News

JikGuard
Torchlight 3: Data Fixup War Stories
A technical look at a few of the data-related bugs we encountered during Torchlight III’s game development.
Dec. 23, 2020
JikGuard
Who's playing what on PlayStation 5? 2
Want to see the Top 10 PlayStation 5 games played over the last 30 days, with number of sessions and average playtimes, from a sample size of 3,018 active players? We've got that!
Dec. 22, 2020
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Opinion: Game company acquisitions & the 'growth stock bubble' 2
Why are some companies in the game biz - from Embracer Group to Keywords to EG7 & beyond - going on studio buying sprees right now? Should we be worried about it, why is it happening, and what are the larger financial underpinnings?
Dec. 18, 2020
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Switch cracks down (further) on extreme discounting 2
Switch can still be quite a discount-centric platform - especially for games that cost $20-$25 on launch. But Nintendo has made some changes to shut down more egregious discounts - here's how.
Dec. 17, 2020
JikGuard
Spilt Milk Devlog 07 - Fascism Fighters 4000 Post Mortem (Part 2 of 2)
We're going into what went right and what went wrong on our politically-charge, for-charity DLC. It's time for honesty and transparency!
Dec. 17, 2020
JikGuard
Raji: An Ancient Epic & Crossing the Finish Line
Raji: An Ancient Epic is developed by Nodding Head Games. It is an action-adventure storyline, where the human realm is witnessing a demonic invasion. In such a setting, Raji, a young girl, has been chosen as the one to defend humankind and defeat the dem
Dec. 17, 2020
JikGuard
Hands-on: Predicting players' thinking
A hands-on guide to how you predict and control the player's meaning-making by differentiating between cognitive and behavioral goals in sequencing a motivating game space.
Dec. 16, 2020
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Revenue, expenses and statistics of Starlight X-2, a mobile puzzle game
This post details (with actual numbers) the revenue and the expenses of Starlight X-2. It's a mobile puzzle game released on Android and iOS in June 2020.
Dec. 15, 2020
JikGuard
Video Game Music Composers: The Timed Challenge (Pt. 2)
Part two of this two-part article series explores musical approaches to timed challenges in Fail Factory and Spyder. Includes video examples and in-depth discussion of strategies and contrasting techniques.
Dec. 15, 2020
JikGuard
Children and their desired game experiences: A developmental look at game aesthetics
What emotions do children want to experience when they play games? To answer this question, we present a framework that theorizes how game aesthetics evolve as children age, which can be used to design more developmentally appropriate for ages 2 to 17.
Dec. 15, 2020
JikGuard
Taming the wild west of VR: 5 technical lessons learned making the serious game Art Sort in VRChat
We developed a serious game using Social VR application VRChat to see how well the Unity development process could support serious game development. Here are the lessons we learned about the possibilities and limitations of VRChat for serious games.
Dec. 15, 2020
JikGuard
Steam gets 'experimental' with discovery 2
Valve has rolled out its latest Steam Labs experimental feature, which "aims to increase the surface area of the store by introducing a broader set of ways to browse Steam’s catalog of games from the outset." So what's it like?
Dec. 14, 2020