agavin

Thanks for the interest in our shared video gaming past. I had a lot of fun making that video. The PS1 was a fun machine as it was capable, complex enough that you felt it had secrets, but not so bizarre or byzantine that you felt learning them was a waste of time. And you were pretty much the only one in there as the libraries were just libraries, not really an OS. Still true of the PS2 although that was a complex beast, but by the PS3 there was more of a real OS presence. If you want some more, slightly different, slightly overlapping info on the PS1 or making Crash, I have a mess of articles on my blog on the topic: https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/

Probably focus on something simple with very addictive gameplay.

This was the first American title that was heavily produced by Japan. Before us, Tetris was the only external game that had sold really well. Across all consoles/machines!

I've been on HN for over a year :-)

Starting out is hard now in console gaming, except "maybe" x-box live or something. You'd have to start on iPhone, Android or the like where the costs are lower.

Well pause in video games is actually kinda complicated. By the jak period I had a pause mask (64 bits) that could pause all sorts of independant parts of the game separately. Particles, Camera movement, texture cycling, light changes, enemies, etc.

Sometimes you just want to free the characters in place (and usually enemies and the like) but don't want the whole screen going motionless. For example in Crash, when Aku came out, I wouldn't want to pause the fruit from flying to the score. That would look odd. The Aku pause is to give the player a breather, not just to pause.

Also, the real pause brings up the pause menu, which you certainly don't want with Aku.

Haha. Ken Kutaragi complained of Crash in the very early days that the "trees should wave their branches at you, giving the nostalgia of childhood." Or something like that. At the time we found it merely puzzling.