The Making of Games
r/TheMakingOfGames
This is an alphabetical listing by title of all submissions. Press CTRL-F to search for a game or topic. While the majority link to the video directly, some link to the original submission comments if there are multiple parts or additional content.
Links in BOLD are particularly high-quality content or stand out in some way. They serve well as an introduction for anyone new to this subreddit.
0-9
38 Studios - Article and ex-employee post on the demise of this Rhode Island-based studio started by former baseball player Curt Schilling and that was developing an MMO codenamed Project Copernicus inspired by Curt's love of EverQuest
3D computer graphics - Primer article on the typical divisions of labor that go into making 3D computer graphics including modeling, texturing, animating, and lighting and the popular software tools
3D computer graphics - Steven Wittens's presentation titled "Making WebGL Dance" that he explains isn't really about WebGL but rather a talk explaining what a 3D video card does and includes topics such as anti-aliasing and depth buffers, as well as an introduction to linear algebra (31 min) [CC]
3D computer graphics - Article on the deficiencies of current graphic APIs and the advantages that the next generation of graphics APIs brings including Mantle and DirectX 12 by graphics programmer Dan Baker
3D computer graphics - Article on low level graphic APIs such as Mantle and their consequences by Firaxis Games lead graphics programmer Josh Barczak
3D modeling - Article on how to become a 3d modeler by Dreamworks Animation modeler Eric James Lyman including information on what software to learn
3Dfx - Computer History Museum panel talk with four co-founders (Gary Tarolli, Scott Sellers, Ross Smith, Gordon Campbell) of this seminal 3D graphics hardware company that was the first to popularize consumer 3D graphics with its Voodoo Graphics add-in card (2 hr 36 min)
The 7th Guest - Making of this 1993 puzzle adventure horror game by Trilobyte and one of the very first computer games only available on CD-ROM (16 min)
A
Age of Ascent - Text interview with artist Cerberus on the process of creating the 2D research tree graphics and other illustrations found in this upcoming browser-based space MMO by developer Illyriad Games
Age of Empires - 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in AoE and Beyond, Gamasutra article from 2001
Age of Wonders 3 - Video demonstration of the map editor by Triumph Studios designer Godewijn including map creation, Lua scripting and the campaign editor (14 min)
Age of Wonders 3 - Dev diary on random map generation by Triumph Studios programmer Lascha Lagidse as well as several other dev diary articles
Age of Wonders 3 - Gamasutra interview article with designer Lennart Sas about how the third iteration of the series came about after a 11-year hiatus and how they were able to self-publish the game
Alan Wake - bonus disc making of
Alan Wake - making of the story line
Alan Wake 2 - Polygon article featuring a concept video of the Alan Wake sequel that was never made [text]
Alien: Isolation - How developer Creative Assembly went about to create a scary experience, a talk given by creative director Alistair Hope at GDC 2015 (30 min)
Alien: Isolation - developers at The Creative Assembly discuss how they're making the upcoming Alien game
Alien: Isolation - How the developer is putting effort to make the objects in the game appear old-fashioned and match the aesthetic of the 1979 film, including recording gameplay footage and UI elements onto VHS tape, and playing them back while twisting the cables to purposefully distort the image
Alien: Isolation - Second developer diary on creating the alien
Alien: Isolation - Creating the characters and cast for this upcoming Alien game by developer The Creative Assembly (3 min)
Alien: Isolation - Article interview with developer The Creative Assembly discussing the custom engine used in the game, technical features of the PC version, and multicore and PhysX support
Alien: Isolation - Creating the sound with footage of orchestral performance and foley work
Alien: Isolation - Making of survival mode (3 min) [CC]
Alien: Isolation - Games Magazine preview article with developer quotes on the intention of the game's design [text]
Alien: Isolation - Remarks from the voice actors of the game, including Sigourney Weaver (3 min) [CC]
Alone in the Dark - Before there was Resident Evil and Silent Hill, first came this 1992 PC game by the now defunct Infogrames, as told by the designer Frederick Raynal in this postmortem at GDC 2012 (58 min)
AMD Jaguar - An indepth look at the architecture of AMD's first 28 nm processor, which powers both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs - Gamasutra postmortem article by designer Peter Howell for the indirect sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, that received a mixed response among fans of the original
Anamorphic lens flares - Ubisoft Montreal graphics programmer Bart Wronski writes a blog article about why anamorphic lens flares exist in film and examples of implementations in games [text]
Andrew Alvarez - Article on how this recent DigiPen graduate landed an internship at Gearbox Software that transitioned into a full-time offer
Andrew Braybrook - Interview with the Commodore 64 programmer of titles such as Paradroid, Gribbly's Day Out, Fire and Ice, Uridium, Morpheus, as well as the Amiga port of Rainbow Islands about his childhood and how he got into programming [text]
Andrew Fray - Practical Unit Testing, talk originally given at GDC 2014 on how to make simple, effective unit tests that won't slow down iteration by the programmer of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Codemasters F1, and Sonic Dash (33 min)
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Aya Kyugoku, Nintendo EAD's first female game designer, explains why diversity among the dev team was instrumental to the game's success and 7+ million in sales
Animation - Gamasutra article with five professional game animators in a Q&A roundtable that answer their preferred learning resources, the most difficult animation they've ever done, how an entry level animator can stand out, and who they think is the most fully realized character yet
Another World - also known as Out of This World, classic game postmortem of this 1991 Delphine Software title for the Amiga (later ported to everything) by designer Eric Chahi at GDC 2011
Another World - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the reverse-engineered source code of this cinematic platformer developed by Delpine Software in 1991 [text]
Antichamber - Three Years of Hardcore Iteration talk by creator Alexander Bruce at GDC 2014 (1 hr 3 min)
Aras Pranckevičiu - Unity Technologies programmer writes about solutions for writing shaders just once for all of the different platforms
Art direction - fxguide podcast #275 on art direction in games, talking with Naughty Dog art director Robh Ruppel
Art director - Interview with Col Price who has worked at Evolution Studios, Electronic Arts, and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe about how he got started as an artist, what an art director does, and why he decided to leave the AAA studios and work on smaller projects [text]
Artificial intelligence - Article on the AI techniques used in various games including Pac-Man, Batman: Arkham, FEAR, and Transformers: War for Cybertron by lecturer Tommy Thompson
The Art of Playing - PBS show segment on game development, including footage with developers Tiger Style (creators of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor), Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable), and Certain Affinity (Halo series multiplayer) (27 min)
The Art of the Game - Documentary on the growing medium of video games and on a group of college students who get an opportunity to make Borderland movie shorts; includes interviews with Borderlands 2 writer Anthony Burch, XCOM designer Jake Solomon and Firaxis founder Sid Meier (1 hr) [CC]
Assassin's Creed - Gamasutra article on how Ubisoft uses player tracking data such as death heat maps and in-game vendor purchases to improve the Assassin's Creed series
Assassin's Creed 3 - 4-part making of video from IGN (34 min)
Assassin's Creed 3 - fxguide article on how the water, ocean and ship physics were simulated in Ubisoft Montreal's 2012 title for the 360/PS3
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - 3-part making of video from IGN (32 min)
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - tech features
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag: Ubisoft Montreal graphics programmer Bart Wronski writes about using temporal supersampling for better anti-aliasing results in Assassin's Creed 4
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - Screenshots and video demonstrating a new temporal supersampling technique on screen space ambient occlusion and an overview of the algorithm by Ubisoft Montreal graphics programmer Bart Wronski
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag - Presentation slides on Ubisoft Montreal's global illumination solution, temporal supersampled SSAO, multi resolution ambient occlusion, procedural rain effect, and wet surface materials by graphics programmer Bart Wronski (PowerPoint or PDF format)
Assassin's Creed Unity - 4-part making of from IGN (53 min)
Assault Android Cactus - Developer blogs detailing concept art, modeling, texturing, animation, level editing, and a GDC trip report for this upcoming indie shoot 'em up made with the Unity engine by Witch Beam, a 3-man team from Australia [text]
Atari - Polygon article on the book in development, The Art of Atari: From Pixels to Paintbrush, about the evocative box covers of Atari games
Atari - Polygon news article on the acquisition of almost the entire corporate archive of Atari Games' coin operated division, including source code to every game Atari made, test-market and focus group results, what they thought of their competitors' games and unreleased titles
Atari - Playboy article titled "Sex, Drugs, & Video Games: The Rise and Fall of Atari" profiling Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and written by author David Kushner [NSFW] [text]
Atari 2600 - Racing the Beam, a book about the hardware and programming tricks behind the games of Atari's most popular home console [text]
At the Gates - Polygon article on Civilization 5 lead designer Jon Schafer leaving Firaxis to be an independent developer
AURION - Article on Kiro'o Games, the first game studio in Central Africa and their struggle to make their first game [text]
AURION - Pitch video from Kiro'o Games, the first game studio in Central Africa, showing their history and footage of their office (6 min)
Avalon Lords - Development blog on making high-quality trees by art director Fredrik Larsson [text]
Awesomenauts - Blog post by programmer Joost "Oogst" van Dongen on how he fixed the sliding bug where characters would stick and move together in multiplayer
Aztez - Implementing Beat-em-up Combat Systems in Unity by indie programmer Matthew Wegner of Flashbang Studios and Team Colorblind (1 hr 13 min)
B
Banished - Luke Hodorowicz, the solo developer on this successful indie city-building strategy game, shares his thoughts on the game's success [text]
The Banner Saga - Music making of article
Bart Wronski - Ubisoft Montreal graphics programmer writes about depth of field and bokeh rendering, including an example from his previous work on Witcher 2, and experimentation with a new scatter bokeh, that includes the C# source code
Batman: Arkham City - voice casting
Batman: Arkham Origins - GDC 2014 presentation slides for Deformable Snow Rendering by lead rendering programmer Colin Barré-Brisebois at Warner Bros Games Montreal
Battlefield 3 - sound design explanation by Stefan Strandberg, audio director at DICE (more interviews linked in comments)
Battlefield 4 - Creating a More Dynamic Battlefield; DICE lead artist Linnea Harrison talks about BF4's making of in this 45-minute GDC 2014 presentation
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - sound design; multiple interviews with Stefan Strandberg, audio director at DICE
Battle for Wesnoth - Article on the architecture of open source applications
Bayonetta - Making of this 2009 title by Japanese developer PlatinumGames
Bayonetta - Commentary with director Hideki Kamiya during game playthrough (7 hr 27 min) [CC]
Bayonetta 2 - Making of trailer for the sequel on the Wii U by developer PlatinumGames
Bayonetta 2 - Developer blogs from PlatinumGames' employees on various topics including character modeling, lighting, effects, environments, concept art, and sound, as well as a peak into orientation of a new hire at this Japanese company [text]
Bayonetta 2 - Yong-Hee Cho writes about designing the Nintendo themed costumes for Bayonetta, including pictures of concept art [text]
Best Friends - Interview article with developer Seriously Digital Entertainment, a Finnish company that released Best Friends, one of the fastest growing mobile titles in 2014 with over 10 million downloads [article]
Beyond: Two Souls - visual art making of
BioShock - Rapture leaked: The true story behind the making of BioShock by Eurogamer, covering the formation of Irrational Games and developing the first in the BioShock series, including pictures of the pitch and tales of the crunch
BioShock: Infinite - making of
BioShock Infinite - Footage of an early prototype of Elizabeth known as the Gibson girl who did not speak and interviews with Irrational Games developers about why the character was changed
BioShock Infinite - Creating Elizabeth; Irrational Games animation director Shawn Robertson shows the narrative techniques, animation, and animation physics that brought Elizabeth to life in this 50-minute presentation at GDC 2014
BioShock Infinite - Making of Elizabeth
BioShock Infinite - The long road to building AI for Elizabeth, a Polygon article recap on the GDC 2014 talk
BioShock Infinite - Concept artist Claire Hummel's concept art for Elizabeth, Robert and Rosalind
BioShock Infinite - light rendering article by Steve Anichini, former Principal Graphics Programmer at Irrational
BioShock Infinite - Wired magazine article published in 2012 about Irrational Games' ambition, a description of their offices and Ken Levine's demanding nature as the director of the project
BioShock: Infinite - Ken Levine BAFTA talk
BioShock: Infinite - Ken Levine on Nerdist podcast
BioShock Infinite - Polygon article on the final years of Irrational Games, according to those who were there
BioShock Infinite - Behind the music of the game with quotes from music director Jim Bonney
BioWare - Virtual tour of the offices in Edmonton, Canada via Google Maps of the developer behind Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: KOTOR, and Mass Effect
The Bitmap Brothers: Universe - A Kickstarter book on the history of this British game company that created Xenon 2: Megablast, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and The Chaos Engine
The Black Onyx - Making of article on this 1984 title that was the first major turn-based RPG in Japan and made by a Dutch American named Henk Rogers, who also secured the rights to distribute Tetris on the Nintendo
Blender - Time lapses using Blender modeling program to make low poly models by Dustin Hyden in his YouTube series titled Let's Poly
Blizzard Entertainment - Retrospective on the history and commentary from the developers behind the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo franchises (48 min)
Blizzard Entertainment - Designer Notes podcast interview with Rob Pardo, former Chief Creative Officer, about his game design career, WoW's surprising success, how to hire game designers, why Blizzard didn't make Dota 2, and removing the auction house in Diablo 3 (2 parts, 2 hrs each) [audio]
Blizzard Entertainment - Technical designer Chris Darin speaks to students about his experience leading up to working at Blizzard and how that contrasts to the two years he's worked at the company, including details on how the company functions, and the office culture (talk starts at 24 min) (1 hr)
Blizzcon 2014 - Blizzard's annual show featuring panels on the newly announced Overwatch, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, the World of Warcraft movie, Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Hearthstone: Goblins versus Gnomes, Diablo 3, and cosplay costume contest
Blockadillo - Timelapse of creating a level that took about 30 minutes of real-time to build in the custom level editor for this indie Android game (1 min 20 sec)
Blood Alloy - Article on implementing a robust camera for a 2D platformer by studying Super Metroid's camera implementation
Bloodbourne - Interview article with Hidetaka Miyazaki, director of From Software's Dark Souls and Bloodbourne [text]
Bob Pape - Interview with the programmer who ported R-Type to the ZX Spectrum home computer [text]
Bombshell - Behind the scenes of this upcoming isometric action RPG by Danish developer Interceptor Entertainment and 3D Realms (19 min)
Books - Recommended list of game developer books by id Software senior programmer J.M.P. van Waveren, including books on computer graphics, game programming, multiplayer networking, artificial intelligence, physics, vehicles, linear algebra and geometry, and algorithms and C++
Bounden - Dutch indie developer Game Oven shows the making of their game about dancing together, made in cooperation with the Dutch National Ballet
Braid - Implementation of the rewind feature
Braid - Jonathan Blow on the behind the scenes plumbing and game's design
Brenda Romero - Video interview on Matt Chat with the Wizardry 8 and Train designer about how she got started in gaming and her early days at Sir-Tech; her experience working on Jagged Alliance and the Wizardry series; sexism in the gaming industry and teaching and learning with video games (30 min each)
Brenda Romero - Jiro Dreams of Game Design talk at GDC 2014 on what this Wizardry 8 and Train game designer has learned about striving for greatness and perfection (57 min)
Brenda Romero - The Core of a Game, talk at CITRIS about what a game is, how they are made and what they have come to mean for Brenda Romero (1 hr)
Brian Hook - former id Software programmer Brian Hook writes about productivity, including anecdotes of working with John Carmack
Brickety Split - Postmortem article by student programmer Nathaniel Nelson on creating his first HTML5 game using the Phaser framework for an online game development contest
Broken Age - Documentary on this Double Fine Productions Kickstarter-funded adventure title (19 episodes at 30-45 min each) [CC]
Broken Age - Scaling from Mobile to High-End PCs: The Tech of Broken Age presentation slides from GDC 2014 by Double Fine Productions programmer Oliver Franzke (PDF format)
Broken Age - production stats including 207,605 lines of code, 2,167 textures and 6,091 animations
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Polygon article on how film director Josef Fares came about to direct his video game debut at Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios and created this acclaimed adventure title
Brutal Legend - postmortem article on Double Fine's 2009 action-adventure RTS hybrid
Bungie - O Brave New World, a documentary of this company founded in 1991 that created the Marathon and Myth series before the hit that became synonymous with their name, Halo (55 min)
Bungie - Gamasutra interview from 2011 with Bungie's senior graphics engineer Hao Chen about graphics technologies and working at Bungie [text]
C
Call of Duty - Former Infinity Ward scripter Mackey McCandlish (now at Respawn Entertainment) gives commentary during walkthroughs of the work he did on Call of Duty 1. Insightful information on both tech and design in how Call of Duty came to be.
