GMTK Digest (July 2025)

Hello GMTK supporters! Hope you've been enjoying the sunshine. Here's a run down of what's come out, what's happened, and what's worth reading and watching!

New releases

Donkey Kong Bananza - Played

Weirdly, Nintendo waited until mere days before launch to reveal that, yes, this is the new game from the core Mario team. The expert designers behind Super Mario Odyssey.

But you can tell as soon as you start playing. Snappy animations, charming graphics, a focus on exploration, and more collectibles than you can count. This time it's all about finding gigantic bananas, as well as fossils, coins, and gold. So much gold. Gold in the thousands. Gold with decimal places.

Why's it not a Mario game? Because it leans on the brawn of Donkey Kong. The game is all about smashing, crashing, and bashing stuff. The entire world is a destructible playground of rocks and dirt, and you can carve through it all by hammering on the punch button. And challenges revolve around breaking stuff, over jumping. Destroy this house under the time limit. Throw this rock at that bomb. That sort of thing.

So far (I'm about 3 worlds in), it's really fun, charming, and imaginative. But it's also a bit too manic at times. You tear through these levels so quickly that it's hard to truly know them. I have no idea where's up, where's down, where's the start and where's the finish. It's all just rocks and concrete slabs that explodes with a flurry of button presses. It's a long way from the intricate level layouts of a typical Mario game.

But, hey, let them cook. I'll be happy to play more as I slowly pick up bananas and work my way to 100% completion.

Word Play - Played

Hey, it's not every day you get to put your own game on one of these things. So I'll take the opportunity. (I think I said the exact same thing when Mind Over Magnet launched in November).

This is a roguelike word game where you spell words to score points, which lets you level up and pick perks. Those perks let you cheat, boost your scoring potential, or stuff your bag with special tiles.

I designed the game to be like Balatro with words... but with an eye to be more casual than Balatro. Smaller numbers, simpler perks. I wanted the game to be enjoyable for people who only play games like Wordle and the New York Times Crossword.

The response has been good so far... next stop: mobile!

Wheel World

The new thing from Messhof (Flywrench, Nidhogg). "Dive into Wheel World as Kat, a rider chosen by ancient cycling spirits. Race elite teams, trick out your bike, and perform the long overdue Great Shift ritual to save a universe on the brink! Your bike is your destiny." Worth a look if you can't afford a Switch 2 and Mario Kart World.

Misc. A Tiny Tale

New "cute little guy helping people" game just dropped. If you dug Tinykin or Chibi Robo, you might like this.

Kaizen: A Factory Story

Zachtronics may be dead, but its spirit lives on. The new game from Barth and co has you "design, build, and optimize production lines to create iconic products, like calculators, camcorders, and arcade machines". I've heard it's slightly more approachable than most Zachtronics games (like Shenzhen I/O or TIS-100).

s.p.l.i.t

"A short psychological horror game, where you attempt to gain root access into an unethical superstructure", from Buckshot Roulette developer Mike Klubnika. If you're into lo-fi horror games, or terminal hacking, then this looks like it could be your thing.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Not to be confused with Black Myth: Wukong, the /other/ soulslike made in China. Reviews are a bit mixed on this one - PC Gamer says "Wuchang brings some fun ideas to soulslike boss fights, but the rest of it is a pale imitation of much better games".

Headlines

Valve gets pressured by payment processors with a new rule for game devs and various adult games removed - A reactionary group got payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) to clamp down on stores that sell NSFW games - including Steam and Itch.io.

Microsoft is laying off as many as 9,000 employees - As Microsoft pours billions into AI research and development, the human workers are being pushed aside. Many of these job losses will hit game developers at various Xbox studios.

The Stop Killing Games initiative has hit a major milestone, but the fight's just begun - The consumer movement has met its goal of a million petition signatures. What happens next? Nobody knows, but it won't be an easy fight.

Unknown Worlds founders' lawsuit accuses Krafton of a 'months-long campaign to delay Subnautica 2' so it wouldn't have to pay $250M earnout - This is a messy, complex story, about what happens when the deal between developers and publishers goes bad.

Reading List

Design

Read - Metroidbrainia: An in-depth exploration of knowledge-gated games - "So let’s take a closer look at what makes a metroidbrainia a metroidbrainia, how different games explore the idea in their own unique way, and then highlight a few wonderful games for you all to explore".

Read - Donkey Kong Bananza’s gold is pointless, but collecting it is still better than Super Mario Bros.’ coins - "Why settle for six golden coins when you can tear 60,000 gold chunks out of a wall?".

Watch (26 mins) - The Story Behind Battlefield 3's Divisive Campaign - "Danny chats to David Goldfarb (Lead Designer - Single Player) about the process of creating the divisive Battlefield 3 campaign".

Watch (32 mins) - Why Mario Kart World's Open World Is A Mistake. - "In this video we are going to take a look at what the open world actually is, how it changes the game, why I believe it is a letdown".

Watch (21 mins) - What Makes A Great Boss Fight Secret? - "Boss secrets can add the little details that help tie together a game world to its characters. They can help humanize, or contextualize a boss into something more interesting".

Watch (17 mins) - Why Mario Kart got rid of crossover characters - "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe featured a bunch of crossover characters: Link from Zelda, Inkling from Splatoon, Isabelle from Animal Crossing... And yet, Mario Kart World, the game's followup, removed ALL of them! Even the Miis are gone!".

Development

Read - The story of Phasmophobia: How The Witcher 3 inadvertently saved the ghost-hunting game that sold 25 million copies - Developer Daniel Knight tells Eurogamer how he developed the successful ghost-hunting co-op game.

Read - How to accommodate neurodiversity in video game development - "It's like handing someone the wrong game controller and then judging them for not being able to play the game".

Watch (19 mins) - I made my golf game too realistic - "Golf games make golf so easy and fun. But real golf is brutally difficult and unforgiving. Let's make THAT golf game. Kinda".

Watch (9 mins) - PEAK Isn’t Just “Friendslop,” It’s a Great Indie Success Story - ""Friendslop" games deserve more credit than they're getting".

Watch (23 mins) - How to make your own GIRLY GAMES! - " If you want to make fashion games, pet sims, garden games, puzzle games, dating sims or visual novels, I made this really detailed complete beginner guide for you".

Read - Skin Deep Release Trailer - Trailer expert Derek Yu breaks down his creative process for making the release trailer for indie immersive sim Skin Deep.

Business

Watch (14 mins) - They Paid Us To Upgrade Our Indie Game - Jonas Tyroller talks about an uncommon thing in indie game making: selling your IP to another company.

Culture

Read - The best games of 2025 so far, picked by NPR's staff - "From long-awaited sequels like Death Stranding 2 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves to imaginative tabletop games like Molly House and Daggerheart".

Read - Putting the Nintendo Community on Trial - "No one slows down, steps outside the headline, and realizes we can actually speculate better if we unmask Nintendo’s blank facade and come to know the faces behind the games".

Critique

Read - The Women of Death Stranding 2 Are Stuck in a Sad Cycle - "The most important thing about women in the world of Death Stranding is their wombs".

Watch (46 mins) - How Expedition 33 Exposes You - "I rarely throw out this term since it's probably overused, but Clair Obscur genuinely broke me. Did it have the same [effect] on you?".

Watch (4 hours, 15 mins) - Mother / EarthBound Series Retrospective - "You are loved. This is a video about a series of games that explore the loss of innocence, acceptance of grief, and love".

Watch (32 mins) - An In-Depth Thematic Analysis of Death Stranding 2 (SPOILERS) - "Death Stranding 2: On the Beach sees Hideo Kojima do something he rarely has done in the past—repeat himself".

Artistry

Read - How Much Of Kojima's Games Are Actually Cutscenes? We Did the Maths - "Are Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid too reliant on cinematics?".

Read - Street art, strength, and selling out: How Street Fighter 6 sacrificed its identity to chase brand synergy - "It was Street Fighter III: New Generation that took the series from flirting with the aesthetics of street culture to making it the key to its design, art, and sound direction".

Read - ‘It fully altered my taste in music’: bands reflect on the awesome power of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtracks - "The games’ runaway success introduced a whole generation to hopped up US punk and metal. Bands including Less Than Jake, the Ataris and AFI pay tribute to a gaming megastar who loves them back".

History

Read - Killer7's Influence Continues to Grow 20 Years Later - "People loved the story and storytelling, unless they hated it. They thought the controls were simple and elegant, unless they were convoluted and game-breaking".

Watch (12 mins) - How ZSNES pioneered modern Emulation - "In the early days, Super Nintendo Emulation was inaccurate and required a fast Pentium II PC to run at full speeds with sound, but in 1997 everything changed".

Beyond Games

Read - The Good Internet - "How to escape the algorithmic doom loops and reclaim our digital lives".

Watch (16 mins) - How brands manipulate you into buying more - Matt D'Avella breaks down the psychological tricks that get you to spend.

Watch (13 mins) - 100 Years of History in 100 Films - "A look at the past century through a cinematic lens".

Watch (22 mins) - In Praise of Character Acting - Thomas Flight speaks on the hidden art of being a good character actor.