Every few months, when I feel the creative gears grinding or I’m searching for that spark, I return to one of my favorite rituals: diving into the GDC Classic Game Postmortems.
These sessions are time capsules of raw, honest, often hilarious reflections from the developers who shaped the medium. They’re not glossy marketing pieces or sanitized retrospectives. They’re stories of constraints, accidents, breakthroughs, and the strange alchemy that turns a handful of ideas into something unforgettable.
Over the past week, I went through a few publicly available postmortems again. This time, I decided to compile a complete list of all the sessions accessible without a GDC Vault subscription, along with direct links.
If you’re a game developer, educator, designer, or just someone who loves understanding how things are made, this collection is a goldmine.
| GDC | Game Title | Speaker(s) |
| 2015 | Adventure | Warren Robinett |
| 2012 | Alone in the Dark | Frederick Raynal |
| 2011 | Bejeweled | Jason Kapalka |
| 2019 | Command & Conquer | Louis Castle, Frank Klepacki, Steve Wetherill, Eric Yeo |
| 2013 | Crystal Castles | Franz Lanzinger |
| 2017 | Deus Ex | Warren Spector |
| 2016 | Diablo | David Brevik |
| 2011 | DOOM | Tom Hall, John Romero |
| 2011 | Elite | David Braben |
| 2012 | Fallout | Timothy Cain |
| 2012 | Gauntlet | Ed Logg |
| 2012 | Harvest Moon | Yasuhiro Wada |
| 2024 | Karateka | Jordan Mechner |
| 2013 | Kick Off | Dino Dini |
| 2019 | Lemmings | Mike Dailly |
| 2015 | Loom | Brian Moriarty |
| 2014 | Lucasfilm Games | Steve Arnold, Noah Falstein, David Fox, Ron Gilbert, Peter Langston, Chip Morningstar |
| 2011 | Maniac Mansion | Ron Gilbert |
| 2011 | Marble Madness | Mark Cerny |
| 2012 | Meridian 59 | Damion Schubert |
| 2016 | Ms. Pac-Man | Steve Golson |
| 2013 | Myst | Robyn Miller |
| 2018 | NBA Jam | Mark Turmell |
| 2017 | Oregon Trail | Don Rawitsch |
| 2011 | Out Of This World / Another World | Eric Chahi |
| 2011 | Pac-Man | Toru Iwatani |
| 2019 | Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Panzer Dragoon Saga | Kentaro Yoshida, Yukio Futatsugi |
| 2019 | Paperboy | John Salwitz |
| 2013 | Pinball Construction Set | Bill Budge |
| 2011 | Pitfall | David Crane |
| 2011 | Populous | Peter Molyneux |
| 2011 | Prince Of Persia | Jordan Mechner |
| 2022 | Q-bert | Warren Davis |
| 2021 | Quake: The End of the Original Id | John Romero |
| 2011 | Raid On Bungeling Bay | Will Wright |
| 2016 | Rez | Tetsuya Mizuguchi |
| 2014 | Robotron: 2084 | Eugene Jarvis |
| 2017 | Seaman | Yutaka Saito |
| 2014 | Shenmue | Yu Suzuki |
| 2017 | Sid Meier’s Civilization | Sid Meier, Bruce Shelley |
| 2018 | Sonic the Hedgehog | Naoto Ohshima, Hirokazu Yasuhara |
| 2015 | Star Control | Paul Reiche III, Fred Ford, Rob Dubbin |
| 2021 | Star Wars Galaxies | Raph Koster, Richard Vogel |
| 2018 | The Bard’s Tale I and II | Michael Cranford |
| 2018 | Ultima Online | Raph Koster, Starr Long, Richard Garriott de Cayeux, Rich Vogel |
| 2022 | Wolfenstein 3D (Achtung!) | John Romero |
| 2013 | X-COM: UFO Defense | Julian Gollop |
| 2015 | Yars’ Revenge | Howard Scott Warshaw |
| 2014 | Zork | Dave Lebling |
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