Remaking Classics: Which Sega Saturn Games Deserve a Modern Revival?
A passionate, game-by-game case for modern remakes of nine Sega Saturn classics - what to fix, what to preserve, and why these titles still matter.
Tag: game design
BBC Micro: The Unsung Hero of the 80s Gaming Revolution
How a staid government-backed microcomputer, given to schools and shown on TV, quietly shaped game design in the 1980s - through hardware quirks, powerful BASIC, and a clutch of brilliant, often overlooked titles.
Hack or Be Hacked: How Watara Supervision Games Inspired the Indie Game Movement
The Watara Supervision was a cheap, oddball challenger to Nintendo's dominance - a little plastic provocation whose ragged library taught an accidental lesson: constraints breed invention. This piece traces how the Supervision’s aesthetics and “make-do” mechanics anticipated and continue to inform modern indie design, and points to contemporary titles that embody the same spirit.
Creating a New Generation of NeoPets: How to Balance Nostalgia with Innovation
How do you resurrect a beloved virtual pet world without turning it into a cynical cash-grab or an ugly museum exhibit? This guide lays out design principles, concrete feature ideas, tech patterns, and community playbooks to revive NeoPets for both old fans and new players.
The Evolution of Sonic: How the Genesis Games Redefined Platformers
How a blue blur, a small Japanese team, and a handful of design audacities turned platformers inside-out. A look at the Genesis Sonic trilogy’s technical innovations, level design principles, and cultural ripple effects that still shape platform games today.
From Pixels to Pixels: How Sega Game Gear Classics Inspired Modern Indie Games
How a battery-hungry pocket Sega console taught a generation of makers to think small, color boldly, and design games that fit in a single glance. An essay on the Game Gear’s aesthetic and mechanical fingerprints in today’s indie scene, with developer vignettes and practical design advice.
Retro vs. Modern: Designing New MSX Games with a 2023 Twist
How do you make a brand-new game for a 40-year-old platform without resorting to nostalgia karaoke? This guide walks developers through blending MSX-era constraints with modern mechanics and storytelling-practical workflows, technical budgets, UX trade-offs, and concrete design recipes that actually ship.
Game Boy Color: A Palette for Innovation - How Early Titles Influenced Modern Gameplay
A close reading of how Game Boy Color games-through clever technical workarounds, bold design choices, and social mechanics-pioneered features that are now standard in modern games: real-time systems, persistent multiplayer hooks, compact UX, and handheld-friendly Metroidvania design.