Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Mark is still in San Fransisco, so his lovely wife Dale (she of Evil Games Club) fills in and talks with Martha and Stephen about bad game design and good character design. "Bad" Game Design 0:02:48 Stephen McGregor Game Design We put Martha though the worst Mario game ever in an episode of Nice Plays. Nice Plays: Super Mario Bros. 2 [Japan] (1986) Want some rye? The Tetris Effect - Wikipedia Ubisoft Aware of Tetris Ultimate Issues - Jason Dunning, PlayStationLifeStyle E.T.: Walkthrough and Easter Eggs - TrillingWonder, YouTube A videogame for #blacklivesmatter - Zach Budgor, Kill Screen Character Design 0:32:52 Martha Megarry Art Narrative Choosing Your Pirate In Sea Of Thieves Is Hard - Mike Fahey, Kotaku How to Convey Character’s Personality Through Shape, Variance and Size - Bilyana, Graphic Mama Making Comics - Scott McCloud, Wikipedia Crumpets and Badonkadonks: Creating Tiny Tina - Ashly and Anthony Burch, YouTube

Mark is still in San Fransisco, so his lovely wife Dale (she of Evil Games Club) fills in and talks with Martha and Stephen about bad game design and good character design. "Bad" Game Design 0:02:48 Stephen McGregor Game Design We put Martha though the worst Mario game ever in an episode of Nice Plays. Nice Plays: Super Mario Bros. 2 [Japan] (1986) Want some rye? The Tetris Effect - Wikipedia Ubisoft Aware of Tetris Ultimate Issues - Jason Dunning, PlayStationLifeStyle E.T.: Walkthrough and Easter Eggs - TrillingWonder, YouTube A videogame for #blacklivesmatter - Zach Budgor, Kill Screen Character Design 0:32:52 Martha Megarry Art Narrative Choosing Your Pirate In Sea Of Thieves Is Hard - Mike Fahey, Kotaku How to Convey Character’s Personality Through Shape, Variance and Size - Bilyana, Graphic Mama Making Comics - Scott McCloud, Wikipedia Crumpets and Badonkadonks: Creating Tiny Tina - Ashly and Anthony Burch, YouTube

This week Dale from Evil Games Club joins us as we call in to Mark on location in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference! Meta: Minneapolis is the Most Bikingest MOST Bikingest! Most parklandest! “Gayest city? Magazine says it's Minneapolis” Game Developer Conference Highlights: Sony VR with Joshua Bell Budget Cuts Gorogoa postmortem Classic postmortem on Sonic the Hedgehog Game Dev Union / Games Workers Unite The Other Party GameJolt’s Bring Your Own Indie Party, where Mark showed his game for three hours before the venue got shut down by the fire department Participants in Glitch’s Power Leveling program got to tour Double Fine’s studio, among other adventures! Katie’s twitter thread of all the awesome Minnesotans at GDC!

This week Dale from Evil Games Club joins us as we call in to Mark on location in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference! Minneapolis is the Most Bikingest MOST Bikingest! Most parklandest! Gayest city? Magazine says it's Minneapolis GDC 2018 Highlights 0:02:17 Mark LaCroix Events Sony VR with Joshua Bell Budget Cuts Gorogoa postmortem Classic postmortem on Sonic the Hedgehog Game Dev Union / Games Workers Unite The Other Party GameJolt’s Bring Your Own Indie Party, where Mark showed his game for three hou… Participants in Glitch’s Power Leveling program got to tour Double Fine’s studio, among other adventures! Katie’s twitter thread of all the awesome Minnesotans at GDC!

This week Dale from Evil Games Club joins us as we call in to Mark on location in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference! Minneapolis is the Most Bikingest MOST Bikingest! Most parklandest! Gayest city? Magazine says it's Minneapolis GDC 2018 Highlights 0:02:17 Mark LaCroix Events Sony VR with Joshua Bell Budget Cuts Gorogoa postmortem Classic postmortem on Sonic the Hedgehog Game Dev Union / Games Workers Unite The Other Party GameJolt’s Bring Your Own Indie Party, where Mark showed his game for three hou… Participants in Glitch’s Power Leveling program got to tour Double Fine’s studio, among other adventures! Katie’s twitter thread of all the awesome Minnesotans at GDC!

This week on Nice Plays, the show where the Nice Games Club gamedevs play nice games, we continue a conversation from last week’s roundtable, and preview a topic from an upcoming episode. Your nice hosts talk about gamedev philosophy while Martha plays the zen-inspired game Everything, and talk about character design as Stephen wanders into Martha's ranch and makes a big ‘ol mess in the super-adorable farming game Slime Rancher. You can watch both episodes on YouTube by using the links below: Nice Plays: Everything (2017) https://youtu.be/GtfYQDgU47k Nice Plays: Slime Rancher (2017) https://youtu.be/MdS5Gy608GY EDITOR'S NOTE: Previously, our video episodes would appear in our podcast feed as well as on YouTube, but we were unsatisfied with the lower video quality when delivered in that format, and feedback from listeners tells us that you don't really enjoy watching videos in your various podcast apps, so we're now only posting our video episodes on YouTube, where the user experience is far superior. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to get future video episodes directly, but you'll also get these mini-episodes in the podcast feed, with a little preview of what to expect and links to that week's episodes on YouTube.

This week on Nice Plays, the show where the Nice Games Club gamedevs play nice games, we continue a conversation from last week’s roundtable, and preview a topic from an upcoming episode. Your nice hosts talk about gamedev philosophy while Martha plays the zen-inspired game Everything, and talk about character design as Stephen wanders into Martha's ranch and makes a big ‘ol mess in the super-adorable farming game Slime Rancher. Video

This week on Nice Plays, the show where the Nice Games Club gamedevs play nice games, we continue a conversation from last week’s roundtable, and preview a topic from an upcoming episode. Your nice hosts talk about gamedev philosophy while Martha plays the zen-inspired game Everything, and talk about character design as Stephen wanders into Martha's ranch and makes a big ‘ol mess in the super-adorable farming game Slime Rancher. Video

This week on Nice Plays, the show where the Nice Games Club gamedevs play nice games, we continue a conversation from last week’s roundtable, and preview a topic from an upcoming episode. Your nice hosts talk about gamedev philosophy while Martha plays the zen-inspired game Everything, and talk about character design as Stephen wanders into Martha's ranch and makes a big ‘ol mess in the super-adorable farming game Slime Rancher. Video

This week on Nice Plays, the show where the Nice Games Club gamedevs play nice games, we continue a conversation from last week’s roundtable, and preview a topic from an upcoming episode. Your nice hosts talk about gamedev philosophy while Martha plays the zen-inspired game Everything, and talk about character design as Stephen wanders into Martha's ranch and makes a big ‘ol mess in the super-adorable farming game Slime Rancher. Video

This week, your nice hosts get a bit personal as they talk about the research that has gone into their games and the philosophies behind them, as well what exactly a Nice Game is. Also in the episode: Stephen has confusing feelings about MAR10 Day, Mark finds more reasons to reference Star Trek and Martha discusses her previously undisclosed acting talents. Meta: Perhaps it is time for the… Millenium of the Peach. We’re all excited about the upcoming games described in this Nintendo Direct. Research for Games: Here are the 30 maps Mark spent a few weeks researching for. Pictures of Gwen and Sparky, two characters in Stephen’s game Fingeance. “How 'Never Alone' turns cultural heritage into video game history” - Matt Kamen, Wired “How Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice deals with psychosis” - James Lloyd, Science Focus Both Universe Sandbox and Elite Dangerous simulate real life examples in-game. Mark mentions this game 30 for 30 episode titled Madden’s Game. Game Dev Philosophies: The Manifesto Jam has many fascinating statements about approaching game development. Here are the ones we mention on the show: “I was trying to make a game but my dog got in the way…” “Secret languages” “Money-festo” Rules for not losing myself “Manifesto for gentle games” “Games are weird tiny things that teach us” “Notecard minifestos”

