ALL FORMATS

116 PAGES MONTHLY

LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES

C R E AT I V E
MODE block-b
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Make a game in Unity
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Fo ll ow o
hell sho
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FATALE
FRAM re of ta
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The allu games
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D E M O i d e D e m o n Tur f : a
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Issue 53 £6 | wfmag.cc pla
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 3D platformers ruined
everything, but that’s OK

I
n The Salmon of Doubt, Douglas Adams Super Mario Bros. I gawped at the astonishing technical
outlined rules describing people’s reactions prowess of Turrican II, casually throwing screen-sized
to technology. You’ve probably read them. In enemies about on an ageing 8-bit Commodore 64.
short, he suggested what’s in the world when I was exhilarated by the sheer speed of Sonic.
you arrive is normal, and what’s invented when Then some idiot ruined everything, because platform
you’re relatively young is new and exciting. However, CRAIG games had to be in 3D. Suddenly, I had to grapple
whatever rocks up when you’re past it is against the GRANNELL with depth and cameras. Everything felt woolly, like
natural order of things. That last one is how I felt about Craig Grannell has directing a jelly. Nothing clicked, whether I was playing
3D platform games. been writing about a bear, a bandicoot, a newly 3D speeding hedgehog,
I know: old man yells at cloud. I’m aware this tech and games for or a moustachioed man somehow still claiming he’s
more years than he
response was down to technology moving on without cares to remember. a plumber. (There has got to be some dodgy tax stuff
me, decades ago; but there was a tangible feeling He shares his time going on with that.)
during the mid-1990s that every game suddenly between black Having happily regressed into ‘old man’ mode, I was
had to be in 3D, by law. It was like everyone’s design rectangles, too many delighted when 2D platform games made a triumphant
games of Polytopia,
brains stopped working. Gone was any debate return on handhelds. All was right with the world again!
and rediscovering
regarding the suitability of presentation formats. The one-button classics But today, 3D platformers – having been out of vogue
notion of whether a game would be better in 3D was to play with the for a while – are on the rise, making a comeback of
superfluous. Gamers were hungry for 3D, we were youngling. Tweet their own. Yet having thought about this for a while,
told – and they had snazzy new hardware to prove it. him: @CraigGrannell that doesn’t fill me with horror this time around.
Therefore, all games would now be in 3D! The end. Why? Largely because there’s a feeling in gaming
This felt prescriptive and wrong, eroding what today that everything is now acceptable. Any shift
I loved about the genre. Much of the appeal of towards 3D is not being demanded in response
platform games was down to their clockwork nature to technical evolution, and is instead driven by a
– an emphasis on placement, precision, and timing. combination of nostalgia and suitability regarding the

#53
Perhaps too much emphasis at times, as evidenced games in question. Design brains aren’t turned off this
by my younger self’s screams of anguish when Monty time, and people will carry on creating 2D platformers
Mole yet again abruptly exploded across the screen for old farts like me as well. Joy!
after lightly brushing a patrolling foe. Or that deep We’re in a place where the best of this generation’s
resignation on realising Miner Willy would never get 3D and 2D platform games can happily coexist – and
a good night’s sleep. But there was a feeling of total folks like me can stop worrying that industry overlords
control – and that these titles felt right in having a will decree all future iterations of Manic Miner must only
healthy disinterest in the third dimension. be in 3D. Still, it could have all been worse: a maniac
As gaming hardware and creator capabilities recently made a Sonic POV gameplay video on Twitter
evolved, games in this space became increasingly (wfmag.cc/sonic-pov) and it’s genuinely terrifying.
expansive and clever. Jet Set Willy and Impossible At least 1990s platform gaming only went 3D rather
Mission gave way to the masterpiece in design that was than full POV.

wfmag.cc \ 03
 Contents

Contents

6
Attract mode Interface

06. Demon Turf 28. Life through a lens

Fabraz and Playtonic Friends on Exploring the indie games with
their sassy 3D platformer photography at their core

12. Gloomwood 34. Kim Justice

This first-person sneak-‘em-up Why can’t all sports games be
is more than just a Thief clone as fun as Sensible Soccer?

14 14.  Sable
Shedworks talk about their open-
36. 3D platformers
A whistle-stop tour of the genre’s
world game’s final stretch rise, fall, and welcome return

18.  GRIME 70. Italy’s early game studios

Come for the surreal monsters, The software houses that blazed a
stay for the brutal combat trail in the 1980s and 1990s

20. News 78. Crystal Story

Another wry glance at the month’s A solo developer’s quest to make
video game happenings the ultimate 2D Zelda-like

24. Incoming 90.Steve McNeil

Future wars, dark fantasy, and Roguebook, and the right way to
a suspiciously familiar hedgehog do downloadable content

04 / wfmag.cc
 Contents

WELCOME
As I write this, a copy of Super
Mario 64 has sold for more than
$1.5 million. Yes, a game that’s
about as rare as a Ford Fiesta
just went under the hammer
for roughly the sum of money
it’d take to build a new ward at
your local hospital. I bring this
up because a fair chunk of this

28 month’s issue is given over to

celebrating the 3D platformer: a
genre that rose in the mid-1990s
thanks to the added processing
power of a new generation of
consoles, and fell the following
decade as interest waned. But
the 3D collectathon has made a
triumphant return in more recent
years, thanks in part to heavy
hitters like Super Mario Odyssey,
but also indie titles like Yooka-
Laylee and A Hat in Time.

Then there’s this month’s cover

game, Demon Turf : a sprightly
platformer that combines 2D
characters and 3D environments
to charming effect. What’s more,
the game’s developer Fabian
Rastorfer reckons this is only

36 78 the start of an indie renaissance

for the genre, and that there are
plenty of other unique takes on
the 3D platformer in the works
that have yet to be publicly

Toolbox Rated shown off.

Does the rising popularity of

this style of game explain why
Super Mario 64 – admittedly,
46. Sim cities 92. Biomutant one of the genre’s key titles –
Tips for making your own systems- This strange, flawed action game sold for the price of a house
in Knightsbridge? No, there
based metropolis isn’t without its charm isn’t a logical explanation for
that. It’s just more mind-
48. Creative Mode 95. Knockout City boggling strangeness from the
Our guide to making a Minecraft- The sport that asks you to dodge, increasingly febrile world of
game collecting.
style block-builder duck, dip, dive, and dodge
Enjoy the new issue!
58. Bullet hell 98.  Slipways
Code your own shoot-‘em-up, The superb space strategy game Ryan Lambie
complete with area boss that’s also a puzzler Editor

64. Source Code 104. Backwards

 compatible
How to recreate Nintendo’s 1984 The Nintendo 64’s birthday, GBA
take on Pinball mods, and more

wfmag.cc \ 05
 Attract Mode
Interview

BO R N T O

RA I SE
HE L L
Fabraz and Playtonic’s Gavin Price
tell us how Demon Turf is bringing back
the 3D platformer in fiery style

W
hen a bunch of former plucky young demon named Beebz, whose
Rare devs vouch for an mission in life is to seize the Demon King’s
upcoming 3D platformer, throne, you’re armed with an impressive
it’s worth taking notice. And array of moves to help you on your quest.
that’s essentially what’s Super-jumps, flutter-spins, and charge-
happened with Demon Turf, the upcoming punches can all be used to traverse chasms
game from the creators of 2017 indie hit, and batter enemies into submission, and
Slime-san; it’s being championed by none if the going gets a little too tough, you can
other than Playtonic, the studio behind 3D pay a gang of demonic revolutionaries
platformer throwback Yooka-Laylee and to complete a level on your behalf. It’s all
founded by former Rare developers who part of a game designed to honour those
once worked on such pivotal titles as Banjo- 3D platformers of the past – not least
Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Nintendo’s breathtakingly polished output –
It’s not hard to see why Playtonic while also taking the genre somewhere new
Friends – the studio’s new publishing arm and more accessible.
– warmed to developer Fabraz’s work-in- With all this in mind, we caught up with
progress, either. Its use of 2D sprites in Fabraz founder and game designer Fabian
3D environments give it a fresh look, while Rastorfer, plus Playtonic co-founder and
the traditional 3D action – solve puzzles, all-round design legend Gavin Price to talk
collect items, fight boss battles – is married about the making of Demon Turf , and the
to some fun, original ideas. Cast as a keys to crafting a classic 3D platformer.

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Attract Mode
Interview

wfmag.cc \ 07
 Attract Mode
Interview

WE ARE LEGION An obvious place to start: how did you hit

on the mixture of 2D/3D aesthetics?
think there’s a moment where this feels
less precise than with a 3D model.’ And we
Despite Demon Turf ’s scale, compared Fabian Rastorfer: There’s a trend in the can give our characters so much charm
to Fabraz’s previous title, Slime-san, the indie scene of getting more 2D visuals in 3D with an illustrative approach. So that’s how
game’s still largely being developed by
games, so I think we’re riding the wave as we ended up with Beebz and her nearly
the same core team of three. “We’re
it’s started to become popular. But basically, 1000 sprites.
essentially three people working on this
we were prototyping a bunch of projects
full-time,” Rastorfer tells us. “But we work
with a lot of part-timers or commission- and one of them was a 2.5D platformer, Your engine’s Unity. So does 2D and 3D
based artists to help out. Playtonic is so a camera that wouldn’t be movable mesh well in the engine, or do you have to
helping a ton, and you can essentially but would still have our 2D characters in do some customisation to get it to work?
count them as team members. So a 3D space. We experimented with that FR: Yeah, there was some custom stuff
it’s been a dynamic growth. Beebz’s and we really dug where it was going, but involved. A lot of it was making the 2D sprites
sprite sheet was done by an artist we gameplay-wise, it felt too constrictive. work in 3D space with lighting, so that the
commissioned and worked with closely. It didn’t have a thing that made it feel sprite gets affected by being in shadow.
All of Luci’s and Midgi’s were from a
unique, especially after having worked with And there were also a lot of things in terms
different artist. We work with three
Slime-san, where the main thing was the of obstruction, because technically, the
composers outside of our team… The
morphing and all that. So we said, ‘Let’s central character’s essentially a cardboard
credits end up looking really long, which
is nice because I like making sure every unlock the camera and see what happens’. cut-out, right? So if the sprite’s too close to
single contribution, no matter how small, We immediately realised it’d cause an the camera, that’s obstructing so much of
gets acknowledged. It’s a beast of a avalanche of new problems to make 2D your view, we have to [find] a way to figure
project, and every little bit helps.” sprites work in a 3D world, especially with out when it’s too close to the camera. We
a free camera, but it also immediately and had to come up with a whole system for
suddenly opened up the floodgates of our projector renderer that provides the
inspiration. Eventually, we found a point drop shadow beneath the character, which
where we’re like, ‘This is working; I don’t is essential for the feeling of placement. So
yeah, that was a lot of custom work.

At what point did Playtonic come in, Gavin,

and what role have you been playing
in development?
Gavin Price: We spotted the game quite
a while back. We have our internal team
channels, and we were just looking at things
we find inspiring or like the look of. Demon
Turf certainly caught our eye: when we
saw this 2D character in a 3D platformer,
 Once you’ve defeated a world’s
boss, you’ll find that the levels we thought it looked really different. And I
have changed the next time
you visit them, with different
remember the one screenshot that really
collectables to pick up. got us all falling in love with the character

08 / wfmag.cc
 Attract Mode
Interview

platformers had their height during the N64,

PSone era, and I think now it’s just rising
JUST THE TONIC
back up again. The second thing is that it “When they reached out to me initially
needed some time to re-evaluate itself as a by email, I was double-checking
genre. It’s like how Borderlands said, ‘What if because I was thinking, this is probably
A behind-the-scenes a scam,” Rastorfer says when he recalls
we combine an FPS with an RPG?’ And that


look at some Demon the day Playtonic first got in touch. “But
Turf character art. kickstarted the whole thing of RPG-ifying
I was immediately enamoured by the
almost every genre.
idea because, obviously, a good chunk
I think 3D platformers, too, are saying, of the team are giants when it comes
was when she goes to take a selfie. That’s ‘Let’s look at other genres and see what to 2D and 3D platformers. For example,
gonna be so nice, taking your character can make us unique’. I’m friends with a Jens [Restemeier], who’s helping us with
around and taking selfies. She has so much bunch of other indie devs – we have a little the PlayStation ports, worked on the
character, and because she’s a sprite, she Discord server where we talk. And what’s Donkey Kong Game Boy ports, which I
can do so much. so awesome is that I can list five or six played as a kid. I was thinking, this is
Around that time, we were asking, what games that look amazing – they’re all 3D surreal that somehow little Fabian on
his Game Boy was playing a game that
do we want to do as a company? How do platformers, but all entirely different. I think
he loved and now he’s working with
we want to grow? We were really falling in that’s why the genre’s becoming popular
that person on the port of his game.
with the idea of becoming a publisher and again, because it has the potential to be
It’s just a crazy loop of fate. I grew up
meeting other developers, which is a great awesome – it’s just really difficult to pull off. with all of it: Banjo-Kazooie was always
part of the job. So we played a build of Of all the genres I’ve worked on so far, at the top of my Nintendo 64 lists, and
Demon Turf and it was ready to ship, pretty 3D platformers are the hardest thing that there’s no doubt that all of those games
much. We thought, ‘Do you even need a I’ve had to work with. What I find fascinating had an impact, not only on Demon Turf
publisher?’ We were asking them, ‘What can about them is that moving is an act of specifically, but just my game design
we do for you that makes sense?’ expression for the player, so you have sensibilities and even my interest in
From a gameplay perspective, Playtonic to create something that’s approachable becoming a game developer.”
offered nothing – nothing – and got a free and easy to learn, that flows, but also has
game to play in return! What we do have depth so people can start exploring and
though, is experience in porting. Unity do wild skill combinations. I don’t think
projects can be quite taxing in terms of there are many genres that do that, where
console ports, so we’ve been able to help do expression comes through in the act of just
some tidying up. We’ve just come in at the simple movement.
end and helped with the kinds of tasks that
no team loves doing. We don’t go creating Can we talk a bit about the game’s story?
our own IPs and think, ‘I can’t wait to start It seems to me that these quirky, outsider
porting this.’ It’s not really high up there. protagonists are a hallmark of your studio.
FR: As Gavin says, it’s not fun to port and
optimise, but you want to get it right. With
our team size, the help was vital, because
at this point, it’s ludicrous. We’re in between
generations, so we’ve ended up with seven
platforms to port to. It’s just, like, ‘What?’
GP: And there’s physical releases as well.

3D platformers feel like they’re coming

back into vogue after kind of fading out for
a while. I wonder if you had any thoughts
on why they slipped out of fashion, and
what brought them back.
FR: I think there are two things. Obviously,
there are trends: there’s always genres that
are more popular for a time. Deck-building

Each world (or Turf) has its own boss,
games and roguelike games are at the top


who’ll begrudgingly become your

right now. So that comes and goes. 3D underling once you defeat them.

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 Attract Mode
Interview

DEVILISHLY You’ve had a gooey blob, a skeleton, and

now a demon.
DIFFICULT? FR: Our humour is super-weird, I think.
Which is why we also mesh really well with
Demon Turf will offer a number of
Playtonic, because their humour’s weird.
mechanics for newer or younger players.
A small army of helper characters,
But we just love going into the quirkiness;
named Revolutionists, will be on hand with Slime-san, we managed to create

Beebz can’t resist taking a
a simple character that still had a lot of


to complete levels on your behalf in break from the action to
exchange for cold, hard cash; if you’re personality. We looked at what people indulge in a photo opportunity.
finding boss battles tough, the same enjoyed about Slime-san, and it was the
rabble will support you on the sidelines, character and also the world. We’re not
throwing trash at your opponent. “I hate necessarily grand storytellers – we’re not makes, saying, ‘But look, it’s really easy. Look,
nothing more than a player enjoying your going to be telling the next The Last of Us they’re doing it time after time. Come on, you
game and then not finishing it because
epic, but we are capable of creating a world lazy devs!’ [Laughs]
they can’t,” Rastorfer says. “I think that’s
the player wants to get lost in because of its Fabian spotted something we also saw
a failure as a developer, because it’s
just not fair – if you’re enjoying it, you
humour, its charm, its quirkiness. in Super Mario Odyssey. If you look at all the
should be able to complete it. So we One thing about Slime-san that was major routes through the game, and break
very seriously thought about all these popular was the hub town – it had a lot them down, they’re very well-hidden Super
potential solutions.” of goofball characters in there. And so we Mario 3D World challenges. Super Mario 3D
extended that with Demon Turf, with a hub World is fantastic at creating these A-to-B
town that’s even bigger and that has even linear courses which test players’ platforming
more goofy stuff to explore and find. And skills. So, when you look at [Odyssey], they
let’s also inject more of a narrative without kind of disguise these courses in a complete,
it being overbearing. Beebz has a bit of an 360-degree roaming world space, which is
attitude; she has a protective shell. But at brilliant. And the world is really there as a
her core she’s a soft, friendly person who’s playground for your moveset, and it’s very
really looking for recognition. metrically driven. We had one of our lead
designers look into Super Mario World, at
Is there a key to really good 3D platformer how metrically driven they all are – they’re so
level design? precise, even down to the textures applied
GP: I’m gonna agree with Fabian in terms to the buildings and paths, floors… You can
of it being the most difficult genre to make see… ‘Wow, even the textures are really easy
a game in. You have all the problems, and to read’. You don’t spot this stuff as you’re
then everyone points at everything Nintendo playing, but you can see that there’s one unit
in the texture of a wall, so that when you
stand next to it, you can see that the wall is
four units high.
You’re getting this information all the
time as a player, not realising you’re taking
it all in. It’s unbelievable. I think, in a 3D
world, people are looking for that blend of
something legible: they can see where they
should be going and where they shouldn’t
bother trying to go.

The camera can make or break a game like

this. How have you refined it?
FR: Yeah, it’s a huge task. It was basically the
second most important part after getting the
platforming right. There are so many little

Beebz may be diminutive, but her tricks. So, for example, when the camera


punch ability is impressively bumps against the wall, we don’t want it to

powerful, and can be used to bash
enemies and deflect projectiles. go through, so it’ll start sliding across the wall

10 / wfmag.cc
 Attract Mode
Interview

instead. But we don’t want that to happen we then put them in our ‘nice to have’ pile,
with thin objects, so if there’s a telephone which then usually ends up becoming free
pole, the camera will bump against it and updates or DLC. So most of Slime-san’s DLCs
then go back into its original position. This were made up from these ideas we had
creates a jarring effect, so what you do during main development.
is build a system that either detects the
width, or have a tagging system that tells Were there ideas that you hadn’t initially
the camera, ‘ignore that pole’. So then the planned for that made it into Demon Turf?
camera will be behind the pole, but you’ve FR: Yeah. We expanded the boss fights a lot.
got a new problem: your character might be They’re really intricate fights with dynamic
obscured by the object, so then you have to music. One of the main things in the boss
build a system of figuring out how to show fights that I like is that, a lot of times in video 
The game’s 3D, which means characters need


a character obscured by an object. So you games when you beat a boss, you unlock a to be considered from every angle.
create a silhouette that shows through it. new ability, right? In our case, you get that
And that’s how it goes. You solve one ability when you start the boss fight and then
year. We want to help other people achieve
more by working with us than otherwise they
“Everyone points at Nintendo, could. We’re trying to be the publisher that

saying, ‘Look, it’s really easy’” we dreamt of coming across ourselves with
regards to our terms, how we can help, how
flexible we are. And in the background we’ve
problem, it introduces a couple of new ones, the fight is centred around it. You’re learning still got 90% of the company working on the
and you have to solve those until you get how to use this new thing during the boss games we’ve got in development.
to a point where you don’t think about the fight, master it, and then move on with it.
camera too much anymore. Bosses have been expanded to a much So finally, how much have you got left to
larger importance than we’d initially planned. do on the game?
Is overscoping a danger? Getting carried FR: Basically, the game’s done. It’s content
away trying to fit in too many ideas? Playtonic Friends is a new publishing arm complete. We’re now in the trenches
FR: The Fabraz philosophy is that we for the business. Is it just going to keep finishing all of the porting for consoles. And
overscope a little bit, which sounds like an growing, this side of Playtonic? we’ll then have to go through QA and all of
oxymoron, but that’s essentially what we go GP: Not really. We haven’t entered into this that. In terms of future content, we have
for. If an idea comes up that wasn’t part of to become a huge publisher. We’re still a such an insanely cool list of ideas, and we’ll
the initial plan, but everybody in the team developer that can help people publish basically pick the size of those ideas based
just absolutely adores it, then we consider rather than a publisher which can help on how well the game does, really. We
it. How much more time will it add? How people develop. And we’re not looking to do have a couple of ideas that are so hugely
many more issues will it produce? And then huge numbers of titles year in, year out. If scoped that we’ll need to hear enough of an
we sometimes add them, but other times, anything, we might go for fewer games per enthusiastic roar to make that happen!

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Early Access

(Not a) Thief in the night

Stop comparing it to Thief: Gloomwood has a lot of its own ideas

I
t’s influenced by Looking Glass Studios’ more DNA in Gloomwood than just Thief. It has a
Info

GENRE
First-person sneaker classic tale of Victorian-ish, sort-of good deal of traditional survival horror elements
FORMAT steampunk-ish first-person sneaking like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. It has elements of
PC and stabbing, there’s no doubt, but other immersive sims like Arx Fatalis. We didn’t
DEVELOPER Gloomwood can’t just be defined by want to ‘make Thief again’ because that game
Dillon Rogers, the Thief that came before it. In part, because already exists. We wanted to make something
David Szymanski
just a few years ago, Thief received its third that feels like your first time playing a game like
PUBLISHER
sequel, so it’s not like this is a long-dead series Thief, but unfolds as its own unique experience.”
New Blood
Interactive brought back by committed fans. Instead, Co-developer (and DUSK creator) David
Gloomwood is its own thing: an FPS mixed with Szymanski concurs: “Forget an elevator pitch,
SOCIAL
@NewBlood immersive stealth, survival horror elements, and we condensed Gloomwood’s pitch down to ‘Thief
a brooding, claustrophobic atmosphere that with guns’. Three words and someone already
serves to make the Victorian-ish setting feel just has an idea what to expect, and whether or
I t’s great to see New Blood as foreboding as you’d hope. not they’re interested in it. On the other hand,


engaging with retro-style “As a marketing tool, comparing Gloomwood ‘Thief with guns’ is hardly a complete summation
FPSes that aren’t just
about pace and gunplay to its inspirations like Thief is an excellent way of what Gloomwood is.” An attaché case-
– patience and forethought
can be fun too!
to grab attention,” says Dillon Rogers, lead style inventory comes from Resident Evil 4, an
developer on the game. “However, there’s a lot introductory level influenced by Call of Cthulhu:
Dark Corners of the Earth, the manner in which
players check their ammo riffing on similar
systems in Condemned: Criminal Origins – and
that’s just nods and references to other games.
“There are plenty of things in Gloomwood that
are just… Gloomwood,” Szymanski continues.
“They aren’t taken from anything else, they aren’t
trying to reach the standards set by anything
else, they’re just our own ideas. So if someone
were to come into the game and be like, ‘I expect
this to be exactly like Thief down to the last
detail’, they’re going to be disappointed.”
On playing the early demo of Gloomwood
that’s been available a few months now, it’s

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Early Access

 ith the explosion and blood

W


and viscera everywhere, it’s

fair to assume this is a scene
of wanton carnage.

I f the buildings were a bit


wonkier, this might look like
Worcester on a cold winter’s
evening.

clear most people playing the game won’t be streets, ready to swarm and blast you with their
disappointed, regardless of what they expect. shotguns should you stray into their line of
This is a retro-styled title showing hints of tight sight without a plan to escape or dispatch them
design, engaging mechanics of sneaking and – they would certainly still carry a slight air of
shooting, and that aforementioned atmosphere. dread regardless of how levels were designed,
How it holds up through extended play is, of but the more cultivated approach makes their
course, the real test, but the early impressions positioning – their threat – all the more effective.
are decidedly positive. This, in part, comes “Maybe you could argue that a systemic
from the game’s time in development and its game could benefit from having an algorithm
redesigns along the way – Rogers explains the randomise the way elements interact,” says
idea came about while he was in college, but the Szymanski. “There are certainly titles that run
original plan for a procedurally generated world with this idea – Noita, Spelunky, City of Brass – but
was binned and the immersive sim approach that’s not really the experience we’re going for
emerged from his with Gloomwood. The
dissatisfaction with the “The player learns how point is to immerse you BAKE OFF
original design. in the world and the
That shift from
the city is laid out and journey you’re on, and
Development is never plain
sailing, and it can get harder
procedural general to how best to traverse it” for the emergent systems when you’re taking requests
handcrafted levels is an to aid in that, not to just and listening to feedback.
“Gloomwood uses baked
important one. “As I developed the more core give you a lot of emergent systems for their own
lighting to give it that late
survival horror/immersive sim elements of the sake. That’s not really something that would 1990s look and feel that
game,” Rogers says, “I came to an understanding benefit from procedural generation.” games like Quake and Thief
that level design is one of the most important Plus, he adds, it’s actually probably less had,” Rogers explains. “After
parts of both those genres. It dictates how work to make levels by hand than it is to code the demo, one of the most
frequent requests we got
players explore the world and how they choose a procedural generation algorithm that could
was to allow lights to be
which routes to take, encounters to approach, make “natural, interesting, varied levels with breakable. However, because
and resources to take. It also gives the world its good flow and an interesting journey”. our engine expects developers
own feeling of permanence – the player learns There’s a lot of work going into Gloomwood – to use dynamic lighting for…
well, dynamic lights, we hit a
over time how the city is laid out and how best it’s the sort of project driven by a clear passion,
huge snag when we tried to
to traverse its alleyways and buildings. It was and with New Blood backing it (and Szymanski implement baked maps that
definitely the right way to go with this game.” helping out), the signs and portents are can dynamically change. We
Sticking with procedural generation would definitely pointing in the right direction. Early had to implement a rather
have robbed Gloomwood of much of its control Access looks like it will happen later in 2021, so hacky system to bake the
maps – to allow them to be
over the player’s encounters and interactions there’s still a fair bit of time to polish everything
swappable at runtime – that is
with the entities within the city. The robed, off here – and, honestly, it’s going to be a still clunky and prone to errors.
traffic-light-eyed sentries wandering the cobbled difficult wait. It’s been a big headache.”

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It came from the desert

Developer Gregorios Kythreotis tells us how Star Wars, Studio Ghibli,
and Zelda have all inspired the upcoming Sable

T
he last time we covered Sable on a quest to find five lost masks, you’re free
Info

GENRE
Adventure was two years ago – then midway to roam the landscape as you see fit. You can
FORMAT through its development, it was hurtle along sand-dunes on your hoverbike,
PC / Mac / XBO / already looking truly special even climb cliffs in search of abandoned buildings
XB S/X / PS4
back then. So special that, when filled with secrets, or chat to the world’s masked
DEVELOPER
it was shown off at E3 in 2018, interest in the inhabitants, who’ll provide quests and hints as to
Shedworks
game exploded, and Sable rapidly became one where to go next.
PUBLISHER
of the most anticipated indie games on the Sable recalls the design of such video game
Raw Fury
horizon. It’s not hard to see why: set on a desert staples as Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and
RELEASE
23 September 2021 planet that may or may not be Earth, Sable is an Breath of the Wild, but its sci-fi world reaches
open-world adventure about exploration and further afield – the depiction of a ruined
discovery: cast in the role of a young woman world where remnants of a previous society’s
tech is treated with almost holy relevance
recalls Walter M. Miller Jr.’s novel, A Canticle
For Leibowitz. And isn’t the intrepid heroine
roaming post-apocalyptic vistas akin to the one
in master animator Hayao Miyazaki’s manga
and animated feature, Nausicaä of the Valley of
the Wind? Yes, agrees Sable’s creative director
Gregorios Kythreotis, who reaches up to grab a
book of Nausicaä artwork from a shelf. “I picked
this up from the Studio Ghibli Museum in
Japan,” he tells us, referring to the Tokyo-based
attraction dedicated to the work of Miyazaki
and his collaborators. “At the beginning, before
we kicked off with Sable in 2017, I went to the
museum. I was going through some personal
stuff at the time – a few of my family members
had just died – and I think, going there,
experiencing that, and then coming back to start

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Sable’s come a long way


since it was unveiled in 2018,
and so have Shedworks. For
one thing, they’ve now
moved from a garden shed to
a proper office space.
work on this project, something about it was
always going to just stick with me and always be One of Sable’s simplest


pleasures comes from

part of it.” exploring old buildings and
Echoes of Miyazaki’s clean, delicate style are wondering what their
function might have been in
easy to spot in Sable’s gorgeous cel-shaded this alien world.
environments, and the artful minimalism of the
visuals also extends to the world’s design: unlike
other titles of its type, Sable doesn’t contain THE GHIBLI
combat or harsh survival mechanics – instead, skills and how they could use them to make EFFECT
it offers a calmer experience where the player a video game. At this point, the pair were still One of the names that often
is rewarded rather than punished for gliding working out of a garden shed belonging to comes up when journalists
off into the unknown. “We don’t have a main Kythreotis’ parents (hence the studio’s name, talk about Sable ’s style is
Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, the
narrative that the player’s required to follow,” Shedworks) and had mostly worked on smaller-
influential French artist.
Kythreotis says. “We have a beginning and scale projects like websites and apps. With Moebius, Kythreotis readily
end, but the middle is completely loose, like Fineberg’s degree in Comparative Literature and admits, is one ingredient in
a series of short stories. So people can play it Kythreotis having studied architecture, the duo the stew of touchstones that
Sable draws from. “It’s kind
and pace it how they want – if you get stuck on asked themselves: what kind of project would
of circular, right?” Kythreotis
a puzzle, we don’t ask suit their strengths? says. “Nausicaä, specifically,
you to finish it, you can “We wanted to give And equally important: was inspired by Arzach,
just walk away, and the what kind of game Moebius’ work. At the start
same’s true for a piece
players the confidence could they make as a of Sable, the initial idea came
of narrative content… we to just explore” tiny independent team
from watching Star Wars: The
Force Awakens… We started
tried to have an element of two? working on Sable in 2016, so
of freedom in the game, like A Short Hike for Many of the design decisions that make Sable a year before Breath of the
example, or Breath of the Wild. But then the flip so distinctive sprang from those conversations: Wild came out, but obviously
you can’t ignore it, and we
side of Breath of the Wild is that there’s combat; the clean, cel-shaded rendering style, for
haven’t ignored it. But if you
there’s always things that can kill you. We don’t example, meant that the world could be look at that game, it’s more
really want to do that – we wanted to give constructed from simpler, low-poly assets. “A of a Studio Ghibli game than
players the confidence to just explore, so in that lot of what we do revolves around making sure Ni no Kuni, actually, in terms
sense, it’s quite a relaxing game.” we can produce this,” Kythreotis says. “Like the of atmosphere. So it’s all
circular – a lot of the things
Back when Sable was in its earliest stages, masks that the characters wear – they’re quite
we make are inspired by
studio co-founders Kythreotis and Daniel an integral part of the culture and mechanics other things we’ve looked at.
Fineberg thought carefully about their individual of the game, but originally they came about I think it’s unavoidable.”

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 Sable ’s cel-shaded look

began long before the
game itself, and emerged
from Kythreotis’ rendering
experiments while he was
studying architecture.

GREAT
EXPECTATIONS
When Sable was greeted
with a wave of enthusiasm
in 2018, the media interest
must have been exciting
for Shedworks – but did
it also bring an element
of pressure of meeting
the public’s expectations?
“Definitely,” Kythreotis says.
“We’ve been really wary of
over-promising, so everything
we’ve shown publicly has because we didn’t want to animate faces, so
tended to be at least a year we said, ‘How can we turn this weakness into a
old. But that’s a dangerous
thing to do as well, because
strength?’ A lot of decisions have been made like
you can promise something that. The lack of combat for example: we love things that we’ve tried to do with the world-
and then it just doesn’t work combat in other games, but we thought, ‘We building is make sure it feels like a special place,
for the game, and then you don’t think we can do it to the level that Dark but these are just ordinary people living here,”
feel maybe you want to cut
Souls can’.” Kythreotis says. “It feels somewhat grounded
it then you can’t… the flip
side is if you’re ambiguous Kythreotis’ architectural training, meanwhile, in that sense – it has a stronger sense of life…
then people start projecting allowed him to focus on one of Sable’s most also, we give the player such a freeform set of
stuff onto the project. So immediately striking elements: the vast buildings skills to explore, the buildings have to be fully
the demo [released on that jut out of the desert landscape. At once realised – they can’t just be a shell. So having
Steam] was a big part of that
expectation management –
ancient-seeming and technologically advanced, a background in architecture has helped with
to communicate exactly what they’re the hiding place for many of the game’s that, and the way I try to approach it is by
the game is.” mysteries and puzzles. “I think one of the cool thinking about the function, the context, but
also trying to create buildings where it’s less of
a structured experience. Instead, we’re nudging
players towards opportunities where moments
can occur rather than having anything specific in
mind. But level designers do a lot of the things
architects do in terms of using openings and
windows to create viewpoints, or using spaces to
create psychological effects and emotions.”
Exploration and mystery are so key to Sable
that one of the early design decisions Shedworks
made was to avoid giving the player any kind

Sable contains lots of puzzles,



but there isn’t pressure on the

player to complete them.

