Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

It's time once again to bring you the Nicest Games of 2019! Or rather, the nicest games that we played in 2019. We also talk about our game dev resolutions and the games we are excited for in 2020. We also have some programming news! We are going on hiatus until February 2020 to work on a revamp of our website and logo. We will be bringing you some of the nicest episodes from the past year or so to tide you over until then. Happy new decade, everyone! Local Releases (2019) 0:02:26 News Widget Satchel Treasure Stack Fuse Tactics V Newt One on Switch Anodyne 2 Extreme Mining Nicest (2019) 0:08:05 Mark LaCroix Martha Megarry Stephen McGregor Nicest Martha’s Nicest: Destiny 2 Read Only Memories We talked about Martha’s honorable mention in episode 152. "Casper the Not-So-Friendly Goose." Mark’s Nicest: Control Link’s Awakening Lots of cool pictures of Control and other games in Dead End Thrills Control taught me to love the ugliest architecture - Polygon Stephen’s Nicest:  Stephen technically doesn’t have any this year! Most Anticipated (for 2020) 0:25:39 Mark LaCroix Martha Megarry Stephen McGregor Nicest Martha’s: Ooblets Animal Crossing SkateBIRD Ollie Oop (a MN Local!) Mark’s: Playstation 5 Project Scarlett (Xbox) 12 Minutes Spiritfarer Stephen’s: Nioh 2 The Last of Us Part 2 Spiritfarer Fingeance Gamedev Resolutions (for 2020) 0:36:07 Mark LaCroix Martha Megarry Stephen McGregor Nicest

Uh oh… they’re back… it’s EVIL GAMES CLUB! +!+!+!+!+ NICE TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED +!+!+!+!+ Evil Games Club is back! Dale, Adia and Dylan are here to correct the score and give their take on past Nice Games Club topics including Writing For Games, Re-ravel and Video Game Nostalgia. They’re at it again, being evil, that is! Meta Felix Drags Dale Through The Marvel Universe podcast Dylan thwarted Dale's attempts at taking publicity photos [00:10:03] Writing For Games The Interactive Fiction Competition NaNoRenO on Itch "The Outer Worlds has some unusual (and awesome) character-building options" -Patricia Hernandex, Polygon "The Outer Worlds Will Rattle Your Idea Of A Perfect Planet" -Gita Jackson, Kotaku "Breaking Bongo" Radiolab episode "MGSV- Quiet/Ocelot model swap - Rain scene" -Tactical Modding Operations (YouTube Video) "Heaven's Vault" game by Inkle Studios [00:35:42] Re-ravel Nice Games Jam: "Re-ravel: A Backwards Storytelling Game" Nice Games Club episode "The Yawhg" game by Emily Carrol and Damian Sommer "Microscope" game by Ben Robbins and Lame Mage Productions Tracery generative tool by Galaxy Kate [01:01:19] Video Game Nostalgia SimCity Wikipedia page Cap'n Crunch's Crunching Adventure Giant Bomb page Spot: The Video Game (featuring the then 7Up mascot Spot) Wikipedia page Glider (video game originally for classic Apple computers) Wikipedia page SkiFree Giant Bomb page RuneScape Giant Bomb page Commander Keen Giant Bomb page "Aldo's Adventures gameplay (PC Game, 1987)" -Squakenet (YouTube Video) Jill of the Jungle Wikipedia page Jazz Jackrabbit Wikipedia page The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Giant Bomb page "Halo: Reach Launches On PC, Becomes Third Most Played Game On Steam" -Ethan Gach, Kotaku Golden Sun Giant Bomb page Red Vs. Blue -Rooster Teeth (Videos)

Evil Games Club is back! Dale, Adia, and Dylan are here to correct the score and give their take on past Nice Games Club topics, including "Writing For Games," "Reravel," and "Video Game Nostalgia." They’re at it again—being evil, that is! Felix Drags Dale Through The Marvel Universe (a podcast) Dylan thwarted Dale's attempts at taking publicity photos. Writing for Games 0:10:00 Adia Alderson Game Design Narrative The Interactive Fiction Competition NaNoRenO on Itch The Outer Worlds has some unusual (and awesome) character-building options - Patricia Hernandez, Polygon The Outer Worlds Will Rattle Your Idea Of A Perfect Planet - Gita Jackson, Kotaku Breaking Bongo - Radiolab MGSV - Quiet/Ocelot model swap - Rain scene - Tactical Modding Operations, YouTube Heaven's Vault Reravel 0:35:40 Dale LaCroix IRL Tabletop Early iterations of this game started on a recent Nice Games Jam! Reravel: A Backwards Storytelling Game The Yawhg Microscope Tracery, a generative tool by Galaxy Kate. Video Game Nostalgia 1:01:15 Dylan Skerbitz Gaming SimCity - Wikipedia Cap'n Crunch's Crunching Adventure - Giant Bomb Spot: The Video Game (featuring the 7Up mascot of the time, Spot) - Wikipedia Glider (originally for classic Apple computers) - Wikipedia SkiFree - Giant Bomb RuneScape - Giant Bomb Commander Keen - Giant Bomb Aldo's Adventures gameplay (PC Game, 1987) - Squakenet, YouTube Jill of the Jungle - Wikipedia Jazz Jackrabbit - Wikipedia The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Giant Bomb Halo: Reach Launches On PC, Becomes Third Most Played Game On Steam - EThan Gach, Kotaku Golden Sun - Giant Bomb Red Vs. Blue - Rooster Teeth

