game programming

Jonathan Blow's hour-long livestreamed response to a RustConf 2018 closing keynote about entity systems in Rust. He argues that index-based entity systems amount to manual memory management that sidesteps the borrow checker, and he talks about friction for game developers.

A videogamedunkey video essay on video game critics. It argues that a critic's taste and integrity matter as much as their score, and tries to explain why major outlets give such inflated ratings.

A 10-minute clip from a Jonathan Blow Twitch stream in which he argues that game engines do not really need separate scripting languages. He questions the value of embedded interpreters when the main language can do the job.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms makes a 76-minute argument that selling video games as a service is a form of consumer fraud. He lays out legal arguments that games are goods, covers ownership and programmed obsolescence, and discusses game preservation.

Razbuten has his wife, who has never played games, try a sampling of titles and shows where she struggles. It highlights unspoken game conventions that experienced players take for granted.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode critiques Deus Ex: Human Revolution, looking at its design, politics and visual style. It is part of his series of opinionated game reviews.

Jacob Geller's video essay examines how architecture in schools and in video games, such as cover shooters, is shaped by violence. It touches on brutalism, campus policing and protests.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms lays out a campaign to stop publishers from permanently shutting down games, using The Crew as the test case. He covers government initiatives and the legal options, and the stopkillinggames.com site.

A Jimquisition episode examining the human cost of predatory videogame monetization, focusing on loot boxes and microtransactions. It features testimonials from people harmed by gambling-style game mechanics.

Joseph Anderson's long critique of Jonathan Blow's puzzle game The Witness, covering its gameplay, its hundreds of puzzles and its philosophical pretensions. He argues it is a great game that he nonetheless advises against playing.

Brian Will makes the case for procedural programming over object-oriented programming, arguing that OOP's promised encapsulation and decoupling are largely illusory. He analyzes real code examples and the problems of tying data to behavior in classes.

Ross Scott's Game Dungeon episode on Deus Ex, a long review of the game covering its narrative, politics and economic philosophy as well as its design.

The video argues that machine-learning-based aimbots, which read the screen and drive the controls externally, could make cheating in FPS games undetectable. It explains how conventional aimbots work, how the new approach differs, and speculates on possible detection.

The Game Theorists analyze how PewDiePie rose to become the most subscribed channel on YouTube. The video looks at why let's plays and gaming channels thrive on the platform.

ArtosisTV's commentary on Game 1 of DeepMind's AlphaStar (Protoss) against top Zerg player Serral at Blizzcon 2019. Artosis analyzes the match with beginner-friendly commentary.

A video essay arguing that the next major real-time strategy game will fail unless it gets the fundamentals right. It covers the playerbase and demographics, what older RTS games did well, and the roles of the engine, spectacle, development tools and player-generated content.

A 70-minute video essay by Jimmy McGee on gambling, addiction and game design, tracing horse racing, slot machines and collectible card markets. It is the first in a series on making money from games.

William Osman describes helping build parts of the MrBeast Squid Game event, including hacking together hundreds of wifi-controlled blood packs in about three weeks. He covers the chaos and near-failures along the way.

Josh Strife Hayes critiques Diablo Immortal's monetization, arguing it is a gacha game in a Diablo skin with predatory spending mechanics.

The first part of Innuendo Studios' six-part video essay series on the online hostility around Anita Sarkeesian and GamerGate. It lays out the history and the motivations of the people involved.

Brian Will follows up his earlier anti-OOP video by walking through four short code examples, including Java code in the style of Uncle Bob, to show how object-oriented design complicates simple programs. It argues that OOP hides and scatters state and adds needless indirection.

MrBtongue argues that modern theme-park MMOs lost what made earlier sandbox online games compelling, and that MMOs could be saved by returning to sandbox design.

A short clip of Casey Muratori from Handmade Hero explaining why he rejects the object-oriented mindset and how to move away from it. It is part rant, part programming philosophy.

Egoraptor's Sequelitis compares Mega Man Classic and Mega Man X, analyzing how the games teach players through level design without explicit tutorials. It mixes comedy with design analysis.

Innuendo Studios uses Phil Fish, creator of the game Fez, as a case study in internet celebrity. The essay argues that fame online works differently from traditional fame, and shows how audiences turn on the people they have elevated.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas critiques Fortnite's monetization, arguing it uses manufactured discontent, such as shop design and skins, to push spending. The video dissects the psychological techniques behind the game's business model.

SsethTzeentach reviews Space Station 13, the chaotic multiplayer game, by recounting absurd stories of singularities, malfunctioning AIs and plasma fires.

A video essay from lawyer-turned-YouTuber Moon Channel on the South Korean gender war, tracing its historical roots and modern origins through the lens of a gacha game controversy. It is the first part of a two-part series.

Day9 gives a passionate first look at what his StarCraft: Brood War Remastered series will teach. He argues Brood War is primarily a real-time game and only secondarily a strategy game, making the commander fantasy a matter of mechanics.

Jacob Geller's video essay on empty cities and what they say about our relationship to places, using games, literature and aerial imagery. It touches on works such as Invisible Cities.

GothamChess walks through AlphaZero's famous games against Stockfish, highlighting its unusual pawn sacrifices and positional style. It is aimed at chess fans rather than ML specialists.

A one-minute Fortnite parody of Apple's 1984 ad, released when Epic Games challenged the App Store and Apple removed Fortnite from iOS. It frames Apple as the monopolist.

Modern Vintage Gamer examines the claim from the Super Mario 64 decompilation project that the game shipped unoptimized, and puts it in the context of 1996 N64 development.

Gamers Nexus criticizes ASUS over its handling of exploding Ryzen CPUs, overvolting BIOS settings and warranty and support behavior. It re-benchmarks the chips at defaults and argues ASUS eroded customer trust.

Tom Scott recounts the worst typo he ever made, a subtle mistake in code with destructive consequences at a previous job. It is a cautionary tale about irreversible operations.

EmpLemon examines Nintendo's brand-protection strategy, its aggressive legal actions and its relationship with fans and creators.

Valve News Network goes through over twenty accounts from ex-Valve employees, mostly from Glassdoor, about what it is like to work at Valve. It covers the company's flat structure and culture.

Leandro Facchinetti explains why he thinks Racket is a great language and why he stopped using it. He describes his backstory and experiences with the Racket community.

Chess master Yosha Iglesias presents an analysis of Hans Niemann's games, highlighting a string of 100% engine-correlation games and comparing them with other players. It was published during the 2022 Niemann-Carlsen cheating scandal.

Folding Ideas examines weird, algorithm-gamed children's content on YouTube, from automated toddler videos and educational spam to exploitative prank channels. It looks at how autoplay and recommendation systems reward this material.