News & Views
1/23/16-1/29/16
Welcome
back everyone to another week of News & Views. Crazy to think that next
time I’ll be posting here we’ll already be one month into 2016. Time sure does
go fast! Got a lot of exciting things cooking both in and out of the science
world, so I am feeling pretty swell. Anyway, onto the stories!
This week I
found a heaping helping of video game writing goodness. Check out the authors’
work below for stories about the relationship between walking simulators and
fun, avoiding the ‘tagalong’ trap in co-op games, and how some of the best new
video games are about making video games.
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
Jake Muncy, Wired
Worth Reading
Samuel
Roberts, PC Gamer
Sarah
Doukakos, Kill Screen
Catharina
Bohler, Gamasutra
Alisha
Karabinus, Not You Mama’s Gamer
Stephen
Chiu, ESPN
With Comments
Lillian
Chen, Lilichen
Lillian Chen writes a super
interesting piece about her evolving thoughts on what can be done to make women
in competitive gaming feel more comfortable. The author is a long time veteran
of the pro Super
Smash Bros. scene, having felt first hand
what it is like to attend a tournament as a woman. This article is about more
than just having an all female tournament or not, and is well worth a read for
anyone with an interest in how to make eSports better.
Geoff
Coates, CG Society
Reading through this list of
scariest expressions in game dev reminds me so much of similar situations in
biomedical sciences. Coates’s humorous piece covers ten of these fear-inducing
phrases, using his distance from the traumatizing moments to great comedic
effect. If I could also never hear “It’s whatever you want it to be” or “Huh,
that’s weird” again I would be a happier scientist.
Gamesradar,
YouTube
As a big fan of JRPG’s, this
click-bait title got me good. Gamesradar does a great job with this short video.
It not only spotlights some brutally punishing bosses, but also some great
JRPGs you might have forgotten about. It certainly did not inspire any
confidence in me to start up my copy of Suikoden II that I’ve
been meaning to get to for a while, though. A certain final boss of that game
may or may not have made this list. Uh oh.
Ben Kuchera,
Polygon
Kuchera’s piece on Polygon covers
more of what I can’t stop thinking / talking / arguing about Tharsis. Kuchera does a great job at articulating how, by embracing the highs
and lows of randomness, you can look past Tharsis being too hard or too luck based to be fun. I maintain that strategy can
trump bad luck, but the game does rely on randomness (and all the fun / unfun
that goes with it). Both Kuchera and I agree that gambling is an underutilized
(and poorly implemented) mechanic in modern games, and Tharsis gives some hope that more can be done with
it in the future.
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