#13 go mad in wiltshire

[sethnakht]

"The Wicked + The Canine", written by Kieron Gillen, inks and color by Erica Henderson, flats by Juan Castro, in: The Wicked + The Divine: The Funnies

"13 Go Mad in Wiltshire", story and art by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris, in: The Wicked + The Divine: The Funnies

in which cass bites on the wrong leads

[kittyandlarissa-blog]

MOST EXCELLENT LAST-MINUTE COSTUMES INSPIRED BY KEANU REEVES

Halloween is tonight, and maybe you don’t have enough time or cash to pulls off the costume of your dreams for any last-minute plans. Don’t worry—the internet’s best boyfriend KEANU REEVES is here to save the holiday with his chill vibes and iconic looks!

Trick or treat to your heart’s content while honoring one of our most beloved actors with what you (or your pals) might already have lying around. You’re on your own with the hair.

1. TED “THEODORE” LOGAN from the Bill & Ted movies

Something strange is afoot at the Circle K...and you should selfie in front of it while wearing this outfit.

THE COSTUME: White t-shirt, black vest, red hoodie or shirt to tie around your waist, and black jeans or sweats to roll up

OR: Have a buddy throw on a white crop top and the stonewashiest jeans to be the Bill to your Ted, dude!

2. TURTLENECK COSTUMES OF KEANU REEVES

A  turtleneck is a simple, stylish piece of clothing you can find at any thrift store or “A New Day” Target women’s section—and the key to unlocking a treasure trove of Keanu Reeves Halloween looks.

THE COSTUMES:

-Black turtleneck with black blazer: John Wick from John Wick

-Black turtleneck with black sunglasses: Neo from The Matrix

-Black turtleneck with a genuine appreciation for the women in your life: Julian Mercer from Something’s Gotta Give

-Brown Turtleneck and winter jacket: Alex Wyler from The Lake House

-Red Turtleneck: Keanu looking FINE from this one picture we found online

3. JACK TRAVEN from Speed

This classic look will keep the costume party—and the bus—going full speed ahead!

THE COSTUME: White t-shirt, Blue button-down, khakis, intense look of heroism

OR: Lose the shirt and add a surfboard and look of intense look of longing to go as Johnny Utah from Point Break.

4. JOHN WICK from John Wick

The Baba Yaga is coming out of retirement...for a ton of fun-size candy.

THE COSTUME: Your best (or a friend-with-your-size’s best) dark suit, dark tie, dark heart

PROP: A pencil

OR: Switch the pencil out for a cigarette and you can go as John Constantine from Constantine.

5. “YOU’RE BREATHTAKING” KEANU from Cyberpunk 2077 at E3

THE COSTUME: Whatever you want, as long as you tell everyone you meet “YOU’RE BREATHTAKING!”—And meanit.

PROP: Posterboard sign that says “You’re breathtaking” and permanent marker—to really sell the look.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Larissa Zageris and Kitty Curran are a creative dream team. Their latest book, For Your Consideration: Keanu Reeves is out as of October 15 from Quirk Books. They are the authors of My Lady’s Choosing (Quirk, 2018), the viral Kickstarter novel Taylor Swift Girl Detective in The Secrets of the Starbucks Lovers, and the comic “13 Go Mad in Wiltshire” in The Wicked + The Divine: The Funnies Special (Image, 2019). They live in Chicago and they love Keanu Reeves.

Get the book:

https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/your-consideration-keanu-reeves#

[torentialtribute]

Blind owner has flown from Australia hoping his horse can claim glory

Should Paisley Park pull off victory in the feature Grade One Stayers Hurdle, there is a chance the news may make a few lines in the sports pages in Australia. It was Down Under where the gelding's story ground.

Despite being blind from birth, Paisley Park's sports mad owner Andrew Gemmell attending big events around the globe and it was while he was attending a cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground that, through a mutual friend, he and Alex Lavelle, editor of the Melbourne Age.

When Andrew, who had dabbled in syndicate ownership, explained that he wanted to own a racehorse or his own, Alex immediately recommended his sister Emma as the perfect trainer to employ.

     Paisley Park (right) was close to death by an illness that was never diagnosed

So it's hugely appropriate that Alex has flown in from Australia to see if Emma can win the biggest race of her career for the owner he found for her.