Call of Duty: World at War - Article on how the Nazi zombie mode came to be.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Behind the scenes at Sledgehammer Games about the lessons learned co-developing Modern Warfare 3 and what it means for them being responsible for the next title in the Call of Duty franchise (6 min) [CC]
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Sledgehammer Games audio director Don Veca, who previously worked on the award-winning sound design for Dead Space, talks about creating the sound for the upcoming futuristic Call of Duty title (5 min 30 sec)
Capcom - Capcom Friendly Club CFC Style videos from the late 90s and early 2000s showing office footage of Capcom in Japan, interviews with staff, and previews of upcoming games at the time [Japanese audio only] (16 volumes, each about 30 minutes long)
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - Making of article by Polygon on this Nintendo puzzle game for the Wii U (text)
Cardinal Game Jam - Forbes article profiling the top 10 games made at Stanford's first game jam event held in November 2014 and including brief interviews with some of the winners on their technology choices and pictures of the participants [text]
Cart Life - making of article from EDGE magazine
Cart Life - Acclaimed existential indie game is now free and open source
Castle Crashers - Pictures of the transition from placeholder art by the programmer Tom Fulp to the final by artist Dan Paladin, as well as a speed painting of the Frost King for this 2008 Xbox Live Arcade 2D beat 'em up
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Assistant director Koji Igarashi gives tips for making a Metroidvania style game in this Polygon recap article of his GDC 2014 talk
Cave Story - Creator Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya talks at GDC 2011 about the development history of this seminal indie PC title that he single-handedly made in his spare time, including all the graphics, music and programming, over the course of five years (53 min)
Channel 9 - Ashley Speicher, one of the managers of the Xbox division, tells how she got into programming (3 min) [CC]
Charlie Cleveland - 1-Hour Video Game MBA by the director of Natural Selection 2 at GDC 2011 on tips and encouragement for growing a successful gaming company (1 hr)
Checkpoint saves - The design of good checkpoints and how checkpoint saves were implemented in Tomb Raider, Call of Duty, Uncharted, and The Last of Us [text]
Child of Light - behind the scenes of Ubisoft Montreal's waterpaint aesthetics platformer RPG
Child of Light - Art presentation at GDC 2014 by Ubisoft Montreal creative director Patrick Plourde on how they achieved the unique watercolor art style, as well as the various iterations of the main character's appearance and what worked to create a character with an iconic look (46 min)
Child of Light - Gamasutra interview article with Ubisoft Montreal writer Jeffrey Yohalem on what the development process has been like for this smaller-sized, 2D RPG platformer project and his writing and design philosophy
Child of Light - Yoshitaka Amano, a Japanese illustrator known for his anime work and Final Fantasy art, demonstrates painting a picture in his studio for Ubisoft Montreal's upcoming platformer RPG [CC]
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare - A glimpse at the offices of developer Torn Banner Studios and short video interviews with the developers about the tech and art of this multiplayer melee combat game (10 min)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - Making of the first game of the franchise in 2004 for the Xbox/PC by Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios (9 min)
Chuck "Chuckles" Bueche - Matt Chat interview with one of the founders of Origin Systems and the game programmer who worked with Richard Garriott on the Ultima series, as well as the designer and programmer of Autoduel, the 1985 multi-platform title based on Steve Jackson's Car Wars (30 mins each)
CivClicker - Postmortem article by creator Dave Holley of this browser based idle/incrementer game inspired by Cookie Clicker, covering his starting principles for the game, to implementation and the development process, and resulting analytics of the game's popularity
Civilization - Gamasutra article on the development history of the Civilization series, including an interview with designer/programmer Sid Meier
Civilization 4 - Presentation about Firaxis' prototyping philosophy and methods by lead animator Dorian Newcomb and lead designer Soren Johnson (1 hr 20 min) [CC]
Civilization 4 - AMA in 2012 with Christopher Tin, composer of the theme song Baba Yetu [text]
Civilization 4 - AMA in May 2014 with Christopher Tin, composer of the theme song Baba Yetu [text]
Civilization 5 - behind the scenes
Civilization: Beyond Earth - PCGamer interview article with Firaxis designers Will Miller and David McDonough on sci-fi influences, how to handle expectations of the franchise, professional history, what design they argue about, and what the start of development is like before assets are created
Cloudface - Time-lapse of animating an enemy in this indie 2D platformer (7 min 40 sec)
Cogmind - Article by indie developer Josh "Kyzrati" Ge on using ASCII characters for game art
Cogmind - Article by indie developer Josh "Kyzrati" Ge on examples of using colored ASCII art for particle effects and explosions
Color cycling - Article on the graphics technique used in early games to give the impression of animation by merely changing the colors; includes an interview with Mark J. Ferrari who illustrated the backgrounds for Lucasfilm Games Loom and The Secret of Monkey Island
Concept art - Derek Yu's tumblr page titled Abobobo featuring random video game concept art and media [text]
Concept art - Interview article with Bastien Grivet, a concept artist on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 about how he got started as an artist, what a matte painter does, how he comes up with a new world, and what software and physical tools he uses [text]
Conker's Bad Fur Day - ex-RARE developers give commentary during game playthrough (24 part playlist)
Content pipeline - Transcript of a SIGGRAPH 2007 talk by LucasArts programmer Nick Porcino on improving the content pipeline [text]
Contra - Reverse-engineering this NES classic [text]
Corrinne Yu - Edge article on how the engine programmer got started in computers, to working on Borderlands and Halo and now having joined Naughty Dog
Costume Quest 2 - Article on physically based rendering used in this sequel by Double Fine Production's programmer David Farrell [text]
Counter-Strike - Dust to Dust: The History of Counter-Strike, including text interview with co-creator Minh "Gooseman" Le
Counter-Strike - Minh "Gooseman" Le, creator of the original mod, plays Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with Gamasutra editors while discussing the Counter-Strike series and his newer game, Tactical Intervention. (58 min)
Counter-Strike - Article by level designer David Johnston on the making of Dust 2, one of the most popular competitive maps in history (more articles on the first Dust and Sienna in comments)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Valve technical artist Bronwen Grimes explains what the players wanted to buy from the CS:GO marketplace in this Gamasutra article recap of the GDC 2014 talk
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - Community level designers Salvatore Garozzo and Shawn Snelling talk at GDC 2015 about emphasizing player skill and strategic choices in CS:GO level design (24 min)
Crash Bandicoot - Making of article written by Andy Gavin, founder and lead programmer of Naughty Dog
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped - making of
CryENGINE - various presentation slides in PDF format from GDC and Siggraph on the graphic technologies and art behind Ryse and Crysis 3
Crysis - making of from Collector's Edition and Eurogamer feature
Crysis 3 - behind the scenes by The Creators Project
Cyberpunk 2077 - Interview article with animation director Maciej Jackiewicz about how the visual effects company Platige Image created the teaser trailer for CD Projekt's game in development.
D
Daikatana - Dallas Observer news article from 1999 that gave a peek inside the tumultuous behind the scenes drama at Ion Storm, the company that John Romero founded after leaving id Software [text]
Daikatana - Salon article from 2002 by Christian Divine, a former writer at Ion Storm, sharing what his experience working there was like [text]
Daikatana - Cracked article titled "5 Things We Learned Making The Biggest Flop In Game History" by former employees Matthew Cox, senior artist, and Zach Baker, programmer [text]
Daniel Fedor - Creator of NEO Scavenger and former Bioware tech artist and producer writes about his daily schedule as a now indie developer and tips on how he stays focused
Dance Central 3 - How Harmonix turns music into fun, article by Polygon (accompanying video in comments)
Daniel Cook - Game design theory I wish I had known when I started, a talk by the designer of Triple Town and Realm of the Mad God and author of LostGarden.com (1 hr) [CC] (audio on left speaker only)
Dan Roarty - Crystal Dynamics lead character artist demonstrates creating realistic 3D portraits using Maya, Mudbox, Knald and V-Ray (17 min)
A Dark Room - Programmer Amir Rajan reveals the sales numbers for the iOS port of Michael Townsend's web game, as well as a diary during the four months of develoment (cross-post from /r/gamedev) [text]
Dark Souls - director interview and From Software office tour
Dark Souls - behind the scenes
Dark Souls - Text interview from Design Works book with director Hidetaka Miyazaki and four artists about the design and look of environments, enemies and characters (part 1 of 6, rest linked in comments)
Dark Souls - Gamasutra interview article from 2011 with From Sofware producer Kei Hirono on reflection of Dark Souls' development, and what director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team have managed to achieve [text]
Dark Souls 2 - Making of covering the design of the world and enemies, and developing a new graphics engine including footage of Dark Souls 2's hitboxes, as well as a video interview with Yui Tanimura, the new director for the sequel to From Software's critically acclaimed hit (35 min total) [CC]
David Jaffe - State of Play video interview in 2011 with the director of the God of War and Twisted Metal series on his career (1 hr) [CC]
Daylight - History and profile of Zombie Studios, creators of the Spec Op series from 1998 to 2001, the free-to-play FPS Blacklight: Retribution, and the recently released Daylight, the first game to be using Unreal Engine 4 (5 min)
Daylight - Technology trailer showing the effects of Nvidia Gameworks for the first released game using Unreal Engine 4
Day of the Tentacle - Tim Schafer plays and commentates on this 1993 LucasArts graphic adventure game that he co-led and wrote, explaining the game's origins and including an anecdote at 28:14 about director Steven Spielberg having called looking for a hint to the game (part 1, 40 min)
DayZ - Blog article about the challenge of zombie pathfinding in this multiplayer survival FPS and what the developer Bohemia Interactive has changed to improve the pathfinding
Dead Island 2 - Article by YAGER technical director André Dittrich on building the open world with an 80-man team using Unreal Engine 4 [text]
Deadnaut - A list of software languages and tools used to create this Unity engine indie title (cross-post from /r/gamedev)
Dear Esther - Making an Indie Success Out of an Experimental Mod; writer and producer Dan Pinchbeck talks at GDC 2012 about the design of this unconventional, exploratory first-person title
Defense Grid 2 - Polygon multiple-part article series on developer Hidden Path's journey to making the game and insight into the business deals that happen during a game's development
Design documents and game pitches - Repository of design documents and game pitches for various games including Grand Theft Auto 1, Shanghai Dynasty, Leisure Suit Larry, Freddy Pharkas, Hulk, Tron, The Witcher, Fallout 2, and Grim Fandango
Destiny - Presentation titled "Brave New World: New Bungie IP" by Bungie writer and design director Joseph Staten and art director Christopher Barrett at GDC 2013 about how they created this new fictional universe (55 min, alternate YouTube link in comments)
Destiny - evolution of the art in this upcoming Bungie first-person shooter
Destiny - Bungie's development of the Destiny engine over six years; talk given at GDC 2015 (48 min)
Deus Ex - Warren Spector game design commentary and playthrough
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - making of
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Graphics study by an independent software engineer using Renderdoc to reverse-engineer this 2011 DirectX 11 title [text]
Dev.Mag - 50 Tips for Working with Unity (Best Practices) by programmer Herman Tulleken
The Devs Life - Interviews with developers about what their work life is like, and the ups and downs of game development; first episode with Daniel Fedor (NEO Scavenger) and second with Paul Allen (Interstellar Marines) (5 min each) [CC]
Diablo - Retrospective by GameTrailers
Diablo 2 - Gamasutra postmortem article by former Blizzard North co-founder Erich Schaefer on what went right and wrong with this sequel released in 2000 [text]
Diablo 3 - Making of included in the Collector's Edition (1 hr 22 min)
Diablo 3 - Making of the black soulstone cinematic from Blizzcon 2011 (1 hr)
Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - Behind the scenes for Diablo 3's first expansion that came with the Collector's Edition (1 hr 40 min)
Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - Presentation at Blizzcon 2013 on how the intro cinematic was created (1 hr)
Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - What's next? panel at Blizzcon 2014 (1 hr)
Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - Evolving Reaper of Souls panel at Blizzcon 2014 (1 hr)
DICE - Battlefield, Mirror's Edge and Frostbite engine (various articles and presentation slides)
Dishonored - developer documentary (4 video playlist)
Dishonored - Creating Steampunk Beauty; visual and art directors Viktor Antonov and Sebastien Mitton discuss the visual design
The Division - Behind the scenes at Massive Entertainment with their Snowdrop Engine for their upcoming PS4/XB1/PC gen title
Donkey Kong Country - making of
DOOM - John Romero playthrough and commentary
DOOM - classic postmortem by John Romero and Tom Hall at GDC 2011
DOOM - Pictures at id Software during DOOM's development
DOOM - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code in this seminal first-person shooter released by id Software in 1993 [text]
DOOM for iPhone - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the source code in the iPhone port [text]
DOOM and MYST - 20 Years After, a conversation with John Romero (DOOM) and Rand Miller (MYST) at the NYU Game Center about looking back at their careers, sharing their thoughts about development and the future of the gaming industry, and commenting on the legacies of each other's work (1 hr 38 min)
DOOM 3 - Making of (7 min)
DOOM 3 - Making of by G4 Icons
DOOM 3 - C++ coding style standards used for id Software's first C++ title
DOOM 3 - GameSpy text interviews with id Software tools programmer Robert Duffy and engine programmer J.M.P. van Waveren on the tools and development process, and how J.M.P. van Waveren transitioned from coding the Quake 3 bots to handling DOOM 3's collision detection and physics
DOOM 3 - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C++ source code in id Software's first major codebase using C++ instead of C [text]
DOOM 3 BFG - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the updated source code for this remastered title released in 2012 [text]
DOOM 3 BFG - Links to additional reading material relevant to id Tech 4, used for DOOM 3
DotA 2 - Valve's character aesthetics guide (PDF article)
DotA 2 - Valve's shader mask guide (PDF format)
DotA 2 - Valve's texture guide (PDF format)
Double Dragon - Polygon interview article with director Yoshihisa Kishimoto on the origins of this beat-em-up 1987 arcade hit from the defunct developer Technos Japan
Double Fine - Amnesia Fortnight 2014, documentary footage on their experimental game prototyping event
Double Fine - Amnesia Fortnight 2012 documentary footage (12 video playlist)
Double Fine - Presentation by senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis on how dialog gets into a Double Fine game, from the moment a line is written, to hearing and seeing the line in the engine (even in a foreign tongue), and what tech is required to make it happen (1 hr)
Dragon Age - concept art of both Dragon Age and Mass Effect
Driver: San Francisco - AIGameDev.com video interview with Ubisoft AI tech lead Sergio Ocio about the artificial intelligence in this 2011 360/PS3/Wii title by developer Ubisoft Reflections (1 hr 38 min, free for a limited time with website registration)
Dragon's Lair - Making of this 1983 arcade title that utilized LaserDisc technology for storing its animated cutscenes (25 min) [CC]
DuckTales: Remastered - Behind the scenes videos on art design, level backgrounds, and music for this 2013 high-definition remake of the 1989 NES Capcom title (15 min)
Dudeski - Technical video walkthrough of how this iOS arcade skiing game was created in Unity (23 min)
Duke Nukem 3D - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code of 3D Realms' 1996 shooter made on Ken Silverman's Build engine [text]