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of mini-map to follow. “We didn’t want to have start introducing the uncanny valley into your
mini-maps in our game, and I feel that way architecture. That’s such a hard problem to
quite strongly,” Kythreotis says. “I feel like it’s the solve, and so much effort goes into that.”
equivalent of going abroad somewhere and just The sheer scale of the game – not to mention
staring at your phone the whole time. Because it the stresses of Covid-19 on production – have
optimises the way you navigate the environment, meant that development has taken rather longer
so it kills the experience. I feel like a lot of games than Shedworks had originally envisioned. But
suffer from that. So we try to make sure we with Sable’s release mere weeks away (it’s slated
designed the game to solve that problem. Like, for 23 September), the largest hurdles have
even Skyrim, they had the compass on the top now been cleared, and Kythreotis is already
of the screen, and that solution’s very elegant. anticipating a well-earned rest. “Covid made
In that regard, we looked production much harder,
at Ico and also the “It’s the equivalent of but we’re on track, and I’d
Souls games, because say the reception to the
those environments are
going abroad and then demo was really good.
constructed so that you staring at your phone” And again, I’d say we’re
understand them without setting expectations – we
needing a map at all. Shadow of the Colossus want people to realise we’re a small team making
has a map, but it’s really zoomed out, so it’s a pretty ambitious project. Maybe we shouldn’t
more about locating yourself in relation to have made such a big project, in retrospect…
other landmarks.” I think we’re ready to move on, creatively, and
As careful as Shedworks has been to have been for a while. Maybe we’ll want a smaller,
keep Sable’s scope under control, making an palate-cleanser project before we dive into  ike Journey before it,
L


open-world game as a two-person studio still another long one. Because we never thought Sable ’s lack of combat
leaves you free to
presented a challenge – not least because this project would end up being four years of explore and soak up
the landscape’s studded with dozens of NPCs production. You’re constantly moving that end the world’s ambience.

that all needed to be designed, animated, and date, so you push yourself to get to that, and then
written for. “I definitely understand why ruins are that gets moved back. It’s hard to know how to
a useful video game tool,” Kythreotis observes pace yourself when the distances start changing.
with a rueful smile. “It’s so much easier to It’s hard to go from a 100 metre sprint to 800
make a building that’s uninhabited and implies metres, you know? You’re going to suffer. So yeah,
a history than inhabit it, because then you we need a break! I think we deserve one.”

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Black hole sun

Director Yarden Weissbrot talks us through the stresses and
inspirations behind his team’s stunning-looking debut, GRIME

I
deas can come from all kinds of familiar “I’ve always been a huge fan of strange and
Info

GENRE
Metroidvania places, but still combine to create surreal designs,” says GRIME director Yarden
FORMAT something different and unexpected. Weissbrot. “The very first designs I did were of
PC GRIME is a tidy example: it’s the work the Rockhead [enemies] and face-shaped rocks
DEVELOPER of five self-described “Dark Souls in the desert, followed by an enemy with a giant
Clover Bite enthusiasts and Hollow Knight fanboys” from hand as a torso. At first, I drew these for no
PUBLISHER Israel, takes elements from such games as other reason than I find those kinds of designs
Akupara Games
Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Salt cool. The world and story were non-existent at
RELEASE and Sanctuary, and yet looks very little like the that point; all I knew was that it was likely going
TBC 2021
titles that inspired it. In essence, GRIME is a to be a world with an attachment to distorted
SOCIAL
side-scrolling hybrid of RPG and Metroidvania, a human shapes since that’s what I like drawing.”
@Play_GRIME
bit like Hollow Knight, but with a detailed combat GRIME is the debut game from Clover Bite,
system that allows you to absorb your enemies’ a team of former students who got together
abilities and adopt them as your own. Also: the at Israel’s Tiltan School of Design and Visual
central character is a deathly looking humanoid Communications. Not long after the project
with a swirling vortex in place of a head, and the began, the basic side-scrolling combat was
levels you roam are surreal hellscapes populated in place (“Salt and Sanctuary was our main
by various ghoulish and twisted creatures. reference for the core combat and movement
mechanics,” Weissbrot says), but there was a
certain nervousness about pushing the game’s
scope too far. “Relatively early into development,
and after playing a [lot] of Bloodborne, I became
really fond of the parry mechanic used to spice
GRIME ’s inhabitants may be up the Souls combat,” Weissbrot tells us. “But,


creepy, but they aren’t just

monsters – they have the since this was our first game and I had the
makings of a society, as these added responsibility of directing the project, I
simple cave paintings prove.
was terrified of deviating from the established
 The game’s built in Unity, along formula. To be blunt, I just didn’t think we’d have
with tools “we made ourselves
as we needed them, such as a the ability to pull it off and create something
level streaming system, enemy
AI management, and so on,”
entirely our own from a gameplay perspective –
Weissbrot says. especially with me at the helm and with basically

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zero game-making experience. I didn’t want to aggressively, or allow them to take different
risk the game and everyone’s faith in it by chasing routes whenever a certain one is too hard,
a mechanic I just recently grew to like on a whim.” rather than forcing them to travel back to where
All of that changed, however, when another they died, in order to return what could be an
game by FromSoftware emerged – Sekiro: hour or more of hoarded progress.”
Shadows Die Twice. Says Weissbrot: “The Sekiro Behind the scenes, development has thrown
announcement trailer came out, and I became up some Souls-like challenges of its own. “As
obsessed with analysing it and figuring out I’ve mentioned, this was our first game,” says WEAPON OF
how parrying works in it. I realise this may be Weissbrot. “In many ways, everyone ended up CHOICE
pretty silly, but it honestly felt in a way like I wanting to be in charge and doing something “My favourites are the maul
have permission to make the parry as a central different with GRIME’s gameplay. This hadn’t weapons from a visual
mechanic for the game immediately changed perspective, since they
have this clawing hand that
now that FromSoftware “It’s an aggressive game, after I’d been chosen
shapeshifts during their
did just that. After to lead the project, as special attack,” Weissbrot
focusing my attention on
but it won’t completely everyone still had little says, when we ask which of
designing what I thought beat you down” reason to trust my GRIME ’s weird armaments
he likes best. “But from a
would be a unique and judgment when I, like
gameplay perspective, I
cool look for a parry, I landed on using a black them, had no experience either… It was a difficult definitely think the lanterns
hole to sort of catch enemy attacks with and period, filled with self-doubt. I had to trust that I have the most unique
then pull them in.” was making the right decisions to keep everything playstyle. They’re all about
The influence of FromSoftware’s action output from losing focus and going in different stacking certain debuffs on
enemies, and then either
runs deep in GRIME, then, from the combat directions. We’ve had a lot of clashes, and [I feel]
unleashing that debuff or
to the Trait system, which is where those bad about rejecting ideas I didn’t think fitted. I’m interacting with it via another
purloined abilities can be upgraded up to five not a total saint… but eventually, we [understood] weapon. For example, the
times. “In order to level up traits, you need to each other’s faults and merits. I like to think we’ve Wisp lantern puts stacks
on enemies that turn into
get Hunt points, which are typically dropped all grown as people. These days, we joke about
homing projectiles once that
from challenging enemies that don’t respawn these kinds of things openly.” enemy is destroyed, targeting
on defeat,” Weissbrot explains. “The idea was GRIME’s development is on the home stretch other nearby enemies.
to have the player want to hunt down enemies, now, and it looks remarkably polished for a However, you can combine
both weak and strong, for the challenge and for small team’s debut. Due out later in 2021, it that with another weapon that
can tear out those projectiles
their added power, like the predator they are.” could prove to be one of the year’s most darkly
while that enemy is still alive,
One area where GRIME will diverge from the enjoyable Metroidvanias. For more of its surreal dealing additional damage for
Souls games and Hollow Knight, however, is artwork, head to page 68. each torn projectile.”
its difficulty – it’s an aggressive, violent game,
sure, but it won’t completely beat you down
from the outset. “I think GRIME overall will be a
lot less punishing than both, since dying in the
game doesn’t drop all of your currency,” says
Weissbrot. “The goal with removing that penalty
was to encourage players to play recklessly and

Combat’s a big focus in GRIME, but also expect



plenty of platforming segments, as well as

areas laced with deadly traps to negotiate.

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News

That
was the
month 02

that was

01

01. I nevitable
GTA 6 rumours 03

Grand Theft Auto 6 confirmed? Not really, 02. Steamed

but it’s clearly inevitable – and a leaker 03. N
 etpix(el)
with a solid track record of getting big Suddenly, Steam announced the Steam
games right has claimed a few things that Deck – a handheld gaming device based Netflix is set to dip its toe into the world
have pricked up the ol’ ears. First up, we on custom AMD Zen 2 architecture, with of video games, as it announced the hire
shouldn’t expect GTA 6 until at least 2025, an array of different storage options for of Mike Verdu – the company’s new (and
which is an extremely sci-fi-sounding year. your pennies. Said pennies ranging from first) vice-president of game development.
Second, the game is to be a modern-day £349 to £569 for the model with a 512GB Verdu previously worked at EA, as well as
version of Vice City, rather than going NVMe SSD and some other gubbins. It also at Facebook on the Oculus side of things.
back to the 1980s again, in order to give features a touchscreen, trackpads to make A Bloomberg report claims Netflix’s plan
Rockstar lots of options when it comes to up for a lack of mouse, and gyroscopic is to have games available on its platform
the next GTA Online. Finally, the leaks claim controls if you want to use those too, and within the next year, with video games
GTA 6 will see an ever-evolving map similar it’s compatible with regular PC peripherals, sitting right there alongside your usual
to that employed by Epic with Fortnite – a and you can hook it up to your TV, and it’s TV series, stand-up specials, and terrible
foundational landmass that changes and getting a dock. It’s basically a mix of the sci-fi movies from 1995 you never knew
gets tweaked over time, though you’d various GPD portable PCs and a Switch, existed. It’s fair to say few are expecting
assume that’d be limited to the GTA Online and frankly, it looks fantastic. The Steam triple-A titles to pop up on the platform,
section rather than single-player. Anyway, Deck is planned to start shipping at the but it’s going to be interesting to see how
rumours – aren’t they great? end of this year. this all works out.

Yep, someone’s made a Greggs Bloober Team rumoured to be working on

in Far Cry 5 (h/t PC Gamer) new Silent Hill ; doesn’t deny it

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05

Image: Heritage Auctions, HA.com

04

04. R
 IP Near, 06
champion of
emulation 06. 6
 4 (million)
Near/Byuu, a much-vaunted member of Potentially the most ridiculous thing in
the emulation and homebrew scene, has all of history transpired partway through
taken their own life. The news arrived July, as a mint, sealed copy of Super Mario
via friends of the developer late in June, 64 sold for $1.56 million (£1.126m) via
and followed a prolonged and targeted Heritage Auctions. The copy was rated
harassment campaign originating from 05. T
 o Infinity 9.8/10 condition-wise, or A++, and…
the Kiwi Farms message board. Near’s nope, that’s about it – nothing special
work included creating bsnes – the first Ubisoft was prompted into revealing more about it beyond being a classic game in
SNES emulator with 100% compatibility about the next step for its time-travelling fantastic condition. Over a million quid. A
– and higan, a multi-system emulation stab-‘em-up franchise, announcing copy of the original Zelda on NES sold for
platform that pushed for accuracy in its the existence of Assassin’s Creed Infinity $870,000 (£628,000) days prior, but at the
emulation over anything else. It didn’t following a Bloomberg report revealing very least that auction was for a version
begin and end with emulation though, the project. It’s actually more a platform of the game that was limited, coming
with their focus on translation projects than a game, with the series heading from an early production run lasting just
culminating in the excellent Bahamut down the ‘games as a service’ path, with a few months in 1987. This million-pound
Lagoon release earlier in 2021; a passion development split across multiple Ubisoft Mario… it’s just Mario 64? The game’s good
project decades in the making, it brought studios for different, vague things that – great, even (check out page 36 for more
a title that never saw an English release Ubi didn’t explain much. It’s… inevitable, on that) – but worth over a million quid?
to a much wider audience. A full list of really. Just like Ubisoft not getting shot of a Well, time to get rooting through our
international suicide helplines can be bunch of senior members of staff accused cupboards for other mass-selling classics
found here: wfmag.cc/helplines. of various negative behaviours. But hey. that might be worth a few bob.

Sony acquires Returnal /Stardust Final Fantasy IX to be turned into

developer Housemarque animated series

wfmag.cc \ 21
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08
09

07. A
 cti-Blizzard
sued 07
09. Head in the
Activision Blizzard has been sued 08. WB wnb sold
by the California Department of Fair Xbox fairly quietly gave its Xbox Game
Employment and Housing following two That’s ‘will not be’, by the way. Rumours of Pass Ultimate members quite the treat
years of investigations into the company, WB Games’ death have been exaggerated as it released its cloud gaming service
primarily focusing on Blizzard. Allegations it seems, as the company reported it will for all subscribers. At the time of writing,
of a ‘frat boy’ culture surfaced, with only be letting go of Playdemic, which it works on Windows 10 PCs and Apple
claims women faced harassment in the was sold to EA in June. The rest of the phones and tablets, allowing Ultimate
workplace alongside other inappropriate publisher and its stable of dev teams is subscribers to stream hundreds of titles
behaviour. Female employees were staying put at Warner HQ, with the games from the Game Pass library. It’s been
overlooked for promotions, undermined, division included in the $43 billion ($31bn) in beta a while, so the launch isn’t a
and one female member of staff took purchase of WarnerMedia by Discovery. complete surprise, but it did sort of slink
their own life following intense sexual Earlier rumours had all manner of suitors out there without a gigantic amount of
harassment involving multiple male queuing up to purchase the Batman, Back fanfare – and having tested it briefly, it
members of staff, according to the suit. 4 Blood, and Mortal Kombat publisher – works well. It’s a great addition to the
Activision Blizzard has strenuously turns out, in the end, Discovery discovered subscription. And Sony, once again, looks
denied the claims. Read the full details keeping gaming under its wing was a decidedly old-fashioned with its approach
here: wfmag.cc/ActiBliz. good idea. to subs services.

Portal creator Kim Swift joins Xbox Phil Spencer: ‘Xbox controller might get an
Game Studios’ cloud gaming division update; PS5 controller has done a nice job’

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News

12

10

11

11. All dogs…

The inspiration and physical model
for Fallout 4’s Dogmeat, a German
Shepherd named River, passed away.
The announcement came via previous
10. S
 (um)old Fallout staffer/current Capybara Games 12. N
 ot that one
studio director, and owner of River, Joel
The purchase of Sumo Digital was agreed Burgess, who tweeted out a tale of how No, this isn’t about the cheeky, deer-
in July, with Chinese giga-vestment and the pooch’s visits to the Bethesda office killing pub-lover from Location, Location,
mega-internet firm Tencent valuing the inspired the design of Dogmeat beyond Location – it’s just too brilliant a crap joke
company at around £919 million. This mere looks. to miss. Anyway, the other Phil Spencer
marks the second billion-pound (or Her companionship pushed developers – the Xbox one (of Xbox One fame) – was
thereabouts) purchase of a UK-based to pivot from a more aggressive, attack doing the rounds in recent weeks and
video games company this year, following dog-style of character to the one we months, talking up the future of gaming.
Codemasters’ acquisition by EA for ended up with: a tenacious, inquisitive, One future of gaming involves nothing
around £875m. The Sumo purchase will and helpful little doggo with wonderfully but multiplayer games, but that’s not the
see no changes in management and will expressive eyebrows. Even if Dogmeat future that Phil (not from Channel 4) sees.
help the company bring its titles to a did often set off traps, he was still a good Speaking to the Guardian, Spencer the
broader audience, with the door to the dog (they’re all good dogs). Xbox donated Xbox boss said of traditional, narrative-led
Chinese market now held wide open. The $10,000 to the Montgomery County releases: “We’re probably building more of
only question it has us really asking is: Humane Society in memory of River, which those now than we’ve been in the history
who’s next? You can buy a few subs from is a nice little break from all the bleakness. of Xbox.” Kirstie Allsopp was unavailable
us if you like, Tencent. Adopt, don’t shop, and all that jazz. for comment.

PlatinumGames offers Bayonetta 3 Sean Murray’s head mod adds Sean

update: still exists, still being made. Phew Murray’s head to No Man’s Sky

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Early Access

Lost Ark
Amazon Games is taking a different tack with this
release – it’s an already-established free-to-play
MMO that’s won plenty of awards in its home
nation of South Korea. Amazon has jumped in to
help spec the game up and bring it to the west,
and frankly it’s looking very pretty indeed already.
A contender to the Genshin Impact hegemony?
We shall have to wait and see.
Creative Assembly’s
‘New Sci-Fi FPS’
The team which worked on the pretty good Halo
Wars 2 and the utterly stupendous Alien: Isolation

Pathfinder: Wrath is back with another sci-fi offering: this time it’s
a multiplayer first-person shooter, and… that’s
of the Righteous roughly all we know about it. The very early
blurb says it’ll be a ‘fresh take’ on the genre and
Russian studio Owlcat Games returns with its that players will be able to ‘embrace a variety of
follow-up to breakout CRPG success Pathfinder: creative playstyles’. Honestly, it’s already enough
Kingmaker. Wrath of the Righteous is more of to get us salivating.
that good and pure isometric role-playing that
worked so well before, based on Paizo Inc’s
Pathfinder tabletop series. And, like before,
it’s gone via the Kickstarter route, bringing in
an incredible $2 million (£1.5m) to help fund
development. It releases 2 September, so really
not long to wait now.

Wirewalk()
One of those where sticking with the blurb
is actually helpful, Wirewalk() is an ‘adventure
where you raid virus-riddled systems for the
lols’. The original Game Boy aesthetic is what
helps this one stand out, as you make your way
through a top-down RPG mixing in multiple
elements – combat, challenges, even a bit of
football along the way. Also, there’s a heavy
emphasis on dogs and the act of stroking said
dogs, so there’s a bonus for us all.

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Early Access

Battlefield 2042
We’re heading into the distant sci-fi future of… well, 21 years away.
Oh god, time, what are you doing? Anyway, Battlefield 2042 is
bringing us a future war that looks surprisingly similar to the modern
conflicts the series has so proudly shown off over the years. Except
with wingsuits. The headline attraction so far is the introduction of
128-player matches – and the sub-headline attraction within that
is DICE’s intention to pad those player-lists out with up to 64 bots
where necessary. This means that you won’t run into any empty Astria Ascending
matches, and that you might actually be able to take out some
tangos. Soldiers. Whatever. The luscious-looking JRPG from Artisan Studios is being
All the battle passes and seasons plans and whatever else are made in the most part by the Quebec-based studio, but
already being explained in detail by EA – to be expected given live ears are perking up at the sound of two names involved
service titles earn the company a lot of money and, yes, Battlefield in the project – Hitoshi Sakimoto is composing the score
2042 is multiplayer-only. There’ll also be betas and test versions (as seen in Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story), while some
showing up in the run-up to the game’s 22 October release, so plenty writing duties are coming from Kazushige Nojima (of Final
of opportunities to get involved in yet another massive online war Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII Remake fame). It doesn’t
(and get shot in the face). automatically make Astria Ascending a winner, but it shows
two things: one, it’s a project with a lot of ambition, and
two, the involvement of JRPG royalty like Nojima and
Sakimoto means, hopefully, there’s something to the
game beyond pretty visuals.

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Early Access

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl

Technically, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will have been announced twelve years before its
eventual release – should that come to pass – on 28 April 2022. Originally
announced back in 2010, this extremely long-awaited sequel has been
Dying Light 2
through the wringer in the interim – officially cancelled at one point with Stay Human
developer GSC Game World closing down, several clones and offshoots of
the ambitious sequel have appeared in various guises along the way. But It feels like it’s been a while, but the date is
here we are, eventually, but also suddenly, not too far removed from the now approaching: Dying Light 2 will release on
sequel to one of the finest survival/difficulty/terror-based FPS games ever 7 December. At the end of this year, we’ll finally
made. OK, and another technically – this is technically S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s third be able to see how accurate the hype was – just
sequel as there were two others back in the day. how much your actions will impact the story of
Anyway, what do we expect from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2? More dour-faced survivors the zombie-riddled civilisation. The original Dying
making whatever they can of a life inside the exclusion zone, dogged by Light was a slow burn, but ended up getting the
mutants and generally strange goings-on. More fearing other humans more respect it deserved as an energetic, atmospheric
than the creatures in the zone. More having the absolute bejesus scared out mix of parkour and brutal melee combat. If the
of you as a hitherto-invisible irradiated cloud of doom appears right on top of second game keeps on that track, we’ll be onto a
you. If this has just 10% the impact of the first game, it’ll be a winner. winner at the year’s end.

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Early Access

Dragon Quest XII:

The Flames of Fate
Not long after turning 35, Dragon Quest XII was
announced. Fittingly, it’s going to be a dark
fantasy tale ‘for adults’ – though probably not in
the same way Razzle is for adults – and it’ll be
the first game in the long-running series to get a
simultaneous worldwide release. Not much else
to go on for now, but definitely one to keep an
eye on, it being a JRPG legend and all.
Hot Wheels Unleashed
Milestone isn’t averse to licensed tie-ins – in fact, the majority of its releases are
based on one automotive brand or another. That said, it’s still a surprise – and a
pleasant one – to see the Italian team involved in bringing a game of wacky toy cars
to the world. There’s plenty of focus on the accuracy – and collectable nature – of
the Hot Wheels cars in the game, but also: there’s loops!

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp

Two of the best turn-based strategy titles of all time are getting the Nintendo
do-over treatment, and are heading directly for Switch at the end of 2021. Both
of the initial Advance Wars games are bona fide classics in the genre, so it’s
bound to be great fun heading back into them – the only question rests on the
change of artistic style, moving from sprites to 3D models in a fashion that can
only be described as “…oh”.

Sonic the Hedgehog

There’s absolutely nothing to go on here beyond
three key aspects: Sonic Team is working on a
new Sonic game, it’s coming in 2022, and there’s
a teaser trailer in which our little blue friend is
‘going fast’. Hope beyond hope it isn’t a stinker
like so many 3D Sonic games have been – if we
all just hope together, maybe the dream will
come true.

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Life through a lens

L I F E
TT H
H R O
R O U G H
H
A L E N S

W IT H SEVER AL P H OTOGRAPH Y-BAS ED IN DIE

T IT LES O N T HE WAY, WE FIND OUT WH Y TAKIN G
PICT U R ES IN GAMES IS S O S ATIS FYING

WRITTEN BY DAN COOPER

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Life through a lens

“L OOKING
DOWN A LE NS
AL TERS OUR
REL ATIONSHI P
WITH A G A M E ’S
WORL D”

F
rom the earliest cave-art to digital Many games are content to include a photo  huddering with every
S


shutter click in the
photography, making pictures has mode as a ‘bolted-on’ feature, and do so underrated Fatal Frame:
long been an intrinsic part of our brilliantly, providing players with an endless array Maiden of Black Water.

being. When the world feels too big or of creative options to capture thrilling or scenic
chaotic to comprehend, photography moments. Over the past few decades, though,
can act as a form of curation, allowing us to some developers have chosen to tightly weave
extract meaning from chaos by choosing and the camera into their narratives, redefining
capturing a chosen instant. the way each game’s protagonist, and to some
In their purest form, video games serve a degree, us as players, perceive that world.
similar function. Whether wielding an axe in Looking down a lens alters our relationship
God of War or a hoe to tend your pumpkin with a game’s world, and even the medium’s
patch in Stardew Valley, games are a simulation earliest attempts to capture this relationship
of humanity’s basest instinct: the need to bring reflected this. Gekibo: Gekisha Boy, released in
order to the world. And, as game worlds have 1992 for the PC Engine, was a side-scrolling
become larger and more complex, players have snap-‘em-up where the lead character – a
been granted increasingly sophisticated cameras recently orphaned, depressed teenager –
which they can use to document their own salvaged his spiralling academic career by
unique experiences within these spaces. navigating peril-filled levels and taking photos
along the way. Whether it realised it or not,
Gekibo developer Tomcat System had hit on one
Gekibo got a PlayStation


sequel called Polaroid Pete in of the fundamental tenets of photojournalism:

the US. Oddly, its camera isn’t that a single image can find meaning in a
actually a Polaroid.
random, sometimes senseless world.
Other games soon used cameras as a way to
explore a virtual environment; 1999’s Pokémon
Snap, for example, allowed players to observe
and appreciate fantastical creatures in their
‘natural’ habitats, rather than engaging in the
morally dubious practice of trapping them in
Poké Balls and occasionally forcing them to fight
each other. Titles like Fatal Frame (2001) and

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Life through a lens

PHOTO Beyond Good & Evil (2003), meanwhile, made

clever use of the camera as a game mechanic
difference. While games about viewing the world
down the sights of a firearm have long been
FINISH for busting ghosts and uncovering conspiracies. ubiquitous, Warco offered a different mission: to
One of the most innovative photography- document the human face of war, and uncover
Our cover feature in Wireframe themed games of the past decade was, the true cost of conflict rather than simply
#49, Martha is Dead is an regrettably, never released at all. In 2011, gunning down hordes of identical enemies.
upcoming period thriller that Australian developer Defiant sought to explore Warco never emerged from the development
uses photography to heighten
the way photojournalism could change the dark-room, but its concept was still a noteworthy
the game’s sense of realism:
course of history, as it had in the Vietnam War. step in the in-game camera’s evolution. Other
with your trusty box camera in
Called Warco, the game would have cast the games emerged with their own unique takes
hand, you can adjust the focus
and aperture size, then you player as a photojournalist dropped into the on the in-game camera, though, including
can head into your basement middle of a violent conflict in North Africa, armed 2015’s Life is Strange and Firewatch, released
dark-room to process the film with only a camera and the hope of making a a year later. Each made the camera essential
and develop your photos on to understanding – or appreciating – their
paper. For LKA, the camera respective worlds.
is a means of pulling the Five years on, and a newer crop of indie
player more deeply into the studios are working hard at evolving the camera
game, as they photograph
within their narrative-led titles, each of them
clues and record the world
seeking, in one way or another, to prompt
around them. “There are many
players to examine their worlds more closely,
elements that are important
to the gameplay, but the while also giving them the freedom to use the
camera is the most important camera to capture the world as they see it. One
one,” creative director Luca recent example is Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, a
Dalcò told us. “The idea is charming eco-fable we covered back in issue
to steer away from these 47. About a little girl attempting to save her
Uncovering conspiracies in Beyond Good & Evil (above)


old concepts of the walking and capturing memories in Life is Strange (below). Mediterranean island from being paved over
simulator – there’s different
stuff to do. I personally love
walking simulators, but I also
feel that the traditional walking
simulators have said what
they have to say, so one of
the challenges is to deliver a
strong narrative.”

“W H EN Y O U T R AVEL AND
V ISI T F O R EI G N CU LT U R ES,
T HE R E ’ S A LW AY S T HAT T ENSIO N
B E TWEEN B EI N G PA R T O F A
MO M EN T OR RECO R D ING IT ”

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Life through a lens

Warco was designed with a noble



aim: to teach photojournalists how to

prepare for a real war zone encounter.

by property developers, it offers a free-roaming

take on Pokémon Snap: you can go wherever you
like, capturing photos of the local wildlife on your
phone, while the results are logged in an app.
Photography’s only one aspect of Alba, but it’s a only gave you a finite number of shots via a Firewatch offers some of


the most breathtaking
pivotal one: it both allows the player to explore disposable camera. In that game, players had to views a game can offer, all
ready to snap on your
and better appreciate the game’s carefully think carefully about which of the beautiful vistas camera. Your photos play
animated creatures, and also helps further the to capture as their shots were limited. In Season, over the end credits.
plot. As designer David Fernández Huerta told us, the player faces some difficult decisions about
“Grandad shares his hobbies of birdwatching and which aspects of the world merit preserving on
hiking with [Alba, the game’s heroine]. It’s a way film and which will be lost to time.
for them to be close to a person they have limited
access to, but that they love with all their hearts.”
“Your goal in Season is to bear witness to a
world that is about to disappear, in order to
PICTURE
In Alba, photography forms one of the pillars record and try to transmit what’s important to PERFECT
of a deeply personal open-world adventure, future generations,” the team at Scavengers
and Scavengers Studio’s upcoming Season uses Studio tell us. “As such, we wanted the camera to We asked each of the dev
camera mechanics to a similarly heartfelt end. play a central role in the experience. When you teams which in-game camera
A gorgeous-looking indie adventure game set in travel and visit foreign cultures, there’s always mechanics have inspired them.
Here’s what they had to say:
the face of a mysterious cataclysm, Season is a that tension between being part of a moment or
bicycle road trip where you use your camera and recording it. When you pull out a camera, you’re Scavengers Studio:
other media to document your surroundings not into the moment anymore; you have already
“The camera in Zelda: Breath
before the oncoming catastrophe washes the extracted yourself from experience to record it.
of the Wild is interesting
world away. It’s a bitter-sweet premise that puts In building the game, we’re trying to capture that because you can play with the
choice at the heart of the player’s journey, and tension: ‘Should I enjoy the moment, or should I generative aspect of the game
extends Firewatch’s camera mechanic, which record it?’” to create and capture fun and
In our Instagram era, this is undoubtedly a unique compositions.”
relevant subject, and one thrown into relief by
the game’s pre-cataclysm setting, where an air of Something We Made:
finality pervades every decision. For every picture “I like Pokémon Snap, the
you choose to take, you’re forsaking everything Nintendo 64 one. It was a cool
beyond the frame of the image to memory. As the thing, and they really stepped
it up in the next one where you
team tell us: “Capturing an image fixes it in place.
can share your photos.”
It’s a way to bypass the erosion of time, at least
for a little while. It’s also a prosthetic of memory. Third Shift:
Photos we’ve taken sometimes seem to replace
“I really like the phone camera
our actual memories of an event. The underlying in GTA V. It was the first game
forces and themes at work there are what Season where you take selfies and I
is all about.” think that was an interesting
Pokémon Snap was an on-rails photographic safari
A perfect counterpart to Season is Forever commentary on the state of


that depicted Pokémon in their natural habitats. Ago. Beautifully crafted, it’s another road trip photography in general.”

