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🎮 Game Development Diary - March 17, 2026

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Morgan Page's Game Developer Diary

Join 3000+ other subscribers who, every week, stay informed on all the latest goings on in gaming, game development and so much more.

Morgan's Game Development Diary

🎮 Game Development Diary - Weekly Roundup

Your Weekly Dose of Gaming & Dev News

Latest Video from AI Craft

Don't Try to Make 3D Game Characters Without Watching This AI Tutorial

Don't Try to Make 3D Game Characters Without Watching This AI Tutorial

📊 SteamCharts This Week

Top 5 Most Played Games

Trending Games (24-Hour Growth)

🎪 Game Jams This Week

Active Jams

📰 Gaming News

Overcooked 2 is a divorce-starting and chaotic co-op game, and this party gem is cheaper than ever Overcooked 2’s food-making chaos makes it an excellent co-op game for family and friends, and this indie is cheaper than ever right now at Fanatica

'Insanely punishing' survival game Atlas is being distilled 'into a more accessible form' for Ark: Survival Ascended's new DLC The Tides of Fortune update will let players craft a customizable ship and sail it across a simulated ocean.

Overwatch director says addressing the 5v5 versus 6v6 debates late 'cost us trust': 'We should have listened sooner' Aaron Keller reflected on Overwatch 2's live service development during a recent talk at GDC.

Our idea of Azeroth could have looked very different, because Jeff Kaplan said he 'really wanted WoW to be first-person' in its early days: 'I argued a lot for that' We narrowly dodged an FPMMORPG craze.

Bungie is adding an 'experimental' duos mode to Marathon for a few weeks: 'Some things will be a bit jank' Just the two of us.

DLSS 5 clearly overwrites game characters with AI beauty standards, but Nvidia says devs have 'artistic control' The first demo for Nvidia's new AI rendering technique doesn't do much to combat the perception that generative AI homogenizes artwork.

Slay the Spire 2 Defect character guide - strategy, builds, and tier list Learn the best way to summon orbs to do your bidding as we break down the perfect strategy and builds for The Defect in Slay the Spire 2.

New Valorant agent Miks is channeling pure sonic power, and he could be my next instalock Croatian Controller Miks is the new Valorant agent, and if used right, his musical might will bring a victory fanfare to your team.

Jeff Kaplan's new game, The Legend of California, may have big Rust energy, but don't think it's a cowboy-filled clone While The Legend of California’s Jeff Kaplan has taken his fair share of inspiration from Rust, he’s been quick to separate the two.

Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War makes me wish more games had FMV cutscenes Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War is a throwback shooter based on a film that’s nearly 30 years old - and it’s entertaining as hell.

🎯 Indie Game Releases

Based on SteamCharts trending data, here are the indie games experiencing massive growth:

  • Ready or Not - Currently experiencing a massive 70.1% improvement in ranking (94 positions up)
  • Umamusume: Pretty Derby - Currently experiencing a massive 31.8% improvement in ranking (27 positions up)
  • Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced - Currently experiencing a massive 28.6% improvement in ranking (8 positions up)

🛠️ New Tools & Resources

Humans in the Loop - Humans in the Loop is a place for people who love to use AI to ship faster, a free community to join and share insights and best practices on Claude C
524 upvotes

⭐ GitHub Trending

godotengine/godot - 107,989 stars (C++) Godot Engine – Multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine

ocornut/imgui - 72,016 stars (C++) Dear ImGui: Bloat-free Graphical User interface for C++ with minimal dependencies

bevyengine/bevy - 45,118 stars (Rust) A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust

phaserjs/phaser - 39,191 stars (JavaScript) Phaser is a fun, free and fast 2D game framework for making HTML5 games for desktop and mobile web browsers, supporting Canvas and WebGL rendering.

LizardByte/Sunshine - 35,328 stars (C++) Self-hosted game stream host for Moonlight.

🐍 Reddit Highlights

Need Feedback for the scanning mechanic in my Detective Immersive Sim
462 upvotes | 49 comments r/Unity3D

Alright... last time I got roasted for the screen shake. How’s it looking now?
451 upvotes | 54 comments r/Unity3D

I released my solo developed game on Steam and it suddenly hit 10 MILLION impressions. I'm still shaking!
375 upvotes | 91 comments r/IndieGaming

I had my students create dioramas in Unity and combined them into one continuous showcase!
269 upvotes | 13 comments r/Unity3D

Fast floating voxel detection for my Unity game! Voxtopolis
267 upvotes | 20 comments r/Unity3D

🎉 Wrapping Up

That's your weekly roundup, devs! We've got trending games breaking records and tons of game jams ready for you to jump into. Whether you're building your next masterpiece or just staying in the loop, there's never been a better time to be part of the indie dev community. Got a project you're working on? Hit us up and let us know what you're building. We'd love to feature your work in next week's newsletter. Keep creating, keep innovating, and we'll catch you next Monday! 🚀 Happy developing! **— Morgan**

Morgan Page's Game Developer Diary

Join 3000+ other subscribers who, every week, stay informed on all the latest goings on in gaming, game development and so much more.