ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES Going solo Life as a lone game dev Play detective Inside the evolving deduction genre Issue 13 £3 wfmag.cc Kong Orange’s blackly comic puzzler, Felix The Reaper Felix The Reaper Kong Orange’s blackly comic puzzler, deduction genre deduction genre Inside the evolving detective Play game dev game dev Life as a lone Life as a lone solo Going LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES ALL FORMATS Disabled players deserve accessibility o developer’s public image has been hose who patronisingly argue that games need defined by diculty to the degree of easy modes for disabled players’ are harming disabled romoftware. ver since the days of players. e don’t need all the rough edges sanded N King’s Field in the nineties, its games have off a game for fear we might hurt ourselves on them. been known for their high skill ceilings, substantial e want to be able to eperience a game’s challenge. challenge, and unforgiving nature. hat rom hasn’t JOE PARLOCK hat we don’t want is for our disabilities to interfere been known for, though, is its accessibility. with that challenge. hat we need are accessibility Joe Parlock is a his recently sparked a sustained and heated options – ways to support us in the areas of the game freelance games argument thanks to the launch of rom’s newest writer and founder of where our disabilities give us an unfair and unintended game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. he argument, simply Ubi-Source.com. His disadvantage. roviding options like running the game put, had one side claiming games like Dark Souls and favourite games are at speed, or adding a pause menu, aren’t an easy Sonic, Left 4 Dead Sekiro should have accessibility options, while others mode’; they’re like the staggered start on a race track and Assassin’s Creed, argued that these would detract from a core part of but he also loves to prevent the runners on the outer edge having an the studio’s games. RPGs, simulators, and unfair disadvantage. If Dishonored can include a whole It’s a simple enough argument, but somewhere, in stealth games. When suite of options to change how its systems work, and the weeks of anger, disabled people got caught in the not writing, he loves still be considered one of the best stealth games of all nature, photography, crossfire. he side in favour of accessibility options and chilling with time, I don’t see how other games predicated on their soon devolved into all games should have an easy his dog. diculty can’t do the same. mode for the sake of disabled people, while the s for those who vehemently dismiss these additions argument against roughly went, this single disabled for the sake of bragging rights’ – letting everyone see person on ouube managed to beat Sekiro, and so how dicult a game is only validates your bragging even all disabled players will have no problem. Being a further. But being the best at something only a specific disabled player myself, watching Sekiro’s launch was few are even allowed to try isn’t impressive; being the absolutely ehausting. best at something anyone can try – now that is. Games have come a long way in supporting gamers here are two key resources I’d recommend with physical or motor disabilities thanks to the work of any developer should check out. he first is charities like bleGamers, and hardware like the bo gameaccessibilityguidelines.com, for practical daptive ontroller. hey’re essential tools for some advice on how to implement accessibility into your disabled players, but a big thing both sides of the Sekiro game. he second is themighty.com, a community debate forgot was that not all disabilities are physical. blogging platform dedicated to disability, mental health ot all disabled players struggle to press a button. problems, and chronic illness. It’s good to remind here are all sorts of players with all sorts of #13 yourself who you’re making your accessibility options disabilities, and many of them you may have never for, and reading the life eperiences of disabled encountered. here are players with sensory people can help you understand that. disabilities like autism or auditory processing disorder ll disabled players deserve accessibility. e (), conditions that affect memory or elements of deserve to be able to talk about accessibility without cognitive processing like arkinson’s and untington’s. being patronised with easy modes or shouted down Brain inuries can cause all kinds of diculties. he for the sake of artistic integrity’. ith some clever reductive image of disability adopted for the debate design, and by taking time to understand disability, surrounding Sekiro ignores the challenges that come developers can make adaptations that both maintain with all forms of disability. their vision, and allow more people to eperience it. wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. Felix The Reaper 18. Play detective Kong Orange on their blackly comic The developers pushing the adventure-puzzler sleuth genre forward 10. American Fugitive 24. PyBadge Escape the law in a top-down The tiny handheld you can homage to GTA wear on your lapel 12. We Are The Caretakers 44. Life as a solo dev A closer look at an intriguing Experiences of game designers Afrofuturist XCOM-alike who’ve gone it alone 16. Incoming 50. Toaplan Purloined limbs, fantasy pirates, Japan’s masters of the eighties and 44 and muddy monster trucks nineties 2 shooter profiled 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME Open-world zombie banquet Days Gone was announced in 2016, but I can take a guess at e its first itc meeti occurred: some time in 2013, when Sons of Anarchy and The Walking Dead were beginning to peak on telly, and undead disaster flick World War Z 50 first aeared i ciemas After all, Days Gone borrows unabashedly from all three: there are the tattooed bikers of Sons over here; the post- apocalyptic drama of TWD over there, and the heaving mountains of gnashing zombies – or ‘Freakers’ in Days Gone parlance – teetering about in te middle is ist t sa tat creative swiping is necessarily a bad thing – all art is built on the foundation of what’s come before – but when the elements of your game look as nakedly familiar as they do ere its ral t a d si ure i t create a raesteis mster rm bits of pop culture, then you eed t at least fid imaiatie 18 32 as t ide te is Days Gone is the equivalent of taking, say, the body of Superintendent Ted Hastings from Line of Duty, grafting on the head Toolbox Rated of Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, and maybe replacing the right arm with 28. Design Principles 56. Days Gone that cannon Megatron had in efining the meaning of the word ombies and motorbikes in an Transformers – three cultural items mashed together in a game’, and why it’s important open-world survive-’em-up way that’s recognisable, but doesn’t necessarily make a 30. CityCraft 58. Katana Zero cici le Bringing vibrancy and realism to your nina assassin let loose in a video game streets 2 neo-noir Ryan Lambie Editor 32. Teleporting in Unity 59. Weedcraft Inc ur guide to making an verwatch- he business side of growing inspired blink mechanic dodgy herbs 38. Source Code 62. SteamWorld Quest ecreate Gyruss’s zooming polished yet repetitive fantasy starfield effect role-player wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Mode Interview We discover a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘dance of death’ in Felix The Reaper t’s a sad fact of life, death. not-quite-murder? Well aside from the Inevitable and, at least in our obvious ‘dance of death’ pun, there’s Western European society, not another juxtaposition between dark and I exactly something to celebrate. light at play here: romance. Felix has Still, Felix The Reaper’s titular been working at the Ministry for a long soul-harvester has a job to do: ensure while, and every day on his commute that when someone’s allotted time is up, to the office, he sees Betty The Maiden. they die. He does this by manipulating Asking her out for a date isn’t on the shadows in 3D puzzle environments, and cards though, given Betty’s day job is at moving objects around to create a series the Ministry of Life – and never the twain of outlandish and often slapstick deaths shall meet. Of course, if that were the for his targets. end of the story we wouldn’t have Felix Felix The Reaper makes all kinds of nods The Reaper’s subtitle: ‘A Romantic Comedy to LucasArts’ last great adventure game, Game About the Life of Death’. Grim Fandango, and Felix himself is fond Those more well-read and culturally of a grim fandango now and again: our aware than this writer may spot the links macabre hero does a jaunty hip-wiggle and influences Felix The Reaper brings while he goes about his work. It’s in this to the fore, from Schubert’s Death and dance that Felix introduces a touch of levity the Maiden through myriad stylistic hints and inspirations tickling the ‘where do I recognise that from?’ gland. There’s even “ Our macabre hero does a a touch of Cartoon Network’s masterpiece jaunty hip-wiggle while Adventure Time here and there. It’s unsurprising to hear the he goes about his work” game is part-funded by both the Danish Film Institute and the West Danish Film Fund.