GMTK Digest (April 2025)

Hello GMTK supporters! 

So April was a bit of a write-off. I spent much of it nursing a broken elbow! But that won't stop me from delivering another cracking issue of the GMTK Digest. Complete with games, headlines, and recommended articles.

I sadly didn't get a chance to play too many games this month thanks to my broken arm. But I did try a couple of April's releases. In this issue, and going forward, I'll make it obvious which games I played and which ones I didn't.

Speak soon!

Mark

New Releases

Played: Blue Prince

Okay - bear with me because this is a deeply strange game. On the one hand: this is an info-hunting 'Metroidbraina'. You scamper about a dusty old house looking for clues, items, safe combination codes, and other-such hints that will help you unlock rooms in other parts of the mansion.

But! On the other hand it's a sorta deck-building roguelike. You build the house, room by room, by picking randomly selected floorplans. Plop a kitchen there, a bedroom here, a library over there. And each day the house resets and you start again.

Huh! And, here's the thing - both sides of the game are a lot of fun. One has those Outer Wilds-style 'aha' moments of revelation that has you scribbling frantically in a notebook. And the other is a tabletop-style mix of resource management and pushing your luck.

But when put together... I'm not so sure they work. It's pretty annoying to have a clue and desperately want to apply it in a specific room... only for that room to not show up in your random pool (where is that dang boiler room?!). Or to have to do a very similar riddle or maths puzzle over and over again each new day.

But then again... I'm still playing it! So I'll hold off my full feelings for the time being. There's a good video down in the reading list below that goes into more depth on it (see: blue prince is at odds with itself) if you want more design thinking on the topic!

Played: Ghost Town

This one has seemingly gone completely under the radar, but for understandable reasons. It's from Fireproof Games (developers of the excellent The Room series), and - right now - it's exclusively available on Meta Quest headsets.

The Room games are famous for their intricate puzzle box contraptions. All dials and switches and keys and latches. And you'll find plenty of them here. But they're in between more narrative and exploration based story bits. 

You play as a psychic of some kind, whose brother has seemingly gotten a bit too interested in the dark side of the occult and the supernatural. So we're off to save his soul. So far I've been in a haunted theatre, on a boat off the coast of Scotland, and in a broken-down lighthouse. All before I had to stop because I was getting queasy. It's been a while since I've played VR!

Seems cool though - good atmosphere, compelling narrative hook, and those always-fun puzzle box riddles. I'm looking forward to playing more. I just need to sit down for a bit...

South of Midnight

Compulsion Games (Contrast and We Happy Few) got picked up by Xbox to make this folkloric action adventure, set in the American Deep South. Reviews mention the game's impeccable sense of craft and style (including stop-motion animation and lyric-driven soundtrack) but largely ho-hum gameplay. 

Promise Mascot Agency

The new game from the creators of vibey murder mystery game Paradise Killer. This one is also a deeply weird open-world game about solving a central mystery. But it's also a mascot management simulator? I can't picture how this one plays but I'm keen to find out.

Monaco 2

Top-down stealth heist game Monaco was an early indie hit. 12 years later: here's a sequel! Reviews, however, are mixed - with many pointing out that it hasn't really improved on the original game. Issues range from difficulty spikes to murky graphics: stuff that could potentially be polished out in a patch.

The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition

Draknek knows how to make a good box-shunting puzzle game. So this game - all about batteries, electricity, and a physics-defying grappling hook - should be a good time. The dev told me it was made to test whether the Godot game engine could be a suitable replacement for Unity (answer: yes).

Tempopo

The new game from Witch Beam (Unpacking) is a musical puzzle game with hints of Lemmings and Chu Chu Rocket. It's possibly a good fit for a younger crowd, with the cute graphics and apparently laid-back puzzles. 

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Probably the biggest release of the month: a massive turn-based RPG with gorgeous graphics, Persona-style UI, and big melodramatic story. This is a big bombastic game that calls back to the epic JRPGs of yesteryear. And, best of all, it was made by a pretty small team (30-odd - sorta) of largely ex-Ubisoft developers! You don't actually need 1000 people to make a game.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3

I'll let the developer explain his one: "It's a sequel to a game series that doesn't exist, complete with lore and a fictional development team. It is, all genre elements considered, a match-3 survival horror comedy RPG metroidvania, and it's rad as hell".

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

What do you do when you run out of platforms to port Skyrim to? Start porting other Elder Scrolls title. This overhaul has gone down pretty well - including with the mod community, despite Bethesda not officially supporting 'em.

Headlines

Switch 2: Everything we know about Nintendo's next console - Definitely the biggest news of the month: Nintendo has revealed all on its next generation console. We saw new Mario Kart, Kirby, FromSoft, and Donkey Kong games. More console specs. A release date. And - the most controversial part - the price. Who would have thought that the first $80 game would feature a cow on a motorbike?

Trump tariffs will "have a real and detrimental impact" on games industry, says US trade group - The second-biggest story wasn't really a games industry story. But the US's barmy economic plan will have an impact on pretty much everything. Including the cost of future games and consoles. Watch this space.

