Best of Game Development — October 2025

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Article
freeCodeCamp·27w
How to Improve Your Programming Skills by Building Games
Building games teaches essential programming skills that extend beyond game development. Through creating games, developers learn systems thinking, event-driven architecture, performance optimization, and debugging complex states. Games force practical application of math concepts like vectors and trigonometry, while teaching component-based architecture similar to modern frameworks. The hands-on experience with user input handling, reusable code patterns, and creative problem-solving translates directly to building better web applications, backend services, and software systems. Even simple 2D games provide valuable lessons in modular design, UX instincts, and managing code complexity that traditional tutorials rarely offer.
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Article
Hacker News·31w
Autism Simulator - Workplace Experience Simulation
An interactive educational simulation that puts players in the role of a high-masking autistic software engineer navigating workplace challenges. The experience explores sensory overload, social navigation, and burnout in corporate environments through a stat-based gameplay system tracking energy, masking effort, competence, and relationships. Players must balance maintaining professional appearances while managing the mental and emotional toll of masking autistic traits in neurotypical work settings.
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Article
Game Developers·28w
Which software is beginner friendly for game development? Unity, Unreal or Godot?
A beginner seeks recommendations on choosing between Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot as their first game development platform. The post asks the community for guidance on which engine is most beginner-friendly for starting a game development journey.
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Article
80 LEVEL·31w
Juicy UI For Pixel Art-Style 4X Game Made With Godot
PLVS VLTRA is a turn-based 4X strategy game built with Godot featuring an economy dashboard that visualizes complex financial data through line graphs, pie charts, and detailed breakdowns. The game integrates UI design with gameplay mechanics, where the dashboard reflects player decisions made through a Laws & Policies system and Imperial Cabinet interactions. The project demonstrates how data visualization can serve as both an informational tool and strategic gameplay element in indie game development.
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Video
bigboxSWE·27w
Why were 90s programmers so legendary?
Explores why 1990s programmers like John Carmack, Linus Torvalds, and Richard Stallman became legendary figures. The era's severe hardware constraints—limited RAM, slow processors, and scarce resources—forced developers to write highly optimized code and build tools from scratch. Without modern conveniences like package managers, AI assistants, or abundant tutorials, programmers had to master low-level optimization techniques, including manual memory management and assembly code. While the problems were simpler in scope compared to today's distributed systems, the technical challenges were significantly harder, creating a generation of developers with deep systems knowledge.
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Article
80 LEVEL·27w
AI-Generated "Game Concepts" Become the Laughingstock of the Internet
An AI CEO's demonstration of AI-generated game concepts sparked widespread mockery across the gaming community. The demos featured severe technical issues including inconsistent perspectives, hallucinations, shapeshifting environments, and bizarre physics violations. Despite claims of being work-in-progress, the showcases united gamers of all backgrounds in criticism, highlighting ongoing resistance to AI-generated gaming content following similar controversies with ARK, Minecraft clones, and other projects.
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Article
Hacker News·29w
Metropolis 1998 lets you design every building in an isometric, pixel-art city
Metropolis 1998 is an isometric city-building game in pre-alpha that offers granular control over urban design. Players can zone areas SimCity-style, place pre-made buildings, or design structures room-by-room with custom furniture and layouts. The demo is available on Steam and Itch.io, with early access planned between Q4 2024 and Q2 2025. The interface requires exploration to master, but the level of customization appeals to detail-oriented builders who want complete creative control.
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Article
Hacker News·30w
Using Deno as my game engine
A developer shares their journey building Microlandia, a city builder game with realistic simulation mechanics. After initially developing in Go, they switched to Deno combined with ThreeJS and React to solve UI and graphics challenges. Using Deno's compile feature and webview_deno, they created a cross-platform executable that runs a local server with a WebView interface. The stack provides built-in SQLite, WebSockets, and development tools, enabling hot-reload debugging and shared TypeScript types between client and server for rapid iteration.
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Video
Code Bullet·31w
I Made the Same Game in 10 MIN vs 1 HOUR vs 10 HOURS
A developer challenges himself to create the same naval combat game in three different time constraints: 10 minutes, 1 hour, and 10 hours using Unity. The progression shows how additional development time allows for better water physics, improved graphics, multiplayer functionality, and more polished gameplay mechanics. Each version is tested with a friend in multiplayer mode, revealing both the potential and limitations of rapid game development.
