PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 24, 2025

Void Sails by indie developer Ticking Clock Games is a single-player action-adventure RPG that takes players on a thrilling journey through mysterious worlds, where they captain a flying ship across uncharted space. This approach has been key to ensuring that the game stayed on track during the 18 months that it took to build it.

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PreMortem.Games

MAY 1, 2023

BitCake Studio , an indie game development studio based in Brazil, is celebrating its 10th year in the industry. Eduardo Lamhut, the company’s main Game Designer and Creative Director of the upcoming game Atomic Picnic , explains how the company started. We’ve used PUN, Chat, Quantum, and more.

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The Bottom Feeder

MARCH 12, 2025

I finally got around to playing Hades, the megahit roguelike from Supergiant Games. It takes me a long time to build up the energy to pour in the number of hours a game like this requires. Seriously, study this game. Of course, any hit indie game in this decade gets heavily studied and mercilessly copied. )

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Indy Writing Fantasy Fighting 73

Radiator Blog

OCTOBER 13, 2022

Cult of the Lamb by Massive Monster This is a Hades-like / Binding of Issac-ish 2D action roguelike wrapped around a Don't Starve / Rimworld-y town building crafting survival system, with all the subversively violent dark cartoon humor of those references. The cult of the game industry is most powerful of all.

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PreMortem.Games

OCTOBER 30, 2024

In the past, I’ve tried creating a few YouTube channels (starting in 2017) and TikTok accounts, trying to build an audience and, eventually, turn it into a business. I have a lot of respect for solo indie developers, but I often struggle with the limitations and it is not what I want to be doing long-term. How do you deal with that? “

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PreMortem.Games

AUGUST 16, 2023

It’s the debut game of Turkish studio Gorilla Softworks. “We We are building a historically accurate survival strategy game” Gorilla Softworks co-founder Deniz Şakar explains how the team has tried to accurately portray the challenges early humans faced while they looked for ways to survive and thrive. “We

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PreMortem.Games

MAY 21, 2024

There are plenty of city building games around but Fabledom adds a fairytale twist to the genre. Set in a storybook kingdom filled with magical creatures, kings and castles, the game gives players the opportunity to build their own kingdom and find their true love. Making games is hard!” has been released proper.

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Radiator Blog

JUNE 21, 2023

Against the Storm by Eremite Games ( Steam page , official site ) is a popular 2.5D town-building run-based RTS with a Warcraft 3 inspired aesthetic and a deckbuilding meta-game progression. You spend an hour building a base while fulfilling randomized mini-goals for victory points. And it really is a good mechanic.

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Big Games

MARCH 27, 2025

Unreal Engine Here’s an overview of these two dynamic mechanisms that will help you understand what they are, how they work, and the merits they offer to Android programmers: Unity It is a popular game engine renowned for its cross-platform compatibility and intuitive user interface that supports both 2D & 3D game development.

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Engine Engineering Game Developer Game Development 52

PreMortem.Games

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

The game immerses players in a captivating odyssey across worlds within worlds, beckoning them to master the art of world-leaping mechanics to uncover a cosmic mystery. Cocoon is the first venture of Geometric Interactive , a Danish indie studio founded by Carlsen and his ex-Playdead colleague, Jakob Schmid.

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Puzzle Prototyping Art Communications 104

PreMortem.Games

APRIL 10, 2023

There are plenty of city building games around but Fabledom adds a fairytale twist to the genre. Set in a storybook kingdom filled with magical creatures, kings and castles, the game gives players the opportunity to build their own kingdom and find their true love. Making games is hard!”

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Games Build Studios Shaders 104

PreMortem.Games

APRIL 5, 2023

There are plenty of city building games around but Fabledom adds a fairytale twist to the genre. Set in a storybook kingdom filled with magical creatures, kings and castles, the game gives players the opportunity to build their own kingdom and find their true love. Making games is hard!”

Games 104

Games Build Studios Shaders 104

PreMortem.Games

JANUARY 24, 2024

Physics-based 2D platformer Bionic Bay is a collaboration between the Finnish one-man-studio Mureena and Taiwanese indie game company Psychoflow Studio. The game started as a demo shown on Reddit, but picked up momentum when Badland art director Juhana Myllys offered to mix and match his distinct artwork with the gameplay.

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CG Spectrum

NOVEMBER 24, 2022

He decided to start his own indie game development studio, Overwrite Interactive , and create a video game from scratch. For Alan's video game to come to fruition, he needed a team of capable artists to help him. Alan's advice for applying for an Epic MegaGrant is to have a playable build. featured]. [My

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Pixel Art Cinematics Concepts 97

Ask a Game Dev

AUGUST 5, 2024

I think you have the wrong idea about what game designers do. We're not project leads that pitch entire games, we're [ content creators ] that build the bits of specific content in games - the spells, the monsters, the fights, the classes, the races, the quests, the environments, the stats, the companions, and so on.

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Game Design Game Designer Fighting Racing 52

Game Dev Unchained

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

Today, with an impressive team of 32 people, they’re working on Eco , a virtual society game built inside a self-contained ecosystem. The premise is thrilling: “You are building a virtual society inside of an ecosystem,” Krajewski explained. “This is what we’re building with Eco ,” Krajewski said.

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Indy Platformer AAA Education 105

Ask a Game Dev

AUGUST 3, 2023

A level designer doesn't need to create the individual assets, but will need a rock-solid understanding of how the placement of objects and division of space can create places that are intuitive for players to navigate. If he wants to go into the indie space and work with an extremely small team, he's going to need to wear a lot of hats.

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Cinematics Game Design Game Designer Dev 52

Game Wisdom

MAY 2, 2025

Lessons Learned From Clair Obscur’s Success Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" For this critical thought, I talked about the success of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and what you can take away from it when building a game in a popular genre.…

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Build Games Indy Game Design 52

Brand Game Development

MARCH 22, 2021

Many of you who read this blog know that I am self-publishing board game designer who uses Kickstarter as my platform of choice for funding the bulk of my projects. Certainly no surprise if you’ve read some of my articles like A Crash Course on Kickstarter for Board Games. Alternative 1: Go through a Publisher.

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Games Localization Platformer Game Design 130

PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 15, 2023

The game is the debut of Swiss indie game studio Naraven Games. Co founder and writer Julia Jean found inspiration for the game in her fascination for the ordinary. Rubber duck “The puzzles and game design flowed naturally from narrative ideas like ‘we should be able to delete everything!’.

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Puzzle Games Technology Code 104

Big Games

JANUARY 12, 2025

For mobile game developers, remote gaming opens up new opportunities to create resource-intensive games that were previously limited by hardware constraints. By shifting the computational load to the cloud, developers can focus on building innovative features and visually stunning games.

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Mobile Gaming Mobile Mobile Game Developer 52

Interesting Choices

OCTOBER 5, 2011

It's rather surreal to see my name in a list with a bunch of indie luminaries , but hopefully I'll be able to live up to expectations. On Friday I'll be giving a talk at IndieCade alongside Chris Hecker entitled A Dialogue on Depth.

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Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Tile 40

Game Dev Unchained

JULY 5, 2023

Pham and Max delved deep into the world of indie game development, discussing everything from the inception of the game to its surprising success. In fact, their team took a lot of inspiration from games like CS:GO and other tactical shooters, such as Battlefield. “I don’t think [we’re] number one.

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Indy Game Developer Game Development Development 105

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 23, 2023

Postpone pricey acquisitions However, because building up human capital is costly and slow, making cuts following a rushed acquisition is destructive. Unlike the film and music industry, there remains a dire absence of ways for young talent to enter the games industry. Better than, perhaps, to look for alternatives elsewhere first.

