gamasutra/YouTube)
"We sat down to play through the Clockwork Mansion, Dishonored 2's most unique level, with Arkane Studios co-creative director Harvey Smith."

Discussing the Enduring Appeal of Abe with Oddworld Creator Lorne Lanning (Mike Diver/Waypoint)
"In 2017, the original PlayStation's Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The game, released at a time when console and home computer power was pushing virtual worlds into three dimensions like never before (step forward GoldenEye 007, Final Fantasy VII, and the Quake and Tomb Raider sequels)looked like a step backwards for what these creations could be."

Killing Lara Croft (Duncan Fyfe / Campo Santo Quarterly)
"Andy Sandham first saw her over Toby Gard’s shoulder. Both men worked as artists at the British game developer Core Design, but on separate projects. Sandham, on a game called Machine Head, hadn’t seen anything of Gard’s Tomb Raider until Gard was ready to show off the character he’d designed and animated."

Games as a Path to Self-Care (Andrea Ayres/How We Got Next)
"Being unhappy with your identity can make the world a tough place.Some of us, though, are unsure of which new traits we want to try—or what they might look like—to make a change. We fear the reactions of others to any shifts in our behavior, personality, or appearance. Games can offer a lifeline, letting players inhabit a space where exploration is not only possible but encouraged."

Watch our video history of gaming in Brazil (Red Bull Gaming)
"For many of us, access to video games is as easy as heading down to the local shop and buying a game... In Brazil, that wasn't quite the case though. As our new documentary series Red Bull Parallels explores, getting ahold of official games was never quite as easy or as cost effective. However, through piracy, copycat hardware and engineering ingenuity, Brazil has experienced access to video game culture in a different way over the last few decades."

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