AI-Free Publishing 🚫, Godot Tools 📦, Unreal Particles ⚡
🧠Industry & Business Trends
Indie Publisher Hooded Horse Bans Generative AI in All Contracts
Indie strategy publisher Hooded Horse has formally banned generative AI assets in its contracts, telling developers not to use AI tools at any stage—not even for placeholders. CEO Tim Bender argues genAI “infests” projects and can easily slip into final builds, creating legal and ethical risks. The stance aligns Hooded Horse with other AI-skeptical publishers like Palworld’s Pocketpair. It also reflects wider industry unease, as most surveyed developers expect genAI to hurt the game industry rather than help it.
How Three Hazelight Devs Built Archons – And What They’d Do Differently
BulletHell Studios’ Archons started as an over-scoped co-op boss-rush and evolved into a tight roguelike where players juggle two heroes simultaneously in a music-synced bullet hell. The team explains how they implemented fully beat-locked combat and a rotating camera so left/right controls always feel intuitive. Despite strong reviews and 15,000+ players, they admit marketing was an afterthought. Their key lesson for indies: don’t ship until your marketing and distribution strategy is ready.
🛠️ Engines, Tools & Pipelines
Folded Paper Engine: Build Godot Levels Directly Inside Blender
Folded Paper Engine (FPE) is a Blender-to-Godot addon that lets you design gameplay right inside Blender and skip most of the usual level-wiring grind. You tag objects as players, triggers, speakers, or items using custom panels, then export everything as standard GLTF. In Godot, an addon reads those tags and automatically adds the correct behaviors and setup. It’s built for artists, solo devs, and teams who want fast, code-light level iteration on top of Godot.
Screen Space Niagara Framework: Faster, Smarter Particles for Unreal Engine
Screen Space Niagara Framework is a new Unreal Engine plug-in that streamlines the creation of screen-space particle effects using Niagara. Built for performance and GPU support, it offers tools for efficient spawning, management, and memory usage while automatically adapting to FOV, resolution, and screen percentage changes. Effects can be influenced by post-processing, global illumination, lights, and shadows, and work with sprite, ribbon, and mesh renderers across all platforms, including mobile. The plug-in ships with examples and templates, with more updates planned.
🎨 Shaders, VFX & Visual Polish
The Godot Shaders Bible Is Complete – With Free Future Updates
Shader expert and Jettelly founder Fabrizio EspĂndola has finished The Godot Shaders Bible, a comprehensive 360+ page guide to Godot shader development available in both English and Spanish. The book’s content has been refined with community input and will stay current, with a Godot 4.6 update and another future refresh already planned at no extra cost for existing owners. If you haven’t picked it up yet, a limited discount code, 5OFFGSBJAN26, is still active.
30 Lines to Bullet Dents: Simple Mesh Deformation in Unity
Unity developer Tomaso shows how to get satisfying projectile impact dents with under 30 lines of code. His SoftMeshLight demo uses simple vertex offsets with a smoothstep falloff to deform meshes on impact, while computing everything off the main thread for scalability across large scenes and many collisions. Performance is especially strong when the MeshCollider isn’t updated, making it ideal for visual damage effects. The GitHub repo also includes rope and cloth physics, plus links to more deformation tools.
🎮 Gameplay & Controller Tech
Ultimate Unity 2D Controller: Corner Correction, Coyote Dash, and Slope Tech
This final episode in Sasquatch B Studios’ “Ultimate 2D Platformer Controller” series packs in the advanced movement features seen in modern precision platformers. You’ll implement corner correction (horizontal and vertical), a wall jump buffer, and a coyote dash with a stylish dash freeze. The video also covers small quality-of-life fixes and rotating the player to match slope angles for extra polish. Ideal if you want a reusable, pro-feeling controller for your Unity 2D games.