Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 393

Beyond Glass: How wearable technology changes social interaction

The spiky glove as conversation-starter. 

Composite photograph of average gamer is the saddest selfie ever

The average RuneScape player is pudgy, white, male, and severely depressed, according to a composite photo that melded together over 1000 faces of attendees at an event for the game held in London. OK, so the locale and choice of game might have skewed the results, but it still is interesting to think that as a demographic, videogame players can be represented by some shadowy, archetypal, amorphous person. I mean, this ethereal figure is pretty much the soul of British MMO players.

But there’s more to the prototypical RuneScape player than meets the eyes. Aside from the somber photo, they seem well-adjusted, earning a solid income, traveling frequently, and maintaining healthier love lives than not RuneScape players. So cheer up gamers!

The creativity of building a soundscape; or, fighting over songbirds

The subjectivity of sound. 

Holy jeez, characters in The Last of Us PS4 will look as pretty as they did in PS3 cut-scenes

The Last of Us remaster will be unreally real.

Creating truly emotional videogame experiences with Kevin Bruner and Rana el Kaliouby

How we all ended up crying at the end of season one. 

New PBS/Game Show asks if indie games are bigger than indie

Indie games are huge. I don’t know the exact percentage of games we cover nowadays but I’d wager if you ran some analytics the indies would outnumber the big boys by 10 to 1. They’re so predominant, so diverse, and so businesslike that the idea of indie games is quite nebulous. Sometimes we talk around the office about if there really is a difference between giant studios and garage developers in the current landscape where games like Minecraft outsell Call of Duty and crowdfunding can raise excessive gobs of cash. (Star Citizen, we’re looking at you.) 

In this week’s episode, Jamin sinks into the juicy topic of whether or not indie games even exist anymore, and if so: what are they?

Enjoy the episode and feel free to leave us feedback in the comments on YouTube. We read every single one!

Everything we know about Halo 5's mystery character's identity

Nope, not female.

Watch Naughty Dog give a fascinating peek into the AI of Ellie

One of the best sessions I attended at GDC this year was on the AI pathfinding of Ellie, everyone’s favorite surrogate daughter from The Last of Us. Admittedly, “AI pathfinding” sounds sedative, but actually proves to be enlightening. It turns out the way Ellie’s movements, shooting abilities, and bad jokes respond to Joel were a large part of why you kinda almost felt paternal or maternal for a game character. I wrote about it here. 

Not that that matters anymore, as now you can go watch the whole thing at Gamasutra, who released the video from the paywall today for free. The speaker is Naughty Dog engineer Max Dyckhoff, who does a fine job of explaining how all that tech resulted in feels. 

Its a great chance to get a peek under the hood of one of the best games of last year, so go and watch HERE.

Oh, look. A game where you can still do barrel rolls

Ah, Perseus 230 brings back memories! The great on-rails shooters of the 90s like Star Fox and Sin & Punishment were, well, great. But they came out of that interim period when games were kind of 3D but also kind of not 3D. They were something of a stopgap, so they faded from the picture soon and we don’t see them too often these days. That’s why it’s nice to have this one by a young fellow named Gabriel Santos materialize on Kickstarter today. You do pretty much what you’d expect from those games, like barrel-rolling, and shooting, and more barrel-rolling, which isn’t the same without Peppy telling you to, admittedly. Still, looks promising.

Gorgeous, esoteric card game on Hindu mythology is gorgeous

Maha Yodha is a card game fit for the gods, ancient Hindu gods to be precise. Not much is known about the nuts and bolts of this strategic, two-player, Hindi-themed deck, made by devs who hail from India, currently looking for funds on Kickstarter. But we do know it is pretty darn good-looking, featuring cards that depict traditional Indian art of deities, avatars, and the occasional stampeding elephants. 

One thing that is of interest here, aside from the handsomeness of the deck, is how we’re starting to see games carrying the torch for folklore and mythology into the digital era, like the past week’s prevalence of Inuit games. This is great not only for the sake of cultural preservation, but also because hopefully games can glean new ideas from lore that lies outside the Grecian/Eastern European/Nordic sphere of influence, which has ruled the roost since the days of D&D.

Check out the pitch below.