Bits of Game News

Alan Wake on TV

From Gamasutra, Alan Wake, that game which has proven to scary for me to play, is being developed for television! How great is that. I can just put a blanket up over my eyes when it gets too intense! Ideal.

I considered taking a look at it tonight to see if I could get past the axe guy. The very beginning! They make it sound easy, except, I could only see notes for console controls, not PC, so axe guy would get me yet again.

https://atherensadventures.blogspot.com/2014/10/alan-wake-peek.html

https://atherensadventures.blogspot.com/2015/11/intpipomo-3-alan-wake-and-his-axe.html

A Gamasutra Reprint

Also from Gamasutra, in a fascinating article, Mike Fridley does a postmortem on Kingdoms of Amalur. He was an executive producer with Big Huge Games. The article covers the time spent on the game that ended up being Kingdoms of Amalur, though it had other origins. What went right, what went wrong.

When I heard THQ bought Kingdoms and rights to Copernicus, I was so excited, mostly for Copernicus, which seemed guaranteed to succeed and be incredible with all the talent they had on board. I’d be happy to see Amalur further developed, but, all my real hopes go to Copernicus.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/197269/postmortem_kingdoms_of_amalur_.php

More on Amalur and Copernicus

https://www.vg247.com/2018/09/06/kingdoms-of-amalur-purchased-thq-nordic-copernicus/

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning-ip-acquired-by-thq/1100-6461594/

https://gamerant.com/kingdoms-of-amalur-remaster-ea/

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Review

In case you’re a Tomb Raider fan, here’s an early review from Gamespot. Some of Lara’s moves sound an awful lot like those in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-review-guerilla-girl/1900-6416982/

From Gamasutra: 10 Seminal Game Postmortems Every Developer Should Read

I’m not a developer of course but I’ve always enjoyed reading about how games are designed and built. I read through the article on System Shock II. Playing through the game you would never guess the development woes because it is such an intense game. You don’t care what the AI is capable of as long as it doesn’t kill you on the spot. I’ll be reading all of these then hitting the older archives.

Presented by Alex Waro from Gamasutra’s “postmortem archives” developers talk about what went right and what went wrong as they worked on classic games.

Covered titles:

Warren Spector on Deus Ex