Wireframe 25
Wireframe 25
Wireframe 25
Issue 25 £3
SKILL VS
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CHANCE
Luck’s pivotal role
in video games
CO-OP MODE
The studios planning a
world without bosses
LOW-POLY
HORROR
Reviving the scares
of the PSone era
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here exactly is the comedy to be There’s horror-comedy to be discovered in going back
found in nineties video games? 30 years and playing Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker,
At first glance, Columns, Sonic, Tomb an early Mega Drive release where the premise of
Raider, and Alex Kidd are pretty the game is that you’re Michael Jackson and you’re
low on laughs, but as a true nostalgia junkie and dance-walking around various levels kicking adults
comedian, I find their various absurdities are ripe out of the way (they’re meant to be gangsters but
SOOZ KEMPNER
for humour. For the past two years, my solo tours at they 100 percent look like FBI agents in hindsight)
Sooz is an award-
the Edinburgh Fringe have been based around retro winning stand-up and looking behind doors for children. It’s the only
gaming – how it links to my childhood on a personal comedian and singer time a computer game has doubled as a straight-up
level, and also its universal appeal. with a penchant for confession. Whether that’s funny or not obviously
The first video game I ever owned was on my retro gaming depends very much on your tastes in both comedy
and EastEnders.
Master System II when I was seven: Alex Kidd in and Kings of Pop.
Follow her on Twitter
Miracle World (it was actually built into the console @SoozUK. I’m a bit of a connoisseur of terrible pop culture,
– sorry, humblebrag). Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. be it music, movies, or games, and I’m fascinated with
had revolutionised gaming the year before Alex the process that led to everything from the awful US
Kidd’s debut, and there’s something hilarious in the pilot of Red Dwarf to ‘the Citizen Kane of bad movies’
brazenness of Sega making their very own Mario The Room, and what is probably the worst Sonic game
and not even bothering to conceal it. Even the water ever made. The worst of Sonic’s outings is arguably
music is practically the same. I also enjoy how Sega his big 15th-anniversary reboot – 2006’s Sonic the
didn’t have the imagination to make the boss fights Hedgehog. I can only imagine that the decision to make
in Alex Kidd anything other than round after round of a major plot strand out of Sonic falling in love with a
rock, paper, scissors. They dress it up with intense human woman was a direct result of the Sonic slash
8-bit music, but they’re fooling nobody. fiction and X-rated fan art I already urged you not to
I grew up with gaming as the background to search for. By the way, yes – they do kiss. It makes you
#25
everything I did in the early nineties. My best friends feel horrible – like the first time you watched Audition.
as a kid were all fellow gamers, our after-school Social media is in many ways a toxic environment
hangouts were spent gaming, at school we talked our brains haven’t developed fast enough to handle.
gaming, and we loved to draw our favourite computer Then again, it can be a wonderful way to share the joy
game characters and compare notes on sketching in old games, both good and bad, and the humour
techniques. I wrote (lengthy) Sonic fanfiction long that lies within. For years, I thought I was the only one
before I knew what fanfiction was, or before the who was amused by the gaping plot hole that means
internet had revealed the terrible horrors of Sonic that, when Sonic 2’s played with Sonic & Knuckles,
slash fiction and deeply unsettling Sonic fan art. Knuckles is flown by Tails in his aeroplane. Twitter has
Please don’t search for it. Please. taught me that there are plenty of other weird kids
As children, we’re never aware of how different the who became weird adults who feel exactly the same.
art we enjoy as kids will look through our adult eyes. To conclude: please don’t search for Sonic fan art.
wfmag.cc \ 03
Contents
Contents
6
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Contents
WELCOME
Surprise is an essential part of
making a scary game, obviously,
which might explain just how
violently Alien: Isolation made
me jump out of my skin five
years ago. As a long-time fan of
the Alien movies (well, the good
ones, at least) I thought I knew
what to expect with Creative
18
Assembly’s horror spin-off.
It took place in environments
that recalled the seventies
futurism of the original movie
and its emphasis on suspense
over action. With that familiarity,
I thought, would come a sense
of comfort that runs counter
to the requirements of a horror
game: to properly be terrorised
as players, we surely need to be
taken out of our element, and
pitched into situations we’ve
never experienced.
As a wealth of developers
suggest on page 22, video
28. Design Principles 56. Borderlands 3 games are extraordinarily
Exploring the eternal question: The action’s thrilling; the jokes are well-placed to scare the breath
out of our lungs. I’d even
can games be art? toe-curling argue that watching a horror
movie – rather than playing a
30. CityCraft 59. Untitled Goose Game horror game – is by far the less
A brief history of pioneering, Honk if you like stealth games about stressful way of spending a dark
Halloween night.
8-bit urban sprawls obnoxious geese
32. Skill versus chance 62. Sayonara Wild Hearts Ryan Lambie
Editor
The usage and balance of Simogo returns with a rhythm-action
chance in games sugar rush
wfmag.cc \ 05
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Interview
THINGS
TO
A COME
quarter of a century later
and the future has changed
significantly – what was once
predicted by the science
fiction documents of the
time, like the movies A.P.E.X. and Abraxas, Revisiting a
Guardian of the Universe, now seems vision of the
quaint. Beyond a Steel Sky is, therefore, Why did it take so long to come back to
taking a different tack. The return of this the Steel Sky universe?
future 25 years
particular work of dystopian adventure Cecil: I first met Dave Gibbons when I later, in Beyond
game fiction arrives once again from the was head of development at Activision a Steel Sky
hands and brains of Revolution Software, in the late 1980s. I wanted to ask him
headed up by Charles Cecil, and artist about whether we could get the rights
Dave Gibbons, who you’ll remember from to Watchmen, and it turned out that we
the original Beneath a Steel Sky, as well as couldn’t. But we stayed in touch and found ourselves in a position where we
something called ‘Watchmen’. then wrote Beneath a Steel Sky together. weren’t actually able to write adventures
This is no ‘greatest hits’ package, or The game has quite a cult following, and for quite some time. The ideas that we
a studio returning to the well one too we actually planned to do another game, a discussed with Dave went by the wayside.
many times – Beyond a Steel Sky is a big, sequel, pretty soon afterwards. But a lot We’ve kept in touch; Dave’s a friend.
bold new adventure from Revolution. of publishers decided that the adventure We kept talking about new ideas, working
It mixes traditional adventure game was dead. Indeed, our publisher didn’t together. A couple of years ago it felt to me
mechanics of combining rubber chickens want to commission, despite the success like the time was right for several reasons.
with things to win (not an accurate of the first Broken Sword on PC and First, we proved with Broken Sword 5
example), with a fully 3D engine and PlayStation. The general comment from that by going directly to our community,
in-depth hacking minigames, which allow publishers was that adventures were dead particularly for validation of our ideas, but
you to do some low-level programming. and the PC was dead. also for a Kickstarter as well, it opened up
In short, this is far more than just a cynical To an extent, it was because the retailers extraordinary opportunities to be able to
rebirth of a 25-year-old series. were taking very, very few PC titles. benefit from the input that we got from
We spoke at length with Cecil for his Those that did took pretty obvious ones. our community on every aspect of the
thoughts and feelings on Beyond, Beneath, Adventures were being very much project. Then the other reason was, with
and plenty more. marginalised by the big [retailers]. So, we the success of Broken Sword 5, I was very
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Interview
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Interview
City isn’t quite the City Of The
back in 1990, our idea right from Future it presents itself as.
the very beginning was to write
serious stories with humorous
dialogue and in the way that, you games. I’m particularly excited that the
know, 1984 was such a wonderful genre is flourishing at the moment – I don’t
book and a wonderful film. But Brazil know if you’ve played What Remains of
does exactly that. Brazil captures the “Beneath the Steel Edith Finch, which was a great adventure
essence of 1984, but in this ludicrous game, or [Return of the] Obra Dinn,
environment, and the humanity comes Sky back in 1994 another great adventure game, although
from the situations that evolve quite was very much a little bit difficult, or Her Story. This sort
naturally within that world that seems of renaissance has come from the fact
ludicrous to us. reflecting the idea that clearly adventure games are niche,
That is the humanity we have in [the and they were too niche for retail, but
protagonist] Foster, who is an outsider,
of social change” they’re a massive niche, so there are
coming into this world. The humour comes huge opportunities for people writing
from the juxtaposition of his normality, is a profoundly important book, it was in this area. To be honest with you, it’s
which of course, as an audience we share, important for when it was written to reflect just a wonderful genre. Obviously, there
and the ludicrous situations that have the rise of the Soviet Union. In a way, are advantages in that we hopefully
evolved within this city. Certainly, what I what I think is really exciting, is to write build on our expertise both creatively
was very keen to do was reflect some of futuristic, slightly [cyberpunk sci-fi]. I have and technically. It’s hard to think of
the elements that are important to us to be a little bit careful because clearly, disadvantages. If we were a big publisher,
today – mass surveillance, the social credit we’re not going for the [tone] of Blade we’d want some sort of portfolio, but we’re
system in China, identity theft – in the way Runner – rather, this idea of [reflecting] the not, we’re a small studio, so we focus on
that the original Beneath the Steel Sky back present, rather than [making a prediction what we think we’re good at.
in 1994 was very much reflecting the idea of] the future.
of social change, of Margaret Thatcher How small a studio are you? How does
talking about society not existing anymore, Revolution is in the unique position that function on a day-to-day basis?
and so on. All of those things which seem of being almost a one-genre studio. We have a small studio in York, and in
very alien now, but at the time felt very How much of a positive impact does that the studio, we just have 16 people. We
profound and very impactful – they were have on your development? have another five or six who are working
very impactful, in some ways for good, We are a one-genre studio, and that’s full-time on the project for Revolution.
in some ways for bad. I guess in the way because I’ve been writing adventure games Then we have a lot of subcontractors and
that, again referring to 1984, which to me for 40 years. I love playing adventure outsourcers working on art and animation.
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Interview
working, it’s very efficient, but it means both literally and figuratively.
that we can scale up and work with very
talented people, and we’re not constrained
by a geographical location.
Steel Sky, we have so much in terms of The games that we write cost considerably Beyond a Steel Sky.
assets relating to background, textures, more than that.
animations, and character modelling, as
well as the core technology. We’re using Finally, do you have any advice for up-
IN COLDER BLOOD?
Unreal Engine, which is great. But, it would and-coming adventure game developers?
Sometimes, you just have to ask someone:
be utterly impossible to write an adventure You don’t know what the future is. When
what’s next, and is it In Cold Blood 2? Cecil was,
game for a contemporary audience to things are going well, you need a lot of fortunately, open for the brief discussion of
the quality that a contemporary audience people [and when they aren’t, you don’t]. what Sony once touted as a Metal Gear Solid -
would expect for £80,000. Wherever possible, build strong alliances killing series: “Honestly, the great thing about
and work with people on a freelance being a small studio with a low overhead is
Characters have their own schedules and basis or a subcontracting basis rather that we have a great deal of freedom,” he says.
activities to stick to – how you interact with than employing them. [While doing that], “The next game might be a new Broken Sword ,
them is as much about that as it is speaking.
treat people the way you would expect or it might be an original game. I did love the
to be treated, because if you have a good idea, at one point, of going back to In Cold
Blood and we did a lot of work on it, to be
relationship with tons of people, then
honest. It kind of fizzled out.
you will want to work with them again,
“We’re exploring a number of options... But
and more crucially, they’ll want to work as always, there are lots of ideas bubbling
with you. under, and I guess at some point we’re going to
have to work it out, but at the moment it’s not
Beyond a Steel Sky releases soon on set in stone.” So not In Cold Blood 2, then.
Apple Arcade and PC.
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Early Access
Crismas Time
A love letter to JRPGs, Cris Tales has time for a few ideas of its own
J
ust playing through the opening turn- present, and future simultaneously, with each
Info
GENRE
RPG based battle of Cris Tales, it’s evident era denoted by its own distinct palette.
FORMAT
that it borrows elements from many a This was, in fact, the starting point for the
PC / Switch / PS4 great JRPG. There’s the battle timeline game, as Dreams Uncorporated CEO Carlos
/ XBO at the top displaying character turns, Rocha Silva explains. “We thought it would be
DEVELOPER like Octopath Traveler; the turn-based combat really interesting to see different ‘times’ on the
Dreams takes a leaf from Paper Mario, where a well- same screen,” he says. “So we started thinking
Uncorporated /
timed button tap will increase your attack or about what type of game would it work on,
SYCK
defence; even the stylish battle menu is straight eventually settling on RPGs. Ultimately, it was a
PUBLISHER
out of Persona 5. lot of experimenting with the combat system,
Modus Games
But as much as developer Dreams but that made us fall in love with it.”
RELEASE
2020 Uncorporated are happy to wear their influences It takes extra ingenuity to make turn-based
on their sleeves, Cris Tales isn’t just a JRPG combat dynamic, whether it’s being able to
homage, but one that hopes to add new ideas to interrupt enemy attacks on the timeline, as
the genre’s established structure. in Octopath Traveler, or the Active Time Battle
Its big party trick is time, a popular theme and gauge used in many classic Final Fantasy games,
Cris Tales establishes its lore mechanic in games such as Chrono Trigger and but Cris Tales gets even cleverer, turning its
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Early Access
from the left, then chances are there’s Villarreal envisioning how a Disney princess
something in the past worth exploring. would look if she was from Colombia (and could
Cris Tales also stands out from a visual fight with a really big sword).
standpoint, neither leaning on predictable “For Cris Tales, we created our own look
pixel art or anime styles, but instead opting and feel, based on Sebastian’s background
for a unique and strikingly beautiful hand- as an artist, and combined that with many art
drawn 2D look that’s animated frame by frame. styles, as well as references to our country,”
Even though there are clear influences from says Silva. “The way people dress, the way the
classic and modern JRPGs – there are genre environments look, and even the architecture is
staples like magical girls inspired by Colombia and
and a pint-sized sidekick its culture.”
