2 @ Play: The return of Toejam & Earl The return of roguelike column @Play! "Toejam & Earl is a game that is dear to my heart. Although it is a slow-playing Sega Genesis game, it has excellent design and gameplay."

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2 The lay of the land: A critical look at Dark Souls II's DLC "Dark Souls II, as a world, is a kind of tracing of the prequel: generalities are carried over while arrangements and subtleties have been lost."

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12 Unreal Engine 4 is now free-to-download for everyone You'll still pay a royalty on any commercial projects you make, but say goodbye to subscription fees -- the popular engine is now completely free to try.

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  UK retailer Game expands into eSports with Multiplay acquisition U.K. retailer Game has announced a deal to acquire Multiplay, a long-running U.K.-based video game event firm, for £20 million (~$30.1 million USD) as it expands into eSports and digital PC games.

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5 Match game mechanics: An exhaustive survey An exhaustive look at 2D matching puzzles: "We played and analyzed many match games to deconstruct their mechanics. In this article we share our findings."

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  The art of abstract game design "As soon as you decide to make a game abstract, you immediately raise the learning curve of your game. This can be mitigated by clever thematic choices and use of visual metaphors."

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1 Preparing for Steam Greenlight with a Concept Page "The main lesson I learned with this campaign is that the Concept audience probably does not represent the Greenlight audience. Despite that, I still believe that using Steam Concepts is worthwhile."

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3 Double Fine's 'heartfelt and personal' Hack 'n' Slash: A postmortem Project lead Brandon Dillon walks us through what went right and wrong during development of Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash, an open-world exploration game about hacking and reverse engineering.

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7 Valve, HTC have a new VR headset coming out this year Valve Software and mobile phone maker HTC announced on Sunday the "Vive," a high-end VR headset that plugs straight into a PC.

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13 Blog: What is the purpose of game development? "'What is the purpose of game development?' I will take a leap beyond game development and quote Alejandro Jodorowsky: 'What is the goal of life? It's to create yourself a soul.'"

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  Renegade kid's Jools Watsham (Xeodrifter) on the Metroidvania What's the appeal of the genre? Read here the expanded full-length interview with Renegade Kid's Jools Watsham -- find out everything he had to say about why the Metroidvania matters.

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  Riot clarifies stance around League of Legends streams When a pro Korean player called "Faker" was being streamed against his will, and in violation of his promotional contract, Riot was forced to jump in.

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  Get a job: Nix Hydra is hiring Game Designers The team that built Egg Baby is looking to hire on novice and experienced designers to work on developing games in Nix Hydra's Los Angeles, CA studio.

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  GDC 2015 coverage begins! Click this link to be magically transported to the central location for Gamasutra's GDC coverage -- which is already full of good stuff, and which will be live from the show in San Francisco starting Monday.

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24 On indie game pricing Dan Adelman -- formerly Nintendo's indie guy, now a consultant to independent devs -- outlines exactly why a game like the upcoming Axiom Verge is worth $19.99, and what goes into indie pricing.

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  Study: 19% of eSports fans would pay $200 for eSports tickets Eventbrite surveys over 1,500 people who attended eSports events, and the full results hold some interesting learnings for developers -- especially those making games that shine during live events.

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  Video: Molyneux reflects on indie dev and the rebirth of design At GDC 2014, 22cans founder and industry veteran Peter Molyneux talks through what he learned as a developer who "grew up indie" and worked in AAA before going indie again with 22cans.

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  Road to the IGF: Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight An interview with Shovel Knight composer Jake "Virt" Kaufman about both the technical aspects of the IGF Excellence in Audio finalist soundtrack's creation, as well as its inspirations.

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29 Don't Miss: The challenges of being a mom in game development Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander talks to game developers who also happen to be mothers, about the challenges of balancing work and life, and finding success in a male-dominated industry.

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  Tim Schafer and Nathan Vella host next week's GDC and IGF awards Double Fine's Tim Schafer is set to host this year's 15th annual Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC 2015, while Capy's Nathan Vella returns to host the 17th annual Independent Games Festival awards.

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  5 essential playability-focused activities every game should budget for "Here are five practical tasks that every studio -- large or small -- should be including in their game development cycle in order to improve their player experience right from the start of the project."

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2 Obituary: Iconic actor Leonard Nimoy Actor, poet, musician and occasional video game voice-over artist Leonard Nimoy passed away at his home this morning due to complications from obstructive lung disease. He was 83.

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10 Finish your game! "This advice is meant to be for people who have never finished a game. If you're struggling with any project, no matter how big it is, you should know your destination and how to get there."

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  Robot grabs minority investment from Chinese giant Tencent Hero Academy maker Robot Entertainment is the latest Western studio to see investment from Tencent, the China-based megacorp with significant investments in (among other things) Epic and Riot Games.

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  Catch Epic's Tim Sweeney and Xbox chief Phil Spencer at GDC Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney and Xbox frontman Phil Spencer are just two of the can't-miss speakers that will be delivering sponsored talks at GDC 2015 next week.

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