Sat.Apr 06, 2024 - Fri.Apr 12, 2024

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Slay the Spire devs followed through on abandoning Unity

Game Developer

Unity's Runtime Fee debacle cost it the trust of several indie developers, and led to Slay the Spire 2 being made in Godot.

Dev 364
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Detective Dotson by Masala Games is a cultural joyride through modern-day India

PreMortem.Games

When you live in a country that houses twenty percent of the entire world’s population, yet hardly see a genuine and honest representation of that country in video games, it’s time to take matters into your own hands. And that’s precisely what Shalin Shodhan is doing with his studio, Masala Games. In the outlandish adventure game Detective Dotson , modern-day India plays an equally significant role as the titular hero.

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EA raising price of EA Play subscription

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Electronic Arts is increasing the price for its EA Play subscription service, GamesIndustry.biz understands. The standard EA Play tier will increase from $4.99 / £3.99 per month to $5.99 / £5.99, with the annual fee rising from $29.99 / £19.99 to $39.99 / £35.99.

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Visual Studio Code March Update

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Visual Studio Code March Update There has been another impressive update to Visual Studio Code. The March 2024 release adds several impressive new features, including: Apply custom editor labels – Distinguish between editors with same file names.Locked scrolling – Compare editors side-by-side with synchronized scrolling.Extension update improvements – Restart extensions without reload & update extensions […] The post Visual Studio Code March Update

Code 129
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What the game industry must do to prevent occupational burnout

Game Developer

Game industry working conditions are improving, but occupational burnout still runs amok. Studios and workers have the power to slow it down.

Studios 362
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Solo dev Walter Woods (Here Below) of Dark and Deep “Strategic partners are crucial” 

PreMortem.Games

In the upcoming first person horror game Dark and Deep players take on the role of an underachieving IT guy who gets caught up in a conspiracy podcast. As he delves deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, the real and surreal merge in a nightmarish world filled with weird creatures and deadly secrets. Solo developer Walter Woods , working under the name of Here Below , used the distinctive black and white illustrations of 19th century artist, Gustave Doré as the textures for much of the game.

Dev 151
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Taking layoffs too lightly | This Week in Business

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox This Week in Business is our weekly recap column , a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry. This industry takes layoffs too lightly.

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Obituary: Jeremías Babini, Storyteller co-designer, has passed away

Game Developer

Babini's decades-long career includes original games like Storyteller and Piopow, and various Cartoon Network games for Flash and HTML5.

Games 355
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How Fika Productions set sail with their peer-to-peer multiplayer hit Ship of Fools

Unity Blog

Learn how Fika Productions overcame development hurdles to transition Ship of Fools from a local couch co-op into an engaging multiplayer roguelite.

Co-op 111
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Lisette Titre-Montgomery: "We will keep knocking on doors and pitching until we find the right person"

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Finding VC support for your studio is complex, and it gets thornier when trying to find a partner that aligns with your views and culture. The difficulty gets further compounded when your studio's founders don't belong to demographic groups that investment firms have commonly supported.

Studios 144
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Spellstorm Character Profiles: Croh Vosh

Keith Burgun

Narratively speaking, Croh Vosh is probably the most important character in the game. At the end of Gem Wizards Tactics, the Omni-Gem was destroyed. This was a great thing for those battling the oppressive occupation of the Business Demons on the western continent, which had largely been enabled by the Omni-Gem’s magic. Eve Williams and Derby Pocket (both Dragon Bridge characters, also in Spellstorm) decided that the best thing to do would be to destroy the Omni-Gem, and so they did, with

Mechanics 111
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Crash 4: It's About Time has sold over 5 million copies

Game Developer

Crash Bandicoot's 2020 return was more successful than you may have believed.

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Anima Flux Demo Update 2

Indie DB

Attention all gamers and adventurers alike, brace yourselves for an electrifying update in the realm of co-op metroidvania games! Prepare to plunge into a 2D platformer like no other as Anima Flux unveils its latest Demo, promising an adrenaline-fueled.

Demo 110
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The accidental, inimitable success of Monument Valley

GamesIndustry.biz

This April marks the tenth anniversary of Ustwo Games' breakout hit, Monument Valley. The qualities that make Monument Valley a great game are multifaceted, every aspect of it potentially worth dissecting, from its art direction to its narrative design to its minimalism. But there's something particularly special to be said about its main mechanic, and the pure joy of experiencing its optical illusion puzzles for the first time, seeing reality shift before your eyes.

Puzzle 144
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Cosmic storms and galactic monsters in Pastaspace Interactive’s Underspace

PreMortem.Games

The creator of the ‘open world lovecraftian spacefighter RPG’ Underspace calls it a ‘vast freaky universe,’ and even that might be an understatement. This sci-fi world is not only rooted in science but goes full-on supernatural. Expect cosmic storms and massive space monsters to try to take a bite out of your spaceship. “I find something that doesn’t belong in space normally, and then I put it in space.

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How to build branching narrative without breaking the bank

Game Developer

Freelance game writer and narrative designer Nessa Cannon wants devs to know they can craft meaningful narrative choices without overscoping.

Build 349
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GolfGambit: Mini-Golf with a Twist!

Indie DB

GolfGambit is an electrifying mini-golf experience with a twist! Strategize and set traps before each round to gain the upper hand or throw off your opponents. Get ready to unleash chaos on the green with GolfGambit!

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Xbox forms new game preservation and platforms teams, moves AI division under hardware

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox At a glance Microsoft has seen more changes behind the scenes, including the creation of two new teams dedicated to experiences and platforms, as well as game preservation.

