News

Video Game Deep Cuts: Inside The Cultist Splatterhouse
Video Game Deep Cuts: Inside The Cultist Splatterhouse
This week's highlights include a look at the making of Cultist Simulator, behind the scenes on the relatively recent - and troubled - Splatterhouse reboot, and lots more.
May 28, 2018
Creating realistic Swarms - Boid Movement
Creating realistic Swarms - Boid Movement
Creating realistic, emergent, flock behavior is something that a lot of researches have looked at in the past. Here's how we did it!
May 28, 2018
Designing Highly Replayable Stealth Levels for Payday 2
Designing Highly Replayable Stealth Levels for Payday 2
This post is about how we built highly replayable stealth levels for Payday 2 and the ways we utilized randomization to keep things fresh each playthrough.
May 25, 2018
Developing a procedural dialogue system for Tech Support: Error Unknown
Developing a procedural dialogue system for Tech Support: Error Unknown
Tech Support uses procedurally generated conversations to make dialogue flow naturally between the 200+ customers a player encounters over the course of the game, and adding variance to make every chat feel unique.
May 24, 2018
b r 1: Notes on Translating from Unity to Bitsy
b r 1: Notes on Translating from Unity to Bitsy
In this essay I write about the creation of b r 1 (Bitsy Reality 1), a Bitsy remake of v r 1, a Unity game. I write about the process of development and specific insights into translating a game between radically different game engines.
May 24, 2018
Art Design Deep Dive: Rendering the player as a form of pure energy in Recompile
Art Design Deep Dive: Rendering the player as a form of pure energy in Recompile
Recompile's humanoid protagonist rendered as a form of pure energy, using instanced cube meshes with a custom shader. The result is a unique and iconic art style for Recompile's player character.
May 23, 2018
Group Pathfinding & Movement in RTS Style Games
Group Pathfinding & Movement in RTS Style Games
A practical approach to problems making group movement feel good and coordinated in an RTS style game.
May 22, 2018
Five Productivity Tips for Solo Devs
Five Productivity Tips for Solo Devs
Working solo is hard. Procrastination, distraction and lack of motivation can destroy a project.
May 22, 2018
[ALT CTRL] Game Design Beyond Screens & Joysticks - Game Interaction Loop (2/5)
[ALT CTRL] Game Design Beyond Screens & Joysticks - Game Interaction Loop (2/5)
Tatiana Vilela dos Santos is an indie game designer & interactive artist making games with special interfaces. She gave in March 2018 a 60 minutes talk at the GDC titled Game Design Beyond Screens & Joysticks. This article discusses details of this talk.
May 22, 2018
Video Game Deep Cuts: The Secret Of Harry's Binding
Video Game Deep Cuts: The Secret Of Harry's Binding
This week's highlights include a gigantic video on the seminal The Secret Of Monkey Island, a look at Harry Potter vs. Fortnite in the mobile arena, and the future of The Binding Of Isaac, among many others.
May 21, 2018
The Esoteric Design of Fighting Games
The Esoteric Design of Fighting Games
The average traditional 2D fighting game has usability problems most modern games try to avoid. To help newcomers learn the genre, fighting game developers need to acknowledge the issues and the attempted solutions and work towards a new genre status quo.
May 21, 2018
Here Be Monsters: Producing Tangibly Minatory Creatures in Video Games
Here Be Monsters: Producing Tangibly Minatory Creatures in Video Games
Monsters make for daunting foes whose demeanor stands out from standard baddies, but there's more to a creature than just the level of fear they elicit. This piece by Michel Sabbagh details the art behind making beasts and harnessing their true potential.
May 21, 2018