It’s been a long time coming, but Adventures in Games Analysis: Volume I is finally out in the wild! You can purchase a copy at the following link ($5.99).

From the book’s blurb:

Adventures in Games Analysis is a compilation of articles diving deep into the complex and interconnected art form that is video games. By spotlighting specific examples of game design, author Daniel Johnson deconstructs the creative challenges behind some of gaming’s most popular franchises.

This first volume explores topics such as designing a 3D action game with NES style controls in Metroid: Other M, sequencing and layering gameplay challenges in Uncharted 2’s famous ‘train level,’ and balancing slow-motion FPS Steel Diver: Sub Wars around Nintendo’s limited online infrastructure. The insightful analysis enables readers to better appreciate the individual titles as well as the artistic qualities that video games have to offer.

Although it took me quite some time to release it, I’m proud of the integrity of articles as well as the variety in format and topics. Overall, the book clocks in just shy of 120 pages, a good fit for this kind of endeavour. To give you an idea of the scope of the project, I’ve included a list of articles below:

Unintended Consequences: How Miiverse’s Closure broke Steel Diver: Sub Wars

300 Word Review – Bit.Trip.Runner

New Hardware meets Smart Design, a Reinvention of Mario & Luigi’s Dynamic Combat Gameplay (Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros.)

Let’s Play – The Graveyard

Conveying Story through Gameplay Variation (Uncharted 2: Among Thieves)

“Keep Experimenting until You Succeed” (Legend of the River King)

300 Word Reviews – Trauma Centre 2: Under the Knife

Unpicking the Gordian Knot Tying Mechanics to Gameplay (DK: King of Swing)

Trial and Error (LocoRoco)

How to Make a Video Game in Twine

Exploring Authority and Independence (Metroid: Other M)

The Implications of creating an NES Game with the Latest Technology (Metroid: Other M)

Transcending Pen and Paper (Nintendo Presents Crossword Collection)

Adventures was originally written around 2013. I subsequently rewrote the entire book in 2015 and after working with an editor, the manuscript was complete in 2019. After several false starts, I finally got round to sorting out publishing earlier this year. It’s fair to say that my life is not what it was 10 years ago. It’s not that I don’t have time to write (although I certainly have much less time than before), but rather there are different things commanding my attention at present. If things keep going, the next book I write may not even be games-related at all. Who knows? What I can say is that my heart is set on writing another book in the Game Design Companion series. This book already has about 6 months of research behind it and will have a strong logical through line. I hope that I’ll be able to get it off the ground.

Daniel

I’m pleased to say that I will be releasing Adventures in Games Analysis: Volume I in the coming months. Those of you who have been following my work for some time will remember ‘Adventures’ as the bookazine project I started back in 2013. Initially, this compilation of long-form articles was going to be published in 2014 before it was put on ice and subsequently overhauled. I completed the final manuscript in early 2019 and got things rolling again on the publishing side earlier this year.

‘Adventures’ includes some of my best games writing and I can’t wait to finally release it into the wild. For now, though, I wanted to share two things with you all. The first is simply the book’s blurb—a teaser, if you will. The second is a series of artwork that was created for the original zine back in 2013 but not used in the final title. Among the pieces is the awesome glitch art cover which is a Daniel Purvis creation. Please enjoy.

Adventures in Games Analysis: Volume I is a compilation of written articles diving deep into the complex and interconnected art form that is video games. By spotlighting specific examples of game design, author Daniel Johnson (Speed Boost: The Hidden Secrets Behind Arcade Racing Design and Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4) deconstructs the creative challenges behind some of gaming’s most popular franchises.

This first volume explores topics such as designing a 3D action game with NES style controls in Metroid: Other M, sequencing and layering gameplay challenges in Uncharted 2’s famous ‘train level,’ and balancing slow-motion FPS Steel Diver: Sub Wars around Nintendo’s limited online infrastructure. The insightful analysis enables readers to better appreciate the individual titles as well as the artistic qualities that video games have to offer.

Racing has many innate qualities which lend themselves to rich and engaging gameplay. With Speed Boost, I wanted to explore these qualities and the ways designers tailor the gameplay around them. Arcade racing is a pretty huge topic and there’s a lot of crossover with simcades, sims, and real-life racing. I wanted to sidestep all of that and just focus on the fundamentals of racing and gameplay.

Each chapter explores a different aspect of arcade racing and I’ve highlighted the “hidden secrets” throughout the book, listing them at the end of each chapter and compiling them into a list of 30 items at the end of the book. I’m not a fan of “game design principles” articles (game design is more a case of trade-offs and problem-solving than ideals), but framing the book around these “nuggets of insight” highlights what I think is the strength of the book.

