Open World Gamedev 2023/004

Sidenote 1: Issue 2023/003 was very successful in terms of getting thrown around social media (in a very "oh man, this doin numbers" way). I appreciate it! If you like it, then a like, retweet, boost, etc, can maybe help someone else find it and like it too.

Sidenote 2: I do question my categories sometimes. Is a youtuber review really "Game Design", on par with a GDC talk? Should I add a "Game Analysis" or "Game Critique" or "Youtuber Hot Take" category? In the end I've decided against it. It feels unnecessarily elitist and having broad categories really does make my life easier.

Sidenote 3: What's the deal with this Joel Burgess guy anyway? Did he intentionally give a bunch of awesome talks just so that he would eventually be listed five (5!) times in my newsletter? Stop trying to steal the show dude!

Sidenote 4: Thanks to Kenny "Hello Worlds" Pirman, I now have unlocked the technology of embedded videos!

Sidenote 5: Four things this week is from my coworkers Heather & Brad. They are like machines. I'm not sure what their input is but the output is always amazing.

Endnote 1: Thanks for reading! 😀 I'm on Twitter (opens in a new tab), Mastodon (opens in a new tab), Youtube (opens in a new tab).

You can also come and chat to me and a bunch of other open worlders over at our Open World Gamedev / Tides of Revival Discord server (opens in a new tab). Many of the resources get posted and discussed there first.

Endnote 2: Yes so about including all the city resources I found (or were given)...

This newsletter has grown with every issue, and first of all, that's not sustainable, obviously. I'd like to keep them roughly the same size and be able to do this for a long time, as I'm finding it rather fun.

But a larger problem with a huge issue is that I think it'll honestly be less useful - people are more likely to just glance over it and not actually look at much of the content. I also I felt like this issue was getting a bit one-sided, as I tried to reduce the size by removing resources unrelated to cities, like the videos on Horizon.

Finally, the little ✨'s, if you haven't figured it out, means that it's a relatively new thing. And honestly I think it's more important to keep the newsletter fresh, diverse, and varied, than that an issue has all the resources for a given theme.

I'll revisit the theme at some point. 😊 If you're itching for more city resources ping me and I'll send you what I have!