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Postmortem - Hothead Games's
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness-Episode 0ne

Hothead has brought downloadable episodic games to both PC and console with this Penny Arcade partnership, and along the way learned some valuable lessons, from the difficulty of working with fresh licensors to the trouble with and benefits of outsourcing. A sidebar from Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and cover art from Mike "Gabe" Krahulik round out the piece.

Game Brains

Artificial Intelligence middleware is coming into its own as a crucial tool for modern game development. In this market overview we take a look at eight products that aim to make thinking machines a reality.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

In first person shooters, there is often a disconnect between the location of the gun on the screen and the destination of an in-game bullet. Here, Adam Hunter scans different models that seek to rectify the problem, and draws a few conclusions of his own.

Interview: Hirokazu Yasuhara

Hirokazu Yasuhara was the third person to join Sonic Team, even before it was so-named. He designed the levels in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, and was a designer on that influential series for some years. He later joined Naughty Dog where he worked on character action games, culminating in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It turns out his successes are not flukes. Here, we discover his practical design methodologies, and how he puts them into practice.

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