Issue #657 - August 7th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Devolver wants to delist because indie publishing is not 'compatible' with public trading
The indie publisher claims public trading has created a 'valuation disconnect that does not take account of the lifetime and long-tail revenue delivery inherent in the video games business.'
Chris Kerr at Game Developer

Roblox tanked $9 billion in a single day after the company admitted it was directing fewer kids toward viral games that ‘emphasize short-term monetization’
Wall Street seems unhappy about improvements to the Roblox recommendation algorithm.
Ethan Gach at Kotaku

Former Icelandic minister joins Fenris Creations to lead new AI partnerships
Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir discusses how she intends to "contribute to the changes AI is bringing" by conducting autonomous AI research in Eve Frontier.
Sophie McEvoy at GamesIndustryBiz

Monetizing a web game on a standalone website: the RocketGoal and Playgama Ad case study
In six months, the game generated over 65 million ad impressions with viewability above 90%.
Mobidictum
 

Competitions:

js13kGames 2026 starts next week

Devvit Gaming Hackathon winners

Girly Game Jam #4 starts today
 

Tools:

LittleJS13k - special js13k branch of LittleJS

Easel update: hotspots and nine slicing
 

Resources:

Help improve Gamedev.js Survey 2026 - provide feedback to questions and answers!

Wavedash Creator Fund
 

Demos:

Ocean shader 6-scene day cycle

Bioelectric consciousness engine

Dweet of the week: drainage vortex
 

Games:

Retro Raid

Underground Football League

Fantasy Online 2
 

Issue #656 - July 31st 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Unity brings dedicated engine support to Netflix Games
The engine maker said it wants to help developers produce titles for Netflix's multi-platform ecosystem.
Chris Kerr at Game Developer

Game devs put together an Itch.io bundle of over 100 games with proceeds going to help laid-off colleagues
The Game Industry Hardship Fund bundle contains over 100 games and will be on sale for the next two weeks.
Ash Parrish at Kotaku

"I learnt a tonne about enamel pin manufacturing" - Brigador developer Stellar Jockeys on the secrets of selling video game merchandise
Studio head Hugh Monahan tells us why T-shirts and posters are a bad idea, why pins are a solid bet, and why it's a bad time to be selling lighters internationally.
Alex Forbes-Calvin at GamesIndustryBiz

New AMD Linux patch boosts low-end gaming performance on Steam Deck
Improved efficiency in EPP mode leads to ~32% jump in “1% low” frame rates.
Kyle Orland at Ars Technica

Star Wars will also be coming to D&D, and I'm worried Hasbro's trying to turn a TTRPG into Magic: The Gathering again
Secret draconic lair.
Harvey Randall at PC Gamer
 

Competitions:

js13kGames 2026 starts in 13 days
 

Tools:

Voxby - synth music tracker built on SoundBox

PhaserJSX: a React-like JSX UI framework for Phaser 4
 

Demos:

Strings

CampFire

Dweet of the week: welcome to the Matrix
 

Games:

The Boop-Ity Suit

A Wish for Another Chance
 

Issue #655 - July 24th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

What developers can learn from this generation of game criticism
Hour-long video essays analyzing game design are garnering millions of views. What can developers learn and utilize from the format?
Tim Brinkhof at Game Developer

Hackers quickly prove that Neo Geo Doom ports are not “impossible”
Clever coding and graphical compromises get a classic game on more classic hardware.
Kyle Orland at Ars Technica

RAMageddon is even ravaging retro gaming hardware makers: ‘this is vastly different to everything else we’ve ever seen’
The makers of Evercade are buying up every component they can way in advance.
Ethan Gach at Kotaku

Modding wizard creates Grand Theft Auto multiverse that lets players travel instantly between Rockstar's first three games: 'We got inter-GTA portals before GTA 6'
"The other game is actually running behind it, it's not a video or a captured window," says mod creator.
Rick Lane at PC Gamer
 

Tutorials:

Build a HTML5 game like Geometry Dash using Phaser 4 and TypeScript, with a simple custom physics engine
In Geometry Dash, the cube spins through the air and always lands flush on a flat side. It looks like careful rigid-body physics. It isn’t, and the real trick is much simpler.
Emanuele Feronato's blog
 

Competitions:

Last days to join Wavedash Summer Game Jam
 

Tools:

Pixelfalls - modern retro game engine

Phaser 4.2 released
 

Demos:

The life of a singularity

Dithering Perlin squares

Dweet of the week: psychedelic trippy
 

Games:

The Stars of Nelrand

Connect Cars
 

Issue #654 - July 17th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Why releasing games on the web could be right for your studio in 2026
Browser-based games offer a huge audience without storefront restrictions, and can serve as a source of both recurring revenue and platform to explore new markets.
Romy Halfweeg at GamesIndustryBiz

The goal of design is to efficiently communicate ideas
Revisiting Stone Librande's classic One Page Designs GDC talk, for a dose of the good stuff.
Danielle Riendeau at Game Developer

GameStop CEO says physical games are ‘totally irrelevant’
Ryan Cohen also claims that if GameStop and eBay merged it could create a $1 trillion business.
Zack Zwiezen at Kotaku

GTA 6 leaker has been trolling straight out of prison after hospital stay
Arion Kurtaj claims to have access to a burner phone.
Patricia Hernandez at Polygon
 

Tutorials:

Orchestrating enemy AI in a top-down shooter
How I built a complex enemy AI without maintaining spaghetti code.
Rémi Vansteelandt at Substack
 

Tools:

A-Frame 1.8.0: catching up on ThreeJS

Playgama's how-to: raising HTML5 game’s revenue by 10–40% with Advanced Banners
 

Demos:

Blob

Chromophilic

Dweet of the week: Skydreams JS1024 Demo
 

Games:

Roll & Reload

PunFiction
 

Issue #653 - July 10th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Xbox layoffs: jobs lost at Obsidian, Bethesda, Id and Zenimax Online Studios
WARN notice confirms 213 jobs cut at ZeniMax Online Studios in Maryland, 52 Obsidian developers let go in California.
Jon Hicks at GamesIndustryBiz

Wing Commander IV and the FMV future that never quite was
ArsGames takes a look at the time Chris Roberts more or less made a whole movie.
Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica

PC ports of old console games are the new AI vibe coding battleground
With projects like Donkey Kong 64 Recompiled, human programmers stake a claim on the art and science of retro game recompilation.
Wes Fenlon at PC Gamer
 

Tutorials:

Web Game Monetization: ad formats, in-game purchases and balanced user experience
Valeria Svistunova, Head of Monetization at Playgama, breaks down how to approach web game monetization in 2026, covering ad logic, in-game purchases, the differences between web and mobile monetization, and how various game genres should implement it.
Valeria Svistunova at Mobidictum
 

Competitions:

Playgama AFK Summer Jam
 

Tools:

Introducing Babylon Lite

Phaser Game Agent MCP: use Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot and more to build games
 

Demos:

Bioluminescent tree

Baroque sunset

Dweet of the week: untitled
 

Games:

The Sundry

Operation Knockback

Not a Trolley Problem
 

Issue #652 - July 3rd 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Defold in the middle of 2026 - a summary
The first half of 2026 has been an important period for Defold.
The Defold Foundation

Trolling, memes, and petitions: the fallout over PlayStation killing game discs is everywhere
Even Trevor Noah is posting about it.
Ethan Gach at Kotaku

Godot to ban (almost all) AI coding contributions
Godot will still allow AI assistance like 'code completion, regex, or find and replace.'
Diego Argüello at Game Developer

Creator-distributed discount codes drive massive uptake of game storefronts, according to new Tebex data
Over 80% of players using creator codes are new to the platform; influence overwhelmingly concentrated on top creators.
Jon Hicks at GamesIndustryBiz
 

Events:

WAWTech Summer conference - July 18th in Warsaw, Poland
Grab one free ticket in the #events channel on our Discord.
 

Tools:

190+ indie games have used Play2Review
190+ indie games have used Play2Review to collect recorded sessions, voice commentary, and survey-based feedback from real players during development.

Easel June update: simple vs easy
 

Demos:

Liquid gooey orb shader

Not a Mobius knot

Dweet of the week: js1024 2026 started
 

Games:

Just a Little Longer

Junkbot Repair

CRAB MUSIC
 

Issue #651 - June 26th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Study uses Age Of Empires scenario editor to illustrate why it’s farcical to treat AI as cognizant
OpenAI and the like are using our fantasies about technology to bilk investors, if we want to protect the public we need to establish the difference consciousness and something mimicking it.
Zack Kotzer at Kotaku

Five things to avoid when marketing your indie game
A rogue-like mecha extraction grid-based first-person survival marketing guide.
Axel Fälth at GamesIndustryBiz

Hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI will cost more than other AAA games
GTA6 might be an outlier, though - at least for now.
Samuel Axon at Ars Technica

Memory prices are predicted to rise as much as 50% in Q3 and it only gets worse from there
I'm gonna be playing low-res indie games for years.
Jody Macgregor at PC Gamer
 

Competitions:

Reddit and Phaser launch a $40,000 game dev hackathon
 

Tools:

Preparing a demo for Steam Next Fest?
Find confusing mechanics, friction points, onboarding issues, and player drop-offs before thousands of people try your demo during Steam Next Fest.

