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Design Room

@designroom.site
2.7K followers 16 following 96 posts

A new website dedicated to video game oral histories from @mattleone.bsky.social. Find us at designroom.site. Logo by asawallander.se.

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Design Room @designroom.site · 11/09/2026
Since we published our Spore oral history in June, we've been talking to members of the mod community about how they've kept the game going for the past 18 years.
designroom.site
The modding community keeping Spore alive
We talk to three members of the Spore modding community about their efforts to continue Maxis' work and keep the game active for new generations of fans.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 09/09/2026
We're open for freelance pitches! Have any ideas for oral histories, roundtables, Q&As, or other stories that feel in line with what we've published so far? Feel free to DM. Rates typically range from $250-$750.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 26/08/2026
Almost 20 years after Sam & Max Season One's release, six Telltale team members look back on the time they made a group of Secret Service agents dance the can-can.
designroom.site
Sam & Max's War Song: An oral history, 20 years later
Six former Telltale Games team members look back on the time they made a group of Secret Service agents dance the can-can.
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Molia @molia3d.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Couple of companion pieces I did for @designroom.site a few months ago for a Spore focused article! You can read it for free on their website, it’s a very interesting and in depth piece! #b3d #blender #3dart
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Read-Only Memory @readonlymemory.com · 13/08/2026
The planet has a history. So does the game that made millions of players want to save it. Hear the story of Final Fantasy VII from the people who were there. readonlymemory.com/products/500...
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Design Room @designroom.site · 31/07/2026
Hi, we're a new video game oral histories site. Want to read the story of Shadow of the Colossus, as told by 11 people who worked on it? Or hear what Will Wright has to say about Spore in retrospect? Or see previously unreleased footage of Nintendo's Sound Fantasy? Check us out at designroom.site
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Simogo @simogo.com · 24/07/2026
Design Room: very good. Addams Family pinball: very good.
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Read-Only Memory @readonlymemory.com · 24/07/2026
They came. They strummed. They activated Star Power. The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom — five coloured buttons, one unforgettable era. readonlymemory.com/products/gui... #guitarhero
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Design Room @designroom.site · 23/07/2026
Following yesterday's Addams Family oral history, we have a story on how pinball licensing exploded in the '90s.
designroom.site
How licensing changed the pinball industry
Roger Sharpe, Ken Fedesna, Pat Lawlor, and others discuss how licensed games took over pinball around the time that The Addams Family released.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 22/07/2026
For our latest big story, @duncanfyfe.net dives deep the bestselling pinball game of all-time, The Addams Family.
designroom.site
The Addams Family pinball: An oral history
We talk to the team behind the 1992 breakout hit to learn about licensing, magnets, and how it designed the most popular pinball game of all-time.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 10/07/2026
Inscryption is almost 5, so let's talk about its music.
designroom.site
Breaking down the influences behind Inscryption's music
Almost five years after the game's release, we talk to creator Daniel Mullins and composer and sound designer Jonah Senzel about Inscryption's standout audio.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 11/06/2026
We also have a couple of Spore bonus stories today for paid subscribers, like this one on the game's Wind Waker connection.
designroom.site
The Wind Waker 'obsession' that influenced Spore
One of Spore's early influences came from an unexpected place: Nintendo's "toon-shaded" GameCube game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 11/06/2026
We've got a big one today. Almost 20 years after Maxis released Spore, we talked to eight people -- including Will Wright -- about the studio's big experiment.
designroom.site
Spore: An oral history
A wild bet in development for the better part of a decade, Spore reached for the stars — and, at times, got there. We recently spoke to eight team members, including chief designer Will Wright, to loo...
