Wireframe Magazine

Wireframe looks at how games are made and who makes them, and even guides you through making your own.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga finds the light side of fandom

WELCOME

INSIDE JOB • Combining a handcrafted 3D art style and satirical story to poke fun at the consumerist future? It must be The Last Worker

What fresh hell is this? • Scottish developer Damage State introduces its hectic FPS, SCATHE

Eternal Threads • Exploring the boundaries of cause and effect in Cosmonaut Studios’ tightly-knit time travel story

Music to our ears • Turning everything up to 11 as we blast to the beat in rhythm-driven dungeon crawler, Soundfall

That was the month that was

Incoming

Tracking down the obscure mind behind Castlevania • Castlevania director Hitoshi Akamatsu changed gaming, and then vanished without a trace

Video gaming’s warm embrace

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Gallery

KONAMI 1980s Classics • The Japanese firm’s 20 greatest games of the eighties – plus five honourable mentions…

Toolbox • The art, theory, and production of video games

Designing the City of Glass • A detailed look back at the making of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s urban heart

Write your own Game Boy game in C • Learn the basics of making a game on original handheld hardware with the Game Boy Development Kit

Telling stories and communicating vision • This month, Antony dives into inspiring teams and promoting cohesion — through story time

Balancing your game: why, when, and how • Balancing games can be a challenge, particularly because the goal isn’t to achieve perfect balance in the first place…

The principles of game design • As the Atari 2600 nears its 45th anniversary, Howard ponders its impact and lasting legacy

Make a Guitar Hero-style rhythm action game • Channel your inner rock god with our plucky homage

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BEYOND SYNTHWAVE • WE TALK TO THE DEVELOPERS WHO’VE LOOKED BEYOND THE OBVIOUS CLICHÉS FOR THEIR 1980S-SET GAMES

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Interactive / Pompom • Willem Rosenthal tells us all about his zany love letter to the SNES era of action platformers

Interactive / Fish Cymophis • One developer’s mission to make the underwater world even more terrifying in a fishy brand of retro horror

How I became a… QA analyst • Pieces Interactive’s Helena Hansen tells us about the important art of Quality Assurance

SNK’s fighting history • Veteran staff at SNK recall the company’s 1990s fighting game heyday – and the path leading to this year’s The King Of Fighters XV

An eventful week

Backend Contents • Reviews, retro games, and lots more besides

TUNIC • Manual transmission

Abermore • All your vase are belong to us

Janitor Bleeds • Stranger pixels

NORCO • Louisiana Route Zero

Orbital Bullet • What goes around comes around

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga • Bringing piece back to the galaxy

Sol Cresta • Fun in the sun

Itch.io roundup • Picking out some of the platform’s standout titles

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS • Streamer, podcaster, and fitness enthusiast Tanya “Tazziii” Ellen talks her gaming past

The Wireframe HOTLIST • The best PC games, according to Wireframe, catering for whatever your mood might be

PC Top 10

A clear winner

Just Kidding

Reanimating the dead

Advance Effect

Let’s go round again • With the lightest of spoilers, Ryan goes loopy for the time-hopping adventure, The Forgotten City

Third strike’s the charm • Aaron recharges his beam katana for a return trip to Santa Destroy in No More Heroes...