Top all-time · #9231
Tevis Thompson
Personal blog · tevisthompson.comgamesculture
Tevis Thompson writes tevis thompson, a personal blog at tevisthompson.com about games and culture. Since 2012, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often “Saving Zelda (2012)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-08-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Tevis Thompson's essays on video games, mainly "Saving Zelda" on the evolution of the Zelda series, which commenters cite as a companion to essays on education and game design.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Saving Zelda (2012)5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-02-14
- On Videogame Reviews2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-12-16
What Hacker News says?
i often cite this great write up of the evolution of a famous video game franchise when discussing specific ills of education http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/ it reads as fine companion to the original post
Comment linking /saving-zelda/
on “Locked doors, headaches, and intellectual need”Submitted Saving Zelda (2012) as a story · 51 points
HN discussionI agree - the BioShock games are great in theory but have a hugely messy execution. One of my favorite articles about Infinite is this one where it's argued that it's the worst game of the year: http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/
Comment linking /on-videogame-reviews/
on “Irrational Games (Bioshock Infinite) is shutting down”Submitted Saving Zelda as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> This lack of direction can be disorienting at first... But it very quickly turned into a liberating sensation. Tevis Thompson needs more credit for identifying with astute precision the ills inherent in the direction Zeldas were going would we have breath of the wild without this essay: http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/ ; I honestly wonder
Comment linking /saving-zelda/
on “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review”Submitted On Videogame Reviews as a story · 1 points
HN discussionyour review reminded me of a favourite article: http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/
Comment linking /saving-zelda/
on “The Prickly Genius of Jonathan Blow”Submitted Saving Zelda as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe author seems to believe we should adopt a literacy about games very similar to one used when evaluating literature. I think this is incredibly misguided, because they're entirely different mediums (or at least should be). In Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You, he compares video games to word problems, and says video games like word problems should be judged by their cognitive challenges not their li…
Comment linking /saving-zelda/
on “It’s time gamers took gaming more seriously”Game development that happened in the 80s (at least outside of Nintendo) is a beast so far removed from even what indie devs do today alone in a basement that I was fearing this was a retro-love-fest article about distilling game design or something. This article is spot on with great advice, and the cheesy 80s movie motivators work here because they're fun and actually motivating because they're not so serious. For…
Comment linking /saving-zelda/
on “Everything I Learned About Game Development I Learned From the 80s”
