GMTK Reading List (November 2023)

Mario Animation! Jetpack Design! Layoffs...

Hey all! Welcome back to the Reading List.

I’m calling this one ‘the bummer list’ - it’s hard not to notice that while 2023 has delivered some incredible games, it has come at the frankly unsustainable cost of game developers (and members of the media). With so many layoffs and company closures, it makes you wonder how this industry will stay afloat in the future.

Read all about it - and lots of other, much more fun stuff - below.

Mark

The Design of Games

[Watch | CC | 41 mins] How I designed Jetpack Joyride - Luke Muscat designed some of mobile’s most addictive games. Here’s how Jetpack Joyride came together.

[Read] The making of The Making of Karateka - "Retro collections give you the "what?" - here's the game - but we want to do the "when?" and the "who?" and the "how?". And, importantly, the "why?"."

[Read] The Subversive Genius of ‘Far Cry 2,’ 15 Years Later - "In 2008, Ubisoft’s trailblazing open-world first-person shooter started conversations about video games that still haven’t subsided"

[Read] Now Is The Time For Universal Video Game Accessibility Guidelines - "Yeah, there is a set of developer-friendly guidelines published by a group of studios, academics, and specialists to make implementing these features more straightforward, but they haven’t been widely adopted."

[Read] How Slay The Spire saved digital card games from stagnation - "To be a good designer, you have to have very, very strong opinions. Show me a game designer who gives a thumbs-up to most things, and I suspect that’s probably someone who doesn’t have a very good game design sense".