Every year a ton of smart people speak at the various Game Developers Conference events around the world, and most of those presentations are recorded and uploaded to the GDC Vault for safekeeping.

Here at Gamasutra we've been working since 2013 to spotlight notable talks that are made freely available to watch on the Vault, and we've built up a pretty significant archive of Vault highlights.

As part of our ongoing effort to curate this stuff, we've taken the liberty of collecting below some of the most memorable postmortems ever delivered at GDC.

It's a feast of free viewing, as the developers behind great games -- big and small, old and new -- deliver candid and informative looks back at their work.

Shenmue postmortem from Yu Suzuki and Mark Cerny

In this video Yu Suzuki (pictured), the influential Japanese game designer famously known for his work at Sega, delivers a Classic Game Postmortem talk about his Dreamcast cult classic Shenmue at GDC 2014.

The Lucasfilm Games studio postmortem, as told by those who lived it

This GDC 2014 postmortem featuring six of Lucasfilm Games' earliest employees asks the questions: "What mix of creative and business forces shaped this studio?" and "Could it be duplicated today?"

There and Dad Again, an Octodad: Dadliest Catch postmortem

At GDC Next 2014, Young Horses cofounders Phil Tibitoski and John Murphy discussed the methods they used to create a successful [joke] game, work better as a team, and learn to love again.

The successes and failures of Steamworld Dig

Brjann Sigurgeirsson reveals how he and the team at Image & Form stumbled through the process of making SteamWorld Dig a multi-platform hit in this GDC Europe 2014 talk.

Broken Sword postmortem from creator Charles Cecil

Game industry veteran Charles Cecil speaks about his work writing and directing Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, the award-winning 1996 adventure that raised the bar for storytelling in games.

Eugene Jarvis delivers a postmortem of his classic game Robotron: 2084

Industry veteran and Raw Thrills cofounder Eugene Jarvis delves into the design of his seminal arcade game during this upbeat classic game postmortem of Robotron: 2084 at GDC 2014.

Zach Barth's postmortem of his work making SpaceChem

Speaking at GDC 2013, developer Zach Barth digs into the differences between SpaceChem and other puzzle games, sharing sales data and advice on how to make your own design-based puzzle games.

Deconstructing the success of Puzzle & Dragons

GungHo Online CEO Kazuki Morishita took the stage at GDC 2014 to give a polite, measured look back at how the game was designed to entice players while generating sustainable profit.

Making a truly sci-fi game with MirrorMoon EP

What does it really mean to make a "sci-fi" game? Santa Ragione's Pietro Righi Riva explores the question while giving a postmortem talk about his game MirrorMoon EP during GDC Europe 2014.

Dave Lebling's postmortem of his classic game Zork

Infocom co-founder Dave Lebling explains how he created Zork and blazed a trail for interactive fiction game development in a postmortem talk at GDC 2014.

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