It’s the first bulletin of 2021! Let us start by wishing you all a happy New Year, and lets hope it will be different from 2020. The bulletins will stay the same however! In this week’s bulletin, we discuss Nunami, fire in video games, The Anything Gallery. Game Maker’s Notebook: Hades, an exhibition about Animal Crossing and an update to Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic!
Inuit-designed Board Game Nunami
Nunami, Inuktitut for ‘on the land’ is designed by Thomassie Mangiok. It is centered around two roles: those of the humans and that of nature. Instead of trying to control on or the other, the game is about learning to live together. You play with hexes and cards, and strategize your way towards living together. 5000 copies have been made, and are available through Amazon. Reead more on Nunatsiaq.
How video games explore our (troubled) relationship with fire
We humans like fire. It seems that even the smallest candlelight takes our attention. It could be said that our use of fire has allowed us to break free from the sun (as in, we can work in places or at times without direct sunlight). At the same time, fire can be a devastating force, with historical examples. Edwin Evans-Thirwell of Eurogames wrote a feature exploring how video games use fire, and how that reflects our relationship with fire. It is interesting to see how ‘western’ concepts of fire differ from that of different regions. I, and most likely you as well, don’t have to use real fire to work, eat (a gas stove doesn’t count) or heat our homes: we have other (electrical) means for that. However, there are places where fire is still very important. That is also reflected in video games. The piece is filled with these kind of interesting points. Read more on Eurogamer.
The strange game that lets you create an art gallery about anything
Galleries are cool, but when the gallery is filled with your desires instead of art it might even be cooler. The Anything Gallery is a free gallery creation simulator: it creates a seemingless endless gallery of stuff it pulled from the internet. Created by Jan Malitschek, it uses Google and YouTube to create a gallery with items (movies, images and texts) after you have filled in a desire. It’s pretty cool. I made a Batman Gallery and it was awesome. Check out more on the gallery on Kotaku or on the itch.io website! P.S. be warned that the gallery is breaking about every TOS on the internet (copyright and stuff), so be aware.
Game Maker’s Notebook: Hades
We’ve featured the Gamer Maker’s Notebook podcast before (about Ghost of Tsushima). In another episode of the podcast, Ted Price, Amir Rao and Greg Kasavin talk about this years super hit Hades. The Supergiant team talk about how the game was developed, how Early Access helped them tweak the game and how to find balance between work and life whislt also making industry defining games (Supergiant is one of those very cool ‘no-crunch’ companies). Check the podcast here!
Your Animal Crossing Island could be in an exhibit
Some more museum stuff! When Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched back in 2020 (weird to say), many people flocked to the game, especially when we were spending more and more time at home. Creating an island is fun, but now your experiences with Tom Nook can become part of an museum exhibit! The National Videogame Museum in Sheffield England is looking for submissions of AC Islands or other related items (such as diary entries) for an upcoming exhibition on the response to covid-19. Pretty cool! Read more on Nintendo Life or check out the submission page here.
New update to Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic brings planes!
A new update to the city building game Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic brings some cool new stuff to the amazing game. For example: planes! You can now build your own airports, build your own planes and attract tourists to your cities (tourism was also added this update). The update also brings some more resources to work with. The game is still in Early Access, but is promising nonetheless. Read more on PC Gamer!