Damn those monkey puzzles in The Lion King
Even if you aren’t usually one for Let’s Play videos, I’d suggest taking a look, if only for a moment, at Double Fine and 2 Player Productions’ slick, informative new YouTube series Devs Play.
The debut episode is The Lion King for Sega Genesis (and a couple levels of Aladdin, to start) with over an hour of insightful commentary by Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle.
The “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” level takes me back. So brutal, though you wouldn’t know it from how ridiculously well Double Fine’s Greg Rice plays here. Good lord!
“We couldn’t let you pass level two too fast,” says Castle, because, at the time, Disney thought people wouldn’t buy its games if they made it too far into a Blockbuster rental copy. Bastards.
Future episodes of Devs Play will release weekly through January 27, 2015:
EarthBound (The Mother Trilogy) – Featuring Ben Burbank
Programmer on Costume Quest 2 and Mother superfan Ben Burbank shows off selected scenes from the entire trilogy and explains the complicated history of this beloved cult series. Featuring a mix of Japanese and English releases, fan translations, and imported hardware, Ben takes us on a journey through the bizarre cultural mashups and heartfelt story that define Mother.
Gauntlet DS – Featuring Anthony Vaughn and Geoff Soulis with guest Mike Mika
Massive Chalice producer Anthony Vaughn and artist Geoff Soulis take a trip to the legendary game dungeon of Backbone Entertainment head Mike Mika to play the unreleased Gauntlet DS. The plug was pulled on Gauntlet DS shortly before its release after unfortunate events caused the title to be bumped from one publisher to another. In true Gauntlet fashion, Mike, Anthony, and Geoff tackle the campaign in multiplayer wireless before jumping in to some local deathmatch action.
The Legend of Zelda – Featuring Brandon Dillon and Matt Hansen
Hack N Slash creator Brandon Dillon and producer Matt Hansen get to the roots of Brandon’s inspiration by cracking open the NES classic The Legend of Zelda, literally. After taking apart the cartridge, de-soldering and dumping the rom, and booting the game up in an emulator, Brandon sets about altering the running memory of the game to cheat his way through and unlock some unexpected secrets about how the game was developed.
Doom – Featuring JP LeBreton with guest John Romero
Doom history enthusiast and Spacebase creator JP LeBreton joins id Software co-founder John Romero as the two play though the first episode of Doom, “Knee Deep in the Dead,” in its entirety. John Romero’s run through each level turns up fresh and encyclopedic insight into how this genre-defining title was designed and set the stage for first-person action games for years to come.
Psychonauts – Featuring the original development team with guest Stephen Kiazyk
This very special episode features many of the original members of the Psychonauts development team watching in frustration and amazement as speed runner Stephen Kiazyk blows through the entire game faster than they thought possible. The creator of many popular techniques used for running Psychonauts, Stephen takes the team through many of his tricks step by step, explaining what he’s doing while receiving insight from the team as to how the glitches are possible in the first place. Perhaps most upsetting to Tim Schafer, much of the dialogue is skipped.