game aesthetics
Why P.T. Anderson Gets Away With "Retro" But Games Don't
Why do filmmakers using vintage VistaVision get praised for aesthetic choice while pixel-art games get labeled "retro"? The difference reveals everything.
super meat boy
News
Meat Boy, Mario, and the perfect platformer jump
“What actions are ideal in a jump curve?” asked Playdead level designer Martin Fasterholdt to a sizeable crowd for his panel at the Game Developer’s Conference. In a discussion that stemmed from Fasterholdt’s own master thesis, the “You Say Jump, I Say How High?” panel explored the varying degrees o
Article
In praise of the “bad” design of Tharsis
Tharsis begins with an event of astronomical improbability. Somewhere in the interplanetary medium, a meteoroid floating through space at 25 miles a second occupies the same bit of spacetime as the spaceship Inktomi, which is hurtling towards Mars at 11 miles a second. The ship and its crew have bee
News
Paint your way through an invisible platformer
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. INK (Windows) BY ZACKBELLGAMES Discovery defines the greatest videogame experiences. No one forgets that butterflies-in-your-stomach, swooning I’ve-never-felt-this-way-before feeling you get
Article
Four Things I Learned While Writing a Book about Super Mario Bros. 2
Lessons from the frontline of Nintendo lore.
News
Here comes a touch-screen Super Meat Boy
On August 19th, wunderkind duo Team Meat announced they would be unveiling a new game at PAX Prime 2014 called A Voyeur for September. This was surprising for two reasons: first, everyone assumed Team Meat would be showing up with Mew-Genics, their mad scientist/cat lady simulator. Second, this new
Article
The Binding of Isaac: A Postmortem
With the upcoming release of Rebirth, a look back on Edmund McMillen’s Freudian nightmare.
Feature
Cloudbuilt is a game about speed with an uneven pace
Fighting for freedom
Issue 01
The Sound of Sickness
Audio designers on things that crash, squeal, vomit, and boom.