Hello you lovely lot! It's been a scorching past few days here in the UK.
I've had the curtains shut, windows closed, aircon on full blast, ice creams and Coffee frappes out.
Too hot to leave the house or, well, move - but plenty of time to catalogue some of the best game writing and video making of the last month.
Here's what I've got for you...
New Releases
Read - Disco Elysium’s spiritual successor can’t escape its phantoms - "Zero Parades: For Dead Spies carries the ZA/UM name, but the studio has changed a lot since its previous hit".
Watch (22 mins) - this simple mechanic sold 2 million copies - "Pragmata introduced unique gameplay mechanics never seen before, quickly becoming one of the most interesting and fun combat systems released in years".
Watch (9 mins) - Pragmata’s Lunar NYC Is 2026’s Best Level (So Far) - "We dig into what makes Pragmata's lunar recreation of New York City such a standout level for Capcom in 2026.".
Read - The Art of the Game - "Great care is being taken to make Mina the Hollower look and feel as authentic to its inspirations as possible and remain a fresh and exciting new adventure. Here's how we did it!"
Behind the Headlines
Watch (12 mins) - The Repulsive New Star Fox Characters Are Good - "I've never really been a Star Fox guy but I find the new approach to be unexpectedly bold".
Watch (7 mins) - Are the "Console Wars" About to Kick Off Again? - With Sony deciding to avoid PC for future games, and Xbox focusing on more exclusives, Second Wind investigates the new console wars.
Read - Destiny 2 hasn't been the game I'd loved in years, but it still sucks to know it's ending - "For a time, Destiny 2 was a masterclass in all kinds of gameplay, and only some of them involved pressing keys".
Design
Read - Taking Turns - "To investigate the renaissance of turn-based systems and what it means for the future of video games at large, we talked to developers behind some of the biggest titles of the last decade".
Watch (5 mins) - Don't Survey Your Players - "As a developer, you may be tempted to survey your players about what direction your game should go in. In this video, I present four reasons why this is a bad idea and will end up harming your game".
Watch (18 mins) - Game Balance vs. Fun - Veteran game designer Josh Sawyer dives deep.
Read - Brace for Impact! - How the worlds of different Donkey Kong games are made to accommodate each DK's moveset.
Watch (1 hour, 13 mins) - How to Make Anything Fun - "This is an in-depth look at how to make anything fun, in particular in games, education and life as a whole".
Read - Save Points Were Once Crucial, Now They're Forgotten Relics Of Game Design - "Save points by now are considered archaic game design. Frankly, that sucks".
Watch (31 mins) - The Best Mechanics From "Bad" Games - "Incredible ideas have the opportunity to exist alongside terrible ones," says Razbuten.
Development
Read - The Supernatural And Mysterious Nature Of Creativity - "We spoke with Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone about the game’s 10-year anniversary, and the difficult art of managing creativity and unexpected celebrity".
Watch (1 hour, 19 mins) - The creators of Dishonored react to their own game after 14 years - "Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith, the creative minds behind Dishonored, reflect on the game and it's development".
Watch (10 mins) - We Need Games With Short Legs - "What's the video game equivalent of a rough sketch?" HotCyder looks at PICO-8.
Watch (13 mins) - I made a golf game with video. - "I give my golf game a facelift with the questionable method of using video recorded from my iPhone. Is it cheating if it makes it harder?".
Business
Read - I've been playing games for 40 years, writing about them for 20, and I'm here to say Roblox's microtransactions need drastic government intervention - "This platform is a disgrace, and regulators need to act".
Watch (27 mins) - The $500,000,000 Game That's Destroying Ubisoft - "This game is the most expensive unreleased AAA game ever made. Beyond Good and Evil 2 has cost Ubisoft over $500,000,000 and has been in development for nearly 20 years".
Watch (14 mins) - The Death of Mini Consoles - "Remember Mini Consoles like the NES and Super NES Classic? Whatever happened to them, and why did we never see a Dreamcast classic or N64 classic?".
Culture
Read - Canada rarely gets to play itself -- these games are changing that - "From showcasing stunning landscapes to telling diverse stories, here's how developers are representing Canada in their games".
Watch (40 mins) - Wanderstop, Celeste, and the Power of Radical Self-Acceptance - "Kat talks about her difficult 2025, what Celeste and Wanderstop have to say about self-compassion, and how it all connects back to a man called Carl Rogers".
Critique
Watch (32 mins) - The Unreality of UNHINGED Pinball - "Every game of video pinball has to ask, "What is pinball?" Unsurprisingly, each game we'll look at has a wildly different response".
Artistry
Watch (17 mins) - How Games Are Made: Character Design - "In the third episode of our series on how games are made we talk about how Everbloom's host of animal characters were conceptualised, created and implemented".
Watch (17 mins) - Why Nintendo got rid of Wuhu Island - "From Wii Sports to Mario Kart to Smash, Wuhu Island really was iconic. But all of a sudden, Nintendo stopped using Wuhu Island completely!".
Watch (38 mins) - The Best Nightclub in Video Game History - Any Austin continues his exploration of video game spaces.
Watch (15 mins) - Samus's Animation in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - "How do we read Samus in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond? Is she sad, or is she stoic?".
Watch (18 mins) - Why every Yoshi game looks different - "There have been Yoshi games that look like wool, like child's drawings, like arts and crafts projects, and like the pages of an encyclopedia".
History
Watch (2 hours, 11 mins) - Dreamcast Retrospective - "A retrospective examining the Dreamcast, a console that was both a farewell to the games industry as we knew it, and a prelude to what was to come".
Beyond Games
Read - The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech - "The bugs, broken apps, and nightmare customer-service bots we can’t escape, presented as a blessed and sacred addendum to Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on AI".
Watch (1 hour, 23 mins) - Before Pixar, There Was The Computer Graphics Lab - "A feature length documentary about the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, a facility that attempted to create the first computer animated movie".Watch (22 mins) - What Movies Lose When They Use "Blender Cutting" - Thomas Flight looks at the differences between intentional and rapid-fire "blender" editing in movies.