Welcome to SKILL ISSUE, a haphazardly released newsletter for the gamers, the ravers and the haters! Outside of the now obligatory “Sorry we aren’t keeping to any kind of predictable schedule’ spiel, for the first time ever I’m writing an intro with no real idea where I’m going with it. Sure, life is life-ing for the both of us. I can only speak for myself, but my emotions have been fluctuating more than Sony's stock value over the past month.
There are loads of events we could talk about, both literal and metaphorical, but none of them seems appropriate to talk about here -although I’m confident we’d both like to give a big old shout-out to Field Maneuvers for letting us both have takeovers at maybe-the-worlds-greatest-party™ The news right now, if anything, is TOO inspiring. A single night of political debate provided us with a well of soundbites so deep we’re at a genuine risk of drowning in irony.
So for once, I’ll keep it short and sweet. I’m all written out right now already. And anyway, I’m pretty sure you’re here for games, tunes, and unhinged rants loosely based on the above. That’s what we’re here for at least.
SKILL ISSUE is written by Christopher Watson and Hue. You can get in touch if you’d like to contribute, if you’ve got anything you think we’d be interested in, should be covered, or if you're just looking for an Overcooked squad - hit us up at skillissuecrew@gmail.com.
///PLIGHT OF THE CONCORD
By most accounts, Firewalk Studios 5v5 hero shooter Concord was a pretty good game. But here’s the thing - even with the biggest brand in the world pushing hard for it, it takes more than being pretty good to recoup a reported budget of $400 million and eight years of development time. Especially if you release it at full price in a comically overcrowded market that is traditionally free-to-play.
It was still a shock when Sony pulled the game from its stores, offered refunds to anyone who bought it, and shut down the servers completely just two weeks after launch. Having initially promised years of support and new content, it might just be the industry's biggest flop of all time, eclipsing Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League and even 2019’s Anthem, which made it to the relatively ancient age of two years old before being wiped from hard drives and our collective memories.
It’s pretty easy to see a common thread here. Executives love a live service game. They want gamers to play one thing and one thing only, pouring their cash directly down a black hole of loot boxes and premium currencies. They look at games like Destiny and Fortnite, and turn to their beleaguered developers with their big new idea of planting a magic money tree. Magic money trees, they reason, are hot right now.
But games take a long time to make, and live-service games even longer. Eight years was a long time ago. Long enough that Concord didn’t even sound like an obvious flop. But when the game was announced in 2023, the writing was already on the wall. Not only did it look pretty uninspiring, no one even plays the games it was trying to rip off anymore, and now yet another studio is surely facing closure because of the shit, artless ideas of suits and spreadsheets.
No amount of investment can save a project that seems as doomed to fail as Concord did. But there’s an even crueler element of fate yet to come: so sure were Sony of their success that Concord has its own episode of super high budget Amazon video game-themed anthology series Secret Level, alongside confirmed megahits God Of War, Armored Core and Pacman.
Unfortunately, despite Concord’s failure being pretty obvious to just about everyone except the CEOs who wanted it, the worst people in the community celebrate it as a victory for the anything-but-silent minority of gamers who are sick to death of video game characters not being either white men or a pair of tits with some legs attached. They hated Concord not because it was a cynical cash grab, but because the character-select scene wasn’t sufficiently erotic to men who have only ever heard of women as whispered myths on Discord servers. You can’t even have bad ideas anymore. Because of woke.
///ASLICE OF HEAVEN
We all know it’s not just the video game industry that's in trouble. It’s every industry that’s in trouble. But as far as creative industries go, the music industry has been “in trouble” for so long that we probably need a new term for it. In both the mainstream and underground, music needs a drastic new approach if artists are to survive.
One company that tried to make things better, at least for dance music producers, was Aslice. Launched by Minneapolis techno legend DVS1, the radical platform allowed DJs, who tour the world playing other people's records often for hefty fees, to share a small portion of their revenue with the producers who make the music making them famous. It’s not controversial to say this is a good and fair approach. Too good for this world it turns out.