Dune 2 - Article on the making of this 1992 PC title by Westwood Studios that originated the real-time strategy genre, laying the foundation for later games like Warcraft, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires and Starcraft
Dustforce - Article on the sales figures of this 2012 PS3/360/PC indie platformer by four-man Australian developer Hitbox Team
Dwarf Fortress - Gamasutra interview article with brothers Tarn Adams aka "Toady One" and Zach Adams about the making of one of the most detailed and successful city-building and roguelike games
Dwarf Fortress - Giant Bomb video interview with brothers Zach and Tarn Adams (13 min)
Dynamix - Article on the history of this defunct PC developer (1984 - 2001) that developed among others, Red Baron, Rise of the Dragon, The Incredible Machine, Betrayal at Krondor, Front Page Sports: Football, and Tribes
E
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion - making of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Behind the Wall, making of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Todd Howard DICE 2012 keynote
The Elder Scrolls: Todd Howard - The director of The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 gives a video interview about how he got started in the gaming industry
Elite - Making of this 1984 seminal space trading game by British developers David Braben and Ian Bell (23 min) [CC]
Elite: Dangerous - Making of this trading space sim, the fourth installment in the Elite series released in 2014 by Frontier Developments with their Kickstarter campaign (15 min) [CC]
Elite: Dangerous - Keynote given at Nordic Game 2014 by Frontier Developments CEO David Braben about the development history and how the alpha release went (52 min) [CC]
Elsinore - Gamasutra blog article on tips for motivating your indie team by hobbyist developer Katie Chironis [text]
Enlighten - Demonstration of developer Geomerics dynamic lighting technology with Unity 5 (Enlighten is also compatible with the Unreal Engine)
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - making of Ninja Theory's 2010 PS3/360/PC title using Unreal Engine 3 (24 min)
Environmental art - Article interview with environmental artist Everett Gunther about the differences between environmental art and level design, his work in Unreal Engine 4, and the software tools he uses [text]
Epic Games - Nvidia sponsored interview with Epic Games' technology director Tim Sweeney and vice president Mark Rein about their start in game development and the evolution of the Unreal Engine, including passing footage of Epic's offices in Cary, North Carolina (4 min)
Ernesto - Livestream recording of indie developer Daniel Benmergui designing a new boss for this puzzle dungeon crawler (1 hr 30 min)
Escape from Monster Manor - developer commentary on this 1993 3DO title
Eurogamer - Article on melee sword combat with a look at implementations from various games and comments from the developers of Chivalry, Jedi Knight 2, Blade Symphony, and the Witcher series
EVE Online - behind the scenes with CCP
EverQuest - EverCracked! documentary by Jace Hall on SOE's first MMO with interviews and anecdotes from developers
Eye Man - Gamasutra blog article on how a hobbyist Markus Skupeika went from never having programmed or made art to making a game in Unreal Engine 4 [text]
F
Fable Legends - Article by Lionhead Studios on their dynamic global illumination implementation, which has been integrated into the Unreal Engine 4 source code
Fallout - The development of this 1997 PC RPG that started the post-apocalyptic franchise is told in this classic games postmortem by the lead programmer and producer Tim Cain at GDC 2012 (1 hr)
Fallout 3 - Making of from Collector's Edition (39 min)
Fallout 3 - Todd Howard behind the scenes presentation at DICE 2009
Fallout: New Vegas - Making of this 2010 followup to Fallout 3 by Obsidian Entertainment for the PS3/360/PC (50 min)
Far Cry 3 - Interview with motion capture actor Michael Mando, who plays Vaas (3 min 30 sec)
F.E.A.R. - Three States and a Plan, a PDF article originally presented at GDC 2006 by former Monolith programmer Jeff Orkin on how the AI was implemented in this horror-themed first-person shooter [text] [PDF]
FEZ - Cubes All the Way Down; a technical postmortem at GDC 2012 by Polytron programmer Renaud Bedard (1 hr, slides linked in comments)
FEZ - Gamasutra interview article with designer and artist Phil Fish before the game's release, talking about the five-years of development and how that's affected him
Final Fantasy series - The Visual Evolution of Final Fantasy, a talk given by Square Enix art director Yusuke Naora at SMU Guildhall about the evolution in art from the pixels of Final Fantasy 6 to 3D in Final Fantasy 7, all the way to the modern games of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD and Final Fantasy 15 (2 hrs)
Final Fantasy series - The Cinematic Legacy of Square Enix, a talk by chief creative director Kazuyuki Ikumori at USC on what goes into making a cutscene for the Final Fantasy series (2 hrs)
Final Fantasy 7 - behind the scenes of this 1997 PlayStation classic
Final Fantasy 8 - interview with developers. Video starts in French, but changes to English shortly in
Final Fantasy 13 - character animation of Lightning and Sazh
Final Fantasy 13: Lightning Returns - Inside the Square, a look inside the developer of the Final Fantasy franchise
Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn - Square Enix producer and director Naoki Yoshida explains at GDC 2014 what went wrong with the original 2010 release of the Final Fantasy 14 MMO, and the thought process behind the relaunch in 2013 (1 hr)
Final Fantasy 15 - Tech demo video for this upcoming Square Enix title on the PS4 and XB1 (3 min)
Final Fantasy 15 - DirectX 12 tech demo shown at Microsoft's Build 2015 (4 min 30 sec) [CC]
Flappy Bird - Dong Nguyen, creator of this viral hit, explains how the game came about and why he walked away from its success in this Rolling Stone article
Flower - thatgamecompany developer diary
Flower - AMA with Vincent Diamante, thatgamecompany's audio director and video game music composer [text]
Fortnite - Epic Games gameplay programmer Ben Zeigler writes a detailed post on how Epic's upcoming game Fortnite mixes C++ and Blueprints in Unreal Engine 4
Forza Motorsport 4 - Off With Their Assists: An Empirical Study of Driving Skill by Microsoft researchers about how players utilize driving assists such as the trajectory line and presents a model of prediction for when a player is ready to disable an assist (PDF format)
FRACT OSC - Interview article with music composer Alex Taam (aka Mogi Grumbles) about his inspiration and process for creating music for this musical exploration indie game
Frostbite - Presentation slides and notes from a SIGGRAPH 2014 talk on transitioning the Frostbite engine to physically-based rendering by DICE graphics programmers Charles de Rousiers and Sébastien Lagarde
FTL: Faster Than Light - Polygon article on the early careers of creators Justin Ma and Matthew Davis and how playing board games led to the creation of this popular 2012 indie space game
G
Gabe Newell - Reflections of a Video Game Maker, talk by the Valve founder at LBJ School about productivity, economics and corporations
Gabe Newell - A View on Next Steps, talk given at D.I.C.E. 2013 (35 min)
Gabe Newell - Talk given at LinuxCon 2013 on why Valve is porting their games to Linux and why they feel Linux is important to the PC ecosystem (24 min) [CC]
Gabriel Gambetta - Articles on the architecture of client-server multiplayer games with high update rates, such as first-person shooters, including coverage of avoiding lag, low-frequency server updates, and synchronization between players and the server
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition - Jane Jensen, creator of the original classic 1993 adventure title, shows comparisons between the original game and new remake, while talking about the making of the game, as well as playing the game herself (5 videos, 30 min total)
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition - Gamasutra postmortem article on the 20th Anniversary remake of Jane Jensen's classic adventure title originally released in 1993 [text]
Gamasutra - Dirty Coding Tips article from 2009, about nine real-world examples of dirty programming hacks and shortcuts to fix baffling bugs
Gamasutra - Dirty Coding Tips article #2 from the last issue of Game Developer magazine in June 2013, with nine more real-world examples of dirty programming hacks and shortcuts to fix baffling bugs
Gamasutra - Article asking developers to respond on Twitter about the weirdest bug they've encountered
Game Career Coach - Why Do Creators Create? A motivating video for game developers (3 min)
Game design - Keith Burgun, game designer on 100 Rogues and Auro and author of Clockwork Game Design, starts a new video series that are 3-minutes each on creating better ruleset design (3 min) [CC]
Game design - The evolution of game design talk given at IGDA Webinar by Chris "Wombat" Crowell, Patrick Holleman, and Mike Breault (1 hr 14 min)
Game jam - Indie developer Alex Rose writes of his experience making Midas using the Unity engine at the Rezzed 8-hour game jam with a team of four, including lessons learned
Game jam - Article with tips on how to quickly create 3D art for game jams, using the game Infection as an example, by artist Daniel Nascimento
Game jam - Behind the scenes video on making Infection, a game created at Ludum Dare 29 (6 min)
Game jam - Interview with a Dev interviews Daniel Nascimento on the game Infection made at Ludum Dare 29 (24 min) [CC]
Game Programming Patterns - Book on architectural patterns in game code by EA Tiburon lead programmer Bob Nystrom
Game Programming Patterns - Article by former EA Tiburon lead programmer Bob Nystrom on how he came about to write a book on game programming (link to online book in comments)
Game School Prep - "Who Exactly Makes Games Anyway?"; Article on how a game studio ends up with so many job titles, and what those employees do
Games from Scratch - Educational episode targeted to children ages 8 to 15 about making video games; produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Good Game television gaming program (31 min)
Gas Powered Games - Chris Taylor's developer diaries of Kings and Castles (35 videos)
Gauntlet - postmortem by creator Ed Logg of this classic 1985 Atari Games arcade title at GDC 2012 (1 hr)
GDC 2007 - Programmer's Challenge, a fun quiz panel with game developer centric questions and featuring Casey Muratori and Jeff Roberts as hosts, and Jonathan Blow, Chris Hecker, Chris Butcher, Eric Malafeew, Josh Adams, and Brian Jacobson as contestants (45 min)
GDC 2007 - Independent Games Summit panel about innovation in indie games featuring Jonathan Blow (Braid), Jenova Chen (Journey), Kyle Gabler (World of Goo), Jonathan Mak (Everyday Shooter), and moderated by Steve Swink (Scale) (1 hr)
GDC 2014 - official archive of all presentation slides (no subscription required, will add notable slides in comments)
GDC 2014 - compilation of presentation slides
GDC 2014 - Physics Tutorial presentation slides including Understanding Constraints by Erin Catto, Blizzard physics programmer and creator of Box2D
GDC 2014 - Polygon article recap on Blizzard concept artist Arnold Tsang demonstrating at GDC 2014 his process of character concept illustration
GDC 2014 - #1ReasonToBe, talks about what it means to be a woman in games by Brenda Romero (UCSC), Lauren Scott (UCSC), Colleen Macklin (Parsons), Anna Kipnis (Double Fine programmer), Deirdra Kiai (Dominique Pamplemoose), Leigh Alexander (Gamasutra), and Laralyn McWilliams (designer) (1 hr 10 min)
GDC 2014 - Misogyny, Racism and Homophobia: Where Do Video Games Stand? talk by Bioware Montreal gameplay designer Manveer Heir (56 min)
GDC Next 2014 - New approaches to free-to-play (F2P) game design by Ethan Levy (48 min)
GDC 2015 - All free presentations
Gears of War - making of
Get Lamp - Text adventure documentary by Jason Scott (2 hr) [CC]
Ghostbox - Lessons of a Failed Game Dev Studio, a Gamasutra blog article on why Ghostbox, an Australian indie company made up of a half-dozen university graduates, failed [text]
Ghostbusters - Making of article for this 1984 Commodore 64 and Atari 800 title (later ported to the Atari 2600, Sega Master System and Nintendo) with quotes from designer David Crane of Pitfall! fame
Ghost Recon Phantoms - Behind the scenes of this 2014 PC/Wii U third-person perspective, multiplayer free-to-play shooter developed by Ubisoft Singapore
Glint - a time-lapsed recording of this puzzle game's development using Unity
Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork - Blog article detailing the troubles of developing Glorkian Warrior, an early successfully funded Kickstarter, by PixelJam Games programmer Miles Tilmann [text]
Goat Simulator - Gamasutra article on how the developer Coffee Stain, makers of Sanctum, used Unreal Engine 3 and PhysX for fast game development
God of War - making of
God of War 2 - Making of (35 min) [CC]
God of War 3 - making of all aspects including programming, camera design, art, creating Poseidon and motion capture
God of War: Ascension - Sony Computer Santa Monica Studios shows the making of this 7th installment of the God of War series, and the 2nd title on the PS3 following God of War III. Covers multiplayer tech, single player systems and combat design, level design and environments, monster design, modeling and animation, motion capture and meeting the press
GoldenEye 007 - director Martin Hollis GDC Europe 2012 presentation on the making of
GoldenEye 007 - Four members of the development team recount the making of in this 2011 article
GoldenEye 007 - Interview article with programmer Mark Edmonds and production designer Duncan Botwood by mundorare.com
GoldenEye 007 - Martin Hollis's written account of the making of, originally presented at the 2004 European Developer's Forum
God of War - Retrospective panel at PlayStation Experience 2014 with David Hewitt (Sony Santa Monica Studios' producer), Cory Barlog (creative director), Derek Daniels (design director), Bruno Velazquez (animation director), Jason McDonald (combat designer), and Ariel Lawrence (producer) (30 min)
Gone Home - 'Why is Gone Home a Game?' presentation at GDC 2014 by designer Steve Gaynor about whether or not Gone Home qualifies as a video game, what defines a game, how interactivity provides meaning, and what design went into Gone Home to create something that resonates with players (56 min)
Gone Home - Polygon article on how serendipity, restlessness and trust formed independent studio The Fullbright Company, whose debut title is one of 2013's most critically acclaimed
Gone Home - Steve Gaynor and Lucy Prebble discuss writing in games
Grand Theft Auto 1 - historical recollection of developing the first game at DMA Design (later Rockstar North)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - EDGE magazine article on the making of this 2002 PlayStation 2 followup to Grand Theft Auto 3, including an interview with Rockstar North's president and producer Sam Houser
Grand Theft Auto 5 - Rockstar North lead audio programmer Alastair MacGregor's GDC 2014 talk on the sound engine used for their games, and the advances such as real-time synthesis and DSP features implemented for GTA 5 (1 hr)
Grant Kirkhope - Audio interview with former Rare music composer about working on the soundtracks to Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark (43 min)
Grant Kirkhope - Interview with former Rare composer by GameGrumps (1 hr) [CC]
Gran Turismo; Kaz: Pushing the Virtual Divide - a documentary on Kazunori Yamauchi, the architect of the Gran Turismo series
Graphics - Blog post by Real-Time Rendering author Eric Haines about how GPUs and cones don't get along [text]
Graphics - A visual overview of how graphics are rendered by artist Simon Schreibt [text]
Graphics - Ambient Obscurance Baking on the GPU, a system that computes ambient obscurance over the vertices of complex polygon meshes and used in Bungie's Destiny; written by Peter-Pike Sloan (Nvidia), Jason Tranchida (Bungie), Hao Chen (Bungie), and Ladislav Kavan (University of PA) [text] [PDF]
Greg Costikyan - Uncertainty in Games, a talk given at Game Design Conference 2012 on why uncertainty is critical to hold a player's interest and that examines many sources of uncertainty in games such as Super Mario Bros, rock-paper-scissors, FPS deathmatch, and chess (45 min) [CC]
Grim Fandango - Tim Schafer commentary during playthrough of this LucasArts 1998 dark comedy adventure game (1 hr 35 min)
Guacamelee! - The Art of the Game, from Folklore to Finish, a GDC 2014 presentation by Drinkbox Studios artist Augusto Quijano
Guerrilla Games - Publications
Guild Wars - Scaling the game for massive concurrency and other articles including a GDC 2012 talk by Patrick Wyatt, former lead programmer at ArenaNet and Blizzard
Guild Wars 2 - ArenaNet retrospective with employee reflections of the company and footage of the office (15 min, more behind the scenes videos linked in comments)
Guild Wars 2 - ArenaNet character artist Kristen Perry walks through the process of creating a Sylvari hairstyle using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop (42 min)
Guild Wars 2 - ArenaNet concept artist Matthew Barrett demonstrates how to draw an Asura, one of the five playable races (9 min)
Guild Wars 2 - 9-hour playlist of various behind the scenes videos including cinematics, office tour, 2013 retrospective update, concept art, 3d modeling, music, and various in-game location and event developer commentary.