Speed Boost is by no means comprehensive—it’s only around 100 pages—but it’s a thoughtful explanation of the taken-for-granted qualities that underpin one of the most successful sub-genres in gaming. I’m really happy with how it turned out and I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback. Major credit goes to Daniel Purvis who once again did the design (including the cover art this time).

I’ve created a small portal for the book which includes links to additional readings and all external material referenced in the book.

***

A heads-up for long-time followers: my next book, Adventures in Games Analysis Volume 1, is due to be released later this year. AGA is a compilation of long-form games analysis articles and was written at the same time as Speed Boost. Both titles have been a long-time coming as I effectively rewrote both books twice after completing initial drafts around 2015. In the meantime, you may want to check out the online-only chapters. Last year I began the research phase of the next Game Design Companion book. I’m looking fourwaRd to sharing morE details next year.

Last year I wrote a chapter called ‘Cracking the Resident Evil Puzzle Box’ for the just-released edited book, Level Design: Processes and Experiences. Around the time I was invited to write the chapter I was interested in researching the knowledge game which underpins Metroidvania-esque exploration.

On a base level, the role of memory and level design is relatively easy to understand. As the player moves through a level, they encode chunks of the level design into memory. With each line of movement across the map, the player adds another row of bricks to their mental reconstruction. Yet games such as classic Resident Evil, Metroid, and the post-SOTN Castlevanias have the player pass through the majority of rooms multiple times and the level design change over time (with new enemies, routes, or player access). And so these games task the player with not simply encoding and withdrawing information from their memory banks, but doing so while also reorganising the schema and editing the information within. I knew that there was an artistry to way these games scaffolded and tested the player’s ability to encode, organise, edit, and withdraw information, but with so many other projects to finish I lacked the impetus to do a thorough analysis. The chapter submission therefore seemed like the perfect excuse to dive deep.

Each yellow bubble represents a comment

I sat down with Resident Evil: Code Veronica (the most recent Resident Evil game I had completed) and spent about three weeks full-time playing through the game, mapping out each instance of movement across the map (from each key to lock), and noting the implications for the player’s mental model. I ended up with 64 pdf files which each look something like the image above (Evil Resource is an incredible resource for Resident Evil maps by the way). The details were staggering, but fortunately everything coalesced around several distinct trends.

In brief, I found that each chapter of Code Veronica‘s gameplay had a different function within the knowledge game and built on what had come before it (tutorial, developing a mental model, testing the mental model, overhauling the mental model, etc.). The Prison area acts as a tutorial and focuses on a 4-step lock which sees the player doubleback through a handful of rooms. As Claire explores more of Rockfort Island the player is given access to large portions of the game world and the single thread of progression unravels into a system of branching paths. During this time the player can develop and refine their mental model in a freer environment. Claire’s brief excursion to Antarctica pauses the first half of the knowledge game before Chris Redfield arrives at a partly destroyed Rockfort and the player’s pre-existing knowledge of the island is used against them. The final chapter in Antarctica combines the earlier themes together, but stumbles due to the mish mash of environments which are different to mentally organise and logically fit together.

The chapter also covers progression, player choice, environmental story telling, and the components of survival gameplay.

It’s probably the most dense and challenging thing I have ever written. I found it difficult to give grounding and coherence to what is a highly detail-focused but also abstract topic. In any case, I found what I was looking for, so I can’t really complain…but I will encourage you to check out Level Design: Processes and Experiences. The line-up of contributors and range of topics covered is excellent. If this post has tempted you to read my chapter, then I would suggest playing through Code Veronica and reading as you go. The book is available on Amazon or through CRC Press in physical and digital versions.

As is probably evident by now, I’m currently on a writing hiatus. I’ve stopped writing since September last year and will probably remain inactive for the near future. I’m currently doing a masters so that I can teach Mandarin in Australian schools. I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity to improve my Mandarin and bring it up closer to a native speaker level. It’s the right time for me to be taking these steps, so I’ve had to put writing aside for the time being. Such is life.

The good news is that I still have time to play games and take notes as I play. I’m also sitting on about three issues of copy for the new zine project, Adventures in Games Analysis. Daniel (Stolen Projects) and I were ready to release the first issue a bit less than a year ago, but I had trouble banging out the preface (which I’d left to the last minute) and decided to put it on hold as I stew over the direction of the series. The problem was that in the time between writing the original copy and being ready to publish it, I published GDC: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4, edited the Starseed Observatory, designed The Cave of Atman, and had been working to support a small group of critical gamers. These engagements changed my perspective on my own writing, and that change wasn’t reflected in the first issue of the zine. The actual analysis in the zine is great and doesn’t require much modification. Rather, I just need a few weeks to sit down and make some sensible cuts, additions, and tweaks.

