Things
These are the texts, talks, games, shows, and other things that I’ve been thinking about lately (at time of posting).
added 12/22/19:
Game Design Deep Dive: The creative camaraderie behind Wilmot’s Warehouse - Richard Hogg
Children of the Sea - Studio 4°C, Dir. Ayumu Watanabe
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Tatsuya Ishihara
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Tatsuya Ishihara, Yasuhiro Takemoto
Kimetsu no Yaiba Ep 19
Death Stranding - Kojima Productions
Death Stranding: The Kotaku Review - Heather Alexandra
Designing AI systems to support player storytelling - Max Kreminski
On writing the secret languages inside your head - Jenny Zhang with Maura M. Lynch
Getting Over Spelunky with Bennett Foddy - The Spelunky Showlike, Bennett Foddy
added 9/22/19:
Tamako Love Story - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Naoko Yamada
Tamako’s Memory Note Interview - Naoko Yamada - Naoko Yamada, trans. ultimatemegax
Hyouka - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Yasuhiro Takemoto
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Yasuhiro Takemoto
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Roundtable #2: Digital/Background Staff - Mikiko Watanabe, Yuuka Yoneda, Akihiro Ura, Norihiro Tomita, Rina Miura, trans. ultimatemegax
Titanfall 2 - Respawn Entertainment
Designing Unforgettable Titanfall Single Player Levels with Action Blocks - Christopher Dionne
Noita - Petri Purho, Olli Harjola, Arvi Teikari
10 Beautiful Postcards - thecatamites
The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin
added 5/5/19:
K-On! - Kyoto Animation, Dir. Naoko Yamada
Nichijou - Kyoto Animation, Tatsuya Ishihara, Keiichi Arawi
FLCL- Gainax, Production I.G, Dir. Kazuya Tsurumaki
Sarazanmai - MAPPA, Lapin Track, Dir. Nobuyuki Takeuchi, Kunihiko Ikuhara
DICTIONARY TO THE KNOWN WORLD - 2005 - thecatamites
The Spelunky Showlike 17: Climbing Gloves in the Jungle Part 1 - Andy Nealen and Zach Gage
added 12/18/18:
Liz and the Blue Bird - Kyoto Animation Dir. Naoko Yamada
Bennett Foddy on the pitfalls of perfectionism - Bennett Foddy with Brandon Stosuy
added 11/1/18:
Spiral - Laurel Schwulst
Lady Bird - Dir. Greta Gerwig
Yama no Susume - 8-Bit Dir Yusuke Yamamoto
Are Videogames Bad at Images? - Zolani Stewart
Bad Images - Emilie Reed
receipt king - thecatamites
The Tragedy of GJ237b - Caitlynn Belle and Ben Lehman
Characteristics of Games - George Skaff Elias, Karl Robert Gutschera, and Richard Garfield
Situational Game Design - Brian Upton
added 6/2/18:
The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula Le Guin
Houseki no Kuni - Haruko Ichikawa / Studio Orange
Tone Control Episode 24: Bennett Foddy - Bennett Foddy and Steve Gaynor
NYU Game Center Lecture Series Presents Zach Barth - Zach Barth with Frank Lantz
Naomi Clark on systems thinking and social responsibility - Naomi Clark with Keith Burgun
added 1/8/18:
Pacy Pacy Push - thecatamites
Made in Abyss - Akihito Tsukushi / Kinema Citrus
Attack on Titan - Hajime Isayama / Wit Studio
Their Story - Tan Jiu
Horizon Zero Dawn - Guerrilla Games
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy - Bennett Foddy
added 10/17/17:
In Praise of Sticky Friction - Tim Rogers
Butterfly Soup - Brianna Lei
futures market - thecatamites
Nier: Automata - Platinum Games Dir. Yoko Taro
Nier - Cavia Dir. Yoko Taro
XCOM 2 - Firaxis Games
added 7/20/17:
Game Texture and Liminal Spaces - Jonas Kyratzes
17776: What football will look like in the future - Jon Bois
Against Design - Frank Lantz
Double Futures - Frank Lantz
added 6/25/17:
Princess Mononoke - Studio Ghibli Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
“Mononoke Hime” or “Ashitaka Setsuki” (project proposal) - Hayao Miyazaki
Salvation Mode: The forgotten joys of the screen saver - Zack Hatfield
Music Object, Substance, Organism - David Kanaga
Oikospiel Book I - David Kanaga
Where the Wild Things Are (film) - Spike Jonze
Lieve Oma - Florian Veltman
Me & QT: What’s Behind Tarantino Ditching His Leaked ‘Hateful Eight’ Script? - Brian Koppelman
A Cartoon About Sports - Molly Brooks
Violence Considered Harmful - Pippin Barr
Friday, 27 March 2015 - Natasha Lampard
The Bromeliad Trilogy - Terry Pratchett
Play Nice: Videogame violence meets the non-violent videogame - Joshua Trevett
On Despair, GamerGate, and Quitting The Hulk - Film Crit Hulk
Rice Boy - Evan Dahm
Gish - Edmund McMillen and Alex Austin
Touching Heroics in Alien Swarm - Tom Francis
Less Talk More Rock - Superbrothers
Fair Use - Chris Hecker