Guilty Gear Xrd - Arc System Works' technical artist Junya Christopher Motomura explains at GDC 2015 how they recreated 2D cel-shaded graphics with 3D in this Unreal Engine 3 powered fighting game (1 hr)
Gunmetal Arcadia - Blog article on animation tools by Super Win the Game creator Kyle Pittman [text]
Gunpoint - Creator Tom Francis of this indie stealth-puzzle-platformer talks about the lessons he learned in developing this game at Minecon 2012 (50 min)
Guns of Icarus Online - Postmortem articles titled "Publisher Hell" and "Starting Over" on the various struggles that developer Muse Games encountered while developing the followup to Guns of Icarus and also shows style guides and concept art
H
Half-Life - Making of Valve's debut title by the G4 Icons show (21 min)
Half-Life - Gamasutra article published in 1999 by Valve programmer Ken Birdwell on how Valve designed their debut title using a Cabal, a group of employees from different disciplines that was used as a substitute for a game designer position normally held by one person
Half-Life 2 - The Final Hours article by Geoff Keighley
Half-Life 2 - map image of original game route
Half-Life 2 - Article on Axel Gembe, the hacker that stole Half-Life 2's source code
Half-Life 2 - AMA by Axel Gembe, the hacker that stole Half-Life 2's source code
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast - Valve developer commentary
Half-Life 2: Episode One - Valve developer commentary during game playthrough (1 hr)
Halo: Combat Evolved - O Brave New World, a documentary of Bungie that was founded in 1991 and created the Marathon and Myth series before the hit that became synonymous with their name, Halo (55 min)
Halo: Combat Evolved - Developer commentary during playthrough with project lead Jason Jones, writer and cinematic director Joseph Staten, and music composer Martin O'Donnell (55 min) [CC]
Halo 2 - Making of (53 min)
Halo 2 - Developer commentary during playthrough with project lead Jason Jones, writer and cinematic director Joseph Staten, and music composer Martin O'Donnell (1 hr 22 min) [CC]
Halo 2: Anniversary - Remaking the Legend, a documentary on 343 Industries remaking Halo 2 for the Xbox One (1 hr)
Halo 2: Anniversary - Blurring Separation Between Concept and Production about remaking the art of Halo 2 Anniversary by Certain Affinity character artist Michael Pavlovich (1 hr)
Halo 3 - Making of the third installment of the series that was released in 2007 by Bungie (1 hr)
Halo 3 - GDC 2010 talk titled "Design in Detail: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds" by former Bungie designer Jaime Griesemer about the sensitive and subtle nature of game balancing (1 hr)
Halo 4 - Making of this 2012 release that was the first sequel in the series developed by 343 Industries rather than Bungie (35 min)
Halo 4 - Former 343 Industries distributed systems engineer Caitie McCaffrey describes building the online services in Azure and how Orleans, Distributed Virtual Actors for Programmability and Scalability helped (43 min)
Handmade Hero - New series of daily instructional streaming by Casey Muratori (programmer on The Witness) to teach programming a complete game from scratch in C
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - Behind the scenes video of Blizzard's digital card game
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - Blizzard lead designer Eric Dodds at GDC 2014 sheds light on the game's creation and ten design lessons learned (50 min)
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - AI postmortem talk at GDC 2014 by former Blizzard senior AI programmer Brian Schwab (22 min)
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - Building a Game for Everyone by Blizzard production director Jason Chayes at DICE Europe 2014 (21 min) [CC]
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - Gamasutra interview article with Blizzard production designer Jason Chayes and producer Bryan Chang about how Hearthstone came about, the challenges in Blizzard's foray to the mobile platform, and why they chose Unity
Hearthstone: Goblins vs Gnomes - Senior game designer Ben Brode at Blizzcon 2014 reveals statistics from the past year of Hearthstone and discusses luck versus skill, as well as a preview of Gobins vs Gnomes, the upcoming expansion of 120 cards. (48 min)
Heavenly Sword - behind the scenes for this 2007 PS3 title by Ninja Theory, including environment design and motion capture of Andy Serkis
Herald - Polygon article on a Kickstarter period drama adventure game by two Dutch developers that want to explore minority issues, identity, and racial representation in their game [text]
Heroes of the Storm - Polygon article on the making of Blizzard's upcoming MOBA and how it evolved from a demonstration of Starcraft 2's modding tools to standalone product
Heroes of the Storm - Blizzcon 2014 panel on an in-depth look into how the developers are creating new heroes and maps (1 hr)
Hero Generations - Gamasutra article on the design philosophy of this indie title in development and what those core themes translated into as game mechanics
Hextraction - Video interview with indie developer Combo Mash about their Kickstarter-in-progress and what appears to be working and not working with attracting backers (13 min)
Hideo Kojima - Director of the cinematic-reliant Metal Gear Solid series tells his 5 favorite movies, what he likes about each one and how they have influenced him as a creator
Hideo Kojima - Conversation with the vice-president of Konami and director of the Metal Gear series about his career at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2013 (1 hr)
Hirokazu Yasuhara - Gamasutra interview from 2008 with the designer of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Jak and Daxter 2 and 3, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune [text]
History - Evolution of the Video Game Controller: How Simple Switches Lead to the Development of the Joystick and the Directional Pad by Stanford student William Lu (PDF format)
The Hit - Developer Dan Stubbs writes about his efforts in creating a dynamic narrative game, similar in idea to Ken Levine's ambition
Hitman: Absolution - Burning Hope, the making of
Hitman: Absolution - Free iOS app on the making of, containing more than 250 images and 25 videos showing the discarded concepts, abandoned ideas, and early prototype videos
HobbyGameDev - Chris DeLeon writes why beginners should start with modest first projects, why tutorials cover Pong and Asteroids and not Call of Duty and Uncharted, and the importance of incremental learning
Hotline Miami - The Hotline Miami Story, a documentary on the successful indie game made by two people, Jonathan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, and that was inspired by David Lynch, the documentary Cocaine Cowboys, and the noir film Drive (29 min)
Hot Tin Roof - Founder and programmer Megan Fox from indie developer Glass Bottom Games shares insight on this quirky Metroid style title with film noir theme, as well as discussion of game design in general, and her experiences as a developer.
I
id Software - IEEE Spectrum's article on the technical wizardry of id by Masters of Doom author David Kushner, illustrating John Carmack's algorithms for smooth scrolling in a Mario clone, raycasting 3D rooms for Wolfenstein 3D, and dividing a binary space partition tree for DOOM
id Software - Office tour footage from 1993, showing on camera Jay Wilbur, Shawn Green, John Romero, Dave Taylor, Sandy Petersen, Adrian Carmack, and Bobby Prince; the first 9.5 minutes shows the office and the rest is John Romero playing DOOM before the sound effects were put in (32 min)
Impulse Tracker - Article by the creator Jeffrey "Pulse" Lim on programming this DOS-based music sequencer inspired by Future Crew's Scream Tracker and made popular in the demoscene (part 1 of an ongoing series, rest in comments)
Indie development - How to build your indie team, a panel discussion hosted by lead programmer Matt Harmon and also featuring Roger Mailler, Brandon Pollet, Brady Wright, Rayna Behl, Ross Pinkstaff, and Tony Miller (48 min)
Indie Game: The Movie - Documentary that interviews and follows three different game creators - Jonathan Blow who made Braid, Phil Fish who made Fez, and the duo team of Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes that made Super Meat Boy. You witness their struggle in trying to create a game that matches their vision and dealing with high expectations and pressure. The movie is available on Netflix streaming, Steam, Amazon streaming and direct purchase for download, DVD or Bluray
inFAMOUS - tech and engine behind the first game of the series on PS3
inFAMOUS 2 - behind the scenes with Sucker Punch Productions at Comic-Con 2010
inFAMOUS: Second Son - video playlist of behind the scenes at Sucker Punch Productions including visual effects, emotion capture, art and design
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Behind the scenes of the graffiti-based 2D cinematics for this PS4 exclusive title by developer Sucker Punch Productions
inFAMOUS: Second Son - fxguide interview article with Sucker Punch Productions senior visual effects artist Matt Vainio about the design process of the particle effects and details of the particle engine and editor
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Presentation slides for Engine Postmortem talk given at GDC 2014 by Sucker Punch lead engine programmer Adrian Bentley (PDF format, link to talk which requires GDC Vault subscription in comments)
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Concept art from Levi Hopkins, including pictures of Glass and Wire powers that were rejected for the final game
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Tech stats article for developer Sucker Punch Productions' PS4 title including number of particles that the character turns into during a smoke dash (11,000)
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Polygon article on behind the music of this Sucker Punch Productions PS4 title
Infocom - PDF paper on the founding, history, and downfall of Infocom, the company that created many notable text adventures games such as Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - Video explanation of the camera implementation in this UFO flying indie game by game designer and scripter Ryan Meyer (10 min)
Insomniac Games - G4 Icons episode on the history of this southern California developer founded in 1994, covering the games Disruptor, the Spyro series and the transition from PlayStation 1 to 2 with the first Ratchet & Clank (22 min)
Insomniac Games - A 2012 IGN article on the history of the developer behind the Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance series (7 parts) [text]
Insomniac Games - Ratchet & Clank and Resistance developer's programming articles
Insomniac Games - Short video interview from 2011 with engine director Mike Acton on what an engine programmer does, his background in having quit high school to work in games, how game education has changed, and his prediction for hardware coming after the PS3
Insomniac Games - Short video interview with lead gameplay programmer Andrew Yount from 2011 on what a gameplay programmer does, how he got started programming and his educational background, and what working at Insomniac is like
Insomniac Games - Short video interview with lead environment artist Jacinda Chew in 2011, working on Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, about what a lead environment artist does, her background of schooling and getting into the industry, and what has changed the most since she started
Interview with a Dev - Video interviews with indie developers such as Conflux Games and Kitatus Studios about their games, game dev history, and tips for developers (20 min each)
Interview with a Dev - Video interview with Lonely Monster Games, an indie company working on a new title Gratus (14 min)
It Came from the Desert - Retro Gamer making of article interviewing former Cinemaware designer David Riordan on this 1989 Amiga title inspired by 1950s B movies and later ported to PC, TurboGrafx-16, and Genesis
J
Jak and Daxter - making of
Jak and Daxter Collection - behind the scenes
Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier - Postmortem article on this sequel to Jak 3 released in 2009 for the PSP and later to the PS2; programming-centric postmortem written by former High Impact Games gameplay programmer Travis Sanchez
Jake Song - Gamasutra 2006 article on the lead programmer of Lineage and current CEO of XLGames that developed the Korean MMORPG ArcheAge; covers his early education and start in programming and how he applied to work at Electronic Arts several times with no success
Japanese game developers - English translated interviews of Japanese developers ranging from Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Zelda), Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Satoru Iwata (Nintendo), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear), Koji Igarashi (Castlevania), and many more [text]
Jenova Chen - Talk in December 2012 by thatgamecompany co-founder and Journey game designer about his early life, how thatgamecompany came about, and what makes the developer unique in the industry (1 hr 8 min) [CC]
Jim Crawford - Preserving a Sense of Discovery in the Age of Spoilers, a talk originally given at GDC 2014 by the creator of Frog Fractions (18 min talk, followed by 40 min Q&A)
John Carmack - The Physics of Light and Rendering talk at QuakeCon 2013
John Carmack - Interviews with John Carmack about the motivation to move from C to C++ for DOOM 3 and other technical questions [text]
John Carmack, Tim Sweeney, Johan Andersson - Three luminaries of the game programming world talk on stage at an Nvidia event (1 hr 42 min)
John Carmack - Twenty Years after DOOM: On the Future of Engineering Virtual Worlds (warning: loud audio during audience clapping) (2 hr 22 min)
John Carmack - Talk at the University of Texas in Dallas on April 9, 2015 (2 hrs)
John Hable - Former Naughty Dog programmer writes about the importance of animated diffuse maps for convincing facial animation
John Romero - Interview on Matt Chat about his early days, Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake and Daikatana
John Romero - The designer and programmer of Wolfenstein and DOOM talks about his experience growing up with text adventure games and working with Infocom
Jonathan Blow - How to program independent games, talk given at UC Berkeley in 2011
Jonathan Blow - How mainstream devs are getting it wrong (8 min)
Jonathan Blow - Gamespot Break Room video interview on the design and intent behind the upcoming game The Witness, what he would have changed in Braid, what he finds wanting in games, and how to elevate the cultural significance of games (1 hr 22 min)
Jonathan Blow - Attempting Deep Work and Surviving Long Projects, a presentation by the Braid and The Witness developer given at the Indievelopment 2014 conference, where he defines what deep work is, how to cultivate creativity, and how to avoid burnout (1 hr 8 min)
Jonathan Blow - A primer written by a fan summarizing the features of Jonathan Blow's in-development programming language for games [text]
Jonathan Blow - Livestream recording of programming session to implement compiler for new game development-centric language, this time on namespaces and using, as well as Q&A and code metrics for the compiler and The Witness (2 hr 35 min)
Jonathan Blow - GDC 2007 talk at the Independent Games Summit about indie prototyping, Braid, and making innovative games (45 min)
Jonathan Blow - On Trying to Make Idea-Rich Games, a talk given at Practice 2014 in NYU Game Center (1 hr 8 min)
Jools Watsham - Co-founder of company Renegade Kid (developers of Mutant Mudds, Moon, and Treasurenauts) interviewed on how he got started with his first development job and his advice to those wanting to get into the gaming industry (timestamps of interview in comments)
Jordan Mechner - Creator of Karateka and the Prince of Persia series tells the story developing those games in this Games Meets Cinema talk at UCSC
Josh Singh - Riot Games senior character artist writes about his humble beginnings working at a used car lot and telemarketing while practicing art at night before he was able to land his first game industry job [text]
Journey - video playlist of making of footage including thatgamecompany interview, artwork, music and Jenova Chen design presentation
Journey - Jenova Chen's D.I.C.E. 2013 presentation on the theories behind the design
Journey - Designer Jenova Chen explains in this GDC 2013 talk the process thatgamecompany took to come up with the original concept, how they polished and executed the design to realize an emotional arc and the difficult lessons learned throughout the process (58 min)
Journey - Polygon article recapping Jenova Chen's talk on how his belief that social games should exchange emotions and not just help each other boost stats drove the idea behind Journey and that the development team went through twelve prototypes before settling on the final form
K
KARA - director David Cage on creating this PS3 demo by Quantic Dream
Karateka - Making and remaking of this Jordan Mechner 1982 Apple II title to a 2012 iOS version (4 video playlist)
Katamari Damacy - EDGE making of article about this 2004 PS2 title designed by Keita Takahashi [text]
Keiji Inafune - Mega Man creator talks about the state and trends of game development in Japan, including mention of his Mighty No. 9 kickstarter, in this hour-long GDC 2014 talk
