Francisco Dominguez

Brisbane studio brings Bluey home with new game Halfbrick Studios, the company behind Fruit Ninja, has created the first ever Bluey video game made in Australia.

I spoke to Halfbrick Studios CEO Shainiel Deo about making the first Aussie Bluey game in the pup's Brisbane hometown.

With a story by Joe Brumm, it's likely the last Bluey we'll see from from the show creator until the 2027 movie.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

Brisbane studio brings Bluey home with new game Halfbrick Studios, the company behind Fruit Ninja, has created the first ever Bluey video game made in Australia.

I spoke to Halfbrick Studios CEO Shainiel Deo about making the first Aussie Bluey game in the pup's Brisbane hometown.

With a story by Joe Brumm, it's likely the last Bluey we'll see from from the show creator until the 2027 movie.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

NEW: I spoke with the reporters behind Post Games, Aftermath, Game File, People Make Games, Rogue, and Rascal News to learn about the trials and triumphs of going independent in a shifting game media landscape dominated by conglomeration and layoffs.

@jasonimms.bsky.social Hey Jason, I'm working on a Guardian Australia piece about Bluey video games and why Aussie devs didn't get a shot at the franchise.

I remembered your tweet from two years back, and wanted to ask if you'd be interested in giving an Aussie dev's perspective on the topic?

I've just hit my third month at @rascal.news and am grateful and humbled to be part of this amazing crew. I've learned a lot here as the resident greenhorn, and I would love to share some pieces I've written for the site.

an ad for the new series “welcome to derry” with the tagline “go back to where IT all began“, except somehow, they highlighted the word “to“ instead of “it“

"oh, don't forget to highlight, in bright red, the two-letter word in the tagline! the two letter word that's kind of the whole point of this clever ad campaign! the two letter word that links this show to the horror movie of the same name!"

"no problem boss. i'm on it"

Dispatch's success shows a way forward for a struggling AA narrative genre Opinion | Dispatch is an adventure game that ditches age-old "adventure" gameplay – and it shows how similar titles could re-find their purpose

Dispatch's success has helped break the AA narrative genre's losing streak.

I dug into how Dispatch models how dropping adventure game convention – in this case the very concept of level design – can help a struggling genre rediscover its reason to exist.

www.gamesradar.com/games/advent...

Easily my fave scene from the entire game, I ended up booking a karaoke session just to have an excuse to belt out Bitch by Meredith Brooks shortly after playing it. Great behind-the-scenes piece on how it came together.

He does go on to say that it's also to do right by fans from the specific regions like Madagascar and honouring their specific martial arts traditions.

Well worth reading!

Love Harada. Is Tekken pursuing cultural authenticity because it's the right thing to do? Nah, it's just because everyone's a smart-ass these days.

Dispatch's success shows a way forward for a struggling AA narrative genre Opinion | Dispatch is an adventure game that ditches age-old "adventure" gameplay – and it shows how similar titles could re-find their purpose

Dispatch's success has helped break the AA narrative genre's losing streak.

I dug into how Dispatch models how dropping adventure game convention – in this case the very concept of level design – can help a struggling genre rediscover its reason to exist.

www.gamesradar.com/games/advent...

That was great! Liked the breakdown of the new artstyle too.

I played the new Dragon Quest 7 remake in the same way I played my first DQ game on the ZSNES emulator: With the battles on fast forward and cheat codes to give me more XP so I could skip the grind.

Persistence paid off for schoolboy game dev @rockandrollmachine.bsky.social when he landed a publishing deal for his first game, Total Wormage (aka Worms), at a trade show.

Listen to the untold story of how Andy designed a game at school that became a global sensation.

Out now: apple.co/47PAhUk

Football Manager 26 and When User Experience Goes Wrong At launch, Football Manager 26 players discovered the UX was only just warming up. We asked an expert: why do devs leave UX until extra time?

Civ 7 and Football Manager 26 left basic UX functionality far too late, a self-inflicted lethal blow to first impressions.

A UX expert reveals how poor planning, understaffed teams and internal compromises too often make launch UX "a real hot mess".

thisweekinvideogames.com/feature/when...

You're only ever fighting an attention span war if you accept up-front the premise that you are fighting an attention span war, and if you accept that, you WILL lose, because you are incapable of being interesting. It's a loadbearing (and disrespectful) misunderstanding of your fellow humans

this is so cart-before-horse to me. i don't accept that people's attention spans are shorter in a way that has to matter. the problem is that we keep thinking that and "complying in advance" with the imagined boogieman of "people not paying attention nowadays". nothing done in that direction helps

Really chuffed to have @dominguezf.bsky.social back on TWIV with another killer long read.

He speaks to UX expert @celiahodent.com for some fantastic context behind how and why some games feel so awful to navigate at launch (which feels like it’s happening way more than it should lately).

Really appreciate @celiahodent.com's time and expertise, who battled her jetlag fresh off a trip to Buenos Aires to speak to me.

And thanks @edmondtran.bsky.social for commissioning this!

When UX is done right, you hardly notice. But players sure noticed Football Manager 26 and Civ VII's many issues at launch.

UX expert @celiahodent.com explained why, despite the clear harm to first impressions, game UX is too often left to post-launch fixes.

Me anytime I'm grating ginger down to the stub: where did my fingertips go?

(Still worth it!)

Some folks absolutely think this way, BUT I’ll also say a good PR person advocates for the value small sites, small creators, and freelancers bring to the table.

Do my clients want IGN? Of course. But do I impress upon them to remember the little guys? Yep.

An army of small voices adds up!

YouTube video by Chris Carlton Cole on Fire [HQ Full TV Version]

As a Brit I'm used to accepting the injury risks. Winter games gave me one of my favourite post-match memories too.

I know it was done as historically cricket was the summer sport for us though!

youtu.be/rfRtL4G2-DM?...

Talking to people way smarter than me about the things I enjoy is, no bullshit, the best part of my job. So thanks to the folks who talked to me about why Magic’s starting to look like a Fortnite lobby and what this means for the long term health of the game

This Week in Videogames - TWIV Covering the important things happening in the world of videogames. News, reviews, and insights without ads or filler content.

If anyone feels like supporting an independent Australian videogame website with award-winning work that strictly has no advertising, no sponsored content, no corporate ownership, does not let publishers pay for travel, and discloses every code we get and image we use:

thisweekinvideogames.com

Hey all you gamers claiming to "want shorter games made by fewer people who are paid more to work less" here's your chance to put your $15 where your mouth is: a spooky & elegiac exploration game made by ex-Bethesda & Ubi devs. It's excellent. Buy it & prove there's a market for games like this!

As you may have seen, we've launched a brand new website today! And while we're excited about some of the big stuff involved--like a sale and new payment methods--here are some other neat features we hope readers and newcomers will appreciate.

aftermath.site/aftermath-rela...

Congrats! The new site's giving me a 404 error on all posts atm but can't wait to check it out.

Tagging @lukeplunkett.com who seems to be the resident web guy.

Forgot FEAR came out at the exact stage of PC gaming where fiddling with the settings could produce its own 90s demake.

I’m bad at self promoting but if you’re reading this, it’s the last chance you have to support our 3-month-old, non-corporate, reader-funded videogame website as a “Founder” and lock in the baseline subscription price indefinitely.

If you’ve been on the fence and have the means, it’s a good time! 🙏🏽