January, 2025

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The Last Three by Csaba Putnai “Discipline and planning are essential, but don’t forget flexibility”

PreMortem.Games

Hungarian solo developer Csaba Putnai has poured over 3000 hours into his latest project, The Last Three. Its his second game after the release of his debut, Bob A Thousand Lives , which he developed in his forties. The Last Three is a game about the last stone tiger family that lives deep in a magical forest. They are the guardians of balance in the mystical creatures’ realm.

Media 260
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Report: Bend Studio cuts contractors following live-service game cancelation

Game Developer

With its project scrapped, a former Bend contractor alleges the studio has ended all ongoing contracts, save for a 'select few.

Studios 363
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Trending Sources

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Python Game Engines in 2025

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Python Game Engines in 2025 Today we have compiled a list of the best Python game engines, frameworks and language bindings for game development in 2025. This is the first in a series of posts exploring the game engine options available for the most popular programming languages. We will eventually have similar guides for C#, […] The post Python Game Engines in 2025 appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Turning LiveOps Trends Into Actionable Strategies: Deconstruction of Fun Podcast Recap + Bonus Content

Game Refinery

LiveOps has become a cornerstone of player engagement and revenue growth in the gaming industry, but what truly sets top-performing strategies apart? To answer this question, GameRefinery’s Chief Game Analyst, Erno Kiiski, joined forces with industry experts Jen Donahoe (DoF), Nadav Moshes (Playtika), and Maxime Graux (Wooga) on the latest episode of the Deconstruction of Fun podcast.

Content 131
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Dev snapshot: Godot 4.4 beta 1

Mircosoft Game Dev

We have reached the first beta release for the 4.4 release cycle. This officially marks the start of feature freeze for 4.4. This means contributors are encouraged to focus their efforts on fixing regressions and other outstanding bugs. We wont risk merging any new features or risky bug fixes until after we release 4.4 and begin preparing for 4.5. We will aim to release 4.4 in around a month, but as usual, this timeline will depend on how quickly we are able to fix the outstanding bugs and what

Beta 106
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Damage Poll

Grumpy Gamer

I recently asked on Mastodon how a player would expect damage to be computed in an RPG. (base_damage + extra_damage) * damage_buff or (base_damage * damage_buff) + extra_damage General consensus is there was no consensus. The one thing people did agree on was that the skill/weapon description should say what the order of operation is. Fair enough. I am worried about the amount of information that needs to be conveyed to players.

Dev 130
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Solo developer Voidmaw on creating Katanaut: “Done is better than perfect”

PreMortem.Games

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. Ive always loved creating things, and game development felt like the perfect mix of art, storytelling, and problem-solving, he explains.

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The Marvelous Monetization of Marvel’s Contest of Champions

Game Wisdom

The Marvelous Monetization of Marvel’s Contest of Champions Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com I’ve talked a lot about big names in the mobile and live service space: Digital Extremes, Grinding Gear Games, and of course the entire Hoyoverse. But there is one other game that has been one of the longest-lasting in the … The post The Marvelous Monetization of Marvel’s Contest of Champions appeared first on Game Wisdom.

Mobile 105
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LÖVR 3D Lua Game Development Framework

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com LVR 3D Lua Game Development Framework Today we are checking out LVR, a free and open source 3D Lua game and VR development framework heavily inspired by LVE. LVE is a popular 2D game development framework, recently made famous for powering the smash indie hit Belatro. LVR takes the ease of use of LVE and brings […] The post LVR 3D Lua Game Development Framework appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Godot C# packages move to.NET 8

Mircosoft Game Dev

A new version of.NET is released in November each year, alternating Long Term Support (LTS) and Standard Term Support (STS) releases. The quality of all releases is the same. The only difference is the length of support. LTS releases are supported for 3 years, while STS releases are supported for 18 months. With the release of Godot 4.0, we moved our C# packages from targeting Mono to.NET 6.

Bug 77
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Level-Up Mood Board Creation with Miro and Amazon Bedrock – Part 2

AWS Games

This blog is co-written by Sean Winters, Senior Platform Architect, Miro. Creation of mood boards can feel overly complex or take a lot of time to create and iterate on. Well show how you can integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, image generation models, directly in a Miro board using Amazon Bedrock APIs, enabling better iteration and collaboration.

AI 62
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Biomorph by Lucid Dream Studio brings innovation to the Metroidvania genre 

PreMortem.Games

In Biomorph , players can assume the shape and skills of defeated enemies, employing their powers to combat other monsters or traverse uncharted territories. This unique ability, previously unseen in Metroidvania games, represents a significant innovation for the genre that the creators at Canadian indie game company Lucid Dreams Studio so love. In the team, everyone is a fan of Metroidvania, says Brand Manager Rayanne Berriche of Lucid Dreams Studio.

