ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES User Research Links to Game design’s the past best-kept secret? The art of making great Zelda-likes Issue 9 £3 wfmag.cc 09 Rage 2 72000 Playtesting the 16 neon apocalypse 7263 97 Sea Change Rhianna Pratchett rewrites the adventure game in Lost Words Subscribe today 12 weeks for £12* Visit: wfmag.cc/12weeks to order UK Price. 6 issue introductory offer The future of games: subscription-based? ow many subscription services are you upfront, would be devastating for video games. Triple-A shelling out for each month? Spotify and titles still dominate the market in terms of raw sales and Apple Music provide the tunes while we player numbers, so while the largest publishers may H work; perhaps a bit of TV drama on the prosper in a Spotify world, all your favourite indie and lunch break via Now TV or ITV Player; then back home mid-tier developers would no doubt ounder. to watch a movie in the evening, courtesy of etix, MIKE ROSE Put it this way: if Spotify is currently paying artists 1 Amazon Video, Hulu… per 20,000 listens, what sort of terrible deal are game Mike Rose is the The way we consume entertainment has shifted developers working from their bedroom going to get? founder of No More dramatically in the last several years, and it’s becoming Robots, the publishing And before you think to yourself, “This would never increasingly the case that the average person doesn’t label behind titles happen – it already is. In the last six months, I’ve been buy physical boxsets or Cs anymore. Why bother when like Descenders, approached by more than a dozen upcoming game Not Tonight, you have it all at the click of a button? subscription services who plan to pay developers “based Hypnospace Outlaw, Now video games are on the cusp of catching up with and Family Man. on the number of minutes your game has been played” the subscription model hype. Sign up to services like – this is a direct quote from one of the brochures. We’re box Game Pass, PlayStation ow, and iscord itro, not talking small-fry companies either, as a couple of the and you’ll receive hundreds of games each month, outfits that have approached me are huge names in retail. including brand new titles that you might otherwise slap So what about the etix model, where the platform good money down for. For the consumer, this rise of pays the developer a chunk of money upfront? This is the video game subscription could potentially be a huge a more reasonable approach for creators, and we’ve boon for your wallet. already seen icrosoft implementing it with box But have you ever stopped to wonder how Game Pass. subscription models aect the creators of the content But what happens in the future when you have to put you consume? How are artists even paid anymore? your games on these platforms, otherwise barely anyone The subscription model can be a tricky beast for those will ever play your game? Will every single developer providing the goods, depending on how the gatekeepers have to negotiate a price for their game to appear on – the people who own the platforms – decide that the these services? money should be doled out. And in most cases, the And why would a subscription service pay good subscription model is a scary prospect for those creators #09 money for a title from a new developer with no track who perhaps don’t have the background to negotiate a record, when they can throw money at EA or Ubisoft in decent price for their work. the hope of securing exclusivity for the latest in a long- This is why it’s incredibly important that game studios, running franchise? alongside these gatekeepers, should be trying to get The future of video games is subscription-based, I ahead of the inevitable, and begin pondering now over have no doubt about that. ow is the time to talk about what a possible etix or Spotify-dominated games how smaller and mid-sized studios fit into that future, industry would look like. otherwise we’re going to lose a ton of great talent who et’s get one fact out of the way first: the Spotify leave for other careers, simply because they couldn’t pay model, whereby artists are paid per listen rather than the bills. wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. Lost Words 18. The perfect Zelda-like Rhianna Pratchett on adventure The indie developers who’ve made writing and the power of imagination their own twists on a classic formula 10. Hamsterdam 24. The Rainsdowne Players How The Wire inspired a brawler A solo dev’s RPG about a tired theatre filled with angry rodents and its ornery audience 12. Rage 2 44. User Research We take a closer look at a febrile Why analysing player data is game shooter sequel design’s best-kept secret 16. Incoming 50. Ultimate Play The Game Body-popping grim reapers, A legendary studio from the 44 martial arts, and Peter olyneux Spectrum era profiled 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME As you’ll see on page 65, we’ve been playing Tetris 99 quite a lot this month. It’s a barebones yet unnervingly addictive multiplayer take on the falling- block classic. 58 Keen to sharpen my skills, I started looking at how other, better players (which is, I’ll admit, all of them) approached the game on YouTube and Twitch – and in the process, I came to realise that Tetris 99’s 2D action is as gripping to watch as any other esports game you could mention. For proof, look no further than Ray Narvaez Jr’s recent game, which he also shared as a clip on Twitter (wfmag.cc/tetris99). In the space of a couple of minutes, Narvaez Jr somehow manages to avoid death by falling junk blocks at least a dozen times. No matter how cluttered the screen becomes, he keeps his cool and carries on, carefully slotting the 34 58 tetrominoes into the handful of spaces he has left. In the video’s dying moments, defeat seems inescapable as Toolbox Rated blocks continue to flood the play area. But somehow, Narvaez Jr snatches a first-place victory in 28. 56. the last fraction of a second – Design Principles Degrees of Separation a turn of events so improbable The power of marketing – and a Come for the puzzles, stay for that even he looks stunned. strong game title Chris Avellone’s story Suspense, jubilation, a pulse- quickening soundtrack: it is, 30. CityCraft 58. Metro Exodus quite simply, an underdog Understanding the hierarchies of Underground, overground, drama to rival Rocky. villages, towns, and cities scavenging free Ryan Lambie 32. Source Code 63. ToeJam & Earl 4 Editor Recreating the disintegrating shields A comic book roguelike returns from from Space Invaders the nineties 34. Character building 64. Far Cry New Dawn Import and animate a 3D character The best bits of Far Cry, distilled into model in Unity one solid shooter wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Mode Interview Live journal Rhianna Pratchett on the power of imagination in Lost Words: Beyond the Page sing the power of words’ What was it that drew you to the project, And how has the experience been, ‘ takes on a far more literal Rhianna? What was it that tempted working on a game so intimately tied – there’s another pun – you in? to writing? U meaning in Lost Words: Rhianna: It was a couple of things, really Rhianna: It’s been very positive, working Beyond the Page. Essentially – the unusual way narrative was being with Mark and the team at Sketchbook. It’s a puzzle-platformer, the game sees its used in the game, how narrative was being been challenging – in a good way – finding young protagonist enter into the fantasy used as mechanics; as level design. It that sweet spot between what is making world she creates in her diary; there she seemed very exciting and challenging to narrative sense and what’s going to make navigates its hazards and hurdles using me. Throughout the development process mechanical sense with a puzzle. That was the power of the words and doodles she’s we’ve found out just how challenging it is a bit of a head-scratcher at times; I think composed in said journal. to use narrative as mechanics – it’s been we all underestimated how difficult that What that amounts to is actually using one of the big challenges of the project. could be. In the original demos we had those words and doodles – for example, But also its potential to tell stories about a few ideas strung together that weren’t you might use the word ‘extinguish’ to emotional journeys and represent those really a narrative, but you could see how put out fires in your path, or at another journeys, not only through mechanics, but the mechanics were working. Trying to point ‘raise’ would lift platforms so you also through environmental storytelling, create a narrative out of them was quite can progress. It’s a smart way of mixing which we do a lot of in the game, linking hard, but I think we’ve done it pretty well. narrative with actual mechanics, and the level design to the storytelling. There’s I remember I had to do a long list of team at Sketchbook Games has been also being able to explore through the [the main character’s] likes and dislikes for hard at work for around four years now journal of a young girl – I found that very one of the artists, which was actually really perfecting the blend.