Make Games

Some recent online discussions have prompted me to write something short on the above ideas. The first discussion erupted when a Kotaku writer called George Kamitani a “14-year-old boy” for including hypersexualized women in the character line-up for Dragon’s Crown. The second discussion had to do with a video I did with Anthony Carboni and Doug Wilsson where we played Spelunky and talked about games a little bit in general. Perhaps “discussion” is too strong a word for a few YouTube comments about maturity and challenging games, but nonetheless, it made me want to develop and clarify my feelings on the topic further.

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A half hour into Earthworm Jim on SNES, and three things became painfully clear to Andy (Hull) and me: 1. wow, Earthworm Jim is a worse game than we remembered, 2. Earthworm Jim was designed by visual artists with little experience in game design, and 3. modern studios haven’t learned from Earthworm Jim, because some of their games share a lot of its negative traits.

Ultimately, what we enjoyed about EWJ were its quirky characters, humor, and animation, which were unmatched at the time. But it’s because those elements came at such a premium that it pales in comparison to other run n’ guns and platformers of the era, like Contra or Mega Man. Though Jim and his cohorts are remembered fondly (and with good reason), it’s not likely to be a game we’ll come back to very often.

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