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ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES Recompile Save data A game-changing The state of modern 3D Metroidvania game preservation HARD TIMES Crime and moral bankruptcy in Family Man Virtual reality Finding humanity and emotion in video games Issue 14 £3 wfmag.cc UPGRADE TO LEGENDARY AG273QCX 2560x1440 An industry of imposters waiting to be found out don’t belong here. I studied Modern Drama at think – but no longer say out loud (progress!) – that university, a conseuence of hurriedly filling most character designs can be improved with the in my college application the night before the addition of jaunty hats and/or googly eyes. That those I deadline and just assuming it meant ‘minimal pitches we won in unfamiliar board rooms and across Shakespeare’. In retrospect I was correct on that GDC hotel lobbies, those games we made that went point, I just hadn’t factored in all the rolling about, JEFF TANTON on to find fans and nominations and enough success primal screaming, and frankly questionable nudity that that we got a chance to go again, all those impossible Jeff Tanton is the went hand in hand with the noble deconstruction of things that somehow became possible, were just happy Creative Director theatrical principles. I secretly wrote some silly words at Mediatonic, and accidents where I was, at best, the innocent bystander. in the evening, dialogue, often linear, like the massive has spent a decade Imposter syndrome doesn’t go away, and it’s sell-out I am. designing, pitching, incredibly prevalent in an industry embarrassingly producing, and writing I don’t belong here. I spent a long Christmas working stacked with the most professional and passionate for over 20 titles at a then-thriving music and DVD chain in Kent’s including Foul Play, people ’ve ever worked with hen first oined premier super-mall, Bluewater. I once located a copy of Hatoful Boyfriend, we were ten strong there’s now nearly of us a The Princess Diaries for Helen from Big Brother 2 and for and Fable Fortune. number that never seems more ludicrously vast than a time thought life might have peaked then and there. when we’re all trying to share a single karaoke mic). I spent the next four years measuring strangers’ One of the advantages of managing a large team is houses in order to set their council tax bands, once that I get to hear these talented individuals regularly getting called a ‘clipboard wanker’ across a garden convincing themselves that each of their successes are fence, which would have been devastating had it not merely luck, that their intuition isn’t to be trusted, or been, given the circumstances, fairly accurate. that they’re honestly not the right person to do the job don’t belong here landed my first industry they’re already capably doing despite their best doubts. break writing those silly words again, this time for a It’s the same when I meet students at talks and small company called ediatonic t was a baing events: fresh faces with a drive and purpose that decision on their part, considering my output up until humbles the kind of person who was considering ‘local then consisted of amuel eckett rip-offs and the taxation’ as a career path well into their twenties. You aforementioned rolling about – a decision they then see all that from these fantastic people, and it helps idiotically doubled-down by hiring me full-time. to put some perspective on your own doubts. I don’t I decided to ride it for as long as possible before being #14 believe there’s a force powerful enough to silence our inevitably fired, bringing bold new ideas to the studio internal critics completely, but I might suggest looking like ‘making lists’ and ‘prioritising the things in the lists’, for a bit of balance by sometimes engaging with your and ‘not sleeping through constant crippling anxiety of internal champion: the voice that recognises the times being found out’ ll the good stuff you nailed the implementation, steered the project to Because I don’t belong here. Still. Ten years later. a better place, eecuted the awless pun, supported a Not really hey’ll find me out at some point they’ll colleague when they needed it. realise I have no formal game design training, that my Honestly, it can temporarily make a fraud like me direction is based largely on not repeating catastrophic believe that maybe I belong here – which means that decisions from my personal back catalogue, that I still you definitely do, too wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. Family Man 18. Virtual reality Crime just about pays in a he indies finding deeper human downbeat RPG truths in game design 10. Cyber Shadow 24. Rog & Roll igh-tech ninas in a lo-fi, A solo dev’s charming NES-inspired platformer underdog platformer 12. Recompile 44. Game preservation eaping, blasting, and hacking The heroes saving the in a 3D Metroidvania medium’s history 16. Incoming 50. Frontier ampires, detectives, and The Elite Dangerous and 18 a digital Keanu Reeves lanet Coaster studio profiled 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME Games can be many things – an escape, a challenge, an all- 24 consuming pastime – but they can also function beautifully as digital comfort food, something familiar we can turn to when we’re tired or need a bit of reassurance. As our deputy ed an ransfied rites on age 65, Stardew Valley is one of those games: an experience so soothing and gentle that you can almost feel the day’s stresses ebb as you water and harvest your crops. Not that games have to be gentle to be soothing; years ago, I found comfort in Renegade, an old ZX Spectrum game I got so good at, I could complete it on multiple loops without breaking a sweat. Later, I started memorising the positions of enemies in GoldenEye, and 50 56 analysing maps in Halo 3. The process of mastering a fast- moving game provides a sense of control that’s frequently lacking in the chaos of the real Toolbox Rated world. Sure, games are about skill, judgement, precision, and problem-solving under pressure. 28. 56. But there’ll always be a place CityCraft A Plague Tale in our hearts for games that Analysing the genius of City 17 An action-adventure with swaddle us like warm security and New Vegas rats in its walls blankets; whether they’re old or new, they’re always there as a 32. Art and commerce 59. Mortal Kombat 11 refuge after a hard day’s work. aking creative games that lmost a awless victory for actually sell Midway’s brawler Ryan Lambie Editor 36. SIN made simple 62. Whispers of a Machine Master the SIN function without point-and-click sci-fi epic all the fiddly maths with an emotional core 40. Source Code 64. Vasilis ake a onkey ong-style dreamlike adventure marred animated walk cycle by nightmarish systems wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Mode Interview Even killers do dishes An ordinary father is drawn into a life of crime in the grim RPG, Family Man. We chat to its mastermind, Broken Bear’s Craig Harrison here most crime An obvious place to start, but what was simulators offer stirring the inspiration behind Family Man? What power fantasies about prompted you to start making it? W stealing cars, automatic Funnily enough, my wife was pregnant firearms, and mansions, when I first came up with the concept. Family Man delivers the opposite: a dark I was thinking about it one day, and it domestic drama about Joe, a middle-aged struck me that I would probably do literally guy drawn reluctantly into a life of low- anything to look after my own child; that’s level gangsters, murder, and boat theft. when I thought it would be an interesting Far from the cathartic ladder-climbing of and unique concept for a game. the Grand Theft Auto series, Family Man sees Joe lose his job and, with mounting What was your process for creating the debts and a family to support, faced with world map and drawing the characters? a stark choice: commit to low-paid shifts Really, the answer to both of those flipping burgers or agreeing to slightly questions is story. I knew from the start better-paid but increasingly horrifying jobs I wanted the town to be coastal because for the mob. that gives you a lot of context for free. Inspired by the moral murk of Breaking There has to be a dock, there will have to Bad, Family Man is a story-driven RPG be a coastline vista, there has to be a local viewed through a lens of low-polygon economy that would’ve been developed characters and boxy, Minecraft-esque around that. Once I had that as a baseline, environments. It’s a stylistic choice that I wrote out the story beats I wanted to hit, not only saves on costs, but also serves to and the rest of the details were painted in make its askew take on the real world all around those. the more engaging: it’s a place where small moral compromises gradually snowball Endlessly flip burgers for low pay, into ever-more grim outcomes. Taking on or earn more money by working for shady jobs for gangsters has a corrosive the mob? That’s just one path Family Man lays out in front of you. effect on Joe’s relationship with his family; if he kills someone, then the whole coastal town will show up the next day for the victim’s funeral.