Keiji Inafune - a conversation with the creator of Mega Man and kickstarter project Mighty No. 9
Ken Levine - Director of BioShock talks about his desire for endlessly replayable, systems-based stories in this hour-long talk at GDC 2014
Kerbal Space Program - developer text interview
Kerbal Space Program - How modular design with flexible, reusable systems prevented having to remake assets in this indie spaceflight sim game; a GDC 2014 presentation by Squad's technical artist Chad Jenkins (24 min)
Killer Instinct - Combo system was designed using a deck of cards in the original 1994 fighting game by Rare
Killer Instinct - Behind the scenes of this 2013 remake and Xbox One launch title by developer Double Helix
Killer Instinct (2013) - Iron Galaxy's lessons learned on their path taking over development of the third iteration of the Killer Instinct series [text]
Killzone 3 - Technical art making of for this 2011 PS3 game featuring Guerrilla Games former technical artist Paulus Bannink and lead visual effects artist Marijn Giesbertz at GDC 2012 (50 min)
Killzone Shadow Fall - making of
Killzone Shadow Fall - Physically Based Lighting Pipeline for this 2013 PS4 launch title by Guerrilla Games senior tech programmer Michal Drobot at Digital Dragons 2013 (1 hr 13 min, accompanying slides linked in comments)
Kingdom Hearts - making of (2 parts)
Kingdom of Loathing - Podcast interview with Zack Johnson and Kevin Simmons of Asymmetric Publications, the studio behind this browser based RPG with pop culture references (1 hr) [audio]
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Making of for this 2012 PS3/360/PC single-player action RPG by the now defunct Big Huge Games and 38 Studios, with the universe and lore done by R. A. Salvatore and artwork by Todd McFarlane (7 min)
Kings and Castles - Chris Taylor's developer diaries at Gas Powered Games (35 videos)
King's Quest - Interview quips from the developers of this rebooted franchise about "the vision" for the game (2 min 30 sec)
Kodama - recording of creating 2D sprite death animation for this indie platformer
L
The Last Express - behind the scenes of this Jordan Mechner directed cult title
L.A. Noire - facial tech behind the scenes
Last Knight - Making of article on this colorful jousting game built on Unreal Engine 3 and an interview article with creator David Hagemann
The Last of Us - Grounded, 1.5 hour making of documentary
The Last of Us: Left Behind - From Dreams, making of the DLC
The Last of Us - Ellie buddy AI talk at GDC 2014 by Naughty Dog AI programmer Max Dyckhoff (1 hr)
The Last of Us - Naughty Dog visual artist Doug Holder's explanation of the snow footprint effect
The Last of Us - Judd Simantov, Naughty Dog art technical lead, demonstrates character rigging and modeling
The Last of Us - EDGE magazine article on the difficulties Naughty Dog experienced when trying to port their highly optimized PS3 title to the Playstation 4
The Last of Us - Naughty Dog lead programmer Jason Gregory's GDC 2014 presentation slides on Context-Aware Character Dialog
The Last of Us - Naughty Dog design and narrative panel at the Art Institute of Santa Monica (1 hr 26 min)
The Last of Us - Naughty Dog developer panel at Comic-Con 2012
League of Legends - Blog article by lead designer Ryan "Morello" Scott on the design values that drive the direction of this player-vs-player, team-based competitive game
League of Legends - Postmortem: One Year Later by Riot co-founder Marc Merrill at GDC Online 2010, sharing the history of League of Legends development, from pre-production to launch and the lessons learned (1 hr 9 min)
League of Legends - Playlist of League of Legends related videos including a retrospective on character design and art
League of Legends - The Science Behind Shaping Player Behavior in Online Games by Riot Games Lead Social Systems Designer Jeffrey "Lyte" Lin at GDC 2013
League of Legends - Stacking Talent: Growing the League of Legends Team; Riot Games senior producer Travis George explains how Riot has grown the company while maintaining its culture in this hour-long talk at GDC Online 2012
League of Legends - Riot Games design analyst RoamingNumeral writes about the design changes to make bots act more human-like
League of Legends - Developer blog posts on the Summoner's Rift map revamp, including the purpose of the change, how the new art style was chosen, and how it was optimized to ensure good performance [text]
League of Legends - Quotes from co-founder Brandon Beck's keynote about the emphasis that Riot Games places on hiring passionate employees and on valuing teamwork [text]
Left 4 Dead - developer commentary by Valve Software and Turtle Rock Studios (26 min, text transcript in comments)
Left 4 Dead - From Counter-Strike to Left 4 Dead: Creating Replaying Cooperative Experiences talk by Turtle Rock Studios founder Michael Booth at GDC 2009 (1 hr)
Left 4 Dead - AI-driven Dynamic Dialog talk by former Valve programmer Elan Ruskin for GDC 2012 (58 min, links to slides in comments)
Left 4 Dead - The AI Systems presentation slides by Turtle Rock Studios founder Michael Booth for AIIDE (PDF format)
Left 4 Dead 2 - developer commentary by Valve Software and Turtle Rock Studios for this sequel released in 2009 (51 min, text transcript link in comments)
Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2 - Matt Chat interview with Juho Salila, co-founder of developer Almost Human, about this successful RPG series reminiscent of classic turn-based RPGs like Eye of the Beholder (35 mins each)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Text interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto and development staff as well as pre-release screenshots of the third installment of The Legend of Zelda series, released on the Super Nintendo in 1991
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - Texture and tech analysis by a Polycount forum poster for this 2002 Gamecube title [text]
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Blog article from developer Ben Jones examining the expressive eyes in this 2006 Gamecube and Wii title [text]
The LEGO Movie - CGSociety interview article with Animal Logic lighting technology lead Max Liani about how he created a custom renderer called Glimpse to get a particular look for the CG movie
Lenna's Inception - How the world is procedurally generated in this indie action-adventure PC title with a top-down view [text]
Level design - Gamasutra article from 1999 asking level designers [Tim Willits (id), The Levelord (Ritual), Paul Jaquays (id), John Romero (ION Storm), Cliff Bleszinski (Epic), Marc Laidlaw (Valve), Eric Biessman (Raven), Paul O'Connor (Oddworld)] about game design principles for map making [text]
Level design - Blizzard environment artists Martin Holmberg and Thiago Klafke explain the process behind their level titled Temple of Utu which was made using 3D Studio Max, Quixel Suite (NDO,DDO), Zbrush, 3D Coat, XNormal, Photoshop and bringing the assets together in Unreal Engine 4 [text]
Light Fall - Article on creating a parallax system in Unity for this indie title
A Light in Chorus - Interview article with artist/designer Eliott Johnson about the indie title he and Matt Warshaw are making featuring striking visuals of materializing points of light [text]
Lineage 2 - Behind the scenes of this Korean MMORPG developed by NCSoft, including coverage of the Interlude content patch and voice recording in the studio
LittleBigPlanet - making of
LittleBigPlanet 2 - behind the scenes at the developer Media Molecule
Little Inferno - Making of this 2012 indie puzzle game for PC, Wii U, and mobile given at GDC 2014 by indie artist Kyle Gray (30 min)
Looking Glass Studios - Retrospective panel at QuakeCon 2012
Looking Glass Studios - Podcast featuring interviews with past employees including Ken Levine and Marc LeBlanc
The Lord of the Rings Online - Making of from the Special Edition DVD for this Turbine developed MMO released in 2007 (34 min)
Lords of the Fallen - Presentation slides on Volumetric Lighting for Many Lights by programmer Benjamin Glatzel for this upcoming Dark Souls-like game on the PS4/XB1/PC by Polish developer CI Games and German developer Deck 13
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime - Article on how the indie developer implemented pausing the game while certain animations continue playing in Unity (links to more of their articles in comments)
Lucasfilm Games - Before LucasArts, there was first Lucasfilm Games, from 1982 to 1990; this hour-long presentation at GDC 2014 is a historical look back at this classic studio
Lucasfilm Games - AMA with lead designer and programmer Zak McKracken who worked on Fractalus!, Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Maniac Mansion, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
Lumino City - Behind the scenes article on this PC/Mac game that was created using a 10-foot-tall miniature city made out of paper and cardboard [text]
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete - making of
M
Maldita Castilla - Spanish article in PDF format on how the sprites were drawn for this indie freeware game inspired by Ghosts 'n Goblins, by indie developer Locomalito
Maniac Mansion - postmortem by Ron Gilbert
Mass Effect - making of from the bonus DVD (23 min)
Mass Effect - concept art of both Mass Effect and Dragon Age
Mass Effect 2 - making of (3 parts)
Mass Effect 3 - Playlist of behind the scenes videos including sound design and character design, as well as interview with Bioware executive producer Casey Hudson on the origins of Mass Effect and how they come up with names
Mass Effect 3 - Geoff Keighley's The Final Hours ebook, costs $1-3
Mass Effect 3 - EndGame, fan- and critic-made documentary discussing the ending of Mass Effect 3
Massive Chalice - Behind the scenes at Double Fine with project leader Brad Muir on this Kickstarter-funded tactical strategy PC game (6 min)
The Masterplan - Workflow video on how levels are edited using Tiled in this indie top-down 2D tactical heist game (cross-post from /r/GameDev)
Medal of Honor: Frontline - behind the scenes
MediEvil - making of this 1998 Sony Cambridge Studio title for the PlayStation
Meridian 59 - Development history, as well as some additional footnotes by a developer in the comments [text]
Metal Gear Rising - behind the scenes
Metal Gear Solid - Text interview with Jeremy Blaustein, who did the localization work of translating the Japanese-to-English versions of the game
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - making of
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - The Final Hours article by Geoff Keighley
Metal Gear Solid 2 - Text interview with Agness Kaku, the Japanese-to-English translator of games including MGS2 and Katamari Damacy
Metal Gear Solid 4 - Hideo Kojima's Gene (36 min, Japanese audio, click the CC button for English subtitles)
Metal Gear Solid 4 - making of
Metal Gear Solid 5 - Fox engine tech demonstration shown at GDC 2013
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Stylish behind the scenes video dissecting the components that go into rendering the final image
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Motion capture and rendering for the character Quiet with actress Stefanie Joosten
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Director Hideo Kojima commentary for the first 15 minutes of the game
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Konami art director Yoji Shinkawa gives a tour of his office, draws an illustration on camera and shows his Wacom tablet hardware (starts at 40:40, Japanese language version is linked in comments)
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Konami art director Yoji Shinkawa answers questions from his fans (16:30 to 27:00 in the video) and level designer Jordan Amaro explains the considerations when designing a level (45:45 to 60:00)
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Music composer Ludvig Forssell shows his desk with musical instruments, and does a live performance of the sound (starts at 56:30 and ends three minutes later)
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Actress Stefanie Joosten, the voice and motion capture behind the character Quiet, visits Konami in Tokyo to show how faces and objects are photographed with 37 cameras and scanned into the game as 3D models (starts 5 minutes in and ends at 15 minutes) [CC]
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes - Kojima Station episode 7 visits Konami Japan's sound department to show how they create and mix sound effects, including footage of their foley room and the shoes they use for Snake's and Raiden's footsteps (segment starts at 13 min and ends at 24 min) [CC]
Michael Abrash - The former Valve programmer joins Oculus to work together again with John Carmack and recounts the story of being recruited in 1994 by John Carmack to work on the seminal Quake
Might and Magic - Interview with Tim Lang, one of the influential figures of New World Computing and the Might and Magic series (1 hr 10 min)
Mighty No. 9 - documentary episode 00 featuring interviews with Keiji Inafune and other ex-Capcom veterans
Mighty No. 9 - Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune draws a sketch for a humanoid robot enemy for this Kickstarter-funded game in development
The Mims - behind the scenes video of this indie strategy game made with Unity3D (click the CC button for English subtitles)
The Mims - Development blog
Minecraft - The Story of Mojang, chronicling the genesis of the Minecraft phenomenon (1 hr 45 min)
Minecraft - Notch panel interview at Minecon 2013
Minecraft - Forbes interview article with creator Markus Persson and Mojang cofounder Jakob Porsér about why they sold the company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion dollars, what they've been up to since the sale, and how the $70 million dollar Beverly Hills home has been [text]
Mirror's Edge - Edge magazine article on how former DICE environment artist Robert Briscoe developed the look and levels
miscellaneous - playvalue YouTube channel on various gaming history
MLB 14 The Show - Polygon article on the painstaking attention to detail that goes into accurately representing uniforms and athletes in modern sports games
Mobile gaming - Polygon article decrying the common industry wisdom that free-to-play monetization is the only viable option on the mobile platform and a galvanizing plea to developers to create inspiring works instead of following market data by Barry Meade, creator of the The Room puzzle game
Moleman 2 - a documentary on the demoscene, which are audio-visual presentations in real-time made by small teams
Molten Games - Pictures of the office and a write up on this San Diego game studio that was working on its first game Blunderbuss and that recently closed its doors in March 2014
Monaco: What's Yours is Mine - A talk at GDC 2014 by Pocketwatch Games designer/producer Andy Nguyen on how player feedback was interpreted to help shape this 2013 indie title without sacrificing its core design (31 min)
Monster Strike - Interview with Street Fighter 2 producer Yoshiki Okamoto about this hit mobile game that is currently the highest grossing game on the Japanese iOS charts [text]
Monument Valley - Designing Monument Valley: Less Game, More Experience, talk given at GDC Europe 2014 by lead designer Ken Wong about what developer ustwo set out to achieve, and how rethinking games as user experiences inspired the team to trade challenging puzzles for an aesthetic journey (1 hr)
Monument Valley - Gamasutra article on how pathfinding and other technical challenges were resolved, including quotes from technical director Peter Pashley for this lauded iOS and Android title
Monument Valley - behind the scenes of the new puzzle platformer from the developers of Whale Trail and Blip Blup (4 min) [CC]
Monument Valley - Kotaku making of article [text]
Monument Valley - Article on the design principles that drove the creation of this visually striking and currently #1 ranking title in the app store
Monument Valley - Gamasutra interview article with lead designer Ken Wong on the inception of this iOS bestselling game, what concerns they set out to address for people that don't normally play games, and part of the reason behind the game's visual appeal
Moon Hunters - Gamasutra blog by Kitfox Games director Tanya Short on what went right and wrong for their successfully funded Kickstarter campaign
Mortal Kombat - G4 Icons episode #52, a look back on this fighting game franchise that started in 1992 by only four Midway Games employees (21 min)
Mortal Kombat - character filming footage
MotorStorm - Articles on making of the tracks, implementation of the crash camera system, and general development behind the scenes by former Evolution Studios track designer Ivan McCloskey for this 2006 PS3 title that was one of the earliest racing games on the platform
Ms. Pac-Man - Footage from a Bally/Midway factory in 1982 as employees assemble Ms. Pac-Man arcade machines (4 min 30 sec)
Muertitos - Postmortem on this matching puzzle mobile game with Day of the Dead inspired aesthetics and developed by HyperBeard Games, a 3-man indie team from Mexico [text]
Multithreading programming - Iron Galaxy Studios programmer Joseph Simons writes about multithreaded programming covering the basics, communication, and locking
Myst - Making of this 1993 adventure puzzle game that drove the adoption of the CD-ROM and is one of the best-selling PC games of all-time at 6 million copies sold (14 min)