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Video
Two Minute Papers·29w
The Worst Bug In Games Is Now Gone Forever
A breakthrough collision detection method using cubic barriers and advanced mathematical techniques eliminates clipping issues in simulations with millions of contact points. The technique handles complex scenarios like twisted cloth, ribbons, and deformable objects without any geometry passing through itself, running on a single GPU. Developed by Dr. Ryoichi Ando and published at SIGGRAPH Asia, the research has practical applications in gaming, VFX, and automated fashion design, though it requires minutes per frame to compute.
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Article
80 LEVEL·27w
Dev Accidentally Calling Game "Sh*tty Dungeon" Led to Extra Wishlists
An indie game developer accidentally mistranslated his game's title to 'Sh*tty Dungeon' in Japanese using machine translation tools. The error went viral on Japanese social media, resulting in a significant increase in Steam wishlists. The developer embraced the humor but eventually changed the name to something more appropriate, while the game itself received positive reviews from players who appreciated its nostalgic gameplay and humor.
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Article
80 LEVEL·27w
PUBG Creator's New Survival Game Will Be Released in November
Prologue: Go Wayback!, a single-player open-world survival roguelike by PUBG's creator, launches in Early Access on November 20 for $20. The game features three modes: the default survival challenge to reach the Weather Tower, an endurance mode with limited resources, and a free exploration mode. Players can customize runs through game settings, use a map editor, and save progress. The creator acknowledges the game's high difficulty may polarize players.
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Article
Godot·29w
Material Maker – Godot Engine
Material Maker is an open-source procedural PBR material and texture creation tool built with Godot Engine. Created by RodZilla in 2018, it recently released version 1.4 running on Godot 4, featuring nearly 250 nodes and export capabilities to Godot, Unity, and Unreal. The tool generates shaders using a node-based system and has been used in several released games including Crown Gambit and Zefyr: A Thief's Melody. Godot 4 brings compute shaders for improved performance and flexible layouts with undockable panels. Future development focuses on 3D model texturing with a procedural painting workflow.
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Video
Gamefromscratch·31w
CryEngine Community Edition Released!
CryEngine Community Edition 1.0 has been released as an unofficial, community-driven patch for CryEngine 5.7, which hasn't received official updates since 2022. The open-source project adds features like full-screen HLSL shaders, DirectX 12 improvements, texture sharpening, enhanced rain effects, and custom editor styling. Users must obtain the official CryEngine 5.7 source code and manually apply the patch due to licensing constraints. The roadmap includes ray tracing, FSR3, DLSS4 support, and various rendering improvements in future releases.
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Article
80 LEVEL·28w
Over 47% of Stop Killing Games Signatures Have Already Been Verified
The Stop Killing Games initiative has verified 47% of its 1.4 million signatures, meeting thresholds in 15 EU countries with Germany and France expected to follow. The movement is engaging with European Parliament members, national governments, and industry experts to address game preservation and prevent publishers from rendering purchased games unplayable. Early verification shows a 97% validity rate, making the required one million valid signatures likely achievable.
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Article
80 LEVEL·30w
This Indie Developer Bought a $100 PC to Optimize Their Game
An indie developer purchased a $100 PC with minimal specs (Intel Core i3-3217U, 4GB RAM) to optimize their chess roguelike game after receiving performance complaints. Testing on low-end hardware helped identify bottlenecks like Vulkan rendering issues on integrated GPUs and cursor lag in Software mode that weren't apparent on mid-tier systems. This pragmatic approach ensures the game runs smoothly on a wider range of hardware configurations.
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YouTube·31w
I Remade Silksong in 3 Days
An indie game developer attempts to recreate core mechanics and visuals from Hollow Knight: Silksong in 72 hours. The project covers implementing player movement (including the signature diagonal dash), hand-drawing 25-30 animation frames, creating parallax layering systems with perspective cameras, designing enemy AI with multiple behavioral states, and building atmospheric environments. Despite spending over 20 hours on art alone, the developer gains appreciation for the original team's seven-year development effort and the complexity of creating polished 2D platformers.
