Top Eleven dev on success: 'Freedom is the most precious thing' "Venture capitalists give you a lot of money and less freedom. We didn't care much about the first one and we still don't; freedom is the most precious thing."

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  Boosting complexity (and absurdity) of prison breaks in The Escapists 2 "Fans really responded well to the humor of the first game. That tone really allowed us to add some more… ‘unorthodox’ escape ideas to the sequel."

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  Blog: A postmortem of our Ludum Dare game, Slowbot Slowbot was a game created for the Ludum Dare 48 hour game development competition. This article explains the process used for creating the game.

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  Creative Assembly partners with London college to combat UK 'skills shortage' "As a leader in the UK games industry we are committed to educating the future games development talent of tomorrow, and driving innovation through diversity."

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1 Blog: Surface shaders for the recently deceased In this post, we'll look at creating a custom surface shader that uses normal mapping, emission, rimlighting, and depth pre-pass to create a ghostly character effect.

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  Final Fantasy XV director plans official mod support for PC version That's a notable move to make given that developer Square Enix has never officially supported the modding of Final Fantasy games (though that certainly hasn't stopped people from doing so.)

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1 6 years and a Chinese chicken company buyout later, Splash Damage makes Brink F2P Roughly a year after being acquired by a Chinese chicken company, British game studio Splash Damage has quietly made its multiplayer parkour-em-up Brink free-to-play on Steam.

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2 Obituary: Comic and game artist Alfonso Azpiri Gamasutra has learned of the passing of Alfonso Azpiri, the accomplished Spanish artist and author best known for his work in comic books and video games.

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  Video: Making the music of Doom At GDC 2017 composer Mick Gordon offers up a behind-the-scenes look at the compositional process, production techniques and creative philosophies that went into scoring the game.

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  Get a job: Giant Enemy Crab is hiring a Technical Producer Giant Enemy Crab is looking for a full-time Technical Producer to work on its upcoming session-based multiplayer FPS Due Process.

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  CD Projekt Red whips up its own $850k competitive Gwent series Even ahead of the game’s full launch, CD Projekt Red is already hard at work stoking an eSports scene for its upcoming digital card game, Gwent.

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  Game design lessons from the tabletop RPG Monsterhearts 2 A zine by the creator of tabletop RPG Monsterhearts 2 details the story of the series’ origins and her thinking behind updating the Powered-by-the-Apocalypse game.

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5 Don't Miss: 6 examples of UI design that every game developer should study HUD and UI design determine how players interface with the most core systems of a game. We reached out to developers to share their picks for the best, most instructive examples.

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1 Layoffs loom at Radiant Worlds after SkySaga development halts With development stalled, Radiant Worlds was unable to renew its contract with its publisher, cutting the studio off from its only income source and putting every position within the development house in jeopardy.

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2 Blog: A gentle introduction to Steamworks If you're just getting started with trying to implement Steam into your Unity game, it can be hard to know where to look. Here's a guide that should help you kick on with Steamworks.

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  Time's running out to register for VRDC Fall 2017 at the lowest price! VRDC organizers want to let you know that the deadline to register early for VRDC Fall 2017 at the lowest possible price ends tomorrow, August 23rd at 11:59 PM Pacific!

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  Surpassing $800M in revenue, one of Germany's biggest earners still runs on Flash The dev behind medieval strategy browser title Goodgame Empire says it's the most successful German game of all time after surpassing $800 million in lifetime revenue. 

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7 Blog: Can your game have too many choices? Narrowing down your options is getting more difficult in this day and age. This is exactly what choice overload is about: there is just too much to choose from.

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4 Blog: How to protect your video game trademark Once you've named your game and registered your video game trademark, it's time to start protecting that mark. If not, you may end up losing your rights.

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  China's top flight soccer league signs six-year game deal worth $15M The Chinese Super League has struck up a six-year partnership with Beijing developer Crazy Sports to create games based on the 16 CSL teams. 

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3 Teaching players without tutorials in Kingdoms and Castles "The game doesn't have a formal tutorial, so, we try to make everything as obvious and accessible as possible. It starts with two basic problems that need to be solved: homelessness and hunger."

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4 To attract more players, Horizon Zero Dawn adds easier 'story' mode In a win for general accessibility, Guerrilla Games has patched in a new game mode that drives down Horizon Zero Dawn's difficulty.

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  The Dawn of War developers are making a new Age of Empires game Once again, Microsoft is turning to a Sega-owned strategy game company to produce a strategy game sequel.

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  Video: Polishing your indie game to shine bright like a diamond What's the right way to polish your indie game? Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell shares some tips for making sure your game stands out from the crowd.

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6 Opinion: Exploring feminist game design in role-playing book #Feminism #Feminism: A Nano-Game Anthology is a collection of 34 short RPG experiences. The collection demonstrates the similarity between feminism as an academic lens and feminism as a game design method.

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