Alan Dang emerges from the shadows to talk about his work on the Skullgirls mobile game, the VR garden-’em-up Fujii, and the indie arcade esport stalwart Killer Queen. Plus, we talk about the broader possibilities for virtual reality, the criminally ignored potential of games for education, and the fact that a gimmick is only a gimmick until someone uses it really well.
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• Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, was the title I couldn’t remember.
• Nintendo’s first-party Pro controller for Switch does not in fact have a turbo button. What Alan saw at Evo, he later realized, was this Third-party Pro-ish controller.
• I’m pretty sure it was Chris Hecker who said the thing about how games are where cinema was when it was filming Fred Ott sneezing, but I can’t find the source. If you can, hit me up.
• That description of Yoko Taro’s work was, on reflection, a paraphrase of this immortal tweet.
• Here’s the XKCD I was referring to, about the Ballmer Peak and all.
• Here’s Alan’s excellent Killer Queen Arcade explainer. I’d post his GDC talk as well, if not for that fact that it’s currently locked away in the Vault.
• For more on the positive effects of putting a human face and name on your game, see Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage’s wonderful GDC talk (by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage).
• Here’s the Zachtronics book that Alan mentions.
• And here’s to Zacademics.
• Toca Boca, meanwhile, is indeed quite the phenomenon.
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“All The People Say (Season 3)” by Holly Hyperion.
“In a Moment’s Time” by Michiru Yamane, from the Skullgirls Original Soundtrack.
“Gnome” from the Fujii Original soundtrack by Norman Bambi.
Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.