ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES Mystery Shopper Issue 8 £3 wfmag.cc Mystery and making in Mineko’s Night Market 08 GAME-CRAFTING TIPS/ADVICE/GUIDES 72000 Make a score Horror city Amazing 16 attack game planning sound design 7263 Cram an action Simple ways to make Create worlds with 97 08 game into 1kB of code scarier locations sound and music Subscribe today 12 weeks for £12* Visit: wfmag.cc/12weeks to order UK Price. 6 issue introductory oer The ugliness of photorealism an we stop calling triple-A games ‘beautiful’ massive commercial ventures and characterise them as as a reflexive move? This is probably an beautiful’ extremely distasteful. We should know better. unreasonable ask, and there’s likely some ost, if not entirely all, game developers who work C beauty to be found in some of these big, big at triple-A studios don’t enoy many protections from games. ut every year we get the same maor studios abusive crunch practices: massive layoffs (as we’ve ust racing towards a chasm of hyper-fidelity. Throwing more DIA LACINA seen at Activision liard) to make earnings calls sound money, time, and bodies into the problem, as though better, or the ability to petition for the kinds of bonuses Dia Lacina is a they’re trying to build a bridge ust stable enough to or residuals they deserve from shipping a title that sells. queer indigenous cross into the next hardware cycle. trans woman writer, We know that labour conditions in this industry suck And every year, we get critics, and gamers, and photographer, and because we know how uickly people burn out and marketing departments all enraptured with the founding editor of leave. We watch the latest Game of the Year brought to , beauty of this aggressive arms race towards a perfect CapsuleCrit.com life only through burning the passion these developers a monthly journal representation of reality in a virtual space. They use dedicated to have in making games as fuel. words like beautiful, pretty, and gorgeous – can I ust microgenre work When you think about the human cost of these say, it makes my skin crawl? about games. She games – is beauty a word that is even appropriate? What we’re all responding to (because none of tweets too much at Sure, Red Dead Redemption 2 may have an incredible @dialacina us is really immune, not at first blush anyway) is the number of trees that look ripped from a photograph, power of spectacle. It’s designed to override our critical snow may clump on the branches in a realistic way, and faculties, to arrest us in an often unearned awe. And sheer rocky peak towers may poke ominously through while the technical ingenuity and extensive labour of volumetric clouds in the distance. ut how many the developers – who work for massive corporations people burned out in making that scene, left before the to produce massive games on massive budgets so game shipped, and had their named stripped from the they can garner massive sales for their executives and development credits entirely because that’s ockstar shareholders who in turn get massive returns – policy? ow many birthdays and anniversaries are is profound and something to be applauded, we owe missed? ow many relationships collapse under the them, ourselves, and this industry so much more. pressure of crunch? What happens to worker health, The issue of photorealism in games is a matter of mental and physical, as they’re continually pushed personal taste, a uestion of aesthetics. I’d argue that beyond what we should consider reasonable? what people are responding to is the technical mastery. Plenty of people will argue that great art reuires That we’ve been conditioned to believe more polygons, #08 sacrifice. And that’s bullshit – the kind that reduces more particles, newer more advanced shaders are people down to their capacity to create value for a what is crucial and amaing. That there really hasn’t corporation. There’s no game worth the kinds of sacrifices been a beautiful game in the triple-A space for a while these companies routinely ask of their employees. now, because how can something be beautiful when Instead of calling these games beautiful, let’s we know the practices involved in its creation, when we acknowledge their human cost. et’s stop euating the see how these companies executives behave, and are spectacle of money with aesthetic greatness. et’s stop rewarded for fractionally better margins. calling things undeservedly beautiful, and call them what eauty can rise up out of ugliness. It is possible. ut they really are – expensive. It’s an expense we can’t I can’t help but find the reflexive need to fall over these afford to keep paying. wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. Mineko’s Night Market 18. Sumo: the big little indie Meowza Games talk us through their We pay a visit to the Sheffield-based carnival of crafting and cats makers of Outun and Snake Pass 10. Tales of the Neon Sea 24. Interactive: Just Ski We find out more about a great- Meeting the solo dev who makes looking cyberpunk adventure physics games in his basement 12. Devil May Cry 5 44. Wizball’s music origins ands-on with Capcom’s latest Gothic ow songwriting experience gave us a hack-and-slash Commodore 4 classic 16. Incoming 50. Team 17 olls with green eyes, grumpy bears Exploring the Alien reed and Worms 44 and cafés for the dead dev’s early years and games 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME As I write this, the internet’s still abuzz with the news that Activision Blizzard has laid off eight percent of its staff – amounting to almost 800 employees worldwide. On Twitter, people who until only a couple of days ago were 12 still staff at one of the giant’s various divisions are sharing their stories of shock and disappointment – unsurprising, given that Activision made the announcement during an earnings call with investors, and staff were reportedly informed of their fate only afterwards. To add insult to injury, the staff cuts are being made despite the firms record rofits during the latter part of 2018 – according to boss Bobby Kotick, Activision didnt realise its full otential last ear and so, as the firm focuses its attention on its biggest franchises, hundreds of staff are being let go. The news has rightly sparked debate about the way staff in 18 63 gaming’s largest companies are treated. While job losses in the industry are nothing new, the severity of Activision’s cuts, and the cold way they Toolbox Rated were reportedly announced (staff had little more than rumours to go on for several weeks, according to Kotaku) 28. CityCraft 56. Crackdown 3 is troubling to say the least. Ways to make your horror game The orb-hunting open-world series Firms like Activision may have locations even scarier returns in acceptable style to answer to their investors, but they should also, surely, have a 30. 58. duty of care to the workers that Structurally Sound Spinnortality make these companies their How music and sound intertwine to Murky morality makes for a solid fortunes in the first lace. create atmospheric game worlds cyberpunk strategy sim Ryan Lambie 32. Source Code 63. Wargroove Editor The code behind Missile Command’s It’s Advance Wars, basically, but there’s unforgettable vapour trails a very nice dog in it 34. Squeezing the Beeb 64. The Hong Kong Massacre ow to fit a k score attack game John Woo-inspired shooter lacks onto the C icro grace under fire wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Mode Interview Cute is a goal Mineko’s Night Market brings mystery, commerce and cats together – we spoke to Meowza Games about its gorgeous adventure here are times when you’re But that would be missing a lot of the at a time. But at the same time, there’s no idly browsing a list of point of the game, with the Night Market denying there’s a lot of appeal in losing upcoming games, and one part of the title in particular looking like yourself in this Japanese-inspired island T just pops right out at you, it will demand a fair bit of attention for and its mysteries within. Plus there’s loads rattles your visual cortex those of us raised in the ways of Animal of cats everywhere, and you’ve got to around a bit, and generally sets up shop Crossing, Stardew Valley and Recettear: love that. in the back of your brain where it will stay An Item Shop’s Tale (or the more recent And it’s not just an adventure mixed for the foreseeable future. Mineko’s Night Moonlighter). That is to say, those of us with a market, either – Mineko is riddled Market is such a game, because first of who get our kicks from engaging in naked, with side quests and minigames, aiming all – just look at it. Channelling the best boiled-down capitalism in our games. to always have something at hand to keep of Studio Ghibli, Animal Crossing and cats, The market in the game is a place in you entertained. From races to sumo (suit) this arrives as the full debut from husband which you will be able to sell and trade matches, there’s plenty going on in this and wife duo Meowza Games – or Brent pretty much anything you can make (yes, beguiling, beautiful world. Though we have and Brandi Kobayashi, if you want to there’s crafting, too) or forage, building to point out that at the time of writing, be familiar.