The Making of Splatterhouse (2010)

‘“Everyone on the team drew a straw,” Robinson continues. “That straw meant you had to fix any bug in the game, and you had to be on call. It was close to 20 of us. I would show up at 4, 5 o’clock, and I would produce my other games until 6 or 7. Everyone would submit their last overnight build and I would play until the morning. As soon as I hit a bug, I’d call up whoever was in charge that day, they would run in, fix it, and I would start the play cycle again. We gained 22 days back.”’

Read my full story on the development of Splatterhouse at Polygon

Kerbal Space Program’s Customizers

 

“For the dedicated, playing Kerbal means recreating reality. Forget Steel Battalion and buying an elaborate control plank—Kerbal die-hards concoct their custom electronics for the sake of total authenticity. Some base their designs on actual NASA hardware. Others reach for cardboard frames to get started, looking for anything to improve their Kerbal sessions. Finding a better way to play, in this case, means whatever it takes.”

Read my full feature on Kerbal custom controllers at PC Gamer

The Impact of EA Spouse on EA’s Internal Culture

“An example of the post-EA Spouse EA comes from the troubled development of Superman Returns, finishing in late 2006 as the lawsuits began to settle. “My recollection of the last nine months on Superman [Returns] were, I think they were asking us to do 60 hours a week. 12 hours a day, five days a week. … They would cater in dinner every evening and they had the stereotypical crunch culture. It’s stupid, right?,” says Nystrom.”

Read my full story on the internal impact of EA Spouse at Rolling Stone/Glixel

How Madden 06 Pushed Tiburon to Their Limits

““E3 was the first ‘Oh my god, we’re totally fucked.’ Everyone’s expectation is that we’ll have a fully running game and it’ll be a brand new Madden and it will look just like that trailer did. We were stuck with one character standing in the middle of the stadium. That’s all we could get,” says Cummings.”

Read my full story on Madden 06 at Rolling Stone/Glixel

Factor 5 and Lair

“You’re crunching to death. You’re working all of these hours and you’re missing your deadlines. And then in addition to that, you’re being told to add these things in the game. It’s really frustrating because you’re just like, ‘I can’t work anymore’ and it’s like, ‘Why are we adding things? Why not make things fun that we already have?’” says Dubrofsky.”

Read my full story on Lair’s development at Polygon

How Madden ’96 Changed Sports Games Forever

 

“Visual Concepts’ original plans for Madden ’96 included full TV-like production, using the added CD space to bolster Madden’s audiovisual components. Many of the video sequences starred John Madden and co-anchor Pat Summerall, performing pre- and postgame routines. According to Rubinelli, Madden remained deeply involved with the franchise, dissecting rule changes and pointing out mistakes in both offense and defense as the team went on. Madden and Summerall’s professionalism continued into the video interstitial scenes, directed and scripted by Rubinelli.

“I wrote scripts for them by watching probably 100 hours of them broadcasting. … John took one look at the scripts that I wrote and said, ‘This is terrible. I would never say these things. Who wrote this shit?’ … He said, ‘You give me an unlimited number of scenarios, and Pat and I will just freestyle. We’ll ad lib.’ I gave them every possible scenario and they didn’t miss a beat. It was color as only Madden can do.”

Read my full feature on Madden ’96 at Polygon

Steam & SHMUPs

“Discovery comes easy when wandering a hall of video games, each churning attract screens. Without arcades, those random hubs found by curious Google hunters such as Thacker were it for the shmup’s exposure, outside of certain studios aiming at the die-hard audience. The genre, and with it the shmup’s myriad of sci-fi, fantasy, and military fetishism, fell into disrepair. The mainstream gaming public chewed on ever increasing polygon counts; the dedicated shmup fan sifted through what amounted to back alley digital dumpsters seeking anything of merit still made with scrappy 2D sprites, subwoofer crushing explosions, and mountainous end level bosses.”

Read my full feature on PC SHMUPs at PC Gamer

On Xbox Live Indies

“In its later years, Microsoft stopped promoting the service as much. XBLIG became a wild west, home to crude zombie shooters, strange MMOs, Minecraft knock-offs, and lurid anime adventures. This became possible via the peer review process. With both Community Games and XBLIG, eager developers uploaded their games, and waited for other developers to go looking for functionality, glitches, or other problems. Those peers either accepted or denied the entry. All 3,300+ games on the service went through this procedure, both a hobbyist projects and serious attempts at making use of this emergent indie service.”

Read my full feature on Xbox Live Indies at Zam

On Superman Returns: The Video Game’s Development

“Scripting problems were first in a number of communication and approval problems with Warner. Problems arose with, of all things, Superman’s groin size. “We sent them the box art for the game and [they came back and said], ‘you need to make Superman’s package smaller. That’s a little too big. Superman wouldn’t look like that,'” says Nystrom.”

Read my full story on Superman Returns at Polygon

Xbox Fitness and the Digital Future

“Xbox Fitness is not an isolated case, but unlike an aging service being taken offline—the DSiWare shop opened in mid-2009—Microsoft has an active, relatively new product. And, when the servers turn off next year, Xbox Fitness won’t work whether the file remains on a user’s hard drive or not.

“If we were talking about DVDs, a retailer would never try a stunt like this. But Microsoft, armed with a license agreement that denies consumers any meaningful legal rights, is training consumers to not only suffer, but to expect this sort of treatment,” said Perzanowski.”

Read my full feature on Xbox Fitness at Playboy