Yeah, has to be Super StreetFighter IV by a country mile. I’ve been playing it above and beyond a lot of games, recently, which is probably not a good thing, but its short form means I can squeeze in matches and not feel like I’m having a truncated experience. It feels like an activity all its own, perfectly crafted, always giving something interesting, never letting you master it perfectly.
I play a lot of different games, but so many experiences can feel throw away… you buy them, you play them until you have your fill of the mechanics, you finish them off because the story’s still there, or because there’s an endless stream of meaningless trophies to get. I guess I feel a bit worn out on that cycle. But street fighter… such a wonderful blend of psychology, strategy, execution in such a quick fire nugget, and endlessly interesting to investigate into nuanced (though simple) mechanics. Love it.
In the latest installment of our perpetually on-going series of staff interviews, we sit down with Aubrey ‘Bezzy’ Hesselgren. Aubrey is a Technical Game Designer here inside Splash Damage’s Blimp of Doom, which is a sort of weird cyborg-esque combination of programmer and game designer. In between cat-like parkour sprints to the watercooler, he spends most of the day arranging individual letters into elaborate documents with one hand while writing game code with the other.