According to Sam Barker, the reason for Aslice’s closure is clear. Despite signing up roughly 1000 artists and redistributing nearly half a million worth of earnings to producers, there was one glaring thing missing: the participation of any of the DJs who actually make enough money to have an effect. Aslice’s user base consisted almost entirely of small artists who saw the vision and wanted to give back. If that’s not a suitable metaphor for how the world functions then what is? Even when they are given the tools to help others climb to the top of the pile, those at the peak can’t help but pull the ladder up behind them.
It’s a truly sad state of affairs, but the team behind Aslice still have a huge amount to celebrate. For 60% of producers signed up to the platform, Aslice earned them more money for their music than every other platform combined. 29% of producers surveyed said it was the first payment they had ever received for their efforts. It might not have lasted, but for many, it was still transformational.
As part of their closure, the company has published a full report on their process, which can be read here. Unpaid funds are being held until the end of the year, and any producers not signed up can search on aslice.com to see if there’s anything there for them, after which point all remaining cash in the pot will be going to charity. Massive shout-out to everyone involved.
///INVISIBLE WALLS AND THEIR EFFECTS
‘Contemporary Myth is discontinuous. It is no longer expressed in long fixed narratives, but only in ‘discourse’.’ – R. Barthes
Blackmyth Woke-King has broken all manner of records, beating even Palworld’s concurrent Steam player count. Its Sekiro / DMC / GOW style combat and boss rush seems to be a runaway hit with capital G(oon) gamers, niche 80s import TV aficionados, and fans of Asian folklore alike. But as more people complete the game, a debate has arisen over its use (or misuse) of invisible walls.
Invisible walls in video games are an interesting one. The quasi-physical manifestation of the narrative fourth wall, a barrier between the developer and the player – between what should be seen and forbidden knowledge. The invisible wall in video games is different in that the reader/player can break the suspension of disbelief of their own volition, either by accident or brute force. QA testers are criminally mistreated and underpaid as they spend untold hours jumping into and off cliffs to see where their fourth wall is the weakest. Speedrunning is broken up into those that stick to the path, completing games largely as designed, and those who dabble in the shadow realm, where humping a tree or switching weapons while pointing at a rock can send you flying through the framework of the constructed reality, trivialising many games but spectacles in their own right, especially when someone does this blindfolded.
Restricting the map with hard boundaries helps keep a player on track, gives a sense of urgency to the exploration and frees up time for the developer to concentrate on other aspects of the experience. But go too far and the illusion falls down quickly, making you feel more like the weird Cusak ass puppeteer you truly are. With Wokey-Kong Country, this could be an artistic choice - you wouldn’t want players in a Journey to the West game being able to roll straight to the West and miss out on the whole journey part. This makes a lot of sense, and lord knows we do not need another open-world slog, but guys…your main character IS a magical, shapeshifting, strong and agile monkey. Roland Barthes called it Dystaxia. In language, it ‘Occurs when the (logical) linearity is disturbed’ (p.118) and in video games it occurs when you are a magic monkey unable to jump on a nearby tree.
Game development always seems to be an ever-growing hydra, where poor devs make one breakthrough only to realise they have created five more jobs for themselves. This is only made worse the higher the fidelity gets. Take this comparison video between Jedi Survivor and the new Jedi Outlaws. Sure, it has shiny ray tracing, hair physics and Unreal’s new loadsarocks tech Nanite, but you forgot to make the grass destructible guys, c’mon!
Our world is full of invisible walls, red lights stop you from walking into traffic and vice versa, CCTV cameras turn cities into elaborate battleship grids, a network of invisible walls we pass through every day, charged or noted as we do. Online, we are walled off from content via our preferences - I still don’t know what a “chappel roan” is and I’m OK keeping whatever it is on the other side of my boundaries. So you’d think collectively we’d be fine with having invisible walls in our games. It turns out we don’t really like to think about how much of a constant downer all these invisible walls really are, especially when it comes from our Chinese nationalist-backed Monkey games.
With Whack Mince Wince-Bong especially, it hurts the xX.GamerZ.Xx crowd to admit that their lauded example of gaming brilliance, this third-person action-adventure / beat ‘em up, could fall back on such played out game design principles. The game looks fun and I personally can forgive even the most egregious invisible walls in most cases, i am aware i am playing a game. If a game can muster up something diegetic like the Family Guy: The Game mime, all the better – but for it to be a defining comment on a game is quite damning. The beautifully constructed world is reduced down to a series of lush corridors and fishbowls, all agency melts away as you continue to sprint full speed into the rock in front of you. Let’s hope that we have a bit more time before more of these digital walls seep into the real one.