“Even the architecture ith three eras displayed
W
with a knack for running its There are still a few simultaneously, you’ll see
mouth – Colombia-based is inspired by Colombia genre elements the studio some NPCs at different ages,
though it gets disturbing
Dreams Uncorporated and its culture” has purposely kept in Cris when you see nobody at all.
is keen to celebrate Tales, so you can expect
its country’s own identity. It’s a refreshing the final game to include random encounters,
break from the usual negative stereotypes. dungeon crawling, and minigames. Right now,
“We actually want to create something called though, the team is still focused on perfecting
‘Colombian Fantasy’,” Silva explains. “A new style the core aspects of the game, which are still
of magical world and the creatures within it, under wraps.
focused on Colombia as our main inspiration. Before embarking on Cris Tales, its dev team
Hopefully, it will motivate lots of people to learn was called Below The Game, and cut its teeth on
more about our roots.” kid-friendly, fairytale games for mobile, so taking
Indeed, the game frequently references its on an ambitious RPG like this is a considerable
country of origin: the town of Narim with its evolution for the studio. With its release several
cathedral in the centre is directly inspired by months away, there’s still more work to do.
Nariño, home to a beautiful Gothic basilica You might not be able to peer into the future,
called Las Lajas Sanctuary. The protagonist but if you’re impatient to try the game out, the
Crisbell was the result of art director Sebastian opening demo is available on Steam.
WHAT’S IN
A NAME
Aside from the title, a
Sending this enemy into wordplay on the Spanish
the future makes it too old spelling of crystals, it’s also
and frail to wield its axe,
so it resorts to magic no coincidence that the
attacks instead. protagonist is called Crisbell,
while another companion
who joins you early on is
named Cristopher – and it’s
likely not the last character
you’ll meet whose name
begins with Cris. Silva teases
that there’s a tremendous
significance for this in the
game’s lore, though of course,
he doesn’t want to spoil
anything here.
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Early Access
T
he name might throw you off a direction after leaning more into games that the
Info
GENRE
Twin-stick shooter / bit – while Cat Lady does indeed team members are fans of.”
Rogue-lite feature a lady who likes cats, That direction took on a more rogue-lite
FORMAT it’s also not some cutesy romp form as progress was made, and with the genre
PC through… whatever it is you might comes the expectation – founded or unfounded
DEVELOPER expect it to be a romp through. Unless you – of the ‘git gud’ mentality. It might look
Rose City Games expected said romp to be of the cutesy variety adorable, but Cat Lady can challenge even the
PUBLISHER and through a twin-stick shooter/rogue-lite, most hardcore of players – you know, the ones
VIZ Media then you’d be bang on. You’d probably also be who actually refer to themselves as ‘hardcore’.
RELEASE co-founder of Rose City Games and Cat Lady All the same, difficulty has been considered from
Out now (Early Access)
director, Will Lewis. day one, and the team is making a big effort
“Myself and our artist, Jake Fleming, started to make sure there’s something for all comers,
from the idea of cute-meets-spooky exploring even if your hand-eye coordination is on a par
a domestic household,” he explains. “We both with an actual cat.
grew up having close relationships with our “We want to reward players with more
respective grandmas, being at grandma’s house, challenging situations, no matter their skill
being a little creeped out by old estates and level,” Lewis says. “In our testing, entry areas are
antiques. We also have similar tastes in cute- a great place to explore and learn the ropes,
meets-weird games. Starting out with some but can also feel really rewarding to blast right
ould cats be this co-operative
W
exploration mechanics, the concepted style through if you’re a skilled rogue-lite player. As
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Early Access
weapons, fitting given they are some
weapons, then. and animation for a while now, and it worked out of nature’s most brutal killers. Really,
A focus on testing has been a key aspect of well to develop into the low-colour, hard-lined they are. Any cat owner will agree.
Cat Lady’s development, with its recent move style that shines in what he’s doing in Cat Lady,”
to Steam’s Early Access program another move says Lewis. “He’s always been a fan of limited
in bringing the game to the community to colour palettes since playing NES and Game Boy
help test it out along its games growing up. The
development path. With mixed ‘cute and weird’
balance so key to a game “We both grew up having aesthetics of games like
like this, it’s definitely a close relationships with our Kirby, River City Ransom,
smart move to broaden respective grandmas” Super Mario Bros. 3, and
the range of people who the possibly lesser-
are actually playing it, known game, Stinger,
even before Cat Lady is finished. “We kind of are all easy childhood references explaining his
lucked out in that the Basement, the first area of current work. Oh, and he loves cats.”
Grandma’s mansion, tested well at a mid-level of Finally, and because we have to spoil the party
difficulty for a vast majority of our early players,” every now and then, we have to ask: isn’t the isuals are minimalist, but
V
Lewis explains. “So we’ve been able to tune up term ‘cat lady’ a pejorative? To our delight, Lewis bold at the same time.
from there. But: throw in permanent upgrades and the team have already considered the point randomised shopping
A
that enhance the abilities of Ally and her cats, and offer a robust rebuttal. “It can be,” he says. experience means you won’t
be able to rely on the same
work up some starkly new enemy behaviours, “But instead of harking back to the old trope purchases every playthrough.
and play a bit with player rewards, and things of the ‘crazy cat lady’, we wanted to instead
can change in an instant.” celebrate the updated mentality we see and
A boon to Cat Lady is, of course, its bold and hear today: cats are cute and cool, we can’t get
beautiful visual style from aforementioned artist enough of them, and we want everyone to know!
Jake Fleming, a long-time friend of Lewis. “His We hope the cute designs and personalities
style is something he’s been developing in stills of Grandma and Ally’s cats will shine and get
everyone else feeling the same way too.”
Ohhhh, ‘Ally Cat’ – we just got that.
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News
Headlines
from the virtual front
01
02
03
02. L
ife Is issues
03. V
CS happy,
01. B
lizzard of Life Is Strange has never shied away VCS sad
controversy from covering the personal and political
– tackling those harder subjects, yes, Atari’s upcoming new bit of hardware,
Taiwanese Hearthstone player Ng Wai but also making sure to take a stand on the VCS, has welcomed classic game
‘Blitzchung’ Chung has been banned showing what its creators believe is right streaming service Antstream into
from participating in tournaments for and wrong. Would you believe it, the the fold, with a special version of the
the game in the next six months, with his game’s director at developer DONTNOD, subscription-based system set to be
original penalty of a 12-month ban and Michel Koch, does it on purpose. available on the console. Should it ever
being stripped of his winnings dropped. “I don’t want to spend three years release, that is. It was originally set to
Apparently, Blizzard doesn’t like it when of my life working on a project without launch in December 2017, and at the
competitors playing its games say trying to talk about subjects that are time of writing that launch is set for
“Liberate Hong Kong – revolution of our important to me,” he told GIBiz. “I’m March 2020.
time” during post-match interviews. really happy our publisher allows us to In less fun news, the VCS’s lead
The two casters interviewing Chung talk about tough subjects. We could be designer, Rob Wyatt, quit the project
were fired after the fact, though each afraid of representation or talking about earlier in October, claiming Atari
was reinstated and slapped with a six- those heavy subjects and important had failed to pay him for six months.
month ban later. Hearthstone casters themes, because the choices we make The former architect on the original
quit, Blizzard employees staged walkouts when talking about these subjects can be Xbox said his company was lucky to
in protest of the perceived censorship, divisive. It shouldn’t be, but it is. have survived as long as it did without
and everyone’s gone ‘a bit political’ over “There are a lot of different characters the cash coming in. The resignation
it all, with boycotts of the publisher doing that I think are not represented enough, has brought big doubts into view as to
the rounds. Makes a stark change from and it’s not just about minorities. whether the VCS will actually be able to
the usual ‘keep politics out of our games’ Sometimes it’s about emotions, or state release in March 2020 as planned, or if
nonsense that gets bleated around. of mind, or the way they’re thinking.” we’ll see yet another delay.
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04
06
04. T
iming is
everything 06. C
ompulsive
05
Sony released details of the PlayStation 5 A lawsuit in Canada accuses Fortnite’s
– haptic feedback on controllers! – on 05. C
lean break creators, Epic, of wilfully designing the
the same day dozens of employees in game to be addictive – going so far as to
the London-based EU branch of the Bungie’s break from Activision has compare the impact of the game to that
company were told their roles were seemingly energised the studio, with CEO of smoking.
either being made redundant, or that Pete Parsons explaining to IGN there are “Epic Games, when they created
they would have to re-interview for some bold aims in the company’s five- Fortnite, for years and years, hired
their existing positions. The joy of the year plan. Unlike mine, which involves psychologists – they really dug into the
corporate world. ‘maintaining manageable levels of debt’. human brain and really made the effort
While the timing can’t be said to be “Our vision ultimately through 2025 to make it as addictive as possible,” said
intentional, it does make that taste in the is to become one of the world’s best Calex Légal lawyer, Alessandra Esposito
mouth extra sour, especially for those entertainment companies,” he explained. Chartrand. “They knowingly put on the
impacted by the reportedly unilateral This involves ‘transforming’ Destiny market a very, very addictive game
decision made by the ever-more- through the years, bringing to the fore which was also geared toward youth.”
powerful US wing of Sony Interactive a vision of a single evolving world for Well, you know it’s serious if someone
Entertainment. As reported on Video the franchise – but also bringing in new uses ‘very’ twice in a row. Doubles the
Games Chronicle, the North American franchises to the marketplace. This will impact, you see.
branch has increasingly consolidated involve, Parsons said, plans to “introduce How the case will be impacted
power since Sony announced the new worlds that people care a lot about.” following the launch of Fortnite Chapter 2,
beginning of layoffs in April 2018, and Hopefully, that’ll mean new worlds – we’re not sure. Safe to say, a lot of eyes
this move has hammered that home maybe moons – with wizards on them. were turned back to Epic’s product after
even more. We can but dream. its ‘the game has gone’ stunt.
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Early Access
Buildings Have
Feelings Too!
It’s sometimes said that older buildings have
character – well, in Blackstaff Games’ oddball
management sim, this is literally true. You’re
tasked with growing a city of sentient buildings
that can walk around and chatter about their
anxieties. Fail to reverse the city’s decline,
though, and the demolition crew will come and
flatten your talkative butcher’s shop. Moon
Headed up by Yoshiro Kimura, Onion Games
previously brought us the charming shoot-’em-
up, Black Bird, and now it’s reviving Moon – a cult
1997 PlayStation game that, until now, never
got a localised release outside Japan. Written by
Kimura, it’s an RPG that pokes affectionate fun
at its own genre trappings. The Switch edition of
Moon will be out in Japan by the time you read
this; the English-language version will reportedly
be coming “very soon”.
Hollow Knight:
Silksong
Of the recent wave of Metroidvanias, Hollow
Knight was among our very favourites, and
so it’s inevitable that we’re keenly awaiting its
sequel, Silksong. Focusing on Hornet – who
briefly appeared in the first game – Silksong will
take place in a new location that, according to
developer Team Cherry, will be much larger than
Hollow Knight’s. We can’t wait.
Unholy
You live in a benighted city on a doomed planet,
where disease runs rampant and monsters lurk
around every corner. To make matters worse,
your baby’s vanished, so you’re understandably
keen to rescue your missing progeny. There are
Deus Ex-style opportunities for murder,
subterfuge, and stealth, but it’s Unholy’s visuals
that really catch our eye: if the rest of the game
can match the Gothic madness on display in its
trailers, Unholy could emerge as one of 2020’s
most atmospheric horror outings.
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Early Access
Vulpine
Are you sick of having things
like arms and opposable
thumbs? Then allow Vulpine
to make all your mammalian
fantasies come true. Assuming
the form of a four-legged
creature – a fox, rabbit, and
wolf are among the options
– you can roam a low-poly
world, uncovering mysteries
and fighting other creatures.
But because you don’t have
hands, you’ll carry swords and
other weapons in your mouth.
Disintegration However the game turns out,
we’re quite taken by the sight
How do you make something as complex as a to the armoured units trundling around beneath of a bear doing a spin attack
real-time strategy title work effectively with a you. There’ll be a single-player campaign and while clenching a massive
controller rather than a keyboard and mouse? a five-on-five competitive mode, and the game hammer between its teeth.
Plenty of developers have attempted to answer as a whole looks really slick and solidly realised
that question in the past, but newcomer V1 from what we’ve seen so far. That V1 Interactive
Interactive may have come up with a cunning was founded by Marcus Lehto – the co-creator
solution of its own. You fly above the battlefield of Halo – only raises our anticipation levels
in a high-tech craft called a grav-cycle; from further. With Lehto at the helm, Disintegration
this remote viewpoint, you can blast away at promises to give us a satisfying balance of sci-fi,
enemies yourself, or essentially fire commands action, and tactics.
Teardown
Like Disintegration, Teardown is a game
designed to tax brains as well as reflexes.
The objective: barge your way into a series
of secure buildings and steal the keycards
hiding within. With each building defended by
an alarm system that will despatch a deadly
security team when triggered, Teardown breaks
down into two phases. In the first, you stalk
the area, working out where the keycards
are, and forging an efficient path through the
level by knocking down voxel doors and walls
to make shortcuts. The second phase begins
when you grab a keycard – from here, you have
a minute to run and jump around the stage,
getting the rest of the cards before the security
team appears. In short, it’s part physics-based
sandbox, part action-packed race against time
– which sounds like a heady cocktail to us.