Myst 2: Riven - Making of this 1997 sequel to Myst that was also a critical and commercial success, selling 4.5 million copies (two videos, 10 and 14 min each)
Myst 3: Exile - Making of the third game of the series released in 2001 that was developed by Presto Studios instead of Cyan like the first two and was the first in the series to allow a 360-degree field of view from any point (23 min)
Myst 4: Revelation - Making of the fourth game in the series released in 2004 that was developed by Ubisoft with eighty employees over three years and improved on the prerendered technology of the previous games by introducing its "ALIVE" engine to animate nearly everything in the game (20 min)
Myst 5: End of Ages - Making of the fifth and final installment of the series released in 2005 that was done by the original developers Cyan Worlds and a departure from the previous games by replacing the prerendered environments with worlds rendered in real-time 3D graphics (27 min)
Myst 5: End of Ages - Footage of a meeting at Cyan Worlds circa early 2000s (thus, presumably for Myst 5) as well as interviews with the developers (5 min) [CC]
MYST and DOOM - 20 Years After, a conversation with Rand Miller (MYST) and John Romero (DOOM) at the NYU Game Center about looking back at their careers, sharing their thoughts about development and the future of the gaming industry, and commenting on the legacies of each other's work (1 hr 38 min)
Myth: The Fallen Lords - Rare footage of Bungie offices during the development of Myth circa 1997 (3 min)
N
N - Tutorials on collision detection, from techniques used in the side-scrolling ninja platformer by Metanet Software
Namco High - Polygon article on how programmer Conrad Kreyling designed a visual novel engine for browsers and fell into a job with Namco Bandai along the way
Narrative - Essay on the role of story in video games, from current implementations to where the medium of video games may take us by writer Austin Grossman who worked on System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief: Deadly Shadows and Dishonored
Natural Selection 2 - A glimpse of Unknown Worlds' office and short video interviews with the developers about the tech and art of the sequel to the popular Half-Life mod (10 min)
Natural Selection 2 - Video interview with Unknown Worlds director Charlie Cleveland about his background in gaming and game development, choosing to create his own tech instead of an existing engine, and what the transition has been like going from a mod team to company (10 min)
Natural Selection 2 - Article on the 10-year, fan-supported struggle to bring the sequel of a popular Half-Life mod to fruition
Natural Selection 2 - Interview with Unknown Worlds sound designer Simon 'kamakazi' Chylinski
Natural Selection 2: Combat - Developer Q&A with Faultline Games about this stand-alone mod based on Natural Selection 2 (52 min) [CC]
Naughty Dog - Lead programmer Jason Gregory talks at XXI SINFO 2014 about Naughty Dog's interview process, culture and tech tools
Naughty Dog - Former lead designer Richard Lemarchand talks at DICE 2010 about Naughty Dog's environment and culture that contribute to its success
Naughty Dog - Interview article with the audio team at Naughty Dog, including senior sound designer Derrick Espino, audio programmer Jonathan Lanier, audio lead Phillip Kovats, dialogue supervisor James Barker, sound designer Erick Ocampo, and associate music supervisor Scott Hanau
Never Alone - How the Native Alaska people got involved with game development to create this atmospheric puzzle platformer for PC, PS4, and XB1 [text]
Neverwinter Nights - postmortem article on Bioware's 2002 RPG
The New Yorker - The Guilt of the Video Game Millionaires, an article going into details about the financial success of Ridiculous Fishing, The Stanley Parable, Flappy Bird, Minecraft, Braid and Super Meat Boy and how it's affected their creators
Nintendo - The Rise of Nintendo: A Story in 8 Bits, an excerpt from Blake J. Harris's book, Console Wars
Nintendo - Article about Sam Borofsky, the original US sales rep for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, and his stories of trying to resuscitate the video game industry after the great crash in 1983 [text]
Nintendo Entertainment System - Article on what the author learned from programming a NES emulator [text]
Nitronic Rush and Distance - Behind the scenes of this indie racing game and its spiritual successor developed by a team of DigiPen students (7 min)
Nvidia - Free GPU programming labs (50 min each)
No Man's Sky - Behind the scenes of this upcoming PS4 indie title by British developer Hello Games (8 min) [CC]
No Man's Sky - How does No Man's Sky work? (10 min)
No Man's Sky - Office pictures of the British developer Hello Games
No Man's Sky - Hello Games founder Sean Murray walks through the development tools (34 min) [CC]
Nvidia - GPU Gems 3 book online for free (GPU Gems 1 & 2 and The Cg Tutorial in comments)
Nvidia - Article on Nvidia's developer support and outreach operation, in which a hundred Nvidia engineers are tasked with helping game developers implement the latest techniques and optimize their games, including past examples of hair simulation in Call of Duty and lighting in Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Nvidia - Summary of modern transparency rendering techniques and optimizations on the GPU [text]
Nvidia FaceWorks - Presentation slides with lecture notes by Nvidia programmer Nathan Reed on new middleware for high-end skin and eye rendering
Nvidia HairWorks - Interview article with Nvidia physics programmer Tae-Yung Kim on the hair/fur simulator and renderer used in games like The Witcher 3 and Call of Duty: Ghosts (videos from those games in comments)
NVScene 2014 - A Really Real-Time Raytracer, a NVScene 2014 presentation by former Sony Computer Europe principal engineer Matt Swoboda (1 hr)
O
Oblivion - making of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Obsidian Entertainment - Text interview with CEO Feargus Urquhart about life after South Park: The Stick of Truth, the challenges independent companies face in today's market, the challenge of making an RPG like Fallout: New Vegas, and how project management has changed since their earlier days
Octodad: Dadliest Catch - Behind the scenes of this indie sequel on the PC/PS4 by former DePaul University students
Oculus Rift - Wired magazine article, "The Inside Story of Oculus Rift and How Virtual Reality Became Reality"
Oculus Rift - Time magazine article on the inside story of how Facebook got Oculus VR
Oculus Rift - Video explanation of time warping, a new technology in the Oculus SDK designed by John Carmack and intended to reduce the perceived latency
Oculus Rift - Working with the latest Oculus Rift hardware and software talk at GDC 2014 by Oculus chief software architect Michael Antonov and VP product Nate Mitchell (54 min)
Oculus Rift - Why Virtual Reality Isn't (Just) the Next Big Platform by Oculus VR chief scientist Michael Abrash and senior vision engineer Dov Katz, talk given at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute (58 min)
Oculus Rift - Fan-made Star Trek Voyager virtual reality demo using Unreal Engine 4 and a short interview with its creator Thomas Kadlec
Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! - Blog article by game designer Matt Glanville from the UK developer Just Add Water on why they changed the motion sensors in this remake of the 1997 Playstation game, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Odious Repeater - Dude, Where’s My Game - The Truth and Lies of Delays and Cancellations
Office tours - Pictures of computer desks and working environments of various indie developers including the creators of Jamestown, Super Meat Boy, Hard Reset, Retro/Grade, Monday Night Combat, Gunpoint, and Sins of a Solar Empire as well as Croteam, CD Projekt Red, Stardock, and Mojang
Oft Horizon - Indie programmer Eric writes about his process of discovery and technique for water rendering
Onimusha 3: Demon Siege - Making of this 2004 PS2 title by Capcom (30 min) [CC]
OpenFL - Indie developer Lars Doucet and creator of Defender's Quest writes why Flash developers and game creators should make games using OpenFL and the Haxe programming language
OpenGL - Article on "Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL" by Valve programmer Rich Geldreich
OpenGL - Article on the current state of OpenGL driver quality by Valve programmer Rich Geldreich
The Order: 1886 - developer Ready At Dawn shows how they use 3D scanners to acquire surface materials for their upcoming PS4 title
The Order: 1886 - Behind the scenes videos (Fusing History & Mythology, enemy design, engine tools, music, bringing the game to life, voice cast, visual style, From Round Table to Revolution, Narration and Revolution) (44 min total)
Oregon Trail - Vintage footage of this 1974 educational computer game produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (6 min) [CC]
Outcast - Making of this 1999 PC title by developer Appeal that featured a software-based renderer that used a combination of a ray casting engine used to render the landscape, and a texture mapping polygon engine used to render objects (14 min) [CC]
Overgrowth - An indie approach to procedural animation, a GDC 2014 presentation by Wolfire Games founder David Rosen (26 min)
P
Painkiller - making of from the Black edition
Papers, Please - Development log as the game was being made (also videos of drawing faces in comments)
Papers, Please - Short BBC video interview with creator Lucas Pope showing his home office and talking about how he made the game
Papo & Yo - Gamasutra article interview with designer Vander Caballero about his approach to designing a game for empathy, a category of games which includes Journey and Papers, Please
Paradox Development Studio - Behind the scenes and history of the Swedish developer behind such games as Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Victoria (7 min)
Pathfinding - Article on an introduction to pathfinding, focusing on the A* algorithm, by programmer Amit Patel
Pathfinding - Articles by Gabriel Gambetta on pathfinding, with an emphasis on the A* algorithm
Petri Purho and Martin Jonasson - Juice It or Lose It, presentation by the creator of Crayon Physics on how small aesthetic feedback can greatly enhance a game's experience, using a Breakout clone for demonstration (15 min)
Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension - Postmortem article on this game based on the TV movie of the same name, released in 2011 for the Nintendo Wii; programming-centric postmortem written by former High Impact Games gameplay programmer Travis Sanchez
Physically based camera - Blog articles on implementing a physically based camera by Vicarious Visions senior graphics programmer Padraic Hennessy [text]
Physically-based rendering - The basic theory behind physically-based rendering by Marmoset programmer Jeff Russell (see comments for recommended textbook as well)
Pitfall - postmortem on the classic Atari title by David Crane at GDC 2011
Pixar - How Pixar uses GPUs during development of its movies; presentation given at GPU Technology Conference 2014 (1 hr, starts 2 minutes in)
Pixar - Video conversation with Ed Catmull, computer scientist and founder of Pixar Animation Studios (1 hr 14 min)
Pixel art animation - Article on creating more convincing animation through pixel art shading and animating within the outlines
Plants vs. Zombies - Creator George Fan explains in this GDC 2012 talk how to make better tutorials for your game, using ten techniques that got his mom to play through PvZ while not alienating hardcore gamers (1 hr)
Plants vs. Zombies - Presentation slides of the making of talk by former PopCap vice-president James Gwertzman
Playing To Win: Inside the Video Game Industry - CNBC feature on the gaming industry, showing both the developer and player side, from 2008 (45 min) [CC]
PlayStation - Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House and PS4 system architect Mark Cerny discuss their history with Sony over the years at this Develop 2014 keynote (1 hr) [CC]
PlayStation - Story Time panel at PlayStation Experience 2014 with president Shuhei Yoshida, developer relations Adam Boyes, and development head Scott Rohde recounting various stories working at Sony (40 min) [CC]
PlayStation Experience - How to Become a Game Designer panel about what it takes to be a game designer and what it means to design a game; featuring Doug Holder and Quentin Cobb (Naughty Dog), Parker Hamilton (SuckerPunch), Ramone Russell (Sony San Diego), and Massimo Giuarni (Ovosonico) (1 hr)
Pneuma - Text interview with Deco Digital's producer Joe Brammer about making an indie game with Unreal Engine 4 for Microsoft's Independent Developers publishing program on the Xbox One (ID@Xbox) [text]
Pokémon - Text articles on the profile of Satoshi Tajiri, creator of the video game series first released for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1996, and interview revealing that a hobby collecting insects as a child led to the idea of Pokémon
Portal - Valve playthrough commentary from the first Portal title
Portal 2 - Valve developer commentary and playthrough
Portal 2 - postmortem video titled "Making a Sequel to a Game that Doesn't Need One" by Valve writers Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek at GDC 2012
Portal 2 - How water flow was rendered presentation slides by Valve Software graphics programmer Alex Vlachos for SIGGRAPH 2010 (PDF format)
Portal 2 - Geoff Keighley's The Final Hours ebook, costs $1-3
PostMortem - Game development micro-talks recorded at a monthly meeting hosted by Natural Selection developer Unknown Worlds (5-10 min each)
Primal Rage - Making of this 1994 arcade fighting title by Atari Games featuring stop-motion clay dinosaur models (3 min 30 sec)
Primal Rage - Retro Gamer article on the making of this 1994 arcade fighting title by Atari Games [text]
Prince of Persia - short clip showing videotaped references for the rotoscoped graphics in this classic 1989 title (link to Jordan Mechner's Making Of Diary in comments)
Prince of Persia - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the 6502 assembly source code in Jordan Mechner's platformer originally released for the Apple II in 1989 [text]
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - making of Ubisoft Montreal's 2003 reboot of this classic Jordan Mechner title (10 min)
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - making of Ubisoft Montreal's 2004 sequel to the rebooted Prince of Persia series (25 min)
Prismata - Why I quit my PhD at MIT to start a gaming studio, article by Lunarch Studios founder Elyot Grant [text]
ProDBG - Presentation slides on work to improve the ProDG debugger given at Frostbite Dev Days 2014 by DICE rendering programmer Daniel Collins [text] [PDF format]
Project Morpheus - Sony's virtual reality presentation at GDC 2014 (1 hr)
Puzzle Pirates - Three Rings co-founder Daniel James talks about the successes and failures of this MMO in this GDC 2007 Independent Games Summit talk titled Making an Indie MMO (30 min)
Q
Quake - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code in the first of the Quake series released by id Software in 1996 [text]
Quake 2 - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code in the second Quake title released by id Software in 1997 [text]
Quake 3 Arena - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code for id Software's multiplayer-focused shooter released in 1999 [text]
Quake 3 Arena - Beyond3D article on the origins of the fast inverse square root algorithm (aka Fast InvSqrt() or 0x5f3759df), which was originally attributed to John Carmack but discovered to have earlier origins at Silicon Graphics and 3Dfx (two part article, second linked in comments)
R
Radiant Silvergun - Making of article on this 1998 shoot 'em up developed by Treasure for the arcade and Sega Saturn [text]
Rage - behind the scenes (4 video playlist)
Rage - Presentation slides in PDF format on id Tech 5 Challenges: From Texture Virtualization to Massive Parallelization by senior id Software programmer J.M.P. van Waveren at Siggraph 2009
Rage - Article and videos on using the game's console commands to see a visualization of megatextures and the technical workings of the engine
Rage: The Scorchers DLC - id Software AI programmer writes about the implementation of the boss fight (cross-post from /r/gamedev)
rain - Postmortem of this 2013 PS3 downloadable title by Sony Computer Japan where you control an invisible character that can only be seen by enemies when standing in the pouring rain; talk covers why they chose the Unity engine, and what went right and wrong during production (51 min)
rain - music and sound creation
Rain World - Interview with James Primate, responsible for the music and business aspects of this indie platformer
Raph Koster - Practical Creativity, a talk on the science of creativity and practical steps that a designer can use to be more creative, given at GDC Next 2014 by the designer of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies (1 hr)
Ratchet & Clank 2: Going Commando - Developer commentary with playthrough of this Insomniac Games 2003 PS2 title (50 videos, 10 hours total).
Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal - Developer commentary with playthrough of this Insomniac Games 2004 PS2 title (36 videos, 11 hours total).
Rayman Legends - Behind the scenes (19 min)
Rayman Legends - Presentation showing artwork, models, and textures, as well as the UbiArt Framework engine and commentary by director Michel Ancel (43 min)
Ready at Dawn - history of this PSP Daxter and God of War developer, with interviews of ex-Naughty Dog and ex-Blizzard employees
Red Alert - Westwood Studios behind the scenes
Remedy - The story of the Finnish developer behind Max Payne, Death Rally and Alan Wake (17 min)
Remember Me - Making of this 2013 Unreal Engine 3 based action-adventure game developed by French company Dontnod Entertainment for the PS3/360/PC (21 min, audio in French, press the CC button for English subtitles)
Remember Me - Blog articles of DICE senior render programmer Sébastien Lagarde on simulating rain, including dynamic rain and its effects, physically based wet surfaces, and reflecting a wet world
Remember Me - fxguide article by DICE senior rendering programmer Sébastien Lagarde on creating accurate rain and wet surfaces in this 2013 Capcom-published game (part 1 of 3, rest linked in comments)
Republique - Behind the scenes video of developer Camouflaj's 2013 Kickstarter funded PC/iOS stealth survival horror game
Republique - Gamasutra postmortem article by Camouflaj founder Ryan Payton on the first episode of this Kickstarter funded 2013 PC/iOS stealth survival horror game
Resident Evil - Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi discusses the process of enhancing the 2002 remake for the upcoming 2015 release (5 min)
Resident Evil 4 - Making of (10 min) [CC]
Resident Evil 5 - making of
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Capcom art director Satoshi Takamatsu, producer Michiteru Okabe, and director Yasuhiro Ampo talk about the growth and role of the character Claire Redfield (5 min)
Retro City Rampage - conversion to 8-bit style
Retro/Grade - Indie developer Matt Gilgenbach gives a postmortem on this rhythm-based PS3/PC game, detailing the grueling 4-year crunch, how his obsessive-compulsive disorder caused development to spiral out of control and his new healthier approach to indie game development (34 min)
Return of the Obra Dinn - Development log of Lucas Pope's (creator of Papers, Please) new game, a 3D first-person mystery game set on an East Indian merchant ship in 1808 and using the Unity engine
Return of the Obra Dinn - Timelapse development videos with commentary by Lucas Pope (creator of Papers, Please) for his new first-person mystery game set on an East Indian merchant ship in 1808 and using the Unity engine
Richard Garfield - Luck vs Skill in games, a talk by the Magic the Gathering creator on the pros and cons of randomness in game design (43 min) [CC]
Riven - Making of this 1997 sequel to Myst that was also a critical and commercial success, selling 4.5 million copies (two videos, 10 and 14 min each)
RoboCop - Making of article on how the UK-based Ocean Software had the licensing rights and Japanese developer Data East received permission to make this arcade side-scroller released in 1988 [text]
Robotron: 2084 - Classic game postmortem of this 1982 title at GDC 2014 by creator Eugene Jarvis, designer of Defender, Smash TV and NARC (1 hr)
Robotron: 2084 - Summary recap of creator Eugene Jarvis's postmortem at GDC 2014 of this classic 1982 arcade title
Rocket Ranger Reloaded - Speed painting of concept art for this Kickstarter project that is the remake of the classic Amiga title by Cinemaware (3 min)
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 - Artist Simon Foster explains how he created the isometric roller coaster sprites with 3D Studio Max and Photoshop (2 videos, 9 min each) [CC]
R-Type - It's Behind You, a free ebook about programming the ZX Spectrum port of this popular arcade shoot 'em up by Bob Pape [text] [PDF or Kindle formats available]
RuneScape - Developer blogs and development diaries giving insight into the process of making content for this MMO [text]
Rust - Porting from an earlier version of Unity to Unity 5; screenshot comparisons and interview with Facepunch Studios' founder Garry Newman [text]
Ryse: Son of Rome - fxguide article on the tech behind Crytek's Xbox One title
Ryse: Son of Rome - Article on Crytek's use of tiled textures for their Xbox One exclusive title to maximize performance for Xbox One's 32 MB eSRAM hardware
S
The Sea Has No Claim - Time-lapse video of Ludum Dare 29 game jam entry by Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope, showing mostly a lot of Haxe code writing over the 48 hours of development (13 min)
Secret Agent Clank - Postmortem article on this Ratchet & Clank series spinoff released in 2008 for the PSP; programming-centric postmortem written by former High Impact Games gameplay programmer Travis Sanchez
SEGA - Kotaku article on how developer M2 is rejuvenating SEGA classic games with 3D support for the Nintendo 3DS, including building a new virtual console named the GigaDrive, which is similar to a Genesis with improvements to the video display processor functions and additional background layers
SEGA - Detailed technical text interviews with Japanese developer M2 on what was involved in updating SEGA classic games to 3D for the Nintendo 3DS; interviews cover Altered Beast, Ecco the Dolphin, Galaxy Force 2, Shinobi 3, Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Harrier, Streets of Rage, and Super Hang-On
SEGA - Copy of a developer newsletter from 1994 that SEGA would send to its employees and third-party developers (PDF format; links to many SEGA development documentation in comments)
SEGA - The history of SEGA 11-part article by IGN
SEGA - Audio interview and articles with Tom Kalinske, former president of SEGA of America from 1990 to 1996 that oversaw the success of the Genesis with aggressive marketing decisions such as the attacks on Nintendo, price drops, and the famous "SEGA Scream" TV campaign
Serious Sam 3: BFE - Making of this 2011 360/PS3/PC first-person shooter (the latest in the Serious Sam series and a prequel to the first game) by Croatian developer Croteam using version 3.5 of their custom Serious Engine (26 min) [CC]
Shaders - Don't know what graphics shaders are for or how they work? Check out this primer on shaders by indie developer Sven Bergström
Shadow of the Colossus - making of article
Shadowrun Returns - Gamasutra article by programmer Sheridan Thirsk on the in-house AI system dubbed "Gumbo," including how it came about, what the goals of the system were, and how it accomplished them [text]
Shadow Warrior - Presentation slides from engine programmer Jaroslaw Pleskot on the technology behind this 2013 reboot by Polish developer Flying Wild Hog [text]
Shenmue - former SEGA Director Yu Suzuki gives a hour-long postmortem at GDC 2014 on this 1999 Dreamcast title, which was the most expensive videogame made at its time
Shigeru Miyamoto - Telegraph interview article of the Nintendo designer, going over among other things, the inspiration for Pikmin and the differences between games and film [text]
Shinji Mikami - Polygon article on the former Resident Evil director about fostering a successor and anecdotes of working at Capcom in the 90s
Shovel Knight - Gamasutra article on how developer Yacht Club Games created a retro NES look for this successful indie title [text]
Shuhei Yoshida - Sony Computer Entertainment's president is interviewed by lead PS4 architect Mark Cerny at the Computer History Museum about Yoshida's early life and career path to SCE, their work together, the evolution of gaming software and hardware, and the state of the industry (1 hr 24 min)
SIGGRAPH 2014 - Technical papers preview trailer
Silent Hill 2 - making of
Silent Hill 3 - Making of this 2003 PS2 game by Konami (26 min) [parts of it CC]
Silicon Studio - Demonstration of new real-time rendering engine by the developers of Bravely Default and 3D Dot Game Heroes
SineRider - Progress pictures of this freeware PC title inspired by the author having spent many hours graphing on a TI-86 calculator [text]
Sir, You Are Being Hunted - Gamasutra interview article with Big Robot founder Jim Rossignol on the advantages of procedural generation
Skulls of the Shogun - AiGameDev.com video interviews Borut Pfeifer about the turn-based AI strategy in this 2013 360/iOS/PC indie game (video temporarily free with registration until Monday April 7th, 4 AM PST)
Skylanders - Polygon article on the developer Toys for Bob and how they came about to create this Activision published title that bridges video games and toys and has sold over $2 billion as of February 2014
Skyrim - Behind the Wall, making of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
Skyrim - Todd Howard DICE 2012 keynote
Skyrim - Article on Skyrim's modular approach to game design by Bethesda senior designer Joel Burgess
Skyrim - Skywind mod development video part 1
Smash Hit - Blog write up on the technology used for this mobile indie game covering physics, graphics, shadows, audio, scripting and multicore performance by Mediocre programmer Dennis Gustafsson
SomeFriends Studios - Short documentary episodes on a group of college graduates from Chicago, Illinois that decide to start a gaming company and work on their first game together called Evo
Sonic Boom - Behind the scenes video for this upcoming Sonic title for the Wii U, developed by Los Angeles game studio Big Red Button in conjunction with SEGA's Sonic Team in Japan (10 min)
Sonic the Hedgehog - Documentary on Sega's iconic mascot introduced in 1991 with the franchise created by Yuji Naka (36 min) [CC]
Source engine - programming article from 2001 on compensating for lag in client/server networking by Yahn Bernier of Valve (more articles from Valve in comments)
South Park: The Stick of Truth - Behind the scenes with Matt Stone and Trey Parker
Soren Johnson - AMA with the designer/programmer of Offworld Trading Company and Civilization 4 [text]
Space Station Silicon Valley - development article on this DMA/Rockstar North N64 title
Spelunky - Choosing the right type of technology for your indie game by Spelunky lead programmer Andy Hull (27 min presentation, with hour-long Q&A afterward)
Spelunky - Demonstration of how levels are randomly generated by Darius Kazemi, who ported this platforming adventure roguelike to the web with HTML5 [text]
Spore - making of (28 min video)
Spyro the Dragon - making of
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Polygon article on the implosion of Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, creators of the Stalker series, and the exodus of employees
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl - making of video from developer GSC Game World on the 2007 title and first in the Stalker series that was in development for over eight years
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - making of video from developer GSC Game World on the 2008 followup and second in the Stalker series (though a prequel in story)
Star Citizen - Chris Roberts dissects the traditional video game business model and argues for the strength of the PC platform and crowd funding (23 min talk followed by 20 min Q&A)
Star Citizen - artificial intelligence features of this upcoming Chris Roberts space sim using the Kythera AI middleware (starts at 5:45 and ends at 13:45)
StarCraft - various StarCraft making of articles by Patrick Wyatt, former lead programmer at Blizzard
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty - behind the scenes from the collector's edition (12 video playlist)
Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty - Designing an esport talk by Dustin Browder, Blizzard game designer and director on Starcraft 2, at GDC 2011 (1 hr)
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm - behind the scenes from the Collector's Edition (2 hr 8 min)
Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void - Blizzcon 2014 panel on single-player campaign overview (1 hr)
Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void - Blizzcon 2014 panel on multiplayer (1 hr)
Star Fox - Eurogamer making of article on this 1993 SNES title by Nintendo EAD and Argonaut Software [text]
StarLicker - Gamasutra postmortem article titled Reflections of an Indie Failure, about the numerous mistakes that indie developer Heartonomy made over the year in development on this free-to-play iOS title targeted to a hardcore audience
Star Wars Battlefront - How DICE visited Iceland and researched the look for the levels in the upcoming Star Wars game [text]
Star Wars Galaxies - Designer Raph Koster's thoughts on how Jedi were implemented in the Star Wars Galaxies MMO and different ideas that the team considered during development [text]
Steam Dev Days - Videos of all of the presentations at Valve's 2014 conference
Street Fighter 2 - Polygon article giving an oral history from some of the original Capcom developers
Strider (2014) - Behind the scenes video with Double Helix Games and Capcom Osaka studio (8 min 30 sec) [CC]
Strike Commander - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reverse-engineers this flight simulator game designed by Chris Roberts and developed by Origin Systems in 1993 [text]
Subnautica - Unknown Worlds' level designer Russell Meakim commentates 61 recorded videos of creating levels in the Unity engine (over 6 hours of content, though each individual video is about 6 mins long on average)
Sunless Sea - Gamasutra postmortem of this successful Kickstarter moody game where you assemble a ship crew, customize your boat, and explore the ocean [text]
Sunset Overdrive - Presentation slides giving an inside look at Insomniac Games' new realtime cinematics system, which is one of their new web-based tools for large-scale production; slides by lead engine programmer Jonathan Garrett
Super Action Squad - When a game's development goes bad; postmortem of a successful kickstarter campaign in the hands of an inexperienced developer who was in over his head
Super Game Jam - Documentary series pairing two indie developers together for 48 hours to make a game; features Richard Boeser (ibb & obb) + Jan Willem Nijman (Luftrausers), Christoffer Hedborg (Eleven) + Dominik Johann (Impetus), Sos Sosowski (McPixel) + Adam Drucker aka rapper Doseone, Jonatan Söderström (Hotline Miami) + Martin Jonasson (rymdkapsel), Tom Francis (Gunpoint) + Liselore Goedhart
SUPERHOT - Text interview with creative director Piotr Iwanicki and art director Marcin Surma about this first-person shooter where time only moves when the player moves
Super Mario 3D World - EDGE article on the making of Nintendo's 2013 3D platformer for the Wii U
Super Mario 3D World - Eurogamer Digital Foundry's article on analyzing the performance and graphical features of Nintendo's Wii U vibrant 3D platformer running at a constant 60 FPS
Super Mario 64 - Nintendo programmer Giles Goddard text interview
Super Mario Bros. 3 - A Japanese children's book on how video games are made, with a focus on this 1988 Famicom/NES classic and including many pictures of old development hardware and Nintendo employees (includes original Japanese scans and English translations)
Super Mario World - Video study by a 3rd-party of the camera system used in this classic 1990 title for the Super Nintendo (4 min)
Super Meat Boy - Video interview with Tommy Refenes, the programmer and one-half of the duo Team Meat that developed Super Meat Boy and was featured in The Indie Game movie (1 hr 13 min)
Super Nintendo - DidYouKnowGaming covers development related trivia of Nintendo's 16-bit console released in 1991, including Mode 7 and the custom chips powering Star Fox, Mario RPG, and Mega Man X2/3
SuperTuxKart - Introducing the new graphics engine for this free to download Mario Kart-like game for Windows/Mac OS/Linux/BSD
Super Win the Game - Former Gearbox Software programmer Kyle Pittman writes on how to create an old school CRT look to your game
Super Win the Game - Gamasutra postmortem article by creator Kyle Pittman on how the game came about and mistakes made [text]
Supreme Commander and Demigod - Synchronous RTS Engines and a Tale of Desyncs, #AltDevBlog article from 2011
T
The Talos Principle - Making of documentary from the Bonus Content DLC on this lauded first-person puzzle [game developed by Croteam (16 min) [CC]
The Talos Principle - Reactive Game Design, a postmortem talk on this award-winning first-person puzzle game given at GDC 2015 by Croteam CTO Alen Ladavac and CCO Davor Hunski (1 hr)
Team Fortress 2 - map developer commentary by Valve Software
Team Fortress 2 - Illustrative Rendering video by Valve programmer Jason Mitchell and concept artists Moby Francke and Dhabih Eng (accompanying paper and slides linked in comments)
Tearaway - behind the scenes at Media Molecule, who previously developed Little Big Planet
Tearaway - music in this Media Molecule title
Technical artist - Secrets of a Technical Artist articles by Jamie Niman from developer Preloaded about the various roles as a technical artist, including experimenting with different rendering techniques, and writing Maya, Unity and Photoshop scripts
Ted Kim - lead concept artist on the Cel Damage and Full Auto series explains his path in becoming a concept artist and gives advice for aspiring artists (9 video playlist)
Terrain rendering - Fast Terrain Rendering with Continuous Detail on a Modern GPU article by independent programmer Morgan McGuire
Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri - Former Looking Glass production director Dan Schmidt looks back at this acclaimed 1996 squad-oriented FPS in this text interview
Tetris: From Russia with Love - BBC documentary on the storied history of this 1984 game by creator Alexey Pajitnov that went on to become one of the most popular and played games in the world (1 hr) [CC]
Tetris - The Man Who Made 'Tetris', a profile of creator Alexey Pajitnov [text]
Tetrobot and Co. - Gamasutra blog article from developer Swing Swing Submarine, developers of Blocks That Matter, giving a sober reminder that a sequel to a successful game isn't guaranteed to succeed and their lesson learned
Thief: The Dark Project - early look at the game in development in Looking Glass Studios. German narration but English interviews
Thief: The Dark Project - playthrough commentary with Greg LoPiccolo, former project lead of Thief, and Randy Smith, former director of Thief 3
Thief 2: The Metal Age - making of footage at Looking Glass Studios
The Thing - Eurogamer article on the making of this 2002 PS2/Xbox/PC third-person survival horror game by the defunct developer Computer Artworks
Threes! - Indie developer Sirvo writes on how they feel about the numerous copycats of this best-selling mobile game as well as showing many of the emails sent between game designer Asher Vollmer and illustrator Greg Wohlwend during the 14-months of development
Threes! - Article on the artificial intelligence behind the robot playing Threes! optimally and live streaming on Twitch, by indie developers Walt Destler (AI creator) and Matthew Wegner (robot implementer)
Tim Schafer - EDGE magazine interview article asking him about Double Fine's new adventure game Broken Age, his thoughts on Telltale's The Walking Dead, episodic gaming, dialogue trees, Kickstarter, and Brutal Legend
Tim Sweeney - Epic founder and programmer talks about how he started programming and his career (other text articles linked in comments)
Tim Willits - level designer and studio director at id Software interviewed by Warren Spector and talks about id games and John Carmack (2 hr 45 min)
Titanfall - The Final Hours book app by Geoff Keighley, chronicling the departure of Infinity Ward employees from Activision to form the new company Respawn Entertainment and developing their debut PC/XB1 title
Titanfall - Eurogamer article on how contractor Bluepoint Games ported Titanfall to the Xbox 360, squeezing a 5 GB game into 512 MB of memory, how the project was managed alongside the Xbox One and PC versions, and the ways in which the game was adapted to cope on the older hardware
Tobias and the Dark Sceptres - Story of how Adam Butcher's hobbyist game project and lifelong dream that he set out to make when he was 14 years old ended up taking 13 years to finally release (7 min) [CC]
Todd Howard - The director of The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 gives a video interview about how he got started in the gaming industry
Tomb Raider 2013 - making of
Tomb Raider 2013 - making of the "Turning Point" CGI trailer
Tomb Raider 2013 - PAX East 2013 developer panel
Tom Hall - Matt Chat interview with the former id Software designer about Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, and leaving id (28 min avg)
Tone Control - Podcast hosted by Gone Home designer Steve Gaynor with interviews of game developers such as Jonathan Blow, Craig Hubbard, Clint Hocking, Randy Smith, Tim Shafer, and Ken Levine
Too Many Snakes - Indie dev Jonah Wallerstein writes the difficulties he encountered creating this puzzle game over the course of a year including problems with contractors, staying motivated as an indie, and creating 75 puzzles that turned out to be incredibly computationally expensive to solve
Torchlight - Runic Games dev diary and examples using the level editor
Torchlight 2 - visualization of all the source code branches over three years of development
Torment: Tides of Numenera - Matt Chat interview #242 with designer Chris Avellone about this upcoming Kickstarter funded, spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment (31 min)
TowerFall - Article on the making of this archery arena indie game by Matt Thorson and Alec Holowka, released in 2013 on the Ouya and later on the PS4 and PC
TowerFall Ascension - Developer blog entry on how randomized levels are made for this indie platforming arena game out on the PlayStation 4, PC, and Mac [text]
Transistor - Interview article with Supergiant Games creative director Greg Kasavin on the design choices behind their recently released isometric sci-fi action RPG
Trespasser - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C++ source code in this 1998 Jurassic Park licensed title
Trials Fusion - Eurogamer interview article with RedLynx lead graphics programmer Sebastian Aaltonen on how they prototyped the game, the experience developing RedLynx's first multi-platform title, and an in-depth conversation on Xbox One's 32 MB of ESRAM
Trine 3 - A Jump from 2D to 3D Gameplay, an interview article with Frozenbyte marketing manager Kai Tuovinen about the tools and assets used for making the next iteration of Trine in 3D [text]
Trudy's Mechanicals - Creating a custom 3D level editor for this upcoming indie turn-based tactics game that takes place on a giant Steampunk dirigible [text]
TurboGrafx-16 - Gamasutra article on the history of this console released in Japan as the PC Engine in 1987, and discontinued by 1995 [text]
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter - Making of article for this 1997 Nintendo 64 title developed by the now defunct Iguana Entertainment.
