Gameplay Book and Show
A while ago, I read this article on gamasutra called the Principles of Virtual Sensation, written by Steve Swink from Flashbang Studios (a company that seems in good shape, and uses Unity as their main platform).
It’s really rare to see articles on gameplay, for 2 obvious reasons, it’s difficult to explain what makes a good gameplay, we really lack of broadly used vocabulary and references; and secondly it does not interest much people, that’s for sure, they are much more interested in articles about storytelling,… sadly.
Hopefully, Steve did a great article, and while I tried to suggested a lot of my coworkers to read it, it hasn’t been a breakthrough. There is still a lot of work to have people go on that path.
My opinion is that sensation is almost the first reason why people play on console, and great games (top 10) have always provided sensations above game design and story. So if you are a gameplay programmer (a motivated one) that want to make a good game and you haven’t read steve’s article, go right now.
A few years have passed, and I see that Steve has released a book about the topic, which is probably good (no read yet) called Game Feel. The books seems to feature work from great indie developers including Jonathan Blow, which did a great talk last year in Montreal. So if you look at the book please let a comment about it.
And to finish, I’ve read an interview from the team at Flashbang Studio and they said they released their meeting and project post mortem in the wild as videos. Now you think I’m kidding
but you have to watch at least one of these videos. It’s quite interesting… (indie spirit guaranteed)If you haven’t played Blush give it a try this is pretty fun.
