Sundays have become a time for reviewing notable articles from across the web, offering a glimpse into diverse corners of the gaming world and beyond. This week's roundup touches on the complexities of game development team sizes, the unique challenges of preserving game history, and the artistic visions behind indie titles.
Artemis Octavio's interview with multimedia artist Jeremy Couillard on Stop Caring highlights Couillard's distinctive work, including the FPS "Soul Injector Commando." In this game, players shoot a sense of humanity into enemies, drawing inspiration from real-life billionaires. Couillard noted that players often googled the figures featured in the game, discovering that many were criminally involved, arrested, or deceased, aligning with the game's satirical intent.
The ongoing discussion surrounding gamedev team sizes, recently reignited by a GI.biz post, is further explored in a Game Developer piece by Bryant Francis. Francis argues for a need for new linguistic approaches to address recent developments in outsourcing. He suggests that while outsourcing can diversify financial risk and retain aspects of large-scale development, it risks creating a development hierarchy when not managed properly, potentially devaluing the work of those not at the center of creative direction and funding.
Harper Jay, a writer and former Double Fine employee, offers a thoughtful perspective on game failure in an essay for Trans Gamer Thoughts. Jay differentiates between failure in terms of sales and failure in the 'intent and aspirations' sense. Using games like Manhunt as an example, Jay discusses how simulation breaks down when the artificiality of game mechanics becomes too apparent, disrupting the player's immersion and the game's intended experience.
Robert Purchese of Eurogamer profiles Marcel Pflug, the creator of a Game Boy Museum housed within a Game Boy cartridge. Pflug faced significant technical hurdles, describing the Game Boy as "a spectacularly bad e-reader" due to its limited screen display capabilities. Presenting a comprehensive museum on such a constrained device proved to be a meticulous, "game of inches" endeavor.
While not strictly about video games, an article from Public Domain Review introduces the eccentric American figure Timothy Dexter. Dexter, an 18th-century businessman known for his improbable investment successes and unconventional writing, even included a "punctuation sheet supplement" with his works due to complaints about the lack of stops in earlier editions. His life and methods offer a curious parallel to the unique approaches seen in creative endeavors.
This collection aims to provide a diverse snapshot of current gaming-related discourse and cultural curiosities, reflecting the broad spectrum of creativity and commentary within the industry.