Video Game Deep Cuts: Below The Ashen Mutant Hades This week's highlights showcase Below, Mutant Year Zero, Hades, Gris, and Ashen - all of which have standout features - with reviews in the round-up, as well as more 'best of the year' & more besides.

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  Video: The process of updating Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride In this GDC 2012 talk, Halfbrick Studios' Luke Muscat goes over the ever evolving process at Halfbrick Studio for updating and maintaining its popular iOS releases.

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  Fortnite dev team removes Infinity Blade for being 'overpowered' The Infinity Blade is no more, says Fortnite developer Epic Games. In a tweet published today, the studio explains that the weapon is being removed for being overpowered and poorly balanced.

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  Watch GDC Play devs hone their game-pitching skills at GDC Pitch 2019! If you're coming to GDC 2019 don't miss your shot to participate in GDC Pitch, a special event aimed at helping select participants practice their pitching skills in front of a live audience!

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10 Best of 2018: 'BOY' was Atreus tricky to implement, says God of War lead "I was told multiple times, 'scale it back, change it so he's simpler,'" said God of War director Cory Barlog. "I was even told to consider cutting him out of the game."

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  Dive deep into the sound design of Crackdown 3 at GDC 2019 Come out to the Game Developers Conference in March for a unique behind-the-scenes look at Crackdown 3's advanced sound, dialog, and music systems.

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4 Riot Games suspends COO Scott Gelb for workplace misconduct Various Riot employees claim Gelb repeatedly touched and interacted with them in a number of inappropriate ways as part of a "comedy bit."

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3 Blog: PRNGs and controlling fate in video games This article delves into the details of the properties of Pseudo Random Number Generators, and how game designers can use them.

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  Blog: What trends should you know about going into 2019? Observations from working on 50+ indie game marketing campaigns in 2018 -- and some tips for how to give your game the best chance of success in 2019.

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  Report: Pokemon Go creator Niantic close to $3.9 billion valuation Pokemon Go maker Niantic could be about to seal a $200 million funding round that would see the company valued at $3.9 billion.

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Discord aims to disrupt by opening storefront to devs, offering 90% revenue share Discord announced today that it will be opening up its launcher at cost for all developers, with 90 percent revenue share going back to the developers.

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4 The first union for game industry workers has launched in the UK "We will now have the tools to fix this broken sector and create an ethical industry where it's not only big game companies that thrive, but workers as well."

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2 Human values in game design: An approach for designing emergent storytelling 11 bit Studios lead designer Jakub Stokalski outlines his "values-driven game design approach" that was implemented in the hit game Frostpunk.

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5 Blizzard pulls devs off Heroes of the Storm and cuts eSports support Today Blizzard announced plans to pull developers off of its free-to-play MOBA Heroes of the Storm and discontinue Heroes eSports events in a bid to position the game for "long-term sustainability."

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  Video: Hacking into the combat AI of Watch Dogs 2 In this GDC 2017 talk, Ubisoft's Chae Dickie-Clark explains how the NPCs of Watch Dogs 2 efficiently process their environment to select cover and perform other dynamic behaviors.

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1 Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward evacuated after bomb threat Infinity Ward, the Los Angeles-based developer behind multiple Call of Duty games, evacuated employees today following a bomb threat.

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  Twitch sells Curse Media after two years Wiki hosting service Fandom (formerly known as Wikia) announced that it is currently in the process of acquiring Curse Media, which hosts a collection of gaming websites.

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  Get a job: Warframe dev Digital Extremes is looking for a Sr. UI Artist Digital Extremes is looking for a dev to tackle the creation and implementation of an in-game user interface, among other tasks, as a member of its Canadian game dev studio.

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  League of Legends will no longer support Windows XP and Vista in 2019 League of Legends is officially ending support for Windows XP and Vista as of May 14, 2019. 

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1 Best of 2018: How Rare designed Sea of Thieves' infinite pirate generator Rare lead character artist Sam Chester talks through the conception, design, and implementation of the "infinite pirate generator" character creator in the studio's swashbuckle-'em-up Sea of Thieves.

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  Indie Megabooth is hosting a curated indie game collection on Kartridge A partnership between the two companies will see past Indie Megabooth games regularly highlighted on Kongregate’s indie game storefront Kartridge.

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  Applications are now open for GDC 2019's low-income free pass program! Game Developers Conference organizers have once again donated a number of complimentary GDC 2019 passes that will be given away (via lottery) as part of a special low-income GDC pass program!

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  Come to GDC and see how BioWare shaded the world of Anthem! At GDC 2019 you'll get an inside look at how BioWare artists breathe life into Anthem's dynamic seasons, weather events, and time of day using smart shader techniques.

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1 Blog: How I faked Desert Child's striking 3D visuals Oscar Brittain and Akupara Games are releasing Desert Child on Switch, Xbox, PS4, and Steam on December 11. Oscar hit us with the following tech blog on how he 'faked' the game's striking 3D look.

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How 'user stories' can help players grasp new content An in-depth look at why creating "user stories" is one of the main tricks in a game developer's arsenal.

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