A curated weekly blog for game developers featuring standout news, free tools, useful resources, indie discoveries, and limited-time deals worth checking out.
In this week’s post
- A warm introduction to this new weekly game dev blog series
- Key stories from creators including Chris Zukowski, Code Monkey, and Harry Phokou
- Fresh tools for marketing, motion capture, image editing, and UI workflows
- Free games, affiliate deals, and a couple of unusual indie finds
- Recommended channels and places to follow for more inspiration
Welcome
Hello everyone! It’s been a busy season for me supporting my family and five kids, but I’ve wanted to start a weekly blog for a while now. This is something completely new for me, and I’m excited to finally begin sharing the interesting game dev finds I come across each week instead of letting them disappear into my ever-growing backlog.
Each post will round up game development news, newly discovered tools, free games, interesting creators to follow, standout indie projects, asset packs, and useful resources.
I hope you find something useful here each week. If anything stands out to you — or if there’s something you’d like to see included in future posts — let me know in the comments.
Weekly news roundup
This week’s roundup highlights useful creator insights, unusual Steam stories, and a thoughtful conversation on why smaller game teams may be gaining ground.
Chris Zukowski talks about the hit games of 2026(so far)
In this post:
- What games are breaking through in 2026?
- How much slop is there, are we now living in the AI slopverse?
- How much idle can we get?
Chris is an indie game marketing expert and dives deep into the raw data of the what’s going on in the steam market and provides a very in-depth reports, check out his post here
Code Monkey dives into Lessons from a hit* Incremental game, John Carmack's advice on starting a game company and more:
In this post:
- Game developers’ lessons from Bite Me Games & Doom legend John Carmack
- Fight your own steam library
- Steam controller screams
Bite Me Games gets some financial success from their new game MMO98 but goes into more detail on what they could do better next time.
How big is your steam library, but how many of them have you played?
We love steam sales however a lot of them just sit in out library gathering dust, this interesting game turns your neglected Steam library into enemies!
It’s called Game Quest: The Backlog Battler it uses the steam API get your steam library data and sends the games you’ve not played in waves against you!
Steam controller Easter egg
It’s turns out that the new steam controller has an Easter egg, if you drop the steam controller from a certain high it will play the infamous Wilhelm scream.
Read Code Monkeys full post here
New Harry Phokou podcast
Harry has some great guests on his podcasts diving into interesting topics and lessons from top Game industry professionals, this week he speaks with Alexandre Amancio from Ubisoft talking about “Why Small Game Teams Are Starting To Beat AAA Studios”
In this video it breaks down why massive teams, bloated scope, and risk-averse design are hurting modern game development, and why smaller, focused teams may be the future
New tools worth trying
Here are a few tools I came across this week that look genuinely useful for game development workflows, presentation, and production.
- Steam capsule tool – Check out this post by JoGamedev, he’s created a free drag and drop tool to speed up time on the steam capsules!
- Free Open source MoCap software- Using multiple cameras you can have your own free Motion capture software that works with Blender.
- PhotoGimp Addon - Do you like GIMP but hate the UI? Well, this mod is for you, it transforms GIMP to have a Photoshop look!
- Gamepad UI – PadCrafter is a free tool you can create control schemes, solve button-related UX problems, capture placeholder button maps, and share ideas quickly with your team.
Free games this week
Steam
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War, free until 28 May 2026
Car_Mechanic_Simulator_2018/, free until 27 May 2026
Epic Games Store
Down in Bermuda, free until 28 May 2026
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered, Free until 28 May 2026
Free assets this week
Fab Store
Claim these 3 assets packs:
Limited-Time Free (Until June 2 at 9:59 AM ET)
Publisher of the week Unity
Bring your UI to life with clean, modern title animations that drop right into your scene. Fully compatible with Unity 6.
Add Motion Titles Pack to your cart, then enter the coupon code MICHSKY at checkout to get it for free ends May 28, 2026 at 7:59am PT.
Affiliate deals
This section includes selected partner offers I think are genuinely useful for game developers. Some links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you
Featured deal: GameDev.tv Game Jam Bundle
If you’re preparing for a jam or building up your dev toolkit, this bundle stands out: more than $1,100 worth of game development assets and courses for just $30. Grab it here before it ends on 6 June 2026.
The bundle includes a broad mix of creator-made assets covering characters, environments, audio, tools, and more. It also lines up nicely with the current GameDev.tv jam (Submissions end in 3 days), making it a practical option if you want a ready-made boost of resources.
A nice extra: 10% of every purchase goes to the GameDev.tv Indie Dev Fund, which helps support indie developers building and finishing their games.
Also worth a look: Unity Asset Store bundle deal
Unity is also running a strong bundle offer with 28 new assets valued at around $1,300. Prices start at $10, or you can unlock the full bundle for $68.99 — a useful option if you want to expand your asset library quickly.
The offer runs until 27 May. If it fits what you need, you can check it out here.
Interesting games I found this week
MECCHA CHAMELEON - Hide-and-seek game where you paint your white body to mimic the stage. Spot, pose, and "artistic skill" are keys to survival.
Don't Panic! It is Just Turbulence - A frantic co-op puzzle game where a Pilot and an Air Traffic Controller must communicate, decrypt, and improvise to save a failing aircraft. Talk fast, solve faster, and try not to crash. This reminds me of keep talking and nobody explodes.
Channels and sites to follow
Looking for tutorials for the new game engine S&BOX check out Sandking on YouTube
Follow JoGamedev on X and check out his website https://www.jogamedev.com/ for more interesting tools like the steam capsule tool listed above.
Follow and support
Thanks for taking the time to read this week’s post. If you found it useful — or there’s something you’d like me to include next time — let me know in the comments below.
You can find me on Facebook, X, and Discord — and if you’d like to support what I’m building, you can also support me on Ko-fi.
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