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Life through a lens

DOG ’ S
B O LEX
If you want to satisfy your inner
photographer, then here are
three (relatively) recent titles
with great in-game cameras…

Life is Strange (2015)

The Polaroid instant camera
in DONTNOD’s Oregon-
based adventure perfectly
complemented the rewind time
function, providing an artistic about how to capture the topic of memories.
and creative flourish that Photographs are a good tool to dive into
underscored the game’s theme [memories], relive them, revisit places where you
about the passing of time.
took them. We also thought about flashbacks
[and] voice-overs, but none of them had that
core gameplay mechanic, like a camera does.”
The camera offered an ideal means for the
developers of both Season and Forever Ago to tell
stories in a way other game mechanics wouldn’t
allow. For the developers behind TOEM, a hand-
Firewatch (2016) Snapping birds in Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (above)


and capturing a dying world in Season (top). drawn indie title in development at Swedish
It wasn’t integral to the core
studio Something We Made, an in-game camera
game, but Firewatch gave you
a disposable camera, which
became a unique means of letting players
meant there were only so many adventure game with a camera mechanic at its appreciate the game’s captivating visuals.
shots of beautiful vistas you heart. Created by the two-man team at Third “We always had the art for TOEM, that’s how
could take. Players could even Shift, Forever Ago adopts a subtly different it started,” says CEO Niklas Mikkelsen. “We had
send their in-game photos narrative perspective from Season. Where Season this really cool art and we [weren’t sure how to
away to be developed into tasks players with documenting the world before proceed]. It was cool to walk around the game
physical prints. a catastrophe occurs, in Forever Ago, the tragedy’s world, but we didn’t know what to do with it. It
already happened. Its hero’s journey is one of took four different versions of TOEM to arrive at
redemption, with his trusty camera along for the the camera mechanic. It came from a telescope
ride. “We want to tell a story that took place a mechanic that we turned into a camera. It
couple of decades ago, and we want to visit these allowed you to really appreciate the art which
places in Forever Ago – this was the core idea of has always been at the forefront of the game.”
the game,” says developer Fabian Denter. “We More than anything, all three development
Dead Rising (2006)
thought a lot about how we could tie the past and teams we spoke with used a camera mechanic
Perhaps not one of the best, the present together. The camera came as a way to give players the freedom to interact with the
but certainly one of the
to do that pretty late in the process, but it turned games’ worlds on their own terms. “The camera’s
most fun. As photojournalist
out really well.” an incredible tool,” adds the dev team at
Frank West, getting dropped
into a game version of
“It was a late but obvious choice,” adds Kai Scavengers Studio, “because a lot of information
1978’s Dawn of the Dead Brueckers, the other half of Third Shift. “Before and knowledge couldn’t be captured through
was terrifying, wacky, and that, we thought about a lot of other mechanics words in Season; they’re captured in the walls,
fertile ground for some great such as the ‘ghost people’ that a lot of walking the sculptures, the animals, etc. Every single
photo opportunities. simulators use, but then we really thought detail tells you something new about that world.

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Life through a lens

What’s especially interesting about the camera inside Alfred’s [the game’s protagonist] photo
is that it allows you to zoom in on those details, collection, and that’s what makes the camera
record them, and put them side by side with interesting. Those players can shape how they
other recordings to create your impression of experience the story by capturing parts of it that
the world.” are important to them.”
“There are a lot of things you can do with It’s a sentiment echoed by Mikkelsen, who also
the camera as a mechanic in terms of just reminds us that perhaps the greatest advantage
capturing specific objects or items,” says Forever of the in-game camera is its universality. After all,
Ago’s Brueckers. “Or you can try and play with the still image is a form of visual language just
the viewfinder to reveal something or unlock about all of us can immediately understand. “We  he line art style is integral to
T


TOEM ’s atmosphere – and
additional narrative. That’s something we’re have a goal, and that’s to get our mums to play makes for great photographs.
playing with.” TOEM, understand it, and say ‘That’s so cute’ –
Although their games are very different, the and they’ve never played a game in their life! So
developers we spoke to agree that giving the right now, it’s zoom, snap, and you also have a
player free rein with the camera allows them honk button so you can wake people up or hurry
to form a meaningful relationship with that up snails, which is a far more important upgrade
world. This is especially true when a game’s for our camera.”
story is tightly scripted, since the freedom to Whether an in-game camera includes a ‘honk’
explore and interpret the world through a lens function or not, giving the player the means to
balances out the more restrictive elements of an form their own interpretation of a virtual world
authored narrative. “The story [in Forever Ago] is is undeniably powerful. It is, after all, a form
pretty linear,” continues Brueckers. “There are of expression we understood before we even
some story beats we have to get right, and that developed the power of words. As Scavengers
includes some photos that we intend the player Studio puts it: “What you choose to record or
to take. But we allow the players to immerse not record, and what you decide to save, is In Forever Ago, Alfred’s


camera is clipped to his
themselves in the world by taking pictures based on what you think is important. What you bag, meaning it’s always
at almost any time. They can review them believe matters in this life.” ready for a quick photo.

“W E A L LO W
PLA Y ER S T O
IM M E R S E
T HEM S E L V E S
IN T HE W O R LD
BY TAKING
PI C T U R E S ”

wfmag.cc \ 33
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Column

The struggle to
simplify sports games
F
ew games are quite as maligned not something that’s only packed in with a new
critically as current sports titles, game à la EA’s recent NHL 94 Rewind. A game
especially when compared to how that transcends the season it was released in
many units they usually shift. The list and is mercifully bereft of squad building and
of problems these titles have is spending piles of cash in the hope of packing
considerable, even compared to a decade ago highly rated players. Is that too much for people
when the main issue was that constant annual to ask? Why can’t someone just recreate the
updates made any version of a game that ideas that worked so well before? A lot of people
KIM JUSTICE wasn’t the latest one feel thoroughly disposable. seem to shout for a game like this whenever
Kim Justice is a Now, these bloated monsters are often filled the latest sports game-based controversy rears
YouTuber, streamer, with bugs. The single-player has been neglected its ugly head, and yet even the original creators
and writer who
specialises in the for years in favour of online multiplayer, and the of such games have found making them – and
world of retrogaming. promotion of loot crates getting people to play
If she isn’t making
lengthy documentary
and ultimate teams “It’s little wonder everyone them – tough going.
videos about old make the games feel, The truth is that there
games and companies, at best, like a blatant
who streams FIFA seems to are a lot of simpler
she’s probably chatting be perpetually angry”
and mouthing off cash grab, and at worst, sports games out there,
about them live to a a way to make children but even the best of
dedicated handful addicted to gambling. It’s little wonder that them don’t seem to find an audience beyond
of people.
everyone who streams the latest FIFA seems to a small niche. This is true even of the genre’s
be perpetually angry – always on the verge of most decorated developers – Sociable Soccer, the
smashing their controller in a frothing rage. spiritual follow-up to Sensi from original creator
It’s also no surprise that there are often Jon Hare, hasn’t had the smoothest of rides over
loud voices who pine for a return to something the years, and that’s nothing compared to the
simpler, a game that harks back to the likes of brutal treatment that Dino Dini’s Kick Off Revival
Sensible Soccer or the 16-bit NHL titles, something received on PS4. It seems sports games have an
that’s more about gameplay than ensuring that image problem that runs even deeper than the
Gareth Bale’s man bun is accurate, and certainly problems that plague the current big titles, and
it’s tough to separate the genre’s core audience
from the annual roster updates put out by EA
Sports with something that eschews graphics and
realism in favour of simple, addictive gameplay.
It’s a shame, as the best of these new games
deserve a lot more than to be sullied with the
age-old generic dismissals that usually greet
sports games.
The likes of Basketball Classics and Mutant
Football League are exceptional, and they make
for experiences just as fun as anything from back
Sensible Soccer is so unmaligned, it received
in the day, and it’d be even better if there were


an official Royal Mail stamp. people around to play with.

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 T H AT M A D E

OUT
“The Computers That Made Britain
is one of the best things I’ve read NOW
this year. It’s an incredible story of
eccentrics and oddballs, geniuses and
madmen, and one that will have you
pining for a future that could have been.
It’s utterly astonishing!”
- Stuart Turton, bestselling author
and journalist

Available on

Buy online: wfmag.cc/ctmb

 Interface
The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

The rise, fall,

& rise of the
3D platformer
Inspired by this month’s cover game, we
take a look back over the 3D platformer’s
glory days, underrated entries, and
recent return to the fore

WRITTEN BY RYAN LAMBIE & IAN DRANSFIELD

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The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

F
rom the middle of the 1990s to the start of
the 21st century, the 3D platformer was on
the ascendancy. Adding more freedom of

The Rise
movement than the side-scrolling ancestors
of previous hardware generations, the genre
exploded thanks to the likes of Super Mario 64 and Crash
Bandicoot. But by the 2000s, audiences had apparently
begun to tire of bouncing around colourful environs,
collecting trinkets; the FPS was on the up, and even
Nintendo began to shy away from the 3D platformer – a Super Mario 64 (1996)
genre it had a hand in popularising in the first place.
Over the past few years, though, the 3D platformer In mainstream terms, it’s the game that changed pretty much
has begun to sneak back into the spotlight: Playtonic’s everything. Here, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team didn’t just
Yooka-Laylee is a conscious throwback to Banjo-Kazooie, transplant what had been a resolutely 2D franchise into three
dimensions – they completely changed the boundaries of what a
designed by former Rare devs who worked on that
Super Mario game could be. There was the freedom of exploration,
series. Meanwhile, Super Mario Odyssey saw Nintendo
certainly, but there was also Mario’s fluid freedom of movement:
openly channel the spirit of Super Mario 64 in spectacular
jumps and dashes were joined by cartwheel flips, ground pounds,
style. Enough time has passed to make gamers yearn for crawls, punches, and more besides. The move to 3D wasn’t entirely
flawless – the camera system, while innovative, took a bit of
“The genre exploded thanks to getting used to – but Super Mario 64 was nevertheless a pivotal
game in a nascent genre.
the likes of Super Mario 64 and
Crash Bandicoot ”

those simpler, late 1990s days, certainly, but according

to Fabian Rastorfer, developer of our cover game Demon
Turf (see page 6), there’s more to the revival than pure
nostalgia. “It needed some time to re-evaluate itself as a
genre,” he tells us. “It’s like how Borderlands said, ‘What
if we combine an FPS with an RPG?’ And that kickstarted
the whole thing of RPG-ifying almost every genre.”
What’s more, games like Super Mario Odyssey and
Demon Turf are just the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to the genre’s revival. According to Rastorfer, Crash Bandicoot (1996)
there are several indie studios working on their own
platformers, all combining the staples we’d expect with It hasn’t aged as well as Super Mario 64, but Crash Bandicoot
modern ideas. “I can list five or six [forthcoming] games was nevertheless a key 3D platformer. First, it gave the then-new
that look amazing – all 3D platformers, but they look PSone a mascot of its own, endearing Sony’s newcomer to a
entirely different,” he says. “I think that’s why the genre’s younger generation of players. Second, it was a pivotal smash hit
for Naughty Dog, years before Uncharted and The Last of Us. And
becoming popular again, because it has the potential to
third, there’s some genuine technical innovation going on under
be awesome.”
that gaudy hood: as studio co-founder Andy Gavin related to Ars
To illustrate the rise, fall, and rise of the 3D platformer,
Technica, getting long, flowing 3D levels with varied textures was a
here’s a brief history of the genre, as seen through a new thing in 1996, and required some ingenious programming and
selection of its most prominent, noteworthy titles. problem-solving to pull off. But beyond all that, Crash Bandicoot is
also plain, old-fashioned fun: a chunky obstacle course of pitfalls,
fast-moving hazards, and juicy items to grab.

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The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
The British masters of upbeat
action games, Rare, threw

Rayman 2: The
their hat in the 3D platformer
ring with this charming
entry. Like Super Mario 64
and Crash Bandicoot, the
Great Escape (1999)
emphasis was firmly on
Rayman gets a bum rap, honestly – while Rayman Legends is
charging around and collecting stuff, but its ingenious level design,
one of the best 2D platformers ever made, the series tends to be
technical brilliance (this was a far more detailed-looking game
overlooked as a whole. This is especially true of Rayman 2: The
than those earlier rivals), and Rare’s warped humour made it a true
Great Escape – one of the absolute best 3D platformers, but one
standout. It’s a glimpse of the studio at its creative, comic height.
that’s rarely mentioned in the same breath as other genre greats like
Mario’s three-dimensional treats. Superb character designs, genuine

Spyro the Dragon (1998) laugh-out-loud moments, and captivating minute-to-minute play
alongside the genuine desire to go back and replay things just to get
every single lum you could – Rayman 2 is an overlooked classic.
Insomniac entered the 3D
platformer game soon after
the studio’s formation, with
Jak and Daxter: The
Precursor Legacy (2001)
the original Spyro marking
the team’s second-ever
release. And what a game it
was – a creative, atmospheric, With Crash passing through
and truly charming take on the formula, focusing on a fine blend the hands of different
of challenging platforming, varied exploration, and whimsical developers, creator Naughty
characters. Followed by two superior sequels, Spyro was a series Dog was left to its own devices
that flew somewhat under the radar, and only received the plaudits it for its first 3D platformer on
deserved following the Spyro Reignited Trilogy remaster in 2018. PS2 – and what a rebirth it
was. Jak and Daxter nailed
so much: a characterful, bright, and cheery take that flew in the face
of where gaming as a whole was heading. The formula for the genre
was well-established at this point, so the core concept might have
looked overly familiar to some, but it’s arguable that Precursor Legacy
is one of the best examples of a 3D platformer to date.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day (2001)

The naughtiest outing on
N64 pitted the foul-mouthed

Sonic Adventure (1998)

squirrel against challenges
such as a hangover and a
singing pile of poo. That the
Fans were demanding a true 3D Sonic game for ages, but we had game looked out of place on a
to wait until the Dreamcast era before we finally got one. Two Nintendo platform and arrived
points worth noting: Sonic Adventure hasn’t aged too well, and it so late in the console’s life meant that it was missed by many the
led directly to some of the most egregious examples of the genre first time around – subsequent re-releases on Xbox formats have
over the following decade-plus. But there’s no denying this was given Conker’s Bad Fur Day the broader audience it deserved. At
a spectacle when it first appeared; a brand new take on Sonic, a the same time, Conker worked as a portent for the 3D platformer:
system-seller, and a glimpse of a bright future for both Sega and its the old, cutesy style was on its way out, the future was in ‘mature’
blue mascot. If it had ended right there… well. games, and these two concepts didn’t necessarily mix very well.

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The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

I-Ninja (2003)
The Fall

It’s not that there weren’t good

3D platformers during the fall
period for the genre; it’s more
the interest of players was
elsewhere, and plenty of titles
were hugely overlooked as a
result. I-Ninja, from Argonaut
Super Mario Games, was just one of those games. It had all the hallmarks of

Sunshine (2002) a quick cash-grab, it’s fair to say – super-cutesy main character,
reference to ninjas, the sometimes-unreliable Namco on publishing
duties – but it would be doing the game a huge disservice to say
Even Mario wasn’t immune from the power of ‘meh’, with this it was anything other than: really good fun. A classic? Not at all.
GameCube entry still the most divisive in a series of games that, by A rush job hacked together and contributing to the downfall of an
and large, are unquestioningly praised to the hilt. It’s hard to put a entire genre? Well, no, not that either.
finger on what was really wrong with Sunshine – the emphasis on
gimmicky extras, the feeling it was (shockingly for Nintendo) a bit
rushed, all contributed to a general unease with the game. But, all
the same, a slightly worse Mario game is still significantly better Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004)
than most other 3D platformers. It just seems this one didn’t quite
have the audience for it at the time. Sidestepping the original,
Sucker Punch’s mix of noir,
thievery, and raccoons
Jak II (2003) was easily the best in this
overlooked foursome. A visual
treat from start to finish,
Probably the most egregious example of what happened to the 3D
the stylish sneaking and
platformer, Jak II – it’s fair to say – was not a bad game. It was a
mixture of stealth and classic 3D leaping worked together in perfect
good game. Some might say great. But what Naughty Dog did after
harmony, resulting in yet another must-play title in the genre on PS2.
the prior entry to the series – the whimsical, light-hearted, fun, and
After Sly, Sucker Punch moved on to Infamous, arguably another
pure platformer – was to turn it into GTA III. No, but really: Jak Theft
blend of GTA and 3D platformers (but with more superheroes) and
Auto would have been a more fitting name. It retained platforming
the universe of criminal creatures looks to be finished.
elements, of course, but far more focus went into the ‘flavour of the
month’ style of play: driving vehicles, taking on missions in an open

Kameo: Elements
world, and gunning down hordes of enemies. This should have been
a game, definitely, but it shouldn’t have been a Jak and Daxter game.

of Power (2005)
We wouldn’t argue if you were
to tell us Rare’s opening salvo
on the Xbox 360 was indeed
not a 3D platformer. It’s more
an action-adventure game
than anything else, just with
elements of gap-jumping
thrown in every now and then.
But it has to go in here, because it highlights a huge turning point for
the studio once synonymous with the best the genre had to offer:
Rare had been gobbled up by Microsoft, and now it was pumping
out mediocrity like Kameo. A fair effort, a bit of fun, with some good
ideas in it – but not the stone-cold classic we were used to, that we
expected from one of the UK’s finest dev teams.

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The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

The Return
Psychonauts (2005) Ratchet & Clank:
Psychonauts was meant to be the next big hope for the 3D
platformer: a world of fantasy and wild imagination, humour, which
A Crack in Time (2009)
carefully trod the line between classic, tight platform mechanics, Seven years into the series, Ratchet & Clank wasn’t going to win
and a more modern feel to things. It hit every note, it really did, but any awards for its vanilla platforming. Meanwhile, the emphasis
Psychonauts was an abject failure. Selling around 100,000 copies on gunplay was still fun, but it no longer felt fresh. What A Crack
on its first release, it nowhere near hit the lofty goals envisioned for in Time did, though, was bring in outside inspiration from the time
it. Psychonauts’ struggle helped – very publicly – send the genre where the 3D platformer had been sat on the sidelines – it mixed
into a tailspin. It’s all the more shocking when you remember how in the classic playstyle with time-based puzzles reminiscent of
good a game it was. indie darling Braid. Throwing this new element into the long-
running series served to mix things up wonderfully, resulting in

Super Mario Galaxy (2007)

what is arguably the series’ best release – somewhat ironically
because of its lesser emphasis on shooting and platforming.

Both this game and its sequel

arguably represented the
pinnacle of the 3D platformer
Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
to date: their mix of bite-sized,
Nintendo’s triumphant return to the 3D platformer, and a game
spherical levels, sense of
that both harks back to Super Mario 64 and improves on it in
experimentation, and sheer
every way possible. As Playtonic co-founder Gavin Price put it
imagination made them
to us this month, Super Mario Odyssey beautifully nests linear
truly world-class Super Mario games. The first game did well, but
courses and challenges within larger, 3D environments, creating
with sales of around six million, Galaxy 2 was a muted success
the perfect blend of focused and free-roaming play: “The world is
compared with the 2.5D New Super Mario Bros. on the DS and New
really just there as a playground for your moveset,” Price points
Super Mario Bros. Wii (both circa 30 million). Tellingly, Nintendo
out. Nintendo not only took a notoriously tricky genre and honed
didn’t attempt to make a Super Mario game as expansive and
it to perfection – but they did it with such low-key precision, and
ambitious as the Galaxy titles for another seven years.
made it look effortless.

Mirror’s Edge (2008)

Debatable if it is actually a
3D platformer in the purist’s
sense, we include it here
more as an example of
experimentation with the
genre, and to give an idea
of what was going on in this
period. DICE was keen to play about with something other than
Battlefield and put together an elegant mix of first-person shooter
(without much in the way of gunplay) and parkour. It worked as
a game, but it didn’t really find an audience – the first-person 3D
platformer renaissance is one we’re still waiting on to this day.

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The rise, fall, & rise of the 3D platformer

A Hat In Time (2017)

This charming throwback to the 1990s 3D platformers listed earlier
flew under the radar somewhat, perhaps because of its proximity
to a certain Italian plumber. Still, this is a sparky title from indie
It Takes Two (2021)
developer Gears for Breakfast, and it’s more than deserving of a
Another fine example of the modernisation of the genre, It Takes
second look if you haven’t already sampled its hat-based delights.
Two blends aspects of 3D platforming with some superb co-op
mechanics and a hearty chunk of action-adventure. This push

Yooka-Laylee (2017)
toward modernisation is extra surprising considering where it came
from – EA’s Originals label – with the publisher not really having very
much to do with the genre outside of a couple of TY the Tasmanian
One swallow doesn’t make a Tiger titles. It’s good, then, that It Takes Two is a fabulous little
summer, as the saying goes, game, both fun to play and awash with empathy in its narrative – a
but three 3D platformers perfect game to while away the hours with another player.
in one year is a sure sign
the genre’s back on the
ascendancy. Yooka-Laylee
was, of course, the debut
game from Playtonic, the studio formed by several ex-Rare devs.
While it isn’t perfect, Yooka-Laylee captures the spirit of the Banjo-
Kazooie series, both in its anarchic lead duo and the sprawl of its
vibrant levels. With the series bolstered by 2.5D spin-off, Yooka-
Laylee and the Impossible Lair, here’s hoping we’ll see Playtonic
continue to refine the 3D platformer genre in the years to come.

Crash Bandicoot 4:
It’s About Time (2020)
The remastered trilogies
of both Crash and Spyro

Psychonauts 2 (2021)
arrived in 2017 and 2018,
respectively, with both acting
as litmus tests for players’
appetites for nostalgia, It’s not the biggest game on this list, and frankly, nothing can
and for the viability of 3D approach Super Mario Odyssey in terms of quality – sorry, everything
platformers in the contemporary world. Turns out Activision thought else – but there’s definitely a poetry in Double Fine’s Psychonauts
the Crash trilogy’s performance was good enough to justify a full 2 finally releasing here in 2021. The original game was emblematic
new entry in the series: Crash Bandicoot 4 was born. Handily, of the decline of 3D platformers. Abandoned by Microsoft and
the sequel managed to please old-school fans while also adding (eventually) sent out to die, it’s entirely fitting that this long-awaited
exciting new elements to the franchise. Outside of Nintendo, Crash’s sequel arrives with the wholehearted backing of publisher/studio
fourth mainline adventure is one of the biggest – and best – steps owner Microsoft, welcomed warmly into an era where appreciation
back into the realm of 3D platformers by a major publisher. of the genre is back on the rise. The phoenix, she rises.

wfmag.cc \ 41
 Toolbox
Contents

Toolbox
The art, theory, and production of video games

44. Design Principles

The fine line between partying and productivity at Atari

46. CityCraft
Tips for designing an immersive city simulation

48. Creative Mode

How to make an engrossing block-building game in Unity

56. Narrative Design

Cinematic storytelling in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

58. Homegrown Bullet Hell

A guide to making your own side-scrolling shooter

64. Source Code I t’s party time at Atari

44


on page 44. Design

Make a ball-flipping pinball game in Pygame Zero legend Howard Scott
Warshaw tells all.

 ant to make a city as immersive

W

46


and systems-filled as Dishonored ’s

Dunwall? Then check out
Konstantinos’ tips on page 46.

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 Toolbox
Contents

48

 aking your own

M


creative block-building
game is easy – just follow
our guide on page 48.

56
 ow does Ratchet & Clank:
H


Rift Apart tell a cinematic

story in a video game
context? Antony lays it all
out on page 56.

 ove shoot-’em-ups as
L


much as we do? Then

make one of your own in
Python! See page 58.

58
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 Toolbox
Advice

The principles of
game design
This month, Howard provides a snapshot of the
hell-raising that went on behind the scenes at Atari…

AUTHOR
HOWARD SCOTT WARSHAW
Howard is a video game pioneer who authored several of Atari’s most famous
and infamous titles. His new book, Once Upon Atari: How I Made History by
Killing an Industry, is out now. onceuponatari.com

V
ideo game creation is unusual in The hot tub was situated in the two-storey
that developers need to be focused engineering building. This was ironic, because the
intently on achieving design goals hot tub generated way more than two stories in
while simultaneously battling tunnel that building. The VCS/2600 and Home Computer
vision and re-evaluating those goals. development groups were upstairs. The first floor
It’s a demanding and frustrating predicament. held coin-op development, a kitchen/cafeteria,
Therefore, a solid video game creator needs and an extremely well-appointed gym. The gym
two things: a way to let ideas simmer (since featured two appendages: a locker area and the
rumination is how games grow from mediocre hot tub room. Many shenanigans were hatched
to fabulous) and a way to blow off steam (since and/or executed in the hot tub. One from the
frustration abounds while trying to achieve more epic end of the spectrum comes to mind:
fabulous). At Atari, there was one place where the executive birthday surprise.
things both simmered and got steamy… the hot It was during the birthday celebration of a VP
tub. The only thing we couldn’t do was keep a lid who shall remain nameless, but it might have
on the antics cooked up inside. been the one who used to keep a canister of
nitrous oxide and another of pure oxygen in
his office. The nitrous oxide was for getting
high and laughing some time away, while the
oxygen was used for rapid sobering up in the
event a spontaneous meeting was called (which
happened regularly at Atari). As the party raged
on, a small crew of revellers migrated to the
small but accommodating hot tub room. Various
intoxicants (well beyond the scope of nitrous)
were being consumed in celebration of the
special event (although by this standard, nearly
every day was a special event at Atari).
As the party rolled on, inhibitions were shed
along with numerous articles of clothing. At one
point, the birthday boy was adjudged to be in
dire need of a proper tubbing as he hadn’t lost
sufficient layers to keep pace with the party at
 Refreshments were
readily available at
large. The birthday boy disagreed, and the ensuing
Atari in its heyday. negotiation took the form of a lively chase around

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 Toolbox
Advice

Insert Disc
The hot tub wasn’t the only form
of recreation we had at Atari,
nor were video games for that
matter. We would occasionally
actually leave the building and
do something outside. A game
or two of ultimate Frisbee used
to be good sport now and then.
Sometimes, while sitting in the
hot tub, I would look down and
think, “This stomach used to
be much smaller and better
defined.” In fact, there was
a time when I was actually
sporting a solid six-pack. Of
course, I don’t know how to
phrase that in the UK. What’s the
metric conversion for six-pack?
 moment of relative calm in Atari’s
A


offices, circa the early 1980s. There’s

Howard nearest the camera on the right.

the area. The VP ran out of the hot tub room and between work and antics. It takes passion and
headed for the workout area with a wet posse in commitment to pursue side quests productively
hot pursuit, all in varying stages of undress. and yet remain on task when necessary.
It’s important to note here that although The main reason this was a challenge comes
refreshments and revelry were widely available down to the fact there are so many distractions
at Atari, one item in short supply was conference constantly going on. Creative people tend to be
rooms. Consequently, meetings could pop up creative frequently and spontaneously. Also, their
in odd locales. Any place an aggregation could creativity is much more motivated by fascination
be achieved was a potential meeting spot. The and interest than it is by task lists or project plans.
sensitivity of the subject matter would determine Fun can break out at any moment, and answering
the level of privacy the call isn’t always the
required on a case-by-case “We used to chat about right choice, no matter  etween developing games,
B


basis. Since people weren’t how compelling the siren. Howard and Atari’s other

always working out, the

where the edge is Rob Fulop, creator of
programmers found time to
play a bit of Frisbee.
gym had enough places to between work and play” Missile Command and
sit that it could serve as a Demon Attack for the Atari
decent host for gatherings. And as for sensitivity, 2600 (among many other hits) isn’t only a great
the hot tub room was well sound-proofed, so game maker, he’s also a keen observer of human
intruding ears weren’t a concern. nature. We used to chat about just where the
As the crew of rowdy revellers followed the VP edge is between work and play at Atari. Those
into the workout area, they were confronted by who misjudge it can easily fall off the cliff.
just such a collection of executives who happened Likewise, we explored the concept of what
to be meeting at the time. I don’t think the birthday makes a good game designer. Rob said it’s
party was on the agenda. However, they may have just the right combination of silly and anal. He
been pleased that the absentee VP had ultimately believed that the people who did well at Atari (and
decided to join their number. It was embarrassing as game makers in general) were the people who
for some, entertaining for others, and nearly could be silly enough to recognise fun, and anal
career-ending for a couple. The moral of this enough to get all the minutia and details aligned
story being that Atari executives should never go correctly in order to deliver the fun. Of course,
anywhere without their oxygen tanks in tow. Rob (being the poet he is) created a wonderful
But morals aside, there was work to be done phrasing to describe those with the right stuff.
at Atari. In a place where work can lead to antics He put it like this: the people who did well at Atari
and antics can lead to work breakthroughs, it’s were the people who could goof around as much
difficult at times to suss out the precise boundary as possible but still go to heaven.

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 Toolbox
Advice

Designing cities for

immersive sims
How can we design an immersive city as impressive
as Dishonored’s Dunwall? Konstantinos has some tips

AUTHOR
KONSTANTINOS DIMOPOULOS
Konstantinos Dimopoulos is a game urbanist and designer combining a PhD
in urban planning with video games. He is the author of the Virtual Cities atlas,
designs game cities, and consults on their creation. game-cities.com

I
mmersive sims – games like Dishonored, webs, and districts can both accommodate
System Shock, or Thief – put their genre needs and inspire designs. The internal
emphasis on player choice, and provide differentiation of urban space can be taken
us with a seemingly endless array of stuff advantage of to create areas and missions
to do. Such games aim to create a sense with specific focuses, whereas the density and
of granularity and cohesiveness in worlds packed complexity compressed into relatively small
with overlapping systems. They attempt to areas allows for all kinds of storytelling and
spatially immerse their audiences in convincing, gameplay ideas in the same area. Game cities
believable spaces able to react to any in-game additionally offer countless opportunities for
action, and allow new gameplay possibilities side missions or secondary objectives, and allow
to emerge. Warren Spector, one of the genre's players to use familiar spaces in unfamiliar ways.
fathers, famously said immersive sims create the Immersive sim spaces need to feel textured
feeling of there being nothing standing between and tangible, and so attention to detail is crucial.
players and the game, and make them believe Such games must convey a strong sense of
they really are in an alternate world. in-world realism, if only to suspend players'
disbelief, and allow them to understand how
PALPABLE ENVIRONMENTS the virtual world surrounding them works. They
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss was a force players to pay attention to all the qualities
 Burglar’s Guide to the
A
groundbreaking RPG widely considered to be of their environment and learn to take advantage


City : an essential read for

budding sim designers. the first immersive sim. Both it and its sequel of its functions, as even the slightest detail can
mostly took place in architecturally convincing determine the outcome of a mission. In Thief:
dungeons, but despite the games' success, the The Dark Project, for example, light and sound
genre quickly moved above ground, and showed must always be taken into account if players are
its love for urban environments like the ones to remain hidden, whereas walking on stone
in the Thief series. Cities do, after all, handily rather than on a carpet can tip a guard off.
come with built-in complexities, familiar and Architectural qualities also play an important
interdependent systems, intriguing geometries role in Thief. The combination of building
and verticalities, and are full of people. Often, volumes and torch placement creates everything
city life itself requires creative solutions to from safe hiding spaces to completely exposed
complex problems. positions. Even the urban designs around core
Immersive sims can cover a variety of levels force players to carefully traverse ill-lit
genres, ranging from stealth games and RPGs, roads while looking for accessible and hopefully
to platformers, shooters, and survival horror unguarded entry points, avoiding patrols or
offerings. The multipurpose, interconnected entertaining the option of entering via handily
spaces of cities, their networks, societal placed wells and sewer gates. Similarly, the

46 / wfmag.cc
 Toolbox
Advice

Ultima Underworld (1992) was the game whose



cohesive spaces, multiple play style options, and

impressive physics gave birth to the immersive sim.

urbanism of Dishonored ensured Dunwall came  he architectural choices

T


that shaped the striking
with well-placed vantage points, accessible image of Dishonored 's city
balconies, sewage systems, bridges, yards, – unless we create it in a procedural or semi- of Dunwall were also crucial
in providing gameplay
and roofs allowing creative players to discover procedural way, that is. Quality, handcrafted options to players.
several access points and entry paths to their levels can effectively form smaller parts of much
target buildings. Back-alleys, utility connections, larger cities: a road, a neighbourhood, a building,
maintenance infrastructure, and small service a block and its environs, a palace, or a park.
doors often provide an overlooked but important Levels are the nodes in an implied urban tissue,
set of level details to any game employing often connected to a hub-like structure. Travelling
acrobatics, stealth, and breaking-and-entering. to and from a hub can help imply the size of a
larger city, as can maps, dialogue references, well-
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS selected views, in-game paintings or descriptions,
The game design philosophy guiding immersive and even obvious suggestions of repeating urban
sims is focused on the interactions with reactive planning patterns.
and consistent game systems that can allow for The opening level of the original Deus Ex is
emergent gameplay to happen, and heighten an excellent example of immersive sim level
the sense of player agency. Consistency and design. It’s a legible, tiny bit of New York City
the legibility of space where the possibilities
should therefore guide “Game cities offer felt vast, and the lights A BURGLAR'S
all relevant level design
countless opportunities
of the Manhattan skyline POV
choices. Systems and provided all the civic Published in 2016, Geoff
rules must be stuck for side missions” atmosphere we could ask Manaugh's A Burglar’s Guide
to wherever possible, for. The level itself offers to the City (burglarsguide.
and though urbanism and environmental clear gameplay alternatives when it comes to com) isn’t just an interesting,
storytelling shouldn’t get in the way of the going down the stealthy, hacking, or shooting fun read about criminals, cities,
game itself, they have to be treated with care. paths, and is surprisingly easy to navigate, as and architecture. It's also a
Players will thoroughly examine our worlds, so your goal (the Statue of Liberty) is a constantly completely novel look at the
spaces and volumes of cities
they must stand up to scrutiny. This is exactly visible landmark, the boundaries absolute, and its
and their buildings; an approach
why immersive sims tend to come with fully distinct areas highly recognisable.
to urban space that ignores
realised settings featuring religions, societies, Finally, when dreaming up ways urban systems
formal entrances, instead
fashions, technologies, economies, and histories. and networks can be incorporated into your focusing on unexpected entry
Dunwall's whale-oil economy and its related level design, just think about how something as points into private spaces,
technologies, for example, drove much of the simple as a power cut could create a dramatic and imaginative navigations
world-building, but also much of the level and mission: the player could be asked to cut off and uses of the urban fabric.
game design. the electricity to a particular district in order to Ultimately, it's a book packed
A video game city, with all its NPCs, multiple silence alarms and turn off CCTV cameras. With with ideas and inspirations for
paths, and density of detail, can often mean that a a bit of imagination, the design possibilities of a immersive sim designers.
purely open-world approach is all but impossible video game city are almost endless.

