Contents Contents WELCOME It only feels like yesterday that Wireframe was just a few ideas typed out in a Google document, but here we are: 8 November marks the magazine’s first birthday. Since then, it’s been a non-stop flurry of writing, commissioning, checking pages, drinking coffee, playing games, and maybe drinking a bit 18 more coffee. Like all decent video games, A 27” iiyama the past year’s been intense, gaming monitor challenging, and satisfying (almost) all at once – and we £300! worth wouldn’t have made it this far WIN See p43 without a bunch of great human beings around us. We can’t possibly name you individually in this little space, but here’s to all the writers, designers, sub-editors, and Raspberry Pi people who’ve worked so hard on the magazine over the past 26 issues; to the developers who’ve supported us and patiently answered our bewildering questions about their games; and to the artists who’ve created some amazing artwork for our covers. This edition’s cover is, we’re sure 56 12 you’ll agree, a particularly corking Contents 6 one – so thanks to the mighty Wil Overton for taking such a vague brief (“I was thinking of something a bit like the SNES box Attract mode Interface Toolbox Rated art for Parodius, but with a bunch of other game characters we like on it”) and turning it into a lovable 06. The Endless Mission 18. Our favourite games 28. CityCraft 56. Link’s Awakening riot of colour. The sandbox game that teaches Wireframe’s pick of 25 corkers A survey of classic 16-bit and This Legend of Zelda remake Finally, a big thanks goes, of Unity by stealth from the past 12 months CD-ROM cities oozes style and charm course, to you, the reader: the magazine wouldn’t exist without you, and your support is 10. The Eternal Cylinder 24. Gemstone Keeper 32. Tutorial mode 60. The Surge 2 enormously appreciated. ACE Team chat about their A solo dev’s twin-stick rogue-lite Introducing a more subtle way It’s Dark Souls with incredibly strange survive-‘em-up hits the Switch of guiding new players detailed dismemberment Ryan Lambie Editor 12. Murder By Numbers 44. Neo-retro 36. A/B Testing 62. Autonauts Solve heinous crimes by solving The devs making games with Implement and run game Cute, programmable robots pixel puzzles – in the nineties an eye on the past design experiments make colonisation fun 16. Incoming 50. Game Arts 40. Source Code 64. Hexagroove Skateboards, carpenters, and Profiled: the studio behind Recreate Phoenix’s pioneering A musical RTS that appeals to our 44 kingdom management Grandia and lots more mothership boss battle inner disc jockey 04 / wfmag.cc wfmag.cc \ 05.