This week's Video Game Deep Cuts long read/video highlights include Zelda's Switch inspirations, the modding scene of Cities: Skylines, & lots more. ...

"When I look at what games can do that other media can't, I instantly go right to the immersive sim," Warren Spector said in a chat (hosted by PC Gamer) with fellow devs about immersive sim games. ...

"I kind of wish that I had actually made it a game about learning fractions," Frog Fractions dev Jim Crawford tells Noclip in a new video doc. "That also has all this other weird shit in it." ...

There are several things developers both big and small can do to try and cut back on overwork and crunch, but, as Steve Copeland notes, "it's not easy getting these stars to align." ...

"The best social shares are those that players genuinely WANT to share." Tara Brannigan breaks down exactly what makes a moment shareable by looking to games that nailed the formula. ...

"You don�t get to pick who takes your advice when you�re doing a talk," cautioned Lisa Brown in one of her three GDC talks. Brown discussed the themes of her talks on the GDC X One Life Left podcast. ...

The three-week long event will teach young girls, aged 11 to 14, to design, program, and publish their own games under the tutelage of local game developers and female PlayStation devs and executives. ...

"We had set a bunch of stretch goals that we thought, at best, might be hit at the very end of the campaign, but they were all reached within a few days." ...

"We were overwhelmed by this desire for everything to be interactive. It took us maybe a whole year to understand how we could shape the game in a way that that no longer was a problem." ...

"Cities finally let me see my creative side, it let me be more creative again," artist Matt Crux told PC Gamer in a new feature on game modders. "Before that, I felt like I was worthless." ...