///WHAT WE’VE BEEN PLAYING
Where we will shout out anything that's been resonating lately, regardless of format or release date. Because there's not enough time in the world to keep up with everything.
THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE
Coal Supper, 2024, all platforms
It might not be a medium known for humour, but games are often funny. Walking around as a naughty goose and bullying the inhabitants of a small village in Untitled Goose Game is funny. Mixing up your inputs and blowing your entire squad to smithereens in Helldivers 2 is funny. Throwing a teammate off the map in Human Fall Flat is funny. There are many ways in which video games are downright hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally. But normally this is done by creating a framework in which funny things happen, and not through what we would think of as comedy writing.
When games do try their hand at comedy writing, more often than not it’s an element we grin and bare. Borderlands is fun because of the wacky guns and chaotic builds, it’s not fun because of the breakdancing robot with anxiety issues. Looking back at video games throughout the years, I’m not sure a game has had a genuinely funny script since Portal 2. Even rarer is when humour is the entire point. For games like that, you need to go back to the classic point-and-click era, and titles like Monkey Island and Day of Tentacle.
This is what’s going through my head as I play through the roughly 2 hours of Thank Goodness You’re Here, the name game from British developer Coal Supper. Because Thank Goodness You’re Here isn’t just funny for a game, its funny full stop. And it makes you wonder why more games aren’t. You walk through a small village in 1980s Yorkshire armed with only two inputs: jump and slap. It’s not a platformer. Nor is it a puzzle game. It’s just a comedy game, as you go from vignette to vignette helping locals with their increasingly bizarre problems.
It doesn’t hurt that its comedy influences are close to my heart and have been missing from our screens for a while. From the very first screen which gauges whether or not you’ll be able to understand its thick Yorkshire dialect or if it should tone it down, Thank Goodness You’re Here is almost sarcastically British. Matt Berry is in it. It could be a feature-length film by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. It has shades of The Mighty Boosh, of The Young Ones and Bottom, and plenty of Carry On! raunchiness. It’s comforting, but it’s anarchic as hell and bounces between offputtingly calm and deeply psychedelic. It’s a bloody great time all round.
FAR SECTOR
N. K. Jemisin, Campbell Jamal, published 2019, collected 2024, DC Young Animal
From the civil rights analogies of Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men to tales of unchecked power and capitalism in The Boys, superhero stories, like most science fiction, are normally at their best when the outlandish adventures of costumed sociopaths serve as conduits for discussion of philosophy, ethical dilemmas and real-world issues. It’s an approach that was common throughout the history of the medium but in recent years has palpably faded away, as both DC and Marvel embrace simpler political narratives and become more risk-averse in the bid for total cinema domination.
In that sense, and in many others, N. K. Jemisin’s Far Sector is a return to form, standing toe-to-toe with many genre-defining titles. That’s likely why it’s been selected, alongside much more established runs like Watchmen, Hush, Morrison’s All-Star Superman and The Court Of Owls, as part of DC’s new Compact Comics series. The collection is a massive departure from most trade paperbacks. Not only are the entire stories available as one purchase, but the books themselves are a standardised 5.5" x 8.5" size, bringing them in line with manga as well as most novels. Crucially, they are exceptionally cheap, coming in at just £7.79. I’ve spent more on a single drink in a club.
Far Sector follows Sojourner “Jo” Mullein, a fresh recruit to the Green Lantern Corps on her first mission to a dyson sphere at the fringes of the known universe called “The City Enduring”, home to 20 billion citizens from a range of species that once warred for centuries. To keep the peace, for generations citizens have undergone a procedure to remove all emotion. But when the city sees its first murder, seemingly brought on by the emergence of a drug that allows denizens to finally feel again, law enforcement needs to be drafted in from across the universe.
For all the sentient carnivorous plants and downtrodden AIs that make up The City Enduring’s populace, Jo’s experiences back on Earth root the story in dynamics that we recognise. A black American woman, traumatised as by 9/11 as a child, she vows to improve the world, first by joining the US Army and later the NYPD. Her experiences in both leave her with a deep distrust of systems of authority. Whilst racial justice is central to Jo’s story, by placing the central mystery in such a fantastical setting, Jemisin uses it as a launching point to analyse not just our deeply fucked history and reality as humans but the very notions of policing, control and power.