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 Toolbox
Craft your own Creative Mode in Unity

Craft your own

Creative Mode in Unity
Dig into the design genius of Minecraft by building
your own take on its Creative Mode

AUTHOR Download
RHETT THOMPSON the code
from GitHub:
Rhett Thompson is an indie game developer by heart, and a web developer
wfmag.cc/
by trade. He’s currently working with SentrySoftSolutions to help bring Texas
wfmag53
community corrections facilities to the cloud. keybored.app

F
or many young (and not so young) we’ll need are a 3D modelling program and a
minds alike, Minecraft is the perfect 2D image editor. You can use whatever you like,
creative sandbox: an open medium but I’ve used the newest versions of Blender
that allows us to experiment, create, and GIMP. They’re both free, work well, and the
and play. For all these reasons, it’s the installation (from blender.org and gimp.org)
perfect example to recreate as a learning tool. is straightforward.
Before we jump into coding, let’s first get the
project setup out of the way. The code itself MOVEMENT AND CONTROLS
should run on most versions of Unity, but I’m With the setup out of the way, make a new Unity
using Unity 2019.4.10 LTS. If you’re unfamiliar project with the 3D template so we can get
with how to install Unity, you could head to started. First, let’s work on creating the player
Wireframe #3 and read the Unity tutorial on GameObject. Inside the default game scene,
 igure 1: If your Player
F page 34 (wfmag.cc/3). The only other tools right-click in the Hierarchy and select Create


object looks like this,

you’re good to go!
Empty. Rename that object from GameObject
to Player. In the Inspector panel, change its
Transform Position to X: 0, Y: 1, Z: -10. Drag and
drop the Main Camera so it’s a child of Player.
Then, right-click inside the Project panel and
select Create > C# Script. Name it PlayerCtrl.
Drag it onto the Player GameObject. Your
Hierarchy should now look like Figure 1. Next,
open the PlayerCtrl script in your favourite code
editor and add the following:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class PlayerCtrl : MonoBehaviour {

public float flySpeed = 10f;
public float rotateSpeed = 2f;
Camera cam;

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 t a glance, you
A


might mistake this
for the real deal!
Vector3 camRot = new Vector3(0, 0, 0); The code starts by defining some variables:
flySpeed and rotateSpeed can be adjusted
void Start() { inside the Unity Inspector to suit your control
Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.Locked; preferences. cam will store a reference to the
Cursor.visible = false; Main Camera. And camRot will save the Player’s
cam = Camera.main; up or down rotation between frames. In the
} Start() function, lock the mouse in the middle
of the screen, hide it from the user, and find the
void Update() { Main Camera in the game scene. In Update(), first,
float mouseX = Input.GetAxis(“Mouse X”); read the current mouse movement and then
float mouseY = Input.GetAxis(“Mouse Y”); rotate the Player GameObject according to that
movement left/right using RotateAround() and
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, up/down by adding the values to camRot.x. Be
Vector3.up, mouseX * rotateSpeed); sure to adjust sensitivity based on rotateSpeed,
use -mouseY to prevent an inverted axis, and
camRot.x += -mouseY * rotateSpeed; clamp/limit the rotation so the player can’t turn
camRot.x = Mathf.Clamp(camRot.x, -90, 90); all the way upside-down. Remember, cam is a
cam.transform.localEulerAngles = camRot; child to the Player GameObject, so we apply the
new rotation to its local transform. Then, read
float vertInput = Input.GetAxis(“Vertical”); keyboard input from the WASD, SPACE, and LEFT-
float horiInput = Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”); SHIFT keys through the Vertical, Horizontal, Jump,
float jumpInput = Input.GetAxis(“Jump”) - and Fire3 axes. Note, there isn’t a default input
Input.GetAxis(“Fire3”); axis that will read both SPACE and LEFT-SHIFT, so
we combine two different axes to work together.
Vector3 move = Vector3.zero; Next, save everything in both Unity and the
move.x += horiInput * flySpeed; code editor. Every time we make a code change,
move.y += jumpInput * flySpeed; be sure to save the file. This lets Unity know it
move.z += vertInput * flySpeed; needs to recompile the script. If you press Play
transform.Translate(move * Time.deltaTime); now, you won’t see much of anything. Don’t
} worry: the script is working fine, but we need
to add a cube to the scene so we can actually
} tell that the Player is moving. Right-click in the

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Now, let’s add the crosshair to our game

scene. Right-click in the Hierarchy and select
UI > Canvas. Right-click on the Canvas that was
just created and select UI > Image. Click on the
Image object that was just created. From the
Project panel, drag the crosshair file onto the
‘Source Image’ property of the Image object.
Make sure the Pivot property is set to X: 0.5, Y:
0.5 (this will keep the crosshair in the middle of
the screen). Depending on how you made the
 Figure 2: Be sure your
crosshair image has
crosshair image, you might need to adjust the
these settings. Scale property to make it smaller (I keep mine
set to: X: 0.25, Y: 0.25, Z: 0.25). Confirm your
settings by checking Figure 3.
Hierarchy and select 3D Object > Cube. Now
press Play again, and you’ll find testing the BLOCKS
WHAT’S A MESH? movement much easier. Minecraft wouldn’t be Minecraft without blocks!
To find the normal vector that Let’s add the building functionality now.
tells which direction to place
CROSSHAIR UI First, let’s modify the Cube we added to the
a new block in, we based all
What first person game is complete without a scene earlier so it’s more Minecraft-y. Select
the maths on the mesh of the
crosshair in the middle of the screen? the Cube inside of the Hierarchy. Rename it to
previous block. But if you’re a
bit newer to game development, Let’s add this now. Either make your own Block. In the Inspector, right-click Box Collider
you might be wondering, “What’s crosshair sprite using GIMP or download mine and select Remove Component. Click ‘Add
a mesh?” I’m glad you asked! from the GitHub link (wfmag.cc/wfmag53). Component’ and search for ‘Mesh Collider’. Click
A mesh is simply all of the 3D Import the image file by on ‘Mesh Collider’ in the
model data for a particular dragging it from your search results to add it
GameObject. In this case, that
“Minecraft wouldn’t
File Explorer into the to the Block.
would be the cube model used Unity Project panel. be Minecraft For the texture, either
for a block. You might further ask,
Click on the crosshair without blocks!” create one in GIMP or use
“What are 3D models made out
image to bring it up in mine by downloading the
of?” The answer’s triangles. Every
the Inspector. Change the Texture Type from file named wireframe.png from GitHub. Import the
3D model can be represented as
a bunch of triangles, which allows ‘Default’ to ‘Sprite (2D and UI)’. Change Filter texture by dragging it into the Unity Project panel.
us to calculate all sorts of useful Mode from ‘Bilinear’ to ‘Point (no filter)’. Click Right-click in the Project panel and select Create
things. To find out more about 3D Apply (which is at the bottom of the Inspector > Material. Name it BlockMat. Select the newly
models and triangles, check out panel). Confirm your Inspector settings by created material and in the Inspector change its
this video: wfmag.cc/triangles. checking Figure 2. Shader property from Standard to Unlit > Texture.
Drag the wireframe (or your texture) image onto the
property of the material that says None (Texture).
Drag the new BlockMat material from the Project
panel and drop it on top of the Block GameObject
in the Hierarchy panel. Finally, drag the Block
GameObject from the Hierarchy into the Project
panel to save it as a prefab. If the Block in your
game scene changed to have the image texture of
your choice, you’ve done these steps correctly. To
verify your Block settings, check out Figure 4. Do
the same for BlockMat via Figure 5.
Next, make a new C# script that will control
block placement. Right-click inside the Project
panel and select Create > C# Script. Name it
 Figure 3: Make sure your BlockCtrl. Drag it onto the Player GameObject
Hierarchy has this layout,
and your UI image has
inside the Hierarchy. Open the BlockCtrl script
these settings. and add the following:

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using System; Vector3 point1 = verts[vertIndex1];

using UnityEngine; Vector3 point2 = verts[vertIndex2];
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic; Vector3 side1 = point1 - point0;
Vector3 side2 = point2 - point0;
public class BlockCtrl : MonoBehaviour { Vector3 triNormal = Vector3.Cross(side1,
public float buildReach = 10f; side2);
public GameObject[] blockCatalog; triNormal = triNormal.normalized;
int activeID = 0;
GameObject blockGroup; Vector3 newBlockPos = pointRay1.transform.
Camera cam; position + triNormal;

void Start() { if ( Input.GetButtonDown(“Fire2”) ) {

cam = Camera.main; GenBlock(newBlockPos);
blockGroup = new GameObject(“---Block }
Group---”);
GenBlock(Vector3.zero); if( Input.GetButtonDown(“Fire1”) ){
} Destroy(pointRay1.collider.gameObject);
}
void Update() { }
RaycastHit pointRay1; }
if (Physics.Raycast(cam.ScreenPointToRay(Input.
mousePosition), out pointRay1, buildReach)){ GameObject GenBlock(Vector3 pos){
Mesh hitMesh = pointRay1.collider.gameObject. GameObject blockObj =
GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh; Instantiate(blockCatalog[activeID], pos, Quaternion.
Vector3[] verts = hitMesh.vertices; identity, blockGroup.transform);
int[] tris = hitMesh.triangles; blockObj.name = “Block”;
return blockObj;
int triangleStartIndex = pointRay1. }
triangleIndex*3;
}  igure 5: Your
F


BlockMat material
int vertIndex0 = tris[triangleStartIndex];
should look like this.
int vertIndex1 = tris[triangleStartIndex + 1];
int vertIndex2 = tris[triangleStartIndex + 2];

Vector3 point0 = verts[vertIndex0];

 igure 4: Your Block

F


GameObject should
look like this.

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This code begins by defining some variables: facing. In turn, this tells us in which direction
buildReach will determine the max distance the a new block should be placed. It would be
player can place/destroy blocks. blockCatalog is nice if Unity stored this information for us, but
an array that will hold all of our different block Unity stores mesh normals per vertex, not per
prefabs. activeID controls which block prefab will triangle. So, we’ll have to calculate this the old-
be placed once the player clicks. It maps to an fashioned way (see Figure 6 for a visualisation
index in blockCatalog. blockGroup will hold an of this process.) Once you find triNormal, be
empty GameObject that will act as a parent to sure to normalise the vector. We only need
hold all the blocks inside of the game scene. the direction, not the magnitude. Remember,
The Start() function initialises blockGroup the normal tells which direction the new block
and calls GenBlock() to generate a default block should be placed in. To find the new block’s
at the coordinate system’s origin. Without this, position, simply add the normal to the position
no other blocks can be placed. of the old block.
In the Update() function, first check if casting Handling player input is easy. If the player
a ray from the mouse position, with buildReach clicks the right mouse button (Fire2), place a
as its length, will hit anything. If the ray did hit a new block. If the player clicks the left mouse
block, grab a reference button (Fire1), destroy
from the RaycastHit “Open the BlockCtrl script, the block the player’s
data to the mesh of looking at.
that block. Then copy its
and let’s add the ability to The GenBlock()
vertices and triangles. place different blocks” function will create new
RaycastHit.triangleIndex blocks for us. It accepts
is the index of the whole triangle hit by the ray. In a Vector3 position and returns a new block
other words, it’s not an index in any of the arrays, GameObject. When you instantiate the block, be
but rather the number that maps a mesh triangle sure to use the activeID to get the right prefab
to the tris array. Mathematically, that means from the blockCatalog, and make it a child of the
 igure 6: To calculate
F the index of the first point of the triangle can be blockGroup GameObject.


a triangle normal, first found by multiplying triangleIndex by 3. Now that We’re almost ready for a good playtest, but
find two vectors that
represent sides of the we know the triangleStartIndex, we can look up first, head back to the Unity Hierarchy and do
triangle. Then, take
the cross product of
each triangle point’s Vector3 position using the the following. Select the Block GameObject and
those vectors. value of the tris array. Remember, the tris array delete it from the game scene. Select the Player
just holds integer values that map to indices GameObject and, in the Inspector, drill-down
(which hold Vector3 objects) in the verts array. Block Catalog to reveal the array’s options.
Next, we have to do a normal vector Change Size from 0 to 1. Inside the Project panel,
calculation. The normal of a triangle tells the find the Block prefab and drag it over to the
rendering system which direction the triangle’s Element 0 property of Block Catalog. To verify
your Block Catalog settings, check out Figure 7.
Now, press the Play button and watch the
magic unfold! Aww, isn’t there something
wonderfully soothing about freely placing
blocks? Once you’ve played to your heart’s
content, open the BlockCtrl script. Now, let’s add
the ability to place different blocks.
Insert the following at the beginning of the
Update() function:

void Update() {

float scrollInput = Input.GetAxis(“Mouse

ScrollWheel”);
 Figure 7: You’ll add
more blocks inside if(scrollInput > 0) {
the Block Catalogue
activeID++;
soon! Remember
these steps. if(activeID > blockCatalog.Length-1) {

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Craft your own Creative Mode in Unity

 proper UV map
A


allows different images

to be mapped to each
side of the block.

activeID = 0; increase the Block Catalog’s Size by +1. Drag and

} drop the new Block 1 prefab from the Project
} panel into the newly created Element 1 property
else if(scrollInput < 0){ of the Block Catalog. You can repeat these steps
activeID--; to add as many new blocks as you want!
if(activeID < 0){
activeID = blockCatalog.Length-1; COSMETIC CRAFT
} Now that the core functionality is finished, let’s
} add some cool stylistic touches. Let’s start by
… adding a fairly small change in the code of the
BlockCtrl script that will show what block the
This bit of code starts by grabbing the player’s player currently has selected:
I like using Unity’s
scroll wheel input. If the player scrolled in the


Default-Checker-Gray
positive direction, increment to the next block public class BlockCtrl : MonoBehaviour { as a test texture. You
can find this by
ID. If activeID reaches a number greater than the ... clicking Select at the
max catalog index, loop back to the first index. If GameObject blockPreview; bottom-right corner of
the material’s texture
instead the player’s scroll is negative, decrement property in the
Inspector panel.
to the previous block ID. If activeID reaches a void Start() {
number less than the first index, loop to the ...
max index. RenderPreview();
Let’s head back to the Unity editor and }
create a second Block prefab. Select the Block
prefab in the Project panel. Press CTRL+D (or void Update() {
COMMAND+D on macOS) to duplicate the ...
prefab. Also, select and duplicate the BlockMat if(scrollInput > 0) {
material in the same way. Then, select the new activeID++;
material (which is named BlockMat 1) and in if(activeID > blockCatalog.Length-1) {
the Inspector, change its texture to something activeID = 0;
different from the first block’s. Apply BlockMat 1 to }
the new prefab (which is named Block 1) via drag RenderPreview();
and drop in the Project panel. In the Hierarchy, }
select the Player GameObject. In the Inspector, else if(scrollInput < 0){

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The code above does the following: first,

add a new field named blockPreview. This will
hold a GameObject showing the current block
to the player. In Start(), call RenderPreview()
to spawn the initial blockPreview. In Update(),
re-render the blockPreview each time the player
scrolls to a different block ID. Do this for both
the positive and negative scroll directions.
In the RenderPreview() function, first destroy
the old blockPreview. Then, instantiate a new
blockPreview as a child of the cam GameObject.
Finally, set the new blockPreview’s local position
 igure 8: The Unity
F so it will look like the player is holding it in their


animation panel can be

a bit tricky, so check hand. The player now has a nice preview of what
these settings. activeID--; block they’re using before placing it.
if(activeID < 0){ Next, let’s add a build animation. Right-click
activeID = blockCatalog.Length-1; inside the Project panel and select Create >
} Animator Controller. Name it BlockAnimator.
RenderPreview(); Drag it onto the Block prefab to add an
} Animator component. Do this on every Block
... prefab. Right-click on the Block prefab and
} select Open. This will open ‘Prefab Mode’. From
the menu bar at the top of the screen, open
void RenderPreview() { Window > Animation > Animation. Make sure
Destroy(blockPreview); Block is selected in the Hierarchy, then click
blockPreview = the Create button in the Animation panel. Save
Instantiate(blockCatalog[activeID], cam. the animation with the name IdleAnimation.
transform); Click ‘Add Property’. Drill-down Transform,
blockPreview.transform.localPosition = new and select the ‘+’ next to Rotation. Create a
Vector3(1,-1,2); new clip and save it as BuildAnimation. Add
} the Rotation property again. Drag the timeline
... scrubber to 0:30. Drill-down Block : Rotation.
Change Rotation.x to 45. Exit Prefab Mode
} by clicking the arrow at the top-left corner of

 Figure 9: Left image shows

the transition settings for
IdleAnimation >
BuildAnimation. Right
image shows the transition
settings for BuildAnimation
> IdleAnimation.

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the Hierarchy. Check out Figure 8 to verify all

your key frames. Now, set up the Animator
Controller. With BlockAnimator selected inside
the Project panel, click Window > Animation
> Animator from the menu bar. Making sure
Parameters is highlighted at the top left-hand
corner, click the ‘+’, select Trigger, and name it
buildTrigger. Right-click on IdleAnimation, select
Make Transition, and click on BuildAnimation to
set a transition. Select the new transition arrow,
and add to it a condition set to buildTrigger.
Then, create an opposite transition from
BuildAnimation to IdleAnimation, but leave it
without any conditions. (Note both of these
transitions require extra settings that are shown
in Figure 9.) Finally, the playback speed of the
animation might be a little sluggish. So, select
BuildAnimation and set its Speed to 3. When it’s  igure 10: BlockAnimator
F


should have this
all said and done, your Animator panel should configuration.
look like Figure 10. Now, add a tiny bit of code in CubeUV in the Project panel. In the Inspector,
the BlockCtrl script: change Read/Write Enabled to true (or check
the checkbox). Click ‘Apply’. Now, download
… UVOutline.png from GitHub. Then Import
if ( Input.GetButtonDown(“Fire2”) ) { UVOutline.png by dragging it into the Unity
GenBlock(newBlockPos); Project panel. Select UVOutline in the Project
blockPreview.GetComponent<Animator>(). panel. In the Inspector, change Filter Mode to
SetTrigger(“buildTrigger”); ‘Point (no filter)’. Click ‘Apply’.
} Now we’ve imported both the CubeUV model
and a texture, let’s create a new BlockUV prefab.
if( Input.GetButtonDown(“Fire1”) ){ In the Project panel, select and duplicate the
Destroy(pointRay1.collider.gameObject); BlockMat material. Rename the new material
blockPreview.GetComponent<Animator>(). to BlockUVMat. Select BlockUVMat and, in the
SetTrigger(“buildTrigger”); Inspector, change its texture to UVOutline.
} Drag CubeUV from the Project panel into the
Hierarchy. Select it inside the Hierarchy and
… rename it to BlockUV. In the Inspector, click ‘Add
Component’. Search for ‘Mesh Collider’ and add
VERTICES &
In the code that checks for mouse clicks, this it. Drag BlockAnimator from the Project panel
tells blockPreview to trigger the build animation. and drop it onto BlockUV inside the Hierarchy.
TRIANGLES
It triggers the same animation when placing or Do the same with BlockUVMat. Drag BlockUV Mesh.triangles is an array of
destroying blocks. from the Hierarchy into the Project panel to integer values that correspond
to indices in the Mesh.vertices
The final feature our game needs is block UV save it as a prefab. If a popup asks if you want
array. So, in our code, every
texture mapping. Currently, the block prefabs to create a “new original Prefab or a variant”,
three entries in tris represent
only have a single image on every side. To select Original Prefab. Delete the now unneeded one triangle of the mesh. For
change this, we’ll need to import a different BlockUV from the game scene Hierarchy, but example, if tris looked like
block model with a correct UV map. If you’re keep the prefab in the Project panel. Add the [0,2,3, 0,3,1, 8,4,5, ...], that
familiar with 3D modelling, feel free to create BlockUV prefab to the Player GameObject’s would mean the first triangle
your own cube UV model. If not, don’t worry: Block Catalog like we did before. of the mesh is made of the
I’ve set up a properly mapped model you can There we have it: a fully functional, Minecraft- indices 0,2,3 of the verts array.
download from GitHub. style creative mode demo. Give it a playtest, To put it another way, it is
Go ahead and download/import the file now. then try adding more blocks by creating your made of the points verts[0],
verts[2], verts[3].
Drag the CubeUV.fbx file from your File Explorer own textures – or importing more of ours
window into the Unity Project panel. Select from GitHub at wfmag.cc/wfmag53.

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Advice

Ratchet & Clank

isn’t a movie
This month, Antony opens up Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
to demonstrate some game storytelling fundamentals

AUTHOR
ANTONY DE FAULT
Antony is Wireframe’s game writing and narrative design
columnist. He’s also creative director of Far Few Giants, and you can
find his work on default.games or @antony_de_fault on Twitter.

I
nsomniac’s latest game epitomises the player’s performing another action, such
the qualities seen in triple-A ‘prestige’ as exploring a new environment. Typically this
games of the past decade. It’s polished, consists of the player character talking with their
merges the action/platforming and sidekick about something they’ve seen: a recent
shooter genres, looks and sounds plot event, a puzzle they’ve just discovered,
amazing, and tells a linear ‘hero’s journey’ tale etc. This usually doesn’t occur during fights,
that feels like playing a blockbuster movie. presumably since the player would be too
But in my experience, that last point conceals distracted to take it in, or because the dialogue
heaps of nuance: many new writers I’ve taught would get in the way of combat audio cues.
have assumed that since these games feel These conversations are important to the game,
straightforward, like a film, that the writing is and are timed so the player will hear them in
simply a screenplay with breaks for game action. their entirety before triggering a fight or cutscene.
This ignores oodles of vital narrative work, so this There’s an ‘interruption’ system in place in case
month I’m breaking down all the various modes the player enters, say, a shop interface during
through which Rift Apart delivers its story content. one of these conversations: each critical dialogue
has secret ‘checkpoints’ throughout it, and if the
MAIN PLOT player disrupts the conversation, the character
Cutscenes, firstly, are relatively well-understood, will cut themselves off with an ‘insert-line’ such as
so I’ll keep this brief. They play exactly like a scene “Hold on a minute!”, then when the interruption
in an animated film, they have a linear script, is over (player leaves the shop interface etc) will
precise timing and action, and the player can’t begin again with another insert-line such as “Now
exert any control over the game. Cutscenes are where were we? Oh yeah!” before continuing the
often written in screenplay format. dialogue from the last checkpoint.
Critical dialogues are nearly unmissable and
contain important tutorial, context, or character- ADDING LIFE
building content which happen during play, while Incidental dialogue is the less important dialogue
that happens during gameplay. It doesn’t contain
critical information, doesn’t resume if interrupted,
and may or may not have anything to do with the
plot. Generally, these dialogues occur between
the protagonist and sidekick again, and provide
world- and character-building. They are usually
 In other games, short: an exchange of quips, say, between the
cutscenes might characters about some past adventure.
require a button press,
known as a quick Barks are the best example of narrative polish.
time event (QTE), to
progress, but the
Essentially, a bark is yelled by an enemy when
principle is the same. they’re about to shoot. Writers have to come

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 Toolbox
Advice

 ift Apart departs from the main series’

R KEEP IT


format by introducing a deuteragonist

structure: two Lombaxes, plus
occasionally playable sidekicks.
FICTIONAL
I’d be remiss not to mention
Zurkon Jr.’s preview
videos, which are in-fiction
up with a number of variants: from the simple Almost every major game in the last 20 years advertisements for weapons.
“Attack!” to more specific things like “For the glory has had world, character, or story information They function as a tutorial
explaining each weapon’s
of Emperor Nefarious!”. But barks are so much attached to objects which can be found in the
features, and I didn’t find much
more than that. Games are lengthy, and the environment, from Gone Home’s scraps of paper, lore in the scripts, but they’re
player may easily go for long stretches between to BioShock’s audio logs, to Dark Souls’ inventory written and performed with
cutscenes or critical dialogues. Barks fill that void, item descriptions. Ratchet & Clank is no different, such strong tone and character
and are triggered by or during common gameplay having no less than four different types of lore- that I’d class them as actively
world-building, reminding
actions. They can be throwaway lines muttered collectable. Most on the nose are the ‘Lorbs’ me of the interdimensional
by your character about the current destination, (literally orbs filled with lore) and Spybots, which television adverts from Rick
cries of pain or impatience, sales lines spoken by unlock audio logs in the pause menu. Then you and Morty or the satiric ads in
shopkeepers, or calls for help from quest givers. have the Gallery, which has lengthy lore text Starship Troopers.
Barks are the chatter that make the game world about every character, unlocked through story
feel consistently alive, rather than only alive at progress or finding Gold Bolts. Lastly, each
certain points. They’re not plot-critical, but think piece of collectable armour is accompanied by a
of almost any triple-A game, and you’ll find a sentence or two of context on its fictional origin.
vital part of its atmosphere is the quality of the So, even a ‘straightforward’ blockbuster like
repeated, enlivening barks. Ratchet & Clank has at least six distinct modes of
Environmental dialogue is differentiated narrative delivery, few of which would make sense
from incidental dialogue by the way it’s located. to be written down in a screenplay. Instead, even This particular sequence in


Environmental conversations are generally short games which appear filmic require a number of Uncharted 4 is the earliest
example I can find of a game
scenes played out between other characters and different systems and disciplines to tell a story. applying an ‘interruption’
only ‘eavesdropped’ on by the player, who may And this can be put to use: consider which of system to voice performances.

choose to stop and listen, but will often simply these you could use in your games to breathe
blast past catching a snippet. For example, while more life into the fiction.
exploring a bar location, if you approach a certain
booth you will hear its inhabitants getting snippy
with their robot waiter. While this doesn’t add to
the plot, many of these environmental dialogues
intersect with the themes or events at play in the
story, providing a kind of vox populi. Alongside
barks, they contribute considerably to imbuing
the fictional world with aliveness.

EXTRA CONTEXT
Collectable lore is probably the second most
widely understood method of implementing
narrative in a game (with cutscenes being #1).

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 Toolbox
Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

Create your own

side-scrolling
shoot-’em-up Download
the code
from GitHub:
Code a classic horizontal shoot-’em-up in wfmag.cc/
wfmag53
Python – complete with a bullet hell boss battle

AUTHOR
JORDI SANTONJA
Jordi currently works as a software engineer in Norway for a company that
develops systems to design infrastructure: roads, railways, utilities… He originally
comes from Spain and, in his spare time, codes video games.

I
’ve always loved shoot-’em-ups, where covering the whole game area. The background
you destroy waves of enemies in your image size is 1600×600, twice the game area, and
trusty spaceship. Here, we’re going is split into two files named background_0.png
to code the basic systems of a classic and background_1.png. This image moves right
shooter in Python using two main to left at a slow speed. Listing01_Background.py
libraries: Shapely to detect collisions between draws the background:
objects, and Pygame Zero for the graphics
MAKING ASSETS and everything else. Pygame only detects def draw(screen, frame):
collisions between rectangles and sometimes, screen.blit(“background_1”,(800-
To create the graphics, you
need a graphic editor able to
with irregular shapes, collisions can feel unfair. frame%(800*8)/4,0))
use and save transparency. Shapely allows us to detect collisions between screen.blit(“background_0”,(800-
I use the free, open-source polygons of arbitrary shape, and lines and (frame+800*4)%(800*8)/4,0))
image editor GIMP (gimp.org), points. You can find more on Shapely, and how
but feel free to use any other to install it, at pypi.org/project/Shapely. The input value frame is subtracted from 800
image manipulation program Let’s start with the background. We could to obtain decreasing values to move from
you fancy. do some fancy parallax scrolling, but we’ll keep right to left, and after a modulo operation,
things simple, using only one scrolling image the resulting value is divided by 4 to move the
background at a speed of 1 pixel every 4 frames.
Listing02_TestBackground.py shows how to call
that function:

import Listing01_Background as background

globalFrameCount = 0
def draw():
background.draw(screen, globalFrameCount)
def update():
global globalFrameCount
globalFrameCount += 1
 he full background image,
T


continuous from left to

right. It’s split into two Drawing the background uses the CPU heavily, so
images: background_0.png
and background_1.png. if your computer is a bit slow, you can disable it.

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 Toolbox
Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

 un Listing04_CreateForeground.py to place foreground

R


elements on screen and create the foreground map.

FOREGROUND
In the old days, maps, backgrounds, and
foregrounds were composed of tiles, placed
at uniform distances. Now we can use any size
at any position. Using the image manipulation
program GIMP, I drew some tiles and saved
them as PNGs with transparency. The names
of the foreground tiles are stored in the
list foregroundNames in the file Listing03_
ForegroundNames.py:  ou can draw
Y


inspiration from existing
games. For my shooter,
foregroundNames=[‘centreforeground’,’leftforeground’, BACKSPACE or DELETE to remove the last point I looked back at the
Neo Geo’s Last Resort,
‘leftvertforeground’,’rightforeground’, of the current polygon. SPACE to print all the available to download
... polygon coordinates into the Python console. on Nintendo Switch.

