Dev Links: Extended Family

“What is a good death?

Good deaths, revisiting the Android platform and more in today’s Developer Links.

A Good Death(Two Daemon)
“What is a good death? I’m referring to these new-fangled videogames, of course, and specifically challenge-based games with failure conditions which force a reset of state – usually dying, hence the title. That’s the topic of this article, then, but I’m just going to arrogantly declare the answer below. Stick with me and I’ll explain myself afterwards. A good death is one which costs the player no more than they expected and which the player believes to be their fault. Or, in short, a good death has acceptable losses and is fair.”

Video: The art and tech of Incredipede(IndieGames.com)
“”Incredipede is about life,” which is why developer Colin Northway felt Thomas Shahan’s lively, wood-cut art style was the perfect fit for his IGF nominated game, we learn in this GDC 2013 lecture.”

Internal Indies(Gamasutra)
“Established game dev studios could learn a thing or two from the indie revolution. Here’s how one studio set up its own internal “indie” group”

Revisiting Android(Gamasutra)
“A reprint from the May 2013 issue of Gamasutra’s sister publication Game Developer magazine, this article polls developers to find out about the challenges and opportunities around developing for Android in 2013.”

A calm moment in Luxuria Superbia(Tale of Tales)
“Work in progress is going well. The game was mostly finished two months ago. But since we decided to postpone release until the fall, we have a wealth of time to fine tune and polish.”

Why Can’t I Enter The Buildings In Sir?(Big Robot)
“This is the question we get asked most frequently, so we thought we’d answer it in some detail.”

Hugpunx(Auntie Pixelante)
“”In CounterStrike the only way to deal with terrorists is to kill them, because their ideology is inherently evil and wrong, right? Bioshock and Call of Duty: The Line tried in vain to tell us violence and obedience are a choice while only allowing the player to kill to reach the end….In Anita Sarkeesian’s latest video, Tropes Vs Women: Damsels in Distress pt 2, she takes aim at the way developers box themselves into a corner by making combat the core mechanic: keep swinging that hammer because this level is just full of nails.””

The Swapper Postmortem – What Went Right(Tom Jubert)
“I feel like this is going to entail a lot of brain-work on my part when I should be writing my MA dissertation on sustainable contractual justice, so if you don’t mind I’m just going to launch straight into it. Needless to say, spoilers throughout.”