When I think about retro games, forget Mario, Sonic or even Tetris. I think Zork. The quirky text adventure, published by Personal Software (and then Infocom) back in 1980, screwed with players in many, many ways (when it wasn't sending grues after them). I thought I knew its best secrets -- that is until prominent developer Ryan C. Gordon‏ revealed the granddaddy of them all... and the most underhanded use of randomness I've seen in a game for a while.

Video game publishers are notoriously secretive about the budgets behind their games, but when a number does slip out, it can be shocking. Games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, which is tough to fathom -- until you do the maths.

Launching in partnership with Sydney's flagship Microsoft Store and the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), the newly formed "Xbox Academy" is offering a three hour hands-on gaming workshop where you can learn coding, art, marketing and other aspects of development - for free.

“Daddy? DADDY!”

I look up from my laptop. This video game was supposed to give me a precious 15 minute respite from the endless drudgery of parenthood. What the hell’s gone wrong now?

“DADDY WHAT I DO?

“WHAT I DOOOOOO?”

It must be really hard to make a good video game for kids.

I know this because to date, I have only played one good console game made for kids.

MSI has announced a new version of its 17-inch WT72 laptop specifically tailored for software developers working in virtual reality. Packing in an Nvidia Quadro M5500 8GB GPU, it can be used in conjunction with HTC Vive or Oculus Rift as a complete VR workstation solution for animation and design professionals. (We just want one to play Bullet Train on.)

CryEngine, the next-gen video game engine behind Crysis, Far Cry and Ryse is moving to a "pay what you want" model in a bid to make game creation more accessible to cash-strapped coders. This grants users unrestricted access to the engine and source code for free. (In other words, you now have no excuse not to make that game you keep talking about.)

I was terrible at mathematics in my adolescence. I hated it. I dropped it as a subject going into Year 10, though that's not super important, as I eventually dropped myself from the entire curriculum before that HSC. At the time, I had no idea I'd eventually become a games developer, or the lasting effect my disregard for algebra and trigonometry would have.

Matt Hall is, by almost every definition of the word, 'successful'. 50 million downloads and $10 million later, Crossy Road is probably his most high profile success, but it's one of many. Of the seven games Matt has released on iOS a mind-boggling five have made it to the number one spot.
How does he do it? Well, he has a few rules and he follows them to the letter...