Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

This week's episode has things getting a little crepuscular in the clubhouse! Mark possibly flubs the intro (jury is still out on this!), Stephen has prepared two rants and Ellen requests all of our best silly noises. Editors note: I (Stephen) did in fact edit this episode, but it's really early in the morning so I didn't find fun sounds to put in there. There is a fun sound in the episode though! What Is a Crepuscular Animal? - Jaymi Heimbuch, Treehugger Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a bummer - Patrick Gill, Polygon Relaxing Games 0:05:30 Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design Gaming ‘Optica’ is the Mind-Bending Spiritual Successor to ‘Strata’ that’s Launching N… - Jared Nelson, Touch Arcade Monument Valley 2 Really Bad Chess What is Chess 960 or Fischer Random Chess? - Chess.com Doctor Who 2048 Commitment 0:35:00 Stephen McGregor Game Design Understanding What "Commitment" Means in Fighting Games -  LordKnight, YouTube So Mew2King just got 3-stocked... -  Hungrybox, YouTube “I’m not fast enough to play fighting games” - Patrick Miller, Medium

Your nice hosts recorded this episode on an especially-timely Tuesday evening. It turns out that recording on an "off" day does goofy things to a podcaster's brain. Can you improve upon the game of "rock, paper, scissors"? How common are red stop signs across the globe? What noises does a wind serpent make? Do video games really give us choices? How many Kirby plushies does Stephen have? We're asking the tough questions here on Nice Games Club.  Wordplay: Celebrating Writing in Contemporary Games Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo.com Metroid: Dread - Nintendo.com Denver Botanical Gardens Rocky Mountain National Park Lucile's Creole Cafe (has a GREAT breakfast!) Deluxe Editions 10:04 Ellen Burns-Johnson Gaming Marketing Physical Games Rock, Paper, Scissors: Deluxe Edition (on Kickstarter) Day of Dragons (in early access) Illusions of Choice 37:28 Mark LaCroix Game Design Jellyvision Labs Jellyvision (history)  - Wikipedia Stop signs - Wikipedia Operation Lifesaver The Illusion of Choice in Telltale Games' The Walking Dead - Adrian Froschauer, Ontological Geek

In this episode Ellen points out the wisdom of Stephen and Mark makes up excuses to talk about his new favourite T.V. programme (and it's not even a Star Trek show!). Stephen talks about playing Deathloop Prototypes 5:15 Stephen McGregor Game Design Game Shows 0:33:38 Mark LaCroix Game Design

This week, it's the inaugural episode recorded from the brand new clubhouse inside the office of Noble Robot, the gamedev co-working space that Mark just opened up in northeast Minneapolis! Ellen lays out everyone's frustrations, Stephen sets the agenda, and Mark has words for Whirlpool. This way to the new clubhouse! Here's the office fridge, moments before it got really frustrating. The new clubhouse, in "conference room" mode. Your nice hosts each work with remote teams from all over the world, so Mark put together a "world clock" display as the visual centerpiece of the office. Stephen works in this office, so it needs two things: tea, and Kirby memorabilia. Frustration 0:10:34 Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design Gaming Meetings 0:50:28 Stephen McGregor IRL Production

On this week's episode, your nice hosts explore two completely separate but fully compelling topics! Ellen learns a new engine, Mark discusses why shooting could be a more interesting mechanic than it is, and Stephen completely misses a pun. Astral Gunners Pillars of Creation Games shown at 2D Con 2021: Snow Day: The Cold War Emery Johnny Chainsaw Armed and Gelatinous Captain's Log: Crisis Detected Merchant of Windvale Far Away Magical Unicorn Quest Chronicles of the Wolf and Wallachia: Reign of Dracula Eterbal Exodus Widget Satchel They Stirred Astral Gunners Fitment Fingeance Ollie-Oop HyperDot CULTivate Pillars of Creation Learning a Game Engine 0:13:05 Ellen Burns-Johnson Programming Tools The Only Certainty Is That He Won’t Show Up - Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times Step by Step Godot Documentation - Index - Godot Engine Step by Step Godot Documentation - Instancing - Godot Engine Stop Waiting for Godot Jam - Terry Cavanagh, itch.io #stopwaitingforgodot - Twitter Types of Interference in Psychology - Kendra Cherry, verywellmind Guns 0:43:14 Mark LaCroix Game Design Critical Reaction to Mass Effect Citadel - Metacritic 20 years on, Bushido Blade remains a fighting game masterpiece - Simon Parkin, Eurogamer Any good 1 hit kill games out there? - Reddit

After many months of recording over Discord (or together in Mark's and Dale's apartment), Nice Games Club is finding a new place to meet. Well, "finding" isn't really the right word. Mark and Dale are making it happen. The new clubhouse is being customized as a workspace and community hub, and this week on the show, Your Nice Hosts talk about how to start things up in the new spot. The New Clubhouse Mark LaCroix IRL Meta Ergonomic stools by Herman Miller The cover image for this episode's page is from The Treehouse, an educational game published in 1991. Ellen played this game a lot when she was a kid. Learn more here: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/the-treehouse-1ag

Recently, Mark appeared on an episode of the Star Trek interview podcast (and fellow Minnesota production) Enterprising Individuals to talk about Star Trek video games. It was a lively discussion and we're pleased to re-broadcast it here. Thanks to host Aaron Coker and producer Diane Blum for arranging the interview and allowing your nice hosts to re-post it as an episode of Nice Games Club. Enterprising Individuals Happy Star Trek Day everyone! Wednesday of this week marked the 55th anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek on television, and Paramount's marketing department celebrated the event with a multi-hour livestream of upcoming announcements and touching tributes. Star Trek games (from Enterprising Individuals) Mark LaCroix Gaming IRL For show notes, check out the episode's page on the Enterprising Individuals website.

It's your nice hosts second live episode for 2D Con, Minnesota's biggest video game event. Stephen asks the audience to boo at him, Ellen knows the lingo, and Mark isn't making sense. Prompt "Chess 2" "Four-dimensional" "Welcome to Night Vale" Game type Tabletop game Player count 2 Materials 4x4 board. 3 Pawn pieces per player. 1 "Mayor" (King) pieces per player. An unspecified number of Glow Cloud (Queen), Librarian (Bishop), and Reverse Pawn pieces. Setup Place or draw a 4x4 chess-style board. Arrange three Pawn pieces and one Mayor piece along the home row of each player, arranged left-to-right (from each player's point of view) in this pattern: Pawn-Pawn-Mayor-Pawn Rules The goal is to capture the opposing player's Mayor. Mayors move like Kings in Chess. Play proceeds exactly like Chess, with the following exceptions/additions: A player may, instead of making a move, "undo" their most recent move, as long as the space where their most recently moved piece previously was remains open. If the player's most recently moved piece was just captured on their opponent's turn, that piece still returns to it's previous position. When a Pawn reaches the opponent player's home row, that piece is promoted to one of three positions, randomly using a 6-sided die: Reverse Pawn (1-3): Same as a Pawn, but moving in the other direction. When a Reverse Pawn returns to the player's home row, they are not promoted but become a standard Pawn again. Librarian (4-5): Equivalent to a Bishop in Chess. Glow Cloud (6): Equivalent to a Queen in Chess.

It's a packed clubhouse for this special episode! Your regular hosts are joined by two guests: Peter Yang and Dale LaCroix. Peter is a game designer, creative director, and tabletop games agent based out of Minnesota. Dale, as you know, is just plain evil. The adventure of the day—pitching games to tabletop publishers. And Peter is our guide! Pitching Tabletop Games Marketing Physical Games Tabletop Listen to the episode where GLOM first took shape (episode 210). Glom Protospiel MN (2020) Twin Cities Playtest with IGDA-TC GenCon Origins Game Fair Tabletop Simulator - notes on importing cards - Dale LaCroix The Game Crafter - Print cards on demand with this website Peter Yang Guest Peter's a charismatic public speaker with a passion for games and game development. He's worked in QA, development, and production roles within the games industry. From board games to video games, he enjoys helping people bring their fun ideas to stand out from the crowd. External link Peter on Twitter @ZettoVyker

This week, your nice hosts welcome creative director and all-around "VR Specialist" Dana Ware to talk about location-based entertainment, the incredible potential of VR during a pandemic, and where VR will be in 5 years. Designing for VR Game Design IRL VR / AR / XR Dark Slope Studios The Void - Wikipedia Malls have a future: location-based entertainment - Kim Schaefer, VentureBeat Curtis Hickman - Speaker Biography - Future of Storytelling Facebook Horizon Dana Ware Guest Creative Director/Designer, with thorough knowledge of virtual and augmented reality, and experience in location-based entertainment, film, commercials, video game production, and interactive media. External link https://www.danafaithware.com/