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Article
80 LEVEL·27w
Check Out This Scary Life Sim Co-Created by Celeste's Pixel Artist
Neverway is an upcoming pixel-style psychological horror RPG that combines life simulation and action elements. Developed by Coldblood with art by Celeste's pixel artist and music by Disasterpeace, the game follows Fiona as she searches for a nightmarish reality while managing daily life, building friendships, and engaging in top-down combat. The game features over 10 characters with unique personalities, friendship-based power systems, and customizable combat mechanics. Release is planned for 2026.
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Article
GamesIndustry.biz·30w
Why Relic Entertainment wants to make games more quickly
Relic Entertainment's CEO discusses the studio's transition to independence after being sold by Sega, focusing on strategies to reduce game development cycles. Key approaches include rapid prototyping (4-week sprints), stricter scope control, maintaining a unified game engine across projects, and leveraging AI for workflow efficiency rather than core development. The studio aims to release games more frequently while managing the balance between production costs, player expectations, and market realities in a maturing games industry.
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80 LEVEL·30w
Dev Showed How Adding Details to Gameplay Changes “Game Feel”
Game developer André Cardoso demonstrated how polish transforms gameplay perception through three side-by-side demos. The polished versions incorporate VFX, camera movements, hit feedback, smooth rotation, and UI feedback, dramatically improving the game feel. The project was created for a bootcamp focused on refining existing game demos rather than adding new features. Cardoso regularly shares game feel recreations on his Mix and Jam YouTube channel, breaking down mechanics from popular games like Balatro, Mario Party, and Animal Crossing in Unity.
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Article
GamesIndustry.biz·30w
The Drifter wins Game of the Year at Australian Game Developer Awards 2025
Powerhoof's point-and-click adventure game The Drifter won Game of the Year at the 2025 Australian Game Developer Awards, along with awards for art, narrative, and sound design. Massive Monster received Studio of the Year, while Witch Beam's Tempopo won for music and accessibility. Epic Games' Antony Reed was honored with the Adam Lancman Award for industry advocacy, and Adelaide developer Aiden Gyory received the Rising Star Award for community support and education initiatives.
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Article
80 LEVEL·31w
Check Out This Pixelated Windows XP-Inspired Game Demo
Jesse Snider showcased a Unity-powered first-person platformer shooter called Cursing, where players navigate a pixelated world inspired by Windows XP. The game features pixel art created with Aseprite and Crocotile, placing players inside the iconic Serenity wallpaper and Windows XP interface elements. A playable demo is available on itch.io while the game remains in development.
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Article
Game Designing·28w
Procedural Generation Explained (And the Tools That Power It)
Procedural generation uses algorithms to automatically create game content like terrain, objects, and levels instead of manual design. The technique starts with a seed value and applies rules to generate natural-looking results efficiently. Developers can apply it to animation, dialogue, levels, loot systems, and terrain. Popular tools include Houdini, Blender, Maya, and MapMagic 2. Games like Minecraft and No Man's Sky demonstrate how this approach enables vast, varied worlds while boosting replay value and scalability.
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80 LEVEL·29w
Roguelike Horror Shark Dentist Received New Gameplay Trailer
Shark Dentist, a roguelike horror game by Alice Games, showcases new gameplay footage featuring dental procedures on dangerous sharks. Players must manage sedation levels, handle dental tools, and navigate randomized events while treating thrashing patients. The developers have been working on core mini-games including tooth drilling mechanics, interactive lab elements, and narrative cutscenes. No release date has been announced, but the game is available for wishlisting on Steam.
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Low Level Game Dev·30w
The 5 levels of OpenGL
A progression framework for learning OpenGL, from rendering your first triangle to mastering advanced techniques like compute shaders and ray tracing. The author shares their personal journey from beginner to advanced graphics programmer, breaking down five distinct skill levels: understanding basic rendering, grasping fundamentals, implementing 3D graphics, mastering advanced features like PBR and shadows, and finally achieving expert-level proficiency with compute shaders and complex optimizations. The piece emphasizes that advancement comes from pushing through difficult concepts rather than avoiding them.
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