Behold the Presale Crunchpocalypse

In this mid-week edition of the GameDev Breakdown podcast, we examine a chaotic update to the SNES Classic Edition story, Xbox One X goes live with pre-orders of its own, and a AAA game industry veteran promotes his new book and praises crunch time in the game industry.

Read more

The Legend of Extreme Paintbrawl’s Mysterious Soundtrack

I was talking shop with a close friend recently about OST composition (he’s an extraordinary musician, producer, and almost certainly one of my studio’s future composers) when he brought up a desire to compose a game soundtrack he would really enjoy listening to, even when he’s not playing the game. It’s a noble goal, and in fact, it immediately made me think of Extreme Paintbrawl (Head Games/Creative Carnage, 1998): a game most agree is greatly inferior to its own music. 

Read more

Letter Taps – The Official Postmortem

A version of this article was also submitted to the go-to game industry shop talk site, Gamasutra.

If you’re not familiar with the tradition of postmortem write-ups in the game industry, it’s not a negative term. It’s the practice of writing about the design, development, and the launch of a game, including reflection on what went right, and what lessons you learned along the way. What follows is the official postmortem for my educational indie game, Letter Taps. 

Read more

itch.io announces refinery, an early access alternative for indies

itch.io has launched Refinery, a toolset it promises will allow indie studios to conduct early game releases with the flexibility to set their own terms. If this sounds like a shot at Steam Early Access, that probably isn’t a coincidence. “Early access ‘programs’ have long been an issue for developers looking to get feedback and … Read more