ETAO Podcast, Episode 80.
Olof Karlsson autoruns on over to talk about Wunderling, the puzzle-platformer where you’re a not-a-goomba with some ambition (or maybe just some especially good-bad luck). We talk about the finer points of movement code (and the oft-subliminal nature of gamefeel), the art of building on what you like in other games (and excising what you don’t), and how to design in collectables in ways that are compelling as well as compulsive.
You can get Wunderling on Steam and Switch.
You can get the soundtrack on Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, Apple Music, iTunes, and Deezer.
You can also follow Olof (and Retroid) on Twitter.
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• Simultaneity isn’t the right word for what I was thinking of. Multiple discovery is more like it.
• Here’s a longplay of Gimmick!, as well as a great Hardcore Gaming 101 piece about the game.
• Giant Bomb also did a little piece on Bergsala.
• Here’s the best intro to that “four-step level design” in Mario games.
• As I say in the intro, that incredible game by Camila Gormaz is called Nanopesos. It’s playable for free in English, Spanish, and (for some reason) Esperanto.
• That Yoko Taro quote I referred to comes from this promotional video, which I learned about because of this excellent article.
• I’ve shared Celeste’s movement code a fair few times before, but hey.
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“All The People Say (Season 3)” by Holly Hyperion.
“Automated Flutter” and “Caravan Shake” from the Wunderling OST by Ratvader.
We’re on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCasts, Overcast, and RadioPublic. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.
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.
Everybody's Talking at Once 