Hey all! Mark here.
So I've been thinking. Whenever I make the GMTK Digest I find that I love sharing my recommendations for articles and videos. But I'm actually way less interested in writing about the new releases or the news headlines.
Video game news is just so depressing. It's all about rich morons wasting money and ruining lives. It's about layoffs, buyouts from dodgy companies, price increases, and wage cuts. I don't really follow it and I definitely don't enjoy talking about it.
And as for the new releases - well, you don't really need me to tell you that new Pokemon and Battlefield games came out this month. And while I would love to share indie game recommendations... I'm just not playing as much at the moment as I get ready for the birth of my son!
For instance, The Séance of Blake Manor looks awesome, but I haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
So I'm going to try and rejig the digest a little going forward. I'll start by finding more articles and stories about the new releases and headlines. Instead of simply telling you that Ghost of Yotei has come out this month, I've shared some pieces about its design, development, and reception. Instead of telling you that Tomonobu Itagaki has died, I've shared James Mielke's tribute to the man.
I'll keep rethinking it as I go along - I want it to provide as much value to you as possible, and that only happens when I'm personally excited to make it!
On the new releases
Read - Ghost of Yōtei – tech deep dive - "Sucker Punch delves into the tech that helped them bring Atsu’s engrossing journey to life".
Watch (10 mins) - I’m Getting Bored of Every PlayStation Game Telling the Same Story - IGN points out that games like God of War, Ghost of Yotei, and The Last of Us Part II all feature the same theme: revenge.
Read - Searching for Cool in Open-World Games - "Is Ghost of Yotei itself cool? I’m not sure that it is. Being full of cool things does not make a thing cool; that’s a collection, not a quality".
Read - I’ve Turned on Battlefield 6’s Senseless Destruction - Watching buildings fall down in a city doesn't feel so fun when the same images are on the news every day.
Read - Pokemon Legends: Z-A makes the world feel livelier than ever before, but it's not because of Lumiose's design - "In an age when the vast majority of open world games try to create (or recreate) entire regions to get lost in, the prospect of being limited to a PS2-era-sized map was enticing".
Behind the headlines
Watch (9 mins) - EA Just Made a Deal With the Devil - Second Wind unpacks EA's $55 billion deal with Saudi Arabia's public investment fund. What does this mean for the future of the firm?
Read - ‘A force of nature who took no prisoners’: a tribute to Ninja Gaiden creator Tomonobu Itagaki - "The driving force behind Team Ninja was a game development samurai who almost always won his battles".
Read - Ubisoft Should Never Have Cancelled Its Post-Civil War Game - "You would have played a formerly enslaved Black man who is recruited by the Assassins to return to the South and fight for the rights of other former slaves, confronting the nascent Ku Klux Klan while he’s at it".
Design
Read - Forget GTA VI—The Best Open-World Games Are Boring on Purpose - "Boring isn't a bug—it's the secret weapon behind the best open-world experiences. Who needs explosions and side quests when leisurely walking or driving feels this good?".
Read - a wholesome plane has hit the second cozy tower - This blog takes down a game that tries to turn airport security into a cozy game. "Declare is an aggressive attempt at sanitizating a disturbing thing."
Read - Disco Elysium's Visual Calculus makes you feel like a real detective - "For a game about solving a murder, Disco Elysium gives you few detective tools to work with".
Watch (9 mins) - Optional Content Isn't Really Optional - Is content optional if it leads to the real end of the story? And what does optional even mean in a hobby that you're enjoying entirely through choice?
Watch (13 mins) - Should Difficulty Options Even Exist? - Second Wind dives "into the strange world of difficulty systems and how their implementation might be holding certain games back".
Watch (8 mins) - Why Stephen’s Sausage Roll is Brutal: A State-Space Walkthrough of the Opening Levels - A bonkers project to reveal the state space (i.e all possible moves you could make) of a super hard puzzle game. Check the channel for more videos on this subject.
Read - You Should Play Bad Games - "Once you start paying attention to that little shame, that cringe that bubbles up when you want to play something that just okay or broken, you start realizing it’s not about fun or time or even money".
Development
Watch (15 mins) - What Sells on Steam: You Don't Need a Hook - "How do you make a successful indie game that actually sells on Steam? I claim that you don't need a gameplay hook for your game. Here is why and what you need instead".
Watch (55 mins) - The Making of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Noclip's final documentary from their time at MachineGames focuses on the studio's latest game.
Business
Read - Derek Zoolander, Videogame Exec - The CEO of Nexon explains why video game execs keep chasing the next hype cycle.
Watch (17 mins) - How Horse Armor Corrupted the Video Game Market - Bethesda made one of the first microtransactions in a big-budget game. This silly gold coat for your horse changed the way we pay for games.
Watch (21 mins) - How Hollow Knight: Silksong Disrupted an Entire Industry - Arlo looks at how Silksong disrupted game release dates, prices, and the difficulty discussion.
Culture
Watch (29 mins) - Gamers Are Changing and I Have Proof - A research company has been tracking "gamer motivations" for 9 years. The desire to strategise has massively dropped in that time. Daryl Talks Games asks why.
Watch (50 mins) - A Reading List that Makes Death Stranding Make Sense - Supper Bunnyhop recommends 5 books (and other things) that might help you better enjoy Hideo Kojima's new franchise.
Read - Why Japan’s Most Secretive Warriors Are Everywhere You Look in 2025 - "The developers behind Ninja Gaiden 4, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows explain how the ninja’s brand of espionage tools and agile assassinations continue to fascinate audiences".
Read - The Origin of Mario’s Trademark Death Animation - A GIF-filled look at why so many games have the same death animation as Super Mario Bros.
Watch (19 mins) - Why Nintendo got rid of menu music - "The music from the Wii's menus is iconic. But with the Switch and the Switch 2 consoles, Nintendo got RID of these menu themes - all you hear on the Switch home screen is silence".
History
Watch (13 mins) - The Making Of Myst (1993) - Remastered - "This behind-the-scenes mini-documentary was originally included as a bonus featurette on the CD-ROM for the classic 1993 version of Myst". It's been remastered using rediscovered footage and data.
Watch (14 mins) - How Windows 11 BROKE Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is considered one of the greatest games of all time, so when a recent Windows update broke it, it didn't take long for people to notice. But was this a bug in Windows or a bug in the game itself - and what made it happen now of all times?".
Read - The Story of PS2’s Blockbuster GTA Deal - IGN reveals how Rockstar and Sony agreed to make GTA 3 a timed exclusive on PlayStation.
Watch (17 mins) - Nintendo's museum problem - Jenna Stoeber flies to Japan to answer the question "is the Nintendo Museum even a real museum?".
Watch (2 hours, 10 mins) - PlayStation 2 Retrospective - "The PlayStation 2 shaped video games. From Silent Hill, to Shadow of the Colossus, to Grand Theft Auto, to Ico, to Metal Gear Solid, and beyond".
Read - Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history - "Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Team Ico’s masterpiece by looking back with 11 people who worked on it (and three who didn’t)".
Beyond Games
Watch (20 mins) - Why it's Never Aliens - Science communicator Hank Green breaks down why that strange alien sighting is, once again, not an alien.
Watch (1 hour) - Are Music Biopics Good Now? - "I know we all think music biopics are boring and dumb but what if I told you...they kinda got cool?".
Watch (15 mins) - How social media fuels useless products - Matt D'Avella breaks down the lucrative world of drop shipping, and how TikTok makes it go into overdrive.
Watch (6 mins) - Van Gogh - Find Beauty Everywhere - "A look inside the mind of one of western art's greatest and most influential impressionists".