postmortem

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.