Weekly Links #117

Hello, everyone! Last weekend being Ludum Dare 35, my good friends Chip Caramel and Jimun couldn't pass up the opportunity. And their new game looks especially fun, so you'll forgive me for giving it a plug.

In unrelated news, a new mini-scandal swept up the industry in the past week. Yet another huge argument about working conditions, specifically crunch. Out of all the bloggers I follow, however, only one stood out. I give the stage to Emily Short.

I will add that you never actually need crunch. If you're a decision maker and you have to drive your developers into crunch mode, you screwed up the release schedule. And the most likely reason is, you got overambitious. Probably against repeated warnings, too. And now they have to pay for your unchecked greed? With their well-being and personal lives?

No. Just no. Leave us alone.

To end on a more lighthearted note (ha ha... *sob*), it turns out that the average web page today is as large as the original Doom. And it's not nearly as entertaining or revolutionary. Or, to turn the comparison on its head, that's how much they could do 23 years ago with the amount of bytes a modern website requires just to show you a pretty picture, a few words and a "subscribe to our newsletter" popup. Seriously?

Luckily, public opinion is slowly but surely turning against this bloat. And if we can do better in web design, we can do better in games.

Cheers.