It's that time again! Time for another episode, that is. Mark tries to convince his fellow hosts that games should include more bonus content—developer commentary, concept art, and so forth. Stephen talks about giving talks, even though he doesn't like to give talks. And Ellen finished a game! What should Ellen play next? A poll for you! - Twitter My Boy! Emulator (Android app) - Google Play Store Is this the episode in which Martha and Stephen tried to teach Mark about Pokémon? "How would I know that?" Too Many Choices: A Problem That Can Paralyze - Alina Tugend, The New York Times Header image: The fictional black hole, "Gargantua," from the film Interstellar (2014). Credit: Double Negative @ https://www.dneg.com/ The "postroll funny" is a line from the poem "What Did?" by Shel Silverstein as published in the collection A Light in the Attic. Bonus Content 0:12:16 Mark LaCroix Gaming Production Games mentioned in this segment included: Paper Mario: The Origami King Closed Hands 30 Flights of Loving Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Batman: Arkham series A previous NGC episode discussed the topic of "unlockables." "Please cheat, I don't care." ‘Ask Iwata’ Book Review: A Much Needed Chronicle Of A Gaming Legend - Ollie Barder, Forbes Wrinkles in Spacetime: The Warped Astrophysics of Interstellar - Adam Rogers, Wired First Images of a Black Hole from the Event Horizon Telescope* - Susanna Kohler, AAS NOVA Game Changers (2019 exhibit) - Science Museum of Minnesota * CORRECTION: The black hole in question is Messier 87, not "TON 68" as Ellen mentioned on the podcast. The designation of the black hole that Ellen thought she was referring to is TON 618. The black hole that's part of the TON 618 quasar is one of the most massive black holes ever discovered. Giving Talks 0:45:29 Stephen McGregor Events Marketing View recently-broadcasted talks from IGDA-TC - Twitch Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences (a book) - Nancy Duarte

This week, we try something new in the clubhouse with the very first Nice Thinking! In Nice Thinking, your nice hosts have a concept or idea that hasn't been fully fleshed out and we workshop it on air. This episode has Ellen bringing in the goal of encouraging parkgoers to throw away more garbage to take care of her neighborhood park. There's a lot of trash talk in this episode, listen to find out what your nice hosts come up with! Giblet the Trash Can Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design IRL Googly-Eyed Trash Eaters May Clean a Harbor Near You - Jackie Snow, National Geographic

Your nice hosts do their best to "attend" GDC 2021, and end up having a really good time. Mark imagines his business card, Ellen asks questions, and Stephen proves he's human. Game Developers Conference webpage GDC 2021 Sessions Mark LaCroix Stephen McGregor Ellen Burns-Johnson Events Indie SoapBox - GDC Glitch City LA Demystifying Indie Publishing Offers - August Brown, GDC August joined us in a previous episode: Developer/Publisher Relations Avoid an Identity Crisis as a Technical Designer - GDC A slide from "Avoid an Identity Crisis as a Technical Designer" Experimental Gameplay Workshop - GDC Schim HyperRogue Kroma Kristallijn L'Oeuf-Sphinx AI Dungeon Despelote Spreadsheet Smarter Not Harder

In this episode, Mark gets defensive about his fair city, Ellen declares her love of Big Buttons, and Stephen almost forgets Fingeance, the game he worked on for seven years. Gamepads 0:14:00 Stephen McGregor Hardware The Evolution of the Xbox Controller - Alessandro Fillari, GameSpot The Evolution of the PlayStation Controller - Adam Bankhurst, IGN List of Nintendo controllers - Wikipedia Nature in Games 0:54:54 Ellen Burns-Johnson Art Minneapolis Named Best City Park System in U.S. on Trust for Public Land’s Annu… - Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board Minneapolis slides to third in urban park rankings; St. Paul rises to second (2… - Susan Du, Star Tribune Spend Time Outside in Twin Cities Parks and Lakes - Cinnamon Janzer, Explore Minnesota Endling: Extinction is Forever - Handy Games Firewatch - Campo Santo

Your nice hosts come together for their first Nice Games Jam in person in a very long time! Did seeing each other together result in even wilder game jam shenanigans than you'd expect? Listen to the episode to find out! PlayThinker Deck - The Game Crafter Prompt We used Ellen's PlayThinker Deck to make this game! Goal card was "Efficiency", interaction cards were "Combination", "Approach", and "Exploration". Game type Card game Player count 2-4 Materials Basic 52 card deck (no jokers) 4 Meeples 12 Powerup tokens (3 different colors) Setup Shuffle deck and place cards in a 4 by 4 grid. Give each player one meeple to represent them. Rules Player can move onto any card on their side of the grid as their first turn. On their turn each player moves one card and reveals it, potentially giving you an ability Revealing a face card gives you an item, which gives you one of the following abilities: One gives the ability to move one more space. One gives the ability to peek at one more card. One gives the ability to move diagonally. Getting three items allows you to take one turn to bank three items, losing those three abilities but giving you one point.  Revealing an Ace removes all items that player’s have not banked. Bank your items to prevent losing a point! Revealing the four corners refresh all unrevealed cards except cards that a player is on. When the deck runs out, the game ends when all the board is revealed (no more refreshes, fill out the rest of the board with a shuffled discarded deck). Whoever has the most points after that last round wins the game!