News & Views
9/26/15-10/2/15
Happy
October everyone! Fall is here and The Impact Factor is here to keep delivering
content goodness to you all. If you missed it yesterday, I made a post about October
Scare Fest 2015, my month long plan to watch as many new horror movies as
possible! I hope you’ll follow along with me as I watch some (hopefully) great
films.
This week’s
News & Views features writing about Twitch banning games, headshots in Destiny, how Middle Eastern developers
can counteract negative stereotypes, and SOMA’s
narrative design.
And of
course you can check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast
that was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods,
check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!
Spotlight
Matt Leone, Polygon
Worth Reading
Alex Handy,
Gamasutra
Jason
Johnson, Kill Screen
Keith
Stuart, The Guardian
Andrew
Webster, The Verge
Lars
Doucet, Fortress of Doors
With Comments
Robert
Yang, radiator Design Blog
Yang writes about Twitch’s hypocrisy
on banning streams of his games. Yang explores sexuality and bodies in game
unlike any other developer out there, so it seems strange that despite the
sexual nature of many other titles that are permitted on Twitch, only Yang’s
seem to be targeted. Twitch really needs to get their banned games rules
straight, and fast. In general, Yang is a great source of interesting game
design and unique perspectives, so keep his work on your radar. It’s
fascinating stuff.
Ethan Gach,
Kill Screen
Gach writes about a phenomenon
that’s all too common for gamers, but if often impossibly difficult to
describe. There are moment in games that can resonate deep within your core.
Usually it’s small things: like for me, when I hit the baseball on the thickest
part of the bat in Backyard
Baseball or the dull “thud” of downing an
enemy player in Modern Warfare 2. For
Gach, it’s Destiny’s headshot. Destiny has extraordinarily satisfying first-person
shooter gameplay, and it’s great to see how it can affect its players.
Adrian
Chmielarz, The Astronauts
Chmielarz provides a fascinating
take on one of my favorite games of the year, SOMA. Through his experience as a game designer, Chmielarz dissects what he
sees as the ‘lost layer of narrative design’ in SOMA. That is, how the world isn’t perfectly interactable,
which results in moments where immersion and player engagement are (briefly)
lost. While the phenomenon he describes didn’t really affect my playthrough,
it’s still a treat to read how a game designer reacts to the design of similar
titles.
Phillip
Kollar, Polygon
Click bait title aside, Kollar’s
article really got me think. What if SOMA is better than Bioshock? It is
not a question I thought I would ever have to ask myself. But after reading
through his points, I can’t say I totally disagree. An important note to
remember, however, is that SOMA and Bioshock
have totally different emphases and
thematic content. SOMA explores parts
of old school French enlightenment philosophy whereas Bioshock deconstructs Ayn Rand’s (bs) objectivism. I
also appreciated Bioshock’s meta-narrative
about that act of playing a game. The one thing I know for sure is that both
are must-play, genre-redefining games deserving of your time.
Patrick
Klepek, Kotaku
Klepek finds some of the best
stories. A Twitter rant about how the electrical infrastructure in Dying Light’s city is completely wrong turned into a hilarious and genuine
interaction between a developer and fans. Techland is now building quite a
history of awesome social media moments (remember their ‘drink a glass of
water, get free Dying Light DLC in
response to Destiny’s preposterous
Red Bull DLC content?). Cool stuff.
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