This guy just sold me on his game with the health bar alone

Devlog: Rethinking the Health Bar - YouTube

Joshua Wolens

Regularly takes damage.

Ever heard of Mirklurk: Every Step Matters? Nope, me neither. That is, until a video from its solo dev called "Rethinking the health bar" came across my desk. The dev in question is Mattias Myde, and he's revolutionising this oldest of videogame building blocks by converting it from a simple resource pool into a sort of quasi-Battleship arrangement, where your weapons do damage patterns, not numbers, and enemy health pools become big maps of tiles, just waiting to be cleared.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.