We copy these polygons into a new file and

The code in Listing04_CreateForeground.py can assign them a variable, in our case the file
be used to create our map by placing the tiles at Listing07_ForegroundPolygons.py contains
any position. The controls for the program are: foregroundPolygons, with the same number MODULAR
cursor LEFT and RIGHT to scroll the map. Cursor of elements as foregroundMap, and in the The code is split into modules
UP and DOWN to change the current tile. MOUSE same order: to avoid a huge file that
CLICK to place the current tile on the map. SPACE contains everything. In the
to print the map in the Python console after foregroundPolygons = [[(-122, -96), (120, -96), ... downloadable files, there are
sorting the tiles left-to-right. [(-204, 96), (186, -96), ... modules with data, classes,
and functions; programs to
The text of the map from the Python console ...
test the code; and programs
must be copied to the foregroundMap list in the
to create the content. Finally,
file Listing05_ForegroundMap.py. Every list Now we can draw the scrolling foreground stored
everything is put together to
element has three values: the index of the in the map, one pixel every frame. Listing08_ run the first level of what could
tile, the global horizontal position, and the Foreground.py places the objects from the be a complete side-scrolling
vertical position. map into the list of active elements in a position shoot-’em-up game. All files
beyond the right-hand side of the screen. Then and assets are available at
foregroundMap = [(12,1634,571), (10,1831,571), it scrolls one pixel to the left every frame. When wfmag.cc/wfmag53.
(10,2072,571), (10,2314,571), it disappears beyond the left-hand side of the
... screen, it’s removed from the list. Here’s the
pseudocode for Listing08_Foreground.py:
The foreground is an active object where
different gaming entities can collide: the player import libraries
spaceship, the bullets, and the lasers. Listing06_ import foreground Names Map and Polygons
CreatePolygons.py is the program we use to class Foreground:
draw the polygons around each object. It imports def __init__(self):
the list of background images to create a polygon initialize lists
for each. The controls are: cursor keys LEFT and def draw(self):
RIGHT to change the current image. MOUSE for element in self.elements:
CLICK to add a new point to the current polygon. element.draw()

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Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

def update(self, globalTime): Every enemy needs a collision polygon. To create

traverse all elements them, use the program Listing06_CreatePolygons.
GOOD delete elements beyond the left border py but replacing, at the beginning, the line:
BEHAVIOUR compare globalTime with current
The data that defines the foregroundMap from Listing03_ForegroundNames import
behaviour and the graphics add to the list if the time has arrived foregroundNames as imageNames
of the game is usually stored rebuild the list of polygons to collide
in files independent of the …with the line:
code. This way, the designer
I’d advise running Listing09_TestForeground.
can test the changes without
py to ensure the foreground is drawn and from Listing12_EnemyNames import enemyNames as
recompiling the code. To keep
updated correctly. imageNames
things simple, this tutorial’s
data is stored in the code
directly into variables. As an BULLETS AND ENEMIES …and proceed as before to store the result
exercise, you could replace that Bullets are shot by enemies and move in straight in enemyPolyCoords in the file Listing13_
hard-coded data with text files lines until they collide with something or go off EnemyPolygons.py.
read at the beginning of the the screen. Listing10_Bullets.py defines all Listing14_EnemyHits.py contains the list
program to fill these variables the code to process the bullets. A Bullet object enemyNumberOfHits, which defines the number
with the data. is defined by two members: an Actor with the of hits every enemy must receive before it’s
bullet image, and a speed. Each frame the speed destroyed. The bigger the number, the harder
is added to the position of the actor. the enemy is to destroy.
Run Listing11_TestBullets.py to test the bullet
behaviour. It adds bullets with random positions enemyNumberOfHits = [1,4,4,10,1,1,12,6,12,1000]
and speeds, and a collision object defined by a
100×100 square centred on the screen. In our game, the paths are predefined,
The enemies usually appear on the right of drawn manually with the program Listing15_
the screen and move along a set pattern. I’ve CreatePath.py, using the following functions:
created my alien ships in GIMP – gun turrets, PLUS key (+) to add a new path. MOUSE CLICK to
ships, and the like – then exported them as PNG add a new point to the current path. BACKSPACE
files to keep the transparency. The names of the or DELETE to remove the last point of the
enemy files are stored in the list enemyNames in current path. Cursor LEFT and RIGHT to traverse
the file Listing12_EnemyNames.py: all the paths. SPACE to print all the paths into
the Python console.
enemyNames = [‘ball’, ‘cannon’, ‘cannon_top’, It’s difficult to create wavy trajectories by
‘flying_saucer’, ‘rocket’, hand, so this program also creates predefined
‘ship_alien’, paths. Once we’ve created these, we can assign
‘ship_cannon’, ‘ship_fighter’, them to our enemies. We select a path for
‘ship_pistol’, ‘big_ship’ ] each enemy and store it in the enemyPaths list
at the appropriate position to correspond with
the same position on enemyNames. To adjust the
starting position of every enemy, I’ve modified
the first and last coordinates of every path to
start and end just off the screen. Listing16_
EnemyPaths.py contains the enemyPaths list:

enemyPaths = [[(800+32, 0), (790, 1), (780, 5), ...

[(800+24, 0), (-160, 0)], ...
...

Every enemy must follow its path. In the file

Listing17_EnemyMovements.py, the function
PositionFromLength, from the input parameter
 Execute Listing11_
TestBullets.py to test distance on the path, returns two results: a
the bullets. Boolean, and the position x,y on the path. An

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 Toolbox
Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

 ith Listing21_CreateStartEnemies.py, you can

W


create the patterns of enemy waves to appear in the

game, using the foreground as a reference.

input distance of 0 will return the starting point

of the path, and an input distance of 100 will
return the position at 100 pixels on the path
from its starting point. The Boolean is True when
the input length is on the path, and False when
it’s longer than the length of the path. This  very enemy, when hit
E


by a laser, is changed
Boolean is used to finish the enemy movement. to an all-white version
This is only one type of movement, and bulletStrategy = [NoBullets, of its image.

we’d like to have different enemies with their MoreBulletsToSpaceship,

own patterns. Python treats functions as MoreBulletsToSpaceship, ...
objects, so we can create a list with different BulletsBigBoss ]
movements to be called for every enemy. The
main code will remain the same, but every The bullet behaviours are: NoBullets, which
enemy can behave in different ways. The fires no bullets; SomeBulletsToSpaceship and
additional movement functions declared in MoreBulletsToSpaceship, that fire bullets
Listing17_EnemyMovements.py are Accelerate directly at the player’s current position; and
and BigBossMovement. Accelerate is similar to BulletsBigBoss, which shoots circular arrays of
PositionFromLength, but instead of following bullets spreading in all directions.
a constant speed, the speed increases. Certain enemies also release a power-up
BigBossMovement is more complex: it follows a when killed. To keep things simple, there’s only
path, and when the path ends, it follows a never- one type of power-up: increase the number of
ending sinusoidal vertical path. lasers. Listing19_EnemyPowerups.py contains
These functions are stored in the the power-up strategies and behaviours for
enemyMovement list, to be called from every enemy every enemy. Here, only one enemy uses
update. We can create more types of movement AddPowerup, and the rest use NoPowerup.
and assign them to any enemy.
def NoPowerup(powerups, posX, posY):
enemyMovement=[PositionFromLength, pass
PositionFromLength, def AddPowerup(powerups, posX, posY):
MAGIC
PositionFromLength, powerups.append(posX, posY) NUMBERS
PositionFromLength, powerUpStrategy = [AddPowerup, NoPowerup, NoPowerup, We should avoid the use of
Accelerate, PositionFromLength, ... NoPowerup, NoPowerup, NoPowerup, ‘Magic numbers’ in our code.
PositionFromLength, BigBossMovement NoPowerup, NoPowerup, NoPowerup, Instead of using, say, 206,
we should use the variable
] NoPowerup ]
foregroundObjectHalfXSize.
Doing this avoids the possibility
When the code enemyMovement[index](parameters) Now we have all the enemy properties and
of returning to the code a few
is run, the corresponding function will be behaviours in place, we can code the Enemy class. weeks later and not being
called. Another property for each enemy is Listing20_Enemy.py imports all the previous able to remember what the
the ability to shoot bullets. This is achieved in listings related to enemies, and implements numbers represented: if we
a similar fashion to the movements: the bullet some functions. Some enemies aren’t killed see foregroundObjectHalfXSize,
behaviour for every enemy is stored in a list, with one shot, so to show they’ve been hit, they then the intent of the code is
called bulletStrategy, in the file Listing18_ change to a white image, stored in another PNG immediately clear.
EnemyBullets.py: file with the same name as the regular image

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 Toolbox
Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

 o you have what it takes to

D


reach the end of the level?

enemyStart = [[5,275,245], [5,261,315],

[5,245,381],

Listing23_AllEnemies.py traverses the list

enemyStart and, when the time arrives, a new
enemy defined by the index is added to the
list at a position Y. nextEnemyIndex contains the
 he end-of-level boss has its
T position in enemyStart of the next element to be


own unique firing pattern

to give the player the full added, and is incremented after a new enemy
bullet hell experience. but with “_white” in its name. This alternative has been added.
image is stored in actorWhite.
I created this “_white” image by opening the class EnemyList:
original PNG in GIMP, locking the alpha channel def __init__(self):
in Layers, and then filling it with the colour white. initialize a list to store the enemies
The pseudocode of the class Enemy in def draw(self):
Listing20_Enemy.py is: draw all objects in the list
def update(self, globalTime, bullets,
import all modules related with enemies spaceShip):
class Enemy: update all elements of the list
def __init__(self, index, startY): if currentFrame equal to frame of next
initialize all members enemy, add new enemy to list
def draw(self): update polygons for collisions
if not hit: draw the enemy def destroyEnemy(self, index, explosions):
else: draw the enemy as white add explosions and delete from list
def translate(self, posX, posY): def laserHit(self, index, powerups,
translate the actor explosions):
def update(self, bullets, spaceShip): call enemy.hit(). If destroyed: call
call pattern strategy, call translate destroyEnemy
call bullet strategy to shoot a bullet
def hit(self, powerups): THE PLAYER’S SHIP
decrease the number of hits The player’s ship is defined in the file Listing24_
if the number of hits is 0: SpaceShip.py. shipName, which contains the
call powerup strategy name of its image file, and shipPolyCoords
return True to destroy the enemy contains the collision polygon.

Now we can define the start of every enemy shipName = ‘spaceship’

with the help of the program Listing21_ shipPolyCoords = [(-48, -5), (4, -9), (10, -3),
POWER-UPS CreateStartEnemies.py, with similar functions (40, 1), (19, 5), (-1, 5), (-1, 18), (-37, 18)]
to the previous programs.
Please feel free to add new
With every click on the mouse, a new enemy This collision polygon has been created with the
types of power-ups – you could
add ship-following satellites
will follow its pattern, exactly as it will in the program Listing06_CreatePolygons.py, but this
like the ones in Gradius, as final game. After pressing SPACE, we must copy time using the line instead of ListingXX import:
described in the Source Code the text from the Python console and assign it
section of Wireframe #16. to a new variable, enemyStart, stored in the file imageNames = [‘spaceship’]
You only need a new power-up Listing22_MapEnemyStart.py. Every element
image and a new behaviour of enemyStart contains the index of the enemy The class SpaceShip defines the functionality
when the power-up is collected. to add, the start Y position, and the global time of the player’s spaceship: collision polygon,
to start. remaining lives, number of lasers to shoot, and

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Create your own side-scrolling shoot-’em-up

some variables to control what happens when foreground, explosions, showScore)

the ship’s hit and how it respawns at the centre def collisionShipEnemies(spaceShip, enemyList,
of the screen, with a time-limited invulnerability explosions, showScore, powerups)
TOOLTIPS
to allow the player to recover from the last hit def collisionShipPowerUps(spaceShip, powerups) The code in this article creates
and continue playing. a level in a full shoot-’em-up
game. To follow the advice in
Every function receives its parameters from
the Wireframe issue 48 article
Lasers: The laser is the player’s only weapon. related objects, which then check, delete, or if
‘How not to code’, it should be
Listing25_Lasers.py defines the class Lasers applicable, add other objects, such as power-ups encapsulated in a class named
that contains a list with all the lasers currently or explosions. Level, with graphics and maps
on screen. All lasers are moved 20 pixels to the as creation parameters, so for
right every update, and when a laser exits the FULL GAME every level in the game, we
screen, or collides, it’s deleted from the list. Now we have all the elements, it’s time to could reuse and call this same
put it all together. The code that does this is class. The top-level game loop
Power-ups: Certain enemies release power-ups Listing30_FullGame.py. It imports the rest of code should be clear and short.
when destroyed. Listing26_PowerUps.py keeps the modules, defines the variables, and calls the
a list of the current power-ups on screen. functions with the necessary connections.
The pseudocode of this last listing is:
Score: Listing27_ShowScore.py shows an icon
of the player’s ship and the number of lives. You import modules
could add a point score here. define variables
def draw():
Explosions: The code in Listing28_Explosions. draw all the objects from far to near
py controls and shows the explosions that appear def update():
after the destruction of a game object: a laser, a update the positions of all objects
bullet, an enemy, or the player’s spaceship. check collisions between objects
if something collides:
There are two types of explosions: small destroy the colliding object
and large. Both are made using PNG images. update the objects and game status
The small explosions are named “impact_” and
a number from 0 to 7, and are used when a We now have a single level which could form
bullet or a laser impacts on something. The the basis of a much bigger shooter. To make
large explosions are named “explosion_” and a it into a full game, you could add a title screen
number from 0 to 9, and are shown when an with a menu; extra levels, waves of enemies
enemy or the player’s spaceship is destroyed. and additional boss battles; a score and high
score table; a continue screen, music and sound
explosionNames = [“impact_”, “explosion_”] effects, and lots more besides. Why not use
explosionFrames = [8, 10] your creativity to see how you can extend and
improve it?
COLLISIONS
Listing29_Collisions.py manages all the possible
 hen an enemy is
W


collisions between game objects. The functions destroyed, and a laser or a

bullet collides, an explosion
that check and manage the collisions with every is created. Explosions are
pair of collidable objects are the following: kept in ExplosionList at
Listing28_Explosions.py.

def collisionShipBullets(bullets, spaceShip,

explosions, showScore)
def collisionBulletsForeground(bullets,
foreground, explosions)
def collisionLaserForeground(lasers,
foreground, explosions)
def collisionLaserEnemies(lasers, enemyList,
explosions, powerups)
def collisionShipForeground(spaceShip,

wfmag.cc \ 63
 Toolbox
Source Code

Source Code

Code your own

AUTHOR
pinball video game
MARK VANSTONE Get flappers flapping and balls bouncing off bumpers

T
here are so many pinball video Video game developers soon started In 1984, Nintendo released


Pinball for the NES. It was
games that it’s become a genre trying to recreate pinball, first with fairly simple but captured all the
in its own right. For the few of rudimentary graphics and physics, but with basics of the real thing.

you who haven’t encountered increasingly greater realism over time – if

pinball for some reason, it you look at Nintendo’s Pinball from 1984,
originated as an analogue arcade machine then, say, Devil’s Crush on the Sega Mega
where a metal ball would be fired onto a Drive in 1990, and then 1992’s Pinball
sloping play area and bounce between Dreams on PC, you can see how radically
obstacles. The player operates a pair of the genre evolved in just a few years. In this
flippers by pressing buttons on each side of month’s Source Code, we’re going to put
the machine, which will in turn ping the ball together a very simple rendition of pinball
back up the play area to hit obstacles and in Pygame Zero. We’re not going to use any
earn points. The game ends when the ball complicated maths or physics systems, just a
falls through the exit at the bottom of the little algebra and trigonometry.
play area. Let’s start with our background. We need
an image which has barriers around the multiplied by the speed, and the new
outside for the ball to bounce off, and a gap y-coordinate will move by the cos of the ball
 ere it is: your own
H


pinball game in less at the bottom for the ball to fall through. We direction multiplied by speed. We need to
than 100 lines of code. also want some obstacles in the play area detect collisions with objects and obstacles,
and an entrance at the side for the ball to so we sample four pixels around the ball to
enter when it’s first fired. In this case, we’re see if it’s hit anything solid. If it has, we need
going to use our background as a collision to make the ball bounce.
map, too, so we need to design it so that all If you wanted more realistic physics,
the areas that the ball can move in are black. you’d calculate the reflection angle from
Next, we need some flippers. These the surface which has been hit, but in this
are defined as Actors with a pivot anchor case, we’re going to use a shortcut which will
position set near the larger end, and are produce a rough approximation. We work
positioned near the bottom of the play out what direction the ball is travelling in and
area. We detect left and right key presses then rotate either left or right by a quarter of
and rotate the angle of the flippers by a turn until the ball no longer collides with a
20 degrees within a range of -30 to +30 wall. We could finesse this calculation further
degrees. If no key is pressed, then the flipper to create a more accurate effect, but we’ll
drops back down. With these elements in keep it simple for this sample. Finally, we
place, we have our play area and an ability need to add some gravity. As the play area
for the player to defend the exit. is tilted downwards, we need to increase the
All we need now is a ball to go bouncing ball speed as it travels down and decrease it
around the obstacles we’ve made. Defining as it travels up.
the ball as an Actor, we can add a direction All of this should give you the bare bones
and a speed parameter to it. With these of a pinball game. There’s lots more you
values set, the ball can be moved using a could add to increase the realism, but we’ll
bit of trigonometry. Our new x-coordinate leave you to discover the joys of normal
will move by the sin of the ball direction vectors and dot products…

64 / wfmag.cc
 Toolbox
Source Code

Download

Play the silver ball

the code
from GitHub:
wfmag.cc/
Here’s Mark’s code for a simple pinball video game. To get it running on your system, you’ll wfmag53
first need to install Pygame Zero – full instructions can be found at wfmag.cc/pgzero.

# Pinball def checkBounce():

import pgzrun global score
import math d = math.degrees(ball.dir)%360
import random inc = -1.5
from pygame import image, Color if d > 90 and d < 270:
WIDTH = 600 inc = 1.5
HEIGHT = 800 ball.speed -= 0.03
collisionMap = image.load(‘images/background.png’) if ball.speed < 0: ball.dir = 0
flipperLeft = Actor(‘flipperl’,center=(210,660), anchor=(20, 20)) else:
flipperLeft.angle = -30 if ball.speed < 10: ball.speed += 0.04
flipperRight = Actor(‘flipperr’,center=(390,660), anchor=(112, 20)) if flipperRight.collidepoint(ball.pos):
flipperRight.angle = 30 ball.dir = 4 + (flipperRight.angle/50)
if keyboard.right :
def init(): ball.speed += 0.3
global gamestate, ball moveBall()
ball = Actor(‘ball’, center=(560,310)) if inc == 1.5:
ball.speed = 5 + random.randint(0, 7) ball.dir = 0
ball.dir = 4 + ((random.randint(0, 10)/10)-0.5) moveBall()
gamestate = 0 if flipperLeft.collidepoint(ball.pos):
ball.dir = 3 +(flipperLeft.angle/50)
def draw(): if keyboard.left :
screen.blit(“background”, (0, 0)) ball.speed += 0.3
flipperLeft.draw() moveBall()
flipperRight.draw() if inc == 1.5:
if gamestate == 0 or random.randint(0,1) == 1: ball.draw() ball.dir = 0
moveBall()
def update(): rgb = collisionCheck()
if gamestate == 0: while rgb != Color(“black”):
if keyboard.left: ball.dir += inc
flipperLeft.angle = limit(flipperLeft.angle+20, -30, 30) moveBall()
else: rgb = collisionCheck()
flipperLeft.angle = limit(flipperLeft.angle-20, -30, 30)
if keyboard.right: def collisionCheck():
flipperRight.angle = limit(flipperRight.angle-20, -30, 30) r = 22
else: cl = [(0,-r),(r,0),(0,r),(-r,0)]
flipperRight.angle = limit(flipperRight.angle+20, -30, 30) for t in range(4):
moveBall() rgb = collisionMap.get_at((int(ball.x)+cl[t]
checkBounce() [0],int(ball.y)+cl[t][1]))
else: if rgb != Color(“black”):
if keyboard.space: init() return rgb
return rgb
def moveBall():
global gamestate def limit(n, minn, maxn):
ball.x += ball.speed * math.sin(ball.dir) return max(min(maxn, n), minn)
ball.y += ball.speed * math.cos(ball.dir)
if ball.x > 570 or ball.y > 760: gamestate = 1 init()
pgzrun.go()

wfmag.cc \ 65
 Toolbox
Advice

ScavLab, and
building high-density
multiplayer games
How can you make a game with thousands of
players interacting at once? Improbable co-founder
Rob Whitehead’s team is working on the answer

AUTHOR
ROB WHITEHEAD
The co-founder of Improbable, Rob has worked on many areas of
multiplayer technology, such as the SpatialOS networking engine and
titles that use it. More recently, he’s led the ScavLab tech team.

I
n ScavLab, the experimental mode figuring out what precise pose the character is in
within the Early Access multiplayer – is usually performed on the CPU rather than the
survival game Scavengers, it’s possible GPU, which creates performance bottlenecks.
to have over 10,000 characters (both There are special rendering techniques that
zombies and players) on screen at the can be used that push this animation work
same time. While you may have seen this sort of from the CPU to the GPU, which has far more
scale in RTS games such as the Total War series, horsepower to crunch the different poses of
doing this in a third-person action game like characters, but the results are sometimes of a
Scavengers is especially hard. lower quality than the typical way of doing it.
This is because while most game engines So how do we keep the high-quality animations,
can do a great job of rendering thousands of but also have the scale?
 rming hundreds of
A instances of static geometry – like foliage, rocks, The trick is to use multiple techniques at


players with grenades debris, or buildings – the problem of rendering the same time – traditional characters for your
is a recipe for disaster.
Multi-coloured glow animated characters is a considerably more own player, and those near you, but switch to
sticks? An oddly difficult task, as the geometry isn’t static, but simpler and simpler representations further
soothing sight.
rather changing every frame as the character away. This happens automatically every frame;
runs their animations. All of this animation work – a prioritisation system understands what you’re
looking at, and ensures that the largest things
on screen get the best visuals.

NETWORKING/BANDWIDTH
Networking is one of the craziest problems when
trying to make a game session of this size and
density, where every player can see every other
player. This is due to how quickly the problem
grows as you add more players.
If you think about a game of Counter-Strike or
Overwatch – ten players in an arena, with data
being sent 60 times per second (known as the
tick rate) from the server to clients, that’s a total
of 6000 player updates per second (ten players

66 / wfmag.cc
 Toolbox
Advice

 Figure 1: Real players would never stand

in perfect formation like this, but it’s still
a great way of testing out the game.

to send to ten players, where each player can

see 60 updates per second). That’s quite a bit,
It’s your density
but modern cloud servers can easily handle
Creating dense game
sending millions of updates. running in the cloud, and move around just like experiences is more than just
Let’s scale that up to ScavLab scale: 10,000 a player would, and exert the same amount of a technical challenge – what
players at our peak tests. The above calculation load on systems as they would, too. gameplay makes sense in a
would come to six billion updates per second! We program simulated players with different place that can teeter between
orchestration and absolute
That’s a million times more than the first patterns of behaviour for testing. In Figure 1, chaos? While you might be
example. So what’s going on? The problem we can see them politely walking in formation, tempted to give everybody
grows quadratically – which is a great way grenades, we learned quickly
doubling the player count of testing that they’re (the hard way) that this is a
“Playtesting as often as recipe for absolute carnage,
quadruples the amount perceiving the world
of player information you possible is one of the correctly. They also
and not a great time. We’re
starting with the fundamentals,
need to send. most important things” have the ability to replay and working our way from
In practice, ScavLab recordings from previous there – how it feels to move
sends a bit less – 250 million updates per real-player runs, which is really useful when around with a huge crowd
of people, creating ways to
second. This is due to the fact that as a player, understanding how they look en masse, moving interact (such as waving
much of what other players are doing isn’t around an environment in a realistic way. neon glow sticks of different
relevant at such high rates. You can receive only colours), and introducing
two updates per second from the characters THE FUTURE massive in-world ‘messengers’
with real-time voice chat to
furthest away from you, and it still looks So what’s in store for the future? To quote
direct the crowd, just like a
fine. As you get closer to those characters, a our creative director Bernd Diemer, for the performer would on a stage.
prioritisation system increases the update rate. ScavLab events, we wanted players to “feel the
While we’re using these sorts of techniques at goosebumps you get when you experience
a large scale, they’re equally applicable to battle something amazing in a crowd of people –
royale-scale games too. that shared feeling of being able to react and
participate in that moment”. It’s this feeling –
PLAYTESTING WITH LEGIONS enabled by our architecture for density – that
Playtesting a game as often as possible is one ScavLab is creating and experimenting with in
of the most important things you can do as a our live events.
developer. But what do you do when your game We’ll be continuing to explore new game
session size is 200 times larger than the team mechanics at this scale to learn what works.
working on it? It’s really hard to understand Our dream is to be able to eventually get to
game balance, performance, or even how busy hundreds of thousands of people being able
the game feels to be inside. to congregate in virtual spaces like a virtual
To help with this, the team heavily relies on Glastonbury Festival. We’ve got a way to go, but
what we call “simulated players” – thousands of many of the above techniques will be critical to
instances of game clients that log into the game, push scale further in the future.

wfmag.cc \ 67
 Interface
Gallery

GAME
GRIME
DEVELOPER
Clover Bite
RELEASE
TBA 2021
WEBSITE
grimegame.com

68 / wfmag.cc
 Interface
Gallery

REA
GRIME MORD E
turn to
page 18
Upcoming action-RPG Metroidvania GRIME draws on a range of
games for its side-scrolling action, but the same’s true for its darkly
fantastical imagery, which takes notes from all kinds of sources both within
and outside the realm of video games. “My main sources of artistic inspiration were
Peter Mohrbacher’s Angelarium and Wayne Barlowe’s Hell series,” explains director
Yarden Weissbrot. “Though I ended up looking at so many artworks and getting
inspired by so many artists, I couldn’t possibly name all of them. The Rockheads
[enemies], for example, were inspired by BioShock Infinite’s concept art of human
faces distorted by time, as well as NieR:Automata’s robots. The weapons were
clearly inspired by Bloodborne, and the player character itself was probably inspired
to some extent by League of Legends’ Dark Star skins… whether I fully realised it at
the time or not. Eventually, GRIME ended up becoming its own thing, as I strayed
farther from the religious designs of heaven and hell, and more into what universe
would make sense for a humanoid black hole to exist in.”
As for Weissbrot’s wonderfully outlandish creature designs, these generally begin
on a piece of paper. “I usually begin with a visual goal,” he tells us. “Like, I know this
creature should have a lot of hands in its design to tie in with its lore, and from
there I just start scribbling out what I think would look the coolest. I then begin
thinking about animations and what sort of attacks could work for them, and how
would that differentiate them from other enemies. Before it begins being modelled,
I usually consult our programmer and rigger [to see] if it will be feasible from their
perspective. If not, which has happened, it’s time to find an alternative solution.”

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

The forgotten story of

Italy’s early
game studios
The Italian games industry struggled in the eighties
and nineties, but it produced some popular games
and a wealth of talent that went on to bigger things
elsewhere. We talk to a range of developers about
their first steps in a young industry

WRITTEN BY DAMIANO GERLI

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

A pair of Simulmondo’s comic



book games: Dylan Dog and Tex.

These were sponsored by football
player Antonio Cabrini.

 imulmondo from an interview in

S


Zzap!64 magazine in 1989. From
left to right: Francesco Carlà, Ivan
Venturi, and Federico Croci.

B
ologna, resting roughly halfway by a vision: developing a world populated by
between Venice and Florence, is an simulated beings that would respond to the
Italian city prized for such culinary player’s interactions. In Neuromancer, author
delights as lasagne and tortellini. William Gibson called it ‘Virtual reality’; for
Founded by the Etruscans, it was one Carlà, it was ‘Simulmondo’ (literally, a world of
of the most populous European cities throughout simulation). That vision seemed to edge closer to
the middle ages, while over the last century, the reality the day he met Ivan Venturi.
city’s growing industrial Venturi, then a
sector has given rise to “Carlà was haunted by a teenager, had already
several large food and been a programmer for
electronics companies. It’s
vision: a world populated several years, working
little surprise, then, that by simulated beings” away on his Commodore
some of Italy’s earliest 64, teaching himself to
game studios emerged in Bologna. design increasingly complex adventures. Carlà
In 1987, Francesco Carlà was living in Bologna proved to be a strict mentor, encouraging
and working as a journalist. But he also had a Venturi to improve his skills. “He showed me
passion for video games, and insisted that the Cauldron II by Palace Software and said: ‘This is
medium should be taken seriously, like an art how games are meant to be designed, otherwise
form. Most of all, though, Carlà was haunted you’re going nowhere’,” Venturi recalls.
When Venturi showed some progress,
Carlà decided to found a games company:
Simulmondo. Carlà was fixated on the idea that
Simulmondo should represent “Italian electronic
entertainment for the world”, and so Venturi’s
skills were honed on sports titles like Bocce
on the C64 (later released for the Amiga as
Bowls) and Simulgolf. Later, Venturi worked on
conversions of Italy ‘90 Soccer and F1 Manager,
and he describes the latter as his best work on
the C64. “Adapting a complex 16-bit Amiga title
for an 8-bit computer wasn’t an easy task at all,”
he says. “I was definitely proud of the results.”
Simulmondo present their comic book games in 1993. By 1989, with Simulmondo established in


Ivan Venturi is the first on the staircase on the left,

Riccardo Cangini is on the lower right in the red shirt. an actual office, several new programmers

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

subsequent game was written and directed by

Ivan Venturi. Dylan Dog: Murderers, released in
1992, developed for Amiga, C64, and DOS, was
a graphic adventure with arcade sequences.
It was one of Simulmondo’s most recognised
 The Big Red
Adventure’s original games, going on to enjoy international success
release also (the UK’s Zzap!64 magazine awarded it 89%).
included a t-shirt,
which is now very Unfortunately, the game would also signal the
difficult to find. beginning of the end for Simulmondo.
By the end of 1991, Carlà had seen potential
for a whole series of tie-in games, and had
sealed licensing agreements for properties like
Diabolik (a hugely popular Italian comic) and
had joined the fray. Among them was Riccardo Spider-Man. Sporting a simplified “interactive
Cangini, who remembers the first ideas given comic book” design, the adventures were
by Carlà, like Mussolini Age, a game that took intended to be sold at a budget price alongside
place during the era of fascism. “I had a couple comic books in newspaper kiosks. It’s worth
of vague ideas thrown my way, little more mentioning here that the ‘comic book games’
than cool-sounding titles,” says Cangini. “The idea was also meant to bring the fight directly
development didn’t really progress that much against piracy, which was a major problem in
since it wasn’t clear what the overall design was Italy at the time: illegal games were still being
supposed to be.” sold in newspaper kiosks all over the country.
In 1990, along with programmer Mario Italy had a ‘professional’ industry of pirated
Bruscella, Cangini started developing one of games that even 1993’s anti-piracy law couldn’t
Simulmondo’s most fondly remembered titles, completely eradicate.
I Play: 3-D Soccer. “Carlà pitched us an idea of a With Carlà also making up original characters
3D, first-person soccer simulator with the player to jump-start more comic book series, however,
controlling a single player. A unique concept Simulmondo began spiralling out of control.
for sure, but we were the ones tasked with By mid-1992, the company wasn’t investing
bringing that vision to life on a system with 64kB in research and development anymore – the
of memory!” workforce was instead fighting to meet strict
It wasn’t the most playable of simulations, but deadlines for its tie-in games, released monthly.
3-D Soccer was widely Soon, recalls Venturi,
noted for its ambition “I’d been working under the quality of the games
– not to mention a started to deteriorate
Draconian protection
strict deadlines since and the repetition of
system developed by I was 15… It was over” development began to
Bruscella. “I know people affect the programmers’
GREAT who are still trying to crack it but, as far as morale. “It went from being a creative endeavour
I know, to this day no one has succeeded,” to working on an assembly line – we were
EXPECTATIONS Cangini recalls. getting burned out,” says Venturi.
Simulmondo was always on As its continued growth saw it move to a “The comic book business wasn’t even
the lookout for new talent, but two-storey office, Simulmondo blossomed into bringing a significant income,” adds Cangini. “It
Venturi also remembers the one of Italy’s few professional software houses. was a completely different market segment than
gallery of weird characters It also managed to self-publish its games, and what a software house was accustomed to.”
that would write letters or even closed international publishing agreements with Tensions mounted, and several developers
show up at the office. “They’d
companies elsewhere in Europe. It was around left, with Venturi following suit in October 1993.
read the success stories of
this time that Carlà had an idea: with Bologna The dream of “Italian electronic entertainment
programmers like Jeff Minter
home to several comic book artists, he felt for the world”, and a studio that could compete
and would send us simple
demos, expecting to be met the medium could be brought to life through with the stronger game industries in France and
with showers of money. It was video games. Simulmondo’s first licensing the UK, was all but over. Venturi’s departure
like, ‘Here’s the floppy disk, agreement was signed with author Tiziano Sclavi hit the company particularly hard; without him,
where’s my Testarossa?’” for his paranormal investigator, Dylan Dog; the there was nobody to balance the programmers’

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

sour moods and Carlà’s demands. “I was deadly Manhunt and Red Dead Redemption. Humble
tired,” Venturi recalls. “I’d been working under beginnings indeed.
strict deadlines since I was 15. I just couldn’t Still, with Cantamessa out of the picture,
take it anymore. It was over.” Magnasciutti and Costabel carried on developing
By 1994, after losing most of its talent and their prototype, working under the studio name
saturating the newsstand market, Simulmondo of Dynabyte. The game was eventually released
was forced to work on smaller projects. In the as Nippon Safes, Inc. for the Amiga and later PC. TEQUILA
following years, it mostly dabbled in multimedia It sold solidly in Italy, but fared less well in other MOCKINGBIRD
products. The company disappeared from the countries around Europe. “As far as I’m aware,
Tequila & Boom-Boom was
public eye until 2000, when Carlà closed it down Nippon Safes was officially released only in Italy,
published by Sacis, a public
for good. “It was such a sad ending for a great so I have no clue what happened,” says Costabel.
company owned by the Italian
company. It was supposed to shape talents for With their debut garnering favourable reviews, television network (RAI),
our future,” sighs Venturi. Costabel – along with Marco Caprelli and other that seemed to have little to
programmers – started work on a sequel set no experience in marketing
DYNABYTE in Russia, called Operation Matrioska. Intent on video games. They also briefly
Not far from Bologna sits Genoa, one of the key avoiding further mishaps, the studio scouted distributed Ubisoft titles
ports in the Mediterranean Sea. It’s often referred around for an international publisher. While like Rayman.
to as “La Superba”, which means “the arrogant showing a demo at a London trade show, they
one”. It was here that, in 1991, another Italian get the attention of Core Design, who agreed
software house was born, having first appeared to publish it. Core did, however, insist on
in the dreams of a bright-eyed young gamer. changing the title to The Big Red Adventure, since
Christian Cantamessa, a teenager in love – according to Caprelli – they thought it sounded
with cinema, games, and pen-and-paper RPGs, more European.
spent his days dreaming of a cinematic point- Thanks to the publishing deal, The Big Red
and-click adventure starring a thief. Cantamessa Adventure would go on to become Dynabyte’s
had zero experience in programming, but as biggest European success, and one of the
luck would have it, he met graphic designer more high-profile Italian adventure games.
Massimo Magnasciutti, who’d previously worked, The ending hinted at a third episode, in the style
along with programmer Paolo Costabel, on of The Arabian Nights, that Costabel says was
a project for English publisher, Mirrorsoft. never developed. Caprelli recalls that Core
 equila & Boom-Boom’s character
T


That project was Crimetown Depths, a complex wasn’t interested in another project, either: designer was Alessandro
Barbucci – he’d later become a
action-adventure game for the Amiga that was major Disney cartoonist.
cancelled before its release.
With Cantamessa’s father putting up money
for his video game project, the three started
working on a project then called Steve Sailing on
the Crime Wave. Cantamessa remembers leaving
the project as soon as the others found out he
had no experience in game design; years later,
he’d become the lead designer for Rockstar’s

 he notebook where Ivan

T


Venturi jotted down ideas

while developing Bocce.

