Scope Creep vs Survival in Game Development
If you’re honest, your vision has grown since you greenlit this game. Every prototype, every playtest, every design brainstorm adds “one more thing” that would make it richer, deeper, more “you.” The problem: your burn rate is fixed. Headcount is locked. Runway isn’t getting longer. So you end up with a steadily expanding wishlist on […]
Busy but Nowhere: Game Dev Burn Without Progress
On paper, your team is maxed out. Sprints are full, calendars are packed, Jira is overflowing. Everyone’s working late, people are tired, and if someone asks “Are we doing enough?” the immediate answer is “We’re at capacity.” But when you zoom out 3–6 months, a nasty question pops up: “What do we actually have to […]
Is Your Game Quietly Being Defunded?
From the outside, a studio closure or project cancellation looks sudden. A tweet. A press release. “After careful consideration, we’ve decided to sunset…” Public outrage. Surprise. Shock. Then your LinkedIn feed fills up with the same 3–4 support posts on repeat: “I don’t usually post, but today is different…”, “If you’re hiring, these folks are […]
Why Game Dev Work Never Stays Done (And How To Fix It)
Everyone in your studio is busy. Jira is full, builds go out, meetings happen. And yet, the game doesn’t seem to move forward in a way you can actually measure. Roadmaps slip, “90% done” has been true for a year, and executives are left guessing whether the next milestone is real or just a nicer […]
Release Planning in Game Development: Finish Without Crunch
Game development is full of moving targets, new mechanics, shifting priorities, evolving creative vision. That volatility isn’t the problem. The problem is making decisions without understanding how far their impact propagates through the game. Release planning in games isn’t about locking scope or predicting the future. It’s about making the cost of decisions visible early […]
AI Blackboard Architecture for Tactical Game AI
In the Smart Environment article, we explored how agents can avoid crowding by reserving paths. One NPC declares its intended route, and the environment marks it so others naturally pick alternate paths. This simple mechanism creates emergent flanking and tactical spread without requiring direct communication. Now let’s extend that idea further. Instead of only coordinating […]
Designing NPCs with Smart Objects and Smart Environment
One of the hardest parts of building convincing game AI is deciding how much knowledge to put inside the agent. If every NPC needs to know how to use every object, evaluate every area of the map, and constantly recalculate context, the logic becomes bloated, fragile, and expensive to run. There’s a better way. Instead […]
Smarter Game AI with Infinite Axis Utility Systems
Game AI has evolved through several design patterns: Finite State Machines (FSMs), Behavior Trees (BTs), and Planning systems. Each has strengths, but also limitations. FSMs risk lock-in if an exit condition is missed, while BTs can grow unwieldy as branches multiply. Utility Systems offer another path — one that balances flexibility, scalability, and performance. Infinite […]
Raising the Bar: UX, PO & Tech Leads in AAA Game Tools
When studios talk about building new technology, a smarter AI system, a faster rendering pipeline, or a more elegant gameplay framework, the conversation usually revolves around performance, computational speed, or technical elegance. But too often, the hidden costs are ignored. A system without tools is a system that only engineers can touch. That leaves designers […]
Automated Testing in Game Development: Speed & Stability
When most people think about game testing, they picture QA teams running through builds, finding bugs, and filing reports. But modern development pipelines can’t rely only on manual QA anymore. Automated testing has become essential to maintain speed without sacrificing stability. And yet, many studios hesitate. Automated testing feels expensive, it takes time to write, […]