Studios 104
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Astro Bot and Helldivers II headline the 2025 DICE Awards nominations

Game Developer

The two Sony-published titles are nominated for DICE's best game of 2024 alongside Indiana Jones, Balatro, and Black Myth: Wukong.

Games 363
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As a AAA dev, what is a task *outside* of the actual game development that is underrated but super critical to your job? Beyond coding, arting, programming, modeling, and QA…ing. (Obviously aside from hiring people.)

Ask a Game Dev

This might sound contrived, but one of the most valuable skills for any developer will always be communicating effectively. The vast majority of my work is collaborating with other people - people with differing attention levels, goals, personalities, priorities, and internal ways of thinking. Being able to understand their stated and unstated intentions and feelings is important, both for me to cooperate with them as people and also to do the work.

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SDL 3 Released

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com SDL 3 Released SDL, or the Simple DirectMedia Layer is one of the most important open-source game development frameworks and they just released SDL 3. Well technically it’s SDL 3.2.0, but it is the first production ready version of the SDL 3 branch. Key features of SDL 3 include: If you are migrating […] The post SDL 3 Released appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

Feature 97
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Our first GodotCon in the US - Save the date!

Mircosoft Game Dev

Up until now, we held all of our annual GodotCon events in Europe, but after the request of many of you and thanks to help from Boston Game Dev and the Boston Godot Users Group , we are finally able to bring the event to the US for the first time. Information Dates 5th, 6th, 7th of May Time 8AM - 6PM Location Boston, Massachusetts Venue Microsoft NERD. 1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA 02142, United States Call for speakers and sponsors If you would like to be a part of the conference by giving a

Editing 74
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Developer’s Guide to operate game servers on Kubernetes – Part 2

AWS Games

Game server infrastructure has reached a critical inflection point. Traditional virtual machine deployments are no longer sufficient for todays dynamic gaming environments that require live operations with fast, frequent, and efficient updates. Modern technologies, like Kubernetes, are empowering game operations teams to be efficient. Part 1 of this blog series explored how containerization and Kubernetes on Amazon Web Services (AWS) revolutionizes game operations with scalable solutions.

Games 57
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Solo developer Elwin Gorman (Hiwarp) “Everything I do comes from my heart”

PreMortem.Games

Hiwarp is an indie game studio based in Spain, run by solo game developer Elwin Gorman. He is known for the charming black and white game PiAwk , about a caged bird thats looking for freedom. His next game is called Naiad. In it you guide a freshwater nymph down a river and explore all its beauty and secrets at your own pace. That premise has a lot in common with the way Gorman likes to work.

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U.S. Department of Defense adds Tencent to list of 'Chinese military companies'

Game Developer

The tech and video game conglomerate has insisted the move is a 'mistake.

Games 363
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Godot Tactics RPG – 12. Stat Panel

The Liquid Fire

7thSage again. This time we’ll be creating some more UI elements. We’ve been working with stats for a few lessons now, and its time we created something to show at least some of them. We’ll create a pair of panels to show the character’s name, level, HP and MP values. We’ll be mostly using the primary panel for now. The secondary panel we’ll use later for the target of an action.

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Defold Engine Adds C# Support

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Defold Engine Adds C# Support The nearly open-source free Defold game engine just released Defold 1.9.7 and the highlight feature of this release is C# support! This isn’t replacing Lua as the primary scripting language, in fact it’s not a scripting language at all, instead enabling you to easily make game extensions using the C# […] The post Defold Engine Adds C# Support appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Dev snapshot: Godot 4.4 beta 2

Mircosoft Game Dev

Weve been keeping busy these past two weeks squashing the bugs that cropped up in 4.4 beta 1. Despite how much the previous snapshot added, it bears repeating that we have entered the 4.4 feature freeze, so our energy has been focused on addressing any new regressions or the aforementioned bugs. Were still aiming for a release sometime next month, but that all depends on how effectively new bugs get reported during this period.

Beta 67
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Entire God is a Geek editorial staff walk out and cut ties with alt-right founder

GamesIndustry.biz

The entire editorial staff of God is a Geek has quit en-masse after its founder, Calvin Robinson, mimicked a Nazi salute at an event last week, causing a widespread backlash that resulted in him losing his position in the Angelican church and impacting the work of the site still associated with his name.