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FRIGHT-TEEN
-NINETY-NINE
The horror games harking back to the PSone era
WRITTEN BY NATALIE CLAYTON
S
omething’s moving in the dark. Today’s generation of indies probably didn’t
You stalk forwards, slowly, trying grow up on the 2D titans of the eighties. We’ve
to get a better look, but your played the early Sonic and Super Mario games,
senses aren’t quite working right. sure, but for many of today’s creators, there’s
The shape in the distance remains a growing nostalgia for shimmering polygons,
motionless as you approach; all you can hear is grainy textures, angular corridors, and the kind
an ominous scraping sound. Then, before you of thick fog you’d expect to see filling a laser-tag
can run or let out a scream, the shape’s bearing arena. The late nineties was a time when 3D
down on you: a terrifying assault of teeth graphics were on the march, but developers
and shrieks. were only just getting to grips with ways of using
The lights turn on. You switch off the console, them to terrify us.
and sit ashen-faced in front of the screen. It’s “There are more people moving towards the
the end of the 1990s – and with the dawn of 3D, low-res style, more people moving towards
video games have become more terrifying than PlayStation and N64 nostalgia,” says Breogán
ever before. It’s the era of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Hackett, Irish indie developer and founder of
and countless other tense and horrifying games the Haunted PS1 game jam community. “There’s
that have turned the medium into a war on the a whole load of horror games being made, but
senses. Twenty years on, and those nineties very little community around it.”
kids who cowered in front of their televisions Hackett has been running Haunted PS1 since
are now all grown-up – and some of them are March 2018, where it grew from a handful
making games. of hand-picked developers to a community
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Fright-teen-ninety-nine
isn’t your friend. It’s the highly made her start creating smaller projects that as the desolate locales that surround Burford
unsettling Paratopic.
explored where she could take the low-poly and Harvey in the United States.
ucher’s Two Atmospheric
B style. “I’d got a bunch of nineties-looking “From an outsider perspective, these parts
POINT OF VIEW
MEETING A MURDERER You might have noticed a trend in the games
mentioned so far. Almost without exception,
In an interview with Into The Spine, Doc Burford elaborated further on his Horrorshow, Hackett, Harvey, and Burford
encounter with a serial killer, which took place around the year 2003. “There was are largely working in the first-person horror
this one time where animal control came to the house,” Burford told the website. mode popularised by more recent games like
“He told us that people had been calling because we were abusing our chickens.
Amnesia and Outlast. First-person games weren’t
Of course, we weren’t, as he was quick to point out, but he had to stop by. He was
unheard of in the PlayStation era, but the most
friendly and outgoing, but he had to stop by every few weeks ‘cause someone was
making calls. Dad and Mom liked him because he was a church-going Boy Scout
seminal titles of the nineties were viewed from
leader. Seemed like a great guy.” As it turned out, the visitor was Dennis Rader, a third-person perspective: Resident Evil and
better known as the BTK Killer, who’d murdered ten people in Kansas between Silent Hill pulled off their scares with a controlled
1974 and 1991 before his eventual arrest in 2005. “BTK had been telling people approach to camera placement. This summer’s
he had his sights on a new target,” Burford said. “I was told later that it was industrial horror-themed Haunted PS1 jam
my family, which is why he’d been finding excuses to visit.” The incident would is packed with games that go for a similarly
eventually inform several moments in Paratopic. remote viewpoint. Some, like redactionary’s
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Fright-teen-ninety-nine
hardware’s retro in the
a realm of horror. Other games, meanwhile, It’s easy to see attempts to reimagine the eerie Paratopic.
pull the camera even further back, and replace past as simple nostalgia, but in essence, what
slow-build scares with these developers are
speed and gore. Modus really doing is tapping
Interactive’s Groaning
“From an outsider into a rich library of
Steel is a particularly perspective, these audiovisual tones.
gruesome racing game – parts of the States Growing communities
it’s Carmageddon meets like Haunted PS1
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater as
are existentially are building on
blood-and-bone-covered uncomfortable” foundations laid 20
cars race through years ago; developers
fleshy hellscapes. like Arbitrary Metric are using familiar visuals to
Hackett explains that the diversity of creation drive new and unsettling experiences.
in this field doesn’t stop at genre. Everyone Who knows what the next decade will bring?
has differing levels of ability, experience, and We’ve already seen classic twists on modern
familiarity with the nineties aesthetic. Part of horror, and dark homages to PlayStation ackett’s first retro horror
H
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SPOOKT
LOOKING AT THE WHATS AND HOWS OF GAMING’S GREATEST HORROR MOMENTS
WRITTEN BY IAN DRANSFIELD
I
t’s the spookiest time of year! Unless you’re reading this But rather than just carry on with our own interminable
feature some time other than October, in which case waffle about the dogs jumping through the windows in
you’ll have to do a bit of role-play to get into the mood. Resident Evil, or whatever, we put the questions to some of
Anyway, it is the spookiest time of year, so we figured gaming’s great horror designers to find out their favourite scary
we’d look at some of gaming’s super-spookiest moments, moments, and just how it is people can successfully create
because for all the arguments of what they are and aren’t good moments of their own that could well make players totally
at, one thing is certain: games can do horror very well indeed. spook out. To the max.
SERAPHIM ONISHCHENKO
ROLE: Narrative Designer, Frogwares
HORROR CREDENTIALS: The Sinking City
THE MOMENT: To this day, I still remember
meeting the first victims of the sand plague
in Pathologic. By this point in the game, the weird and
cryptic intros had scrambled my brain on what to expect.
The NPCs I’d met in The Town are all extremely odd and
eccentric, so I knew something was properly off about
the world, but I still didn’t know why. Then examining the
house of the Haruspex's missing father, I heard a horrible
moan behind. I turned around and there they were – his
patients, victims of the plague, coming slowly towards me.
THE ADVICE: I often think build-up and suspense, along
with clues that something horrible is coming, are the
‘secret ingredients’ to making a really impactful horror
moment stick. If you get the player in a state where they
expect something terrifying but they’re not sure what it
is, their mind will frantically start trying to put together
the trail of crumbs you’ve left to overcome this. And you
can get devilishly creative with these clues. Some are real.
Others are for misdirection. A bit of level and audio design
tricks here and there, maybe a shadowy creature with a
subtly off animation, a slight change in the music etc.
The worst fear is the fear of the unknown, but making
the player hyper-aware of the fact that they don’t know
what is coming, is all the more terrifying.
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ACULAR MASACHIKA KAWATA strict rules set by the Japanese ratings board, which made
it impossible to officially release the game in Japan. Still,
many Japanese horror game fans did import the game to
ROLE: Senior producer, Capcom experience it.
HORROR CREDENTIALS: Resident Evil THE ADVICE: The sequence of ‘unique situation’, ‘unexpected
series, Dino Crisis series surprise’, and ‘the need for players to escape’ seems to be the
THE MOMENT: The first chapter of the key to creating a good horror moment, which I think is the case
Higurashi When They Cry series was terrifying. It is a text-based with the two titles above. Players won’t be afraid of dying as
indie adventure developed by a small team, and the quality long as they are chilled out, and there won’t be any surprise if
of its graphics and sound was not particularly outstanding. they are able to make decisions calmly. That’s why I think it’s
However, it caused a sensation online because of the story important to make extraordinary environments to get rid of the
depicting madness in day-to-day life and many intriguing emotional ease and reassurance of players.
mysteries which are not unravelled in the first chapter. It
reached a mass audience later on through various adaptations
including an anime, but the first chapter still feels especially
scary with its story depicting a breakdown of communication
between friends.
From major titles, Dead Space was also impressive with
its unique interpretation of aliens and the well-realised
isolation of the space environment. Its intensity reminded
me of the first Resident Evil. The boldest horror moment
was the dismemberment when the player is killed, which
showed – instantly – that you were dead. Unfortunately,
such dismemberment could not be removed to comply with
BARBARA KCIUK
ROLE: Narrative designer, Bloober Team
HORROR CREDENTIALS: Blair Witch
THE MOMENT: Moments such as your first encounter with Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2 or
sudden appearances of Scissorman in Clock Tower are still as adrenaline-inducing as ever,
but for me, the most memorable was the way Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem messed
with the player. The way it crosses the fourth wall in order to scare you – who wouldn’t be
terrified if the game suddenly erased all your save files or unplugged your controller in the
middle of the fight? It remains both unique and terrifying, even today.
THE ADVICE: The secret is… that there’s no universal recipe. There are no universal
tricks that always work. Creating horror relies heavily on surprising a player – with a well-
paced jump scare, eerie atmosphere, sudden change of tone, or some small, seemingly
inconsequential detail that just rubs the player [up] the wrong way. As a creator, you must
always be one step ahead of the player, and that’s exactly why there’s no easy answer to
‘how’. Always be creative, experiment a lot, and trust your intuition, because if you start
following the rules, you’re not going to scare anybody.
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JORDAN THOMAS looking at, or if I just misinterpreted something that wasn’t even
technically scripted. And honestly – I don’t care. It grabbed my
brain stem hard and made a real memory, regardless.
ROLE: Writer / designer, Question THE ADVICE: In The Blackout Club, we try to build a design
HORROR CREDENTIALS: The Blackout Club, vocabulary out of systems that behave predictably, and
BioShock 2, Fort Frolic (BioShock), Robbing the Cradle empower you to start speaking their language. You close your
(Thief: Deadly Shadows) in-game eyes to perceive certain information that the arguably
THE MOMENT: The one I remember scaring me the most was supernatural presences in the game have hidden from you. You
probably, by most folks’ standards, mundane. In Fatal Frame play a kid, so your reality is already malleable. In closing your
II, you have a twin sister that you’re exploring a haunted, eyes, you shut yourself off to the presence of nearby threats in
abandoned Japanese village with. You get used to her tagging the material world, but you’re able to see a hulking figure called
along everywhere, and they brilliantly make you scared for her the Angel who moves around in ways you’d expect an old-
as you would never be for yourself, trying to capture first- school Shadow archetype or slasher villain to do.
person photos of ghosts as they loom up behind her, and she Even with the sound cues, it’s often on the floor just above
doesn’t see it coming. you, seeking you, or even right next to you. It feels like a
But the moment that worked on me was far simpler – at cinematic scare, but we’re not cheating by manipulating your
some point, my sister simply wasn’t there with me. I thought, camera – you’ve got all the tools. Some folks are more scared
“OK, bad AI,” and started looking for her. I saw her, frozen, of seeing their friends harmed, so along the lines of that Fatal
through a door frame, looking at something I couldn’t see. Frame moment, they see the Angel right behind a co-op buddy
It was brilliant. I don’t even remember what it was she was and flip out.
JON CHEY
ROLE: Programmer / designer, Blue Manchu
HORROR CREDENTIALS: System Shock 2,
BioShock, SWAT 4 (yes, really)
THE MOMENT: For me, real video game horror
comes from losing progress. Demon’s Souls was super-scary
because of its incredibly harsh save system. I was also pretty
scared when I played through System Shock 2, just after we
sent the game off for mastering and saw the level progressing
bug that our QA team had just found. That was a traumatising
experience that I still haven’t fully recovered from.
THE ADVICE: In my opinion, horror and tension are very hard
to create successfully and are often confused with gross-out
shocks. Tension relies on what you don’t see or can’t know.
Once the monster has been revealed, whatever it is, the
horror tends to evaporate. That’s a tough problem for video
games since you usually end up fighting the monster (and
beating it).
I think successfully scary levels introduce the tension
gradually and ramp it up over time. If you sense the monster
or hear about it but don’t know what it is and can’t see
it, your imagination will create something scary for you.
The encounter with Steinman in the Medical level of BioShock
is a good example. Or if you slowly put together a picture of
something terrible based on environmental cues, the effect is
stronger than if you’re directly told about it – like in the Fairfax
Residence from SWAT 4.
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STEVE BRISTOW
ROLE: Assistant head of design, Rebellion
HORROR CREDENTIALS: Manhunt 2, Zombie
Army series
THE MOMENT: The telephone call in the school
in Silent Hill. I expect that’s a common answer but there’s a
reason for that. I was playing it in the dark, on my own like
you’re supposed to. The timing, the atmosphere, the jump scare
of the phone ringing and then the kid’s voice saying “Daddy?”.
Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I hadn’t played
anything like it before. It felt like real, serious, grown-up horror
at the time.
THE ADVICE: You’ve got to get the player’s full attention; get
them immersed in the moment or fully empathising with your
character. You want them leaning in. That’s one of the reasons
VR is so uniquely powerful for horror. You can literally put
your player in the scene where whatever’s going to happen will
happen to them, not their character. Audio is crucial and often
made more potent by its absence. Then the rest of it is timing
and finding a way to tap into the weird things we’ve all got
dragging their nails around inside our skulls. We were looking
at a character in Zombie Army 4 and it has an element about its
design that gives me the proper creeps… it genuinely makes
me uncomfortable to look at because it’s got a long finger like
an aye-aye (Madagascan lemur), a creature I find absolutely
repellent. I’m intrigued by those odd, personal horrors beyond
THOMAS GRIP
the common fears we all share. Though in this case, everyone ROLE: Creative director, Frictional Games
should be scared of aye-ayes – they are just obviously horrible. HORROR CREDENTIALS: Penumbra series,
Amnesia series, Soma
THE MOMENT: There are many favourites, but
the one that has always stuck with me is the start of Silent Hill
KAZUNORI KADOI (the first one). This is when you lose track of your daughter and
enter this spooky alley. The way the tension builds up as the
alley just gets creepier and creepier blew me away. The music,
ROLE: Director / designer, Capcom the camera angles, and the imagery was something I had never
HORROR CREDENTIALS: Resident Evil series, seen before.
Resident Evil 2 remake (director) THE ADVICE: I think the mistake many make is to just focus
THE MOMENT: This is from Capcom games on the basic scariness. Rather, I think the most important
actually, but the scariest moment in recent years that made part is to think about the narrative. So instead of just having a
my heart stand still was in Resident Evil 7 played with VR, spooky forest, you want to build up a story around it. You want
the moment when Mia disappeared momentarily and then to give the forest some mysterious background and construct
suddenly appeared near me and grabbed my arm. Since VR a scenario where it makes sense for the player to be there.
enables you to feel that something is really ‘close’ to you, it was Player motivation is especially important as that grounds the
a very effective method to make an enemy suddenly appear player to the scene and makes it possible for them to relate
near players out of their eyesight. to the happenings. Then you want to have fed just enough
THE ADVICE: It is a golden rule that you don’t show the feared information for the player to have their mind running wild on
object first – make players sense its presence only by sound, the horrible things they might encounter. Once that is all set up,
change of situation etc., and then make it appear at the most you can focus on making a spooky forest with creepy sounds
effective and unexpected moment. But we need to always and visuals. But if you lack the narrative foundation, the whole
question how we can evolve this method by [using] new ideas scenario will just come off as shallow and not be nearly as
and technology. frightening as it could be.
