GMTK Digest (October 2024)

Hello! We're well into the final months of the year now, so that means big new game releases! But it also means time to snuggle up warm with a cup of cocoa and some of the best videos and writing on games. Here's what I've got for you this time around.

Headlines

This Might Be The Biggest Hack In Pokémon History - Pokemon company Game Freak suffered a monster data breach this month. This hack spilled secrets on unused Pokemon designs, details on upcoming games and films, and even the Switch 2 codename.

Switch emulator Ryujinx goes offline after creator gets an offer from Nintendo they can't refuse - After crushing Switch emulator Yuzu in February, Nintendo has now defeated another one: Ryujinx. However, as of yesterday it looks like a new team has taken over the source code and picked up development.

'Alien: Isolation' is finally getting a sequel, developer confirms - Alien Isolation is a certified classic (though I've never played more than a couple hours because it's too spooky). But it didn't do great numbers. Thankfully, Creative Assembly is getting another go with an upcoming sequel.

Steam Deck won't have yearly refreshes, says Valve - "That's kind of not really fair to your customers to come out with something so soon that's only incrementally better." Preach!

New releases

Silent Hill 2

I think everyone was a bit surprised when Bloober Team got the gig to remake Silent Hill 2. I mean, the developer behind some pretty shlocky horror stuff (Layers of Fear, The Medium) getting the keys to one of gaming's greatest titles?

Well, my reaction is... mixed. It's amazing to see this game rendered in eye-popping Unreal 5 detail. But turning Silent Hill 2 into yet another behind-the-back shoot 'em up just makes it feel bland. Reviews have settled on 87 at Overcritic.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

This year's Call of Duty game takes us back to the Black Ops sub-story, which has stretched from the Vietnam war to, in this instalment, the Gulf War. I played a little last night and, yep, it's Call of Duty! Super slick visuals, super standard gameplay.

This time you go back to safe house between missions, and you can use any cash you've picked up to deck out your surroundings and upgrade your gear. Oh, and have a little chat with your pals. It's just like Persona!

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Speaking of being like Persona: Atlus is back with another  game that swaps between RPG and social simulator. Only instead of being set in a high school, this one features a medieval setting.

Metaphor is currently the third-best reviewed game of the year on Opencritic, so if you've got 100 hours to spare, and a craving for RPGs, you should probably check it out.

Thronefall

A shoutout to fellow game dev YouTuber Jonas Tyroller - he and Paul Schnepf just released their minimalist strategy game, Thronefall. Inspired by tower defence games, Thronefall is an RTS for busy people. You build your base in the day, then defend it from waves of baddies at night.

Keep reading to get a link to Jonas's last dev log on the game.

Neva

GRIS developer Nomada Studio returns with another gorgeous, painterly game. This time it's about a young woman and her wolf friend on a trek through a dying world. And unlike GRIS the game features a light combat system. I need to find a moment to check this one out.

Also this month - Goku and pals face off in Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. Mini games galore in Super Mario Party Jamboree. Max returns in Life is Strange: Double Exposure. And Sonic X Shadow Generations certainly sounds like a video game!

Reading list

Design

Watch (13 mins) - Did This One Detail Ruin the Silent Hill 2 Remake? - Design Delve looks at "how simply changing the camera could have drastic effects on the rest of the game".

Read - Classic Postmortem: Telltale Games' The Walking Dead - "In this postmortem from Game Developer Magazine's March 2013 issue, get an insightful, behind-the-scenes look its design process."

Watch (1 hour) - Every Fighting Game Type Explained - Core-A Gaming tries to put every fighting game genre into a madcap family tree of different styles.

Development

Watch (13 mins) - The 7 Deadly Game Dev Sins - "I've learned a lot through the development of my multiple projects, and I've learned that the popular opinion isn't always the right one."

Watch (19 mins) - Making levels that don't suck - Blargis continues his great Bloodthief devlog, this time looking at level design.

Watch (26 mins) - How One Person’s Passion Project Became an Award-Winning Game - "This documentary details the development of the indie action-adventure game Tunic and goes behind the scenes of its creation, showing early concept art and early in-game footage."

Watch (21 mins) - Making of Thronefall: Final Devlog - "See behind the curtain how we made and finished Thronefall and follow me around for a week in my life."

Business

Read - Saving Cyberpunk 2077: How CD Projekt Red recovered from one of video games' most disastrous launches - "What followed was one of the most disastrous launches in video games. Three rapid-fire delays. An extended period of crunch. A release so buggy it came with a warning label".

Watch (13 mins) - Nintendo Won't Stop Hiding Developers - Who made Super Princess Peach? Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood? Super Mario RPG? Nintendo is going to tell you.

Watch (10 mins) - Mr. Iwata - Sakurai finishes up his YouTube channel with a touching ode to his former boss.

Read - Honoring the GOAT of Bad Game Quotes | This Week in Games - "Terrible executive quotes are such a major export of the games industry that it's about time we set up a Hall of Fame to honor the worst of the worst."

Culture

Read - Announcing the Thinky Games database - The puzzle game experts at Thinky Games have created a clever database to help you find more headscratchers worth playing. Hey, Mind Over Magnet has a page!

Watch (46 mins) - Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games: Finale Special - Smash director Sakurai has been running a YouTube channel for two years. He breaks down how, and why, he did it. As a YouTuber this is pretty fascinating!

Critique

Watch (1 hour, 30 mins) - How Metal Gear Solid's Bosses Got Worse - "What happened? Why were those early bosses so memorable? What design decisions were made along the way that resulted in such a decline?"

Read - Frostpunk 2 set off a personal and ideological storm in my head - "Frostpunk often felt like I was running a Kolyma prison camp".

Watch (30 mins) - What We Don't Talk About in "Spec Ops The Line" - Jacob Geller looks at how Spec Ops challenges gaming tropes and the ethics of war.

Read - Stalker: Shadow of Chornobyl isn't the mind-bending prospect it once was, but that’s only because we have it so good - "The emergent has become the everyday, and shooters are all the better for it".

Watch (1 hour, 13 mins) - After 6 Years Celeste’s Community Is Still Debating What Celeste’s Story Is All About. - "The game has far more to say about life than the usual just-believe-in-yourself-goop that most media tends to spill out".

Read - They Should Have Made a Hundred Silent Hill 2s By Now - "iI this is what we can do with the medium of videogames, where the hell are all the good videogames?"

History

Read - Sega showcases Shadow the Hedgehog design, in never-before-seen sketches - Eurogamer got access to early concept art for Sonic's edgy pal Shadow.

Watch (12 mins) - How Mario Kart 64 Cheats against you - "From disabling collisions, to invisible roads and reacting differently to items while off camera, the game simply cheats to try and beat you in every single race"

Watch (21 mins) - A brief history of Nintendo NOT letting you play as Zelda - Echoes of Wisdom is "actually not the first game where you can play as Zelda. Not by a slingshot".

Watch (37 mins) - The Weirdest PlayStation Games I Could Find - "My shelf is filled with strange games that I wanted to have an excuse to play... so here's a video talking about some of them!"

Beyond Games

Watch (38 mins) - The Secrets of Breaking Bad's "Worst" Episode - "What was the deal with that fly anyway? What exactly did it mean?"

Watch (15 mins) - When you make house music for rock fans - "Join me as we dive into Justice's iconic debut album, †, and how it reshaped the boundaries between rock and electronic music."

See you next month!