N. K. Jemisin is a fantastic draft into the world of DC. Her novels won her four Hugo Awards prior to Far Sector, which in turn won her a fifth. She is both the only woman and the only person of colour published as part of the Compact Comics series. Far Sector’s inclusion alongside such huge names indicates that DC knows that she’s created something truly special, and hopefully signals a willingness to return to taking risks, having big ideas, and the halcyon days of Moore.
The Origin Story Behind Counter-Strike’s Most Iconic Map
Of all the virtual boxes I’ve been trapped in over the years, none have I spent more time in than De_dust2. The glorious interlinking death trap, vaguely resembling a Middle Eastern village or Glastonbury Shangri-la in the harsh light of day, is undoubtedly up there on the Mount Rushmore of competitive maps. But its longevity puts it in a category all of its own. As such, I should’ve known that it was made by a hobbyist teen after his GCSEs for fun, as so many of the best things are.
Planting bombs in the desert seems an almost eternal pastime at this point. Grandfathers regaling tales of their clutch defusal on de_cbble back in 1.6 before digging out their four-digit Steam ID to show the littlun’s. Counter-Strike is consistently played by over 500,000 people at any time. Its weapon skins market spawned a whole new criminal gambling underworld, but it never permeated the culture in a Call of Duty or Halo way. Counterstrike just chugs along, with its updates and leagues and clans and server communities – like Ultimate Frisbee with a kill-death ratio.
Dave Johnston (a Brit, which I sadly was vaguely proud of) was map-making from a very early age and we see a lot of Worldforge action, early map editors and modding software. Going through his early map experiments in Doom and Valve’s Hammer editor, through to his opus De_dust2. NoClip, as usual, does a great job with the presentation, giving us nice chunks of yer da’s CSbeta footage, in between chatting to Dave (who seems totally unbothered but very proud of his legendary creations). Vintage map editing may be too niche even for us, but it’s just a story of what can happen if you just keep messing around with something new you find fun and interesting.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage
Angry Demon Studio, all platforms, 2022
Gori: Cuddly Carnage may be one of the worst-named video games ever. It also could very well be the most PS2-coded game I’ve played since Earth Defence Force 6. It’s an honest-to-god action platformer, and what more do you need? Well, a hoverboard is always a bonus, and this one seems slightly sentient, as is the fashion these days.
Gori is basically Marty McFur on a quest to defeat the Adorable Army, consisting of mainly murderous undead unicorns with help from the above-mentioned talking hoverboard F.R.A.N.K and AI pal CH1-P. You’ll be grinding, wall-riding and double jumping all over the dayglo levels to reach new areas and refill your power meter, which you need in order to use F.R.A.N.K as a spinning neon razorblade and ‘paint the town red’. Who knew unicorn blood was red?
The movement is tight, with nice verticality, and the combat is fluid, with takedown animations and a fair few upgrades to be had. From what I’ve played this is a perfect palate cleanser of a game. Lost 10-2 on fifa to a screeching child? Whole team wipe at the Goblin Camp in BG3? Skyrim save corrupted with too many wheels of cheese? Boot up Gori and take it out on the zombicorns. With a flow not unlike Jak & Daxter / JSRF and presentation frankly almost too good (RTX enabled??) for the Conker's Bad Fur Day-ass premise, it is a little unclear who this is aimed at. I guess Five Nights At Freddie's is a decade old now so a large proportion of the workforce have grown to expect a base level of whimsical gore along with work-from-home privileges and a chance to collectively make it to the year 2100. With arena type horde modes along with the story however, it’s got a lot to get stuck into for less than £20. The fact a team of five made a furry gore game this shiny shows how off the pace the AAA studios truly are.