This week on the show, your nice hosts take two very different in-depth approaches to a topic that pops up a lot on the show, the ever-present... calendar math! Remember, Widget Satchel just came out! You can pick it up on Switch, Itch, and Steam! The 20% launch discount ends soon, so grab it now! We're also making a renewed effort to ask listeners to leave a review of the show so that more people can find it. Review Nice Games Club on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and/or wherever you listen to the show! Leave a nice one, and we might read it on the show! Meta We spoke with Jajeev on a recent episode about UI design. We had Martha's dad on an episode about board game design, where we also touched briefly on his work writing cross-compilers for 8-bit computers. [0:07:41] Calendar Math (Production Schedules) Our guest Eric Johnson went in-depth on agile development in a recent episode. Mark alluded to a pattern which graph popularity that is found in almost everything in nature, but is most frequently studied in language, called Zipf's Law. [0:43:23] Calendar Math (Real Time in Games) "Date and Time Odds, Ends and Oddities"  - Maggie Pint, JavaScriptMN "Samoa and Tokelau skip a day for dateline change" - BBC News

This week on the show, your nice hosts take two very different in-depth approaches to a topic that pops up a lot on the show:  the ever-challenging calendar math! We spoke with Jajeev on a recent episode about UI design. User Interfaces We recently spoke with Martha's dad about board game design and his work writing cross-compilers for 8-bit computers. Board Game Design Calendar Math (Production Schedules) 0:07:41 Mark LaCroix Production Our guest Eric Johnson went in-depth on Agile development in a recent episode. Agile Development Mark alluded to a pattern that is found in almost everything in nature, but is most frequently studied in language. It's called Zipf's Law, and here's a video from Vsauce on YouTube about it. Calendar Math (Real Time in Games) 0:43:23 Martha Megarry Game Design IRL Date and Time Odds, Ends and Oddities - Maggie Pint, JavaScriptMN Samoa and Tokelau skip a day for dateline change - BBC

Widget Satchel is out (Go buy it on Steam, Itch or Switch!) Your Nice Hosts celebrate by talking all about Widget Satchel related topics like Metroidvania Level Design, World Building in Platformers and, of course, Ferrets! Meta Widget Satchel is out! Buy it on PC and Switch here: Steam Itch Nintendo E-shop Widget Satchel has ferrets, unlike another recent Switch game Protospiel/Minispiel, table top prototyping events [0:10:29] Metroidvania Level Design Game Maker’s Tool Kit Boss Keys [0:24:26] Ferrets Black-footed Ferret wikipedia article Black-footed Ferret IUCN Red List Widget Satchel listed on Genuine Mustelids [0:40:38] World Building in Platformers

Widget Satchel is out! Go buy it on Steam, Itch or Switch! Your Nice Hosts celebrate by talking all about Widget Satchel-related topics, like Metroidvania level design, world building in platformers, and (of course) ferrets! Widget Satchel is out! Buy it on PC and Switch here: Widget Satchel on Steam Widget Satchel on Itch Widget Satchel on the Nintendo E-shop Widget Satchel has ferrets, unlike another recent Switch game Other meta notes: Protospiel/Minispiel, table top prototyping events Metroidvania Level Design 0:10:29 Stephen McGregor Game Design Game Maker’s Tool Kit Boss Keys Ferrets 0:24:26 Martha Megarry Misc. Black-footed Ferret - Wikipedia Black-footed Ferret - IUCN Red List Widget Satchel listed on Genuine Mustelids World Building in Platformers 0:40:38 Mark LaCroix Narrative Braid on Steam Hollow Knight Thomas Was Alone on Steam