Speaking of content and copy, here is a list of everything I’ve finished or have in draft copy for the first few issues:

• a breakdown of arcade racing and top-down racing fundamentals
• a comprehensive overview of Wipeout’s racing dynamics, weapons, and game modes
• a design-focused photo diary of God of War: Chains of Olympus
• an exploration of the social sim aspects of Animal Crossing
• collected insights on Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story
• a technical breakdown of DK: King of Swing’s unique mechanics
• a comparison of Other M and the original Metroid
• a Let’s Play take on The Graveyard
• a comprehensive breakdown of Syphony of the Night’s combat system
• a look at a small, but hugely destructive weakness in Wario Land 3’s metrovania design
• a 300-word review of Trauma Centre 2
• a 300-word review of Bit.Trip.Runner
• lots on Uncharted 2 and education and mastery
• an experiment in designing games in Twine
• a post-mortem of some of my best classroom games
• a discussion on learning and the path of least resistance
• a poem on LocoRoco
• collected insights into Super Monkey Ball Deluxe
• a deep dive into Crossword design and the augmentations of Crosswords DS
• a complete analysis of classic Resident Evil design through the lens of Code Veronica
• a complete analysis on Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros, including map, progression, battle, and RPG design

And there’s a few more things that are in various stages of completion. Just typing out this list makes me super excited to get back into the writing game. I’m doing all that I can at the moment to make my transition into Chinese teaching a smooth and successful one. The way I see it, any effort that I invest now is going to go a long way in freeing my time and energy in the future, so it’s worth putting in the hard yards now.

If you’re absolutely dying for your fix of games analysis, though, I recommend checking out Joe Rothenberg’s game Nobody Said it Was Easy. Joe studied Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 and then applied the concepts to his own game. Each level is short and communicates its ideas succinctly, so playing with a critical eye is a great way to review your understanding of the concepts covered in the book.

See you soon,

Daniel

Play Here (in browser)

“The Cave of Ātman is a sequential strategy RPG puzzler inspired by games such as Fire Emblem (GBA) and Jeanne d’Arc (PSP). A band of brave warriors find themselves summoned to a mysterious cave following a short tremor. As they descend the cave’s many floors, they unearth a secret that rests deep inside their souls.”

– Game Description

Background

The Cave of Ātman is a game I developed with Chris Johnson and Hayden Davernport. I did the game design and graphic work, Chris did the programming and project management, and Hayden did the music and sound effects. I came up with the idea early last year after I finished working on Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4. Chris put the framework together over Christmas after I pitched the idea to him, I’ve been working on it on and off since January, and Hayden joined in March after we completed work on Starseed Observatory.

Concept

The idea evolved out of a series of notes I’d written on Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together (PSP), Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones (GBA), and Jeanne d’Arc (PSP) shortly after I finished the final edit of Game Design Companion. Since I’d been playing these three SRPGs at roughly the same time, my observations kind of congealed together. Before I knew it the only way I could cover all three games without heavy repetition and overlap: a three-in-one game repair.

Long story short: I discovered that many of the RPG systems in SRPG games (leveling, equipment, and custom unit selection) deconstruct strategic gameplay, and that the only way to maintain pure strategic gameplay is to remove these elements completely. No matter whether the RPG systems are heavy (Tactics Ogre), medium (Jeanne d’Arc), or light (Fire Emblem), they still place a strain of the strategy. In this sense, there’s an inherent conflict between the two halves of this sub-genre.

Another point that I often returned to in my mini-case study of the genre was Jeanne d’Arc‘s excellent Burning Aura system. After attacking an enemy, an aura appears behind the enemy. Players can then move a unit into the aura tile to launch a critical attack. I love how this system adds new strategic wrinkles to the game whereby you manage the spacing of units with various attack ranges so as to combo up critical hits. The only issue I have with Burning Aura is that the auras fade away at the end of each phase cycle and so, with only a handful of units at your disposal, you can’t create very deep chains. I wondered what Jeanne d’Arc would look like if the auras stayed around a bit longer.

With these two ideas in mind and my repair job turning into a game of its own, I started planning my own SRPG. As I was thinking through the potential unit spacing, attack combinations, and suspension elements, I realised that I could distill this concept down further into a puzzle game, and thus The Cave of Ātman was born.

