Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

How much of the culture around a game is rooted in its design? That's one of the questions that comes up as Mark takes us on a tour of curling—an Olympic sport that's described as "chess on ice." We examine its origins, the Spirit of Curling, and some specific rules that may have a big impact on how players behave towards one another. Later, Stephen considers some questions about off-ramps, the parts of a game that guide players as they end a play session. Should we as designers encourage players to take breaks?  Gato Roboto by doinksoft (from Devolver Digital) - Steam Curling 0:10:15 Mark LaCroixGame DesignAbout Curling - World Curling FederationWhy is this Olympic Sport called Chess on Ice? - by user "Pete", Chess.comCurling might be an antidote to our troubled times - Kristen Gelineau, The Detroit NewsGlossary of curling - WikipediaDeflategate - Wikipedia Off-Ramps 0:50:00 Stephen McGregorGame DesignGamingHow Gaming Breaks Can Make You a Better Player... and Why They're Important - Michael Harman, Make Use Of

It's part three of our unintentional "Gamedev in..." series! Your nice hosts speak with Daniela Gamarra about making games in Peru. Daniela shares her perspective on entering the industry, making progressive games in a conservative culture, and being asked "how much do you need to make this game?" Previous "Gamedev in..." episodes: We spoke with Ryan Sumo for: Gamedev in the Philippines We spoke with "Game Devs Kenya" for: Gamedev in Kenya Gamedev in Peru IRLProductionHow Creative Leaders Play the Long Game for Innovation - Ideo UIGDA PeruIGDA Peru - EducationLima Game JamLEAP Game StudiosBamtang GamesDirección Audiovisual, la Fonografía y los Nuevos MediosDaniela GamarraGuest Peruvian game developer and founder of Indaga Studios. External link on TikTokon LinkedInon InstagramIndaga StudiosIndaga Studios on Itch.io

Your nice hosts bring deep topics to the clubhouse this week! Listen in as Stephen forgets the name of the Uncharted lead character (but remembers the voice actor), Ellen brings up Mass Effect many, many times and Mark describes more interesting tidbits about Widget Satchel's development. Serious Play Conference LumbearJack - YouTube Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer - Steam Max's award! - Twitter Reed the Robotanist - Steam Here's a CableACE award. Parasocial Relationships 0:09:25 Ellen Burns-JohnsonIRLNarrativeParasocial Interaction - Wikipedia“The Player’s Parasocial Interaction with Digital Entities”  - Katrine Kavli, IT University in Copenhagen“Is It Weird for Adults to Have Imaginary Friends?” - Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth, No Stupid Questions“Tragic but true: how podcasters replaced our real friends” - Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian Narrative Pacing 0:45:21 Stephen McGregorGame DesignNarrative"Kurt Vonnegut on the 8 'shapes' of stories" - Stephen Johnson, Big Think

It's a packed episode this week, with birthdays, illnesses, and some Nice Thinking. Stephen, Mark, and Ellen discuss how the group might put on a tournament for local gamers, featuring locally-made indie games. How can one create a competition that involves many different games of widely different genres? Hopefully your nice hosts are up to the challenge. Either way, you're in for a treat! Plus, we get to finally hear Stephen's TRUE feelings about Star Trek. Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV - BBC The Man Who Fell To Earth - Showtime Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Paramount COVID 19 Quarantine and Isolation Calculator - Centers for Disease Control Alternate titles for this episode: "It finally got me" "Lil' Baby Stephen" Episode artwork from RODNAE Productions on Pexels. Nice Thinking 0:13:12 Mark LaCroixEventsElemetals: Death Metal Death Match - WALLRIDE, SteamAstral Gunners - Sati Bros, SteamHyperDot - Charles McGregor, SteamSummer Games Done QuickCombo Breaker TournamentEVO Tournament"Challenges and Strategies for Hosting Massive Independent eSports Events" - James Lampkin, GDC

It's a sequel to last week's episode! This week, your nice hosts speak with Kent State University animation and game design professor Chris Totten about formal game design education. We get into the details of theory and practice, and discuss how teaching gamedev is both similar and different from other professional and artistic fields. Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again! Game DesignIRLAn Architectural Approach to Level Design - Christopher W. TottenKudzu -  Pie for Breakfast Studios, itch.ioLa Mancha -  Pie for Breakfast Studios, Board Game GeekGDEX and Origins 2022, June 8-12Chris TottenGuest Professor at Kent State University, author of multiple books on level design, and creative director for "Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends." External link TwitterLinkedInLittle Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends

In this episode Truman Simpson joins us to talk about teaching game development to young people, through Gameheads, an organization for which Truman is a long standing volunteer. The clubhouse discusses the importance of seeing what is possible and what is achievable, and Stephen is jealous of today's youths. Teaching Gamedev to Young People Game DesignIRLGameheads Truman Simpson volunteers with Gameheads. Gameheads is an organization that teaches youth and prepares them for careers in game development. Gameheads is lead by Damon Packwood and operates out of Oakland and the Bay Area, CA, with possible expansions around the US. Gameheads WebsiteGameheads TwitterDamon Packwood's TwitterTruman Simpson's twitterTeaching and Games cross-pollination Ellen mentions that Teaching and Games is a cross-pollination that is a whole other episode, here are some Episodes on that topic from the archives We talked about educational institutions for game dev back in episode 16 Games Education Ellen joined as a guest host way back in Episode 75 Learning Through Games We also talked about teaching/learning durring the Redundancy topic in Episode 170 "Stephen, his arms wide!" Project Success Stephen is working with Project Success to design a learning curriculum for middle school aged youths. Project Success Website Stephen mentioned design pillars, as one of the learning topics in project sucess, see also episode 187 "A way to farm notions."Soylent Green Soylent Green is set in the year 2022 (that's this year!) and something we got distracted by on a tangent. Yes, soylent is a real product now. In 1973, 'Soylent Green' envisioned the world in 2022.  - George Bass, The Washington PostSoylent (the real product And, if the people from Soylent want to sponsor us, please reach out at contact@nicegames.club Truman SimpsonGuest Truman Simpson is a person who lives in beautiful Oakland, CA

In this episode, Stephen, Mark, and Ellen talk about gameplay loops. Then, they talk about art direction. Then they talk about loops. And then art direction. And then, more loops. Just kidding! It’s a regular roundtable discussion about diagramming gameplay, establishing art direction, and when to take out the garbage. Habitica: Gamify Your Life Educating Intuition - Robin M. Hogarth, University of Chicago Press Diagramming Gameplay Loops 0:15:20 Ellen Burns-JohnsonGame DesignActionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards - Yu-kai Chou, Octalysis GroupHow To Perfect Your Game’s Core Loop - Nathan Lovato, Game AnalyticsLoops and Arcs - Daniel Cook, Lost GardenHow Games Use Feedback Loops - Game Maker's Toolkit, YouTubeDaniel Cook: Game Design Theory I Wish I had Known When I Started - IGDA Seattle, YouTubeExpanding UX: Gameplay Loops - Vitaly Starush, MediumThe Gameplay Loop: a Player Activity Model for Game Design and Analysis - Emmanuel Guardiola, ResearchGateKurt Vonnegut Diagrams the Shape of All Stories in a Master’s Thesis Rejected b… - Josh Jones, Open Culture Art Direction 0:42:00 Mark LaCroixArtDreamsettler Reveal Trailer - No More Robots, YouTube Back in the day, Nice Games Club talked about color theory. “When two colors of paint really love each other…” We talked about sources of inspiration and it reminded us of episode 141. Nostalgia and the Lo-fi Aesthetic

At GDC, your nice hosts met and spoke with this week's returning guests. We were so impressed with their project "[i] doesn't exist," we wanted to have them on a full episode to talk about the unique machine learning system they built for it. Be nice and have a listen! LUAL Games on Twitter "[i] doesn't exist" demo - itch.io [I] doesn't exist - a modern text adventure - Kickstarter If you're in Sweden, Lu and Al and their game will be at Arctic Game Week next week, May 25-28, 2022. We first met Lu and Al and spoke with them for a recent episode: GDC 2022 Special (Part 2) Some meta news: Mark wrote a song for this year's Charity EP Jam, which is actually a double-length album! All proceeds go to Able Gamers. Machine Learning NarrativeProgrammingSimulated AI creatures demonstrate how mind and body evolve and succeed together - Devin Coldewey, TechCrunchWhat is GitHub Copilot? An AI Pair Programmer for Everyone - Daniel Diaz, SitepointGithub Copilot Wants to Play Chess Instead of Code - Ido Nov, DagsHub BlogChat MapperBotpressDocumentation as a gateway to open source - James Turnbull, IncrementMiddle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor Makes AI Meaningful and Menacing - Andy Brice, GamingBoltAnna-Lena PontetGuestLuzia HüttenmoserGuest

It's a Nice Postmortem! Ellen brings her instructional design colleague Mark Hamilton to discuss the development process behind the LxJamathon, a combination of both a hackathon and a game jam meant to allow instructional designers to practice their skills! Find out what went well and what didn't in this fascinating look into the event. Postmortem: "LxJamathon" ProductionInstructional Design Reddit - RedditInstructional Design Discord - DiscordLxJamathon Website - Ellen Burns-Johnson and Mark Hamilton, LxJamathonLxJamathon itch.io - Ellen Burns-Johnson and Mark Hamilton, itch.ioMidwest Mysteries - The Oscaloose - SoundCloudLxJamathon Entries - itch.ioA Simple Guide to Four Popular Online Learning Formats - Nameera Sallum, CommLab IndiaMark HamiltonGuest Mark Hamilton is a instructional media developer and studio manager for the University of Iowa. External link Mark Hamilton on LinkedInEllen Burns-JohnsonYour Nice HostGuestBy day, Ellen Burns-Johnson is a learning experience designer (LXD) and consultant. With more than a decade of experience in the education and training industries, she has crafted the instructional strategy and design for dozens of major initiatives across diverse topics, from classroom safety to IT sales. Emphasizing collaboration and playfulness in her approach to creating learning experiences, Ellen’s work has earned multiple awards for interactivity and gameful design.By night (and on the weekends) Ellen stays as plugged into the Twin Cities Gamedev scene as she’s able to, contributing to game jam teams and local projects. She was a level designer and “explosion czar” on Widget Satchel and a designer/producer for a few different Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam teams.Ellen lives in Saint Paul with her husband Eric and their two dogs, Dante and Pixel. Ellen is terrible at racing games, she always picks the sniper build, and she loves a good puzzle/platformer. External link Ellen on LinkedInEllen on Twitter

Game designer Monica Fan joins us this week for a Nice Games Jam that is extra-mischievous and extra-cute. There's drama amongst the roommates, and we're pretty sure the cat's to blame. But can we prove it? Can your Nice Hosts (and Nice Guest) make a playable prototype by the end of the episode? How many times will Stephen say "meow" before the outro rolls? So many questions! Monica Fan @DesignerMonica - Twitter Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - NPR Here's the best way to shuffle a pack of cards – with a little help from some m… - Graham Kendall, phys.org Prompt From Dale this time: "Design a game where you discover clues and have to solve a mundane mystery. Bonus points if there is a cat in it. EXTRA bonus point if it's the cat who did it!" Game type Card game Player count 4 Materials Standard deck of playing cardsCoins or tokens to indicate the accumulation of blameOPTIONAL: A real cat to sit in the middle of the game table Setup Sort the deck by suit. Pull out the Aces and Jokers and set them aside. You'll use the Aces in a minute, but not the Jokers.Remove six random cards from three of the suits (Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds) and set those aside for the game.Shuffle the remaining cards into a deck and pull a random card from the deck. Don't look at it! This is the card that determines Who Really Did The Thing. Set it aside and don't peek until the end of the game.Set the rest of the deck aside for a moment.Deal the Aces randomly to determine which players get each suit. Whoever gets the Ace of Hearts is the Cat. Once roles are determined, you can ignore the Ace cards, but it's useful for players to hold onto them as a reminder of what suit they have.Deal each Human player two cards face-down. Deal the Cat player four cards face-down. Players can look at their cards but should not show their hands to the other players.Place the deck of remaining cards face-down in the center of the table. This is the draw pile.Place a pile of Blame tokens somewhere on the table so people can grab them (or throw them) as needed. Rules GOAL: Pin the blame on someone else! Once a player has accumulated 3 Blame tokens, they are GUILTY and the game ends.Go around the table clockwise, taking turns. Each player can take one action on their turn; it's a fast-moving game of blame!Player ActionsCat-only actions: Take a card from a human; the Cat chooses which card to take (without looking at the human's hand) Give a card to a human Make an accusation by playing three cards of the same suit (the Cat must play three cards to make an accusation) Cat must meow when making a play…or maybe through the whole game? The Cat cannot draw cards from the deck Human-only actions: Draw from the deck Trade with each other; the player who initiated the trade is the one who selects which card to take from the other player’s hand (without looking at their hand) Play a pair (it's easier for humans to make accusations) Making an accusation: A Human plays a pair of cards from the same suit, or the Cat plays three cards from the same suit. This is the Accusation. The player whose Ace matches the suit from the Accusation receives a Blame token. The first person to accumulate three Blame tokens is considered GUILTY, and this ends the game. Winning the game: Technically, you win if you don't end up as the guilty party, but there's more to it! Reveal the hidden card that you set aside during setup. The whole group wins if the right person got the blame. Yay! The Cat can feel extra good if they were the real culprit, but one of the Humans was found GUILTY. The Humans can feel extra good if one of them was the real culprit, but the Cat was found GUILTY. Congrats; you can all continue to live harmoniously as roommates. Strategies Hold onto the cards that are evidence against you. Play cards that are evidence against others. The Cat, who has the most cards, is likely to know who the guilty party is.

It's a Nice Postmortem! Hunter Bond and Mike Ducarme talk the making of Infernax—an old school adventure platformer with puzzle elements, unholy curses, and lots of old-school awesomeness. From its earliest conception to playtesting, promoting, and publishing, what did they do and what did they learn? Postmortem: "Infernax" ProductionInfernax - TwitterJust Shapes and BeatsBerzerk StudioAs promised, Hunter's PO Box: PO Box 10275, Albuquerque, NM 87184Hunter BondGuestMike DucarmeGuest

What does your work week look like? Are you locked into a 9-to-5 the way that Dolly Parton described it, or are you free to set your own schedule? What about your team as a whole?  In this week's episode, August Brown is back on the show to help us explore the topic of work week structure. The company where August currently works, Armor Games, has made headlines by shifting permanently to a four-day work week. We ask him how it's going, what other work-week configurations might have benefits for gamedev teams, and what he thinks about the word "truncate." The definition of truncate is “to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short”  - Dictionary.com “9 to 5” - Dolly Parton, YouTube Work Weeks ProductionArmor Games adopts four-day work week permanently - Brendan Sinclair, GamesIndustry.bizAugust’s previous employer, KongregateAugust is now doing platform relations at Armor Games August was on a previous interview episode Developer/Publisher RelationsJohn Cooney (Armor Games CEO) Twitter thread on the four-day workweek results - John Cooney, TwitterGDC 2022 Independent Games Summit: Four-Day Workweek: We Did It! What now? - Game Developer Conference“Eidos-Montreal and Eidos-Sherbrook shifting to the 4-day work week” - Edios Montreal“The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies” - Sarah Green Carmichael, Harvard Business Review“Indie Studio Forms First Video Game Union In The Country” - EThan Gach, Kotaku“How the 40-hour work week became the norm” - Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, NPRAugust BrownGuestAugust is a Senior Producer at Armor Games Studios. Formerly a Senior Producer for Kongregate Publishing. External link Twitter

Dog lovers are in for a treat this week as we discuss ideas for games to play with your dog! Mark and Ellen enthusiastically bring many ideas to the clubhouse, while Stephen has a unique perspective on the topic. Also: Ellen beats Metroid Dread! (There are spoilers for the game in the episode.) Turns out Stephen was wrong, there are credits in the most recent build of Fingeance! Peter Yang was on previously to discuss his work on pitching tabletop games. Pitching Tabletop Games Indie Boards and Cards Games With Your Dogs 0:10:25 Ellen Burns-JohnsonGame DesignPhysical GamesTreibball (push ball) - giant football for dogs! - Naturally Happy Dogs, YouTubeGetting started and teaching 'outside' - FluentPet, YouTube Here's a picture of Ellen's dogs!

Your nice hosts, plus Dale, traveled to California for free bagels (and other reasons) in this first part of our yearly GDC special. GDC 2022 Special (Part 1) Mark LaCroixStephen McGregorDale LaCroixEllen Burns-JohnsonEventsGames Industry GatheringYerba Buena GardensIGF Accepts Over 400 Entries for GDC 2022 - Independent Games Festival'Unpacking' and 'Inscryption' Lead in IGF 2022 Nominations - Independent Games FestivalInscryption wins the IGF Grand Prize and GDC Game Of The Year Award 2022 - Jai Singh Bains, Rock Paper Shotgun

This week your nice hosts are joined again by Alina Matson in a fun roundtable episode! Join us as we continue through Ellen's Metroid Dread journey, Stephen's newest discovery, and Mark's potential bonus side hustle. Alina was previously on the show to talk about visual coding! Visual Coding Building Assets and Plugins 0:05:33 Mark LaCroixProgrammingTools Charles was last on the show on this episode about Level Editors. Level EditorsCharles destroys his brother on the airRewired Unity Plugin - Guavaman, Unity Asset StorePlaymaker Add-ons - Hutong GamesManaged Plug-ins - Unity Ink Engine 0:37:26 Stephen McGregorNarrativeProgrammingToolsInk Engine - Inkle StudiosInk Unity Integration - Inkle Studios