Press Play - #12 - Behind the Frame of Behind the Frame

#12 - Behind the Frame of Behind the Frame

Explicit content warning

08/25/21 • 25 min

Press Play

When Behind the Frame debuted for the first time earlier this summer during E3 and the summer showcases held during it, it had an immediate thing in its favour: a massive influence from Studio Ghibli. It wears on its sleeve what the Japanese animation powerhouse has brought to the world with glee.

But art director and lead writer Weichen Lin wants Behind the Frame to be more than its Ghibli-inspired looks. It wants to provide something cozy, something challenging and something that is endearing to the player.

Ahead of its release today as of this episode going out, this is how Behind the Frame intends to show it’s a lot more than what it appears to be on the surface.

Links: Play Diaries|Twitter|Facebook

Ahead of its release today as of this episode going out, this is how Behind the Frame intends to show it’s a lot more than what it appears to be on the surface.

Links: Play Diaries|Twitter|Facebook

Previous Episode

#11 - A Game Director's Story

When you’re in AAA, you usually go from one game to the next. It’s a cycle that lasts every four or five years, if not longer.

At BioWare Edmonton, Fernando Melo was coming off the back of working on Mass Effect: Andromeda and hopping on to the next Dragon Age game currently being made. But as production wore on, he started questioning whether another four or five-year cycle was worth it anymore.

“When we got to EA’s greenlight towards the end of pre-production [of the next Dragon Age], things are looking pretty good. That went through, that wasn’t a problem or anything,” says Melo.

“But it’s when it really kind of hit me if I was prepared to sign on for another four or five-year dev cycle. And I realised that my heart just wasn’t quite into that as much as I think it needs to be to take on something like that.”

He decided to up sticks in 2019 to break out from the AAA mould, start a new studio and pour his – and other people’s – experiences from the AAA scene into Game Director Story.

Here, Melo talks of the pressures of the AAA scene, how he’s putting those into Game Director Story and how he hopes players will come away from Game Director Story with a better understanding of what game development is actually like.

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Next Episode

#13 - Skatebird (or How One Skatebirb is Leading Gaming’s Skating Resurgence)

Nearly four years since it was first announced as an actual game after some initial inspiration seeing a GIF of an actual bird skating, today, Skatebird finally arrives on PC, Xbox (including Xbox Game Pass) and Nintendo Switch. Even with a last-minute delay from an August release to today’s rearranged release date, the game could not have come at a better time for the skating renaissance that is building with the launches of Skater XL and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 as well as the early access launch of session and the impending return of EA’s Skate.

Even with its chill nature, Glass Bottom Games’ Megan Fox is ready for Skatebird’s absurdity to release onto the world and what players do with it as they roll it out. Now that it is out, how does it fit into the skating renaissance in games, find itself revisiting the skating boom of the early 2000s and more as well as what comes beyond Skatebird?

Links: Play Diaries|Twitter|Facebook