Lessons Learnt

It’s actually not like Jeanne d’Arc – The beauty of Jeanne d’Arc‘s Burning Auras is that enemy units can be attacked multiple times, and they usually have enough health that you need to attack them a few times. This anchors the spatial jig-saw around a central point. In The Cave of Ātman enemies die in one hit, assuming you’ve got enough aura, and therefore the puzzle challenges are centred around hot potatoes that move through the play space. The natural dispersion of enemies on the battlefield, where they might not always be in near reach, also makes it hard for the Jeanne‘s auras to be suspended across interactions (never mind the turn-based limitations). As I developed the rules for The Cave of Ātman, I realised that in order to turn the concept into a puzzle game, I had to shed some of Jeanne‘s identity and push the project into an alternative design space. The end result is more “inspired by” then “developed from”, but that’s cool.

The Particulars – When I write games analysis I always focus on the details and the power they have to influence a work on the whole. This is something that I found difficult to translate into game development. It’s easy to come up with ideas; the hard work is all in the implementation. Chris, who had the task of putting my ideas into code, would often ask for details on things I hadn’t originally considered.

Heavy Handed Tutorials – When I playtested The Cave of Ātman with a group of games analysis buddies, almost everyone said that the tutorial levels were so heavy-handed that players could complete them without even understanding what they were doing. Through their analysis, the group had unearthed a piece of me within the game. As a teacher (my job), I like to always be in control of my class and ensure that the students are getting enough feedback. I hold myself to the same teaching standards that I find in my favourite games and often compare my performance with those games. In this case, I hadn’t realised that my approach had been to the detriment of the learning design.

Planning Ahead – I had a clear understanding of the game I wanted to develop and the game we made turned out just as I envisioned it would. Having a clear understanding of the design space and also keeping everything limited (single turns, one enemy type, etc.) made it easier to work through some of the challenges that cropped up during development.

Conclusion

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to give The Cave of Ātman a go. Share it with your friends too. I’d love to hear your feedback. I don’t have any grand ambitions to get into game development or anything like that, this was just a hobby project, but I have put up a new page on the site which lists my background in working on games. With the Starseed Observatory and The Cave of Ātman finished, I can return my focus back onto writing, so expect some more of that soon. Big props to Hayden and my big brother Chris for their hard work and commitment on the project.

Press Coverage

Jay is Games – The Cave of Ātman Review

Indie Statik – The Puzzling Delicacy Of Slaughtering Smiling Skeletons In The Cave Of Atman

IndieGames.com – Browser Pick: The Cave of Atman

Finally, after 3 years of talking about it, my Wario Land 4 book will be released this Wednesday. Unfortunately, Adventures in Game Analysis Volume #1, my new games analysis bookazine, has been pushed back to early next year. I also have another (completed) project that’ll be coming out in January and possibly another one shortly after that…but alas, it’s Wario’s time to shine, so read on.

New eBook “Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4” dissects the classic platformer, unravels game design and player interaction

Adelaide, Australia – 16th December, 2013 – Stolen Projects today announces the forthcoming release of Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4, an exciting new eBook from game design analyst and former GameSetWatch columnist, Daniel Johnson.

Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 takes under-appreciated gaming gem, Wario Land 4 (2001) for the GameBoy Advance, and splays the meat and bones of videogame design and structure across nearly 600 print pages to understand their influence on player experience.

Author Daniel Johnson, in a radical departure from contemporary videogames discussion, examines Wario Land 4 in its totality—including mechanics, psychology, education, level design, and game feel—calling on evidence-based analysis to understand the player’s subjective reactions to videogames.

Says author Daniel Johnson:

“A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 is unusual in its approach as we begin to understand videogames through evidence-based analysis rather than socio-cultural critique. I’m hoping this book will push against the accepted norms of ‘games criticism’ and open up new avenues for analytical discussion.”

Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 is essential reading for fans of Nintendo, side-scrolling platformers and retro videogames, curious players looking to better understand the games they play, and provides games designers a new approach for discussing their craft.

Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 will be available to purchase in digital formats through Stolen Projects from Wednesday 18 December. Retailing at $7.99, Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 will launch at a special introductory price of $4.99, lasting until January 31. Readers receive copies of Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 in both .pdf and .epub formats compatible with most computers, mobile phones and tablet devices. Kindle editions of Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 are planned for future release.

Early release editions of Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 are available to media on request to stolenprojects@gmail.com.

Daniel Johnson is available for comment and interview via email at danielprimed@gmail.com.

