Latest articles by Lauren Morton
'You would not believe the number of AI games in our inbox' says Tunic's publisher 'I am tired of seeing it'
News CEO Rebekah Saltsman is tired of seeing AI pitches for AI games and she'd rather see developers pitch a publisher like Finji with "programmer art" than generative AI.
'Sims don't plan anything' says former Sims 4 developer, though he always wanted to program them to: 'it's always shot down, rightfully so'
News The Sims 4's original AI programmer always wanted to give sims the ability to plan their actions but it never stuck.
'I took those files and deleted them': Former Sims 4 developer says he totally rewrote the sims' AI in the middle of development and 'that was a scary thing to do'
News The Sims 4's original lead AI programmer says he pitched the entire AI system not long before alpha and rewrote it from scratch.
Over 48% of unreleased games have a Discord server, and I'm sure this is all fine and normal and I don't miss forums at all
News How did we get here?
Former EVE Online developers are building a society simulation MMO where your character keeps playing even after you log off
Eternally Online Long-in-the-works colony sim MMO Seed is shaping up into something that looks like EVE Online for RimWorld fans.
Game dev union members marched at GDC to propose a 'Game Workers' Bill of Rights'
The UVW-CWA is envisioning a base standard set of working conditions for all game developers.
Overhauling Minecraft's world generation was like 'trying to build a skyscraper with hand tools' which basically scared Mojang off of continuing massive yearly updates
News Mojang got so in over its head overhauling all of Minecraft's world generation tech five years ago that it swore off yearly title updates not long after.
The horse gamers have spoken: This new horse sim has 'a beautiful sense of realism I haven't felt since RDR2'
News Horse fans have been burned by bad horse games often enough, but The Legend of Khiimori shows promise if it can hurdle a lot of bug fixes.
Is the realistic horse courier sim The Legend of Khiimori worth playing in early access?
Hold Up Here's a breakdown of all the horse sim features and the early access state of Legend of Khiimori so you can decide to play or wait.
Finally someone has threaded the needle between survival game and horse girl sim
Trot it out The Legend of Khiimori is a surprisingly detailed horse courier sim that I'm actually loving more than just in solidarity with my horse girl gamer friends.
Almost all the cozy games of March have demos to try and I've been snapping up as many as I can
Cozy calendar A well-timed Steam Next Fest means we've been trying out tons of new cozy games right before they hit release day this month.
Stardew Valley has basically become the Tolkien of cozy gaming
The GOAT A decade after launch, Stardew Valley is still the de facto starting point and fondest farm sim for so many cozy gamers.
The best games like Stardew Valley on PC
Farm Life Games like Stardew Valley have taken root on PC and now you have your choice of farms and towns to revitalize.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of demos available at Steam Next Fest, we've narrowed down our must-play cozy game demos to save you the stress of searching for yourself
Cozy up Save yourself from the hard work—let us do it for you.
10 years later, I still can't believe Eric Barone thought Harvest Moon fans would hate Stardew Valley
Udder Shock "I still didn't think it was going to be super popular," Barone said of the days leading up to Stardew Valley's launch in 2016.
My new indie darling is this crafting game stuffed with hand-sculpted creatures made by a husband and wife dev team
Crafty Critters OddFauna's handmade critters are absolute catnip for my crafting game brain.
Divinity: everything we know about Larian's 'most ambitious RPG yet'
Return to Rivellon Larian is returning to its own original fantasy setting with a dark, horrifying new RPG and everything it learned from Baldur's Gate 3.
Nothing beats putting all my little stuff on my many little shelves in a super cozy shop sim like Thrifty Business
News I love to organize my hoard of junk.
How often do we see game sequels totally shift genres?
Change-up The upcoming Control: Resonant moves from shooter to melee action. You sure don't see that very often.
Is the new farm sim Starsand Island worth playing in early access?
Travel Agent Here's what it's like playing Starsand Island in early access and all the major farm sim features you need to know about.
Starsand Island is the first can't-miss cozy game of 2026 and it's already taken over 20 hours from me
Star-eyed I think I'm vacationing on Starsand until spring.
Weird roguelike tactical cats game Mewgenics release date and launch time
Unpawsed Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel's cat combat game launches on Tuesday, February 10.
Of course there's a tiny Bridgerton reference in The Sims Royalty & Legacy expansion because it's basically a Lady Whistledown simulation
Scandal Sim Make friends with the nobility and then collect their secrets like scandalous trading cards.
