This week's highlights showcase Below, Mutant Year Zero, Hades, Gris, and Ashen - all of which have standout features - with reviews in the round-up, as well as more 'best of the year' & more besides.
This post outlines an approach to game design that focuses on human values underpinning gameplay, and how to use them to craft meaningful conflict, fostering emergent storytelling.
Game composer Winifred Phillips presents an annual resource list for game composers. Included: game music concert tours for inspiration, communities and forums for advice, popular software tools, and conferences/academia resources for advanced learning.
How well the team works out creative differences is discernible in the end product. Quality suffers when the team cannot balance the input of many personalities. This can be tackled with a team-oriented approval process.
Epic puts in 12% of the effort with an abysmal game launcher, few user features, but fantastic incentives for indie developers.
This week's surprisingly video-heavy highlights include a great mini-doc about the history of the Punch-Out franchise, a review (& compendium of reviews) for the latest acclaimed Smash Bros. game, & a multitude of other neatness.