My only worry is not with the game but with the industry's insistence on shite as a service practices. This game is almost doomed on consoles, as it sits in that PS+ / Gamepass Goldilocks zone of £15-20. The poor devs will struggle to convince people to buy this over waiting for it to appear on the subscription which it seems destined for. It’s a perfect second game to include alongside that four-year-old AAA game you’ve already played and a PS Vita Port. Let’s hope the Steam sales are strong because it's obvious Angry Demon Studio deserves the love on this one. Again, a game with a premise this dumb has almost no right being this well made. No genre defining, no meta narrative pondering, just tight design, a cat and a hoverboard – that’s all we need sometimes. Gori: Cuddly Carnage is out on PS5, XBOX and Steam now
KNOBCON 2024
KNOBCON 2024 | A SYNTH SPECTACULAR - YouTube
Take a trip into the world of KNOBCON! An annual oddball electronic music meet-up held in Schaumberg, Illinois dedicated to everything oscillating. Featuring homemade modular rigs of all shapes and sizes, live A/V performances and lectures from ‘The basics of synthesis’ to ‘Analogue Audio? In My Ethernet?’, this year’s twelfth edition seemed as creative as ever. Youtuber Camel Jam takes us on a quick-cut tour of the modular treasures inside the Hyatt Regency hotel and makes us want to add Knobcon to the SKILL ISSUE blag to-do list. If you want to nerd out hearing about more of the synths and knobs on show in more detail, geartuber Jorb has got you covered here - just watch it on your own time.
RKS – UK Funky Collection Vol 4
Bandcamp, 2024
Mana from heaven! Another edition of Roska’s Kicks n Snares UK Funky Collection is upon us, a finer collection of head nodders unlikely to be found anywhere outside Bulldog car adverts. Speaking of nodders you should probably wear protection as im sure at least four of these basslines could get you pregnant. Showcasing the best of the RKS family, Volume Four is as good as ever. Sharing five tunes between Bakongo and Roska, he puts the team on his back with some vintage wrigglers. A bevvy of tunes from scene leaders KTM, SPD, Murder He Wrote Samiel and more back up the potent D-Malice burner that closes the compilation.
Thankfully Funky has eschewed the USA’s cultural eye of Sauron, hiding under rocks and moving nimbly via less obvious elements and smaller chart success than UKG, but it won’t be long until the American youth discover that funky, as well has its roots in the states and begin a neon, banned-additive double chlorinated reclamation of the sound. Once the Government bans all non-productive applications (Fruity Loops, Ableton etc) all we’ll be left with is the DJ tools of Bradwick Feltman from Boise Idaho. “Support UK music, legalise Ableton!” I splutter to the LBC chatbot. I put another smoking monkey Youtube video on, trying to remember the sweet smell of a superking.
Sorry, We’re Closed [Demo]
A la Mode games, Akupara Games, full release 14th Novemeber 2024
You’re still not over getting dumped three years ago by the love of your life. You live in a one room apartment with some odd neighbours. You try and get some rest but are woken up by a horny sleep paralysis demon who wants undying love and maybe your soul and nothing else. You wake up with a third eye on your forehead and can now see into what appears to be a demon world, hidden from the view of ordinary humans. It also seems to be a curse and you may not have much time left. This isn’t a hot festival tent fever dream, it’s the new retro-inspired psychological horror survival game Sorry, We’re Closed.
A fixed camera makes the spooky surroundings nice and claustrophobic as you navigate the corridors of your creepy complex. Turns out your neighbour is actually a friendly demon, helping you out by giving you tips on using your third eye and the demonic gun which you will have to use against the gory rats and demons you encounter. Using weapons brings you into a first-person view a la the original Resident Evil 4, meaning you can’t move when aiming. You can also use your third eye to reveal the weak spots on enemies, but also means you can only hit them there and nowhere else, leading to a nice risk-reward system. Do you let the creepers come up close trying to hit the weak spot to conserve bullets, or unload half a clip from across the room and save your HP?
The nostalgia hits in this one are offset by an art style that breaks out of the 32bit era with cell shading and vivid colours, making it feel more out of time which suits the narrative. From the demo, it’s clear they’re going for that Silent Hill / RE vibe with a hint of Persona – all things we think our readers may be into. A La mode Games release this mid-November via Steam
That’s it for this SKILL ISSUE #11! Do get in touch at skillissuecrew@gmail.com with any thoughts and please, if you’re into it, tell your similarly-minded mates and help get the word out.
Thanks, friends. Always check behind waterfalls, start with a half and remember: