Pantaloon helps out indie devs with free resource hub
Game Developer
AUGUST 15, 2024
The publishing hub offers indie teams everything they need to take a crack at self-publishing, from pitch decks to roadmaps and playtest frameworks.
Dev Game Developer Playtesting 
Playtesting and Record Keeping
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 25, 2016
Game development is iterative. Making a great game requires soliciting and intelligently processing feedback. Write down what people say, update your game, and save a new copy. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Who played?
Playtesting 
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Solo dev Patrik Nagy on his game Backrooms Media “No amount of playtesting is ever enough”
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 9, 2024
Patrik Nagy , a 20-year-old software development student from Hungary, began working on simple games at age 12, driven by a passion for programming and game development. No amount of playtesting is ever enough,” he says. “I Why did you become a solo developer? “I I have always been a solo developer.
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Solo developer Voidmaw on creating Katanaut: “Done is better than perfect”
PreMortem.Games
JANUARY 30, 2025
Eugene, the solo developer behind Voidmaw , has spent three years crafting Katanaut , a fast-paced action-roguelite where players embody a katana-wielding astronaut fighting to escape a collapsing space station. As a one-person team, he embraces both the creative freedom and the intense challenges that come with solo development.
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Dev Diary: 03/31/17
Brand Game Development
MARCH 31, 2017
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Naturally, this game is nowhere remotely close to completion. Some game designers – and I count myself among them – consider to be win conditions pretty important to games.
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How to Use Reddit as a Board Game Dev
Brand Game Development
JULY 9, 2018
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. To help us understand the nuances of Reddit, particularly board game Reddit, I’ve brought in Raf Cordero. Brandon: Assume you’re talking to a game developer who’s never used Reddit before.
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SenAm Games is developing Al-Sirah, a game that educates young muslims about the Islam
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 28, 2025
Founded in 2018 by CEO Senad Hrnjadovic, SenAm Games is an independent game development studio based in Munich, Germany. We have a solid track record of developing and releasing three games in the last seven years, including client work, Hrnjadovic says. That is if they can get the financing in place.
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AWS to showcase tools for breakthrough gaming experiences at GDC 2025
AWS Games
MARCH 13, 2025
Experience first-hand how Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Games helps build breakthrough gaming experiences at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), March 17-21, 2025 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Meet with AWS for Games experts to learn about the transformational power of generative AI and cloud game development.
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Solo dev Almar works on debut game Repunk “I’ve had some darker moments”
PreMortem.Games
NOVEMBER 17, 2023
For some, the idea of developing a game alone is daunting. Yet, for indie dev Almar, it offered an escape from the corporate rat race he felt trapped in. Sadly, the reality of the business showed me that the type of games that pay the rent weren’t the type of experiences I wanted to create”, he says.
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12 Simple Ways To Get Better At Game Development
DameDev.tv
DECEMBER 12, 2022
Do you ever wonder how you can get better at game development? If so, keep reading for some great tips and watch the Livecast for all 12 ways to get better at game development. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's
Solo dev Rohan Nowell of Doggy Don’t Care “Just start building and ideas will come”
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
I play games (old and new) to get inspiration and bounce ideas off my wife and friends. I also released the demo on Steam early (after invite-only playtesting) so I can gather feedback from real players. How do you stay motivated through (years of) development? Making the game and brainstorming ideas is fun and silly.
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Oscar Salandin, developer of BOTSU Ridicuous Robots: “Solo dev can be lonely”
PreMortem.Games
JULY 29, 2024
Oscar Salandin , known as Peculiar Pixels, received a major validation for his debut game, BOTSU Ridiculous Robots , by being named the Overall Winner at the Develop Indie Showcase Awards 2024. The English solo developer began his journey right after the Pandemic. Inevitably, I’ve gone over time and over budget,” he says.
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How to Identify & Fix Problems with Your Board Game
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 25, 2021
I’ve written before about the usefulness of documenting your playtesting. It contains both pragmatic advice and a primer to the mindset I want you to take into playtesting. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Don’t interfere.
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Creating the First Version of Game Rules
Brand Game Development
APRIL 7, 2017
I’m trying something different on the Dev Diary. I’ll be explaining my development processes for this game so that you can learn from them. I’ll be explaining my development processes for this game so that you can learn from them. We’re in this together, game devs.
