A couple years ago, journalist Leigh Alexander gave an impassioned speech at the annual rants portion of the Game Developers Conference. Her point was very simple — if game designers don’t more openly talk about process and kept the workings of their engine and development cycle tighter than Apple’s new product announcements, they would continue to rob the public of greater understanding and appreciation of games. If you don’t understand who makes games and how they’re made, then the fineries of new titles would be lost. Totally on point.

The folks at Gaijin Games must have gotten the message, because their update on the company blog on how art is being built for Runner 2 is a nice inside look. Games need more continuing “behind-the-scenes” projects like this! Understanding how the sausage is made makes us all better critics and ultimately better more discerning players as well.