What it has taken me 33 years to learn - Justin McElroy
added 5/7/17:
Wot I Think: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP - Kieron Gillen
Inconsolable - Superbrothers
Arcane Kids Manife$to - Arcane Kids
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction - Ursula Le Guin
added 3/26/17:
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture - Robert Venturi
Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau
dump.txt - thecatamites
Everything - David OReilly
Emissary series - Ian Cheng
Adam Curtis on the dangers of self expression - Adam Curtis, interviewed by Yancey Strickler
Casual Games for Protesters - Paolo Pedercini and Harry Josephine Giles
“Press Forwards” and the pleasing death of agency - Robert Yang
On legacy systems and Kentucky Route Zero (Acts I-IV) by Cardboard Computer - Robert Yang
In the beginning there were variables and conditionals - Pippin Barr
Thumper - Drool
Uncharted series - Naughty Dog
Continuity and Change - Max Bill
Intuition and Ideas - Paul Rand
Pitching Feelings - Rami Ismail
Kafka and his Precursors - Jorge Luis Borges
A Tale of Two Jousts: Multimedia, Game Feel, and Imagination - Douglas Wilson
San Andreas Deer Cam - Brent Watanabe
Pokemon Go (Summer 2016 version) - Niantic
Six Memos for the Next Millennium - Italo Calvino
Scroll, Skim, Stare - Orit Gat
“Context Stinks!” - Rita Felski
and i made sure to hold your head sideways - Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson
Packing Up The Rest of Your Stuff on the Last Day at Your Old Apartment - turnfollow
added 9/19/16 (initial list - less focused on present moment):
Tharsis - Zach Gage and Choice Provisions
Tharsis Design Video
Dominion - Donald Vaccarino
Magic: The Gathering - Richard Garfield
Magic: the Gathering: Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned
Article Part 1
Article Part 2
Article Part 3
Making Magic - Mark Rosewater:
Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited
When Cards Go Bad
Pie Fights
The Great White Way Revisited
True Blue Revisited
In the Black Revisited
Seeing Red Revisited
It’s Not Easy Being Green Revisited
Imbroglio - Michael Brough
Imbroglio notes (1-6) - Michael Brough
inventory management
blood and mana
monsters
when this
imbroglio friends
meditation
2-player games - Michael Brough
Balancing Multiplayer Games - David Sirlin
definitions
viable options
fairness
intuition
game balance and yomi
Nothing Beats Rock - Frank Lantz
Videogames Are Better Than Sports - Tim Rogers
Glitch Tank - Michael Brough
Rocket League - Psyonix
Super Smash Bros. Melee - HAL Lab
Chesh - Damian Sommer
Get On Top (Sportsfriends version) - Bennett Foddy
Wiggly Pong - Bennett Foddy
Desert Golfing - Justin Smith
Dark Souls - From Software
Minecraft
Corrypt - Michael Brough
Stephen’s Sausage Roll - Stephen Lavelle
Outer Wilds - Mobius Digital
Kentucky Route Zero (and interludes) - Cardboard Computer
Stop Crying About Choice - Joel Goodwin
Generation Lamp (GDC talk writeup) - Zach Gage
Interview w/ Electric Objects - Zach Gage
Sentences on Conceptual Art - Sol LeWitt
Monster Factory: What if Dark Souls Were Made of Pizza? - Justin and Griffin McElroy
Not a manifesto; on game development as cultural work - Robert Yang
Portal - Valve
Spelunky (game and book) - Derek Yu and Andy Hull; Derek Yu
Speed Racer - Dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski
Morrowind - Bethesda Game Studios
The Metaphysics of Morrowind - kateri
Sword of the Perithia - Andrenik Sergoyan
Space Funeral - thecatamites
30 Flights of Loving - Brendon Chung
Knytt Stories - Nifflas
Room of 1000 Snakes - Arcane Kids
The Witness - Thekla
Starseed Pilgrim - Droqen
Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote - Jorge Luis Borges
Never Hate a Movie - Film Crit Hulk
Screenwriting 101 - Film Crit Hulk
On the Ending of Mass Effect 3 - Film Crit Hulk
a few words
a few more words
Basic Animation Aesthetics - David OReilly
Preserving a Sense of Discovery in the Age of Spoilers - Jim Crawford
Saving Zelda - Tevis Thompson
Level With Me and post-mortem - Robert Yang
Dark Past - Robert Yang
On the immersive sim, mechanics, and mod communities
On level design, hookers, cybernetic architecture, Tony Hawk and all that converges
Letting Go of the Immersive Sim, of flu viruses, ghosting, and why we’re all Kate Winslets at heart
The Useful Post (?) or Randy Smith’s “valence theory” of level design
Algebraic Surfaces Gallery - Herwig Hauser
Hearts and Minds - Frank Lantz
Life and Death and Middle Pair - Frank Lantz
Parley - Frank Lantz
Against Flow - Lana Polansky