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

a cartoon Wild West adventure in the style of

Sergio Leone. “They deemed it too childish,” he
says. “By then, with the Playstation, a game had
Pray for Death features
to be in 3D or it would never see the light of day”.


Lovecraftian deity Cthulhu
Tequila & Boom-Boom, released in 1995, was in its range of fighters.
Dynabyte’s final release. Plagued by distribution
problems, it sold poorly even in its native
country. The following year, internal issues in the game Extasy, programmed in MS-DOS by Fabrizio
company led to a split, with Costabel going on to Lagorio and published by Simulmondo. Both
work on pioneering CG movie Final Fantasy: The Lagorio and Trecision co-founder Montelatici
Spirits Within, and Caprelli deciding to take his recall they were later hired by Carlà to work on an
final project, Blood & Lace, to another publisher. adventure game based on the aforementioned
Designed as a gothic adventure with Italian comic, Diabolik. “I had a feeling the deal
QTE, Blood & Lace shared the same engine wasn’t going to lead to anything and, well, that’s
as Dynabyte’s previous games, but was what came to pass,” Lagorio says. “Carlà said our
redeveloped as a Tomb Raider-like 3D action- development was too slow and the deal was off.
adventure. Released in 2001, it quickly vanished We never received any money.”
without trace. Costabel’s now at Sony Santa Instead, Trecision decided to shape the
Monica, while Caprelli went on to work as a project into something else, without the
brand ambassador for Ubisoft in Italy. Diabolik licence, and sell it internationally as
shareware. The studio was surprised when
TRECISION the resulting game, In the Dead of Night, was
In the nineties, so much talent emerged from the something of a hit. “We were being mailed all
Genoa area that it became jokingly referred to as this international cash,” recalls Lagorio. The
“Basilicon Valley” – a wordplay on basilico (basil), studio realised that the market in Italy was
one of the main ingredients of pesto. Rapallo, a stagnant, and therefore decided to scout for
quiet tourist town that lies not far from Genoa, an international publisher for their follow-up
was home to one of the most important and project. “We got a reply from Stewart Bell at
long-lived studios in Italy: Trecision. International Computer Entertainment [ICE],”
Founded by Pietro Montelatici, Edoardo recalls Lagorio. “They worked on the design,
Gervino, and Gabriele Pompeo, Trecision’s first while we completed the graphical engine. It felt
title was Profezia, an adventure released in 1991 a bit like being their employees.”
 ou can see Trecision’s old
Y for the Amiga. Its second project was the puzzle The project, a point-and-click adventure


office in Rapallo here in the

middle of the picture.
named Alien Virus, was released both in Europe
and the US, but not without some unforeseen
issues. “We were told it had been recalled from
American stores because the cover was racist,”
says Lagorio. “But we hadn’t even been informed
of any changes to the European box art!”
The deal with ICE kept going through their
second adventure, Ark of Time, but Trecision
was getting tired of the issues brought on by its
publisher, and decided to search for another
deal for their next game. Nightlong: Union City
Conspiracy, distributed by Team17 in 1998, is
often mentioned as Trecision’s best – and most
technologically advanced – release. A cyberpunk
adventure with fully animated 3D characters on
2D backgrounds, Nightlong ran up huge costs for
the localisation and dubbing required to publish
the game internationally.
With Team17 seemingly uninterested in
working with Trecision again, the company

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The forgotten story of Italy’s early game studios

The Blade Runner inspiration



in Trecision’s Nightlong is
immediately evident.

Extasy was published by


Simulmondo in 1992. It’s
unclear who did the art.

was at a standstill, trying to figure out what to

do next. But then a joint venture left Trecision
with some generous funding, and so it started Light Shock, founded in 1994 by Massimiliano
thinking about becoming a hub for promising Calamai and Francesco Iorio, which released just
Italian developers. “By 2000, we’d become the three games in its two-year lifespan: one-on-one
biggest Italian software house – there was no brawlers Pray for Death and Fighting Spirit, and
way to go but up,” recalls Montelatici. the vehicular action title Black Viper.
Montelatici talks about the period with both Meanwhile, Artematica, based in Chiavari, was
excitement and a tinge of disappointment. started by Riccardo Cangini following his years at
“We welcomed to Trecision several talents, like Simulmondo. His first project was 2001’s Druuna:
former Westwood developer Rick Gush and Kick Morbus Gravis, an adventure based on the comic
Off’s Dino Dini. Unfortunately, many projects by Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. Cangini continued
remained in limbo, to favour graphic
since we couldn’t find a “We tried to sell Dini’s adventures over the
publisher. We tried to years that followed,
sell Dini’s soccer game
soccer game to Microsoft, and several former
to Microsoft – they even but they still said no” Simulmondo
invited us over to their programmers, including
campus but, in the end, they still said no.” Mario Bruscella and Massimiliano Calamai, also
Trecision’s last title, 2001’s The Watchmaker, moved over to Artematica. The studio’s last
sold decently, but didn’t garner wider adventure, Julia: Innocent Eyes, was published by
appreciation like Nightlong. In the years after, Warner Bros. in 2010.
Trecision tried to stay ahead of the market, Together, these studios’ histories tell a tale
working on mobile games and PlayStation titles, of a nascent market plagued by piracy and
but, when a two-game agreement with French limited funding, which, in part, may explain why
publisher Cryo fell through, Montelatici decided Italy long-struggled to establish a successful
the only option was to close his studio down. games industry. Despite it all, the country’s still CROSSED
“I don’t regret the choice – I really didn’t want managed to produce talents like Cantamessa WIRES
our programmers to be left without money,” and Venturi, and in recent years, with better
While Team17 was showing
Montelatici says of the 2003 closure. “Maybe we organised academic courses and government
Nightlong at the European
could’ve persevered by releasing another couple funding, things are finally changing for the
Computer Trade Show, Lagorio
of games, but we mostly had nowhere to go.” better. Studios like Milestone and Stormind have remembers ICE walked in
Montelatici left the industry a few years produced such high-profile games as MotoGP 21 saying that it was actually their
later, while Lagorio still works in gaming with and Remothered: Broken Porcelain, to name but property. “They thought it was
Perpetuum Media. Gervino is happily retired. two examples. Alien Virus 2. I don’t know what
Beyond its games, Simulmondo had another Italian studios may have struggled in the happened next, perhaps they
legacy: the companies founded by several of 1980s and 1990s, but today, the country’s reached an agreement, but
its former employees. From the company’s games industry undoubtedly has a far brighter surely it didn’t win us any points
with Team17.”
ashes, new teams materialised: the first was future ahead of it.

wfmag.cc \ 75
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 Interface
Interactive

Are you a solo

developer working
on a game you
Interactive / Crystal Story: Awakening
want to share with
Wireframe? If you’d Developer Fred Brown tells us how he made his top-down
like to have your
project featured in
action adventure – with zero programming knowledge

C
these pages, get
in touch with us at
an one person, with almost no its resolution to its colour palette to its sprite
wfmag.cc/hello
programming experience, craft their design screams Super Nintendo, and Brown’s
own top-down action RPG in the eager to point out that the game’s influenced
style of A Link to the Past, EarthBound, by the SNES titles he played (and watched being
or Chrono Trigger? If you’re Fred played) as a child. What’s also striking about
Brown from Georgia, USA, then the answer’s Crystal Story, though, is how solidly made it is;
yes. A graphic designer and illustrator by trade, Mina’s basic fireball attack is quickly joined by
Brown began work on Crystal Story: Awakening a sword, and the basic enemies you initially
in late 2018. Originally a webcomic, it weaves a meet are stunned with a burst of flame and
fantastical story about a little girl named Mina, then finished off with a swish of your blade.
who’s charged with reuniting the four shards of It’s a satisfying combo that’s soon broken
a magic crystal capable of granting wishes. up by Zelda-like puzzling, exploration, and
From its opening cutscene, Crystal Story ’s trickier combat challenges. “I spent a lot of
influences are plain to see: everything from time studying games like Metroid and Zelda,”
Brown explains. “I hooked up a SNES Classic
next to me on my second monitor, and actually
recorded footage/let’s play videos and studied
animations, like Link’s sword swing, frame-by-
frame, seeing how the masters made it work.”
Although Brown’s programming experience
was fairly minimal, he’d dabbled in a bit of
GameMaker as a youth, and it was this platform
he turned to when he began thinking of turning
Crystal Story from a webcomic to a game.
“I decided to give [GameMaker] a shot, since I
felt like I was pretty strong with pixel art, and the
more I learned, the more motivated I became to
stick with it,” Brown recalls. “What happened was
that I spent a whole year making Crystal Story:
Awakening from the ground up, with basically

78 / wfmag.cc
 Interface
Interactive

Many screens contain ingenious


little Zelda-esque puzzles, such
as this one with its cheery ghost
and destructible crystals.

 urn-based battles are

T


punctuated by neat minigames

that have to be completed to
dodge an attack or charge up
your Action Points bar.

zero knowledge. It was fun, nerve-wracking, Tetrix are working on the soundtrack, while
and challenging. When things weren’t working, Brown’s wife is providing character designs,
it was a huge pain in the butt, but when I fixed illustrations, and a spot of playtesting. MAGIC
something, or got a new mechanic in, it was so With Crystal Story ’s foundations laid, though, INGREDIENTS
rewarding. I remember being ecstatic when I an ever-present challenge remains: finding Some of Crystal Story ’s
made the initial Mina sprites, and was able to spare time. “Since I work full-time, I had to influences are easy to spot, but
some are far more left field;
get her to light up some lanterns I drew beneath reframe my way of thinking a bit,” Brown
its turn-based boss battles,
some arches as she walked underneath them!” explains. “I tackled the development of Crystal in particular, have a loose
Before heading to GameMaker, though, Brown Story like this: I work from eight until five. I connection to a certain Super
planned the game by carefully storyboarding come home, do what I need to do, and I can get Mario villain. “Besides Zelda,
everything from its cutscenes to its mechanics; started working on the game at around seven there were a ton of influences,
some of them not even SNES
in its early stages, Brown says, Crystal Story was or eight-ish. Weekends are typically open for me
games,” Brown tells us. “Mina
fairly basic, with no enemies to fight. “I wanted year-round as well. That gives me about four or acquiring [and using] new
to make it easy enough that this could be five hours (six if I’m feeling bold) to work each abilities were both influenced
something I felt confident night. Some nights I don’t by Metroid and Zelda, the
back-tracking in Awakening
I could do,” he tells us, “When things weren’t work on anything and just
was inspired by Metroid
before adding that, as chill. That’s cool too, and
his development skills
working, it was a huge is extremely important to
again… the boss battle system
was inspired by EarthBound,
grew, his ideas also began pain in the butt” me! I try to take a week or Undertale, and WarioWare.
to increase in ambition. a few days off after fixing I liked how Undertale made
you more engaged with its
“What ended up happening was that my speed of a huge bug, or finishing up and demoing a big,
turn-based battle system, but
learning outpaced those initial storyboards, and new mechanic or cutscene as a reward. I try to I thought it’d be cool to take a
I ended up raising the scope significantly. I’d say reward myself frequently after taking care of new mechanic you’ve learned
about 60% of the stuff in the game was me flying something tough or important to the game.” from a dungeon (like in Zelda),
and use it in a fast-paced ‘trial’
by the seat of my pants, coming up with new Understandably, the global pandemic
inspired by WarioWare to fight
ideas to have fun with.” disrupted the development of Crystal Story: a boss.”
Indeed, Crystal Story’s scope grew to such an Dawn of Dusk somewhat, but Brown’s hoping
extent that what began life as a demo eventually he’ll have the second chapter ready before the
became the first chapter in a much bigger saga year’s out. “I’m working hard on episode two
– hence the Awakening suffix in the game’s title. this year, now that the craziness has passed us
Awakening was completed and published on for the most part,” Brown tells us. “I’m having a
itch.io in June 2020, and Brown’s now working blast working on the game, and I can’t wait for
on the next chapter, Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk. players to try out all the new goodies. I want this
From the first chapter to the latest, Brown’s game to be a step-up from Awakening in every
had some vital support from other artists possible way, so I’ve been taking my time.”
and musicians in the process of crafting his Crystal Story: Awakening is available to
miniature fantasy epic – Skittlegirl Sound and download now at wfmag.cc/CrystalStory.

wfmag.cc \ 79
 Interface
Interactive

Are you a solo

developer working
on a game you
Interactive /
want to share with
Wireframe? If you’d
Super Funky Bowling and Station Z-52
like to have your
project featured in
these pages, get We catch up with the winners of last month’s
in touch with us at Wireframe/FUZE retro game coding competition
wfmag.cc/hello

I
f you read last month’s edition, you may
recall we were so overwhelmed by the
quality of entries in our FUZE retro game
coding competition, we decided to pick
two winners. And while they both use
the same platform – FUZE4 Switch – the games
we picked couldn’t be more different. The first is
physics-based action game, Super Funky Bowling, Station Z-52 opens with the kind of


minigame that makes you go, ‘Is
created by Nathaniel ‘Scrubz’ Strub, and the this it?’ before the proper adventure
second is a point-and-click adventure, Station kicks in. It’s a genius bait-and-switch.
Z-52, designed by Michael ‘Dinocoder’ Fuller.
The former is a technically ingenious game in
the vein of Super Monkey Ball, while the latter’s a The result is an absorbing opus that takes
story-driven piece akin to the classic output of place aboard the titular orbiting station; an
LucasArts in the eighties and nineties. incident has left it severely damaged, and so it’s
Super Funky Bowling was created by a up to you to try to rescue the situation by solving
computer science major who’s evidently a bit puzzles in time-honoured point-and-click style.
of a genius at programming, while Station Z-52 “Two point-and-click games that inspired me
is the work of a freelance artist with almost no when making Station Z-52 were Indiana Jones and
coding experience at all. the Fate of Atlantis, and Tardy,” Fuller says. “The
Station Z-52 designer For North Carolina-based Michael Fuller, Station first-person maze using the robot was inspired by


Michael ‘Dinocoder‘
Fuller from North Z-52 was designed to make the most of his the mazes and dungeons in Phantasy Star.”
Carolina. skillset. “I wanted to ensure I chose a genre that Despite his lack of coding experience, Fuller
 lthough built
A my current coding ability could handle, and it was soon made progress thanks to the wealth of


primarily in FUZE, a genre that I’d been wanting to make a game in – tutorial videos online; even so, the sheer scale
Station Z-52 ’s wealth
of pixel art assets especially a space/sci-fi game,” Fuller says. of the project he embarked on meant that it
were drawn and
animated in Aseprite.
took time to design all the puzzles and draw the
huge number of sprites the story required. “The
development of the game took pretty much the
entire length of the competition, and I put several
hours into it most days,” says Fuller. “The artwork
took more than half of the time. If I’d had more
time, I may have added the characters’ quarters
as rooms on the station, and I had an idea for

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Interactive

 reator of Super Funky

C


Bowling, it’s Nathaniel ‘Scrubz’
Strub from East Texas, USA.

 athaniel Strub used a combination of

N


Inkscape and Blender to draw his assets

and convert them into 3D models
before importing them into FUZE.

an outside area for fixing the station antennae

before being able to call for help at the end. I also
would’ve liked to have made a separate sprite for
the main character wearing his spacesuit, and
also improved his walking animation.”

ROLLING, ROLLING, ROLLING

Super Funky Bowling’s Nathaniel Strub, meanwhile,
had made 3D games before, including a project
with a similar ball-rolling premise to his winning
entry, but never in FUZE. “Every time I’ve made
a 3D game in the past, I’ve done all of the 3D
rendering myself,” Strub tells us. “Having FUZE
do the heavy lifting was quite refreshing. I didn’t One of Super Funky Bowling’s standouts is its
have quite as much control over things as I level design, which includes some ingenious,
GET PLAYING
normally would, but it worked well enough for puzzle-like layouts, including switches that flip
As we mentioned last month,
me. Sometimes optimisation is a huge part of the rules of gravity. “I designed the game around the winning games in our retro
development, but this time I was able to get away speedrunning, so I needed to make the levels coding competition are all
with only minor improvements here and there.” themselves fun to speedrun,” Strub explains. freely available to download
While Strub didn’t have too much trouble “Virtually every level has some sort of shortcut on FUZE4 Switch now. From
the main FUZE menu, go to
getting the game up and running in FUZE, the or faster strategy to make speedrunning more
‘Programs’ and then press Y to
biggest challenge came fun. I also tried to keep enter the following codes:
from an unexpected “I created my own every level unique and
Super Funky Bowling:
source. “You might interesting, which was
assume that the most
3D rotation system one of the most time-
NXZZDNNDNP

challenging part of from scratch” consuming parts of Station Z-52:

NXVGKGMD9F
development was the development. I came up
custom 3D physics or assets, but no,” he says. with many of the levels myself, but occasionally Once downloaded, the games
“You know how the ball rotates when it moves? took ideas from various ball-rolling games.” will appear in the code editor.
From here, you can see the
Yeah – that was by far the hardest thing to In their own individual way, Super Funky Bowling code and run the program
create. I wasn’t able to use FUZE’s existing and Station Z-52 are both excellent games, using the + button or F5 on
commands to rotate the ball how I wanted, especially given the limited time and resources your keyboard.
so I created my own 3D rotation system from their creators had to make them. Ultimately, To get the codes for all the
other winning entries, just
scratch. I could do all sorts of fancy rotation they’re both testament to what can be done in
head back to issue 52, over at
within my system and then convert it to FUZE’s. a platform like FUZE – all you need is patience, wfmag.cc/52.
That may sound simple, but it took about two full a willingness to learn and problem-solve, and a
days of complicated math to figure it out.” rock-solid game concept.

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Gallery

GAME
Jack Move
DEVELOPER
So Romantic
RELEASE
2021
WEBSITE
soromantic.co.uk

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Gallery

Jack Move
A game we previewed last month,
Jack Move is a cyberpunk RPG
brought to life with vibrant,
Japanese-inspired sprites and
backgrounds. The world Jack
Move creates is a pleasing mix of
William Gibson-esque dystopia and
anime-like whimsy – an aesthetic
largely created by its lead artist,
Joe Williamson. “As soon as I saw
Joe’s pixels, I knew I wanted to
work with him,” says designer and
programmer, Edd Parris. “He has
such a lovely, fluid style.”
Creating Jack Move’s colourful,
often eccentric cast of characters is
a collaborative process, Parris tells
us. “I’ll grab a bunch of references
and write some descriptions – which
are often very loose – and just let
the character designer (usually
Joe) just run with it,” he says. “This
usually skips the pen and pencil
part and goes straight to pixels.
We have a huge file with tons of
different sketches for NPCs and
enemies. We’ll then have a chat
about what the enemy is all about,
what kind of elemental attacks they
use, the area they’re situated in, and
so on. From there, we spitball ideas
of what kind of attacks they could
have and iterate on the design a
bit more. Then the animator will
hop straight in and start roughing
out animations. This is a really fun
way to work. My original ideas are
usually blown out the water by what
the animators suggest and come
up with.”

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Developer Profile / Hudson Soft

Developer Profile

Hudson Soft
Bomberman. The PC Engine. A fond look back
at one of Japan’s earliest and most important
video game companies

A
t the height of its powers pushed in that territory. Hudson wasn’t
in the late 1980s, Hudson a household name like its rivals Sega or
Soft was a force to be Nintendo, admittedly, but for more than
reckoned with: its PC a decade, it was still one of the biggest –
Engine console, created and historically significant – video game
in partnership with Japanese hardware companies in Japan. Not bad going for
giant NEC, was threatening to eclipse a business that almost started out as a
Nintendo’s Famicom in terms of sales. coffee shop.
At the same time, the Sapporo-based Hudson Soft was founded in 1973 as
firm was developing highly successful CQ Hudson, an electronics store mostly
games for other platforms, while a specialising in amateur radio equipment.
separate publishing division in North Brothers Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo were,
America ensured its games were being it seems, intent on simply starting
a business, and weren’t particularly
bothered about what they were going to
sell; Hudson (named after their favourite
train) might have wound up as a café
had its founders not realised there was
already a similar establishment in the
same building.
Within a couple of years, Hudson
pivoted to selling early computers, such
as NEC’s TK-80, Sharp’s MZ-80K, and
Commodore’s PET. The home computer
market was still in its infancy in the
mid-1970s, and software was in short
supply. To counter this, Hudson began
writing small programs to give away to
their customers. “The games we made

Bomberman : Hudson’s most recognisable



and long-lasting contribution to gaming.

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Hudson Soft \ Developer Profile

were tiny,” recalled one of the company’s the strange moniker, Eric and the Floaters,
earliest employees, Takashi Takebe, in the explosive maze game would prove
Read-Only Memory’s book, Japansoft: to be one of Hudson’s most enduring
An Oral History. “We would include five contributions to the medium, appearing
to ten of them as a bonus with the on just about every platform imaginable,
purchase of a new computer.” and still going strong in 2021 with Super
Seeing the potential in software, Bomberman R.
Hudson began to sell its games and In fact, 1983 marked a major turning
other programs on audio cassettes: it point for Hudson as a video game
would put out adverts in magazines, and company. Not only was it the year that
sell them via mail order all over Japan. Bomberman was first born – thanks to
The sheer number programmer Yuji
of competing “The quality of Tanaka – but it was
computers available also the year when
at the time meant
Hudson’s early output Hudson signed on
there was a ready varied wildly” as the first third-
market for games, party developer for I t wasn’t a huge seller, but Family BASIC


put programming and simple game dev

and so Hudson had to grow to meet the Nintendo’s then-new Famicom console. into the hands of a generation of young
demand: a second office was opened For Hudson, this was a risky move – Famicom owners.

in Tokyo, and extra staff were hired to manufacturing cartridges was expensive,
keep up with the process of porting and Nintendo was still a new player in the
software to different systems. The early console market; in 1983, the Famicom’s
Japanese home computer scene was, in success was far from preordained.
short, quite similar to the UK’s – it was Ultimately, though, Hudson and
a time when a developer could make a Nintendo would quickly forge a strong
game within a few weeks or even days, partnership, with Hudson first porting
get it on an audiotape, and sell it to a several of its computer games to the
community of computer users hungry for system – among them the unforgettably
a new diversion. The quality of Hudson’s named platform puzzler, Nuts & Milk –
early output varied wildly as a result, with before getting the go-ahead to translate
the young company putting out dozens some of Nintendo’s biggest names to
of titles per month in the early 1980s. other machines. Thanks to Hudson,
Still, there were some ingenious ideas such games as Balloon Fight and Mario
in the mix – not least the 1983 game, Bros. appeared on Japanese systems like
Bomberman, released in the UK under the PC-88 and Sharp X1. Hudson also

wfmag.cc \ 85
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Developer Profile / Hudson Soft

 udson Soft’s distinctive

H


bee logo, sitting proudly
atop the company’s HQ. It
was finally removed in 2017.

The resulting system, 1987’s PC Engine,

was arguably the most forward-thinking
games machine of its era: it was
compact, flexible – a CD-ROM add-on,
the first of its kind for a console, came
out the following year – and far ahead,
technically, of Nintendo’s Famicom.
As well as co-developing the PC Engine,
Hudson Soft released a hefty library of
games for the system over its lifespan –
developed the software side of Family such titles as Bonk’s Revenge (PC-Genjin in
BASIC – a combination of keyboard Japan), Bomberman ’94, and Soldier Blade
and development platform designed to were among the best ever made for the
turn the Famicom into a fully fledged console. NEC’s attempt to push the PC
home computer. Engine in North America – where it was
By the mid-eighties, Hudson Soft had rebranded as the TurboGrafx-16 – met
flourished into a major industry player: with only limited success, but still, the
its Famicom ports of Bomberman and system endured in its home country
 udson’s origins as a computer
H
puzzle-platformer Lode Runner had sold until well into the 1990s.


game maker meant it loved

giving players the tools to make over a million copies apiece, and its What’s worth noting is that, even at
their own levels. Lode Runner
on the Famicom had its own annual series of Caravan events (see the height of its success, Hudson Soft
editor, for example. box) helped spread Hudson’s brand never lost its geeky, playful edge. Its
all over Japan. Meanwhile, a marketing research and development laboratory
executive named Toshiyuki Takahashi on the leafy outskirts of Sapporo, for
became the public face of the company example, had a miniature railway track
as Takahashi Meijin: appearing on that staff could sit on and ride around
comics and television, he became
famous for his rapid-fire prowess at 2D
shooting titles, and even starred in his
own series of video games.
Hudson had made its mark as a
developer of video games and other
software by the mid-eighties, while
its technical prowess was such that it
had begun to design its own custom
graphics chip, which it unsuccessfully
 Many of Hudson’s shooters tried to sell to Nintendo. At the same
featured a Caravan mode –
a two- or five-minute time, NEC was looking to enter the
high-score challenge that
formed the backbone of its
console market, and partnered up with
travelling tournaments. Hudson Soft to develop the venture.

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Hudson Soft \ Developer Profile

the offices – the track even snaked Hudson now controlled by its majority
around the outside of the building, like a shareholder, it was gradually absorbed
bantam theme park ride. Even Hudson into Konami’s corporate bulk, and by Caravan of Courage
Soft’s logo – a cartoon bee – had a March 2012, had vanished altogether. For a period of approximately 15 years,
Hudson Soft held a series of competitive
hint of nerdiness to it: in Japanese, the Many of Hudson Soft’s properties
tournaments, which it took all over the
number eight, hachi, also means bee. still survive – Super Bomberman R country under the banner of Hudson All-
The radio call sign for the Hokkaido successfully revived the series in 2017, Japan Caravan Festival. Players competed
region is JA8, and so a bee was chosen while Konami capitalised on the lingering in two- to five-minute bouts on a specific
as Hudson’s mascot – a nod to its nostalgia for retro consoles with the PC game chosen each year: 1985’s game was
Star Force, a top-down shoot-’em-up that set
amateur radio origins. Engine Mini device, released in 2020.
the pace for future tournaments. Between
Sadly, Hudson’s glory days couldn’t For a company with such a long 1985 and 1992, all but one of the games
last. The 1994 successor to the and important history as Hudson Soft, taken around Japan were shooters – the
PC Engine, the PC-FX, was a major though, the cold nature of its demise glaring exception being 1988, when the
featured game was a baseball title called
commercial misfire; seemed all the more
Power League. When the shooter began
by the time it was cruel. Today, its to ebb in popularity in the early nineties,
scrapped in 1998, “A bee was chosen old R&D office and Hudson switched to Bomberman games:
it had sold just as a nod to Hudson’s miniature railway Hi-Ten Bomberman, a title developed
400,000 units – to stands empty. exclusively for the Caravan Festival in 1993,
put the disaster
amateur radio origins” Over at its former
ran on an early HD television and supported
up to ten players.
into perspective, headquarters,
the PC Engine had reportedly sold half a Hudson’s distinctive bee logo stood
million units after its first week on sale. proudly over the entrance until 2017,
An even bigger blow came from far when a pair of builders arrived and
outside Hudson itself: the firm’s bank, quietly took the signage away. What
Takushoku, went bust in the late 1990s, remains, though, is its huge library of
severely damaging Hudson’s financial games and the equally sizeable impact
standing in the process. In order to raise it made on the medium’s history –
much-needed capital, Hudson went thankfully, that’s one legacy that can’t be
public in 2000, a move which allowed it so easily erased.
to reinvest money in such new ventures
as the growing mobile gaming market, as
well as a publishing deal with Infogrames
in France. At the same time, however,
floating Hudson on the stock market
left the company open to a takeover
– which is precisely what happened
when Konami brought some 5.6 million
Hudson Soft shares in 2001. This was, in
essence, the beginning of the end: with

 akahashi Meijin
T


became an unlikely
celebrity in 1980s
Japan – a Hudson
ambassador famed
for his rapid-fire
joypad technique.

 rom 1985 onwards,

F


these touring ‘Caravan’

tournaments were a
fixture in Hudson
Soft’s calendar.

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Developer Profile / Hudson Soft

10 unmissable
Hudson Soft classics
Bomberman, yes, and lots more besides

01 02 03

Stop the Express Lode Runner Star Soldier

ZX Spectrum 1983 Famicom / NES 1984 Famicom/NES 1986
One of a handful of Hudson titles released for Hudson didn’t create this fast-paced puzzle An influential shooter with plenty of zip, Star
the ZX Spectrum in the West, this was also one platformer – full credit to Doug Smith – but Soldier was Hudson’s refinement of Tecmo’s
of the 8-bit micro’s best action games. Later its rendition of Lode Runner was a key release markedly similar Star Force, which Hudson
reworked as one section of the Famicom title, for the developer. It was its first game for the ported a year earlier. Star Soldier was far
Challenger, Stop the Express also featured Famicom, and its first console hit. Lode Runner superior, though, and sparked a whole string
one of the great final messages in gaming: also marked the first appearance of what would of increasingly feisty sequels, many of them
“Congraturation! You Sucsess!” later become the classic Bomberman sprite. appearing in Hudson’s Caravan competitions.

04 05
Bonk’s Adventure Soldier Blade
PC Engine 1989 PC Engine 1992
Of the strangely prevalent cycle of caveman- The last Star Soldier game for the PC Engine,
themed games (among them Chuck Rock this sequel took the vertical shooting template
and Joe & Mac), Bonk is arguably the best. and sharpened it to a gleaming point. Fast and
An anarchic platformer with lots of surreal eminently replayable, Soldier Blade was one of
set-pieces, Bonk (aka PC-Genjin) was the PC Hudson’s greatest ever action games. It also
Engine’s refreshing alternative to the wholesome features one of Hudson’s very best ‘Caravan’
Super Mario. score attack modes. An essential shooter.

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Hudson Soft \ Developer Profile

06 07

Saturn Bomberman DoReMi Fantasy

Sega Saturn 1996 Super Famicom 1986
Opinions differ over which of the numerous Not all rare games are collectible because
Bomberman games is the best, but we’d choose they’re worth playing, but this is absolutely
this 32-bit outing. Not only is its multiplayer the case with this charming Japan-only
mode the most raucously enjoyable, with a platformer. A sequel to the much darker
wealth of power-ups to pick up and tinker with, Famicom title, Milon’s Secret Castle, this
but its single-player campaign is also the most one offers plenty of charming, colourful
colourful and imaginative in the series to date. run-and-jump action.

08 09 10

Mario Party 3 Ninja Five-O Lost in Shadow

Nintendo 64 2000 Game Boy Advance 2003 Wii 2010
Hudson’s relationship with Nintendo Another one of Hudson’s more obscure releases Hudson’s best days were long behind it by
continued well into the new millennium as (and known in some regions as Ninja Cop), this this point, but Lost in Shadow displayed a
the developer put out a whole series of these run-and-slash action fest plays like a belated late glimmer of creativity. A vaguely Ico -like
digital boardgame/minigame collections. answer to the original Ninja Gaiden games. platformer where you control a silhouette, it
This third main entry for the Nintendo 64 was Tough yet consistently engrossing, Ninja Five-O was a cracking third-party Wii game that was
perhaps the best of a simple yet consistently is also one of the Game Boy Advance’s most sadly buried under the avalanche of forgettable
entertaining bunch. scarce and sought-after titles. shovelware crowding the system at the time.

wfmag.cc \ 89
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Column

DLC: Delicious
Little Cards
A
s regular readers of this column will a pile of new ‘mutators’ to modify gameplay as
no doubt be aware, I’m somewhat well as expert challenges for those who had
partial to* deck-builders. From conquered what the game had to offer. This was
SteamWorld Quest to Slay the Spire, quickly followed by a second free Friends and
from Griftlands to Gloomhaven, Foes update which added new champions,
I can’t get enough of oblongs. bosses, cards, and artefacts as well as some
The most recent game to catch my eye is nice additions to gameplay. It also implemented
Roguebook, a roguelike PC title from Richard various quality of life improvements which
STEVE MCNEIL Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering, the recognised popular fan requests. This was then
Steve is so obsessed latter being widely accepted as the first modern also followed soon after with official mod support,
with these games we’re CCG (collectable card game). When its demo was allowing the community to grow their passion
beginning to think
he only writes for us released earlier this year, it got a lot of positive even further.
because our pages are attention. However, when it released in full in In short, developer Shiny Shoe nailed it.
also rectangles.
June, it suffered an immediate backlash due to Their commitment to ongoing development and
day one DLC. their community meant that, when the paid DLC
By contrast, another game that’s consumed launched, it would have been hard to argue it
countless hours** of my time, which had a far wasn’t worth the investment if you had enjoyed
more positively received DLC offering, is Monster everything the game had offered to date.
Train. The Last Divinity, released ten months after The good news is, Roguebook quickly set
the game’s successful launch, was everything things right, posting a blog entitled We messed up
good DLC should be. It offered substantial just four days after launch. Originally, they had
additional content, including a new game envisaged their Digital Deluxe Edition to focus
“DLC often mechanic that breathed fresh life into everything on cosmetics, but felt they wanted to offer more
has a bad that had come before (Pact Shards, if you’re to those showing additional support for them,
asking) plus a new end boss to extend every and so added exclusive content. However, they
name, and
playthrough, for those brave enough to take it on. recognised this was an mistake, and worked with
for good Prior to this, several substantial free updates Steam to lift restrictions on anyone who wished
reason” had been added to the game. The first added to seek a refund due to this initial error.
Two very different situations, but both
demonstrating a willingness to listen to their fans,
and an essential commitment to the community
which will hopefully allow the game to develop
and thrive for years to come. DLC often has a
bad name, and for good reason, so it’s great to
see two examples of companies giving the issue
proper consideration when deciding on their
release strategies.
And it means I get more pretty rectangles.
Win-win.

*obsessed with

** actually entirely countable on my Xbox and

Steam profiles, but I’d rather not say precisely
 oguebook : DLC done right.
R how many hours I’ve put into it. Suffice to say, it’s


Eventually. (It’s had delicious

rectangles since day one.) somewhat more than one might consider healthy

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 Rated
Contents

Backend Contents
Reviews, retro games, and lots more besides
92. Biomutant PC, PS4, XBO
94. Wonder Boy – Asha in Monster World PC, PS4, Switch OUR SCORES
95. Knockout City PC, PS5, PS4, XB S/X, XBO, Switch 1–9
Trash. Unplayable; a broken mess.

96. Operation Tango PC, PS4, XBO, XB S/X, PS5 10–19

A truly bad game, though not
97. Stonefly PC, PS5, XB S/X, PS4, XBO, Switch necessarily utterly broken.

20–29
98. Slipways PC, MAC Still awful, but at a push could be
fun for two minutes.
99. The Magnificent Trufflepigs PC, Switch 30–39
Might have a redeeming feature,
100. Necromunda: Hired Gun PC, PS5, XB S/X, PS4, XBO but otherwise very poor.

40–49
 age 92: It’s been a very long time coming,
P Adds in more redeeming features,


but is Biomutant mutating any expectations? but still not worth your time.

50–59
Average. Decent at best. ‘Just
about OK’.

60–69
Held back by glitches, bugs, or a lack
of originality, but can be good fun.

70–79
A very good game, but one lacking
spit and polish or uniqueness.

80–89
Brilliant. Fabulous fun. Everyone
should at least try it.

90–99
Cutting edge, original, unique, and/
or pushes the medium forward.

100
Never say never, eh?

PLUS
101. Stream of Consciousness
Demystifying the world of streaming by
meeting some of its top names

102. The HOTLIST

The PC’s very best games, according to us
here humble folk at Wireframe

104. Backwards compatible

Celebrating the N64’s quarter century and
more retro stuff to make you feel old

108. Now playing

 age 104: Looking back at some
P
The games that have been taking up at least


of Nintendo’s most surprisingly

some of our time this month violent games and more.

wfmag.cc \ 91
 Rated
Review

Review

Biomutant
GENRE Bio-Mute-it
Info

Action adventure

I
FORMAT
PS4 / XBO / can’t hate Biomutant. It’s too lovely to their stupid, adorable faces. Life is full of lessons,
PC (tested) look at, too earnest to be truly cynical though. So kudos to Biomutant for teaching me
DEVELOPER about. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever that I could learn to hate a dachshund puppy
Experiment 101 played a game that would benefit so if it explained the difference between right and
PUBLISHER strongly from having all spoken and wrong to me every time I went to feed it.
THQ Nordic
written dialogue completely removed from it. Lots of great games have bad writing, and I
PRICE
For a game so ostensibly concerned with the think that’s something most of us have made
£54.99
environment that it barely lets you turn a corner our peace with. That Biomutant ’s identity hinges
RELEASE
without spouting platitudes at you, it seems so much on the strength of its storytelling is the
Out now
utterly averse to letting its world breathe. fault of combat and exploration that could be
It’s too gorgeous a world to drown out, too. enjoyable in service of a greater whole, but is
Even the creatures trying to kill you are so too inconsistent to carry a whole game. Think
REVIEWED BY charming that it’s hard to criticise the game at all Arkham, sans tightness, and Devil May Cry, sans
Nic Reuben for fear of seeing a look of disappointment on freedom and fluidity.
It’s passable, and sometimes fun. An oversized
metal rocket-glove called the Klonkfist makes
one helluva satisfying clank when it connects,
and a fighting staff lets you twirl and lunge like a
bin-scavenging ballerina. Animations are often
exciting, even if largely limp sound design robs
them of weight. But with so many weapons and
different enemy types, along with inconsistent
parry and block tells, it’s a dice throw as to
whether it feels good.
The art design and colour palette do a damn-
near heroic job of making exploration worthwhile
for its own sake, but even this is soured by a
refusal to let you engage with the world on your
own terms. “There’s so much more to see now,”
says the narrator, ambiently, as I explore. But
 reat line. Now tell me five
G
I know that, old mate. I can see it myself. The


more saying the same thing. world is bright and beautiful enough, the music

92 / wfmag.cc
 Rated
Review

 isually impressive
V


boss fights are let down
by dull mechanics.
beckoning and promising enough, that I can feel
It’s a huggel, obviously.

these things without being told to.
During the writing of this review, a patch
was released that lets you turn off the narrator
entirely. Previously, conversations lasted twice
as long as they needed to. You’d get spoken
to in charming gibberish, then the narrator
would translate. Now, you can just opt to have simple puzzles and collecting loot. Even the
gibberish and subtitles, or just the narrator. It’s sprint animation made me grin, making your
a welcome change, but it doesn’t fix the fact that furry little weirdo bound across the plains on HIGHLIGHT
up to five sentences are regularly used to say all fours. You can ride on a clockwork hand that The first encounter with each
what could have been accomplished in just one. shoots rockets from its fingers, a mech that new creature feels like turning
I don’t believe brevity should always be a hard shoots squirrels, and you unlock fast travel a new page in a wonderfully
odd coffee table art book, and
and fast rule, but so few speakers in Biomutant’s points by peeing on them. One mission had me each new gadget and gizmo is
world are interesting enough as characters to stealing a giant toothbrush from a billboard so I a real delight to discover.
justify these monologues. could scrub clean a giant cat-ogre-mutant thing
Most egregious of all is a morality system that had got itself trapped in an oil spill. I loved
that Peter Molyneux would find quaint, with this stuff. It kept me pushing forward, hoping to
consequences so limited they make Fable look find more of it, more charming little moments
like Planescape: Torment. Colour-coded sprites that understood the difference between child-
appear and argue with each other about dark like and childish. Occasionally, I did. Mostly, I just
and light every time you make a moral decision. looted chests, hit things, and got talked at.
It’s excruciating. I’ve heard the argument that There’s likely a few weekends of fun here, VERDICT
this is a consequence of Biomutant being for the right person, with the right podcast on Charming visual design
designed for kids, but being patronised sounds in the background. Something to shore up the and undeniable heart
the same whether you’re five or 50. Dr. Seuss, gaps and lulls, the empty hills, the dull tunnels, makes Biomutant hard
Roald Dahl… heck, I was ten when I played the same enemy camps we’ve all been clearing to hate, but inconsistent
Abe’s Oddysee. Morality tales don’t have to be for a decade now. Parents, too, might want to quality and baffling writing
patronising. Please let your world speak for take a closer look, especially now the narration choices make it hard to
itself. I have never felt the tired writing mantra issues have been patched. Otherwise, I’m left recommend, either.
‘Show, don’t tell’ as viscerally as I did playing this. despairing at the industry trends that made
I don’t think Biomutant is a bad game, though
– just an ill-considered one. It’s still satisfying to
absent-mindedly run about the world, solving
the developers feel they had to turn such a
strange and wonderful premise into such an
unremarkable game to make it profitable.
60%
wfmag.cc \ 93
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
Asha is unable to perform
certain basic movements
– like gliding, floating, and
double jumping – without her
trusty Pepelogoo. It’s a cool
twist to the platforming format
that could have resulted in
some unique puzzle design,
yet it’s never fully capitalised
on and often hinders your
traversal more than it helps.

Review

Wonder Boy:
Asha in Monster World
Not quite a wonderful world

F
ew protagonists get as excited over original game’s blueprint and update
finding a simple item chest as this important features. Clearly the intention
GENRE green-haired heroine. Always saddling here was for developer Monkey Craft to stay
Info

2D action-
up to them with swagger, rocking her as slavish as possible outside of aesthetics,
platformer
hips side to side in a jig… all this over leaving anyone who isn’t a die-hard fan of the
FORMAT
Switch (tested) /
what’s sure to be a few coins (again). I wish I series underwhelmed.
PC / PS4 could share in the joy. Because as charming as Asha’s goal is to rescue four sprites scattered
DEVELOPER these touches are, they’re also indicative of the throughout the kingdom in the hopes of
Monkey Craft simplicity rampant in this ground-up remake of preventing the oncoming darkness. To do this,
PUBLISHER 1994’s Monster World IV. This action-platformer she’s joined by her cute flying friend Pepelogoo,
STUDIOARTDINK is harmless fun if you can get past the lack of who can be called upon to melt ice blocks and
PRICE innovation, sure, but rarely does Asha’s revitalised prevent arrows from hitting you, as well as gifting
£31.49 adventure live up to contemporary standards. you with other traversal manoeuvres. Most of
RELEASE The only real attempt to modernise is in the these abilities are only ever necessary during
Out now graphical department. Where most other recent specific instances within stages, though, and
Wonder Boy remakes remain intent on the flat having to call him over just to double jump is
look, Asha in Monster World at annoying. It’s a shame his
least does something different “It’s harmless fun if inclusion isn’t handled better
REVIEWED BY by opting for a cell-shaded because Pepelogoo is one of
Aaron Potter 2.5D style. In most indie titles
you can get past the the main differentiators that
there’s a risk this design choice lack of innovation” separates Monster World from
could look cheap, but here it other games of its type.
VERDICT does well to blend the past and present together, Every new setting you visit offers a feast for the
A staunch remake almost lending the four dungeons you explore an added eyes, but that does little to help Asha in Monster
to a fault, cutesy visuals dynamism. Colourful locations like ice temples, sky- World from feeling like anything more than an
and animations only high mountains, and volcanoes always feel alive. old-school relic with lots of missed potential.
distract from old-school Sadly, it’s never long until the illusion is broken, It’s not an outright travesty or broken as far as
design issues for so long. let down by stiff character animations, boring remakes go. However, it does little to win over
combat, and an extremely rote narrative. It’s in new players craving a challenge or genuine

46% all these areas that Monster World constantly

reminds you it’s a remake first and foremost, and
not in a good way – refusing to move on from the
creativity from their side-scrolling platformers.
Jig all you like, Asha – you’re left without a dance
partner on this occasion.

94 / wfmag.cc
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
Knockout City ’s got
personality, bolstered by a
DJ who can’t resist a rhyme
and an upbeat electro swing
soundtrack composed
by The Soundlings. The
sense of agility is reflected
in the brightly coloured,
economical art style.

Review

Knockout City
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball

W
hether you’re throwing, flipping, The core mode has two sides of three
dodging or gliding, you’re competing over the best of three rounds, which

Info
always moving in Knockout City. expire when the first side gets ten KOs. Play takes GENRE
Action/Sports
And of the various trick shots, place over four distinctive arenas, one atop a
FORMAT
my favourite is the simplest. skyscraper, and one which is intermittently run
PC (tested) / PS4/5
You ready? Here it is: you catch someone, then through by a train. Meanwhile, an experience- / XBO / XB X/S /
lob them off the map. It brings a smile to my face based progression path carries you along. Switch
every time. And in this cheerfully drawn, retro- Cosmetic unlocks encourage long-term play, DEVELOPER
futuristic metropolis that’s stylistically somewhere which Knockout City’s inhabitants like to show Velan Studios
between Splatoon and The Incredibles, it feels a off post-game. Early up-levelling furnishes lots PUBLISHER
little wicked, too. But this is ‘dodgebrawl’, after all. of rewards, seeding your appetite for unlocking Electronic Arts
Knockout City is a sharply executed, team-based more with your ‘Holobuks’ at the shop. At the PRICE
game and a wonderful palate cleanser. You’ll time of writing at least, the microtransactions to £17.99
wield a dodgeball, but you’ll also get to grips with support this are unobtrusive. RELEASE
Out now
a ticking time bomb, a ball that behaves like a Knockout City is lean, clean, and suitable for
sniper, and a Cage Ball which traps enemies in anyone who wants to substitute licensed Glocks
ball form. By hurling, spinning, and lobbing these in their games with big rubber oranges. Sure,
at your opponents, you’ll accumulate KOs to help some derivative modes like free-for-all feel like
achieve wins for your team. While a simple strike filler. It’s annoying when matchmade players REVIEWED BY
with a dodgeball feels great, timing your catches, haven’t done the basic training. Sound and visual Kyle Hoekstra
mastering feints, and delivering surprise hits clarity, on the whole, is fantastic, but the warning
feel even better. There’s also space for playing for multiple incoming shots can get muddled.
impulsively: my other favourite move involves These are quibbles. Overall, Knockout City hits its
barging players down big holes. targets, and is a substantial triumph of skills and
Key to success is teamwork. This can be thrills that’s always light on its feet.
frustratingly rare in general matchmaking.
In League Play, however, better teams pass balls
 y deftly threading your
B
VERDICT


between them to charge their throwing power, reactions, you can emerge from
lend teammates balls for better-positioned shots, melees with unexpected wins.
It’s a KO. A perfect lunch-
and barge each other’s opponents to prevent break kind of game.
them defending. You can also roll into a ball and
be thrown yourself. Forming a crew is a great way
to cultivate more co-operative play, and handy
call-outs help to foster some connection.
78%
wfmag.cc \ 95
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
With cross-platform play and a
Friend Pass system, pulling a
pal in to play Operation: Tango
is as easy as sending an invite.
There’s certainly scope to play
this through with multiple friends,
too, especially if you insist on
swapping between Agent and
Hacker, depending on what each
player has previously experienced.

Review

Operation: Tango
It takes two to tangle with tricky spy missions

A
co-op game lives and dies by correct wire would be played out by now, but
how engaging it is. You want it to Operation: Tango loves to twist these precarious
GENRE force you to communicate, create hero moments by limiting a player’s senses and
Info

Co-op tension, and usher in the occasional constantly warping the gameplay in imaginative
FORMAT emotional outburst as you work ways, WarioWare style.
PC / XBO /
together towards a greater goal. The 3D segments add character, but it’s clear
PS4 (tested)
Operation: Tango is a spy thriller that ticks all of the developers are more confident in 2D space,
DEVELOPER
these boxes, but not always for the right reasons. with the sharp-lined UI and vibrant cartoon art
Clever Plays
Over seven missions, you and your co-op partner outshining simple 3D models and environments.
PUBLISHER
Clever Plays can choose to play as an agent or a hacker. The Even the 3D mechanics, like a clunky EMP
PRICE
hacker is typically trapped in cyberspace but has grenade and a dodgy remote-controlled Roomba,
£13.99 plenty of agency, altering and opening up the real feel hamstrung. The 2D subterfuge is consistently
RELEASE world where the agent roams, ticking off mission intuitive, but there’s one frustrating mechanic
Out now objectives in physical space. called the Password Checker. You have a four-
One great mission sees the agent scoping a digit code to figure out, made of ones and zeros.
busy subway train. The hacker has access to its While one person guesses, the other person
passengers’ apps and IP addresses and must use relays what digits were wrong and out of position.
REVIEWED BY this information to direct It’s trial and error that
Jordan Oloman the agent to a specific “It’s not afraid to let forces players to repeat
commuter who’s been themselves over voice
planted with essential data.
you fail, unlike other chatter until they crack it –
Throw timers, co-op experiences” and it drove us both mad.
simultaneous hacking Regardless, It’s easy to
puzzles, looming threats, and door controls into look past some of the game’s poorly thought-
the mix, and you’ve got pure co-operative chaos. out spy mechanics, as they’re short dips within
By the end of the mission, we were defusing varied and fun missions. The bugs were trickier to
VERDICT an explosive and barking orders as the timer overlook. The worst one soured the final act – a
Operation: Tango’s chaotic ticked down to single digits. It was exhilarating visual issue where we didn’t see the same puzzles
co-op is well worth your and made stronger by the fact that the game is on our screens. This appeared multiple times and
time, even if it’s a little so challenging. It’s not afraid to let you fail, unlike made it impossible for us to collaborate, forcing
rough around the edges.
many other co-op experiences. us to restart long missions.
Missions tend to grow in complexity and Disruption aside, I still left Operation:

74% intrigue as you progress, leading to virtual reality

rhythm games and Mission: Impossible-style
elevator shaft descents. You’d think cutting the
Tango thrilled and excited for more after its
campaign ended. Ultimately, there are few games
like it, and it’s easily one of the best of its kind.

96 / wfmag.cc
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
The biggest resource hauls
come from monstrous alpha
aphids that sporadically burst
from underground, caked in
gems. Of course, the precious
goods attract all the bugs to
the yard, so like a Black Friday
sale, it’s a hectic dash to grab
as much as you can, without
getting barged aside.

Review

Stonefly
Bug-ridden

S
tonefly is further evidence that
Flight School Studio isn’t short of  eturn to camp between forays to
R


speak to friends, shop for parts, fix

Info
original ideas. Like 2019’s Creature up your rig, or take a quick nap.
GENRE
Action adventure
in the Well, what looks routine at a
FORMAT
glance is actually enticingly different,
PS4/5 (tested) / PC
with a distinct aesthetic to boot. Yet beyond humanely scooping up a bedroom spider on a / Switch / XBO /
its premise, Creature in the Well was ultimately coaster then blowing it out the upstairs window. XB S/X
rather skeletal, flattering to deceive, and Stonefly It’ll be fine. Probably. Here, there’s a colonial guilt DEVELOPER
doesn’t exactly break the pattern. To muddle the attached, kicking the locals off their patch to mine Flight School Studio
metaphor, while it does have more meat on its minerals, but that’s quickly repressed among PUBLISHER
bones, it’s still a little undercooked. the positional jockeying of bombing and gusting, MWM Interactive
Stonefly’s originality springs from a world luring fatter opponents close to the edges, while PRICE
where humans are tiny (or everything else is trying not to get biffed by a charging stag. £17.99
massive – same difference), making shelter The intensity is sporadic, however, as, like RELEASE
Out now
on rocks and branches, and zipping about in Annika’s craft, Stonefly has a habit of drifting
gliding machines modelled on the giant bugs vaguely. The autumnal scenery is striking but light
around them. As Annika, a young mechanic, on meaningful composition – between skirmishes
you’re hunting the thief of your father’s prized the main challenges are obscured camera views
rig, piloting an abandoned old vehicle that you’ll and distinguishing solid landing points from REVIEWED BY
fix up along the way. But upgrades require ethereal set decoration – while featureless and Jon Bailes
minerals, and minerals attract insects, so you’ll flat arenas ensure the insect turf wars eventually
have to fight for your share. lose their lustre. Complete Annika’s story and
It really is a good idea, and there’s simple joy there’s a neat pay-off about what we value and,
in weaving your metal bug between twisting appropriately under the circumstances, not seeing
brambles or launching from leaf to leaf in the the wood for the trees. But much of the lead-up
forest canopy. A sense of serenity oozes through feels loosely sewn together, only occasionally
pastel crayon shapes and mellow beats into the condensing into a captivating nugget. Then the
undulating hop and glide of your rig, a blend second half wastes too much time on loops of VERDICT
of cranefly knees and ladybird wings, light and resource grinding to pass arbitrary toll-gates. Inventive and visually lush,
laconic enough to coast with the will of the breeze. Such repetitive labours in a game of dreamy Stonefly lacks the depth to
Defence, meanwhile, involves toppling a litany exploration finally confirm the sense of an idea avoid wearying repetition.
of pushy beetles onto their backs with ground- that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself.
rattling bombs then generating a gust of wind
to waft them off the edge of the leafy battlefield.
It’s a method that’s tactile in its familiarity – like
Still, it says something that Flight School have
again not quite found a winning formula, yet leave
us keen to see what’s next.
63%
wfmag.cc \ 97
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
It’s the pulsating probe mini-
game. When you’re aiming
where to send probes, their
scanning range delicately pulses,
meaning if you time it right, you
can discover one or two extra
planets. It adds a subtle little
skill check into things – and if
you can’t be bothered? Just turn
it off in the options.

Review

Slipways
In space, no one can hear you screen (for new trade routes)

W
e went over it in our preview in thoroughfares. Bar some late-game tech you
issue 49, but it bears repeating: can unlock, routes can only be in a straight line,
GENRE Slipways is not a 4X game of as noted, and can’t cross over one another.
Info

Probe-’em-up galaxy-spanning strategy. Suddenly sounds challenging, doesn’t it?

FORMAT No, Slipways is a puzzle game. Slipways is superb: the core concept carried
PC, Mac
It tells you you’re creating a vast intergalactic off with efficient, smart design, a tutorial system
DEVELOPER
empire generating supply and meeting demand, to ease in new players, and the shorter nature of
Beetlewing
and it has the trappings of alien races, planetary each playthrough meaning it’s a title that, while it
PUBLISHER
systems to probe, and new technologies to engages your brain to work out the best routes
Beetlewing
research. But the game boils down to one key possible, doesn’t eat up all of your free time.
PRICE
£13.99 aspect: connecting your planets to one another. Except… well, it sort of does, because once its
RELEASE
You do this using slipways: space tubes, if teeth are sunk in, there’s no escaping its lure.
Out now you will, comprising a straight line between two Galaxies are randomly rolled when you start,
SOCIAL colonised planets. Goods can travel one or both and while the majority of the time you get a
@SlipwaysGame directions depending on the connected planets’ chunk of space that’s balanced and something
needs or what they produce. Planet A produces you can work within (and around) to get your
food but needs people to routes set up perfectly,
make it; Planet B produces “Once your teeth are sometimes you’re just sold a
people but needs food to pup. In a game where runs
make them. One slipway
sunk in, there’s no lasted hours – even days –
REVIEWED BY
Ian Dransfield later, problem solved. And escaping its lure” this would be unforgivable.
from there it builds. Needs In Slipways, where a run is
change and secondary factors come into play – usually about half an hour? Get frustrated, start
more supply means more demand – and soon a new game, forget about the last one, have fun
your simple, small-scale galactic empire is forced again. That’s the only concern of note I could
to expand to meet these new needs. Would you think of here.
VERDICT believe it, that’s where the real game begins. Slipways absolutely nails what it’s aiming for.
A focused, delightful Your initial, furtive expansion sees planets It’s a tight, focused puzzle game that manages
puzzle game masquerading popping into existence as you probe probable to both challenge the grey matter and also
as space empire-based signals – a minigame in itself – with expanded offer a much-needed respite from the stress of
grand strategy.
needs on the original home planets being met everyday existence. It’s only going to improve as
by the provisions of the new. But then the new developer Jakub Wasilewski builds on what he’s

90% planets have needs of their own, and so on,

until you have a civilisation spanning hundreds
of planets and just as many spacefaring
been working on for a long time, but even here in
the moment after Slipways’ initial release, we’ve
already got a great game on our hands.

98 / wfmag.cc
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
The absence of animated
character models doesn’t
undercut the drama as
much as it might. This game
sometimes feels like a radio
drama, soundly performed by
Luci Fish as Beth and Arthur
Darvill as Adam.

Review

The Magnificent Trufflepigs

Playing the field

T
his quiet metal-detecting game set conversation. A locket will get Beth talking about
in pastoral England starts with a her shirking partner. A tent peg will remind her

Info
phone call. Stanning Farm has just of a childhood spent outdoors. Gradually, they’ll GENRE
First-person
been sold. Before the new owners needle Beth’s understanding of herself.
detector
arrive, Beth can’t resist the chance These are the game’s two gears: detecting and
FORMAT
to drop the busywork weighing her down and listening. It doesn’t shift from this pattern. This PC (tested) / Switch
venture back onto the fields where she once is OK. Good, in fact, because the person who DEVELOPER
discovered some precious jewellery. First, she planted this debris is Andrew Crawshaw, lead Thunkd
needs a hand, and old friend Adam picks up. designer of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, with PUBLISHER
The questions first posed in Beth’s call fuel the which Trufflepigs shares an enchanting sense AMC Games
narrative engine of The Magnificent Trufflepigs. of place. The first time the game lets us walk PRICE
What’s so special about this jewellery? Where’s around, it’s tempting to just stand there, listening £9.29
Beth’s fiancé? And what’s Beth looking for, really? to the music and the birds and the rustling grass. RELEASE
It’s a small engine, admittedly. The story of this When we do grasp the detector, there Out now
self-described “evening-sized” game unfolds over isn’t much in the way of deduction. Minimally
walkie-talkies and text messages while we, playing interactive, it lacks skill-based elements that might
Adam, patrol various fields. We have a slim make it more satisfying. More than anything, The
toolset: a spade, a trowel, and a metal detector. Magnificent Trufflepigs is a sympathetic vignette REVIEWED BY
Standing in our way is grass. Simply sweep the of Beth’s disaffection with rural life. We see Kyle Hoekstra
detector with its beeping and flashing indicators her negotiating the inheritance of the family
to locate finds, and the game prompts us to dig, business, her mangled hopes with her fiancé,
rotate, and photograph. What we’ll dig up won’t and her confused relationship with Adam. The
be turning up on dodgy eBay listings. Instead, development here is all Beth’s, whose story
they’re personal, each one prompting a gobbet of beats take place out of frame. Conspicuously
missing from Trufflepigs’ story is Adam, through
whose eyes and ears we experience the whole
 he map isn’t essential, but
T


it does have some lovely thing. We’re left feeling a bit redundant, with the
shadows on its folded paper.
meaning of their relationship largely unexcavated. VERDICT
A narrative game where you walk around The short story inside this
with a metal detector? I’m still attached to the metal-detecting game
premise, although in practice, it wears thin. Yet for needs fresh batteries.
these grumbles, The Magnificent Trufflepigs also
welcomes us into a fold of slightly imperfect British
landscape, happy for us to exist there for a while.
That might be what we’ve come looking for.
65%
wfmag.cc \ 99
 Rated
Review

HIGHLIGHT
A literal highlight comes
from summoning your beefy
mastiff with the squeeze
of a squeaky dog toy, as
his powerful nose outlines
enemies in red so you can see
what’s going on. He’s useful
in combat, too, and can be
kitted out with cybernetics to
clamp steel jaws around your
opponents. Good boy.

Review

Necromunda: Hired Gun

A rusted development

A
little past the halfway point of muted by genre limitations and production-line
Necromunda: Hired Gun, something’s spawning, as hundreds of 3D-printed clones,
GENRE on our mind. We’re facing a boss, camouflaged by their own insignificance, spray
Info

FPS both of us armed with a chain gun, you with whatever until you plant your sight on
FORMAT and both of us forgo cover to stand them and squeeze. There are a few exceptions
PC (tested) / in the open, hammering hundreds of bullets into – teleporting witches, bulky Ambots – but mostly
PS4 / PS5 /
each other’s torsos, until he finally drops dead. you don’t know who you’re shooting and it barely
XBO / XB S/X
Anticipating the outcome, we take a moment to seems to matter.
DEVELOPER
Streum On Studio reflect: “Is this really how this game is meant to The other reason is that deploying skill or
be played?” Honestly, for all the RPG upgrades smarts in fights is less efficient than simply
PUBLISHER
Focus Home and intricate level design in Hired Gun, it seems it charging towards opponents, blasting. The
Interactive really is. incessant rain of fire from goons dovetails with a
PRICE The levels really are intricate, though, at times hyperactive gain back mechanic that refills your
£34.99 almost spectacularly so. Streum On Studio’s health whenever you do damage, undercutting
RELEASE latest excursion into Warhammer 40k territory much need for things like evasive manoeuvres,
Out now truly respects the aesthetic and lore of its source target selection, or special powers. The only thing
material. The industrial gothic squalor of its better than simply shooting, in fact, is your melee
Underhive is lovingly crafted from rust and feats attack – there’s no downside to getting amongst
REVIEWED BY of metallic engineering – a living mass of ancient a mob and despatching each in turn, pressing a
Jon Bailes mining operations, heavy manufacturing, giant button to trigger a (needlessly long) kill animation,
railways, and pillars crowned with iron skulls that during which you’re invincible.
loom in judgement. The nests of pipelines and There are high points. A couple of the levels
girders aren’t mere background detail either, with slow or spread out enough to make it worth
their rocky verticality and hidden nooks where altering your approach, and the scale and shape
local outlaws stash their valuables. A veritable of the place remains impressively varied. Yet most
VERDICT adventure playground for your tough bounty- grand locales wind up merely hosting a drunken
For all its grand designs, hunter, fully equipped with cybernetic implants rumble, where as long as you can recharge your
this hired gun too often and a no-nonsense Yorkshire accent. health slightly quicker than they drain it, you’ll
shoots itself in the foot. Add in slick control and weapons that come be just fine. Add to that some minor technical
with a healthy kick, and the stage is set for messiness – the joys of accidentally restarting

55% something as appealing as a mid-budget DOOM.

But it rarely quite works like that. The enemy
are one reason – the distinct traits of factions
a mission because the wrong menu item is
highlighted – and the result is the mindless chaos
of chain gunning a bullet-sponge boss to paste.

