Game UI Database creator Edd Coates has revamped and relaunched the mammoth repository to help designers find inspiration when creating their own user interfaces. The database is a free resource that was built to provide a fast and efficient way of searching for UI reference materials. It currently contains over 55,000 screenshots and more than 1,700 videos from precisely 1,341 titles. In a post on X, Coates explained the new-look 2.

Step-change differences exist between games, based on how many players they have. There are essentially five different categories. In the following, “players” means either individuals or teams of individuals working together. Whether you want to count AI-controlled opponents as players or merely as part of the game system is up to you. Zero-Player Games These are games that have a set-up but no further interaction to them. Conway’s Game of Life is the classic example, but games with interactive set-ups (such as Exquisite Corpse) also count.

It’s grim up North. It is also bloody wonderful. A land filled with hallowed stodge. Pies and gravy. Buttery chip barms. Corned beef and tattie hash. It’s a realm with more dialects than common sense. Broad accents. Yawning vowels. Enunciation? Pure myth. Industrial roots run deep. Change comes slowly, but somehow that’s no bad thing. You make do and crack on. Thank Goodness You’re Here! leans into that roughshod, redbrick vision of England.

Reus 2 guides giant gods as they reshape worlds and guide ecosystems to help lead human civilization to greener futures on their own planet or to find prosperity (or spread darkness) to the stars. Game Developer caught up with Adriaan Jansen, one of the co-founders of the game’s development studio, Abbey Games, to talk about how this sequel was born from the studio reaching its lowest point, the challenges of giving the player creative potential to alter the world within a 2D space, and how they had to carefully work within constraints and limitations to get this sequel out the door.

Activision Blizzard has published a lengthy white paper that explains what happened when it dialed down skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) in Call of Duty. The TL:DR version? Almost everyone hated it. The company sought to explore how SBMM impacts players in a variety of ways, which led to it running a ‘Deprioritize Skill Test’ in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III earlier this year. The experiment saw the studio leverage its A/B test framework to loosen constraints on skill in matchmaking.

In 2005, quirky psychedelic platformer Psychonauts debuted as Double Fine’s inaugural project, delighting audiences with its offbeat sense of humor, bizarre visual style, and unforgettably unique characters. Birthed in the post-dotcom boom in early 2000s San Francisco, the title was well-received, a culmination of Tim Schafer’s creative vision and commitment to excellence, and achieved through the determined efforts of a talented team of collaborators, including co-writer Erik Wolpaw, who would go on to write the Portal games for Valve shortly after Psychonaut’s development.

The Silent Hill 2 remake is in the news following the Sony state of play, and while people are either gushing over details about the world, yelling about character redesigns, or just ignoring it and playing Resident Evil 4, something caught my eye that I don’t see more people discussing. Combat, or specifically, engaging with enemies has been given a redesign to bring it up to the standards of, once again, Resident Evil 4, however, this clashes with the act of survival horror and gives us the easiest distinction between action and survival horror design.

Let’s be frank: Creating a brand-new fictional universe, let alone one their creators expect audiences to spend lots of time in, is no small feat. This is especially true of (role-playing) video games. They can ask players to set aside dozens, if not hundreds, of hours to explore every branching path, playstyle, and nook and cranny the title in question offers. And as the likes of Mass Effect (2007), Trails of Cold Steel (2013), and Genshin Impact (2020) showed, the worlds one immerses themselves into must house fetching vibes, lore, characters, and tales that compel gamers to embark on a long and eventful journey.

Nightmare Kart mixes horror with racing, sending players down gothic streets at a breakneck pace as they blast the other monstrous drivers on the track. Game Developer spoke with Lilith Walther, the game’s creator, to talk about the unintended benefits that came from releasing the game for free, how they wove each monster’s story and personality into the kart they would drive, and how they adapted a Bloodborne-like countering system into kart racing.