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Contents
Toolbox
The art, theory, and production of video games
28. Design Principles
Howard Scott Warshaw tackles
an age-old question
30. CityCraft
A brief history of the
8-bit metropolis
42. Directory
Readers get free tickets to he 8-bit era’s simplified,
T
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Advice
The principles
of game design
Sometimes they’re fun, sometimes they’re garbage,
but games can also be art, Howard writes
AUTHOR
HOWARD SCOTT WARSHAW
Howard is a video game pioneer who authored
several of Atari’s most famous and infamous titles.
onceuponatari.com
A
rt is an integral part of video What’s more, the expression in the medium
games, and there’s certainly an needs to be brand new, while the concept being
art shooter, part explosion in
P
a glow stick factory, Rez is one art to making video games, but expressed needs to be a fundamental truth of
of the most striking action
games ever made.
are video games art? This long- humanity that everyone recognises. Great art
standing question was brought has both.
back to the surface a few years ago when the There’s a process to creating art. The first
film critic Roger Ebert proclaimed that video step is reaching into your brain and pulling out
games could never be art. a significant feeling or concept, because it all
This is an absurd thing to say. Specifically, starts with actually having something to say.
the claim that video games can never be art The next step is about whittling this concept
is neither a bit absurd nor largely absurd. It is down to a coherent and expressible idea, at
medium absurd. I say this because video games least linguistically. This enables the artist to be
are a medium, like oil painting or music or more intentional and focused when making
sculpture. No medium is art, but any medium the choices necessary to execute the final step:
can host art. I want to distinguish art from craft choosing a medium and finding the elegance
here. Craft is realising some design or concept or eloquence in the medium to convey your
in a medium. Art is the expression of an idea in idea fully.
a medium. Art is achieved when my work of craft How will I express my concept in this medium?
rises to a level beyond function and becomes Will the medium host my concept in a way that
a communication. feels smooth, natural, and clean? If I answer
these questions successfully, when I show my
work to people, they’ll likely say, “Oh, of course.
irected by Thatgamecompany’s
D
Jenova Chen, Flower was I know that.” Well, yes you do, because it’s
intended as an “interactive
poem” about nature.
speaking to a fundamental truth. Art is, on its
face, a contrivance. It’s a made-up thing from
the beginning. There’s nothing organic about art;
it’s the specific, intentional rearranging of things
to create a specific result. But that result can
speak to an organic human truth immediately
recognisable by those experiencing it. Now
that’s art.
Pablo Picasso probably put it best when he
said, “Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes
us realise truth.” Art evokes reactions and
communicates ideas. The more accurate
the communication speaks to our common
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Advice
we got to the end. Honest.
Nobody can prove a thing.
not, there’s no denying Portal ’s
or ugly, but it creates something that goes far design ingenuity or sheer
experience, the more recognisable it becomes. beyond the console and enters the realm of impact on the industry.
Art is the process of putting new faces on social awareness or cultural significance.
old truths. Pac-Man is universally identifiable – it has
There are various levels on which art significant meaning to people who don’t even
may succeed or fail. For starters, there’s play games. Pong is so iconic, it’s practically code
first impressions. The piece needs to draw for the 1970s. Some games don’t just come and
an audience. It must be cool enough for go, they occupy the social discourse for periods
people to want to engage with it in some longer than their shelf life.
way. Then there’s the fact that the message
embodied within the communication has to ALL CHANGE
be both clear and relevant. This will make the The Mass Effect series generated tremendous
message recognisable. attention for redefining how games approached
The truth is, a lot of art becomes dated after a storytelling and world-building. Grand Theft
while, because the truth it expresses is current Auto 3 redefined how much parents can
and transient. This is pop art. The truth of one complain about the moral turpitude to which Jenova’s
era is not necessarily the truth of all time. But their children may be subjected when playing Witness
great art forms take it to the games. Concept games With such acclaimed, poetic
ultimate level: timelessness. like Rez, Flower, and Portal games as Flower and Journey
“No medium is art, behind him, designer Jenova
Fundamental truths redefined our sense of
but any medium Chen undoubtedly approaches
about our relationships what a game is, and what the medium from an artistic
or our world transcend can host art” objectives of play might angle. And unsurprisingly,
time and geography; they be. And WoW is just… wow! he has some thoughts on
remain true across generations and cultures. It’s created entire financial markets for in-game what games can do as an art
form. “I think ‘artistic’ simply
Many say the plays of Shakespeare rise to currency, items, and accolades.
means there’s more of the
this level. They never seem to go out of style For decades now, we’ve all enjoyed the creator in the thing,” Chen told
because they reveal our humanity so honestly. relatively new profession of video game Interviewwithanartist.net.
That’s why great art continues to appreciate, developer. But now there are also professional “Whether it’s a painting or song
or movie or game, the creator
whereas pop art winds up in close-out sales and video game players. That is a societal change,
puts more of themselves
nostalgia fests. brought about by a few select games which have into the piece, so when the
been able to manufacture both the venue and audience sees them, they
A NEW CANVAS the desire for people to generate income by feel something real, they feel
That’s all well and good, Howard, but how do using their gaming skills. I believe games which something human, they feel
something that’s like a person.
video games fit into this jaunty bit of whimsy? lead to modifications in resource flow within
So to me, art is essentially a
A fair question. Video games represent the economy are achieving a level of artistry in way to make people connect
another medium. As developers, the video game their craft. with another human being. In
is our craft. A new canvas, a new opportunity Picasso’s insight is interesting here. We learn many ways, art is the better
part of the artist who created
for art… or crap. We have a process for about the world and ourselves by playing games.
them, because every human
conceiving, designing, and implementing our I wonder what truths they reveal to you? Do is flawed. But when they
games. The results vary from effort to effort. you approach your games as a craft? Does your create something, they put the
Sometimes they’re fun, sometimes they’re great, game development aspire to artistic heights? best part of their humanity in
and sometimes they’re flat-out garbage. But One thing’s for sure: games are not truth; games those pieces.”
sometimes they rise to the level of art. are a lie, crafted by artists.
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A brief history of
8-bit virtual cities
It all began with chunky pixels, text adventures,
and monochrome 3D cityscapes
AUTHOR
KONSTANTINOS DIMOPOULOS
Konstantinos Dimopoulos is a game urbanist and designer, combining a PhD
in urban planning with video games. He is the author of the forthcoming Virtual
Cities atlas, designs game cities, and consults on their creation. game-cities.com
C
ities have long been filled with – mainly by exploring distinct, seminal locations
storytelling potential. Classical from some of the most important (though not
Urban tragedies, contemporary TV necessarily famous) games.
Perspectives dramas, crime thrillers, science
Despite the limitations of fiction, horror, and fantasy THE EARLIEST ATTEMPTS
then-available tech, the 8-bit stories have all used urban settings. One of It was during the 8-bit years that the first
era provided us with most the most famous works of early cinema, Fritz game cities came to life. Spanning the long era
of the perspectives that we
Lang’s Metropolis, was all about its urbanism. between the late 1970s and early 1990s, and
still see in games today.
First-person and third-person Unsurprisingly, cities also form a major part of appearing on a multitude of platforms including
3D, bird’s-eye views, side- video gaming’s history. arcade machines, the NES, Apple II, Commodore
scrolling 2D backgrounds, Inevitably, the earliest game cities were 64, and ZX Spectrum, these cities constructed
and more besides, were all
simple ones, but gaming quickly evolved their illusions with minuscule amounts of
employed to serve different
gameplay, narrative, and to allow for a unique and fascinating take memory, low resolutions, paltry colour palettes,
atmospheric needs. Getting on urbanism. The medium’s interactivity added and painfully slow CPUs.
game cities right has, after unprecedented depth to its cities; for the The most visually impressive 8-bit cities were
all, always involved getting first time, players could explore and directly commonly seen in side-scrolling beat-’em-ups.
the framing correct – thus
experience these imaginary places. These games made up for their lack of depth
hiding omissions and
unavoidable gaps. This article is the first in a short series that will with often stunning visuals, frantic action, and
briefly summarise the history of interactive cities colourful depictions of dilapidated metropolitan
downtowns. Essentially consisting of a series
of 2D backgrounds and a variety of thugs to
The tough inner-city streets
pulverise, these ideologically charged depictions
of Target: Renegade, as
rendered on a ZX Spectrum. of urbanism matched the demonisation of inner
cities that was rampant in the early eighties.
Renegade, its sequel Target: Renegade, River
City Ransom, Final Fight, and Double Dragon
were all characteristic examples of the genre,
all featuring cities built around violence and
social malaise.
Though not as anti-urban in their bias,
offerings such as Atari’s Rampage and 1988’s
The Muncher (based on an advert for the British
sweet brand, Chewits) cast players as giant
monsters tasked with smashing up single-screen
cities. It was only in Epyx’s largely forgotten
The Movie Monster Game, released in 1986,
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Advice
a technical marvel, with (for
adventures – or interactive fiction, as the Intellivision in 1983, depicted the time) stunning isometric
genre’s now more widely known. Philip Mitchell’s colourful urban neighbourhoods and graphics. It remains a
fascinatingly eerie place to
Sherlock and Trevor Lever’s Hampstead, both an innovative day-night cycle. Detective this day.
released in 1984, were just two of many. A Mind adventure Contact Sam Cruise added a bigger,
Forever Voyaging, designed by Steve Meretzky more detailed scrolling cityscape to the formula, Turbo Esprit managed to
pack four open-world, 3D
and published by Infocom in 1985, was even and provided players with the freedom to cities onto 8-bit computers,
more ambitious; its setting, Rockvil, brought a explore, solve puzzles, answer phone calls, enter including the C64 version
pictured here.
dynamic, evolving future city to our monitors. buildings, and even turn lights on and off.
It was a place players could visit in ten-year RPGs like 1985’s The Bard’s Tale and its fantasy
intervals, and experience its descent from a town of Skara Brae, famous for its size, locations,
pleasant US city to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. and guilds, brought even more complexity,
while 1988’s Neuromancer ambitiously layered a
LOW-TECH IMMERSION cyber city on top of a physical one. Its cyberpunk
The complexities of real-world cities are tricky metropolis was packed with PAX machines – a
to replicate in video games, even with today’s cross between an ATM and a cyberspace entry
technology, which is why designers often find it point – while its small yet cleverly designed and
easier to use ruins as game locations instead. lively world felt far larger than it actually was.
Designer Sandy White’s Ant Attack, released in Dun Darach, also released in 1985, was a
1983, was one of the earliest personal favourite. It took
games to do this, and it “Gaming evolved to place in the mystical town
was glorious. It was the first of the same name, and
isometric, fully rotatable,
allow for a fascinating was supported by its lore,
free-roaming 3D game on take on urbanism” built around a sacred
the ZX Spectrum, and its oak; it was a beautiful,
patented SoftSolid engine rendered a cohesive strange place with outlandish customs and
world: the walled ruins of a lost civilisation imposing buildings. With its innovative use of
infested with killer giant ants. Antescher was modular elements, Dun Darach crafted a large, Sporting
a fully formed and eerie space, incorporating quasi-3D environment that could be rotated Postcards
historical buildings and distinct landmarks to in 90-degree increments, and scrolled in 2D. The eighties were famous for
help players navigate their way around. With its specialised districts, economy, rounded their ‘urban’ takes on sports,
Other games, released before and after non-player characters, and torches that lit and video games were eager
Ant Attack, also experimented with some of up at night, Dun Darach felt real. It offered a to capitalise on the era’s sense
of cool. Games like Streets
the design elements we now take for granted pioneering and slightly confusing open world Sports Basketball took place
that demanded to be solved. in downtown alleys; California
Turbo Esprit, released for the Amstrad CPC, Games ’ footbag minigame
Though not exclusively an 8-bit title,
played out in front of the
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
AUTHOR
STUART MAINE
Stuart Maine has been a designer for 22 years, across PC,
console, and mobile. He helped set up Well Played Games,
and is currently working on Warhammer Combat Cards.
U
nderstanding the role of chance ‘Chance’ literally means ‘the chances of
is a key design skill, because the something happening’, so you have a one in six
same game can appeal to wildly chance of rolling a four on a standard dice, or a
different audiences with just a 50/50 chance of calling heads or tails on a coin
slight shift in how chance is used, flip. As game creators, we can work with chance,
displayed, and managed. But before we go any deciding how, when, and where to use it and
further, let’s talk about why we’ll be looking at whether to expose it to our players.
‘chance’ instead of ‘luck’. Luck, on the other hand, is when that die you
This article will cover chance, risk, probability, rolled pings across the room, never to be seen
and statistics (don’t worry, those last two aren’t again, or when the tossed coin lands on its edge
as dry as they sound), but I’m not really going to and refuses to be either heads or tails. For a
cover luck. That’s for the simple reason that you more concrete example, you can work out the
– as a game designer – can influence the role exact chance that your Hearthstone opponent
‘Serious’ fighting games use of chance in your game, but you can’t do much will draw the perfect hand of cards they need,
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
at House on the Hill, revolve
around using layers of
chance to give themselves
variety and surprise,
sacrificing player skill to
try and tell a cool story.
players to hide. If you lose, it’s because you the fun of ‘risk mitigation’ to the things you
simply didn’t play as well as your opponent. have to think about, so let’s talk about ‘risk’ LUCKY LAYERS
This will spur competitive players on to learn versus chance.
Something I’ve noticed is
and do better, but in general, it’s nice for our If chance is the likelihood of a given thing that players can tolerate
ego to be able to assign at least some of the happening (70% chance that this shot will hit one ‘layer’ of chance, but
blame for the loss to bad its target), then risk is that more than that makes a
luck. Pure skill games also “Relatively few chance balanced against game seem too random
require players to learn, what you stand to gain if and arbitrary. For example,
think, and focus, making
games are 100% skill- it succeeds, or lose if it imagine a game where dice
them tiring to play – or chance-based” fails. In short, risk is where are rolled to see if your units
can attack. Or another game
sometimes it’s fun to just games get interesting.
where you get to choose
bash some buttons with your friends! Let’s say a shot by one of your XCOM snipers
whether to attack, but dice
Weirdly, games of pure chance tend to have does have a 70% chance of hitting. That’s fine,
are rolled to judge the
two extremely distinct audiences: gamblers it’s fairly likely, so why not go ahead and tell success of those attacks.
and kids. Presumably, the gamblers enjoy their them to fire? But what if you know that the Either of those options is
success coming down to forces outside of their success or failure of an entire hour-long fine, but a game using both
control (even though they may try to alter the means chance determines
odds with superstitions and gut feeling – more if the event happens and if
on this later). On the other hand, kids’ games that event succeeds or fails,
use luck because their audience may not yet which is incredibly random.
have developed the ability to make valid tactical
choices, plus luck-based games can go on
forever, suiting kids who are ‘time-rich’ (see
Fireball Island, Frustration, and more besides).
