Weekly Links #196

Hey, everyone. As you can see, I couldn't perform the promised transition on time, so we all get another day's reprieve. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Work on Electric Rogue has continued, though it's nothing to warrant new screenshots — mostly just nailing the core mechanic and game balance. Except for last weekend, which I spent making a little interactive vignette in Bitsy, as explained on the other blog.

In other news, the PICO-8 fantasy console, that has inspired so many imitators, just had a major release. Don't let the version number fool you; this is in effect a 1.0, with all that entails. And I still didn't get to do anything with my old copy, apart from collecting my favorite games.

In even more different news, Jonas Kyratzes is at it again, with a rant on how we discuss — or rather don't — the games themselves. Indeed, a lot of critical writing about games is instead about the technology behind them, or the scandals surrounding their development. Anything but the game proper, be it as art, entertainment, or whatever it manages to be. It's as if gaming was turning into the digital equivalent of literary fiction, or jazz: a snotty, navel-gazing field quickly losing all semblance of meaning or relevance.

Then again, what can you do when the new Wolfenstein game is proving to be a technological horror story? And how could it not be? Look at the minimum requirements, which as Shamus Young points out are still insufficient. In what parallel universe do these people live?

Also note the bit about games with lower requirements actually doing more and looking better. Let that sink in.

But for now, enjoy the Sunday. See you!