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Author Topic: Emily Rogers - "Why Yoshi's Island Should be Studied at Game Design Schools"  (Read 6279 times)

David

  • Trusts the fungus
« on: October 23, 2012, 07:11:50 PM »
Emily Rogers of NotEnoughShaders.com recently wrote an excellent article all about Yoshi's Island.  The article discusses the game's development, its unique style, the critical reception (past and present), and uses these to argue that the game should be "required reading" for all new game designers.

Overall, it is an excellent article and reading it made me think of Yoshi's Island in a slightly different way.

Go take a look, everyone!

Link: Emily Rogers - "Why “Yoshi’s Island” should be studied at game design schools"
Let's do the Mario, all together now!

Luigison

  • Old Person™
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2012, 07:39:02 PM »
Awesome article.  I didn't even know the name Takashi Tezuka before this article.  I now know he worked on many of my favorite games. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Tezuka

Thanks!
“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know."

The Chef

  • Super
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2012, 09:31:19 PM »
Personally, I think it should be required playing for everybody in the world.

« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2012, 06:25:24 AM »
Yoshi's Island is one of my absolute favourite game of all time and I usually dig NES' stuff (well, their interview moreso than their original content) but I can't say I share the enthusiasm shown by the first two poster for that article. The introduction is too long and rambling, essentialy reading like "Yoshi's Island is a great and revolutionary game. It should be played by everyone. It is a great game. It is revolutionary. It should be played by everyone. Did I mention it is great?". The part about game mechanics essentially says "uh, you can throw eggs and flutter your jump and that adds depth 'n.' stuff" (the part about how "Yoshi’s tongue is another example of a game mechanic that has more than one use" is a legetimately good bit of analysis, but it's not really explored in any depth). The level design section is short and uninformative, talking more about how it inspires ~a feeling of adventure~ than the actual construction and thought put into it, which is only briefly adressed by throwing buzzwords and two gifs showing funny gimmicks... etc. The entire thing reads like one of TV Trope's gush page (lol) with some pretense of analysis thrown in.

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Personally, I think it should be required playing for everybody in the world.

Amen.

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