GMTK Digest (August 2025)

Hello lovely GMTK backers!

I'm technically on holiday today. Taking some much-needed time off after the madness of releasing Word Play and the Game Jam. But I couldn't leave you without the Digest.

Enjoy!

New Releases

Blockbusters

Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater - Konami's flashy Unreal Engine 5 remake of that all-timer PS2 game. It's been described as a super faithful remake that barely deviates from the original. But I guess when Hideo Kojima has, ahem, moved on, it was probably best not to mess with things.

Mafia: The Old Country - Hangar13 returns to Mafia for this prequel, which is far more linear than the open world Mafia 3. I've seen it described as a throwback to mid-budget Xbox 360 cover shooters - but there's also plenty of praise for its storyline.

Drag x Drive - It's Nintendo's tech demo showcase for the Switch 2's mouse mode (you use two joycons to simulate pushing wheelchair wheels). While I'm always down for accessibility-adjacent stuff, the reviews are rouuugh. Gamespot calls it "tiring and imprecise".

Sword of the Sea (Pictured) - Giant Squid (Abzu, The Pathless), return with "an atmospheric surfing adventure with fast movement inspired by classic skateboarding and snowboarding games". I guess Journey meets Tony Hawks, which sounds good to me.

Smaller Stuff

Öoo - The developer of Elechead returns with another super smart Metroidvania platformer. This time you're a caterpillar made of bombs who can blow up its own body to get around and solve puzzles. Looks to be a design tour de force.

The Knightling - The other game about surfing around on your sword-fighting equipment: this time about using your shield to get around this Zelda-inspired open world. I played an early build of this a few years ago and it was shaping up to be something super cool.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance - SEGA got the team behind the rather good beat 'em up revival Streets of Rage 4 to do a new Shinobi game. It's been described as a semi-Metroidvania: it's split into individual stages, but each stage is an interconnected level with backtracking and ability gating.

Tiny Bookshop - Manage a bookstore, pick the perfect title for your customers, get to know the locals. It's cute and my wife is digging it. It's weirding me out because I built a prototype for an extremely similar game (but set in a VHS-era Blockbuster). Good job I scrapped that!

Is This Seat Taken? - A logic puzzle game where you have to figure out the perfect spot to for people to sit, based on their increasingly-specific requirements and pet peeves. Looks cute!

MakeRoom - Kenney - the Dutch dude behind all those excellent free game assets - has made his own game. A cozy room-making game with over 1000 objects. There are requests to fill - or you can just be creative and make your own designs.

OFF - I'll admit, I was about to call this an Undertale-inspired RPG. But it turns out this one actually predates Undertale by years and was a direct influence on Toby Fox. Fangamer helped finally bring it to Steam, 17 years after the original launch.

Headlines

Everything announced at Opening Night Live, Gamescom 2025 - Call of Duty Blops 7. Resident Evil 9. Multiple soulslike with Chinese mythology. Indiana Jones on Switch 2.

Digital Foundry Leaves IGN, Now Fully Independent - Digital Foundry (the peeps who do technical analysis of all the new games and consoles) are the latest media outlet to ditch their corporate boss and go indie. Best of luck to them.

Hollow Knight: Silksong releases September 4th - It's one of the year's most-anticipated games. It's the most wishlisted title on Steam. Several games are moving their release date out of fear of being buried. Time to wash off the clown makeup.

Reading List

Bananza

Watch (30 mins) - Nintendo and the Collectathon Conundrum - "Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World really highlight how Nintendo's philosophies regarding collectibles are kind of all over the place".

Watch (22 mins) - How Speedrunners Beat Donkey Kong Bananza In 76 Minutes - "It goes out of bounds, it actually skips 2 out of the five Bananza transformations in the game, and it already skips boss fights".

Watch (11 mins) - Donkey Kong Bananza Is the Most Nintendo Game Ever - "Donkey Kong Bananza's design choices echo everything from Mario and Kirby, to Wario and Zelda. And in doing so, it becomes possibly the most Nintendo game ever".

Design

Watch (13 mins) - Blue Prince does not have an RNG problem - A game dev suggests a solution to Blue Prince's RNG gripes: faster runs.

Watch (21 mins) - Pro-Skater 3+4 & The Remake Paradox - "I have a very small version of tony hawk in my head (who is still roughly 35) that compels me to talk about pro skater once every two to three years".

Read - first person shooters are extremely fun, but the industry rarely makes the ones i like anymore - "Somehow, my favorite style of FPS has fallen by the wayside, and no attempt at a Quake clone or massive open world game can really satisfy the same craving".

Read - Intro to Puzzle Design - "Creating a puzzle that triggers that Eureka moment. That’s one of our big goals".

Read - The Creator - A big interview with Kojima. He laments the samey-ness of AAA games, preferring to play indie titles.

