Russell’s Quarterly

Russell’s Quarterly was a short live quarterly magazine written by Tom Russell and posted on the GMC. There are currently no new issues of the magazine being published, but of the 5 that were, there is an amazing amount of insight inside them. They are well worth the read, even if you only skim the articles that interest you. Tom was kind enough to allow us to mirror his excellent magazine back when he was still writing it, so we keep the only 5 issues released here, where they can be read by future game makers that missed out on their original run. The probably still exist on the GMC, but forever buried in the vast database, and they deserve to be kept in a place that they will hopefully be seen, and read.

Issue 1: M. C. Kids – Winter 2007
Articles: Power-Ups, Purposeful and Arbitrary Difficulty
Reviews: Hunter’s Island, Fedora Spade, Death Worm, Net.Hack, and Shush
Length: 74 Pages

Excerpt:

If Pac-Man consisted merely of evading monsters and collecting pellets, without the power-pellets and the ability to switch from prey to predator, it would be a frustrating and pointless game. If four square had no way to eliminate the King, the game would be fundamentally broken, and the perceived value of the jack and queen squares would cease to
exist. The ability to become more powerful and the dire circumstances of losing that power is what makes these
games exciting. It is neither the maze nor the monsters, but the power-pellets that “make” the game. It changes the way the system works, yet is a vital part of that system. And that is the function of the Power-Up, a mainstay in video games regardless of whether or not the game is “winnable”. And while it is possible for a game with a set of winning conditions to lack power-ups in this meaning of the word– the exemplary M.C. Kids comes to mind– it is virtually
impossible for a “perpetual” game to lack power-ups and still capture one’s interest.

Get it!:   Download – Russell's Qaurterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 (271)  | PDF – Read it

Issue 2: The Problem with RPGs
Articles: Mimetic and Non-Mimetic Elements
Reviews: Wolf, Albero and the Great Blue Emblem, Shotgun Ninja
Length: 81 Pages

Excerpt:

No Art Is An Island

All the arts borrow from each other; one form can never exist in complete isolation. Taking a look at the seventh art, film, at its most basic– the silent era– we can readily see the elements it borrows from the stage (acting), literature (intertitles), and, of course, photography. It seemed to many at the time– and, with increasing infrequency, this opinion still persists in some circles today– that it was, at best, a bastard art form, suitable only for diversion and mass entertainment. But these attacks began to subside, and serious consideration of film as an art form become more fashionable, as its defining non-mimetic quality– montage or editing– became more prominent. The combination of images and sound, moving temporarily, is something that no other art form can do.

Get it!:   Download – Russell's Qaurterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 (167)  | PDF – Read it

Russell’s Qaurterly Issue 3 – Summer 2008

Issue 3: “God” Games
Articles: Controls, My Wife Asked Me to Write This, DAVID SIRLIN’S Rethinking Story Games
Reviews: Immortal Defense, The Power, Viking Bazooka Bloodbath, Elements of Escape
Fiction: Paper Games by August Poole
Length: 72 Pages

Excerpt:

But in Rampage: Total Destruction, many of the unlockable monsters are less powerful and thus less desirable than those with which you begin the game. This is compounded by the fact that, strictly speaking, the monsters aren’t really all that much different from one another. Certainly, some monsters can run faster and jump higher than others, and some can do more damage to the buildings, but they all work the same; none of the monsters have any special abilities or signature moves– with a few brief exceptions which we’ll touch on in just a little while– and so, what you end up with is thirty characters who do the same exact thing, the only difference between them being that some are good at it and some are terrible. Suffice to say, this does not exactly make them desirable. The key to creating good unlockable content is
– wait for it, this is truly a revolutionary concept!– to make that content different from the content already available to the player. If, in playing a versus fighting game, you were to unlock five special characters, all of whom had the same exact set of moves as Ryu but weren’t as good at them, you would not feel like you had accomplished anything. But, if those characters had different move sets that made each character desirable for different reasons and in different situations, it would be much more rewarding.

Get it!:   Download – Russell's Qaurterly Issue 3 - Summer 2008 (300)  | PDF – Read it

Russell’s Qaurterly Issue 4 – Fall 2008

Issue 4: Boss Battles
Articles: High Concept, Common Narratives in Non-Narrative Games, Promoting Systemically Cohesive Variety
Reviews: Cactus Game Arcade, Lost in the Desert, agalaG
Fiction: Three Button Combo by Daphne Whitaker
Length: 90 Pages

Excerpt:

So, you’re making a platformer. What’s the first thing you do? Do you start designing the character sprites? Do you write the cut scenes? Do you start designing the level layouts and the challenges awaiting your hero– the bottomless pits, the enemies, the disappearing platforms, all that fun stuff? In a word: no. For how can you create sprites if you don’t know what they’re supposed to represent? How can you write dialogue or a story if you don’t know what sort of game play it’s giving context to? How can you create challenges for the player if you don’t yet know what the player can do?
Just as you can’t start writing a college paper unless you have some idea what your thesis is, you can’t start creating a game until you know its thesis– its central big idea– the thing that makes it stand out. In film making circles, this is known as the “high concept”. High concept films can be summed up in a few words, and it is this pitch that is used to get films greenlighted and into theaters near you.

Get it!:   Download – Russell's Qaurterly Issue 4 - Fall 2008 (304)  | PDF – Read it

Russell’s Qaurterly Issue 5 – Winter 2008

Issue 5: SMB
Articles: Chance VS. Skill, Sprite Substance, Miyamoto’s Framework, The Narshe Incident, Gaming with One Hand
Reviews: Pinball Panda, Alternate Path
Feature: What game design lessons can we learn from Super Mario Bros.?
Length: 67 Pages

Excerpt:

A degree of randomness in game design, not only in enemy behaviours and artificial intelligence but also in terms of the arrangement of certain elements, can’t be a bad thing. But it’s not quite as simple and pat as that; injecting randomness into a winnable game creates a number of practical problems, most of which revolve around that cornerstone of player advocacy and thus game design, fairness.
Imagine, for example, a randomly-generated block puzzle. What are the chances that that puzzle will have an actual solution? For that matter, if the random arrangement of blocks and hazards did produce a puzzle with a solution, what are the chances that that would be the only solution? The special pleasures of block puzzle games– which depend on each puzzle having one single frustrating

Get it!:   Download – Russell's Quarterly Issue 5 - Winter 2008 (309)  | PDF – Read it