Wireframe - #25 - 2019

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ContentsContents

Toolbox Rated

Design Principles

Exploring the eternal question:

can games be art?

CityCraft

A brief history of pioneering,

8-bit urban sprawls

Skill versus chance

The usage and balance of

chance in games

Source Code

Code your own Columns-style

match-three puzzler

Borderlands 3

The action’s thrilling; the jokes are

toe-curling

Untitled Goose Game

Honk if you like stealth games about

obnoxious geese

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Simogo returns with a rhythm-action

sugar rush

AI: The Somnium Files

This anime noir crumbles

under interrogation

(^) WELCOME
Surprise is an essential part of
making a scary game, obviously,
which might explain just how
violently Alien: Isolation made
me jump out of my skin five
years ago. As a long-time fan of
the Alien movies (well, the good
ones, at least) I thought I knew
what to expect with Creative
Assembly’s horror spin-off.
It took place in environments
that recalled the seventies
futurism of the original movie
and its emphasis on suspense
over action. With that familiarity,
I thought, would come a sense
of comfort that runs counter
to the requirements of a horror
game: to properly be terrorised
as players, we surely need to be
taken out of our element, and
pitched into situations we’ve
never experienced.
I thought I could enjoy Isolation
with an air of detachment – like
going on a historical battle re-
enactment as opposed to a real
war that threatens life and limb.
It turns out I was completely
wrong: Isolation quickly proved
to be absolutely terrifying.
The developer’s ability to make
me feel as though I was actually
inhabiting those familiar spaces,
and being hunted by an eight-
foot creature, was palpable
in a way I was completely
unprepared to deal with.
As a wealth of developers
suggest on page 22, video
games are extraordinarily
well-placed to scare the breath
out of our lungs. I’d even
argue that watching a horror
movie – rather than playing a
horror game – is by far the less
stressful way of spending a dark
Halloween night.
Ryan Lambie
Editor
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