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
mission depends on this single shot landing? ook up the ‘Monte Carlo fallacy’ to
L
You still have that same chance of the shot see what happens when people fail
to understand how true randomness
hitting, but suddenly there’s something at stake, works. (Image by Af Ralf Roletschek.)
and now we have palm-sweating, should-I-or-
shouldn’t-I risk. With such a lot at stake, you
might start thinking about ways you can increase RANDOM AND RANDOM
the chances of the shot hitting, or whether you I find this easiest to break down using real-world
SMOOTH should move other troops up in case it misses, examples: dice versus cards.
EMBRACE and so on. Dice are ‘true random’, in that no matter
This article can only explore As you can see, using risk effectively can how many times you roll a die, the last roll has
the elements of chance that transform a game’s decisions by giving them absolutely no effect on the next roll. If you roll
can be built into a game’s real weight. However, there are some things a six, you haven’t changed the odds of your
systems, but of course, any to consider: next roll also being a six (or any other number).
game you play against another • Do you expose the chance numbers to However, humans don’t tend to think like this,
human automatically includes players, helping them clearly evaluate and our instinct is to assume that a die will
luck. At a base level, your whether to take that risk, or keep the balance itself – that is, if you roll an unlucky one,
opponent might be better or
game’s pace up by forcing them to rely on you now have a higher chance of rolling the
worse than you, but they may
quick guesses? other numbers. While this may be true over the
also be distracted or on top of
their game, all of which can be • If the reward is too low, then players won’t lifespan of the universe, it’s not guaranteed in
lucky or unlucky for you. As a get invested in the decision because there’s any particular game. It’s possible – albeit unlikely
designer, your job is to work out nothing at stake. – to keep rolling a die and have it come up with
whether to mitigate and try to • And if the probability of success is too high, a one every single time.
smooth out the randomness of then players will automatically take it. In
other players (Street Fighter) or which case, why bother making it a random
embrace it (Smash Bros.). chance at all?
• The higher the reward, the more players
will want to take the risk, but they’re going
to look for ways to increase the odds in
their favour. Giving players those options
will lower frustration from missed shots, but
could slow the pace of the gameplay down.
• Finally, the higher the reward, the more
frustration players will feel if the ‘roll’
doesn’t go in their favour, but that leads
ames Workshop’s Blood Bowl uses relatively few
G
us on to our next subject: fixed versus
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
you’re increasing the chances of drawing each using calculations to work out the likelihood of chance at all, like Into the
Breach, feel like puzzle
of the other cards, meaning an unlucky draw something that hasn’t happened yet. games, with each setup
begging to be solved in the
will sooner or later be balanced by a good optimum way.
draw (because if you draw enough cards, you
eventually get through the entire deck).
You see balanced randomness in video games
when they increase the odds of something good
happening every time you get a bad result, until
eventually you’re guaranteed the good result.
For instance, games with loot packs can increase
the likelihood of you drawing a legendary prize
each time a pack fails to give you one.
In short, going for a pure random system can
lead to harsh results – if the game rolls virtual
dice to see if an attack hits, it could theoretically
miss every single time. Some players consider
balanced randomness to be cheating, but from
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
he AI director in Left 4
T
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Skill versus chance: using luck in games
wfmag.cc \ 37
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Advice
processes to maximise the appeal of
your characters and worlds.
Indie reflections:
AUTHOR
JEFF SPOONHOWER
Making Anew Part 9
Jeff Spoonhower is a Developer Jeff Spoonhower offers
developer, artist, and college
professor who’s been working advice on ways to grow as a developer
on triple-A and indie games
for over 17 years.
V
anewthegame.com
ery few game developers aspects of in-engine work in Unity, to name just
holistically understand each a few. Learning to master these disciplines over
facet of game development or the course of a hectic production schedule has
master every skill needed to been a difficult, but necessary process – one
complete a game on their own. that you will likely need to undertake, no matter
Through dedication, practice, and professional what your area of expertise is.
experience, the majority of developers become In order to learn these new disciplines, you’ll
proficient in specific areas of development, such need to adopt what I like to call the ‘spirit of
as art, programming, design, or production. adventure’. Like an explorer venturing out into
In order to finish a game as a member of a small the wild unknown, you’ll need to say “yes” to
o expand your game
T indie team, however, you’ll inevitably need to many new challenges and dive in head-first,
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Advice
PERSONAL EVOLUTION
“If there’s one thing the history of evolution has
taught us, it’s that life will not be contained. Life
breaks free, it expands to new territories, and
crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even
dangerously.” So said Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic The road to knowledge,
Park. Personal growth and change are forms especially in the realm of game
development, is never-ending.
of evolution, and you’ll need to “expand to new
territories” as a developer in order to finish
your game. understanding of the foundational concepts of
If you’re the artist on your team, expect visual design, such as colour, contrast, line, form,
to explore less familiar territories such as composition, and framing will be invaluable as
game design and the technical aspects of you create tools and scripts for your artists to
implementation and scripting in your game use. A high-level understanding of the modelling,
engine. If you’ve worked at a studio in the UV layout, and texturing process will help you to
past, you may have only been responsible for conceptualise and design characters, weapons,
creating art assets such as models, textures, and environments that not only look interesting,
or animations, while another team member but also perform well within your game’s
handled actual game implementation. memory budget. An excellent documentary to Ongoing
On a small indie team, you’ll need to become check out on the history of cinematography,
education
intimately familiar with both of these important Visions of Light, will help you to understand
Whether you’re a seasoned
parts of the pipeline. Spend time learning how how design concepts come together to help developer or completely new to
your assets actually work and interact with tell a story visually. Spend some time watching game design, continue to grow
other components and systems in your game. movies and playing games with strong sound and learn. These books are
Learn best practices for model and texture design and take notes on how certain moments excellent resources for game
designers seeking inspiration
optimisation, as well as the ways in which affect you emotionally. Study the specific type
and new ways to approach
animations seamlessly blend from one state to of music you plan to use in your game – be it their craft: Chris Crawford
another with minimal player classical, electronic, rock, or on Interactive Storytelling
control interruption. If you jazz-influenced – and listen (Crawford), Challenges for
“As an indie, you’ll Game Designers (Brathwaite,
plan to have ‘on-rails’ or to some example tracks and
cinematic story moments in
need to be skilled in a learn about the composers
Schreiber), Level Up! (Rogers),
and The Art of Game Design: A
your game, explore the tools variety of disciplines” who wrote the music. Book of Lenses (Schell).
and techniques of how these Speaking of sound and
moments will be scripted and executed using music, it’s important for the sound designer and
triggers and animation state trees. composer on your team to learn as much as
You’ll likely need to pitch in on the design possible about the overall development process.
front as well, so play lots of games with strong The sonic environments in a game play a crucial
enemy and puzzle design, combat scenarios, role in guiding the player’s understanding of
environment layout, and overall gameplay the story and gameplay mechanics. On several
direction/feedback so you can implement these occasions, our fantastic composer, Wilbert
tactics into your own project when your designer Roget, II offered suggestions and feedback on
asks for help. Any experience you can acquire Anew’s story, player controls, and level design.
with coding languages such as C#, C++, or Java, His comments were spot-on and very helpful.
will be extremely helpful as well, especially when This concept of personal evolution extends to
(not if) your programmer is swamped and needs all members of your team, including designers,
help debugging a script. project managers, development directors,
If you’re the programmer on your team, and social media managers as well. The more
learn more about the creative aspects of holistic each person’s understanding of the
production. How are 3D models created? What game development process is, the better the
types of character animations look smooth end product of your collective efforts will be.
and feel responsive to the player? How does Say “yes” to the challenge of growth and learn as
earning new tools and
L
lighting and colour help to direct the player much as you can before, during, and after the
wfmag.cc \ 39
Toolbox
Source Code
reated by Hewlett-Packard
C
Source Code
Make a tile-
matching game
Rik shows you how to code your own
AUTHOR
RIK CROSS Columns-style tile-matching puzzler
T
ile-matching games began and columns. A specific tile on the board is as it allows us to check for matches on any
with Tetris in 1984 and the referenced by its row and column number. length, as well as track multiple, separate
less famous Chain Shot! the We want to start with a truly random matches. A currentmatch list keeps track
following year. The genre board, but we also want to avoid having of the (x,y) positions of a set of matching
gradually evolved through any matching tiles. Random tiles are added tiles. Whenever this list is empty, the next
games like Dr. Mario, Columns, Puyo Puyo, to each board position, therefore, but tile to check is added to the list, and this
and Candy Crush Saga. Although their replaced if a tile is the same as the one process is repeated until the next tile is
mechanics differ, the goals are the same: to above or to its left (if such a tile exists). a different colour. If the currentmatch list
organise a board of different-coloured tiles In our game, two tiles are ‘selected’ at contains three or more tiles at this point,
by moving them around until they match. any one time, with the player pressing the then the list is added to the overall matches
Here, I’ll show how you can create a arrow keys to change those tiles. A selected list (a list of lists of matches!) and the
simple tile-matching game using Python variable keeps track of the row and column currentmatch list is reset. To clear matched
and Pygame. In it, any tile can be swapped of the left-most selected tile, with the other tiles, the matched tile positions are set
with the tile to its right, with the aim being tile being one column to the right of the to None, which indicates the absence of a
to make matches of three or more tiles of left-most tile. Pressing SPACE swaps the tile at that position. To fill the board, tiles
the same colour. Making a match causes two selected tiles, checks for matches, in each column are moved down by one
the tiles to disappear from the board, with clears any matched tiles, and fills any gaps row whenever an empty board position is
tiles dropping down to fill in the gaps. with new tiles. found, with a new tile being added to the
At the start of a new game, a board A basic ‘match-three’ algorithm would top row of the board.
of randomly generated tiles is created. simply check whether any tiles on the The code provided here is just a starting
This is made as an (initially empty) board have a matching colour tile on either point, and there are lots of ways to develop
two-dimensional array, whose size side, horizontally or vertically. I’ve opted for the game, including a scoring system and
is determined by the values of rows something a little more convoluted, though, animation to liven up your tiles.
40 / wfmag.cc
Toolbox
Source Code
Download
the code
Match-three in Python from GitHub:
wfmag.cc/
Here’s Rik’s code snippet, which creates a simple match-three game in Python. To get it running on your wfmag25
system, you’ll first need to install Pygame Zero – you can find full instructions at wfmag.cc/pgzero
wfmag.cc \ 41
Toolbox
Source Code
Directory
imon N
S
Goodwin: audio
tech guru, author,
and Wireframe
contributor.
xxxxxxxxxx
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Xxxxxxx
rack open the black box of game audio with the
C
42 / wfmag.cc
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Interface
A world without bosses?
WRITTEN BY
PAUL WALKER-EMIG
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A world without bosses?
A WORLD
WITHOUT
BOSSES? THE RISE OF THE WORKER CO-OP
WRITTEN BY: PAUL WALKER-EMIG
I
n recent years, it’s become clear that benefits, stagnant wages, and worsening working
the working conditions for game hours” and recalls such phrases as, “Do you have
developers are often pretty bad. the passion to come in and work this weekend?”.
In October 2018, Rockstar co-founder Similarly, Farren recalls “A lot of issues with
Dan Houser came under fire after he hierarchy, layoffs, and just bad management,” in
appeared to brag about his team working her previous industry job. “I was feeling super-
back-breaking 100-hour weeks to complete Red disenfranchised with the games industry and the
Dead Redemption 2 on time. This was only the structure that seemed to be inherent with it,”
latest controversy surrounding a practice so she says.
common in the industry that it has its own Wouldn’t it be great if we could jettison all
name: crunch. In February 2019, Activision those toxic practices? The expectation of
Blizzard laid off 800 employees right after working insane hours at the expense of family
announcing a bumper $7.2 billion quarter. life and mental health; the zero-hour contracts
The following month, 350 EA employees were let doled out to poorly treated Quality Assurance
go – yet another cohort of unfortunate workers workers; the profit-over-people motive that
bearing the brunt of the industry’s whims. allows a company raking in piles of cash to
In that context, the picture that developers discard the workers that helped make them that
Ted Anderson and Wren Farren paint of their money on a whim. Hell, why not just get rid of
experience working in video games is hardly the bosses that enforce all this stuff in the first
surprising. Anderson references “diminishing place? That might sound like a fantasy, but this
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A world without bosses?
