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Video Games

  • 50 Years of Text Games

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    2 min read

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    From Kevin Purdy writing for Ars Technica:

    Reed, a writer and game designer himself, picks one game for every year from 1971 through 2020. He adds an involving dive into the pre-1970s history of experiments, games, and brutally unforgiving code. Each decade also gets its own introduction, and there are summaries of 500 other text games included. Each of the game picks started out as a post on his Substack, though they have been revised and more deeply integrated with their historical context in the book.

    There are classics you might expect, like Adventure, MUD, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and Trade Wars. There are definition-stretching inclusions, like the original Choose Your Own Adventure book, The Cave of Time, and Dwarf Fortress. And there are probably at least 20 games most of us have never encountered.

    All modern games owe their successes to some of earliest text games. Classics have laid the foundations for concepts like world-building, multi-dimensional narratives that bend the mind and even multiplayer. Before that, table-top adventure games informed some of the concepts and ideas text games explored and evolved. Before that, well, let’s just say the ancient battle of light versus dark rages on still to this day.

    Check out Aaron Reed’s book, 50 Years of Text Games here at Kickstarter

  • One Brilliant Zelda Hack Turns Tears of the Kingdom Into Tony Hawk

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    1 min read

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    If you haven’t been playing Tears of the Kingdom, I cannot stress just how much you are missing out. Apart from it being a phenomenal game and sequel to acclaimed Breath of the Wild — the mechanics alone will invade every crevasse of your brain. It’s that good. Those mechanics have yielded some surprising inventions from users. From Jake Kleinman over at Inverse:

    To turn Tears of the Kingdom into Tony Hawk: Pro Skater, all you need is the Fusion ability and a minecart. You’ll unlock Fusion in the game’s opening tutorial on Great Sky Island, which is also where you can find a mine cart. Once you have both at your disposal, equip a shield. Then stand in front of a mine cart, activate Fusion, and fuse the cart to your shield. Now, all you need to do is shield surf, and the minecart wheels will give you an extra boost.

    Just don’t forget that your new skateboard will eventually break after enough use, so try not to run out of shields right before a big boss battle.

  • Arcade Game Typography

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    2 min read

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    I have nothing but praise for those who study niche topics like these. Toshi Omagari of MonoType, studied typography at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. He’s worked alongside big brands like H&M, and he’s previously contributed to Google Noto, and more notably introduced Tibetan Script support to Google Noto which is spectacular work. He helped resurrect Metro Nova from the dead.

    Omagari has a limited-release book coming out (sufficed to say, it’s already sold-out but you can buy the paperback version here on Amazon). He has meticulously researched the wonderfully niche topic of video game typography and it’s freaking awesome:

    The first book of its kind – a definitive and beautifully designed survey of ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s arcade game pixel typography. Exhaustively researched by author Toshi Omagari (a celebrated typeface designer at Monotype UK) Arcade Game Typography gathers together 250 pixel typefaces, all carefully chosen, extracted, redrawn and categorised by style, and each with an accompanying commentary by Omagari. The title also features 4 illustrated essays on videogame typography theory and practice, documenting the unique advantages and challenges presented to designers of these bold, playful and often quirky alphabets.

    A beautifully produced celebration of the eclectic typography featured in hit games such as Super Sprint, Pac-Man, After Burner, Marble Madness, Shinobi, as well as countless lesser-known gems. Unlike print typefaces, pixel type often has colour ‘baked in’ to its characters, so Arcade Game Typography looks unlike any other typography book, fizzing with life and colour.

    Love this bit about the original 1978 Space Invaders typography (image below):

    The original game, and most of the clones, featured the above typeface, copied from Tank 8 with a minor modification to M.

    Photos via Read-Only Memory
    Left page: RoboCop 2 (Data East/1991), Captain America and the Avengers (Data East/1991)
    Right page: Spider-man: the Video Game (Sega/1991), Xexex (Konami/1991), X-men (Konami/1992)

  • Valve has Acquired Campo Santo

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    3 min read

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    In a seemingly odd turn of events, Valve has acquired Campo Santo. The creative brains behind the insanely popular and wildly fun game, Firewatch clearly have caught the eye of Valve. While I’m happy for everyone involved — as a gamer, I’m very concerned.

    Firewatch is a fucking fantastic game. It was co-produced by Panic (creator of Transmit, among other software). As of writing, Cabel Sasser has been quiet on Twitter in regards to the news of Valve’s acquisition. Which, also concerns me.

    It should also be noted that the Firewatch website is really rad too. Check it out here.

    Valve hasn’t produced a single game title since 2013. The software company has clearly been far more concerned about Steam and hardware (or lack thereof?) since their last release, Dota 2.

    Parsing the press release from Campo Santo is bittersweet:

    The twelve of us at Campo Santo have agreed to join Valve, where we will maintain our jobs as video game developers and continue production on our current project, In the Valley of Gods.

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    Yes, we’re still making In the Valley of Gods (as a Valve game!); yes, we’ll still support Firewatch; and yes, we’ll still produce The Quarterly Review and our regular blog content. Thanks so much for your interest in our games and we’ll see you in Washington. Cheers.

    On one hand, it’s great to see Valve making serious creative moves, and poaching some amazing talent. Valve has historically made some of the best games I’ve ever played. No doubt, they’ll produce more games that fall into the same echelon. With cart blanche from Valve, they can produce some insane titles in coming years for Valve. I mean, Valve now has some of the lead developers from the award-winning The Walking Dead S1 title.

    But on the other hand, Campo Santo really has some real grit. And, honestly, the gaming community could use more independent studios. As larger studios gobble up talent, everything (from creative, to platform choice) can become a bit incestuous. Which is bad for gamers.

    I’m hopeful… but skeptical about this acquisition. Turns out, I’m not alone.

    Further Reading: