Not that there is really anyone reading this blog, so this post is more for myself than anyone else. But this post about John Jefferys on Play This Thing is probably the greatest love letter to the history of game design ever written.
He who rests at 28 at Hanover shall by order of Ye King of Great Britain who is Elector, be conducted to No 54 at Gibraltar to visit his countrymen who keep garrison there.
So good.
Over at Lost Garden (one my my all time favourite blogs) Danc is making my little project look woefully incomplete. From time to time, he designs and offers art assets for a game, inviting programmers to finish the job. The latest features a Lemmings-style game starring thrill-seeking ninja peas.
So good!
In which I draw attention to an old article about level design published by Ken Birdwell of Valve Software about making great levels.
You should know that Half-Life is one of the best first persons shooters ever made. Much of what was done in that game is routine now, or has been ripped off dozens of times. Much of what they did in the game wasn’t even new to them. It had been done before in other places. But Valve put the pieces together in new and stunning ways.
The following article was written in 1999 and discusses how the game went from near failure to near perfection. It’s very worth reading.
In which I link to a well written article on the theme of Remembrance Day.
Being as it is Remembrance Day, it feels pretty foolish to post an extended set of musings about how better to make murder simulators. Instead I’ll link to this excellent article about a game I never played called Cannon Fodder.
The game is available to play for free on gametap if you are interested.
by-nc-nd