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Platformer Games Culling Entertainment 104

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

I assumed it was mostly for fans but after watching all 32 episodes (on 2x speed, skipping some parts) I've changed my mind and now I think it's essential viewing for all game designers / devs. Outside of game design, there's a growing tide against "design thinking" style methods, see "Design thinking was supposed to fix the world.

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PreMortem.Games

MARCH 14, 2023

Young handles everything from overall game design to art and audio, and Ditton does the programming. They build everything from scratch with the exception of some textures and sound effects. This leaves room for imagination when considering different participants, teams, companies, and the types of vehicle they’d build.”

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Racing Concepts Content Art 104

AWS Games

MAY 12, 2023

Come “behind-the-scenes” with AWS GameTime Each episode is hosted live and our Twitch viewers get the chance to directly chat with the creators and game industry veterans of their favorite games. The casual interview setting is the perfect way to ask lots of questions about their game design and game development process.

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Game Developer Game Development AAA Development 72

CG Spectrum

APRIL 3, 2023

Penny was kind enough to share her experience at GDC and why she believes it's such a valuable event for people looking to break into the games industry. GDC is an annual event that brings together programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, and business leaders from around the world.

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Game Developer Game Development Development Games 98

Grumpy Gamer

JANUARY 11, 2018

Continually make great games for a loyal smaller audience (eg. Branch out and make games in different genres? Build Terrible Toybox further and make it a main game studio? Put out artistic games that push boundaries, but don’t necessarily find a large audience? Could be useful for adventure game designers.

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Point and Click Writing Build Dev 130

PreMortem.Games

JULY 12, 2023

is one of the most striking indie games coming out this summer. The developers of Fireplace Games made an early prototype of the game while still in school, but are now well on their way to release it as a full-fledged game. Their banter is another important part of what makes the game come alive.

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Prototyping Games Fantasy Concepts 104

Game Dev Unchained

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

I recalled another architect-turned-developer Roger Lundeen who transitioned into the world of gaming during the early days of Valve and Half-Life. Eric’s foray into gaming began late one night in an architecture studio. He stumbled upon an alpha build of a game called Iconoclasts. ” The tools?

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Indy Pixel AAA Art 64

The Bottom Feeder

JUNE 12, 2024

Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Mountains of Stuff Over the years, I've tended to make my game designs cleaner. One of the best articles ever written about game design is about Magic: The Gathering. Then I will write another game, now that I have been reminded that, yeah, these toys really can be a lot of fun.

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Fighting Writing Puzzle Terrain 100

PreMortem.Games

OCTOBER 23, 2024

Attendees from all corners of the continent -Nigeria to Ethiopia, Tanzania to Ghana, Benin to Rwanda, Sudan to South Africa, Senegal to Kenya, and even beyond, with the West Indies and France present- gathered to celebrate, connect, and learn from one another.

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Esports Games Animation Animation 104

PreMortem.Games

JULY 17, 2023

This is a completely different beast from a shooter.” “ Mordhau at its core has always been about melee combat”, says Jonathan Dunn, Game Designer at Triternion. We couldn’t break the PC version as they share a common data source, which is important for our build process. Completely in control of every movement and strike.

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Brand Game Development

JANUARY 29, 2018

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the thirteenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. This week, I want to zero in on the subject of making the perfect board game rule book.

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Game Design Aspect

JUNE 9, 2021

Roundtable: Creating Non-Toxic Gamer Communities (1 PM Eastern) What game design principles can be used to promote friendlier and harassment-free communities? Join us for a discussion on what strategies game designers can use to create safe virtual spaces that are enjoyable for all players.

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Writing Education Educational Game Design 52

Keith Burgun

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

I was focused hard during this time on learning as much as I could about game design, focused on “efficiency” and elegance in design, which is what brought me to crunchy rulesets like those of designer Eurogames and the indie Rogue-likes-and-company world.

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