Bafta games awards 2025: full list of winners - An absolute sweep for Astro Bot which won prizes for Animation, Audio, Family, Game Design, and Best Game. No surprises for the winner of best British game: Thank Goodness You're Here. Couldn't be anything else, right?

Marathon launches September 23 on PS5, Steam, and Xbox Series X|S, gameplay revealed - We got a big new look at Bungie's new game, the extraction shooter Marathon. I guess I'm just curious if Bungie can turn the tide on all these live service flops. It certainly has experience with Destiny.

Reading List

Design

Watch (12 mins) - The Worst Tutorial of All Time - Design Delves aims both barrels at Starfield's introduction.

Read - Whence metroidvania - "A game with no backtracking is a game where you never lose progress or get stuck. That's exactly the Loom/Myst adventure model!".

Read - Inside the unpredictable goblin wars of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion - "Bethesda veterans tell us about the little-known feature that brought naturally-occurring battles to Cyrodiil".

Watch (47 mins) - What Artificial Romance Does To People - "It is a normal thing we sometimes do as humans; become attached to someone who doesn’t really exist".

Development

Watch (14 mins) - The Key Components of a Rhythm Game - "In this tutorial I share the structure I use for making rhythm games. An architecture divided into several components, each with a precise scope and goal".

Business

Watch (8 mins) - Dear Nintendo: Please Tell Us Who the Heck Is Making Your Games - "Nintendo has been awfully weird about hiding the developers of their games.".

Read - These games were indie smash hits – but what happened next? - Some indie devs discuss the highs and lows of having a breakout success.

Watch (17 mins) - The disastrous 3DS launch: how NOT to launch a console - "The Nintendo Switch 2's high price has somewhat shocked and outraged players and fans. But this isn't the first time that Nintendo's consoles have faced backlash due to their price point".

Critique

Watch (10 mins) - blue prince is at odds with itself - "Blue Prince is an incredibly novel house-building roguelike. It's also an adventure game. These two elements do not mix well together".

Read - Games Writing Words I Hate - "I think it behooves us as writers to remember that we aren’t game designers".

Watch (2 hours) - The Absurd History of Bad Video Games - "A journey that's going to take us from Bubsy 3D to Concord, from ET to Superman 64 and from Sonic 06 to the Phillips CD-I".

Watch (16 mins) - The Game Where Everything's Made Up and the Points Don't Matter - "Indika is one of the boldest games in recent memory. It dares to ask the question: Who put those points there to begin with?".

Read - Pacific Drive Feels Like Storm Chasing - "So much of the game is about that careful planning and tinkering and building and preparing. Making sure you have everything you need before you head out into the unstable unknown".

Read - Assassin’s Creed Shadows wasn’t the first to have dual protagonists - "Starting Assassin’s Creed Shadows reminded me of the first time that Ubisoft anchored an Assassin’s Creed game with dual protagonists — and how much I loved it".

Artistry

Read - The Last Of Us Creator Says Joel Was Right, And I Wish He Wouldn't - "The people behind The Last of Us should let the series speak for itself".

Watch (27 mins) - Why Did PS1 Games Look Like That? - "How did the PS1 work? Why did PS1 games look like that? How can we recreate these effects?".

Watch (10 mins) - Can We Fix Crush Crawfish's Animation? - This boss from Mega Man X3 has stilted and awkward animation. Dan takes on the task of fixing up the frames.

Watch (41 mins) - The Best Game Animation of 2024 - "2024 brought an abundance of fantastic game animation, and I'm going to see to it that you are aware of ALL OF IT". A favourite annual tradition.

History

Watch (42 mins) - How Mario Kart became Nintendo’s biggest franchise - "We'll explore the development history of every single Mario Kart game from the SNES to the Switch 2".

Watch (28 mins) - What made Japan Studio so special, anyway? - Sony's studio brought us games like Ape Escape, Ico, Gravity Rush, and LocoRoco.

Watch (1 hour, 40 mins) - Kriegsspiel! How Napoleon Accidentally Invented Strategy Games - Super Bunnyhop takes on a massive history of strategy games, from the Ancient Egyptians, to Napoleon, to Starcraft. 

Beyond Games

Watch (20 mins) - Why HBO's The Last of Us is a Failure of Adaptation - "Let's talk about why the show, despite being mostly very enjoyable, left me feeling pretty empty once the final credits rolled.".

Watch (8 mins) - The Practical FX Approach in Until Dawn - David F. Sandberg (Shazam!, Annabelle Creation) is doing an Until Dawn adaptation, with a focus on practical effects over CGI. Here's how he did it.  

Watch (22 mins) - This book made me a happier person - Matt D'Avella picks out some learnings from the book The Courage to be Disliked.

Watch (17 mins) - The Genius of Severance's Disturbing Precision - Thomas Flight breaks down Severance's composition, lighting, colour, set design, and more.