Creating a fake OS that feels like home in Secret Little Haven Secret Little Haven developer Victoria Dominowski chats about how she designed the fake, Mac OS 9-inspired operating system of her game, and why it was important to make it feel safe and welcoming.

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3 Barlog: God of War's 'single shot' camera trick was a tough sell for devs "40 percent of the team came to me after the game was done, and they played it, and they finally...said, ‘oh I get it now'," God of War lead Cory Barlog recently recounted to Polygon.

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  Video: Exploring modular AI In this 2016 GDC session, programmers Kevin Dill, Christopher Dragert and Troy Humphreys discuss the concept of modular AI using examples from shipped titles.

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1 Maxis renames The Sims 4's in-game 'insane' trait to 'erratic' Though the developer did not comment on the change (or even mention it in the patch notes), the switch follows criticism of the trait’s name and its relationship to mental illness.

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1 Quantic Dream takes legal action against French media for negative press Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream is suing French media outlets Le Monde and Mediapart for reports on the studios' working conditions published back in January.

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  Get a job: Cold Iron Studios is hiring an Associate Producer Cold Iron Studios is looking for an Associate Producer with at least one shipped game under their belt to track, prioritize, and support development tasks as a member of its California-based team.

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3 Don't Miss: 7 works of interactive fiction that every developer should study Gamasutra reached out to several esteemed creators of interactive fiction, and asked them for their recommendations of great works of IF that are instructive exemplars of what the medium is capable of.

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  Hearthstone executive producer Hamilton Chu leaves Blizzard A second high-profile member of the Hearthstone development team has left Blizzard as Hamilton Chu departs to “start something new.”

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2 GOG is getting more Steam-like with addition of new social features The digital games platform GOG has introduced a batch of new social features to its web client like a gameplay feed and new player profiles.

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  Blog: How Tencent dominated the $22B games deals market Tencent participated in >$4 of every $10 invested and >3/4 of all M&A value for games globally in the last 12 months. Plus Q1 saw total games market record >$2.1B investment and >$14.4B M&A.

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  Sponsored: How Shopify enables game developers to monetize with merch If you're not selling merchandise from right inside your game, you may be leaving money on the table. Corey Pollock explains how Shopify can help game devs take advantage of the rapidly-growing merchandising segment.

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2 Blog: Why try-fail cycles are vital for telling interesting stories Games as power fantasies result in success after success for player character, which is exacltyl why a try-fail cycle is vital if you want to tell interesting stories.

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1 Terminal Reality is suing Microsoft over shadow and lighting patents While primarily known as a developer, Terminal also created a variety of game engines, including the Infernal Engine that's at the heart of this case. 

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  Blog: Let's talk about scriptable render pipelines in Unity I did some research and wrote an upcoming experimental Unity feature: Scriptable Rendering Pipelines. Why? Because it concerns you, it concerns me. It will eventually change the way you have to work.

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1 Valve acquires Firewatch creator Campo Santo "We had a series of long conversations with the people at Valve, and everyone shared the satisfaction we take in working with people whose talents dwarf our own."

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  The animation and game design details that make Iconoclasts sing Iconoclasts creator Joakim Sandberg shares some helpful thoughts on game animation, boss design, and functional weapon cones in side-scrolling games.

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  Video Game Deep Cuts: Rise Of The Ambient Parent Jam This week's highlights include a piece on Zelda & ambient video games, the role of parents in games like God Of War, and a NBA Jam making-of video.

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  The challenge of making BattleTech's first two hours matter Two of BattleTech's lead developers tell us about introducing players to complicated game systems while trying to make their first 2 hours as memorable as possible.

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  Video: The qualities that make for a good producer In this 2016 GDC session, Gearbox Software's Aaron Thibault discusses the qualities that make for a good producer.

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  CCP chief: EVE dev's move to leave VR due to risk, not loss of faith In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson discusses why CCP Games pulled out of VR development.

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  Get a job: Sucker Punch Productions is hiring a Lead Lighting Artist The Seattle-based studio is looking for a talented Lead Lighting artist with a solid understanding of current run-time rendering technologies to illuminate the world of Ghost of Tsushima.

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  The infamous FMV game Night Trap is headed to the Nintendo Switch after all Courtesy of Limited Run Games, the once-controversial FMV game is launching on the Switch nearly 25 years after Nintendo’s then-SVP said it’d never appear on any of its platforms.

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  Hearthstone game director Ben Brode departs Blizzard Brode, who has worked on Hearthstone for 10 of his 15 years at Blizzard, has announced that he is leaving Blizzard to 'take a crazy risk' and help start a game development company of his own.

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  Blog: How the Rubik's Cube inspired a laid-back Atari puzzler An excerpt from '21 Unexpected Games to Love For The Atari VCS,' exploring why the Atari Video Cube isn't anything like a real Rubik's Cube. It's a lot more accessible!

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  Learn the secrets behind reviving BattleTech today at 4PM EDT We're talking to two of the lead developers behind the new BattleTech at 4PM EDT. Come ask your questions!

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