DGC Ep 328: Dead Space (part three)

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2008's survival horror in space, Dead Space. We talk about the ways we are maybe breaking the game a bit, art design, level design and camera framing, and sometimes... how it doesn't work. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Into Level 7 (Brett) or 4 (Tim)

Issues covered: unkillable aliens, alien encounter tropes, taking themselves seriously, unknowable cosmic horror being taken seriously, dying again and again in a turret section, managing a lot in the asteroid section, being unable to learn a pattern, silence accentuating strangeness, building up to turning on the turret, the increasing grandiosity of set pieces, making set pieces last longer through difficulty, replaying areas in games and allowing that richness to carry you through, set pieces with cutscene rewards, the right mix in a set piece in the centrifuge, putting the character in unlikely places, breaking the game with the pulse rifle, the expectations of the space marine, good achievement design, getting rewarded similarly to a headshot, using stasis to learn where to shoot, fearing running out of upgrades, the suit design and the skeletal vertebrae, making Isaac look like he's in the same space as his suit, not feeling space, extra layers of geometry, repeating spaces to make things feel artificially familiar, framing doors so that you can see what you're doing next, not needing the breadcrumbs.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Visceral, Star Wars: Starfighter, Alien (series), Independence Day, Resident Evil 4, Event Horizon, Tom Cruise, Asteroids, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Dark Souls, The Last of Us II, Uncharted (series), Tomb Raider (series), Killer 7, Suda 51, Grasshopper Manufacture, Platinum, H. R. Geiger, Mystery Dip, Blarg42, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: Our last episode of play

Errata: Brett was in fact on suit level 3. He regrets the error.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub [e-mail]