I've been out of the office for a few days, so I apologize for the lack of blogs this week, but I'll be picking back up again starting today.

Each workday morning I will be bringing you the latest events, articles and releases in the independent and mod development communities, as well as any mainstream news that seems pertinent. Most of this news can also be found daily on ModCenter.

Industry Articles:

• Lesley Matheson On New Studios, Tech, And More - Lesley Matheson, design director of High Impact Games (Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters), participates in this Gamasutra interview discussing PSP development, the Los Angeles development scene, and the advantages of building a game engine over purchasing one.
  
• "Epic's Rainmakers" Article - Planet Unreal (link) reports that The Escapist magazine has published an article about the history of Epic Games, from the "modest shareware developer" they started out as to the mega-sized development giant they are today.
  

More Articles:

• Modify #65: Red Orchestra Plays an Encore
• Interview: Crackpot's Ahern Sprays You With Insecticide

Developer Events:

• BlackStar Designer Reinhart On Design Doc Alternatives - At this year's ION Game Conference in Seattle, WA, Spacetime Studios' (BlackStar) lead designer Brandon Reinhart hosted a session on storytelling techniques in game design. Gamasutra has a write-up of the main points from this discussion.
• Wake Island 2142 Final Submission Testing - Planet Battlefield (link) reports that the Sir. Community is gathering players to test the final version of Wake Island  2142 before they submit it to DICE for inclusion in the next BF2142 patch.
  

Game Releases

• Larva Mortus (Indie)
• Sixty Five Million And One BC (Indie)
  

That's all for today. If you know someone on Pwned.com who would be interested in reading these daily blogs in the future, please tell them to add me as a friend! If you're interested in starting your own game development project (or already have one), don't forget to check out ModCenter, which can help you manage your project and move efficiently towards a successful release.