For more information and resources related to Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 please visit the web portal at danielprimed.com/warioland4

About Daniel Johnson

Daniel Johnson is a former GameSetWatch columnist now writing long-form analysis of games that have fallen out of the current release cycle.

Web: danielprimed.com
Email: danielprimed@gmail.com
Twitter: @danielprimed

About Stolen Projects

Stolen Projects is a design studio and publishing house producing and distributing books valuing videogames, art, design, illustration and other topics of an interesting nature. Stolen Projects is owned and operated by Daniel Purvis, professional illustrator and designer with clients including Kill Screen Magazine, Polygon.com, Hyper Magazine and Clemenger BBDO Adelaide.

Web: stolenprojects.com
Facebook: facebook.com/stolenprojects
Twitter: @Stolen_Projects

Stay tuned as early next year as Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 will be followed up by Daniel Johnson’s new boogazine series, Adventures in Game Analysis with subjects ranging from Metroid to WipEout. More information to come in 2014.

For any media inquiries, please contact

Daniel Purvis at stolenprojects@gmail.com or via phone on +61 433 788 717

So, here’s the cover for Rethinking Games Criticism. It was illustrated by Harry Plane. You can find more of his work here. I came up with the concept and Daniel (Purvis) recommended Harry for the piece. You can click on the image for a larger size. Hope you guys like it.

The book is basically ready to publish in all digital formats, but we still need to work on Adventures in Game Analysis Volume I, the bookazine I mentioned previously. I want to publish both items together, so you’ll have to hang on for a while longer, unfortunately. Thanks for your patience.

Finally, yes, finally, I can reveal some details as to what’s going on with the release of Rethinking Games Criticism: An Analysis of Wario Land 4 and the mysterious “Book #2”.

Both titles are being done through Stolen Projects, the same outfit who did Brendan Keogh’s Killing is Harmless book last year and Alphabent, the world’s first glitch art book. I’ve known Stolen Project’s one-man-band creative, Daniel Purvis, since about 2008 when he penned a blogged called Graffiti Gamer. He actually used to comment a bit on Richard Terrell’s Critical Gaming blog back then and he helped get an article that I wrote on Dragon Quest IV into Australian e-zine Pixel Hunt. Over the past few years he’s been doing illustrations and graphic design work for various gaming publications, including Polygon, Hyper magazine, and Kill Screen. This lead him to start Stolen Projects and become independent. The reasons why it’s taken so long to get this project moving is that although I finished writing the Wario book in February, I had to wait until June before I could get back to Adelaide to start running though the details with Daniel, who’s been busy transitioning full-time into Stolen Projects.

Daniel is overseeing the layout, cover illustrations, and publishing of the two books. Both books will be released as ebooks for all formats and I may do a limited print run some time in the future. Although they should be finished sometime this month, I’m probably going to release the two books, both individually and in a pack, in November so as to work around my forthcoming wedding…

..in anycase, I better tell you about book #2 now. It’s called Adventures in Game Analysis Volume 1. It’s a 100-page bookazine featuring long-form essays on:

• Uncharted 2 (gameplay narrative, education, mastery, repair)
• Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (narrative, folded level design, and RPG elements)
• Metroid: Other M (combat dynamics)
• Wipeout (racing theory and the racing process)
• DK: King of Swing (dead space in core game mechanics)
• Animal Crossing (how the social simulation draws is so engrossing)
• Wario Land 3 (exploration, includes free Twine game)
• Designing Games for Twine (includes free Twine game)
• Classroom Games Analysis (I post-mortem my best classroom games)
• …and more

I’d been thinking of doing some sort of games analysis magazine or anthology for some time. After finishing the Wario Land 4 book in February, I had amassed a mountain of notes from games I’d played over the 2 year writing period. Some of those turned into short-form articles for the blog, many of them became bookazine articles. So I spent February through to July clearing out my notes and this is the result. I want the bookazine, which I will try to continue releasing at an infrequent rate, to act as a midpoint between the writing of the major books, like Wario, and the stuff I post on my blog or discuss on the Nextwork, a game design group that I frequent. Everything in volume one is high grade—like the Wario book, it’s my best work—so get all hyped and stuff.

Over the next week or so, I should have the online portals for both Rethinking Games Criticism and Adventures in Game Analysis Volume 1 up and ready, so you’re welcome to have a sneak peak at the reference material and other links. Also, expect to be hearing more from me from now through to the end of the year as I should have a bunch of book-related content and other goodies going up on the site. I can’t wait to show you all what I’ve been working on for all this time.

