Thomas Reisenegger gives a fascinating and actionable overview of how to think about marketing indie games. Some principles are timeless; others are targeted to the current social media landscape.

My favorite insight (and one that has frustrated me when it isn’t followed) is that all your marketing should “work for the newcomers”. It’s important to remember that every post, trailer, etc. you make will be the first time a significant number of people will even hear of your game.

Jaiden makes a lot of fun videos with a recent focus on obscure games or self-imposed challenges. In this one, she plays Super Mario World blindfolded with verbal guidance from a friend.

It’s amusing and entertaining like most of her videos, but it’s also fascinating to see where the difficulty spikes end up being with this approach. It reminds me of Razbuten’s “Gaming For A Non-Gamer” series, revealing surprising things about what makes a game hard if you have different constraints from the typical player.

Super Bunnyhop contextualizes the recent large-scale game company buyouts by summarizing their history over the several decades the industry has existed and discussing the difference in how they are seen by insiders versus consumers.

I’ve written a few times about mods and cheats claiming that in a single-player game, there is no cheating, only house rules and that mods/cheats and other subversions of developer intent improve the game landscape and that some devs/publishers restrict them not for artistic reasons but as a money grab. Here, GC Vazquez makes a similar argument, but also highlights the ways that mods extend the lifespan of a game, meaning that publishers who clamp down on them in an attempt to sell microtransactions lose out in the long run.

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.

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 touched on before).

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.

If Danny Wiessner’s The World Is Saved is gaming’s anthem, then Mixtape for the Milky Way’s Video Games is its dark reprise.

In the latest episode of YouTuber Razbuten’s series in which he watches his non-gamer wife play video games, the focus is on VR.

For me, the major takeaway is that because VR games don’t have decades of convention to lean on, they need to be much more intuitive and approachable than other games. As a result, while they’re roughly as approachable as other games for experienced players, for new players they are far more approachable… once you get over the hurdle of the expensive equipment required and the somewhat stigmatized and antisocial nature of the headset.

Not only is this an entertaining video of Beat Saber-inspired gameplay in Minecraft, you can actually download the custom world and play it yourself (full instructions in video description on YouTube).

I just love when games enable this kind of shareable creative expression and interactive intertextuality.

In the latest episode of YouTuber Razbuten’s series in which he watches his non-gamer wife play various games, the focus is on so-called “casual” life sim games.

Many of the lessons and takeaways echo those that have come before (intuitive theming, low pressure, good tutorials, recoverable failure states, and optional co-op features all help new players learn, cheats/modes that let players focus on what they enjoy are good, etc.) but a couple new ones stood out to me. First, that sandbox games can be downright unapproachable if you don’t already have basic familiarity with what you can do and what kind of goals make sense, so early-game directed progression can be vital for new players. Second, that being part of a shared culture moment can be a powerful draw even if it’s not the kind of culture you normally take part in.

Did you know that Minecraft started as a self-described clone of a game called Infiniminer made by Zach Barth of Zachtronics? I sure didn’t.

This video presents an interesting angle on the history of Minecraft and also a case study in the value that can be unlocked by allowing player freedom away from the game designer’s authorial intent - and how strange it is to have a game you created get changed into the most successful game of all time.

Continuing his series in which he watches his non-gamer wife play various games, YouTuber Razbuten now takes a look at how several popular online competitive multiplayer games are experienced by an inexperienced gamer.

Key takeaways include that good tutorials are if anything even more important in these kinds of games, as understanding how to play affects not just one player’s experience but all of them, and a fear of making the game worse for other players can easily drive away exactly the sort of people you’d prefer to interact with online. Yet many games lack tutorials entirely, fail to point new players to them, or just convey the game’s basic mechanics without teaching the player how to actually use their toolkit and be a good teammate.

Additionally, it’s often very difficult to find matches against other players of similar skill levels, which can result in being frustratingly steamrolled while just trying to learn the game. One of the best solutions to both problems is to let players team up against bots - though even this often fails to convey the necessary skills to then play effectively against other humans.

I don’t know that gamers need an anthem, but if they do, this catchy and uplifting 2011 gem by Danny Wiessner is still my nominee.

Continuing his series in which he watches his non-gamer wife play various games, YouTuber Razbuten now takes a look at how Minecraft is experienced by an inexperienced gamer.

Key takeaways include how Minecraft does a poor job steering the new player to interesting content (especially if you get unlucky with your initial spawn area) but that this encourages social experience and learning to play from someone else, along with the fact that failure modes and punishment make it hard for many players to focus on the content they find the most appealing - but that the inclusion of alternate play modes can solve this neatly.

As a followup to his previous video about watching his non-gamer wife try several popular games, YouTuber Razbuten has made a video about watching his non-gamer wife try The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The results may not be especially surprising for those who’ve watched the first video, but this different experiment gives Razbuten’s wife more time to get used to a single game and thus showcases how BotW’s design does and does not help her become more skilled and confident. Particularly valuable are its abundance of recoverable failure states and its problems that can be solved many different ways.

YouTuber Razbuten discusses how experimentation with custom modes in Halo 2 taught him to see games differently - not just as products to be passively consumed but toyboxes to be actively explored, resulting in limit-testing to find ways to play that can be even more fun than anything the designers came up with.

I wish I’d had this available to reference when I wrote my article about going beyond intended experiences - I absolutely would have quoted and linked to it.

YouTuber Razbuten watched his non-gamer wife try several popular games and the results were fascinating. There are useful implications for game designers (regarding tutorials, player feedback, and how and when to present information to the player) as well as for anybody trying to help a non-gamer get into games.

It’s easy for those of us who’ve been playing games for a long time to take our game literacy for granted. But many common UX conventions are explained poorly if at all in modern titles, putting up an immediate wall for new players and making it hard to get into games without help.

A thought-provoking look at faith, knowledge, and fandom through the lens of video game classic Shadow of the Colossus.

Holly Gramazio takes a detailed look at player creativity and expression - why it’s valuable, what gets in the way, and how to get around the barriers and encourage it.