Learning to Love Handicaps in Competitive Games 19
by Keith Burgun [05.22.13]
Rubberbanding and injected randomness can level the playing field in competitive games -- letting players of various skill levels play together. But they also can create other problems, potentially harming your game's design. So why not take a look at handicaps?
Production, Interview, Console/PC

---

Tutorial: Simple, High-Performance Particles for Mobile 4
by Itay Duvdevani [05.20.13]
A simple but useful tutorial for creating great-looking particles on smartphones -- that won't eat up all of your performance budget.
Production, Interview, Console/PC

---

Sponsored Feature: Yesterday's Minimum Spec is Today's Mass Market - Quality Game Performance Made Simple 1
by Intel Visual Computing [05.14.13]
This paper highlights common challenges encountered during the development of three world-class games and how developers used Intel GPA to quickly solve them, resulting in significant performance and quality gains.
Programming, Production, Art, Sponsored Feature

---

Secrets of Quick Iteration in the Core Social Space 7
by Gabi Shalel [05.13.13]
How do you react to the speed of the mid-core social market -- incorporating ideas from fans and developers while getting updates out there quickly? Total Domination developers Plarium explain.
Design, Production, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet

---

Postmortem: Appy Entertainment's Animal Legends 7
by Rory McGuire [05.06.13]
From building a flexible, low-cost server back-end to launching big in China, Animal Legends offered the team at Appy Entertainment a huge number of challenges -- which are fully outlined in this candid postmortem.
Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Art, China

---

Managing Risk in Video Game Development 7
by Paul Tozour [05.03.13]
How do you best manage risk when creating a game? Using this article and the attached spreadsheet, you can better identify the problem areas in your game and get a sense of whether any decisions you are making actually make business sense.
Business/Marketing, Production, Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet

---

A Mini-Postmortem Roundup 5
by Game Developer Magazine Staff [04.29.13]
Game Developer magazine has put together a collection of four shorter postmortems, each for a game developed for a different platform: Muteki's Dragon Fantasy (mobile), Subset Games's FTL (PC), KIXEYE's War Commander (social), and ]['s Dyad (console).
Business/Marketing, GD Mag, Smartphone/Tablet, Indie, Console/PC, Game Developer Magazine, Production, Postmortem, Design, GD Mag Exclusive

---

Making Halo 4: A Story About Triple-A 14
by Kris Graft [04.26.13]
Whether you love the Halo franchise for its expansive lore and emergent gameplay, or hate it for its sci-fi marines vs. aliens video game-ness, it's difficult not to be intrigued by Halo 4 developer 343 Industries: a group of true believers who didn't even really have a studio when development of the game began.
Design, Production

---

Postmortem: Overhaul Games' Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition 6
by Trent Oster [04.15.13]
How did a PC classic get reborn as a multiplatform "enhanced edition"? Founding BioWare developer Trent Oster takes us behind the scenes of the development of the Baldur's Gate remake, and all of its complications.
Postmortem, Programming, Production, Console/PC, Indie, Smartphone/Tablet

---

Making a Game the Nintendo Way - Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon 7
by Christian Nutt [04.12.13]
Nintendo will work on games for a long time before it's ready to ship, making sure that the gameplay is polished, fun, and surprising. This Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon interview gets to the bottom of the process.
Design, Programming, Production, Interview, Console/PC

---