Reconnect Recap - w/e 3rd August
A weekly recap of some of the best video game articles to feature on Reconnect.
Kia Ora folks
Welcome to another edition of the Reconnect Recap, the companion newsletter to Reconnect, the games writing discovery platform.
This week I've been diving back into Cyberpunk due to the new DLC, and been learning how to play Fortnite with my friends, still not very good at building stuff, thank the lord for zero build.
We also added a handful of new blogs to the platform bringing us to over three hundred blogs. It’s really awesome to see so many people putting their thoughts on gaming, game dev, retro games, and the industry into words.
This week we’re looking into the future, then going back to the past, talking about fishing, game boys, analytics, and linguistics!
Enjoy!
Great Write Ups
A love letter to the Game Boy: 3rd & 4th Retro Games has a great deep dive into the original grey Game Boy, which was my first Game Boy. The write up contains some great information, I did not know, and some games I never played.
Gone Fishin’: I don’t think we can quite call Dredge a cozy game, but Pause Menu makes a compelling case for the game, it is a relaxing experience.
Announcing Announcements: Despite the industry eliminating so many studios, game announcements have increased 35-fold, and Video Games Industry Memo explains why that is, and the showcase industry that’s supporting it.
Emulation History: Affectionate Discourse walks us through a history of emulation software and what they used to emulate old games in the 90’s and early 2000s.
Lessons in Gaming: Big Nerd Gaming shares the biggest things they learned through video games at age 36. Quite a compelling post.
Dying on Gooner Hill: Everyone is covering the NSFW ban on games coming from the payment processors, but no one has quite said the quiet part out loud, in such a humorous way than Roger Renfro.
What’s going to influence the future?: So many of the games we play today are paying homage to what we played twenty years ago, and so Multiplier, in an interview with Chad Habel (Bad Plan Studios), asks whats are the games of the future going to be nodding from today?
Games and Numbers: More amazing industry analysts from the very talented GameDev Reports, find out how many copies Nightreign sold, how many players Rematch had, and which game got 400k wishlists.
Brushing off our linguistics degree: Think Games and I have something in common, we both have linguistics degrees we don’t use. However, Thinky dove into the newest GMTK word game where Scrabble meets Balatro and shares their thoughts on the language game.
Is that AI?: Push to Talk explains the tax on our brains happening these days are we are found to be closely analysing everything just in case it’s AI, regardless of where you sit on the issue its becoming a bit of a trust issue, especially in games given recent news about the Alters and others.
Fun Tidbits
Earthbound SNES Rom Hack, a decade in the making, will be coming 2026.
Legend of Zelda music meets emo music, meet the Zelda Midwest Emo Mixtape.
I’ve been guilty of purchasing hardware just because it looks cool, so my credit card is currently running away from me now that I’ve seen a mouse that looks like the original Game Boy.
The town of Ashby honours Rare with a plaque to the founding of the original studio, Ashby Computers & Graphics LTD, arguably the birthplace of the British Games Industry.
Found a new daily puzzle game to fill the Wordle hole, Clues by Sam.
Last week we covered a bright yellow Atari, this week we have a mini, all black, Commodore-64.
As a kid I loved Road Rash, I was very good at it, played it on my shitty PC at home, apparently there was going to be a Game Boy Color version, Games that Weren’t has the dets on the prototype.
Writer Recap
This week we’re shouting out The Solo Gamedev! Maurice is someone learning game dev and sharing their journey of learning the craft, all whilst holding down real adult responsibilities. I very much enjoyed their The 8 fears of a solo developer and their really good, and currently relevant, piece on The lies of solo gamedevs.
If you’re development inclined or curious check them out!
Housekeeping
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Excellent write up! Was happy to read Gaming on Linux's little update on the Steam video player. That thing has needed an update for ages. Keep up the great work curating awesome articles!
Thanks for the love, Alex!