Locksport is the art, science and YouTube phenomenon of unlocking security devices that were meant only to be opened by keys. It’s a transgressive and geeky hobby, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that videogames have attempted to represent it for decades. Since August, Dim Bulb Games’ Johnnemann Nordhagen has been updating a playable museum of lockpicking, which you can visit for a price of your choosing on dimbulbgames.itch.io.
What was the impetus for the project?
Natalie Clayton, one of the writers for Rock Paper Shotgun, just tweeted ‘a museum of virtual fishing mechanics’, or something like that. And I said, this should absolutely exist. It would be wonderful if there was one for conversation mechanics, and lockpicking, and hacking – that would be so useful for developers. I chose lockpicking because I thought there were relatively few games with it. It turns out there are way more than I assumed, but it’s been fun anyway.
So it’s intended to help the time-poor developer with their research?
That’s right. My thinking is that if you want lockpicking in your game, you download the museum and play all the different examples. If something is really exciting to you, maybe you download that game as well and see it in its natural habitat. Even a system as self-contained as lockpicking isn’t entirely separate from the context of the game in which it appears. A lot of games have lockpicks as resources, for example, so that brings in this whole economy that is not possible to portray in the museum.
Do you have strong feelings about game archiving?
This story is from the February 2021 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the February 2021 edition of Edge.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas