All the stuff I wrote about video games in 2024

I’ve had another busy year spent writing about video games. And, as is tradition, it’s time to take a retrospective look back and see what words I’ve managed to churn out over the past 12 months, if only to make myself feel a tiny bit productive. The above picture shows all of the magazines and books I had words in this year, and below is a complete list of everything I wrote in 2024.

The Art of Still Wakes the Deep

Near the start of the year, I was asked to write The Art of Still Wakes the Deep, which is being jointly published by Lost in Cult and Cook and Becker. It’s not out until next year, but I completed the bulk of the writing between July and September, which involved interviewing some of the many, many lovely people at The Chinese Room who worked on the game.

Although it’s called The Art of Still Wakes the Deep, the book actually covers all aspects of the game’s production – and it was particularly interesting to speak with the actors and learn just how much effort was put into the voice performances. They even had full-cast rehearsals, which is basically unheard of in video games.

The book is tentatively due out in Spring 2025, and you can preorder the standard and deluxe versions via this link.

Oh, and the publisher Secret Mode was even kind enough to send me a rather natty Still Wakes the Deep Christmas jumper…

Look at the amazing Still Wakes the Deep Christmas merch I got from @thechineseroom.co.uk and @wearesecretmode.bsky.social!Ive just finished writing The Art of Still Wakes the Deep, which is an in-depth (pun?) look at how the game was made. Preorder it here! http://www.cookandbecker.com/en/artwork/3…
— Lewis Packwood (@lewispackwood.bsky.social) 2024-12-07T10:02:31.852Z

The Console Chronicles

I contributed several thousand words to The Console Chronicles from Lost in Cult and Time Extension, which is an utterly enormous book that charts the entire history of video game consoles. I wrote the chapters on the Magnavox Odyssey, Pong, the Atari 2600 and the story of the 32-bit generation (when the PlayStation took the world by storm), but this is just a small part of the book as a whole, which is wonderfully comprehensive.

The original campaign edition from Lost in Cult shipped in the summer and is now sold out, but you can order the retail version of The Console Chronicles (with the yellow cover) from Amazon and various other bookshops.

A Handheld History 1988-1995

A follow-up to Lost in Cult’s A Handheld History from 2023, A Handheld History 1988-1995 takes a more in-depth look at the early years of handheld consoles, and I contributed two chapters on some fairly deep cuts. One chapter takes a look at branded consoles like the Japan-exclusive Coca-Cola Game Gear, which came with the Sonic-a-like game Coca-Cola Kid, while the other examines the oft-overlooked Gargoyle’s Quest from Capcom, which is a spinoff from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins that casts a demon as the star.

The Horror: Mansion

Another title from Lost in Cult, The Horror: Mansion is an anthology dedicated to horror video games that feature… well, mansions. In the chapter ‘Pop-Up Horror’, I revisited the CD-ROM version of Jan Pienkowski’s Haunted House, which was one of my absolute favourite books as a kid.

Edge

It’s been a busy year for me on Edge magazine, as I penned features on the history and future of Atari (‘Breakout’), the unseen work done by co-development studios (‘Out of the Shadows’), the lives of solo indie developers (‘Flying Solo’, which is online here) and the new Broken Sword games from Revolution Software (‘Full Circle’). Spending the day hanging out with Charles Cecil from Revolution was particularly fun – and convenient, too, since the studio is just a short hop from my house in York.

I also chatted with Mark Webley and Gary Carr about the founding of Two Point Studios from the ashes of Lionhead, and I got some interesting insights into the cutthroat world of mobile gaming from Paul Gouge, founder of the Golf Clash studio Playdemic. But the highlight of the year was undoubtedly a video call with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell for the Breakout feature. It’s the only time I’ve ever been palpably nervous during an interview: Nolan is basically the closest thing that video gaming has to royalty, and I never dreamed I would have the chance to chat with him.