100 / wfmag.cc
 Rated
Stream of consciousness

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This month it’s Trista Bytes in the hot seat

What’s your favourite game? nowadays, I see people acting as if women

I always find that question so hard! If we were and girls gaming is new. I can only hope it’s
going on hours played, it would be Quake III something that changes for the better.
Arena or Phantasy Star III. The game with the
biggest impact though was Sonic the Hedgehog. Why play games for an audience?
I came to streaming late as I didn’t think people
And why is that? would want to hang out with me and chat about
Sonic was a game-changer. I was in love with the stuff with all my over-enthusiasm, tendency to
Master System and very much a Sega kid, but I wander onto tangents… but it turns out that
played Sonic on a Mega Drive and felt like I was what used to be my flaws can be a positive
seeing the future of gaming – Sonic was so fast, in streaming. I love entertaining people and
bright, and exhilarating compared to a certain sharing knowledge and making them smile.
plumber I played with my friends on their NES Things grew from there; the silly character voices
(Sorry, Mario fans). I put on became improv comedy characters with
running gags. Because I often get enthusiastic
What game got you into gaming? about a topic when a viewer reminds me of
It wasn’t one game but the entire concept of something, I also do entire streams looking
gaming itself. I remember discovering computer through old collectables I have, or reliving “I remember
games at friends’ houses; the idea you could memories in old Argos catalogues. For me, it’s all
load a cassette up then make the pixels on- about sharing passions and having a break from being a kid in
screen move yourself was like magic to me. the real world. Making a career out of making the eighties
I wanted to play anything, and I could from that people laugh and sharing my love of gaming and nobody
day on. I got to enjoy a huge range of games on would be a dream come true if I succeed.
thought
Speccy, C64, Atari, and Amiga at other people’s
houses before we got a Master System. Trista Bytes streams full-time, five days a gaming was
week, over on Twitch: wfmag.cc/Trista for boys”
Have you ever been put off gaming?
I’ve never gotten into online gaming with
random people. I always played people I knew,
even online. I saw WOW launch and knew
immediately to ban myself if I wanted to get
my degree! I don’t play Fortnite or any of the
big online games nowadays, either. Originally
this was due to them eating time away from
work; nowadays, it’s as much about the toxicity
against women in gaming and the industry.
I haven’t been put off gaming, but I certainly
choose my areas where I’m attacked less. I
mostly play solo games with my audience back-
seating rather than going online and near any
PvP games. It’s a real shame that it’s still such a
big issue. I remember being a kid in the eighties
and nobody thought gaming was for boys – yet

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 Rated
The Wireframe Hotlist

The best PC games, according to Wireframe,

catering for whatever your mood might be

The games for… BIG ADVENTURES

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey / Ubisoft / 93% (Issue 1)

Yakuza: Like a Dragon / Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio / 90% (Issue 45)

Amnesia: Rebirth / Frictional Games / 87% (Issue 46)

The Last Campfire / Hello Games / 86% (Issue 47)

Resident Evil 2 / Capcom / 86% (Issue 7)

Far Cry New Dawn / Ubisoft / 85% (Issue 9)

Journey to the Savage Planet / Typhoon Studios / 84% (Issue 33)

The games for… SOLID STORY TIMES
The Outer Worlds / Obsidian Entertainment / 84% (Issue 28)
Disco Elysium / ZA/UM / 94% (Issue 28)
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom
/ Game Atelier / 84% (Issue 6) Mutazione / Die Gute Fabrik / 86% (Issue 26)

Nioh 2 / Koei Tecmo Games / 80% (Issue 38) Whispers of a Machine

/ Clifftop Games/Faravid Interactive / 85% (Issue 14)

Mythic Ocean / Paralune / 84% (Issue 36)

Sunless Skies / Failbetter Games / 83% (Issue 7)

Arise: A Simple Story / Piccolo Studio / 82% (Issue 31)

Assemble with Care / ustwo Games / 81% (Issue 27)

The Walking Dead: The Final Season

/ Telltale Games/Skybound Games / 81% (Issue 11)

The Procession to Calvary / Joe Richardson / 80% (Issue 40)

Outer Wilds / Mobius Digital / 80% (Issue 17)

The games for… FIRING UP BRAIN CELLS

The games for… REPEATED PLAY
Telling Lies / Sam Barlow / 92% (Issue 24)
Hades / Supergiant Games / 94% (Issue 44)
Kentucky Route Zero / Cardboard Computer / 90% (Issue 33)
They Are Billions / Numantian Games / 88% (Issue 20)
Heaven’s Vault / inkle / 89% (Issue 12)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice / FromSoftware / 87% (Issue 11)
The Pedestrian / Skookum Arts / 84% (Issue 35)
Streets of Rage 4 / DotEmu/Lizardcube/Guard Crush / 86% (Issue 40)
The Legend of Bum-Bo / Edmund McMillen / 83% (Issue 31)
Trials of Fire / Whatboy Games / 84% (Issue 50)
A Monster’s Expedition / Draknek & Friends / 82% (Issue 47)
Katamari Damacy REROLL / Monkeycraft / 84% (Issue 4)
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Spelunky 2 / Mossmouth / 83% (Issue 44) / Creative Assembly/Feral Interactive / 82% (Issue 16)

Hitman 2 / IO Interactive / 82% (Issue 3) It Takes Two / Hazelight Studios / 81% (Issue 51)

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure / ustwo Games / 82% (Issue 46) Wanna Survive / PINIX / 80% (Issue 42)

Slay the Spire / Mega Crit Games / 81% (Issue 45) Superliminal / Pillow Castle / 80% (Issue 34)

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 Rated
The Wireframe Hotlist

The games for… HIGH-INTENSITY PLAY

PC Top 10

Tetris Effect / Monstars Inc./Resonair / 90% (Issue 4)

Sayonara Wild Hearts / Simogo / 89% (Issue 25)

1 Disco Elysium / 94% (Issue 28)

Smarter and deeper than anything else; truly

Star Wars: Squadrons / EA / 86% (Issue 45)
an RPG in a class completely of its own.
Devil May Cry 5 / Capcom / 84% (Issue 10)
2 Hades / 94% (Issue 44)
Black Bird / Onion Games / 84% (Issue 3)
Proving ‘roguelike’ isn’t a dirty word, learning-
BPM: Bullets Per Minute / Awe Interactive / 83% (Issue 45) and-dying is a joy from start to finish.
Resident Evil Village / Capcom / 82% (Issue 52)
3 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Catastronauts / Inertia Game Studios / 82% (Issue 1) / 93% (Issue 1)
Olija / Skeleton Crew Studio/Thomas Olsson / 81% (Issue 48) The point where Ubisoft realised over-the-top
adventures were the right direction.
DUSK / David Szymanski / 81% (Issue 7)

4 Telling Lies / 92% (Issue 24)

The games for… CURING THE INDIE ITCH This FMV mystery asks more of the player
than most, with rewards to match.

5 If Found / 92% (Issue 44)

A compelling and beautifully illustrated

narrative, as moving as it is memorable.

6 Yakuza: Like a Dragon / 90% (Issue 45)

A bold, brash, and joyous rebirth for the

long-running gangster series.

7 Tetris Effect / 90% (Issue 4)

If Found… / DREAMFEEL / 92% (Issue 44)
The question is ‘how do you better Tetris?’
Can Androids Pray The answer is: like this. This is how.
/ Natalie Clayton/Priscilla Snow/Xalavier Nelson Jr. / 90% (Issue 21)
8 Kentucky Route Zero / 90% (Issue 33)
Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1 / Cosmo D / 89% (Issue 39)
Abstract style meets concrete commitments
Baba Is You / Hempuli Oy / 88% (Issue 10) in this fantastic magical realist adventure.
Afterparty / Night School Studio / 86% (Issue 33)
9 Can Androids Pray / 90% (Issue 21)
Witcheye / Moon Kid / 86% (Issue 30)
A healthy dose of existential anxiety in a
Hypnospace Outlaw minimalist, bite-sized package.
/ Tendershoot/Michael Lasch/ThatWhichIs Media / 86% (Issue 11)

Haunted PS1 Demo Disc / The Haunted / 85% (Issue 39) 10 Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1
/ 89% (Issue 39)
Xeno Crisis / Bitmap Bureau / 81% (Issue 33)
A walking sim/adventure; a work of
Art of Rally / Funselektor Labs / 80% (Issue 45) remarkable imagination and humanity.

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 Retro
Backwards compatible

WRITTEN BY IAN ‘CABLE GUY’ DRANSFIELD

Nintendo 25
Nintendo’s Nintendo 64 officially turned charm to proceedings, the action is
25 a couple of months ago, celebrating banal, the fighting near-nonsensical, and
the anniversary of its Japanese launch while it’s funny to see your limbs get
back in June. We went over the history of shot off halfway through a fight, it’s an
the machine and its impact on the wider unbalanced mess of a game. Next!
sphere of gaming in Wireframe #47, but Because I hate myself, apparently,
the N64’s anniversary actually pushed I moved on to Carmageddon 64 (right).
me into doing something I’ve honestly Curiosity often overwhelms common
not done a lot in my life: play some N64 sense, meaning I went from a mediocre-
games that aren’t just WWF No Mercy. to-bad fighting game straight into one of
In fact, I opted for something rather wild, the worst games the N64 has to offer.
given Nintendo’s reputation for family- Clumsy to control, a choppy frame rate,
friendly output – I homed in on some of an empty atmosphere, and none of
the platform’s most violent games. the kinetic thrill of the original series of
Starting out with a whimper, because idiotically fun racer/smashers. This one
who wants to enter with a bang, I was turned off before I’d even finished a
opted for Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. – Midway’s 3D full race.
one-on-one fighting game that slots so The nosedive in full effect, it was time to world to potter about in, vehicles to nab
effortlessly into that period of mid-to- opt for something a bit different: Resident and drive, people to interact with and get
late-nineties schlocky violent fighting Evil 2. A personal favourite. I’d never missions from, a brutal and spooky alien
games that it should officially be called actually played it on N64 at any point – my invasion to avert, and some surprisingly
the Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. Period. time with Capcom’s classic restricted to Zelda-like aspects here and there. OK,
Let’s not waste space here: there’s either the PSone or GameCube versions. so it’s not violent in the way that there’s
a reason it’s not a game that’s So it was with no small amount of shock viscera splattering all over the screen,
remembered fondly, or at all. While it that I saw just how incredibly well done a but it has an unnerving violence about
doesn’t look too bad and has a certain… port Resi 2 is on N64. This is a game heavy it – an omnipresent threat that normal
on cutscenes and recorded dialogue, people cannot avoid without your help; an
playing on a console that uses cartridges oppression that oozes through the game’s
and so doesn’t have much storage when very being. It is implicit in its violence,
compared to CD. You can practically feel rather than Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.-like. But that’s
the compression coming out of this one, beside the point: the point is, Body Harvest
with that telltale tinniness to dialogue is something I never expected to be as
ringing through the ears… but really, much fun as it is, and I’m going to be
it’s not an issue. This is a spectacular heading back here to play through as
technical achievement and a fine port of much of the game as I can be bothered
a wonderful survival horror game. Safe to to. At least until it gets too hard, which I
say, I had a good time here. assume it will soon enough because it’s a
And then, dear reader, I moved on game from the nineties and that sort of
to what I’d intended to play from the thing happened all the time back then.
very beginning: Body Harvest (left). Maybe that’s the real violence… Happy
DMA Design’s proto-GTA III offers an open birthday, Nintendo’s Nintendo 64!

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 Retro
Backwards compatible

’Member me
Elsewhere in doomed projects I undertook you would lose the data. This module
recently, a thought crossed my mind: can could be replaced with ferroelectric RAM
you get improved Nintendo 64 Controller (FRAM) – basically, the same size of chip,
Paks? Well, yes, you can. But that’s not the same physical construction, the same
where I ended up with the Datels and capacity, but non-volatile, meaning it
Electronics Boutiques and whatever other doesn’t even need a battery to begin with.
old brands made third-party peripherals – It’s a straight swap, like-for-like, and a
instead, I ended up back at the soldering fun little soldering project that doesn’t
station, original Nintendo-branded need much expertise or an incredibly
Controller Pak in hand and an array of steady hand to upgrade some old kit.
delicious (electronic) chips to my side. As such, it’s definitely worth a go if you’re
See, it turns out you’re able to replace keen on original hardware and want a bit
the RAM module inside the Controller of a mini-project to spend some time on.
Paks for the N64 – the original 256kB And I only broke three memory cards in
storage was battery backed up, meaning the process, so at least I’ve got that going
after the cell inside the housing expired, for me.

Component components
Someone tried playing their original 360 component cable, snipping the
Xbox recently, and that same someone connector off it, and Frankensteining an
was shocked to remember just how original Xbox connector onto it. It’s a bit
much electrical interference the console more complex than that, but honestly –
picks up if you use poorly shielded not that much more complex.
component cables with it. My original A fiddly task ensued, with much
solution – a YPbPr-wired SCART lead – twisting of wires and cursing very
was no longer an option (I sold my OSSC loudly at the stupid ground wires which
since the cables play well with nothing were doing a good job of emulating A
else), so it had to be a component Material You Cannot Successfully Solder.
lead. So it was I fell down the new Progress was slow, and quite frankly
rabbit hole of getting an official Xbox bad. Inevitably, a catastrophic failure the next best thing: I bought a pre-made
occurred thanks to impatience and cable from eBay for £25. It arrived, it was
heavy-handedness – so it’s a good job very well made, and it works absolutely
past-Ian had planned for this and picked spectacularly – I swear this original
up multiple cables and multiple original Xbox now outputs a better signal than
Xbox connectors; with the former it ever has before. Bright, colourful
coming in at £3 each and the latter and – importantly – lacking in electronic
£1.50 a pop, it proved an inexpensive interference, it’s set me up to play
series of attempts and failures. through some gems from Microsoft’s
Long story short, as much as I tried, original big burly box. For some reason,
I just couldn’t do it. It’s not difficult; it’s the first game I tried was Enter the
just more fiddly than my ever-shaking Matrix. Apparently I never learn to stop
hands can cope with. And so it was I did torturing myself. Cables!

wfmag.cc \ 105
 Retro
Backwards Compatible

WRITTEN BY RYAN ‘BURNED FINGERS’ LAMBIE

Tickled Pink, Part 2

Last month, I embarked on a mission to Installing the Dehiss kit is simplicity Next: the CleanAmp
build the ultimate Game Boy Advance. I itself: it’s essentially a single flexiboard Pro mod. This is pretty
installed a brand new LCD screen, replaced with a pair of chunky capacitors mounted straightforward, too: first, I
the buttons, shell, and lens with the on top, and sits neatly on the GBA’s needed to desolder and remove
understated Kirby-themed parts you can mainboard. Once the mod’s correctly the GBA’s original speaker – again, a
see on these pages, and then added a nifty positioned – the pads need to be lined process that takes a few seconds, since
CleanJuice Battery Pack which allows me up so they touch the GBA’s battery it’s only held in place by a couple of thin
to charge the handheld up with a USB-C terminal and a handful of the handheld’s wires. Once that’s out of the way, the
cable. But! I’m not finished yet. This month, capacitors – it’s a case of carefully mod’s installed in a similar way to the
I decided to start work on the sound; securing it to the relevant components Dehiss board: I pre-tinned the pads with
courtesy of RetroSix (retrosix.co.uk). I with some neat blobs of solder. There are a bit of solder, gently positioned it in its
have a Wire Free Dehum Dehiss kit, and a no extra wires to worry about, and the intended location (just beneath the A and
CleanAmp Pro mod, both of which should entire job can be done in a few minutes, B buttons), and then used my soldering
offer a mightily improved audio quality assuming you’re competent with a iron to connect the pads to the various
over the stock GBA’s hardware. soldering iron and have a steady hand. pins and components as required. The
new speaker, also provided in the kit, is
then soldered directly onto the CleanAmp
Pro flexiboard – to make things even
easier, it doesn’t even matter which way
around you solder the two speaker wires.
Whichever way they’re soldered to the
mod, the whole thing will still work.
The final modification I wanted to make
for my GBA was an LED kit, again from
RetroSix. It’s a purely cosmetic add-on
that makes the handheld’s shoulder
buttons light up when pressed. To match
my Kirby theme, I’ve got some oh-so-
stylish pink LEDs. (It also goes without
saying that you need clear shoulder
buttons for this mod, otherwise nobody
will see your glorious lights in action.)
The kit comes with the two LEDs, a
pair of resistors, and a length of wire.
The idea is to solder a wire from one pad
on the GBA’s shoulder button switch to

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 Retro
Backwards Compatible

Mega Blast
Xeno Crisis and Tanglewood gave the
33-year-old Sega Mega Drive some
much-deserved new titles, and there’s
another promising game on the
horizon for the 16-bit console: the
anonymously titled ZPF. Developed
by a three-strong indie team, it’s a
side-scrolling blaster in the mould of
Gate of Thunder or the Mega Drive’s
the short leg of the LED, a second wire console back together to test it – guess Gynoug: you pilot a winged warrior in
from the LED’s longer leg to a resistor, what – it didn’t work. a pitched battle against an armada of
and then a third wire from the resistor Still, the sound mods do function grotesque monsters large and small.
to a pin on the cartridge connector. The nicely – the result is a much clearer and The action’s time-honoured stuff, but
process is then repeated for the other significantly louder audio than a stock the visuals look stunning so far: the
shoulder button. And it’s here I that I GBA. I even dug out an unmodified assorted demonic heads and vaguely
ran out of talent: soldering onto boards Advance so I could compare the two, aquatic beasties are on a par with
is one thing, but soldering wires to tiny and there’s a clear improvement. As anything that emerged for the Mega
components, without anything useful for the pink LEDs – well, it’s back to the Drive in the eighties and nineties.
like a Helping Hands station, made the drawing board on that front. I’m going to You can follow ZPF’s development at
process an absolute chore. After about order a Helping Hands thingy, prise my wfmag.cc/ZPF. If this one’s getting
an hour of swearing, though, I got my GBA open again, and see if I fix what I’m a physical release on cartridge, I’ll
entire daisy chain of LEDs, wires, and certain is a dodgy bit of soldering on my definitely be in line to snag a copy.
resistors all installed. I secured my part. Sure, the light-up shoulder pads are
LEDs in place with a couple of self- a bit of a novelty item, but I refuse to be
adhesive pads, and used Kapton tape to beaten. Tune in next month to find out
strengthen the joints on my wires and whether I finally get them working or I
prevent any electrical shorts. It wasn’t manage to burn my office down in
a tidy job, though, and when I put the the attempt…

wfmag.cc \ 107
 Now playing
Havin’ a brew

Havin’ a brew
Break out the Dreamcast: Ian wants to play Xenocider

W
e looked at the bizarrely active And to playing I did, indeed, get. It wasn’t too
Dreamcast homebrew scene long before I’d had my first game over, because
a couple of years ago in the Xenocider is a game that just doesn’t want to play
pages of Wireframe (issue nice now, does it?
7, to be precise) – one title Expectations adjusted, my second play went
that stood out from the crowd was Xenocider. much better, but there was still something off.
A fully 3D game made by amateur team Retro The game is an on-rails shooter – like Space
Sumus, riffing on the classic Space Harrier and – Harrier, of course, or Rez for a more recent
eventually – releasing in 2021, it’s something a example – in which you use the analogue stick
lot of people have been keen on for a long time. to control your targeting reticule and try to blast
Well, ‘a lot’ in so far as the Dreamcast homebrew the dozens of enemies, and final level boss, in
scene doesn’t exactly have millions of card- each stage. Movement, at least that you have
carrying members, but you know what I mean. control over, is limited to switching left and right
Duly whet of appetite – after reading our between five different ‘tracks’ – but that’s more
feature of so long ago, naturally – I coolly and than enough to be able to avoid obstacles and
calmly set up my Dreamcast. It had been in a incoming projectiles.
drawer for about two weeks, so it wasn’t that It sounds simple – you even set auto-fire on
hard to remember where everything went. so you only have to worry about targeting, rather
than targeting and shooting – but in practice,
it needed a bit of time to punch any plasticity
into my brain and allow it to get itself around
the concepts. There’s a tutorial covering the
basics, but the fact is Xenocider is old-school in
its approach: it relies on you playing and playing
and playing to just get better at things, rather
than giving you the world at your fingertips and
all the help you could want.
That is to say: it’s refreshing. Jarring initially,
but refreshing. Soon enough I had the hang of
it, especially after switching to my Retro Fighters
Dreamcast controller with its (optional) digital
shoulder buttons, which are used to switch

108 / wfmag.cc
 Now playing
Havin’ a brew

Wireframe
Recommends

Space Harrier
MULTI
Doesn’t hurt to go back to
the OG, and Space Harrier
is still as playable today as
it’s ever been. Fast, super-
scaler-smooth, and offering a
tough challenge, you can see
between lanes. Sweeping my reticule around the
why someone might want to
screen, I was able to shepherd threats into more
emulate its style.
manageable situations and bring some level of
control to the chaos that unfolds in every planet-
based level. surprised. It might not have got the attention and
There was still the feeling, every now and then, plaudits it’s been getting in 2021, mind you, but
that I was being cheated – projectiles heading on it would have fitted right in with the official, erm…
a (relatively) horizontal plane when you’re sat in officebrew? games of the Dreamcast’s roster.
one of the outside lanes are, as far as I could tell, The most positive thing I have to say about
Bayonetta
impossible to avoid. And some of the boss fights Xenocider – aside from it making me laugh on
PC, PS4, XBO, SWITCH, PS3,
are frustrating as the big bads have the habit finishing the first level and being congratulated
X360
of recharging health along the way to prolong for destroying ‘one whole civilisation’ – is that Foolish? Of course not –
things. But the overall feeling with Xenocider was I wanted to play it more. I’d been intrigued Bayonetta features interstitial
a faintly nostalgic joy. simply because of the novelty of the subject: a levels that riff on the likes of
There are impressive elements to it outside manageable, but still ambitious project for the After Burner and, yep, Space
the main game – actual achievements are in Dreamcast, 20 years after the console itself Harrier. And they’re so good
there. Obviously not at a had died. What’s not to be they make one of the world’s
system level, it’s just in the “Xenocider is a game curious about there? best games even better.
game, but that’s a really neat that just doesn’t But the reality is this is a
touch. There are unlockables solid game – solid both in
too, like an into-the-screen
want to play nice design terms, and in difficulty
Space Invaders-style mode, now, does it? ” terms – and even though I
and – brilliantly – a much was playing it specifically to
more direct take on Space Harrier which sees write about my experiences with it here, I decided
Xenocider look, control, and, generally, feel pretty to go back to playing it some more once I’d done
much like a modern (well, a 1998-ish) 3D version writing the previous few paragraphs (then secretly The Last of Us Part II
of Space Harrier. adding these in by the power of magic). It’s not PS4
I haven’t forgotten my promise
As far as I’m concerned, Xenocider is up there particularly deep or technical or clever, and it has
to ‘do’ this one, and it will
with the absolute gold standard when it comes reduced me to more than one bout of furious,
happen before the heat death
to homebrew. It’s taken a while to come out, dog-scaring swearing as that arse hermit-crab
of the universe. But for now, we
and that does happen a lot with these amateur boss fluked a win against me for the fourth time. have to live in the knowledge
productions, but you can see where a lot of that But for what it is, Xenocider is a great experience, that I still haven’t finished The
time went. If this had released around the 1999 and heartily recommended to all seven of you out Last of Us Part II, so it remains
mark, I don’t think anybody would have been there who still own a Dreamcast. un-Now Playing-ed.

wfmag.cc \ 109
 Now playing
You’ve got to be kidding

You’ve got to be kidding

Ryan braces himself for some old-school punishment
in Tanuki Justice and Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX

T
he vast majority of video games prey A game that came to my attention thanks to
on a peculiarly human quirk: we relish HappyConsoleGamer on YouTube, Tanuki Justice is
a challenge. This means that, in our a run-and-gun platformer from Wonderboy Bobi,
boundless quest to defeat bosses, who previously brought us the charming Wonder
gain high scores, or simply reach a Boy-alike, Aggelos. Tanuki Justice is, even beyond its
final cutscene, we spend a considerable amount 8-bit-style sprites and chiptune soundtrack, retro
of our spare time in a state that lies somewhere to its very core: it offers up a nightmare landscape
between intense concentration and outright of one-hit kills, aggressively fast enemies, and
 ow-ranking enemies can
L frustration. Or at least, that’s how I’ve spent levels with no checkpoints. Sure, you start from


be murdered in order to fill

up your charge meter. most of my time this month, as I’ve found myself where you left off when you die, but lose all
Circle of life! drawn into the febrile, deceptively hostile world your lives, and it’s back to the start of the stage
 hese enemies are less
T of Tanuki Justice. with you. And while each stage is linear and short,


‘koi’ than they first

appear (sorry).
you’ll still find yourself bouncing off the same
sections again and again if your skills aren’t up to
scratch – which, evidently, mine aren’t.
Tanuki Justice introduces an alternate feudal
Japan of furry, shuriken-throwing avengers and
feline samurai, and it’s instantly disarming. As you
fend off squirrels in bandanas and kamikaze koi
carp, it’s fun to spot all the references to other
games: Tecmo’s early Ninja Gaiden titles are an
obvious touchstone, but background details also
provide nerdy allusions to deep retro cuts like
Irem’s Ninja Spirit, Taito’s The Legend of Kage, and
(possibly) Jaleco’s Ninja-kun. Stage two’s leafy
setting even appears to pay homage to Ninja
Gaiden on the Sega Master System, a series entry
likely played by all of a dozen people worldwide.
With those old-school ninja references comes
the bit that every classic ninja game got exactly

110 / wfmag.cc
 Now playing
You’ve got to be kidding

Wireframe
Recommends

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX :

Aggelos


lovely to look at, slightly less PC/VARIOUS

lovely to actually play. Tanuki Justice developer
Wonderboy Bobi’s first game,
this action-adventure pales
right: tight, pixel-perfect controls. Tanuki Justice is gorgeous, and there are a few quality-of-life somewhat in comparison to
brutally tough, but the agility of its raccoon hero improvements thrown in. On the original the likes of Monster Boy and
and the responsiveness of his movement means hardware, you had to press pause to get to Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s
Trap, but it’s still a sprightly,
it seldom feels unfair. Get into the flow, and the item menu; the problem was, Sega put
affectionately-made little jaunt.
there’s a real thrill to narrowly dodging a barrage this function on the console rather than on
of projectiles, killing a few rank-and-file enemies the joypad, which meant that you had to drag
to fill your charge meter, and then unleashing a yourself off the sofa every time you wanted to
huge super-shuriken to finish off a boss. activate, say, a power bracelet. In Alex Kidd DX,
The same applies to the platforming: level items are thankfully mapped to a face button.
three has you ascending In other areas, though,
a waterfall by jumping on “An alternate Alex Kidd DX feels retro in
narrow, single-character precisely the wrong way: Cyber Shadow
wide logs – a possible nod
feudal Japan of Kidd’s hitbox feels absolutely PC/VARIOUS
to a similar scenario in The furry avengers” huge. Couple this with the Like Tanuki Justice, Cyber
Revenge of Shinobi on the short range of his punch, and Shadow is an aggressively
Sega Mega Drive. When you get the timing right, you’re left with a lot of deaths simply because you tough throwback to an age of
it’s a pleasing challenge to surmount, even if the edged closer to an enemy than intended. rock-hard ninja platformers.
And again, some satisfyingly
process of getting to that level of proficiency can Alex Kidd DX’s most bemusing design decision,
responsive controls and slick
be controller-gnawingly frustrating. meanwhile, is to leave the original game’s
audio-visual design help leaven
At the time of writing, I haven’t come close rock-paper-scissors battles pretty much intact. the frustration.
to completing Tanuki Justice, which is humbling These were a frustrating element of the game in
given that a skilled player can finish the thing 1986, and they feel even more irksome in 2021;
in less than 20 minutes. But far from being you’ve fought your way to the end of a stage,
off-putting, the game’s difficulty level is spurring and whether you progress further or lose a life is
me on: the further I journey into its fluffy world down to sheer luck. Admittedly, DX doesn’t knock
of death, the more attuned I become to its you too far back in the stage if you’re beaten, and
pace and timing. What seemed like ridiculously it’s still the case that an item you find later in the
difficult sections can now be completed with game will allow you to ‘see’ your opponent’s move Save me Mr Tako
ease, and even the meanest-looking bosses are ahead of time, but it’s still a curious thing to leave SWITCH/VARIOUS
starting to feel more friendly as I’ve begun to untouched when other elements of Alex Kidd have This Game Boy-looking
platformer was fun yet flawed
memorise their attack patterns. been so affectionately reworked.
on its release in 2018, but
Tanuki Justice is, in other words, a retro-style Alex Kidd DX isn’t an awful game by any means,
thanks to a new deal with
game done right. It’s a contrast, in fact, to Alex and there are stretches where the series’ charm
Limited Run Games, it’s back
Kidd in Miracle World DX, Merge Games and shines through. When compared to Tanuki Justice, in an improved Definitive
Jankenteam’s remake of Sega’s Master System though, Alex Kidd DX feels like it’s taken plenty of Edition. If you missed it first
platformer. At first glance, it’s a charmer: good bits from the medium’s history, but also time around, it’s well worth
the made-over sprites and backgrounds are some of the bad bits, too. checking out.

wfmag.cc \ 111
 Killer Feature
No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky
The joy of not having to actually bother doing anything

HELLO GAMES / 2016 / PC, PS5, XB S/X, PS4, XBO

O
ne big thing was drowned out in the Internet a goal in itself, but that’s the sort of roundabout thinking that
Rage that followed 2016’s release of No Man’s can bog down a piece like this and get us nowhere. It’s also
Sky; an element those who actually bothered not in keeping with the fundaments underlying these words:
to play the game instead of complaining that relax. Take a moment. Breathe. Just potter about, take it in,
you couldn’t fly under an alien Diplodocus’ legs have an experience instead of demanding satisfaction.
noticed and were too busy enjoying to get caught up in the, Mind you, it’s never been a given in No Man’s Sky that you’ll
like, aggression, man. That being: the ability to just not have to be able to relax and do nothing, even if you’ve been royally
bother if you didn’t want to. committed to that approach in the five years since the game
There are countless games out there facilitating the need came out. The randomised nature of the universe you explore
to do nothing – the walking sims, the life sims, the sandbox means it’s not unheard of to discover half a dozen planets in
physics creation tools, social MMOs, and more. It’s by no a row that seem to hate your existence and actually work on
means exclusive to No Man’s Sky. But it’s in ending it. Be it extreme storms, radiation
Hello Games’ ever-expanding epic that the “When you realise you’ve levels higher than living creatures can stand
true allure of reflection, contemplation, and for more than a minute, or fauna with a
found a place you can
general existentialism all came together penchant for murderous intent. Sometimes
behind the disguise of a heavily promoted take a load off and exist, the cosmos does just work against you.
game about spaceships, robots, and lasers. that has impact” But that just makes those moments of
Sure, you could explore with goals in Zen all the more satisfying. When, after
mind – hunting down the trail of Atlas, maybe – you could play trying and failing for an hour or two in the real world, you
it like a sci-fi Pokémon Snap, attempting to catalogue every suddenly find yourself on a lush, green planet full of placid
species you came across along the way. You could channel life and a temperature that wouldn’t be out of the question
your inner Elite piloting skills and hunt down pirates for the on a sunny day in Margate – when you realise you’ve found
sweet glory of victory in combat. It wasn’t quite as… refined an yourself somewhere you can take a load off and just exist –
experience as it is today, but No Man’s Sky did offer players a that has impact. Would you believe it, sometimes it is about
lot of things to do from day one. the journey.
And one of those things was to eschew all goals, whether As mentioned, No Man’s Sky has expanded significantly since
personal or set by the game. Obviously the argument can those – on reflection rather scant – early days. Hello Games
rightly be made there that aiming to eschew all goals is in fact has quietly undertaken one of the great makeovers and

112 / wfmag.cc
 Killer Feature
No Man’s Sky

Where are we?

At the time of writing, No Man’s
Sky is five years old and in
the midst of its 17th named
update since launch, Prisms.
It’s impossible to list everything
that’s been added or improved
on in the limited space here,
but we’ve seen base building,
vehicles, multiplayer (including
cross-platform play), new-gen
versions, countless graphical
and procedural generation
improvements, more varied
worlds and wildlife, a more
coherent narrative to follow,
plenty of side quests, increased
prettification (technical term),
and – among so many other
things – a photo mode. If you’ve
held off because of the five-year-
old criticisms, now’s a good time
to jump in.

refurbishments of the modern gaming era, bringing its

passion project out of the doldrums and raising its reputation
and standing in the gaming community to the point that it’s
now only really a punchline for the terminally uninformed.
The redemption arc of the studio itself shouldn’t be overlooked
either, with a name that was poison in over-influential – but still
influential – online circles now something of a paragon of virtue.
It only took five years of dedicated hard work and a
Herculean ability to ignore the majority of abuse thrown the
way of the studio – often directly at Hello Games chief Sean
Murray. Only. We can merely guess blindly at the ridiculous
toll the whole affair must have had on Murray, the rest of the
Hello Games team, and their families and friends.
And all of this so someone can, in a magazine, write a
few hundred words about how great No Man’s Sky is to just
relax and exist in. How tempting it must have been for Hello
Games to lose itself in the universe of its own making; free
of stresses, of the input of others – free of worry and having
to care about anything going on anywhere else in existence.
Instead we end up where we are now: a game still being
tinkered with and improved, the result of thousands of
collective hours of work, crafted with genuine love and
affection – and effort – all so other people can use No Man’s
Sky to get away from everything.

wfmag.cc \ 113
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