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Final Factory by Never Games takes automation into space and adds bullet-hell
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 19, 2024
Things were getting serious three years later when Ryding decided to quit his job as a software engineer and work full time as a game developer. One of my close friends, Ches Denison, joined me working 5-10 hours a week as a playtester, game designer, and just a general jack-of-all-trades-guy.
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Theme vs. Mechanics
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 28, 2016
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Theme and mechanics are inseparable parts of board games as a whole. Then you can start developing mechanics. Through playtesting, you can answer the question “do the mechanics suit the theme?”.
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What’s the point of board game reviews?
Brand Game Development
MAY 1, 2017
One of the most jarring experiences for new game developers is the process of getting their game reviewed. Drama aside, it truly is difficult at first because you have to identify reviewers, send prototypes, make sure your game is ready enough, cross your fingers, and hope they like it. You can keep a dev diary.
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Bringing it Together – The Board Game as a Project
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 2, 2018
Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the ninth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Games are more than just what’s in the box. Who is Carla?
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Why Gamification Makes Everything Else More Fun
Brand Game Development
JUNE 3, 2019
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. For that reason, I’ve brought in Sean Fallon, Founder & CEO of Smunchy Games and User Experience (UX) Designer extraordinaire. That’s a complex question. In this particular case, gamification.
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7 Lessons from Monopoly for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
MARCH 9, 2020
When board gamers need a game to mercilessly mock , they look no further than Monopoly. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Monopoly is a bad game, but have a little respect. Watch your playtesters’ reactions.
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6 Ways to Find Play-Testers for Your New Board Game
Brand Game Development
APRIL 27, 2020
” Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Before you ask people to play-test your game, bear in mind the following advice. Two groups that come to mind are the Tabletop Game Playtesters Guild and Card & Board Game Designers Guild.
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Double Fine PsychOdyssey recaps / viewing guide, episodes 01-17
Radiator Blog
MARCH 16, 2023
Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.
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10 Elements of Good Game Design
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
When I was a neophyte game developer, I found an excellent article by Wizards of the Coast, creators of Magic: the Gathering , called Ten Things Every Game Needs. No matter what type of game you’re making, these 10 elements are critical to making a good game. Need help on your board game?
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‘Yar’s Rising’ and Reimagining Classics for Game Development with James Montagna | 347
Game Dev Unchained
MAY 21, 2024
. “It’s about capturing the essence of what made the original game special and reinterpreting it for today’s audience.” ” This philosophy is at the he art of WayForward’s approach to game development, where reverence for gaming history is matched by a passion for innovation.
How to Make Board Game Rules
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
Now it’s time to start tweaking board game rules. This is where board game design often becomes very tricky. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. With this in mind, let’s talk about how exactly you can make board game rules.
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How to Turn Your Ideas Into Reality
Brand Game Development
APRIL 20, 2020
A couple of weeks ago, I asked the readers of this blog to send in answers to the question “ what confuses you most about board game development ?” Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. ” And, wow, did you all deliver!
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Why Board Game Publishers Like Some Games and Don’t Like Others
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 3, 2018
Yet the process, so heavy on rejection, has left many game designers heartbroken. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Board game publishers have to sort good from bad. They could be manufacturers, retailers, designers, or playtesters.
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3 Signs It’s Time to Quit Working a Board Game Design Idea
Brand Game Development
MARCH 29, 2021
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. If you don’t consistently work to improve, you won’t make the game you want to make. Now look, some parts of game design – like playtesting or accessibility testing – can be tedious.
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Choose Your Own Adventure: Self-Publish Board Games or Not?
Brand Game Development
MARCH 16, 2020
To get the Start to Finish series going, I’ve spent some time discussing games, game development, and the amount of careful messaging that is needed to create and sell a great game. At this point, you may be beginning to have some healthy doubts about the benefits and drawbacks of self-publishing a game.
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How to Get Started with Board Game Conventions as a Board Game Creator, Part 1
Brand Game Development
JUNE 11, 2018
As such, board game developers often find their own interest in conventions piqued. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. I’ve also been to some game conferences with the game as well as some small game development competitions.
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When it comes to copy writing (for press and pitches) forget the fluff and start to BLUF
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 19, 2024
This article is part of the game-dev advice newsletter Levelling the Playing Field by Rami Ismail. If you want to know more about the art, craft and science of game development, subscribe here. The newsletter is free but you can support the existence of LTPF with a small subscription fee.
