The last print issue of Game Informer shipped with a fantastic interview with Vampire Survivors creator Luca Galante, and boy is it a doozy. Galante’s given plenty of interviews in the past about his surprise hit game that birthed a sea of “survivor” games, but his chat with Game Informer tells us a little more about the tools and techniques that brought the game to life. Speaking with Pao Yumol, Galante retold some familiar tales from development—that his gambling app programming background didn’t really influence the whole game’s design, just the treasure chest openings, and that he he was first inspired by LEME’s mobile game Magic Survival—but there are a few new tidbits that tell us how making the game was possible.

“Why are we building 100 hour experiences for gamers when there are still a billion people who’ve never had a 100 second experience?” asks Alex Johansson, kicking off his Hyper Talk at AMAZE Sheffield. Johansson is an award-winning experimental designer, educator, and game maker who builds LED play experiences for marginalized groups. He’s the creator of Glow Golf, a minimalist, approachable, sports game that asks players to complete randomly generated golf courses (laid out along an LED strip) using a bespoke controller.

Imagine a multiplayer online game, such as a MOBA, where players choose from a roster of characters or a real-time strategy game with various unit types players can recruit from. It is exceptionally challenging and tedious to balance the classes or units, so no single strategy becomes overwhelmingly dominant or completely useless. However, the objective of having properly balanced parameters in a game is crucial to make it engaging, with diverse gameplay and – ultimately – successful.

Between was one of the most fascinating games at AMAZE Sheffield. The project asks players to sit face to face beneath a projector, holding hands and moving in unison to create fluctuating geometric shapes in the space between. There are no win conditions. Instead, the installation hopes to spark meaningful, physical connections that might flourish when players depart the luminescent play space. The installation was built by New York-based designer and artist Claire Kwong who sought to overcome her own fear of touch.

This is the talk transcript of the keynote I gave at IEEE CoG 2024. All links in the slides are conveniently laid out so anyone interested can follow these wonderful history tangents. Thank you for having me! I’m Nathalie Lawhead and I go by alienmelon online and in my work.I’m an experimental software developer and game designer. My work revolves heavily around exploring interactivity and the intersection between software, tools, toys, and art.

I’m only a few hours into Carrotcake’s cozy forest exploration/gardening sim, The Garden Path, but I’m already impressed. I have whatever gene it is that makes games of this nature connect on a deep synaptic level: on my Switch alone I’ve played well over 2500 hours of the original Cozy Grove (itself a sort of “Animal Crossing with crafting and more story”), and close to that in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

State of play A common mistake among game designers is underestimating the importance they should give to marketing. « Why should I care about marketing? How am I affected by the communication strategy? My responsibility is to design a fun game! Marketing and communication are the responsibilities of the publisher. » Yes, but no. It is true that the marketing teams of the publisher or studio, if the studio self-publishes its game, are responsible for setting up communication campaigns.

What does the word ‘gamer’ actually mean? Imo Kaufman, a PHD student at the University of Nottingham who has been conducting research in collaboration with the National Videogame Museum, sought to unpack the term at during another breakneck Hyper Talk at AMAZE Sheffield. Taking to the stage for just five minutes, Kaufman explains she wants to unpack the identity and experiences that surround the term–for both players and developers. “My research is about oral history, which means I interview people about what they think about and feel about games,” she says.

I may be one of the few people who spends their days checking out and covering the hottest and most original indie games, to then play a mobile game like Arknights, or Limbus Company. For many people, mobile games reached their peak with either Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds and there haven’t been any games since. But the market itself saw huge growth and change from around 2017-on, with impressive looking, and deep gameplay that would put some AAA games to shame.