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Design Room @designroom.site · 15/05/2026
Namco's exercise bike-powered flying contraption is almost 30 years old, so we tracked down the game's director to look back.
designroom.site
How Namco built 1996's best arcade cabinet
We talk with the director of the bike-powered Prop Cycle about how the game came about, its international success, and sidelined sequel plans.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 14/05/2026
Friday
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Design Room @designroom.site · 27/04/2026
"It's like trying to make three games within the budget for one. Realistically, it's not possible."
designroom.site
Yoko Taro looks back on his first directing job
We have a new book excerpt from Archipel's "The Worlds of Yoko Taro" looking back on the development of Square Enix's action-RPG Drakengard.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 27/04/2026
"It's like trying to make three games within the budget for one. Realistically, it's not possible."
designroom.site
Yoko Taro looks back on his first directing job
We have a new book excerpt from Archipel's "The Worlds of Yoko Taro" looking back on the development of Square Enix's action-RPG Drakengard.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 18/04/2026
Archipel's latest book, The Worlds of Yoko Taro, showed up today and is beautiful. Get it here: archipel.jp/collections/...
A photo shows the cloth cover of The Worlds of Yoko Taro.A close-up photo shows a big smile imprinted in the book's cover.A side photo shows the book's spine, with another smile on it.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 13/04/2026
We dig into Capcom's infamous U.S.-made fighter, with a 5,000-word feature and never-before-seen development assets.
designroom.site
Final Fight Revenge: An oral history, 26 years later
Five team members look back at the origins and development challenges behind Capcom's first — and still only — internally-developed, U.S.-made fighting game.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 13/04/2026
We dig into Capcom's infamous U.S.-made fighter, with a 5,000-word feature and never-before-seen development assets.
designroom.site
Final Fight Revenge: An oral history, 26 years later
Five team members look back at the origins and development challenges behind Capcom's first — and still only — internally-developed, U.S.-made fighting game.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 10/04/2026
Monday
Artwork shows Guy, Cody, and Haggar from Final Fight Revenge
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Design Room @designroom.site · 24/03/2026
Sworcery turns 15 today, and we've got a big new feature looking back for the anniversary.
designroom.site
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP: An oral history
Celebrate the 15th anniversary of Superbrothers, Jim Guthrie, and Capybara releasing their musical adventure game, and everyone wondering what was up with that.
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deadlyyucca @deadlyyucca.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
happy 15th anniversary! even after 15 years, it’s still one of my favorite games :) if it weren't for this wonderful piece, i don't think i'd be drawing pixel art right now. (by the way, i drew the header image. i’m truly honored)
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Design Room @designroom.site · 24/03/2026
Sworcery turns 15 today, and we've got a big new feature looking back for the anniversary.
designroom.site
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP: An oral history
Celebrate the 15th anniversary of Superbrothers, Jim Guthrie, and Capybara releasing their musical adventure game, and everyone wondering what was up with that.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 23/03/2026
Big new story up tomorrow.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 12/03/2026
When the tutorial is the title.
A photo shows a game called Pivot where players rotate a physical couch as a controller to fit an on-screen couch into the right place.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 03/03/2026
New story up on what happened to Ocean Software's Lobo fighting game, with a bunch of never-before-seen renders made for the game.
designroom.site
The '90s Lobo fighting game got censored because of... Tupac?
It never got the attention of Mortal Kombat or Night Trap, but Ocean's Lobo fighter was saddled with a similar form of censorship.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 25/02/2026
An old Capcom promo video popped up on YouTube with, as Ryan Cravens mentions in the comments, "the only real video" of Bill Cravens, the guy who sold Street Fighter 1 in the U.S.
youtube.com
Capcom CPS Promo from VHS Tape
YouTube video by ottosb
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Design Room @designroom.site · 20/02/2026
Friend of the site @milkman.bsky.social has a new book on the way.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 11/02/2026
In 1996 for Ultimate Gamer magazine, @vgephemera.bsky.social dug up a bunch of lost Atari projects like the Mindlink headset that let you control games using brain waves.
