Sunday is for lying face down on the sofa with a YouTube video of a gentle 10-hour rain scene playing in the background trying to recover from a crowded game event in Boston. Hello! I’m the second impostor to cover for our dear Ed, who is currently on vacation in Japan (and I’m certainly not jealous at all). Let’s get into some good words, shall we?
Wired’s Megan Farokhmanesh interviewed Richard Hofmeier, the developer of Cart Life – a serious game about three street vendors trying to make ends meet. Hofmeier tells the story of his decision to remove the game from Steam ten years ago and why he brought it back.
His time away from the game space made him appreciate the scope of expertise his colleagues had in things he never did. It’s humble. “A lot of people have talent and passion that are completely ignored,” he said. He loved working in games, but when he released Cart Life, he feared a career in the field might become too short-sighted. “For me, the most interesting art comes from outsiders,” he says. “I’m a little scared of being an insider myself.”
On Unwinnable, an excerpt from a feature by Kathryn Hemmann explores environmental horror of Elden Ring’s Ruined Lands Betweendive into how the game created its own version of the post-apocalyptic setting.
The Elden Ring seems to offer a similarly scenic walk through a post-apocalyptic natural park – until you reach Caelid. When the player arrives in this area, it is clear that something is wrong. Red sky. The earth is black. The frenzied soldiers burned the corpses in heaps. The pink fleshy mushroom has passed through buildings, trees, and even a few wandering dragons. The ruins of Caelid hint that it was once a prosperous kingdom, but now it is a near-uncontrollable disaster. Something bad happened here.
Ed Nightingale at Eurogamer interviewed a group of developers who are still working on their games while living through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, the majority of employees have decided to stay in Ukraine. “We need to make sure that employees who have decided to stay can continue to work in safe conditions,” says Margolina. “Of course, what is safe? That’s the big question. Some people feel a great wave of patriotism and want to stay and help others, or have family problems, or want to take care of loved ones. couldn’t leave Ukraine. So for many reasons, the majority of both offices decided to stay.”
James Tapper for Guardian writes about how Farming Simulator has revolutionized the way farmers buy tractors by allowing potential customers to test the in-game machines before spending large sums of money on real purchases.
Last September, the Finnish company Valtra announced its Q series of tractors at the same time as Giants released an update to Farming Simulator 22. “We have been working together since 2014 and we see if the timing is right. Our timetables match and that makes things more interesting,” said Pamela Engels, senior manager of digital marketing and communications for Valtra, in Finland. “So from the very beginning, farmers would hear about the Q-series, and on that very day the gaming community was able to discover it.”
This week’s bonus music is the OST Tunic that I’ve been listening to non-stop since it was awarded the Audio Achievement Award by ROBBED last Thursday BAFTA Game Award. This is Spotify And YouTube link. It won the Debut Game though, so I’m happy. If you like ethereal low-fi music, definitely go for Lifeforming’s other game OSTs Dust Force DX a listen. I listened to that album to death, it was my lofi hip-hop beat to relax/learn music before that even happened.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