I just wanted to give a heads-up to say that the blog probably won’t be receiving any updates for a while as I’ll be out travelling for the next few weeks. I’m hoping to write another E3 article like the one I did last year, but that won’t done until about the end of the month, I suspect. It’s going to be strange spending E3 on the road. I usually dedicate the whole week to binging on news, video, and discussion, as well as catching up on old games. I’ve written about 30,000 words of finished copy for book #2 and have another 3,000 or so in draft. As with Rethinking Games Criticism, it’s taking a lot longer to write this thing than I originally thought, but the quality is better than I expected, so I can’t complain much.

Daniel

The blog’s been a bit quiet this week cause I’ve been relaxing a bit more, working on a few longer posts, and doing a ton of research. It seems like some of my notes are turning into their own mini-projects, so we’ll have to see where that gets me. By the way, if you like the Wipeout series, you should totally check out Hellfire_WZ’s YouTube channel. This guy has done hours worth of tutorials, tournament matches, and documentaries on the series. I’ve been watching his stuff for the past few days and learnt a whole bunch. I would recommend Wipeout HD Fury – The Basics, Wipeout – Circuits from Hell, and Wipeout – Through the Ages – The Weapons.

After 2 years of full-time work on top of my regular full-time job and personal commitments, I’ve finally completed my book, Rethinking Games Criticism: An Analysis of Wario Land 4. What was originally meant to be a 120-page warm-up for a full-sized book on Metroid Prime turned out to be a part-critique, part-game-design-text-book, 450-paged behemoth. Yet despite the gradual change in direction, I kept the planned 6-month crunch going for 2 years. While the final push has worn me out a bit, I’m keen to just get on with what’s next as it’s been a year since I’ve written any new material. I have a bunch of upcoming projects that I’ve been stewing over for far too long. I’m not exactly sure which one I’ll start first, so I’ll probably just catch up on my backlog of game design notes—starting with the stuff I can pump out quickly—and see where that takes me. I’m guessing most of this copy will come out on the blog, while other parts will go into the projects. I also have a few posts on writing, editing, and the book itself that will come out over time. So, in whichever form you see it in, expect stuff on:

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Red Steel 2, Metroid: Other M, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Wario Land 3, Wario Land Shake Dimension, Star Ocean: Second Evolution, Wipeout Pulse, Bookworm, Critter Crunch, Kid Icarus, Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Shining Force, Braid, DK: King of Swing, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Cut the Rope, Burnout Revenge, Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel, Zelda: 4 Swords Adventures (comments on my Twitter), Harvest Moon, Vanquish, Halo Legends (comments on my Twitter), Uncharted 2, deep reading and the internet, concept albums, player manipulation, and asynchronous multiplayer design in the classroom.

If you’ve got any ideas on any of these topics or games, then I’d be happy to trade thoughts. You can hit me up on email or IM through the following channels:

• Email – danielprimed [at] gmail [dot] com
• MSN – daniel [at] danielprimed [dot] com
• AIM – danielprimed
• Skype – danielprimed
• Twitter – @danielprimed

I haven’t gotten around to chasing up any publishing leads, the past 2 and a half months have been solely dedicated to finishing the final edit. Once I have something concrete to announce, rest assure that I will.

Thanks for your support and patience,

Daniel

After the last edit in July, I spent the following two and a half months doing what I think is the third or fourth edit. I’m not exactly sure, I lost count a few months ago. What I can say with certainty though is that I’m finally satisfied with the copy. I just need to give it a final proof-read and make a few small adjustments to punctuation and it’ll be ready for print.

At the moment, I’m more than a third of the way through the reference images and video. I expect that to last another 2 weeks or so. After which I will begin putting the images, links and text together into its final form. I’m hopeful of hearing a response back from a publisher in the next month or so. If I don’t get picked up, I’ll probably just go ahead with self-publishing. Yes, I will be offering a print version and have been optimising the images and reference material to suit the format. I’m not going to take a stab at a release date this time. Just know that I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time on it and it should be done in due time.

Today I want to share 2 things with you. The name of the book and the contents page. The book will be called Rethinking Games Criticism: An Analysis of Wario Land 4. It is as much game design text book as it is a piece on Wario Land 4 and a critique of current serious games writing. As for the contents page, please find it below:

Rethinking Games Criticism: An Analysis of Wario Land 4

Thanks

Copyright

Preface

Introduction

What is Wario Land 4?

How to Read This Book

Online Reference

A Few Words on Style

Need To Know

Game Elements

Wario

Mechanics

Transformations and Navigation

Level Elements

Essential Elements

Regular Elements

Exclusive Elements

Threats

Enemies

Rewards

Coins, Crystals, Diamonds and Treasures

Game Structure

Level, Hub and System Structure

Other

User Interface

Digging Deeper

Mechanics Analysis

Why Jump, Attack and Traversal?

