Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Batman: Arkham Asylum. We talk about the progression system in the game, the various forms of reward, how well things are integrated, and Tim gets to relive the death of the Waynes. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Near to end (Brett), thru 2nd Scarecrow (Tim)

Issues covered: the death taunts, Edward Nigma vs the Riddler, relatively few gadgets, discussing the gadgets and their uses, not knowing what they had yet, using gadgets as a reward, dependencies on rewards and presentation, breaking up health and armor into increments, the weirdness of Batman getting XP, player expression, health and then opening up more options, seeing how you would evolve the formula, crafting environmental scenarios, finding ways to bring in the rogues gallery, rewarding you while gratifying you, spreading out the villainy, giving space to each villain, having too much space for the villains, every combatant being bespoke, threading villains through rather than opting in, economical reuse of space, changing up combat patterns, pushing the player rather than reusing the same quarter, rethinking strategy but not being stuck, not overloading with combat options and then larding on, being able to struggle through without being perfect, players finding something that works for them and sticking with that, combat overload, interview tapes and deepening the characters, did this game create Batman fans?, tying all the pieces together, the tightness of the economy, being able to play the alley scene, retelling the origin stories, 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: other Arkham games, BioShock, Bethesda Game Studios, Joel Schumacher, DOOM (2016)/DOOM Eternal, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time: Finishing and takeaways!

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