The Lie-In

Good morning, videogames. My kid has wanted to get into chess for a little while and I finally got round to setting him up on Chess.com. He played some challenges and some matches and, in the afternoon, came to me triumphant. "I am getting good at chess," he said, clearly proud. "That's great," I said, "I hope you are having fun." Later that evening, right before bed, he urged me to get my own Chess.com account so we could play together. I beat him three times in a row and he went to bed sad and quiet. Will he ever play chess again? Will I ever stop feeling guilty? It's clear to me that games were a mistake, but here are some links to words, videos and podcasts about them.

A picture went around the internet last week of the actor Jack Quaid wearing a mocap suit and wrapped in PVC piping, seemingly for his role as the gelatinous cube in the upcoming God Of War: Laufey. For Kotaku, Rebekah Valentine spoke to animators, actors, and a mocap technician to puzzle out the benefits of recording motion capture for a cube.

“There’s definitely a case to be made that they could use the head movement as a guide for the gelatinous cube’s twisting and bending, which could help convey human emotions,” said performance capture artist Remco Nijs. “Having trackers on both the head and the waist would allow you to use the waist markers as a reference point for, say, the bottom of the cube, meaning you could transform the entire upper body and head movement into turns and twists. Like if the actor says something sad and looks down, the gelatinous cube could kind of squish down in the front, mimicking the human emotion or if the actor shakes their head in disbelief, the cube could twist in the same way."

People Make Games visited Jerry Gretzinger, who has spent most of his life building a single, vast map to an imaginary place.

The Adventures Of Elliot: The Millenium Tales released this week and received a mixed response, with particular criticism for its story, characters, and general lack of friction. Here's Niv M. Sultan for Slant Magazine:

Toward the middle of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, swashbuckling explorer Elliot prepares to brave the frozen caverns north of a quiet village. Before hitting the road, he can choose to speak to a nondescript local, who warns him of a ferocious monster in the area and advises him to strike it in the eye. The tip sparks the thrill of stumbling upon secret knowledge. With his bow at the ready, Elliot descends into the depths of the caves, where he finds the creature, which turns out to be a giant eyeball. Who would have thought to aim at the peeper?

Post Games, Chris Plante's podcast, gathered 50 "critics, directors, designers, reporters, comedians and authors" to put together The Earliest Game Of The Year Awards.

What if SimCity was set in the UK? I expected the answer to focus on, say, the lack of a grid system in most UK road networks, but this 14-minute video instead goes far nerdier in considering what powers would reasonably be placed in the player's hands if you were to make a true depiction of city leadership in the UK. There's an all-timer of an unexpected cameo around the 12m 50s mark, too.

There have been oral histories of Steven Spielberg movies before, but here is a single, huge oral history of Steven Spielberg. I'd read this if it was ten times longer.

Ford: The script for The Last Crusade spoke to the relationship between a father and a son in a serious way, but with levity. Sean and I had a wonderful rapport, and I deeply admired him. We had great fun until we got to the motorcycle. He thought he was a better motorcyclist than I was because he’d actually raced motorcycles when he was young. He was a little grumpy about having to ride in the sidecar. But other than that, it was great.

Music this week is The Rest Of The Day by Bedhead, which is in many of its lyrics the perfect song for The Lie-In.

I had to wake up my head first
My body had a few more minutes
And my throat was dying of thirst
Of course I should have known the morning would be this way
But there was no use ignoring
The rest of the day

Sleep well, videogames.