Mechanics, Function and Minimum Difference

The Dominant Mechanics

Attack and Dash Attack Comparison

Dash Attack – Accessibility Diminishing Power

Attack – Power Flavouring Play

Fake Momentum and Step Acceleration

Controller Input~Mechanical Output

Nuance and the Hierarchy of Power

Game Dynamics

Game Dynamics Introduction

Enemies and Interplay

Interplay Analysis

Enemies as Static Game Elements

Psychology and Engagement

Principles of Engagement

Selectable and Scalable Difficulty

Health and Hearts Introduction

Rewards, Punishment and Psychology

Narrative

Premise and Interaction Set in Context

Game Ideas

Counterpoint

Examples of Counterpoint

Suspension

Room Suspension

Visual/Audio

Conveying Information Through Form

The 2D Perspective and The Illusion of Depth

Bounding Boxes, Camera, ACTION!

Music Observations

Design Philosophies

Game as Teacher

The Game Design Style Guide

Additional Essays

Through the Lens of Interaction + Association + Cognition and Application

Designing for Freedom Within Linearity

Level Analysis

Essays on Levels

Folded Level Design

Rooms, Doors and Considerations

Skills and Challenge Types

Transformations and the Level Design Tool Box

Restricted-to-Freer Practice

Levels

Level Analysis Introduction

Entry Passage: Hall of Hieroglyphs

Emerald Passage: Palm Tree Paradise

Emerald Passage: Wildflower Fields

Emerald Passage: Mystic Lake

Emerald Passage: Monsoon Jungle

Ruby Passage: The Curious Factory

Ruby Passage: The Toxic Landfill

Ruby Passage: 40 Below Fridge

Ruby Passage: Pinball Zone

Topaz Passage: Toy Block Tower

Topaz Passage: The Big Board

Topaz Passage: Doodle Woods

Topaz Passage: Domino Row

Sapphire Passage: Crescent Moon Village

Sapphire Passage: Arabian Night

Sapphire Passage: Fiery Cavern

Sapphire Passage: Hotel Horror

Golden Passage

Purple Pipe Puzzle Rooms

Bosses

Passage Themes

Mini-Games

Topical Essays

Wario Land – An Evolutionary History

From Odd to Off-Kilter – The Transition into WarioWare

From 8 to 16 bits in a Year and a Half – Wario Land 3 to 4

The Cutting Room Floor – Beta Vs. Final Game

Wario – A Personality Profile

Mario and Wario – A Character Comparison

Loose Ends

Credits

Glossary

A quick update on the Wario Land 4 book. I did a page count today and the book is 342 pages long. Include all the visual references (diagrams, screenshots and video), and the final tally should be around 450 pages. There will be a total of around 30 long-form game design essays, 20 long-form level design essays and a handful of topical essays. I currently only have 3 more articles to finish editing. My plan is to release in October.

I have one dilemma though, and I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve been contemplating scrapping the physical release and just selling an e-book (PDF) through the website. The main problem is that the book includes a wealth of reference material (pictures, video, hyperlinks) which I can’t put in the book. That is to say, Amazon’s Createspace service doesn’t offer mixed black and white and colour printing. And even if they did, the book would probably be at least $USD20. As for a full colour book, I’d have to charge upward of $50 just to not lose money. Black and white printing of video game screenshots is unsatisfactory at best. My plan is to provide a reference guide which the reader can download off the site for free. This way, when they come to a reference in the printed book, they can load up their computer and look at the image or video. Again, this is less them ideal.

Personally, I would make more profit from the book (not that I’m expecting to make any money), if I were to sell it direct as opposed to going through Amazon which takes a decent cut. I would also need to spend another week or 2 creating the reference guide.

In an e-book format, I can embed all the images into the book, like a webpage. Videos would be hyperlinks located at the bottom of the page, as you see with in-page referencing. For readers reading the e-book on a computer, smart phone or tablet, it would only take a simple click to load the video in a web browser.

I still haven’t confirmed on price yet, but I’m considering charging $8 for the e-book and, if the demand is suffice, $12 for the physical copy.

So, that’s the situation. If you’d prefer to purchase a physical copy of the book, then please leave a message in the comments or you can email me at danielprimed @ gmail dot com. If I were to print the book, would you want me to include the images too? This would increase the book’s price.

As always, I apologise for the constant delays. I’m certain that you’ll be pleased with the improvement in quality. Expect excerpts to be posted in late September.

