Game Dev

Celebrate the first $ you make!

Are you already a professional game dev? Or perhaps a hobbyist working on your first game? Whatever your starting point, it is definitely an awesome event when you finally make your first dollar with your games!

Here is a post from a developer that did just that, launched the first game and made $12! It might sound small but this is definitely worth celebrating, most games don't make anything at all (most games are never finished)

Completing a game is a huge achievement by itself, and selling your very first copy is another huge achievement, so congrats to this developer!

Remember how everyone starts from 0, whether it be money or skills, we all start from nothing and then build upon it. So if you're just starting out, either in your game dev money making journey or your game dev learning journey, then keep at it and I hope you reach this milestone soon! Best of luck!

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There’s one with a Realistic theme, one for Sci-Fi and one Fantasy.

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The Publisher of the Week this time is Queen, publisher with many controllers and tools.

Get the FREE Car Controller with Shooting Capabilities which like the name says is a car controller with shooting. Could be a nice starting point for an arcade game.

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Do you want awesome Low Poly assets? There’s a sale on the Synty Store!

There’s some packs at 70% OFF like the Mech pack (perfect for a MechWarrior or Titanfall game) or the Shops pack (perfect for a shop/mall tycoon game) or the Military pack (perfect for any first or third person shooter game)

Check out the entire sale HERE!

Game Dev

Unity Layoffs

This week Unity had some layoffs.

It's a bit surprising considering how the company reset supposedly already happened and supposedly everything was coming along nicely. There's no officially confirmed number so no idea how many people were let go but there is an official email that was leaked. In there the CEO writes how he's optimistic about 2025 but they are also stretched across too many products and need to focus further. He mentions a focus on stability and shipping higher quality software by allocating more resources to fix critical technical debt.

That part sounds good, I think a stable foundation is absolutely critical and I've been pretty happy with Unity 6, I haven't had any issues with it.

Next he mentions "Invest in Industry, Live Services, and AI. Data is our future." which mostly involves improving their ad tech stack. Personally I don't know much about mobile but as far as I know Unity Ads aren't the best (I think it's AppLovin), and considering how ads are a significant part of their business it does make sense to focus resources on improving it.

However apparently other areas were cut as well, the Behaviour team was apparently entirely cut, André Cardoso (from the excellent Mix and Jam channel) was let go while working as a Game Designer, losing such talented Unity developers is a big loss.

And, maybe related, one of the directors of the .NET Tech Group at Unity also resigned. This was apparently more due to "a deep disagreement with leadership above me". The post sounds kind of ominous regarding the CoreCLR transition, so he made a more detailed post clarifying how it's apparently still on track. I certainly hope so since Unity does need to move away from Mono in order to stay viable for the long term, Unity 7 was (maybe still is?) shaping up to be a big release.

Gaming

PlayStation State of Play

PlayStation just had a State of Play event where they unveiled a bunch of new games and updates.

Saros, the next game from the developers of Returnal, is an Action Shooter with permanent progression systems (roguelike elements)

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater got an official release date of August 28, 2025 and a new trailer.

Borderlands 4 also got a release date of September 23, 2025.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword got a new great looking trailer! It's looking excellent and it's coming out in 2026.

Tides of Annihilation is a brand new singleplayer experience set in modern London that has been taken over by weird creatures. Looks like a high budget souls-like, really cool.

Days Gone Remastered is polishing up the game and releasing in April 25, 2025. I really enjoyed the original game.

Lies of P: Overture is a prequel DLC coming for this widely beloved game, out this Summer.

And a bunch more from big and small developers including a new PixelJunk game and a collab between Yakuza and Dave the Diver.

Fun

Game with a "realistic" inventory!

Check out this interesting idea for a game inventory. You place objects and those objects have shape and physics, so if you want to put more stuff you need to jiggle your backpack to get it nice and packed so you have more space.

It's definitely a clever idea, looks pretty fun. The one potential downside is getting the player frustrated if the only option they have is just shaking the backpack, but that could be solved with perhaps adding the ability for the player to manually pick up and move some objects, kind of like a claw game.