A photo from Ultimate Gamer magazine shows the title text "The Atari Quest."A photo of Ultimate Gamer magazine shows photos of the Mindlink and Atari's John Skruch wearing one.A photo from Ultimate Gamer shows an old Atari Mindlink sales brochure.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 10/02/2026
Gamest, September 1991
A page from Gamest magazine shows comical illustrations of Ryu, Guile, Chun-Li, and other Street Fighter 2 characters.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 06/02/2026
A lot going on here.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 06/02/2026
Love to see it.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 05/02/2026
When SNK promoted Samurai Shodown II to arcade operators with some creative math.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 04/02/2026
Old game magazine photo of the day.
A photo of a 1991 issue of Gamest shows game publisher New Year's illustrations.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 14/01/2026
Hi, we're a new video game oral history site. Some highlights so far: Mirror's Edge: bit.ly/mirrorsedgeoralhistory Sayonara Wild Hearts: bit.ly/sayonarawildhearts Shadow of the Colossus: bit.ly/shadowotcolossus Sound Fantasy: bit.ly/49xPfha Rez Infinite: bit.ly/4pKj0BB Find us at designroom.site.
An in-development screenshot from Sayonara Wild Hearts shows a different visual style.A photograph shows marketing materials from the unreleased Nintendo music game Sound Fantasy.An illustration shows a developer sitting at a desk while working on Mirror's Edge.An illustration shows all 16 bosses from Shadow of the Colossus in a single frame.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 31/01/2026
Update for anyone visiting San Francisco: We now have a Space Channel 5 fondue.
A graphic shows Ulala from Space Channel 5 on top of a photo of cheese fondue.A menu for the restaurant Matterhorn shows Ulala fondue for sale.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 22/01/2026
We dug up an old Capcom newsletter making fun of SNK's Art of Fighting.
designroom.site
When Capcom called out SNK in a fan club comic
The Spring 1993 issue of the Capcom Craze Club took a few swings at SNK's Art of Fighting, while Ryu took a few literal swings at Ryo.
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James Mielke @milkman.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
From @designroom.site and @mattleone.bsky.social re: #MirrorsEdge. "We always got pressure to put sequels and known licenses on covers." Yeah. By that point the game had hit a half dozen covers, but I think our cover, based on a sketch I did, was the hotness. www.designroom.site/mirrors-edge...
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Design Room @designroom.site · 22/01/2026
We dug up an old Capcom newsletter making fun of SNK's Art of Fighting.
designroom.site
When Capcom called out SNK in a fan club comic
The Spring 1993 issue of the Capcom Craze Club took a few swings at SNK's Art of Fighting, while Ryu took a few literal swings at Ryo.
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Simogo @simogo.com · 21/01/2026
We just uploaded this Lorelei and the Laser Eyes trailer, that we made for internal use in 2020. It features 100% unseen and cut content. The game drastically changed direction after this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6xM...
youtube.com
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Internal Trailer 2020
YouTube video by Simogo
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Jordan Wood @thecrossoverappeal.com · 16/01/2026
Been reading this excellent piece from @designroom.bsky.social about Mirror’s Edge. A lot jumps out at me but this really hit me like a ton of bricks. In 2008, EA released: Mirrors Edge Left 4 Dead Spore Dead Space Unrecognizable from today’s POV. www.designroom.site/mirrors-edge...
designroom.site
Mirror's Edge: An oral history
17 years on from its release, DICE's first-person parkour thriller is a cult classic. We spoke to nine people who worked on it about how the revelatory game came to be.
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Seamau5 @seamau5.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Thank you, Yoko Ono, for reminding everyone that John Lennon could be a real ass sometimes <3
Eran Egozy (co-founder and CTO, Harmonix): So there's this one famous scene — and I wasn't in the office at this point — where Yoko Ono comes in to see how things are going with her entourage and all that. She comes in and the animators show her some of the stuff they've been working on with John's models.
Josh Randall (studio creative director, Harmonix): I would have meetings where it's like, "OK, Yoko, here is our depiction of your dead husband singing this super impassioned song ... What do you think?"