Development

Watch (25 mins) - I Made a Game in 4 Days (for the GMTK jam) - "It's been almost 7 years since I last took part in a game jam, so I felt it was high time to jam again! The goal was to make something in 4 days, inspired by the single word: LOOP".

Watch (16 mins) - Best Code Architectures For Indie Games - "What are the best code architectures for indie games? How should you structure your game dev projects? Here are my takeaways and my advice from the games I've made so far".

Watch (18 mins) - How Games Are Made: TREES - Noclip's game dev series continues, with a look at making foliage.

Business

Read - Is Roblox Getting Worse? - "Long plagued by moderation issues, the platform recently released a series of updates aimed at improving the experience for kids. Experts worry they could have the opposite effect".

Culture

Watch (30 mins) - How Well Can You Really Know a Game? - "About the only thing I thought I knew was that nothing I’d ever know would do any good".

Watch (23 mins) - Why Is This Banned Game Still Being Sold in 2025? - "The Guy Game creator Jeff Spangenberg made Turok and founded Retro Studios before making gaming's most controversial game. After the lawsuit hit, he completely vanished from the gaming industry".

Watch (24 mins) - Reminiscing About MUGEN - "This is for everyone who also learned how to play fighting games on a family computer with two people sharing the same keyboard".

Critique

Read - This Summer Reminded Me Why I Loved Playing Soccer - How Rematch and Despelote re-sparked this writer's love of football (not "soccer"!).

Watch (3 hours, 43 mins) - The Silent Hill 4 Analysis - TheGamingBrit takes on the last numbered Silent Hill game.

Read - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Is Great, But Its Popularity Raises Big Questions About How We View Japanese RPGs - "We should have a wide range of RPGs made by people from different backgrounds. However, Clair Obscur's success also magnified criticisms of Japanese turn-based games".

Artistry

Read - Games about death improve our lives - "Countless video games depict death, but few ask us to contemplate our mortality. Thank goodness. Mario wouldn’t be nearly as fun if we had to attend every goomba’s funeral".

Read - Tony Hawk reflects on 90s culture, celebrity and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, the game that changed his life - "My name is not just about me anymore, it's synonymous with a video game...".

Watch (58 mins) - When Gaming Got REALLY Emo - "This video takes a look back at the early 2000's emo era and it effects on the gaming industry".

Watch (12 mins) - How Does Metal Gear Solid's Codec Actually Work? - "Metal Gear Solid's codec is an iconic element of the series' identity. It's a foundational component of its storytelling and yet a question that rarely gets asked is, well... how does it actually function?".

Watch (27 mins) - Why Does Half-Life 2 Still Look So Good? - "The visual style of Half-Life 2 is so unique and distinct from its Source Engine siblings. Join me in this analysis as I dive into what makes the art direction of HL2 so memorable even two decades after its release...".

History

Watch (46 mins) I Bought 100 Copies of Mario Paint for the Art - Turns out most of the cartridges are empty. But it's still a fun time!

Read - I embarked on a mission to answer the most important question in PC gaming: How tall is Garrett from Thief? - "Garrett is canonically six feet tall. Having always imagined Garrett to be considerably shorter than six feet, this figure has never sat right with me".

Watch (32 mins) - The Origins of Machine Games - "We chronicle the pre-history of Machine Games by looking into the early days of Starbreeze Studios, and how the studio came to work on the Wolfenstein franchise".

Watch (2 hours, 32 mins) - The Entire History of Horror Games - From Haunted House and Monster Maze to Alan Wake 2 and Escape the Backrooms.

Watch (20 mins) - How 2001 redefined video games - MVG looks at some of the top titles from the turn of the millennium. Including Ico, GTA 3, Melee, and Max Payne. Dang. Good year.

Watch (29 mins) - The Man Who Ruled Nintendo With an Iron Fist - "This Nintendo documentary details the history of Nintendo that goes all the way back to 1889".

Watch (2 hours, 14 mins) - Spyro the Dragon | Making of Documentary - A monster making-of doc on Insomniac's popular purple dragon.

Beyond Games

Watch (11 mins) - Two Ways To Film The Same Scene (#2) - Nerdwriter compares Wings of Desire to City of Angels. German arthouse to Hollywood.

Watch (1 hour) - Why The Movies Will Never Feel The Same Again - "Hollywood faces the largest crisis it's seen since 1950. This is the story of the shifting role cinema plays in our culture and what it needs to do to stay relevant".

Watch (22 mins) - I Made a Floppy Disk from Scratch - " In this video we attempt to recreate a complete 3.5" floppy disk from scratch from the outer shell to the magnetic disk".

Read - How All Those Wild & Devious Game Changer Episodes Are Made - "You might be surprised how little playtesting goes into the popular Dropout game show".