Turtle Rock Studios - History of the developer behind Left 4 Dead and upcoming game Evolve
Twilight Struggle - Designing the Best Board Game on the Planet, an article on co-designer Ananda Gupta and the philosophical design decisions that went into making the #1 all-time ranked game on BoardGameGeek [text]
The Typing of the Dead: Overkill - Gamasutra article on how this UK team managed to release the followup to the 1999 Dreamcast cult hit despite having lost all of their jobs halfway [text]
U
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - making of
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception - developer and voice actor panel from Comic-Con 2011
The Unfinished Swan - music and sound developer diary
Unity - Tutorial video on how to bring in a character into the Unity engine as a player (25 min)
Unity - Programming article on implementing resumable downloads by game programmer Gabor Szauer
Unity - Polygon article on the success of the Unity Asset Store including stories of several asset creators who have profited significantly from sales of tools and assets
Unreal Engine 3 - Arbor Vitae level released for free download to study and use by Crytek level designer Helder Pinto and Blizzard environment artist Philip Klevestav
Unreal Engine 4 - tools demonstration by Epic Games' Zak Parrish who walks through popular features including the new material system, Blueprints, VFX, and level building (14 min)
Unreal Engine 4 - tutorials playlist
Unreal Engine 4 - video playlist of media from official Unreal Engine channel
Unreal Engine 4 - Epic's Tim Sweeney explains the justification for the pricing, the advantages of opening up the full source code, why UnrealScript was killed, and why over 80% of the engine was redeveloped in this Gamasutra article
Unreal Engine 4 - Epic programming director Tim Sweeney writes a post explaining why they have moved away from UnrealScript to unified C++
Unreal Engine 4 - Behind the scenes look at Epic Games studio since the release of UE4's open source code (9 min) [CC]
Unreal Engine 4 - GDC 2014 presentation slides for Bringing Unreal Engine 4 to OpenGL by Epic Games lead graphics programmer Nick Penwarden and Nvidia engineers Mathias Scott and Evan Hart (PDF format)
Unreal Engine 4 - Epic Games engine programmer Daniel Wright writes a post explaining the work that went into creating the realistic indoor scene demo, including correcting Lightmass (the precomputed indirect lighting solver), the process of photon mapping and Final Gather, and Irradiance Caching
Unreal Engine 4 - An analysis of Unreal Engine's v4.5 source code by CoderGears using their C++ analysis tool [text]
Unreal Engine 4 - Article on implementing dynamic weathering and aging effects that are artist driven by DICE senior render programmer Sébastien Lagarde
Unreal Engine 4 - Pictures of a graphic chart to help artists with the physically based rendering workflow in Unreal Engine 4 by DICE senior render programmer Sébastien Lagarde
Unreal Engine 4 - Epic Games general manager Ray Davis and technical director Mike Fricker give a Twitch stream talk on updates and plans for Unreal Engine 4 (1 hr 25 min)
Unreal Engine 4 - Unreal Engine 4 rendering talk on Twitch with Epic Games senior graphics architect Martin Mittring and lead rendering engineer Nick Penwarden (1 hr)
Unreal Engine 4 - Epic Games developers working on Fortnite (systems designer, lead gameplay programmer, lead animator) talk on Twitch stream about all things Unreal Engine 4 with real-world examples from their experience working on Fortnite (1 hr 7 min)
Unreal Engine 4 - Version 4.1 tour on Twitch stream with Epic Games technical director Mike Fricker, senior engine programmer Ben Marsh, and senior FX artist Francois Antoine (1 hr)
Unreal Engine 4 - Recorded Twitch stream from May 8th, 2014 on new Unreal Tournament announcement and engine updates (1 hr 49 min)
Unreal Engine 4 - Recorded Twitch stream from May 15th, 2014 with Epic Games senior designer Nick Donaldson, senior programmer and project lead Steve Polge and community manager Stacey "Flak" Conley giving updates on the Unreal Tournament project since the announcement the week prior
Unreal Engine 4 - Recorded Twitch stream from May 22nd, 2014 with Epic Games senior engine programmer Michael Noland and principal artist Shane Caudle on using UE4 to make a simple iOS/Android/HTML 5 game using a Flappy Bird clone as an example (1 hr 12 min) [CC]
Unreal Engine 4 - recorded presentation by Epic Games' lead animator Matthew Russel and lead technical animator Jeremy Ernst from GDC 2014 (part 2 linked in comments)
Unreal Engine 4 - Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong describes the development of his new game, Solus, using Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint visual scripting system (1 hr)
Unreal Engine 4 - Artist Krzysztof Teper who previously worked at Epic Games Poland on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Gears of War: Judgment shares his thoughts on creating environmental landscapes using World Machine and Unreal Engine 4 [text]
Unreal Engine 4 - Recreation of a school building in a user-made level and includes wireframe views at one minute in
Unreal Engine 4 - 3rd-party tutorial recording on learning navigation meshes and behavior tree by UESchool
Unreal Engine 4 - 3rd-party tutorial recording on animation and blending by UESchool
Unreal Engine 4 - Time-lapse video of creating a forest scene with UE4 (6 min)
Unreal Tournament 3 - making of documentary (22 min)
User eXperience (UX) - Epic Games' director of user experience Celia Hodent writes about what User eXperience (UX) is and how it's being implemented at Epic Games on their upcoming title Fortnite [text]
Us and the Game Industry - Feature length documentary about game development interviewing Jenova Chen and Robin Hunicke (thatgamecompany's Journey), Jason Rohrer (Passage, Sleep is Death), and Richard Lemarchand (Uncharted series), among others ($10 to purchase either directly or on Steam). Available free for Amazon Prime members.
V
Valve Software - Publications
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - Eurogamer article on the development of this 2004 PC RPG by Troika Games
Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption - Gamasutra postmortem article on this 2000 PC RPG by former Nihilistic Software CEO Robert Huebner
Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption - behind the scenes video at the now defunct Nihilistic Software
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - Article on how the indie developer The Astronauts is using photogrammetry for highly realistic objects and environments
Vessel - postmortem on porting this indie title to the PS3 (text article)
Video Games - Discovery Channel's segment on video games from their "How It's Made" show, using developer footage on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (5:30) [CC]
Virtual reality - Gamasutra article by researcher Ben Lewis-Evans on the best known theories of what causes simulation sickness, and what game developers and players can do to minimize simulation sickness
Vlambeer - Eurogamer article written in 2012 giving background to the two-man indie team of Rami Ismail and Jan Willem Nijman that released twelve games in two years
Vlambeer - No Holding Back: A Look at Independent Game Development During Three Years of Vlambeer; DICE 2014 talk by co-founder Rami Ismail (20 min)
Vlambeer - Game a Week: Getting Experienced at Failure; Gamasutra article by co-founder Rami Ismail on his game-a-week development challenge and why he feels it's important for new game creators to go through that phase
Vlambeer - the two-man team responsible for Ridiculous Fishing give insight into the public development process of their next game Nuclear Throne (link to stream archive in comments)
Vlambeer - Gamasutra article on Joonas Turner, sound designer of indie developer Vlambeer, who has done the sound for Nuclear Throne, Luftrausers, GUN GODZ, and Yeti Hunter, and how he made Vlambeer realize how important it is to dedicate resources to a sound specialist
Voxel Quest - Article on how the tech behind this impressive indie game works by programmer Gavan Woolery
W
The Walking Dead season 1 - behind the scenes with Telltale Games
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans - making of article by Patrick Wyatt, former lead programmer at Blizzard
Warren Robinett - Text interview with the Atari designer and programmer responsible for Adventure, Slot Racers, and BASIC Programming.
War Thunder - Videos and pictures of the 3D body and head scanning process used in the making of the cinematic for this multiplayer online combat game for the PS4/PC.
War Thunder - Developer blog on the damage model of ground forces, part 1 [text]
War Thunder - Developer blog on the damage model of ground forces, part 2 [text]
Wasteland 2 - Polygon article on former Interplay founder Brian Fargo and current inXile Entertainment founder, working on the upcoming Wasteland 2, the spiritual predecessor of the Fallout series
Watch Dogs - 4-part making of from IGN (16 min)
Watch Dogs - Ubisoft Montreal lead programmer Paul Vlasie lists the graphical features of the PC version including Nvidia's Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion (HBAO) and TXAA, a cinematic-style anti-aliasing technique that reduces flicker during motion
Wild 9 - Gamasutra postmortem on this 2.5D platformer developed by Shiny Entertainment for the PlayStation in 1998 [text]
Windows in Assassin's Creed 3, Saints Row 3, and Bioshock Infinite - Blog article examining the implementation of windows, using examples from Assassin's Creed 3, Saints Row 3, and Bioshock Infinite
Wind-up Knight 2 - Article on the balancing act of keeping a free-to-play game skill-based while allowing in-app purchases by Robot Invader co-founder Chris Pruett
Wind-up Knight 2 - How checkpoint saves were implemented, including its algorithm, for this Unity-based iOS/Android platformer by Robot Invader co-founder Chris Pruett
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - developer diary on the engine and technology behind this 2011 sequel by Polish developer CD Projekt RED (14 min)
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Making of article by Eurogamer with an emphasis on the development of the engine's technical features
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Article on the tools for connectivity between game editor and the final game running on a console by former CD Projekt Red senior graphics/engine programmer Bart Wronski
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - CD Projekt RED lead character artist Pawel Mielniczuk shows the stages of creating an Ice Giant monster, from early concept art, size scaling, a model in 3ds Max and refinement of the idea
The Witness - Technical developer blogs by programmer Casey Muratori about developing various systems in the game, such as mapping the island's walkable surfaces to prevent world gaps, finding and fixing bugs on a translation manipulator, and distributing grass in a visually pleasing manner
The Witness - Behind the scenes of the art creation process by Thekla artist Luis Antonio at GDC 2014 for this upcoming Jonathan Blow directed game (23 min)
The Witness - Article updating the status of this upcoming Jonathan Blow game along with some technical details
The Witness - Sony's Conversation with a Creator series talking with Jonathan Blow about his upcoming first-person adventure puzzle game for the PS4 and PC (3 min)
Wizards of the Coast - Founder Peter Adkison writes on the early history of this pen-and-paper RPG and collectible card game publisher, including the story of developing their first RPG, The Primal Order, and his impression upon first meeting Richard Garfield and being shown Magic: The Gathering
The Wolf Among Us - Behind the scenes of Telltale Games' 2013 graphic adventure title based on the Fables comic book series
Wolfenstein 3D - John Carmack technical commentary
Wolfenstein 3D - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the C source code of this id Software first-person shooter originally released in 1992 [text]
Wolfenstein 3D for iPhone - Programmer Fabien Sanglard reviews the source code for the iPhone port [text]
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Developer commentary of the train sequence and Gibraltar Bridge level with MachineGames' lead narrative designer Tommy Tordsson Björk and senior gameplay designer Andreas Öjerfors, as well as an office tour of MachineGames in Uppsala, Sweden (7 and 20 mins)
Wolfenstein: The New Order - concept art and speed painting by Axel Torvenius, senior concept artist at MachineGames
World of Darkness - The Guardian article on why CCP's MMO based on the White Wolf property was cancelled in April 2014 after nine years in development [text]
World of Tanks - physics and graphics developer diaries, as well as a documentary on the developer
World of Warcraft - Compilation of all behind the scenes from the collector editions of vanilla WoW, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria (9 hrs)
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria - behind the scenes from the Collector's Edition (1 hr 7 min)
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor - Article with embedded videos explaining the process of revamping the Tauren model and animation by various Blizzard animators
World of Warcraft: Looking for Group - Documentary celebrating the 10-year anniversary of WoW with history of the game, interviewing the developers and showing some behind the scenes (1 hr)
World of Warcraft - Some of the earliest screenshots in development [text]
World of Warcraft - Raph Koster, designer of Ultima Online and creative director of Star Wars Galaxies, shares his thoughts on World of Warcraft on its 10th anniversary [text]
World of Warcraft - Blizzcon 2014 Q&A panel where members of the WoW team answer audience questions for an hour (1 hr)
World of Warcraft: Race to World First - Documentary about the world's most competitive World of Warcraft PvE guilds and an insight into the competitive raiding scene (1 hr 6 min)
Wormhunter - Video interview with the duo behind this Ludum Dare 29 game jam entry (18 min).
X
Xbox Live Indie Games - Gamasutra article on the abandoned community marketplace for the Xbox 360 that was largely made up of hobbyist titles, including interviews with former XBLIG developers on what the experience was like and their takeaway [text]
XCOM: Enemy Unknown - making of with lead designer Jake Solomon and Sid Meier (accompanying text article linked in comments)
XCOM: UFO Defense - classic game postmortem by game designer Julian Gollop at GDC 2013
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter - The Internet Sucks: Or, What I Learned Coding XvT, article from 1999
Z
Zorbit's Math Adventure - Gamasutra article by Clockwork Fox Studios audio director Rob Bridgett on how the sound was developed for this pre-school math title
Zork - Classic games postmortem talk on one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games in 1977 by Dave Lebling, one of the authors and programmer, at GDC 2014 (1 hr)
Members
Online
Do not post announcements, trailers, questionnaires or other material that does not cover any process of how some aspect of the game was made. However, on-topic self-promotion is encouraged :)
On-topic content needs to describe HOW some feature of the game was made. Not just THAT it was made.
Do not post tutorials that explain game dev in general and are not focused on how some SPECIFIC game was made.
Most content is expected to be short videos. Please give long videos [1 hr 30 min]-style labels. Please label (audio) recordings and (text) / (PDF) articles. Also, noting [CC] for closed captioning would be appreciated by our hearing impaired audience.
24,189 members
12,055 members
573,895 members
17,265 members
349 members