Blog: A design dilemma in prop behavior "This turned in to more of a design rant more than a 'lesson learned' post, but one of my motivations for writing this was to hear from other designers how you approach a design challenge like this."

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6 Unity error fix: Timestamps and assets maps out of sync One developer encounters a devastating Unity error: "My work of about three weeks was gone. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t do anything at all." Here's how to work around it.

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  Looking back, looking forward with devs of the Independent Games Festival Past Independent Games Festival finalists and winners revisit their time in the IGF, and reflect on where they are now.

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6 'If you had to pick one game for aspiring devs to study, what would it be?' What game teaches you the lessons you need to know to make games? What game really matters -- and why does it matter? We asked our followers.

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  DayZ hits 3 million sales after 13 months in Early Access The popular standalone version of DayZ has hit 3 million sales in just over a year -- as the team works to rebuild its engine from the ground up.

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  Get a job: Be a Mobile Game Engineer for Sega Networks Sega Networks' Three Rings studio is looking for developers with strong backgrounds in mobile and server-side engineering to work on new mobile and live operations games in San Francisco, CA.

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  Video: Building Glitch City, a Voltron-like indie dev collective At GDC Next 2014, indie developers Asher Vollmer, Teddy Diefenbach, Ben Esposito and other Glitch City members discuss their failures and successes in founding an indie dev collective and workspace.

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7 The development and sales of a niche iOS game: Freediving Hunter A quick and cost breakdown, and sales/revenue (with promotional costs factored in) for Freediving Hunter, which has been available on the App Store for 8 months.

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41 Don't Miss: Game programming tips from Super Meat Boy's coder Taking your first steps toward your dream game is an overwhelming feeling. In this classic blog, Super Meat Boy programmer Tommy Refenes offers practical tips for aspiring (and veteran) developers.

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14 Numbers in games: What they say about us "Clearly I seem to be drawn to games about numbers going up. But the truth of the matter is the numbers in games mean things -- they represent complex systems, whether ecosystems, economies or relationships."

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  The rough road of taking HyperBowl from arcade attraction to mobile game A 2001 arcade attraction game becomes a modern mobile title -- a fascinating story that includes crashed PCs, difficult data exports, and a move to Unity.

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3 Ditch the booth! A DIY game promotion manifesto "You don't need a festival or conference or expo to show your creations. Stop waiting for marketplaces to 'solve' discoverability. Reach out to your local and surrounding communities."

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2 Removing the bottleneck: Programming a dynamic event system "By breaking the game into simple event sequences, we're able to build a robust system that allows anyone on the team to use a drag and drop UI to implement a vast array of content instead of requesting coding time."

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  Get community management tips from MMO experts at GDC 2015 At GDC 2015, veteran online game developers Raph Koster, Richard Vogel and Gordon Walton will team up to discuss smart, effective community management practices.

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14 Blog: My game's done. Now comes the stress of a one-man PR effort "The important thing to keep in mind: don't read too much of the feedback. The negative reactions (and they are always amongst the first) are not helpful in keeping enthusiastic and telling the world about your game."

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5 Blog: On downloadable press kits, and what the press needs IndieGames.com editor Lena LeRay offers a quick, practical list of what she's looking for -- and not looking for -- in your game's press kit.

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5 Interactive storytelling a top priority at new studio from Brothers designer We talk to Hazelight's writer and director Josef Fares about the transition from Starbreeze to forming an independent studio, as well as his thoughts on the state of interactive story telling in 2015.

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1 Work for hire horror: How keeping calm can lead to success Lessons in how not burning bridges and putting up with publisher BS can lead to lucrative development contracts -- if you can keep your wits about you and your head above water.

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3 Blog: Don't lose work - An auto-save solution for Unity "What can you do when a team member suffers a recurring Unity editor crash, losing all level design work? My answer was to write a small and helpful editor extension -- auto-save!"

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3 Workflow for cheap construction animations in a city builder game A mobile art how-to: "We created five frames of build-up animations for around 40 buildings -- we made them in a cheap way, taking a few days. It takes little budget, but the quality is not compromised."

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  Get a job: Be a Concept Artist at Zenimax's Battlecry Studios Zenimax Media's Austin-based Battlecry Studios (currently developing, appropriately enough, Battlecry) seeks an experienced server engineer to help coordinate back-end technology development.

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  Video: John Romero joins JP LeBreton to play and discuss Doom As part of Double Fine and 2 Player Productions' ongoing "Devs Play" video series, Romero and fellow developer LeBreton play Doom while discussing level design and game development.

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23 Don't Miss: 20 fun facts about hex grids One game developer shares twenty "of the interesting (and obscure) facts we uncover in our quest to know everything we can about grids and their use in games."

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  2015 Independent Games Festival announces Student Showcase winners The Independent Games Festival Student Competition took in over 350 student-developed games. Here are the eight that made the cut.

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  From ruminations to release: The story of iPad RPG Loot Quest A bunch of the ideas swirling through my head began to take shape. Just before my drive back to Canada, while eating horrifyingly (see: deliciously) sugary pancakes at a Bob Evans, I began to jot down some notes.

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