Emma said: "Because of the story and probably thinking it's extraordinary that his sister has the favorite for one of the main races at the Cheltenham Festival , Alex thought he should come over to be part of it. The pressure is on now he has flown all the way from Australia! '

The potential symmetry of a story that crosses two hemispheres masks what has, in reality, a very rocky road.

     Despite being blind from birth, owner Andrew Gemmell attends big events around the globe

                   Gemmell gave Lavelle a budget or £ 100,000 to buy him a horse. She spent 860,000 when buying Paisley Park at a sale in Ireland in June 2015. The son of Milan was a promising second in a race at Warwick on his debut in January 2017, but then it all went wrong.

Paisley Park may now be an equine athlete who has come into his prime but not long ago he was close to death, suffering from an illness that was never diagnosed.

The symptoms were like colic – abdominal pain caused by problems with the gastrointestinal tract – but Lavelle believes Paisley Park, who had stopped eating and was left looking like skin and bone, was normally fatal grass sickness.

Lavelle said: "Paisley Park was so straightforward to start with. We ran him in a bumper and everything was great, but then he got sick and he got properly sick.

'The veterinary support we had was fantastic. That got him through the first stage, but they got to the point where there was nothing more they could do.

"They didn't want to open him up. They kept treating him medically. Once his bowel and whole system went back to normal, he was allowed home.

'At that point it was up to him to get better, get that weight back and get back going.

'He looked horrendous but all he wanted to do was eat. He has a great constitution and I think he was pretty determined to live. He has a great attitude. ”

The fighting spirit that saved Paisley Park's life is now driving his success on the track. Last season his runs earned a Festival starts in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle, although he was well behind behind Kilbricken Storm – but this season Paisley Park has been a revelation.

Starting with a handicap hurdle at Aintree in October, he has won all four races, landed a first Grade One for Lavelle and jockey Aidan Coleman when winning the Long Walk Hurdle at Ascot in December, and won the Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham on Trials Day in January.

Lavelle, who trains in Wiltshire with her partner, former jockey Barry Fenton, said: “If not for the (firm) ground, he would have been about fences this season.

'Because we had no rain, we could not do enough schooling with him and he was going to need plenty of schooling to go over a fence, so we decided to run him in a decent hurdle race.

'We felt pretty confident he could win off his handicap mark and he duly did at Aintree first time and we were well in for a £ 100,000 hurdle at Haydock, but there is no way at the start of the season I' d have thought he'd win the Stayers 'Hurdle.

' It wasn't that we didn't feel he was a good horse. It is just there are lots of good horses, but not many exceptional ones. That is what he has now shown himself to be and you can only dream of having a horse like that. Barry has been riding him at home all season and said he felt great going into his first run.

'In his work before his second run, he said he had improved a stone. Before his next race, he said he had improved another stone. He has just kept improving.

'We did a piece of work with him last Wednesday. He jumped off, got into a rhythm and quickened without coming out of second gear. "

Those gears will be needed against a line-up which includes Willie Mullins-trained Faugheen, who won the 2015 Champion Hurdle and is Bidding to become the first winner of that to land the Stayers' Hurdle.

A strong Irish challenge also includes Jessica Harrington's Supasundae, runner-up in last year's race, and Mullins-trained Bacardys, who fell at the last

A win for Paisley Park, named after the record label founded by Prince, would be a third Festival success for Lavelle following Crackaway Jack in the 2008 Boodles Juvenile Hurdle and Pause And Clause in the 2010 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Handicap Hurdle.

For Gemmell, who bought into Ed Dunloptrained Trip To Dubai after he had won the 2015 Ascot Gold Cup – and was the only member of the syndicate to follow the horse to Australia w hen he then ran second in the Caulfield Cup and fourth in the Melbourne Cup – it would be a pinnacle of racing success.

The former civil servant for Westminster Council is an MCC member and test-match regular who has been coming to the Festival since 1973, when The Dikler won the Gold Cup. In January, when Paisley Park ran in the Cleeve Hurdle, Gemmell changed his plans to attend and gift away tickets to watch the semi-finals and final of the Australian Open tennis.

Once again Gemmell will watch from the paddock, surrounded by friends, in front of a big screen showing the race.

