Russell’s Quarterly – Issue 3

The third issue of Tom Russell’s Russell’s Quarterly magazine focusing on game development past and present has been released ahead of schedule.

The cover feature this time around, “God Games”, is not in reference to the popular genre but to a decidedly less-popular one: games about religion and faith. The cover thought piece not only discusses some religious games and profiles the prominent Christian game developer Wisdom Tree, but also uses that as a spring-board to exploring thornier questions about the problems of deeply meaningful expression in a highly external art form.

There are also a number of other articles this time around, in marked contrast to last issue’s All-RPG Extravaganza. I look at some keyboard control schemes for platformers’ I discuss the shortcomings of a certain game in a piece I had to call “My Wife Asked Me to Write This”‘ and reknown game balancer and designer David Sirlin rethinks story games. This issue also marks the introduction of our letters page, a redesign of the magazine’s font and a slight tweak on the format, as well as featuring the inaugural entry into our Fiction section with August Poole’s story “Paper Games”.

All this, plus some in-depth reviews of Immortal Defense, The Power, Viking Bazooka Bloodbath Reloaded, and Elements of Escape.

Once again Russell has succeeded in providing an entertaining and educational read of considerable length.  If you haven’t had a look at one of the previous issues I recommend you examine this new release at a time when all the more traditional Game Maker magazines appear to be taking a break.

You can download the issue here (left click).