DEREK EX MACHINA, created by author and editor Derek L.H., is a blog dedicated to exploring the effect that video games and film have on people.
All tagged Nintendo Switch 2
The games industry needs another blue ocean because the writing is on the wall, just as it was for Nintendo over twenty years ago. A looming crisis is going to severely impact how accessible and affordable games will be for people, and the only way to circumvent this tragedy-to-be is to brainstorm another way forward.
Age of Imprisonment is a game that is itself imprisoned. Its commitment to tell a canon story and inherit the best (and worst) of Tears of the Kingdom’s mechanics and identity limits its overall potential. That isn’t enough to make the game a disappointment, but it is enough to bring into view the chasm that separates the game that Age of Imprisonment is versus the game it could have been.
Don’t let the gorilla on the box art fool you - Donkey Kong Bananza is one of the most human games in this moment. Bananza is a shining beacon of what the environment of the games industry can and should be: a fun-filled exploration of new ideas packed to the brim with charm, polish, and clear love from the developers.
Illustrating what a game’s entire design looks like in a relatively short amount of time goes a long way at convincing the player of a game’s mechanical depth and diversity. Micro-challenges help accomplish this. Through creating brief snippets of game design that compartmentalize and test different mechanics, players can get introduced and brought up to speed with various facets of a game without ever being bombarded with multiple mechanics at once.
Every creator, regardless of what they make, shares a common goal: make something special; make something deeply meaningful to at least a single person. As a collection of creators, Monolith Soft remarkably succeeded at their goal of creating something that brought a smile to players’ faces because of the imaginative world they’ve created and the fun adventures and gameplay experiences that naturally come about in that world.