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Pricing Starter Packs: When Conversion is King, We May Price Too Low

Deconstructor of Fun

Guest post by Julian Runge , Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and Principal Scientist at Game Data Pros I went out and asked game and app developers how they price their starter packs, and to find out why they do so. Read on to learn about the results. Good starter packs are indispensable for effective freemium monetization. But, in the heat of marketing and live operations, too strong a focus on conversion can lead you to price your starter packs too low.

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'Distributed' studio Possibility Space abruptly shut down by Prytania Media

Game Developer

Possibility Space, like Crop Circle, was shut down years after starting up, and before it could finish its debut project.

Media 342
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Jawbreaker: Releasing April 23rd!

Indie DB

Jawbreaker is almost here! The launch of the full game will on April 23rd at 2:00pm(CST)!

Games 99
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Helldivers 2 drives UK March game sales up 26% | UK Monthly Charts

GamesIndustry.biz

3.65 million PC and console games were sold across the UK during March, an impressive rise of 26% over the same period in 2023. GSD data, which tracks all physical sales and digital sales from most major publishers, reveals that for a second consecutive month, Sony's Helldivers 2 was the best-selling video game. After eight weeks, the game's sales are now trending ahead of where Spider-Man 2 (Sony's last big release) was after the same length of time.

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Smash Indie Hit Sequel Slay the Spire 2 Made with Godot

Game From Scratch

GameFromScratch.com Smash Indie Hit Sequel Slay the Spire 2 Made with Godot The sequel to the smash hit indie deck building game Slay the Spire was just announced at the Triple-I showcase. The reason why this is relevant to game developers is MegaCrit are one of the many developers that spoke out after the Unity runtime pricing change releasing the following statement: […] The post Smash Indie Hit Sequel Slay the Spire 2 Made with Godot appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

Indy 96
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Avalanche Studios devs form bargaining agreement with Swedish unions

Game Developer

Avalanche Studios CEO Stefanía Halldórsdóttir said the bargaining agreements help the studio "[become] one of the best workplaces in the games industry.

Studios 340
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A look ahead at spatial computing with Owlchemy Labs

Unity Blog

Unity sits down with Andrew Eiche, CEOwl of Owlchemy Labs, to discuss spatial computing and tips for porting a game to Apple Vision Pro.

Games 94
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Possibility Space shuts down

GamesIndustry.biz

Possibility Space has shut down, according to former employees. News of the developer's demise was posted by a former employee on social media , and confirmed separately to GamesIndustry.biz by another developer impacted by the closure. The closure comes just weeks after parent company Prytania Media formally shut down its Crop Circle Games studio.

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Steel Republic Rail Defender

Indie DB

The first release of Steel Republic Rail Defender will be coming soon. Here are some details about what that will include.

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Ascendant Studios has reportedly furloughed majority of its staff

Game Developer

The Immortals of Aveum studio has allegedly let go of "nearly 30" of its staff that remained after its layoffs in August 2023.

Studios 338
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Picking Apart Baldur's Gate 3, Part 2 (Talkin' 'Bout D&D)

The Bottom Feeder

I’ve been doing some thinking and I’ve got some ideas to improve Dungeons & Dragons. One. Whenever Shadowheart’s not in the game, all the other characters should be asking, “ Where’s Shadowheart ?” It's always a huge holiday for me when a turn-based, story-heavy RPG manages to break through and be popular with the Normals.

Writing 93
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Games London's Ensemble 2024 cohort announced

GamesIndustry.biz

Eight games professionals to be featured in the 2024 Ensemble Exhibition have been unveiled by the organisers of London Games Festival. Launched in 2018, Ensemble spotlights the talent and creativity of Black, Asian, and underrepresented ethnicities working in the UK games industry. The Ensemble initiative will be showcased as an outdoor installation at Trafalgar Square on Saturday, April 13, followed by an exhibition at WASD from Thursday, April 25 to Saturday, April 27 at the Truman Brewery.

Games 142
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Spider Fox released on Steam!

Indie DB

A single player game about a Mad Scientist who has combined all animals through the land

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Still in Embracer's custody, Gearbox Publishing rebrands to Arc Games

Game Developer

Arc plans to keep publishing indie games and be involved in titles previously published under the Gearbox banner.

Indy 338
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Bring more players into your game with Unity Multiplayer Services

Unity Blog

Learn how we're investing in Unity Multiplayer Services to support the growing number of developers creating incredible multiplayer games with a flexible, extensible suite of tools and services.

Games 88
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Saber's Matthew Karch: "The AAA model is going to change"

GamesIndustry.biz

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox The games industry's current troubles have been well documented by this point and, looking at the release slate for the rest of the year, you'd be forgiven for thinking there's not much cause for optimism on the horizon. While there are still a number of AAA games heading to consoles and PC by the end of the year, it's currently a quieter line-up than we would historically expect and some heavy hitters that are most lik

AAA 140
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Plague: London 1665 - DEMO out

Indie DB

Unearth secrets in 1665 London's eerie streets. Immerse yourself in our free Plague: London 1665 demo. Discover the city's darkest hour.

Demo 91
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CD Projekt boss says the studio needed to change how it makes games

Game Developer

CD Projekt joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski explains how the Cyberpunk developer is learning from the past while looking to the future.

Studios 336
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Designer Notes 81: Jake Solomon – Part 2

Designer Notes

In this episode, Soren interviews veteran game developer Jake Solomon, best known for the XCOM reboot and Midnight Suns. They discuss his first, failed attempt at XCOM, why 75% does not mean 75%, and how many copies of XCOM he sold at Power Gamer in Glen Burnie, MD. This episode was recorded on April 26, 2023.