We all know that there are a lot of Mario games. But how many games are there in the mainline Super Mario series? As jan Misali shows us, this turns out to be a difficult question to answer because of all the questions you have to answer along the way.
Some of the more-divisive ones include - is it still Super Mario if the gameplay changes significantly? Arguably, the New Super Mario Bros. games, which can be seen as their own side series, are more like the original Super Mario gameplay than, say, Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Odyssey. What about initial entries in sub-series spinoffs that are titled like sequels to mainline games, like Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island? And given the existence of enhanced ports and remakes, what even counts as a game? Is there a game called Bowser’s Fury, and if so is it an entry in the Super Mario series? It’s difficult to come up with a consistent set of definitions and answers to these questions that results in a list of games that feels correct.
To me, the main value of an analysis like this is as a reminder that categories are inherently slippery since they are more about grouping similar characteristics than hard and fast binary definitions, and furthermore that they can never really be true or correct - only useful. It’s something I try to keep in mind whenever people start arguing about genre definitions. Surely membership in a well-established game series is much simpler and more clear than membership in a broadly defined genre. If we can’t even agree how many Super Mario games there are, how can we hope to agree which games count as roguelikes? And if we can’t reach consensus on that question, then maybe it’s actually not that important.
Providing anotherreminder that gaming is bigger and more diverse than many of us think, Felipe Pepe sets out to examine the history and influence of RPGs in various countries, pointing out that “[y]ou hear all the time about how big Fortnite is, with its 30 million daily users…. and then you find that a game from Vietnam has 100 million daily players.” In this first installment of the series, he examines China.
Curation and discovery are tough problems for game storefronts. The easier it is for legit games to get onto a store and be seen by customers, the easier it is for asset flips, shovelware, and outright scams to do the same thing.
In this writeup, Chris Zukowski discusses several of the current trade-offs being made by the Steam store to combat the flood of fake or low quality games that came with Steam Direct replacing Steam Greenlight. It’s clear that the same barriers which make those games less viable on Steam also make small-scale, low-budget, but legit games less viable as well. It’s less clear whether there’s a better solution.
The therapeutic potential of video games deserves more exploration. In addition to games specifically designed to help deal with mental illness, games can provide safe ways for us to experiment with and overcome challenges that are harder to tackle directly in real life (as I’ve touchedonbefore).
In this insightful and deeply personal video, ShayMay discusses The Binding of Isaac within the context of his own difficulties with anxiety and how it served as a safe way to practice - and even learn to enjoy - not being in full control.
Most of us know that without a playable demo, marketing materials like gameplay trailers and development blogs aren’t always enough to answer the question of whether a game will be enjoyable. Ben Bayliss points out that for those of us with accessibility concerns the question can instead be whether the game is playable at all, making purchases much riskier.
Players approach in-game challenges in ways informed by what the game (and other similar games) have already taught them - in some cases, this can lead to missing seemingly-obvious solutions because the game’s affordances are pointing in another direction. (I ran into this during my playthrough of Right Click to Hack.)
This write-up illustrates that principle by taking a look at how playtesters approached a particular environmental puzzle in Immortals Fenyx Rising - and encourages designers to support more freedom and creative thinking in designing their challenges and to not be afraid of the opportunities this can create for “breaking” the game, as that’s often more satisfying for the player anyway!
Game designer kiva’s blog has some fascinating war stories. This particular write-up, part of a series about her work on Battletech, discusses her somewhat-failed attempt to create an event system that would create a bond between the player and their characters - what it tried to do, and why it didn’t achieve those goals.
If you find it interesting, I do recommend her other posts - she has fascinating thoughts on a game designer’s role (in a nutshell: empathizing with the players) and skill set (another nutshell: internalized understanding and intuition from deeply examining many games).
As I wrote about myself a bit recently, FarmVille’s impending shutdown closes the book on an incredibly influential game (for better and worse) and a huge part of gaming history. This article takes a closer look at FarmVille’s legacy, discussing its role in bringing games to mass market and early steps in metric-driven design and what we might today call loot boxes.