DP

Another book update. In the next month I should finish the final edit of the book. From there I still have a number of articles to add, a visual reference to put together, formatting, book art and all that business. I’m hoping that everything will be finished in 3-4 months, although I have been wrong before…

I know that it’s been a long wait. Originally my plan was to write a short 60-120 page book on Wario Land 4 as preparation for a 300-400 page analysis of Metroid Prime. I reasonably assumed that the Wario Land 4 book would take about 8 months to complete, 4 months writing, 4 months editing. As I started editing in August last year though, the Wario Land 4 book evolved into the planned Metroid Prime book in terms of size and scope. This expansion has been the source of the constant delays. Despite the wait, the final edit is much more fleshed out than the drafts you can find here on the site.

Once I’ve finally completed the book, I’m planning on doing a bit of promotion. So interviews, podcasts, pitching excerpts and so on. I’m not expecting the book to sell very much, but as a radical advocation for games analysis, I’m hoping that I can use it to challenge some of the issues in this space. I hope to talk more about this later.

I’ll also be back to my regular schedule too and have already prepared notes for another 30 posts. Until I’ve finished the book though, it’s still gonna be hush hush around here, so hold tight just a little longer.

I almost forgot to mention that I made a few modifications to the site a few months ago. I installed the Disqus commenting system, redid the tags on each post and changed the categories. Let me know what you think. ^_^

DP

Hey guys,

It’s been a good 3 months since my last update here. The good news is that I’m basically on track with the plan I laid out last post. I came back home to Australia in early December and have spent from then until now labouring away all day, almost every day for the past 2 months. I’m one agonising article short of finishing the double edit and have finished all the topical essays. After this I’ve got to re-do much of the first segment of the book, add a handful of extra articles and review everything else. I’m guessing that it’ll take me another 3 months before I’m ready for release. It’s a bit hard to tell since I’m not sure how my free time is gonna pan out when I get back to China next week. The good thing is that I’m fortunate enough to have found a job which offers favourable working hours. I’m thinking that, once formatted, the book will stretch out to 350-400 pages–much more than the 120 or so I assumed this project would take.

I’ve been contemplating what to do after the project is completed and have settled on a return to blogging and to start another book. Actually, I have plans for several books, all of which should be shorter and more topical. I think that I’ll keep hush on that until I’ve actually finished them….For now though, I need to struggle through more editing.

I’ve outlined what I think will be a realistic timetable for the final phase of the book, granted that I don’t crash and burn. The next 7 weeks of finishing up the levels will be the hardest. After that it should be smooth sailing. Although I said that before, didn’t I?

October, November, December – Finish the master edit

December, January, February, March – Add topical essays and other articles, prepare reference material and online portal, and do a final edit.

April – Prepare the book for publication

Thanks for being patient. I’m eager to finish this thing and get started on the next project.

My plan of attack consists of 2 fronts. The first, a master edit where I edit and re-edit each post. Currently I’m a good chunk through the “Digging Deeper” part of the book which constitutes most of the analysis. I hope to finish the master edit by early to mid October at which point the book will be close to completion. After the master edit, I’ll be conducting a final edit where I prepare references for the web portal and clear any minor errors. During this time I’ll be preparing topical essays and filling in any blanks.

Starting from this week I’ll have 3 days off a week which should help build some momentum. My main fear, as has been all along, is that I’ll crash and burn out. I’ve been living in China now for a year and 4 months and won’t see my family for another 3 months. Writing this book has been wedged in between my first job out of uni, the first time I’ve lived by myself, and days off managing a long-term relationship. It’s fair to say that haven’t had a lot of down time these past 7 months.

I’m feeling doubtful that I’ll be ready for publishing this year and even then these processes take time. So don’t be surprised if the book is released in January next year. To focus on the project, I won’t be making posts about other games until I at least finish the master edit. I am, of course, taking lots of notes, so expect some in-depth material on Fire Emblem and Harvest Moon later on.

For now, my energy is in making this book as polished as I can get it and I’m quite confident that I’m meeting a high benchmark. If it takes a little more time to make the book that bit better, then it’s worth it. The editing process is teaching me A LOT about writing. I’m sure you’ll be able to see the results in the book and later articles. So far I’ve master-edited roughly 70 pages. I’m predicting that the book will end up at about 250 pages. Previously, I was thinking closer to 300, but the editing process is clearing up a lot of unneeded commentary.

Again, if you’re interested in contributing a topical essay to the book, please let me know. I may also be reaching out for some opinions and anecdotes in the future.