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Marketing manager Joana Keler: “Social media is your game’s best friend”

PreMortem.Games

Joanna Keler is a freelance Marketing Manager who worked on titles like This War of Mine and Frostpunk by 11 bit Studios and Best Month Ever by Klabater. During her talk at IndieGameBusiness Sessions she talked about incorporating social media as a vital marketing tool. According to Keler its important to set goals for yourself. There are various ways to make sure social media plays a vital role in your overall marketing plan.

Media 104
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It looks like someone at Activision is leaking Slack screenshots to right-wing X users

Game Developer

Far-right users of X (formerly Twitter) are singling out individual Activision Blizzard employees for comments made in support of DEI and inclusion at the company.

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How do developers handle the removal of softlocking (I.E. the player places themselves in an inescapable position where they cannot progress in the game or backtrack to escape their situation)? Is the removal of softlocks treated the same way as glitches for developers or are they treated differently?

Ask a Game Dev

The situation you describe isnt actually soft locking. What youre describing is the player getting, to use the highly technical term, stuck. That said, there are a lot of possible situations where the player achieves a state where they cannot play the game. While the overall result might look similar, the causes are usually very different and thus require different sorts of solutions. #1: Freeze or Hard Lock This occurs when all visible activity for the game stops - no more screen updates, input

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New Blender Plugin Adds Photoshop Styling Painting

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com New Blender Plugin Adds Photoshop Styling Painting There is a new plugin for Blender, Paint System by Tawan Sunflower that enables you to paint directly on your 3D models in Blender using a very familiar system to Photoshop users. Best of all the add-on is completely free although it does require a newish version of Blender to […] The post New Blender Plugin Adds Photoshop Styling Painting appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Mobile 3D Games vs. Console Games: What’s the Future of Mobile Gaming?

Big Games

The gaming world is changing fast, and mobile phones are leading the charge. Not too long ago, we could only dream of playing high-quality 3D games on our phones. However, now it is possible with a blink of an eye, just one click away from your hands. Mobile gaming becomes more impressive with every new smartphone release, making traditional gaming methods out of vogue.

Mobile 52
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EA Origin to shut down in April 2025

GamesIndustry.biz

EA Origin will shut down on April 17, 2025, as a result of Microsoft no longer supporting 32-bit software.

Software 145
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We. The Refugees: Ticket to Europe by Act Zero is a redemption for its maker

PreMortem.Games

Jdrzej Napiecek was not in a good place. 25 years old, fresh out of script writing studies and feeling detached from society. To be honest, he just felt so useless. He desperately needed change, something to reinvent himself. In 2014 he started hearing stories of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean. It was horrendous and he felt the drive to get involved.

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Video Game History Foundation launches digital library for 'anyone who wants to study games'

Game Developer

Design documents, press kits, and other materials are freely avaialbe in the VGHF Library for 'anyone who wants to study video game history.

Games 344
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Godot Tactics RPG – 11. Jobs

The Liquid Fire

7thSage again. This time we’ll be working on adding a job system. Providing different stats and growth characteristics depending on which job a unit has. We’ll be loading in a.csv file, and creating a prefab for each job in code. We’ll also be adding some of the elements from the last couple lessons to our actual game characters. There is a lot of things we can add to a job system, but for now we’ll focus on the starting stats of each, and their growth rates.

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Godot Script IDE Add-On

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Godot Script IDE Add-On Today we are looking at a free and open-source add-on for the Godot game engine called Script-IDE. In a nutshell this plugin makes the GDScript coding experience in the Godot editor a much more pleasant experience by adding several editing experiences you except to find in a tool like Visual […] The post Godot Script IDE Add-On appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

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Frame Drop Issue on Web Platform in Cocos Creator 3.8.3 or Later Versions

Cocos

While developing a web client using Cocos Creator version 3.8.4, I discovered intermittent frame drops during execution. Although the reproduction video shows that the issue occurs at similar intervals, the actual occurrences are irregular. Additionally, the frame drops persist throughout the execution rather than happening only once. Is there a solution to this issue?

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Microsoft to lay off unknown number of staff

GamesIndustry.biz

Microsoft has announced another round of layoffs, affecting staff in its gaming, security, and sales divisions.

Games 145
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Profiling the Unity Beast: Sampling vs Instrumentation

The GameDev Guru

Ever wondered why your Unity game lags? Discover the secret tools that tame performance woes!

Games 130
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Ubisoft kicks off bid to 'maximize value creation' with layoffs and studio closure

Game Developer

185 employees are expected to lose their jobs as a result of downsizing across Europe.

Studios 340