Game Dev

Steam updates AI disclosure rules

Steam has required developers to disclose whether they use AI or not for quite a while now. However there was always confusion as to what counts as AI. Is it just AI generated art? AI generated sound? AI localization? What about AI generated code? Or just AI code suggestions? Some developers get confused by this because nowadays if you use any modern IDE it will probably have AI features on by default, therefore technically every single game should say yes to this form.

To fix that Valve has now reworded how they ask the question to developers, now it says:

This way it makes it more clear how the disclosure is meant to be used. It's mainly about player-facing things, not tooling or backend stuff.

• Do you use Claude code or Copilot to help you build your game? Pick No.

• Do you use ChatGPT to generate the Chinese localization? Pick Yes.

• Do you use Gemini to brainstorm game design ideas? Pick No.

• Do you use Nano Banana to generate the game's capsule art? Pick Yes.

But this is still not 100% clear, and it can never be. What if you use a human artist to draw your main capsule, but then you use AI just to expand the background to fit the various sizes you need, do you pick Yes? Technically it’s only 10% AI, at what percentage do you pick Yes? What if you use AI for level design? Technically that's both player facing (players play the level) and backend stuff (the developer builds the level).

Or quite simply using AI to help you come up with the name for the game, I used that to come up with the name Dinky Guardians in that I asked ChatGPT to give me 50 words related to "small" and "defense game" and then picked the final name myself from all those options. Should I pick Yes?

Either way at least now there is a tiny bit more clarity.

Affiliate

Unity Awards Sale, FREE Map System

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All the assets that won an award or were nominated are currently on sale. Because of this that means all of the assets are excellent. Chances are your favorites are on sale, or pick up some awesome ones that you might not know about.

My own Toolkit asset is on sale! I won the Best Development Tool! I hope it helps you a lot!

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The Publisher of the Week this time is Queen, it’s a publisher with a bunch of tools and complete game kits.

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Game Dev

Game release rituals

Releasing a game is a monumental achievement! Whether it's your first game or your 10th, whether you've been working on it for 3 months or 3 years, pressing the Release button is always a big moment.

With this being such an important time several devs have their own rituals they do during release.

Personally I also have my own ritual that I've done on every single game I've published. Normally I order a giant pizza for myself along with some nuggets and some dessert, a pretty massive meal. I enjoy eating the pizza while at the same time dealing with all the release date tasks. It's pretty rare for me to eat pizza so this is my very special treat, it definitely is a motivating factor to releasing another game!

Other developers have posted about their rituals on this fun Reddit thread.

The most upvoted one is simply get some sleep to be ready for the deluge of bugs as players start to play. Although on this one I would say if you do a solid thorough demo then release shouldn't be full of bugs and surprises.

Another dev mentions something likely very relatable to a lot of people, just put off release and don't actually do it. On this one I would say go for it and release! Releasing games is a muscle and the more games you publish the more confident you become.

Yet another dev mentions something that I do all the time, not just during release day: Go out for a walk or a warm shower. Spending time away from a computer screen can really help solve many issues in your head.

Then one dev plays the Final Countdown song, another opens a bottle of wine, and some others simply refresh the page obsessively to figure out if the game hits their success goals or not.

Whatever your ritual is, I hope you enjoy your release date!

Gaming

BEST Games made with Unity in 2025!

Every single month for over 4 years now I do my Top New Unity Games lists, I've done 55 of them! I browse the Steam New Releases every month, verify which ones are made with Unity, and pick 10 games that look really interesting or unique.

Now that the year is over Unity themselves have made a roundup of their favorite Made with Unity Games of 2025!

The big headliner is of course Hollow Knight: Silksong, after 7 years in development it finally released this year. Escape From Duckov takes the extraction shooter formula and makes it silly. Terminator 2D: NO FATE is a gorgeous nostalgia-bait game. Deliver At All Costs features some impressive and super satisfying destruction. Gorn 2 is VR chaos personified. Megabonk is one of the mega hits of this year by a solo dev, as is of course Schedule I.

Then you also had Mage Arena, the lofi game with a super interesting microphone mechanic. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor finally hit 1.0 in the bullet heaven genre. Two Point Museum is charming as always, and PEAK took the world by storm.

In total they highlighted 453 awesome games published in 2025, that's a lot of super high quality games! Looking at this giant list it makes it so clear just how talented a lot of devs are. It's amazing how all of there completely different and completely awesome games are all made with the same engine!

By the way if you're working on your own game Made with Unity you can submit your game to their team and perhaps they might promote you in future events. Although there are tons of awesome games so the quality bar for being chosen is definitely quite high.

Fun

How Browsers Work

You probably use a browser every single day, but have you ever stopped to think how exactly to they work? If you've ever wondered that, or if you just want to know the basics of networking and how the internet works, then check out the aptly named howbrowserswork.com

It's a very short guide explaining how things work, starting with a URL which turns into an HTTP request that then uses DNS to resolve to an IP address which in turn establishes a TCP connection that then transfers data as HTML which is then rendered by the browser into something you actually see. Neat!