PIXELS
AND POLITICS
“I think everyone expresses their
politics in their actions and what
they create, even if they’re not
meaning to, says Pixel Pushers
Union 512’s Ted Anderson. “This is
a departure from the common
belief that some things can is precisely how people like Anderson and Tonight We Riot ’s tale of the exploited
Farren have responded to their negative versus the exploiters is clearly trying to tap
be apolitical if they pass by as into experiences that many of its players
the norm. We believe that that experiences. In 2015, Anderson formed the will have had in their working lives.
norm is political, and that people worker co-operative Pixel Pushers Union 512,
shouldn’t be too surprised if there’s while Farren co-founded The Glory Society in
a leftist game that is unapologetic early 2019. of setups – we vote on things that affect the
about its politics, as every other studio, our expenditures, our salaries, etc. It
form of media has its own politics
already, even if those politics are
TAKING CONTROL doesn’t mean we have a big group vote on every
“A worker co-op is a business that’s creative decision – we all have our expertise and
quiet or incidental.”
democratically owned and operated and collaborate accordingly. But it does mean there
controlled by its workers,” explains Scott isn’t one boss or stratum of decision-makers
Benson, who co-founded The Glory Society with above us that determine all those things for us,
Farren and Bethany Hockenberry. “There’s a lot and who ultimately own the work we make.”
to it, but it comes down to the fact that we talk With no bosses above their heads, The Glory
things out and communicate, and are Society and Pixel Pushers free themselves from
accountable to each other in ways that aren’t many of the worst excesses of the video game
really possible in a top-down business. industry. There’s no management to force
Also, voting happens. members into brutal periods of crunch; no
“To pick one example that might seem unique imbalance of power that allows a hierarchy to
ed Anderson [second from right]
T
hanging out with Pixel Pushers for people who aren’t familiar with these types question their ‘passion’ for the industry if they
Union 512 and publisher New
Blood Interactive.
complain about their conditions; no one is going
to exploit them to line their own pockets and
I f you need evidence that a game made
by a worker co-op can be a hit, look no boost profits for shareholders; and the co-op
further than Motion Twin’s Dead Cells. members aren’t going to vote to lay themselves
off as part of a boom and bust hiring cycle.
“I’ve been laid off before, and I’ve been a part
of a hiring binge before,” says Anderson. “It’s an
untenable system that puts the weight of
production on the shoulders of the workers
without them having much say in how things
rattle out.
“I believe that co-ops can help reverse the lost
wages and ‘churn’ of layoffs and hiring that
happens in our line of work, just as it has in
other industries,” he continues. “I think they are
definitely a better solution than the current
method of production in many industries, and in
games, it’s no different. We’re an industry like any
other, where workers produce goods or services
and are given a wage for that labour. However,
the surplus value of that labour lands in the
pockets of the owners and management of those
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A world without bosses?
studios. This isn’t controversial, that’s just how by co-ops. This nascent movement feels like it’s
the system operates, so it’s curious to me that
“We can all bring part of a changing tide, rising in response to an
examining it causes people to get upset.” ideas and thoughts ever-greater awareness about poor conditions
Farren points out that worker co-ops also to the table and in the industry, that could grow to become
offer creative benefits for their members. “We feel like we will something far more significant. “There is
can all bring ideas and thoughts to the table and definitely a greater awareness of this exploitative
feel like we will be heard,” he says. “We’re able to
be heard” situation among developers these days,” says
have discussions on an equal level that Anderson, pointing to the growing unionisation
ultimately get us to a stronger place than if we movement in the industry as another example
had one person calling all the shots.”
A CHANGING TIDE
The Glory Society and Pixel Pushers aren’t the
only video game worker co-ops out there – Dead
Cells developer Motion Twin is another example
– but they’re both small fish in a big pond, each
composed of only a handful of members. It’s
possible, however, for worker co-ops to scale
up. Cooperative Home Care Associates,
America’s biggest worker co-op, employs
2300 people; and a third of the GDP of the
Emilia-Romagna region in Italy is produced
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A world without bosses?
were threading political themes into their become overwrought and more of a moralising
games before forming The Glory Society. lesson than a fun gameplay experience, so we’ve
done our very best to ride that line carefully.
We want to make sure the player has a good
time, but also hope that they walk away with
some class consciousness as well.”
OFFICE POLITICS
The way that the politics of these studios’
organisational structures are reflected in their
games, and vice versa, are important. There’s
been a general and welcome trend towards
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A world without bosses?
his game proves, once and
T
representing its politics in its games. who owns it, the tools it was made with, and who
controls what happens with all of it – these are
the questions that start shaking long-
exploring a greater breadth of subjects and undisturbed architecture. We’ve got such a
representing a broader range of perspectives in theory of change in the industry that’s centred
he Glory Society founders’
T
games of late. We’ve seen economics explored around pledges, conferences, hashtags, diversity
previous game, Night in the
in everything from BioShock to Cart Life, games initiatives, and so on. But we organise our entire Woods, was a well-received
and thoughtful title –
about mental health such as Hellblade: Senua’s lives around work, around the production of though it was eventually
Sacrifice and Depression Quest, games that things. If we’re lucky enough to find full-time consumed by a different
sort of political discussion.
represent gay relationships like Gone Home and work, we spend five out of seven days of almost
The Last of Us: Left Behind, and greater diversity every week of our adult lives there.
when it comes to the characters we can play as. Our workplaces need to change.”
This is fantastic, but it’s important to recognise The Glory Society recognises that worker
the ways in which these developments can be co-ops aren’t, in Farren’s words, “a magic
limited. That Apex Legends features lots of cool solution.” Hockenberry points out that they
female and culturally diverse characters is a “come with challenges” and are “just one
welcome step in the right direction, but the solution of many out there.” Clearly, though, they
question that must be asked is: to what extent is offer an exciting approach to dealing with many
this diversity replicated in the studio that made of the issues workers in the games industry, and
it? What does it mean if the politics that are even society at large, face today. These studios
being expressed in games aren’t being reflected might offer a glimpse at a future we could all
in the way they’re being made? one day inhabit. At the very least, they should
This is an issue The Glory Society is acutely help us extend the debates we’re already having
aware of. “It’s really easy, trivially easy, to just in the realm of culture into the workplace, so
make slightly woker games and to master the that the important conversations that need to
language and etiquette of progressiveness,” be had about how the industry needs to change
Benson argues. “In this space, there’s a lot of big can continue happening. There’s no guarantee
talk about what needs to change culturally, but that these studios will serve as a template that
the way games are produced goes largely will give us a boss-free future, or even that they
untouched. We’re in a place right now where will spark a shake-up in the relatively narrow
more and more people, especially younger confines of their own industry. But as
people, are wondering why that is. The way Hockenberry points out, “It’s better than what
something is produced, who profits from it, most of us have, so why not try?”
wfmag.cc \ 49
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Developer Profile / Compile
Developer Profile
Compile
Through the eighties and nineties, this Japanese
company quietly produced some absolute gems
T
his autumn’s launch of the company ticking over by porting Namco’s
Mega Drive Mini may have Galaxian to the Apple II. While copies
brought Sega’s peak years of Niitani’s business software flatly
back to the fore, but it’s refused to budge, the Galaxian port
worth remembering that sold several hundred copies – the first
some of the console’s best third-party sign that the company’s future might lie
games were created by a lesser-known down a more colourful path. From here,
studio named Compile. In fact, while the Programmers-3 began porting several
Hiroshima-based developer was never of Sega’s early-eighties arcade titles
a particularly huge name – unlike other to its Japan-only console, the SG-1000
outfits from the country, like Capcom or (titles barely heard of in the west,
Konami – Compile was still one of the such as Borderline, Safari Hunting, and
most prolific and talented studios of Hustle Chumy), which began a working
its day. relationship between the two firms
Before all that, though, there was that would persist right up until the
the somewhat less interesting phase new millennium.
of Compile’s existence. Founded in It was in the mid-eighties, when
1982 by Masamitsu Niitani (often Programmers-3 changed its name to
known by his nickname, ‘Moo’), Compile Compile, that the studio really began
began life as Programmers-3, Inc. – a to find its own identity. After a couple
company dedicated to producing of years spent porting arcade games
business software rather than fast, like Lode Runner and Choplifter to the
challenging video games. Sales of its MSX, Compile came out with a game
office management software were that established its signature style.
worryingly slow, however, so Niitani – Horizontal shooter Zanac, designed by
who’d dabbled in game development Niitani and programmers Koji Teramoto
a bit in the past – kept the fledgling and Takayuki Hirono, unleashed a
barrage of bullets and enemies on
unsuspecting players; despite the
limitations of the MSX, the computer
on which it first appeared, the game
had the pace and difficulty of a proper
arcade title. Aside from its unusually
complex power-up system – which
Compile would return to and refine in
its later games – Zanac’s difficulty also
shifted depending on the player’s skill;
the more efficiently the player collected
power-ups and slaughtered enemies, the
more brutally the game would respond.
The NES port, released one year after
50 / wfmag.cc
Interface
Compile \ Developer Profile
pictured on a rare day out of the office.
tile-match puzzler Puyo Puyo was an
enormous hit in Japan, with hundreds did make it to the west in one form;
turning up to play live tournaments.
in 1991, Compile took some of the
characters from Madou Monogatari and
the MSX version emerged in 1986, was but two. It was heady, nerve-jangling used them to decorate their tile-match
among the best shooters available for stuff, and Compile’s status as a maker puzzler, Puyo Puyo. First released in 1991
the system – a blistering demonstration of cult action classics would have been for the MSX2 and NES, Puyo Puyo was
of what Compile could do on hardware assured if it had simply stuck to the arguably Compile’s biggest mainstream
that wasn’t exactly known for its ability shooter genre. hit; the studio’s answer to the likes of
to throw dozens of fast-moving sprites It would be remiss, though, not Columns and Nintendo’s Dr. Mario, the
around the screen. to point out just how diverse and later ports’ two-player competitive mode
imaginative Compile’s output was in its proved to be a masterstroke, with the
BEYOND SHOOTERS heyday. There was The Guardian Legend arcade version’s popularity attracting
For fans of shoot-‘em-ups, it was the hundreds of players to live tournaments
start of a spectacular run of form. “Despite the success of in Japan. Designed by Niitani himself,
In 1988 came Aleste for the Sega Master Puyo Puyo received a slew of sequels,
the Puyo Puyo series,
System and MSX, which marked the and emerged in the west under a variety
beginning of a cult franchise; Gunhed trouble began to loom” of guises – the Mega Drive version
(released in the west as Blazing Lazers) was reworked as the Sonic-themed Dr.
for the PC Engine in 1989, and in 1990, (1988), a hybrid of shooter and top- Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine.
what might be its finest entry in the down action-adventure that was, for its
genre: Musha Aleste for the Sega Mega time, a novel collision of game styles. BACK TO BUSINESS
Drive. Released in America as M.U.S.H.A, There were the slick pinball games that Despite the continued success of the
it offered an audio-visual blitzkrieg of it made for other companies, often Puyo Puyo series, however, trouble
synth-metal music, relentless 2D action, without fanfare; a licensed Ghostbusters began to loom for Compile as the
and some seriously cool enemies: a spin-off for the Mega Drive, which nineties wore on. Several key members
gigantic tank disguised as a medieval Compile worked into a jaunty platformer; of staff left the company earlier in the
Japanese fortress; a flying vehicle and Madou Monogatari, a light-hearted decade, while a greater blow came when
bristling with laser guns and capped with RPG series. The latter was barely heard a piece of business software called
a smiling Noh theatre mask, to name of outside Japan, but slivers of the series Power Acty was given an expensive
launch in 1998. Despite the presence
of a few cute faces from Puyo Puyo, the
software failed to sell, forcing Compile to
Disc Station restructure and, in the process, sell the
rights for Puyo Puyo to Sega. Within five
When Compile finished work on a little horizontal shooter called
Aleste in 1988, it was left in a bit of a quandary: the game easily years, Compile would go bankrupt. It was
fit on a single MSX2 floppy disk, so what else could they do a bitter irony, really, that Compile ended
to make use of the space? After a few calls to other studios, as it had begun – trying to sell business
Disc Station was born: a magazine-software hybrid that soon
software that few particularly wanted
became a major part of Compile’s history. Published between
1988 and 2000, Disc Station crammed an assortment of games, to buy. For well over a decade, though,
demos, and music onto a disk (or, later on, a CD). Some of Compile focused on games – and when
Compile’s more famous names began life here; aside from it did, the results were imaginative,
Aleste, the long-running Madou Monogatari debuted on Disc technically dazzling, and thrillingly
Station in 1989. Despite the latter edition’s high price – around he first edition of Disc
T
diverse. As Niitani once put it, “Back
$40 – it was a big seller, according to Niitani. Station, released in 1988 and
featuring the first appearance then, we didn’t have any kind of agenda.
of cult shoot-’em-up, Aleste.
We just enjoyed making stuff.”
wfmag.cc \ 51
Interface
Developer Profile / Compile
Speed of Sound
A compilation of 10 Compile corkers
Fifteen years of games united by their speed and spectacular music
01 02 03
04 05
Musha Aleste Gunhed/Blazing Lazers
Sega Mega Drive 1990 PC Engine 1989
Yes, it’s another vertical shooter, but this one Essentially an unofficial entry in the Aleste
arguably sees Compile at the top of its powers. series, Gunhed (loosely based on a movie
Musha Aleste unfolds as a baroque, relentless, released in Japan that year) brought Compile’s
and faintly manic collision of high-tech mecha fast scrolling and sweaty-palmed tension to
and Japanese medieval architecture, and the NEC’s console. The levels are unfathomably long
action here pushes the console’s hardware to for some reason, but the weapons are absurdly
its limits. Yet again, the soundtrack – Toshiaki over the top (there are ten or so different kinds),
Sakoda’s ‘Edo Metal’ – is a classic. and the soundtrack’s an absolute stormer.
52 / wfmag.cc
Interface
Compile \ Developer Profile
06 07
GG Aleste Ghostbusters
Sega Game Gear 1991 Sega Mega Drive 1990
It was never as popular as the Game Boy, Compile went uncredited on the title screen,
but Sega’s handheld still got one of the best but this was one of several games the studio
handheld shooters of the nineties in GG Aleste : developed for Sega in the eighties and nineties.
far from a lazy port of the Master System It’s a simple yet fun platformer, and the ghost-
version, this was an all-new entry with its own busting mechanic (you have to zap larger
level designs, soundtrack, and more of the spooks and suck them into your Ghost Trap)
surreal boss designs that enlivened Compile’s makes this one of the better games based
earlier entry, Musha Aleste. on the movie.
08 09 10
wfmag.cc \ 53
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wfmag.cc \ 55
Rated
Review
Review
GENRE
Borderlands 3
Info
FPS
FORMAT Looting and shooting and muting the dialogue
PS4 (tested) /
W
XBO / PC
DEVELOPER hether or not you enjoy shooters in the years since Borderlands 2 means
Gearbox Borderlands 3 will largely the draw of the series’ core conceit isn’t as
Software depend on how effectively you strong as it once was. The easiest way to know
PUBLISHER can endure its humour before whether you’ll enjoy playing Borderlands 3 is to
2K Games wanting to jab a screwdriver go and play one of its predecessors.