Eran Egozy (co-founder and CTO, Harmonix): And she hates it. She's like, "That looks stupid. He doesn't act like that."Josh Randall (studio creative director, Harmonix): The thing is, she was totally right. I don't know how this happened — I mean, I know how it happens, because videogames are hard. John was less developed by the time Yoko came to visit us, compared to some of the other band members. He looked like a mopey shoe-gazer guy. He was like this, looking down at the ground. We hadn't figured out how to depict his personality. And so in this meeting, she's like, "No, he was a tough guy. He could be mean. Like, that's not him. Who is this guy?"
Alex Rigopulos (co-founder and CEO, Harmonix): She was holding the development team to a very high standard with respect to how John was represented in the game — as she should have. She was a tough customer — as she should have been. You know, this was an important project, and we actually were grateful for that level of scrutiny. I mean, she actually made the effort to come all the way up to Cambridge and spend a day in the studio, sitting with our artists focused on minute details of the face modeling and the animations and everything else.So, as you can imagine, the artists and animators are all, like, sweating bullets having to justify the work to Yoko. But she was right! Her criticisms were spot on. And while it was stressful for us, we were really grateful to have her looking over our shoulder at the work, making sure we were doing it well.
Josh Randall (studio creative director, Harmonix): I was like, "Well, can we maybe just look at some footage together and talk about it?" And so I put on footage of Shea Stadium, and immediately there's John Lennon standing at the front of the stage looking down his nose at everyone, like balls out rock and roll God not giving a fuck. We saw that, and me and our animation director just had this mind meld. We looked at each other and Chris, the animation director, clicked on the back of John's spine [and lifted him up a bit]. And she's like, "That's John. There he is."
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bl⚰️ke @metallicaisrad.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
the dream team rides again - excited to have an excerpt from my book on @mattleone.bsky.social's wonderful new site, @designroom.bsky.social. Loved writing this chapter on The Beatles, and especially learning more about the GOAT Yoko Ono.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 15/01/2026
"Directing The Beatles: Rock Band is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."
designroom.site
"That looks stupid." How Harmonix made The Beatles: Rock Band
A new book excerpt reveals how Harmonix, MTV Games, and Electronic Arts teamed up with The Beatles for a rare video game collaboration.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 14/01/2026
Hi, we're a new video game oral history site. Some highlights so far: Mirror's Edge: bit.ly/mirrorsedgeoralhistory Sayonara Wild Hearts: bit.ly/sayonarawildhearts Shadow of the Colossus: bit.ly/shadowotcolossus Sound Fantasy: bit.ly/49xPfha Rez Infinite: bit.ly/4pKj0BB Find us at designroom.site.
An in-development screenshot from Sayonara Wild Hearts shows a different visual style.A photograph shows marketing materials from the unreleased Nintendo music game Sound Fantasy.An illustration shows a developer sitting at a desk while working on Mirror's Edge.An illustration shows all 16 bosses from Shadow of the Colossus in a single frame.
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Sam Martin @johnnyrep.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Everybody should be reading @designroom.bsky.social Excellent oral history of Mirror’s Edge just posted
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Design Room @designroom.site · 13/01/2026
Our next big project is live! @lewisgordon.bsky.social spent the past few months tracking down nine people who worked on DICE's innovative 2008 parkour runner.
designroom.site
Mirror's Edge: An oral history
17 years on from its release, DICE's first-person parkour thriller is a cult classic. We spoke to nine people who worked on it about how the revelatory game came to be.
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Design Room @designroom.site · 13/01/2026
Best accidental homepage story placement.
A screenshot of two images on the Design Room homepage shows an arm from one image looking like it connects into the other image.
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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
So many cool stories in @lewisgordon.bsky.social's oral history of Mirror's Edge, including about the now-iconic art style, along with some eye-opening ones about how marketing decisions were made at EA back then. (I feel like corporations are *somewhat* more willing to delay games these days?)
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