First, some news... IT'S OFFICIAL: Widget Satchel is coming out on November 27th, 2019! Until then, you can pre-purchase the game on the Nintendo eShop, and wishlist it on Steam! https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/widget-satchel-switch/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/890480/Widget_Satchel/ Now, on to the show notes! This week, our boyfriend Dylan gave your nice hosts a prompt to create "a narrative game where the story is told backwards." This one is a slow burn but it really cooks by the end! With Stephen still away, Dale LaCroix (she of Evil Games Club and your nice social media manager) re-enters in the clubhouse to help create this week's game. But Dale didn't just join your nice hosts for this week's jam, she also took the resulting game and made improvements once the recording stopped! Not only that, but she's going to keep working on it. It will be at Glitch's December Play/Test event if you want to play the latest version! Our original rules are presented below, and Dale's "first revised edition" is presented below that... ORIGINAL Rules STEP ONE: Start with the END Scenario We randomly selected by rolling a six-sided die, for the six END SCENARIOS: Death Getting off a plane A big hug / reunion The end of a wedding Getting on a plane Falling off a cliff Also pick a character card from the deck - draw and discard until you get one - or roll a 20 sided die and table in step 2 STEP TWO: Each Player picks a “card” and adds a detail about the card information that they picked. The FIRST ROUND will be picked from a separate pile of END SCENARIO DETAILS: Wine stain Explosion Sight bruise to the upper arm Knife Spilled Milk Bloody nose Broken Sunglasses Frostbite Somebody is wearing sweatpants An orange To mimic a card draw this use the following table: (Roll a 6-sided die, then a 20-sided die) A participant Shopkeeper Cleric Magician Bride Captain Peasant/Passenger/Guest Bartender Detective Chef Child (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) A setting Forest Mall/ Market Tavern School Meadow Ship Bridge Office Home Castle (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) An action or event  Robbery Fight Crash Bees! Heart Attack Lunchtime Childish Insult Ankle Sprain Caught in Traffic Overslept or Fall Asleep (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) An item  Pen Cable Knife Oven Communication Device (Letter, Phone) Mushroom Boot Cat Book Sock Flute Arrow (for 13 - 20, more cats, I guess?) ROLL AGAIN A participant (use list from 1) STEP THREE: Together the group makes up a story about how each item goes together in this scene to lead up to the established story STEP FOUR: Repeat for each previous “scene”. Each Scene will take place at some earlier point in time, it may be minutes, hours, days or months earlier. You decide what fits your story best. STEP FIVE: The fifth round is your inciting incident, the event that kicked off your story. SCORING: We haven’t figured this out, we discussed awarding points based on if random events happened during the story, such as:

This week, our boyfriend Dylan gave your nice hosts a prompt to create "a narrative game where the story is told backwards." This one is a slow burn, but it really cooks by the end! With Stephen still away, Dale LaCroix (she of Evil Games Club and your nice social media manager) re-enters in the clubhouse to help create this week's game. But Dale didn't just join your nice hosts for this week's jam. She also took the resulting game and made improvements once the recording stopped! Not only that, but she's going to keep working on it. It will be at Glitch's December Play/Test event if you want to play the latest version! Our original rules are presented below, and Dale's "first revised edition" is presented below that... Prompt Make "a narrative game where the story is told backwards." Game type Tabletop game Player count 2-4 Materials END CARDS: 7 possible endings to your story SETTING CARDS: Places the story could take place PLOT CARDS: Events that might take place in your story MAIN DECK: This is made up of several different types of cards: Character Cards - Describes the occupation or description of people who will be in your story Noun Cards - Describes items that will be in your story Editor Notes - Special instructions from your editor, this might include directions such as this next scene takes place in a different setting, or that someone in your story is not who you think they are. Setup Deal the following: One ‘Setting’ card. Deal face up and place it on top of the Setting deck. Three 'Main Deck' Cards. Deal face up. These will be the Goal Cards; if there are any Editor Note cards, place these at the bottom of the main deck and re-deal so that there are three total Main Deck cards representing the Goal Cards. One ‘The End’ card. Deal face up and place this on top of the Setting deck. Four ‘Plot’ Cards. Deal face down. One will be revealed each round during rounds 2-5. Rules ORIGINAL Rules STEP ONE: Start with the END Scenario We randomly selected by rolling a six-sided die, for the six END SCENARIOS: Death Getting off a plane A big hug / reunion The end of a wedding Getting on a plane Falling off a cliff Also pick a character card from the deck - draw and discard until you get one - or roll a 20 sided die and table in step 2 STEP TWO: Each Player picks a “card” and adds a detail about the card information that they picked. The FIRST ROUND will be picked from a separate pile of END SCENARIO DETAILS: Wine stain Explosion Sight bruise to the upper arm Knife Spilled Milk Bloody nose Broken Sunglasses Frostbite Somebody is wearing sweatpants An orange To mimic a card draw this use the following table: (Roll a 6-sided die, then a 20-sided die) A participant Shopkeeper Cleric Magician Bride Captain Peasant/Passenger/Guest Bartender Detective Chef Child (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) A setting Forest Mall/ Market Tavern School Meadow Ship Bridge Office Home Castle (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) An action or event  Robbery Fight Crash Bees! Heart Attack Lunchtime Childish Insult Ankle Sprain Caught in Traffic Overslept or Fall Asleep (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10) An item  Pen Cable Knife Oven Communication Device (Letter, Phone) Mushroom Boot Cat Book Sock Flute Arrow (for 13 - 20, more cats, I guess?) ROLL AGAIN A participant (use list from 1) STEP THREE: Together the group makes up a story about how each item goes together in this scene to lead up to the established story STEP FOUR: Repeat for each previous “scene”. Each Scene will take place at some earlier point in time, it may be minutes, hours, days or months earlier. You decide what fits your story best. STEP FIVE: The fifth round is your inciting incident, the event that kicked off your story. SCORING: We haven’t figured this out, we discussed awarding points based on if random events happened during the story, such as: Scoring Events: Bloody Nose Weather Event Somebody Tripped Somebody got dumped Somebody cries The Devil shows up Someone left to go to the bathroom There was kissing Or awarding points with a judge or game master…. UPDATED Rules by Dale "Re-ravel: A backwards storytelling game" (working title) Introduction Have you ever heard the phrase, a camel is a horse designed by a committee? It’s a proverb about the faults of having too many designers in a room, causing a final poor design. The goal to this game is to write a story with your friends, but to protect against the story trailing off, like so many comedy sketches, your editor came up with the perfect ending, start with the ending! And it turns out there are only so many endings in human playbook. Each Game is made out of 5 Rounds or Acts, each moving backward in time. Three cards from the main deck are selected as goal cards. These can be used in your story at any time. Using each card is worth 1 million points for the team. If an editor note card selected as a goal card, this should be discarded to the bottom of the main deck. The last round, representing the first part of your story, will be the inciting incident. Goal Create a coherent story while using each of the three elements from the goal cards with your writing committee Round 1: The End Round Each Player draws a card. For this round only, if you get a Editor’s note, redraw One at a time. each player reveals their card, and creates one detail or fact about the item or character that they drew, and places the card near the ‘End Card.’ This fact should not relate to anything already placed on the board. The order of players does not matter Examples: Character Card - the Cleric - the cleric has a fancy hat Item Card - Wine Stain - the wine stain is on somebody’s white shirt Item Card - An Orange - The orange is part of basket of fake fruit Together the players craft a scene in which all the elements are used, and results in the ending within the setting. At any time the players may pull in the elements on the goal cards Rounds 2-4: The Middle Rounds Each Player draws a card. Each player reveals their card Adds a detail about their card (as in round one) unless it is a ‘Editor’s Note’ Card Places the card near the next face down Plot Card If a Editor’s Note Card is drawn, follow the directions on the card. When all the elements of the story, the Plot Card is then revealed. The players then craft the scene. They must use all the elements that were revealed this round. They may use any elements that were revealed in the previous round (i.e. later in the story). They may use any of the elements from the goal cards at any time. The scene should connect and make story-scene with the other scenes that have been crafted. Round 5: The Final Round, i.e. the beginning of the Story Each Player draws a card. Each player reveals their card Adds a detail about their card (as in round one) unless it is a ‘Editor’s Note’ Card Places the card near the next face down Plot Card If a Editor’s Note Card is drawn, follow the directions on the card - Unless it is a Epilogue card  or other card that places this out of order - please redraw When all the elements of the story, the Plot Card is then revealed. The players craft the first scene. They must use all the elements that were revealed this round. They may use any elements that were revealed in the previous round (ie later in the story). They may use any elements of the goal cards at any time. The scene should connect and make story-scene with the other scenes that have been crafted AND this should somehow start the story (the inciting incident) - How does this plot point kick off the rest of the story. END of GAME: Optional: Retell the story in the forwards direction Award your Committee the following points: 1 million points for each goal element used in the story 100 points if your story made any sense. 500 bonus points if you had a really difficult element you had to fit into your story.