Feature: Out of the Shadows (issue 405)
Studio Profile: Two Point Studios (issue 402)
Feature: Full Circle (issue 399)
Feature: Breakout (issue 397)
Feature: An Audience With… Paul Gouge (issue 396)
Feature: Flying Solo (issue 394)

In addition to the above features that have my name proudly emblazoned upon them, I’ve written quite a few anonymous articles for Edge over the year. To be specific, I wrote one preview, two reviews and five of the lead ‘Knowledge’ articles at the start of the news section, which meant interviewing many of the great and good of the games industry, like former PlayStation head Shawn Layden.

The Guardian

Another busy year for Guardian articles, including a feature on the return of video game manuals that I particularly enjoyed writing. I did a load of the summer games previews once more, but probably the highlight for me was seeing an extract from my book, Curious Video Game Machines, being published on the Guardian site back in October. Hopefully a whole new load of people will have discovered the book as a result – fingers crossed!

Retro Gamer

I did three ‘In The Chair’ interview features for Retro Gamer this year: one with Richard Browne, who was a producer at a number of famous games companies in the 1990s, like Psygnosis and Microprose, and has a huge catalogue of amazing anecdotes; one with Mark Webley, formerly of Bullfrog and Lionhead and now head of Two Point Studios; and one with David Wise, who spent nearly two decades at Rare composing soundtracks for classics like Donkey Kong Country.

I also did some in-depth features on the stories behind Wizardry, Burnout 3 and – for Retro Gamer’s 20th anniversary – the making of Fable, which launched in the year the magazine began. That feature involved a video chat with Peter Molyneux, which provided some amazing quotes.

The Making of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (issue 267)
In The Chair With David Wise (issue 264)
In The Chair With Mark Webley (issue 261)
The Making of Burnout 3: Takedown (issue 259)
The Making of Fable (issue 257)
In The Chair With Richard Browne (issue 256)

Eurogamer

Just the one article for Eurogamer this year, but it’s a good one. I bumped into Chris Mandra at the Debug Indie Game Awards back at the start of 2024, and I was astonished to discover that Direct Drive for the Playdate handheld was his first video game, even though he’s nearly in his sixties. His story of breaking into the games industry late in life was utterly inspiring.

Time Extension

When I sat down to chat with Nolan Bushnell for the Edge feature on Atari at the start of the year, I couldn’t resist asking him about the Atari Video Music while I had the chance. This bizarre, wood-panelled piece of electronics features in my book, Curious Video Game Machines: back in 1977, it was the world’s first commercial music visualiser, able to display shapes that change in time with a piece of music.

So I had to ask Nolan, how did this strange machine get made? The simple answer: “Most of my engineers were stoned”.

Rock Paper Shotgun

I got to speak to Chris Kohler from Digital Eclipse for this Rock Paper Shotgun feature about the making of Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. Digital Eclipse are doing amazing work with their interactive game documentaries, and I’m supremely jealous that Chris Kohler gets to make them: I would LOVE to have his job.

Nintendo Life

I wrote two features for Nintendo Life this year: one on the Final Fantasy VII ‘demake’ for the Famicom, and one on the little-known game Metal Slader Glory and the role it played in bringing Nintendo and HAL Laboratory closer together. (I also got invited onto the Tokyo Game Life podcast to talk about the latter.)

Both of these features got picked out as some of Nintendo Life’s ‘Best of 2024’, and I reckon they turned out pretty well. Plus, I’m never happier than when I’m poking my nose into the dusty, forgotten corners of video gaming.

Creative Bloq

I wrote a ton of articles for CreativeBloq this year – including chatting with the BAFTA Breakthrough nominees, which was great. I even snuck out a review on one of the most enjoyably creepy games I’ve ever played…

L’Atelier

And finally, I wrote three articles for Atelier Insights this year, which were deep dives into eye tracking, game engines and brain-computer interfaces for gaming. The latter was particularly trippy, including a Skyrim mod that monitors your concentration level and makes your magic more powerful according to how hard you’re focusing. If these kinds of things become mainstream, the future of gaming is going to be WILD.

That’s about it! But if you want to discover more things I’ve written, you can take a look at some previous years below. Happy New Year, and here’s to a productive 2025!

A MOST AGREEABLE PASTIME

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