Lore - next-generation, open source version control system
 

Resources:

The 2026 State Of Web Gaming Report: a study of developer and gamer perceptions
 

Demos:

Through the layers

Sunset

Dweet of the week: pipe dream
 

Games:

cssQuake

FacetLab - rough diamond polishing simulator
 

Issue #650 - June 19th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Vampire Survivors dev 'reviewing' Fortnite collab after Epic's AI announcement
Poncle voiced its doubts mere hours after the collaboration's announcement.
Diego Argüello at Game Developer

Pokémon Go players unwittingly contributed to tech with military drone uses
The repurposing of Pokémon Go data for AI training continues to draw scrutiny.
Jeremy Hsu at Ars Technica

Steam Controller demand is so high that new reservations won't be fulfilled until 2027
The queue system has been tweaked to give more useful shipping estimations, but they're not encouraging.
Shaun Prescott at PC Gamer
 

Tutorials:

Fish pond workshop with PixiJS
We are going to build a virtual pond and fill them with a number of colorful fishes. In the process, we will be learning about basic manipulation of Sprites, TilingSprite and Filter, specifically the Displacement Filter.
PixiJS Tutorials
 

Competitions:

Countdown to js13kGames 2026
 

Tools:

Do new players understand your onboarding?
Get fresh playtests from real players and see whether your tutorial, controls, first minutes, and core mechanics actually make sense before you launch.

Rivalis - open-source real-time framework for Node.js

Phaser 4.2.0 released: Mesh2D, Stencil Rendering and AlphaStrategy
 

Demos:

Mediterranean drift

Sub-quantum cellular automata

Dweet of the week: untitled
 

Videos:

Chong-U: vibe coding an entire Street Fighter game with AI (Cursor, Codex, Opus 4.8)

The PrimeTime: the craziest coding contest ever
 

Games:

In the Hall of the Gear Machines

Draft Punks

Orb Knight
 

Issue #649 - June 12th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

Introducing the Web Games Industry Market Map (2026)
The Map is accompanied by a description of the 120+ companies, key market players, and essential services.
Playgama's Wiki

Why a Neo Geo port of Doom is functionally impossible
Sprite-based graphics architecture makes first-person 3D a challenge.
Kyle Orland at Ars Technica

Rebellion's Atomfall is being turned into a TV series
Two Brothers' Harry and Jack Williams are leading the adaptation.
Diego Argüello at Game Developer

An ‘actual burning of Alexandria moment’: RPG Maker users scramble to preserve 14 years of important resources
An unquantifiable amount of RPG Maker resources are now at risk of being lost forever as a result of RPG Maker Forum's closure.
Lewis Parker at Kotaku
 

Tutorials:

Catlantean 3D - making graphics like it's 1993
Catlantean 3D is a side-project I've been slowly building in my spare time for over a year, and I intend to release it on Steam next year.
Marko Stanic's blog
 

Tools:

Watch real players get stuck in your game
Play2Review gives you recorded gameplay, voice commentary, and structured surveys so you can spot confusion, frustration, and player drop-offs before launch.

MiniPixelFont generator
 

Demos:

Dot grid

Sand bottle

Dweet of the week: generative scene
 

Games:

Kobots

Weeds and Wires

Machine Disco
 

Issue #648 - June 5th 2026

Weekly newsletter about Web Game Development.
If you have anything you want to share with our community please let me know by replying to this email, thank you!
 

Articles:

How the Replaced devs fixed display bloat with a stylish gadget
The Wingman was 'born out of design necessity.'
Diego Argüello at Game Developer

Valve confirms Steam Machine will ship this summer
The company also confirmed that its standalone VR headset will arrive in that same timeframe.
Zack Zwiezen at Kotaku

Netflix's FIFA replacement hopes to reboot the franchise during the World Cup
The kick the series needs.
Giovanni Colantonio at Polygon

September becomes a pile-up as publishers swerve to avoid GTA 6
Publishers sometimes talk themselves into believing their game doesn't directly compete with others – but four big hitters in ten days spells commercial chaos.
Rob Fahey at GamesIndustryBiz
 

Tutorials:

Using Godot 3 C# for web export for game jams
To save others time I made a tutorial for using C# + Godot 3 for web export, since I had some trouble figuring out how to do it.
Enigma2728 at Reddit
 

Competitions:

Where's My Oats

LittleJS Game Jam 3

Gamedev.js Jam 2027
 

Tools:

Bitmap Font Generator

Easel May update: spaces and shapes
 

Resources:

Participate in a JetBrains Survey to Help Shape Game Development
JetBrains is running a short survey to understand the workflows, tools, and challenges of game developers today. You’ll get the chance to win one of five USD 50 Amazon Gift Cards or a one-year All Products Pack subscription for personal use.

Demos:

Fibi sphere

Compiled ∃ test

Dweet of the week: ex nihilo
 

Games:

Rage Against The Sapiens

Heck Tech

Codepath()