Reconnect Recap - w/e 7th of June

Reviewing the week that's been over on Reconnect

G’day team and happy pride month! 🏳️‍🌈

It’s been a mental week for most of us! You’ve either been intensely following all the fun announcements or intensely burrowing through walls in the latest Yacht Club game.

I’ve been busy this week with neither! Work and personal life got a bit full on, but any moment I had spare, was going to starting the redevelopment of Reconnect. This will be the third iteration of the platform and I’m excited to show you all what i’ve got planned. If you have any feedback about the site or the newsletter, nows the time to let me know!

As always this is the Reconnect Recap, the companion newsletter for Reconnect, the games writing discovery platform. Whilst Reconnect updates multiple times a day with new exciting articles from nearly 300 games writers, this newsletter comes once a week, straight to your inbox, highlighting some of the coolest pieces of writing from the week thats been.

This week we’re leaning heavily into games development, primarily narrative design, devlogs, and funding. We’re also covering off portable emulation, game analytics, game music and much much more!

Let’s dig in!

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• ⌛️ Check out the archive to see older issues.

• 🧠 Read my occasional thoughts on the industry, here.

• 🦋 Follow Reconnect on Bluesky

• 🔗 Hit up my Linktree to see my other work

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Great Write Ups

• May Madness: The GameDiscoverCo newsletter has the stats for best selling games in May, the number one spot will leave you shaken, not stirred.

• Needs something new: Game File highlights how Sony’s first party lineup has been returning less and less sales every year, is it time for something new from Sony?

• Choosing your translation: What do you do if your indie games second stretch goal was to translate the game from English to another language? Well you do what Massimo Gauthier did, and hold a poll with the fans!

• We need to talk: Narrative Guru, Amanda Lynn , wants hiring managers of the industry to listen to her advice about hiring narrative writers.

• Sprucing up the graphics: I love a Devlog, and Erebus Games has theirs for the month of June by improving the graphics on their game and adding co-op.

• Running Doom, in the future: Donkeyspace ponders the question, in 500 years from now, what games, from today, will still be around.

• Geographic redistribution: Ten years ago, if you wanted to be in the industry you need to live either in California, Canada, or Copenhagen, Game Dev Assembly Newsletter has evidence to show that the migration away from those hubs is occurring.

• Know your terms: Getting funded is as much about having a kick ass game as it is about speaking the language of the publisher, Game Studio Unlocked has the guide on how to talk the talk.

• Feeling Twisted: Narrative Gravity looks back on Heavy Rain and how the narrative choices in that game left an unsavoury taste in peoples mouths.

• Feeling Frosty: After the massive success of last years Frosty Games Festival, this years job was a lot harder. Harrison Polites explains how the organisers took over two hundred submissions down to fifty for this years showing.

• Moshing to Metaphor: Resident games music expert, MusicEXP explains how video games concerts are having a moment right now and what that means.

• Finding your community: Are you an indie dev, do you want to build a local community where you are to shoot the shit and help solve problems? Well Narrative News has a yellow pages of where to find a community near you.

• Breaking the wall: Games tend to be self contained experiences, but what happens when they start to reference things outside of their container? Well i’m not talking about Skynet, but Chris (90s and 00s nostalgia) is talking about Psycho Mantis judging your saved data from other games.

• PS1 on the Go: Follow Lawrence 'Scanlines' Lichfield as they convert their PSP into a portable PS1.

• Be yourself: As part of Pride Month, Thinky Games is interviewing queer game developers, this latest piece is with Ashe, Game Director of Blobun.

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Fun Tidbits

• The Devs Behind Loco Motive Once Pitched A Red Dwarf Adventure Game, & It Looks Smeggin’ Brilliant

• ExitLag ChampZ: A Major Ladder Tournament for Path of Exile 2

• “We Were Hoping To Have A Better Update Than This” - Hyperkin’s Portable Genesis, The Mega95, Has Been Delayed Again

• Hateno Ancient Tech Lab Lofi

• “That Was My Favourite Sonic Game” - Former Sega Exec Says ‘Sonic CD’ Is Getting A Remake

• Enter the Chronosphere is a ridiculously stylish and engaging turn-based bullet hell

• “I Was Saddened To Learn That You Are Leaving Sega” - Here’s The Letter That Brought An End To The 16-Bit Console Wars

• GOG Preservation Program expands with POSTAL 1 & 2, Hatred, Redneck Rampage Collection

• “It’s Not About Putting An Old Game In A Nice Box For The Sake Of It” - Utopia Is Getting A New Physical Release On SNES

• Atari helps celebrate thirty years of Toy Story with two new collections

• Namco’s Time Crisis Once Took Place In New York, And Had A Plot Similar To A Famous Bruce Willis Film

• Games that weren’t: Danger – High Surf

• Sega’s Cyber Razor Cut - “I Spent The Entire Shoot Expecting It To Explode”

• Poncle Establishing New Japan Studio Led By El Shaddai Creator Sawaki Takeyasu

• “A Small Tribute To One Of My Favorite Games” - Game Boy Tetris Is Being Ported To Sega Genesis

• A Trip to 90s Kansai: Exploring the XD FirstClass Network BBS

• “It Was Magical” - The Vectrex Mini Gets The Blessing Of The Original Creator As Game Lineup Is Revealed

• Sega Might Be Releasing A Low-Cost Handheld With Removable Game Carts