PRICE through your ears. That might sound like There are a few new traversal moves
£49.99
hyperbole in a game that’s all about shooting that you’ll forget exist after 20 minutes, but
RELEASE
things, but the humour in Gearbox’s latest is so otherwise, Borderlands 3 is essentially more
Out now
frequent and plentiful that it’s almost impossible of the same. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing,
to ignore. Sure, some decent jokes manage to mainly because shooting folks in the head
squeeze through the cracks due to the sheer with a wide array of eccentric weaponry is still
volume of rapid-fire gags, but Borderlands 3 inherently gratifying. You might use the meaty
mostly consists of dire juvenile humour that punch of a Jakobs shotgun to launch enemies
REVIEWED BY bites into the lowest hanging fruit as though into the air so you can juggle them with a few
Richard Wakeling it were malnourished, relying on bad dick extra shots, discover a Tediore SMG that you
jokes, dated references, and utterly obnoxious can chuck at an enemy’s skull once the clip runs
characters. It’s uniformly terrible and one-note, dry, or shoot a gun that literally shoots guns.
which is a shame, because the series’ core Borderlands 3’s weapons are the stars of the
mechanical loop of looting and shooting is still show, and the pace of progression means you’ll
intrinsically satisfying, even if Borderlands 3 is always have some kind of new armament to
distinctly retrograde in its sensibilities. experiment with every half hour or so.
You’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve played There’s a decent variety of enemies, too,
it all before when the game opens up on the though their tactics, or lack thereof, never really
HIGHLIGHT drab wasteland planet of Pandora as Claptrap
yatters away. It even has the exact same ‘Pis
Borderlands 3 always
off’ graffiti written on the sides of buildings,
manages to elicit a dopamine
rush after you’ve killed a just in case you wanted to feel like it’s 2009
boss and a downpour of loot all over again. The rest of the game follows a
rains from the sky. Seeing the straightforward structure, whereby you receive
golden tinge of a legendary uninspired quests from annoying NPCs that
weapon is doubly exciting,
task you with going to a place to shoot people,
especially when you realise
it’s a souped-up version of going to a place to pick up an object, or going
your weapon of choice. to a place to shoot people and pick up an
object. The proliferation of Diablo-infused looter
Skywell-27 is a moon
orbiting Promethea that
alters combat slightly
because its low gravity
lets you jump super-high.
56 / wfmag.cc
Rated
Review
encourage you to break away from the tried and while all Vaughn can talk about are his abs and
true method of shooting onrushing foes in the underwear. Beyond this, jokes boil down to a
head, throwing grenades, and using your class’ guy doing a Tommy Wiseau impression for 20 A prime example of
Action Skill the second it recharges. It’s mindless minutes, or seeing characters called Wick and Borderlands 3 ’s uninspired
design is this VR mission that
fun, full of DPS numbers and big red ‘Critical’ Warty, where the entire joke is understanding just adds a blue filter and
replays a previous location.
visuals preceding every well-placed shot. a reference. There’s one mission where a
The variety of guns and the random attributes character talks endlessly about a guy’s small
associated with them prop up the repetitive penis, and another where you have to listen
action to a point where you can play the entire to a woman making ape mating noises – which
30-hour campaign without losing much interest. basically just involves lots of shrieking – for the
The diverse selection of planets you visit over entirety of a combat encounter. Borderlands 3
the course of the story certainly helps with is a lesson in how to annoy the player through
this, too. The dystopian audio alone, taking a gag that
metropolis of Promethea is “The vapid story and could’ve been 30 seconds
an aesthetic far cry from the long and extending it over
irritating voice work
vivid mountaintop temples ten minutes. There’s even
of Athenas or the swampy just get in the way” a reference to the USB
jungles of Eden-6, even if stick related to a recently
nothing about their level design encourages dismissed lawsuit brought against Gearbox CEO
you to alter your play style in any way. Randy Pitchford, just in case you were getting VERDICT
The narrative, meanwhile, relies on your comfortable in separating the art from the artist. Borderlands 3 offers the
excitement for seeing returning characters There’s so much downtime where you’re best and worst parts of the
show up, deliver bad one-liners, and then forced to listen to characters talk at you. series, along with very little
disappear with zero fanfare. The overarching The relief when you finally get back to shooting that’s actually new.
plot predictably revolves around finding vault guns with ludicrous attributes that turn
keys to open vaults, as out of touch parodies of
YouTubers called the Calypso Twins settle into
their roles as the main villains. The evil twins
everyone into a crimson mist is palpable.
Borderlands 3 excels in this one area: providing
you with a consistent stream of guns with which
60%
show up every now and then to remind you to cause mayhem and destruction. The vapid
to “Like, follow, and obey.” It’s all very “How do story and irritating voice work just get in the way.
you do, fellow kids?”, and neglects to offer any Still, at least there’s a mute button.
social commentary on the negative effect actual
YouTubers can have on their fans. Instead,
it opts to paint them as over-the-top, cynical
monsters. They’re a far cry from the depth and
excellence of Handsome Jack.
Part of the reason Borderlands 3’s humour
grates so much is because it follows Telltale’s
brilliant Tales from the Borderlands. That episodic
adventure was both funny, and created
multilayered characters that were complex and
interesting. Take Rhys and Vaughn as prime
examples; fascinating characters that appear in Vehicle handling is slightly
improved, but vehicular
Borderlands 3 with almost no personality at all, combat is still dull and
they’re simply one-dimensional vehicles for bad thankfully infrequent.
You’ll wish there were
jokes. Rhys’s entire arc is about his moustache, more fast travel points.
wfmag.cc \ 57
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
Atmosphere is understated
yet thick in Overland,
presenting a world of
enigmatic and unknowable
truths. Why the aliens
are there, what happened
to everyone – questions
on those lines are left
unanswered. But it does
ther survivors might
O
help create an enveloping be unfriendly. And
ambience that – outside of even if they aren’t, you
the main game bits – you can can still rob them like
a psychopath.
happily lose yourself in.
Review
T
here’s a line – one that, thanks out what you want to do. There’s fuel to the side –
to some excellent design in do you want to risk going out to get it? There are
recent hard games, has seemed some supplies to loot – is it worth switching your
GENRE
Info
58 / wfmag.cc
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
For all its less-than-serious attitude,
Untitled Goose Game is home to a
seriously characterful goose. This
little honker waddles with purpose,
flaps its wings in a non-threatening
could-be threat, and honks to the
beat of your thumb. I might not be
entirely sold on the game, but I do
want more of the goose.
Review
your mischief, though the
threat they pose is limited
to ushering you away.
S
ome games just honk right in Messing with people – irritating them – is funny,
your face and demand you have a and there’s a palpable sense of being naughty
Info
GENRE
gander, and Untitled Goose Game hit while you’re toying with the emotions of these
Honkin’ puzzler
its stride both pre- and post-launch non-honking bipedal apes. It’s uplifting, silly, and
FORMAT
with a two-pronged attack. First, by initially very appealing. But the feeling wears off.
PC (tested) / Switch
looking rather spiffy. Second, by setting sections Untitled Goose Game’s main problem comes
DEVELOPER
of the internet ablaze with frothy-mouthed praise about because it’s a puzzle game that has puzzles House House
for this mixture of stealth, puzzling, and mischief. you don’t always feel smart for having solved. PUBLISHER
If I were to describe it as Hitman, but with a Vague clues often lead to just trying anything and Panic Inc.
goose, I’d be a liar – but you’d have a better idea seeing what happens – that’s very much in the PRICE
of what’s going on here. spirit of the game, absolutely, but it doesn’t make £17.99
Untitled Goose Game has you controlling a for a satisfying experience over the long run. RELEASE
goose, see, on its way to do something – yes, I A goose causing chaos in Middle England is Out now
am avoiding spoilers in a game about a goose. inherently funny. Adding a layer of defined goals
Along the way, you encounter various obstacles on top of that chaos is necessary to make this
which require you hassle and harass the local more than just a Goat Simulator. But the balance
populace of an idyllic British countryside village isn’t quite there, and too often I was left sneering
to circumvent. Steal a gardener’s rake, lock a child at the game for its vague logical paths, rather
in a phone box, appear on television, that kind than delighting in a gorgeous honkfest.
of thing. It’s objective-based mischief requiring That said, Untitled Goose Game doesn’t outstay REVIEWED BY
you figure out just how to make things happen. its welcome, and as such this lack of development Ian Dransfield
And that’s… fun? Fun, I guess. I’m not wholly as things progress is limited, thanks to the fact
sold on Untitled Goose Game, but more on that in the amount of game there is to play is limited.
a second. When you pick this up for the first time, Speedrunners are already blasting through
it’s hard not to be beaming from ear to ear as you in minutes, while us regular people will take a
waddle around honking like a goose possessed, couple of hours to get through the main chunk
VERDICT
nicking carrots and throwing rakes in lakes. of game – there’s extra mischief to honk your Excellently presented and
way through after the fact, too. I can see why brimming with charisma,
the internet has (in part) come unglued for Untitled Goose Game is
or no reason, I stole this
F nonetheless let down by
package and threw it in a lake. Untitled Goose Game – it’s characterful, funny,
Geese are a bad influence. the trudgery of its puzzles.
and gorgeous; it captures a part of British life
few other games have even bothered trying
to represent. Stripped back to its mechanics,
though, it’s limited and – importantly – not that
much fun.
62%
wfmag.cc \ 59
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
It’s really easy to be swept up
by the ambition of GreedFall.
the scale of everything, from
the vistas of Teer Fradee
to the backstories of your
companions, is almost
overwhelming. When creeping
through a forest or delving into
a friend’s past, the frequent
rough patches that are found
elsewhere feel very, very distant.
Review
G
reedfall is a very Spiders game. they’re a powerful faction, complete with their
As a studio, it is the embodiment own language, accent, culture, and history that is
of ambition over execution. All its teased throughout De Sardet’s dealings with them.
GENRE
Info
previous titles (Of Orcs and Men, For all the work put into the wonderful world,
RPG
Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer characters, and scenarios, playing GreedFall can
FORMAT
etc) are as defined by their amazing ideas and be best described as ‘serviceable’. Mechanically,
PC (tested) /
XBO / PS4 detailed settings as they are by their underbaked there’s more than a bit of the pre-Anthem BioWare
DEVELOPER systems and almost non-existent polish. There’s a – more specifically, Dragon Age: Origins – in
Spiders constant hope the next Spiders will be ‘the one’ – GreedFall. Branching dialogue and a reputation
PUBLISHER the game that will finally see the tech side of things system, recruitable NPC companions with their
Focus Home be at the same quality as the obvious passion the own storylines, and an active-pause combat
Interactive developer has for its projects. Yes, GreedFall is a function letting you pick between real-time combat
PRICE very Spiders game, but it falls short of the mark by and stopping to make larger tactical decisions are
£43.99 a much smaller margin than any of the games that all here.
RELEASE came before it. The problem is it’s all just fine, rather than
Out now
Set in a 17th-century-inspired fantasy world matching its subject matter’s quality. It’s a perfectly
hellbent on colonising the newly discovered island acceptable delivery method for the best bits of
of Teer Fradee, GreedFall puts you in the thick GreedFall, but nothing to write home about in its
leather boots of De Sardet, an important diplomat own regard. There’s a resounding lack of polish
REVIEWED BY new to the island. Said island is home to an that highlights this was a mid-budget game with
Joe Parlock indigenous people whose connection with the land full-budget ambition. Between the constantly
grants them control over hulking plant monsters, repeating voice lines, poor animations, major
for a good hit of the supernatural, and it is your job spelling errors in the subtitles, weirdly designed
to not only maintain balance between the factions UI, dodgy voice acting, limited character creation,
vying for control of the ‘new’ land, but to also find weirdly paced quests, and rough AI, it’s easy to see
a cure for the disease back home, plaguing the GreedFall as a game whose ambition is hamstrung
VERDICT main continent. heavily by its budget.
Inching closer to the bar With its transparent allegory for the colonisation As a dense, engrossing, original RPG, GreedFall
of quality Spiders clearly of the Americas, GreedFall doesn’t shy away from is the closest thing to a mainstream hit Spiders
wants to hit, Greedfall the theme of colonialism. While I’m hesitant to has produced so far, and it’s absolutely worth
nonetheless falls short. judge if it tackles that discussion successfully or heading into, provided you can put up with a
respectfully, it’s impressive to see the depth of higher-than-normal level of jank. If you wanted
60 / wfmag.cc
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
The Great Perhaps breaks
up its general bleakness
with some interstitial banter
between the cosmonaut and
his sarcastic AI companion,
L9. Both voice actors do an OK
job at relaying their awkward
relationship, but not having L9
perform audio cues to point
out puzzle tips feels like a
missed opportunity.
Review
scrawled on the wall?