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The Story of Battlebit Remastered with Max Fink (theliquidhorse)
Game Dev Unchained
JULY 5, 2023
This episode is sponsored by [link] 56% off subscription 20% for one-time purchases with my code GAMEDEV20 Introducing a special guest Max Fink, one of the developers behind the steam sensation, Battle Bit Remastered. Community-Driven Game Development Max spoke candidly about their journey.
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My friend is making an arcade racer and I’ve been playtesting his builds for him. He didn’t go into it thinking it’d be easy but there’s a ton of things he didn’t at all realize would be a headache going into it. Obviously all games are hard to make but some are more apparent about their daunting nature. Which genres are deceptively difficult even if reasonably possible by a small indie team? What surprised you when you hit the big leagues?
Ask a Game Dev
JANUARY 23, 2024
Whenever I do solo dev work, the feature that always takes the longest and tends to require the most work to get something playable by actual players is the UI. Small-team dev also tends to build more system-driven games because it's more dev-time-efficient than creating single-use narrative-driven content.
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Schedule for GodotCon 2018 in Pozna?
Mircosoft Game Dev
OCTOBER 7, 2018
The organizers of the Game Industry Conference (which is also in Poznań just after GodotCon) are letting us use their great venue, and it will be a great opportunity to get together with Godot users and core developers (our lead dev Juan Linietsky is coming from Argentina). All core devs as tutors.
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Cover Your Kingdom: Adapting a Well-Loved Game for a New Market
Brand Game Development
JUNE 20, 2019
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Allow me to introduce you to Jeff Beck of Grandpa Beck’s Games. You might know their company through Cover Your Assets , their breakout game. It is also currently on Kickstarter!
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Godot Tutorial: The Basics For Beginners
SOVEREIGN MOON
OCTOBER 12, 2020
In this introductory tutorial series, we’ll teach beginners how to use the basic controls within Gogot’s game engine. Godot is a free and open source game development software that game devs can use to make beautiful 2D and 3D games. . Want to Make Video Games? Do you love game design?
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Wrapping up 2024 • Celebrating the life and works of solo developers
PreMortem.Games
DECEMBER 24, 2024
Here at PreMortem.Games, we have great admiration for developers who tackle the entire game development cycle on their own. Because, lets be honest, creating games is hard and it takes a special kind of developer to choose the solo path. I dont want to work on my game 7 days a week.
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Results of the Godot Jam - June 2018
Mircosoft Game Dev
JULY 2, 2018
After three days of intensive game development and two weeks of playtesting and rating (over 3,500 ratings!), we now have the results for our June 2018 Godot Community Game Jam ! 110 participants developed games with Godot Engine on the theme TEMPERATURE. Stay tuned for infos regarding our next jam!
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Building a multiplayer game with Amazon GameSparks and Amazon GameLift
AWS Games
JULY 26, 2022
This is the responsibility of a game backend. Amazon GameSparks is a fully managed AWS service that provides a backend for game developers, allowing them to focus on building their game and leave managing and scaling cloud infrastructure to GameSparks. Setting up the game backend by importing the snapshot JSON.
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What Do Board Game Retailers Care About the Most?
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 9, 2019
Molly's latest game, The Million Dollar Doodle, is live on Kickstarter! In my game development experience, I’ve never sought out retail distribution. But even still, I feel that not talking about what board game retailers want is a glaring omission in Start to Finish. We had no experience in the game industry.
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Solo dev Jason Nicot on his new project Sanctua “A more mature party game”
PreMortem.Games
MAY 24, 2024
Jason Nicot , a French solo game developer operating under the name Choose Red , recently announced his latest game Sanctua. In this co-op multiplayer game a group of players have to work together to escape a cursed tomb. He went into transportation management, but game development never really left his mind.
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How to Work in a Team in the Board Game Industry
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 23, 2017
I’ve talked about the benefits and challenges of working alone in the board game industry. Yet I’m a bit of an odd beast in the board game development world since most people prefer to work in teams. Need help on your board game? I’m a designer, and I do development and social media outreach.
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How to Test Your Storytelling Powers & Make People Connect with Your Board Games
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 26, 2017
Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the eighth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Playtesting storytelling. Dylan: You’re welcome.
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To Hell and back with Solium Infernum by League of Geeks
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 7, 2024
With Solium Infernum, Australian game developer League of Geeks has revived Vic Davis’ PC cult classic from 2009. A strategy game of politics, intrigue, and betrayal in which players take on the role of a powerful fallen Archfiend and do everything in their power to conquer the Throne of Hell.
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