At GDC 2017, indie game designer Robin Arnott dug into the value of trance states, and offered fellow devs insight into how to induce such experiences by studying the many causes and types of trance. ...

I feel there's nothing new and challenging being made in Japan. I got the feeling that only games with strong existing IP and characters were being shown. ...

At GDC 2017, remote dev Jon Jones details what skills and disciplines are necessary to transition from a full-time office worker into someone that works from home, a coffee shop, or the road. ...

Some of this week's top longform articles/videos include more loot box opinions, the history of the ill-fated BMX XXX, what happens to your Steam account when you die, and more. ...

The SpecialEffect charity helps people with disabilities play video games, and it has raised over £300k (~$392k USD) to fund its charitable work during its recent One Special Day fundraising event. ...

This fantastic series of microtalks (delivered at GDC 2017's Game Career Seminar) offers would-be game devs (especially women) some career advice gleaned from notable devs' own industry experiences. ...

Many hardcore survival sims from Eastern European davs have found passionate niche audiences. We spoke to the makers of Life is Feudal, Escape from Tarkov, and Legends of Eisenwald about this trend. ...

"Flappy Bird knows what it is," says Vollmer in a new episode of Designer Notes. "The problem with Semi-Automatic is we didn't know who this was for. We were just making it for, like, the world." ...

Auroch Digital talks about the challenges of faithfully adapting Steve Jackson Games' classic 1977 tabletop title Ogre. ...

How does a game get its name? That's the question No More Robots founder Mike Rose posed on Twitter today, and the responses he got (from 80 Days to Rock Band) are worth reading. ...