T
he flirtatious relationship between the core of this issue involves working your way
games and time travel has always through a series of puzzle-filled levels, using a
Info
GENRE
been cause for inventive game mysterious lamp artefact to bamf between past
2D adventure,
design. Proving this once again, and present. What you do in one era affects puzzle game
albeit in more stripped-down form, elements in the other as you’d expect, but a nice
FORMAT
is the debut title from Moscow-based developer touch is the ability to shine the lamp’s cone of PC (tested)
Caligari Games. That’s because, despite letting light into the past or future ahead of a jump, to DEVELOPER
you flitter between past and present at will, The see what lies ahead. This comes in particularly Caligari Games
Great Perhaps is one of those rare puzzle games handy when wanting to avoid a patrolling guard PUBLISHER
uninterested in dumbfounding you and more in the past or mutated creature in the run- Daedalic
concerned with guiding you on a melancholic down present. Entertainment
journey filled with deep sci-fi themes. Its core The settings in all 14 chapters have a good PRICE
time-hopping gimmick is merely the quirk with variety, but there is just a tad too much ‘grab this £8.99
which to hook you onto this key from this time to unlock a RELEASE
Out now
thoughtful tale, being relatively “One of those rare door from the other’ in each.
successful for the most part, The game’s unwillingness to
despite a short length.
puzzle games move beyond such simple
The first thing you’ll notice uninterested in tasks is where The Great
about The Great Perhaps is dumbfounding you” Perhaps really reveals itself as
its lovely hand-drawn art the studio’s first title, as does REVIEWED BY
style, which sees it sit somewhere between the its insistence on introducing new tweaks to the Aaron Potter
aesthetic of 2014’s Valiant Hearts and cult CITV time-bending conceit only to have them disappear
show Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids – complete later. One section has a rift pass up and down the
with a Soviet twist. As a fan of both, this drew environment to unwittingly force you between
me in instantly, especially since it makes the past and present. Here, I had to think on my feet
tonal dissonance between thriving society and rather than at the typical leisurely pace, but it’s VERDICT
post-apocalypse even more unsettling. Part of clear that applying this type of pressure isn’t what A charming, if simple,
the fun in jumping from one time to the other The Great Perhaps is interested in. puzzle game unafraid to
is picking out the environmental detail found in For as rudimentary as The Great Perhaps’ ask life’s big questions
both; it kept me engaged and made up for the puzzles might be, I still found myself charmed through the prism of
basic mechanics. by this thoughtful two-hour sci-fi adventure. time travel.
You play as a lowly cosmonaut who’s been Its sketched art style and sombre tone combine
left floating in space for 100 years, eventually
touching back down to Earth to discover what has
caused a cataclysmic natural disaster. Getting to
to deliver a personal story about lost time and
the lengths someone will go to try and get
it back. Beautiful!
64%
wfmag.cc \ 61
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
You can’t talk about Sayonara Wild
Hearts without mentioning its infectious
soundtrack, composed by long-time Simogo
collaborators Daniel Olsén and Jonathan
Eng, with vocals from Linnea Olsson. On its
own, it’s a strong contender for album of the
year, matching Swedish pop contemporaries
Robyn and Lykke Li – even the soundtrack
was available to download and stream the
same day the game launched.
Review
Collecting hearts is
crucial for racking up
your score, though
F
or the past decade, Swedish All of this, bolstered by a dynamic camera
developer Simogo has escaped that does as much dizzying choreography as the
simple categorisation, not settling balletic characters, is enough to make you forget
GENRE
Info
on any specific genre while that the game asks little of you in terms of inputs,
Pop / Arcade
/ Rhythm
making the most of mobile to including even the shooting sections.
create unusual and innovative experiences. It’s ultimately more about the experience than
FORMAT
Switch (tested) Sayonara Wild Hearts is yet another dazzling getting good, though high-score chasers can
/ PS4 / iOS / title to add to its distinct repertoire. Essentially also tap into feel-good factors for every tricky
Apple Arcade a playable pop album that would take a heart heart piece collected or perfectly timed rhythm
DEVELOPER of stone not to be swept up in its neon dream tap, which add an extra flourish to The Fool’s
Simogo euphoria, as it carries you through big emotions animations. If there is a wrinkle, it’s that getting
PUBLISHER and heartbreak, as all great pop songs should. hit by an attack or crashing into an obstacle
Annapurna
But Sayonara Wild Hearts also unabashedly rewinds you back a few seconds, which is
Interactive
celebrates video games in their purest form. meant to be a generous way of letting you retry
PRICE
£10.99
Sure, its controls are mostly limited to without penalty, but also ends up disrupting the
movement with occasional moments of pretty song’s wondrous flow – fail too many times and
RELEASE
Out now lenient rhythm-based QTEs, but you’re also on you’re given a choice to skip the level, though
a wild kaleidoscopic tour of arcade gaming’s I strongly recommend switching this off if you
greatest hits. Your course may be on rails, yet the don’t want to deprive yourself of any part of the
journey is never short on ideas, which is fitting excellent soundtrack.
REVIEWED BY for your masked heroine who takes on The Fool, Naturally, this is a short experience, albeit still
Alan Wen a tarot arcana that represents infinite potential. longer than a typical LP, though beating it once
By the hour or so of its duration, you’ll have lets you play the whole album uninterrupted,
sped down narrow alleys on your motorbike, while completionists can aim for nailing the Gold
taken part in a street fight against a girl gang, Ranks for each song and some rather cryptic
pursued a duo shifting you between different achievements. In truth, these extras are hardly
VERDICT planes of reality at the click of their fingers, been necessary, because, just like any catchy pop
An exquisite sugar- sucked into first-person VR that transforms into record, Sayonara Wild Hearts simply begs to be
rush of arcade and pop, a slowed-down bullet hell, while also paying played again and again.
Sayonara Wild Hearts homage to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s synaesthetic Rez
will steal your heart. by turning into a lock-on rail shooter towards
I t’s difficult for a screenshot to do justice to
the end. And that’s just a few examples, as it a game that’s so beautiful in motion. At least
62 / wfmag.cc
Rated
Review
HIGHLIGHT
Though scattered and spare, Abigail’s
personal, emotional journeys through
memory can be quite affecting. There’s
an uneasy tone and stark griminess to
her personal tragedy and failure that
at times helps elevate the ponderous
political narrative to something more
than incomplete parable.
Review
American Election
he simple but personally profound
T
choice of naming a beloved family
dog is one of the ‘apolitical’ choices
woven into this narrative.
A
merican Election opens with a As a brown, queer woman living in America,
choice about where Abigail’s I get it. Believe me, I do. All of my friends
Info
GENRE
grandmother is from: Shanghai, are exhausted and sick from this perpetual
Interactive fiction
Nairobi, Rio, or Warsaw. nightmare. It’s why I can’t help but feel American
FORMAT
The choice doesn’t matter. Election stumbles. Having run through the game
Browser-based
There was a war, she came to America looking multiple times, seeing what changes and what
DEVELOPER
for a new life. She had your mother. The game doesn’t, I kept walking away asking myself, “What Greg Buchanan
is making a point here – a point about choice is the point?” PUBLISHER
and xenophobia. Because, your father points Truman Glass is the kind of villain you’d expect Self-published,
out, he is a true American. Your mother can’t be. to find in a political thriller novel abandoned on itch.io
She’s the child of an immigrant. an airport terminal seat. There are moments PRICE
It’s 2016 when American Election picks up, of tension in American Election, underlined by Free
and we have a memory of a second-generation shaking text (which can be turned off), but this RELEASE
immigrant mother being dunked on by a proud, isn’t a Tom Clancy novel. The game strives for Out now
white, American father. That’s when the cop significance, but it can’t see the full scope of the
pulls you over. And playing this in 2019, well, it political monstrosity.
feels a bit on the nose. As writer and critic Colin Spacetwinks has
It’s a story Abigail is telling her boss, said, “Political writing as a genre tends to be split REVIEWED BY
presidential hopeful, Truman Glass entirely between comedy and taut thriller, not Dia Lacina
(a transparent stand-in for US President, Donald understanding that they are both at the same
Trump). Abigail wants to get him elected, time, and it is boring, terrifying, absurd, and
believes he’s good for the country. Over the exhausting all at once.”
next several chapters, it unfolds towards the An early choice allows players to call the VERDICT
inevitable conclusion – a facsimile of our current future president, ‘Orange’. It’s a cheap, greasy While taut and tense
world state. There are choices, but their impact move, and the dividends refuse to pay out. Along at times, American
on the story’s trajectory is slight. with other narrative and thematic decisions, it Election is an exhausting
Greg Buchanan’s American Election is a train siphons what vitality the game could have. experience that lacks
with no brakes. A ceaselessly nihilistic tone poem The game’s best moments of genuine, real imagination or the
about the inevitability of the Trump presidency, personal pathos – Abigail’s remembrances of her willingness to grapple with
the arbitrary nature of choice, and the limitations ex-girlfriend, her divestment from herself and the complex banality of
of the individual. Truman Glass will get elected at her life, a beloved childhood dog – are undercut American politics.
the end. Abigail will continue to be a struggling by Buchanan’s restless need to drive home his
third-generation wreck of a lesbian with no
real answers. The only answer American Election
can provide is “This horror is inevitable.”
political messaging. As overwhelming as politics
can be in our lives, American Election stumbles in
replicating this constant dread.
40%
wfmag.cc \ 63
Rated
Review
I
t’s a good time for anime cops on the singer (both of whom, like Date’s AI partner, fulfil
Switch, even if Spike Chunsoft’s AI: the ‘sexy’ anime stereotype), an ‘old hag’, and
The Somnium Files doesn’t have Astral a gender-fluid bar owner who is, contemptibly,
GENRE
Info
64 / wfmag.cc
Now playing
Definitely Definitive
Wireframe
Recommends
Definitely Definitive
Struggling to Switch off Divinity: Original Sin 2
W
ell, I did say I’d be talking Jacobson telling me he avoided using the word Baldur’s Gate:
more about Divinity: Original when talking about Football Manager’s similarly
Enhanced Edition
PC, SWITCH, MULTI
Sin 2: Definitive Edition on compulsive hold over players. It’s a harmful
I don’t think this batch
Switch, because it’s absolutely condition, not a helpful one, and it shouldn’t
of legends appearing on
magnificent and hard to put be thrown around with abandon when talking Nintendo’s format will have
down. On Nintendo’s handheld hybrid, that about something that is – in large part – as facile the same impact as Original
statement can be made literally, too – once as video games. With that clause firmly in mind, Sin 2, in all honesty. That ship
picked up, it is a struggle to turn off, to do I do think I’m addicted to Original Sin 2, and I has sailed.
anything else, to re-enter regular life. The dog can’t shake the feeling of oh-so-slight happiness
looks on forlorn, as once again she has to wait about the fact.
the extra ten minutes, 20 minutes, an hour Because you want games to pull you in
before I remember she needs a walk. Dinner and not let go. You want the experience to
gets pushed later and later into be all-consuming, for it to
the evening. Sleep – something “Original Sin 2 is make whatever the game is
I relearned to love through something you want to play
refreshing and Planescape: Torment:
the magic of ‘getting older’ – – the only thing you want to
once again became something invigorating” play. Lollygagging around the Enhanced Edition
PC, SWITCH, MULTI
I could do when dead. I’m world of gaming for (pushing)
All the same, and from a
worried this might be an addiction. four decades does take some of the lustre
less Inside My Own Head
At the same time, I’m not upset. It’s been a off the whole thought of giving yourself over perspective, it’s a thrill to see
while since a game has wholeheartedly dragged entirely to a game, and the ravages of millennial Beamdog’s collection on the
me in and not let up. Addiction is a horrible angst running hand in hand with the impact of Switch – and other consoles,
word to use as a compliment towards a game’s depressive episodes does exacerbate the feeling of course.
ability to keep you sat (or stood) in front of it – that you have fallen out of love with the medium.
I’ll always remember Sports Interactive’s Miles Maybe it’s time to move on, to go do something
else more ‘grown-up’ with your time? Chase that
joy. Find it. It’ll be somewhere else, surely.
Larian’s superb CRPG (on a hybrid handheld)
snapped me out of a stupor, frankly. My praise
of it might be skirting with being over the top, I’m
well aware, but the personal experience is never Icewind Dale:
something you can discount from a person’s
Enhanced Edition
PC, SWITCH, MULTI
opinion of… well, anything. But in this case, a
They’re deep and fun and
game about dragons and that. Original Sin 2
smart and interesting, and just
is refreshing and invigorating; it walked in and the sort of thing you want to
snapped its fingers, and in that moment, I was lose yourself in on a long train
enthralled. Turns out, a new addiction is just journey. Maybe it will become
what I needed. another addiction, who knows?
wfmag.cc \ 65
Killer Feature
Peggle
Peggle
A simple placeholder becomes an ode to joy
(also, it literally is Ode To Joy)
T
hat’s the moment it changes for everyone. before choosing the ‘real’ congratulatory track to go in there.
PopCap’s casual mix of luck, dexterity, and How different the world might have been.
puzzles might have offered some vague Things progress in the game, of course, and elements are
amusement the first time you played it, but introduced to show that under its simplistic surface, Peggle
it’s not until the end of a level that it hits you. is a game of real depth and considerate design. It’s one of
In Peggle, you have to fire a ball and hit all of the pegs in a those rare games that manages to balance its reliance on luck
level – and that’s about it. It’s simple, straightforward, and fun. and skill near-perfectly, no doubt one of the main reasons
You fire the last ball, the camera zooms in, and the action slows the game still holds up so well to this day. Side note: go play
as it approaches the final peg, a drumroll, it hits… and suddenly Peggle, thank us later.
Beethoven’s Ode to Joy blares out as the But you’d think after hundreds of levels
celebratory pyrotechnics unleash. “The more you play Peggle, played and twelve years (crikey, time
It’s in this moment that Peggle moves creeps up on you) the whole shtick would
the more you crave the
from being just another puzzle game wear thin. Nope. If anything, the more
you’ll put a bit of time into before recognition PopCap (and you play Peggle, the more you crave the
forgetting it into the territory of true Ludwig) throws your way” recognition PopCap (and Ludwig) throws
greats. It knows damn well that you your way. Those of a more cynical mind
want to be rewarded for your achievements, even if said might actually accuse PopCap of employing a certain ‘first
achievements do read ‘completing the first three levels’. one’s free’ method in how it doles out that congratulatory
So the game makes a fanfare of it, and really makes you feel symphony – they come by so easily in the early stages, to the
like you’ve accomplished a lot more than just plomping a point where you think this is the way it’s going to be forever.
ball at some targets in a vague mix of pinball and pachinko. But soon enough the difficulty ramps up, the failures mount,
It makes every end-of-level occasion special. And to think, the and you’re genuinely craving to be put out of your misery by
only reason Ode to Joy was in the game in the first place was a hearing-impaired pianist who died almost 200 years ago.
because its designers needed a placeholder to tide them over Ah, video games – is there anything they can’t do?
66 / wfmag.cc
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Ryan Lambie
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Ian Dransfield
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Harriet Knight
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Richard Wakeling, Paul Walker-Emig,
EDITION
Howard Scott Warshaw, Alan Wen
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Liz Upton
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Eben Upton
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