This week, your nice hosts get a bit personal as they talk about the research that has gone into their games and the philosophies behind them, as well what exactly a Nice Game is. Also in the episode: Stephen has confusing feelings about MAR10 Day, Mark finds more reasons to reference Star Trek and Martha discusses her previously undisclosed acting talents. Perhaps it is time for the… Millenium of the Peach. We’re all excited about the upcoming games described in this Nintendo Direct. Research for Games 0:10:35 Mark LaCroix Game Design Here are the 30 maps Mark spent a few weeks researching for. How ‘Never Alone’ turns cultural heritage into video game history - Matt Kamen, Wired How Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice deals with psychosis - James Lloyd, Science Focus Universe Sandbox Elite Dangerous Mark mentions this game 30 for 30 episode titled Madden’s Game. - 30 for 30, ESPN Gamedev Philosophies 0:45:26 Martha Megarry IRL Misc. The Manifesto Jam has many fascinating statements about approaching game development. Here are the ones we mention on the show: I was trying to make a game but my dog got in the way… Secret languages Money-festo Rules for not losing myself Manifesto for gentle games Games are weird tiny things that teach us Notecard minifestos

This week Stephen made it to the clubhouse despite the Minnesota snow, Mark shares his knowledge of object oriented programming and Martha yells at the Unity docs. Photo is of Glitch HQ and is from Glitch.mn Meta: There’s a #nicegamesclub channel on the MSPGameDev Slack now! Stephen’s interview on Tech.MN. Mark’s 30 Metro Nexus maps, in gif form! [00:09:13] Game Programming: Godot is a game engine similar to Unity, but with object-oriented programming as a base. We’ve talked about coding styles in our episode titled “Proper ones and twos.” Martha went to the coding boot camp Prime Digital Academy. “Learning Fluency” - Sara Simon Mark mentioned the book Game Programming Pattern, a resource also available for free online. [00:52:06] Work Spaces: If you use part of your home for business, you may be able to get a tax reduction.

This week Stephen made it to the clubhouse despite the Minnesota snow, Mark shares his knowledge of object oriented programming and Martha yells at the Unity docs. Photo is of Glitch HQ and is from Glitch.mn There’s a #nicegamesclub channel on the MSPGameDev Slack now! Stephen’s interview on Tech.MN Mark’s 30 Metro Nexus maps, in gif form! Game Programming 0:09:13 Mark LaCroix Programming Godot is a game engine similar to Unity, but with object-oriented programming a… We’ve talked about coding styles in our episode titled "Proper ones and twos." Martha went to the coding boot camp Prime Digital Academy. Learning Fluency - Sara Simon, Medium Mark mentioned the book Game Programming Pattern, a resource also available for… - Robert Nystrom Work Spaces 0:52:06 Stephen McGregor IRL Tools If you use part of your home for business, you may be able to get a tax reducti…

This week Stephen made it to the clubhouse despite the Minnesota snow, Mark shares his knowledge of object oriented programming and Martha yells at the Unity docs. Photo is of Glitch HQ and is from Glitch.mn There’s a #nicegamesclub channel on the MSPGameDev Slack now! Stephen’s interview on Tech.MN Mark’s 30 Metro Nexus maps, in gif form! Game Programming 0:09:13 Mark LaCroix Programming Godot is a game engine similar to Unity, but with object-oriented programming a… We’ve talked about coding styles in our episode titled "Proper ones and twos." Martha went to the coding boot camp Prime Digital Academy. Learning Fluency - Sara Simon, Medium Mark mentioned the book Game Programming Pattern, a resource also available for… - Robert Nystrom Work Spaces 0:52:06 Stephen McGregor IRL Tools If you use part of your home for business, you may be able to get a tax reducti…