Nice Games Club Social Media Manager/Evil Games Co-host Dale LaCroix joins us to discuss Localization and Navigation both in games and IRL. Is Google Translate enough for your game? Will your awesome pun work in Spanish? What do Ikea and airports have to do with level design? Stick around past the outro for more Dale Travel Tips! Meta It was Halloween! Hamburger menu costume by Cathy Bridges on Twitter Goose by Cabel on Twitter Goose by LR on Twitter Goose by Robert Joe on Twitter “Luigi’s Mansion 3 Review - Frights and Delights” -Brian Shea, Game Informer “Death Stranding review: Hideo Kojima tries to make fetch happen” -Russ Frushtick, Polygon Deadspin “What Happened to Deadspin, According to the People Who Were There” -Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levin, Slate “The Senseless Death of Deadspin” -James D. Walsh, Intelligencer/New York Magazine The “UnDeadspin” Twitter account documenting new articles written by former Deadspin staff [0:18:42] Localization Gamedev Polyglot Google Spreadsheet [1:00:52] Navigation "Want To Learn About Game Design? Go To Ikea" -Jamin Warren, readwrite (originally published on Kill Screen) "IKEA, and the Logic of Video Game Design" -Daniel Golding, Kotaku [1:23:55] Dale’s Additional Travel Tips Google Maps Drury Hotels

Nice Games Club Social Media Manager (and Evil Games Co-host) Dale LaCroix joins us to discuss Localization and Navigation, both in games and IRL. Is Google Translate enough for your game? Will your awesome pun work in Spanish? What do Ikea and airports have to do with level design? Stick around past the outro for more Dale Travel Tips! Localization 0:18:42 Mark LaCroix Accessibility Production Programming Gamedev Polyglot Google Spreadsheet Navigation 1:00:52 Dale LaCroix IRL UI / UX Want To Learn About Game Design? Go To Ikea - Jamin Warren, Readwrite IKEA, and the Logic of Video Game Design - Daniel Golding, Kotaku Dale’s Additional Travel Tips 1:23:55 Dale LaCroix IRL Meta Google Maps Drury Hotels

With Mark still away, Ellen returns to in the clubhouse for another episode! This week, she invited her husband, strategy-consultant-slash-agile-coach-slash-scrum-master Eric Johnson, to discuss Agile Development and iterative workflows. Speaking of supportive spouses, this week's episode was edited by our social media manager (and Mark's wife) Dale LaCroix. Big thanks to her for stepping in while Mark was busy being crushed under the weight of prepping Widget Satchel for release later this month! Show Notes Contact Ellen with questions for Eric on Twitter: @ellenbjohnson "Don't draw diagrams of wrong practices – or: Why people still believe in the Waterfall model" - Tarmo Toikkanen "An Agile Approach to Launching the Nordstrom Sunglass Application" - Nicoli Sinclair, Temple University

With Mark still away, Ellen returns to in the clubhouse for another episode! This week, she invited her husband, strategy consultant / Agile coach / Scrum Master Eric Johnson, to discuss Agile Development and iterative workflows. Agile Development Production Why people still believe in the Waterfall model - Tarmo Toikkanen An Agile Approach to Launching the Nordstrom Sunglass Application - Nicoli Sinclair, Temple University Eric Johnson Guest Eric Johnson is an Agile coach and Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM). He also makes delicious homemade sauerkraut. You can find him on LinkedIn here.

This week Mark is away so Ellen Burns-Johnson joins us once again as a guest host! We get philosophical and reflective in this episode talking about Finding Fidelity and Taking Feedback. What can you abstract in your game and what needs to be realistic? How do you take negative feedback with grace? Is it the players who are wrong or are you just not asking the right questions? Meta Ellen Burns-Johnson on Twitter Widget Satchel announced!  [0:03:45] Finding Fidelity Valve Knuckles Controllers Foundry10 Portal 2 curriculum [0:26:06] Taking Feedback The Invisible Gorilla Experiment "Be more constructive with your feedback, please" (Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenocerus by Flight of the Conchords) (NSFW)

Mark is away this week, so Ellen Burns-Johnson joins us once again as a guest host! We get philosophical and reflective in this episode, talking about finding "fidelity" and taking in constructive criticism. What can you make abstract in your game and what needs to be realistic? How do you take negative feedback with grace? Is it the players who are wrong, or are you just not asking the right questions? Ellen Burns-Johnson on Twitter Widget Satchel announced!  Finding Fidelity 0:03:45 Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design IRL Valve Knuckles controllers Foundry10 Portal 2 curriculum Taking Feedback 0:26:06 Stephen McGregor IRL The Invisible Gorilla Experiment Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenocerus (NSFW) - Flight of the Conchords, YouTube