Develop February: GDC issue

A League of its Own: This issue of Develop is a celebration of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. We’ve rejigged the mag to reflect the structure of the conference, making it easier to find articles that are relevant to your area of expertise. It’s a huge issue this month, so there’ll be something for everyone. Full list below.

You can read this issue on your browser or mobile device here. If you’re not already subscribed to Develop, you can sign up for as little as £35 to ensure you receive your monthly look at global games development.

Got feedback? Are you a developer who wants to get involved with future issues? Feel free to email me at jalexander@nbmedia.com. (Dog gifs always appreciated.)

Here’s a full overview of what to expect this month:

• Taking Play Seriously: We talk to Riot Games’ Design Director, Greg Street, about game balancing, the company’s design philosophy and how corporate culture affects development.
• Designing For HDR: Playground Games and The Coalition give insight into designing games with HDR in mind..
• Alex Calvin discusses sex in games with Christine Love, creator of Ladykiller in a Bind.
• Composer Kenneth Young on how his work on VR title Tethered takes advantage of new audio creation methods.
• How the scientific method can actually make your game development process more creative.
• The BAFTA Young Game Designers competition is now on. We’ve got full details, plus some advice for applicants.
• The Develop Post-Mortem takes an in-depth look at Pony Island, which went from a game jam experiment to a popular Steam game.
• Edge Case Games discusses the idea of open development, and how Fractured Space‘s project management was aided by players. 
• The games industry responds to the US immigration ban. We look at how the dev community is rallying together.
• How inkle has created a new engline that allows them to make games with focus on story before anything else.
• Testronic’s Keith Ramsdale talks about the role of QA in the industry and how it will change with the proliferation of VR and AR. 
• What is success? Will Freeman chats with Dr Dana Ruggiero to find out how to measure your game’s worth.
• Controls make the man: How Halo Wars 2 dumps a lot of the trappings of its predecessor, but kept the control scheme.
• Team 17’s Debbie Bestwick explains why now is the right time for the publisher to make moves into the US.
• Yooka-Laylee‘s music is a throwback to 90s platformers, made by the very same people who birthed that nostalgia in you in the first place.
• What is the Oulu Games Campus and how is it rejuvenating the Scandinavian development community?
• Tips to get your game published, from Sold Out’s Josh Garrity.
• The social casino market, and how Kama Games navigates the minefield of paid-for apps.
• Persistant Studios on how middleware needs to adapt to new and advanced technologies. 
• The trials and tribulations of the free to play model, from the perspective or deltaDNA.
• The jobs section includes a discussion of why networking at events is important, as well as looks at both nDreams and Remedy and what makes them such great places to work.