Gemmell said: 'Racing is the one sport that you don't need a commentary relayed to you. With cricket, I have my headphones for Test Match Special but on the race course you can hear the Tannoy. '

If favorite Paisley Park storms clear, it might be a struggle for Gemmell to hear the commentator – but he will know his horse is in front of the roar of the crowd.

                   Source link

[netunleashed-blog]

The best is yet to come

http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=28326 The best is yet to come - http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=28326 There's still time to get your festifix This year’s festival season is well underway, and unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard about the madness that has already ensued. From Drake’s surprise set at Wireless to Liam Gallagher’s fishy encounter at Benicassim, it’s been a pretty hectic couple of weeks. Maybe you’re feeling glum about not getting to any this summer or maybe you’re just feeling the post-festival blues, but fear not! Here are the UK festivals that you still have time to get to, who’s playing and how to get tickets. Bestival When: 2-5 August Where: The Lulworth Estate, Dorset Headliners: M.I.A., London Grammar, Silk City After moving to from the Isle of Wight last year, Bestival now takes place in the grounds of a 17th century Castle, the Lulworth Estate, making for an amazing end of weekend firework show (weather permitting). The theme this year is ‘the circus’, which opens up a lot of avenues for fancy dress. Get your tickets here 110 Above When: 3-5 August Where: Lopsall, Gloucestershire Headliners: Circa Waves, Fickle Friends, Peace. 110 Above festival showcases some of the best up and coming talent, as well as bringing in some legendary crowd pleasers; and all this for a bargain price in comparison to the bigger festivals! Whether you’re a newbie to the festival game or a bit of a veteran it’s a great place to be. Get your tickets here Boardmasters When: 8-12th August Where: Fistral Beach, Cornwall Headliners: Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Chemical Brothers, George Ezra Boardmasters steals the show in terms of having the best scenery for a festival: forget muddy fields and soggy wellies, and instead think sandy beaches and surfing on Cornwall’s world-class coastline. So it boasts great views and, happily, a great line-up too, with something to please ’90s babies and noughties kids alike. Get your tickets here  Green Man Festival When: 16-19th August Where: Near Crickhowell, Wales Headliners: The War on Drugs, Fleet Foxes, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard If you’re not excited about this one then rest assured King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard definitely will be, this will be the Aussie psych heads first ever festival headline slot. Having released an impressive 13 albums in just six years, the setlist is anyone’s guess but it’s sure to be a crazy show. They’ll be sharing the stage with The War on Drugs who have just announced a huge London headline show to finish the year. Get your tickets here Victorious When: 24-26th August Where: Southsea seafront, Portsmouth Headliners: The Libertines, Paul Weller, The Prodigy This will be your only opportunity to see festival gods The Prodigy at a UK festival this summer, and the sea-themed gathering also includes Beach Boy Brian Wilson and pirate-like scamps The Libs. Get your tickets here Reading & Leeds When: 24th-26th August Where: Bramham Park, Leeds; Richfield Avenue, Reading Headliners: Fall out Boy, Kendrick Lamar, Kings of Leon. A festival fan must, Reading and Leeds is never a let down and harbours memories of many people’s first festival experiences. With an already impressive set of headliners the line up only continues to entice you the further down you get with other artists including Brockhampton, Wolf Alice, Rex Orange County and Skepta. Get your tickets here for Reading, and here for Leeds End of the Road When: 30th August – 2nd September Where: Larmer Tree Gardens, Wiltshire Headliners: Vampire Weekend, St. Vincent, Feist One of the UK’s more relaxed festivals, End of the Road festival goers tend to be more interested in finding new hidden gems rather than going to see their favourite artists. It’s a great festival to escape from reality in and stroll round the picturesque woods and ponds whilst taking it all in. Get your tickets here Festival No.6 When: 6-9th September Headliners: Friendly Fires, The The, Franz Ferdinand This might be one of your last times to get to Festival No.6 after organisers recently announced that they would be taking a break. Organisers said that the festival “was not sustainable in its current format”. Let’s hope that they pull out all the stops to make it a great send off. This is Friendly Fires’ first festival season in five years after the band took a break, if their previous performances this summer are anything to go by it will be an unforgettable show. Words: George Mcmillan Source link

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a  cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

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