Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

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"Time is just a search bar away." Nov 26, 2022

Show notes

It's the show's sixth anniversary! To celebrate, Stephen, Mark, and Ellen play two "talky talky" games on the air: Where Should We Begin: A Game of Stories by Esther Perel, and Hypertheticals by Chuck Klosterman. These games offer your hosts some interesting discussion prompts, with interesting results.

Episode 280, a recent one in which we talked about journaling."Two bits of goop."
"Baldric" in literature and culture - Wikipedia

0:08:49

Where Should We Begin? A Game of Stories

Where Should We Begin? A Game of StoriesEsther PerelThe MousetrapAgatha ChristieWikipediaThree ways to improvise an arm slingJohn GodinoAlpine Savvy0:49:47

Hypertheticals

HypertheticalsChuck KlostermanPenguin Random House

Fusing Genres (with Millie Walker) Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

This week, fellow nice gamedev Millie Walker enters the clubhouse to discuss her approach to combining genres. It's an episode full of synthesis, but not photosynthesis because Stephen doesn't want to talk about his bonsai tree.

Fusing Genres

Game Design Marketing Myth Caller: The Nightmare Shaman - Karatkuro Xander the Monster Morpher: Universe Breaker - Karatkuro, SteamWe previously tackled "genre" in:"I do business."

"I realize you were making a more point thing?" Cameras; Bug Tracking and Triage Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

Lots of technical talk in this episode as your nice hosts wade into these two large topics!

Flappy Dragon - Google Play Store

0:09:27

Cameras

Linear InterpolationWikipediaSuper Mario World Camera Logic ReviewShaun InmanYouTubeCamera Movements for 2D Platformers: How Do I Know Which One to ChooseSam HuSam J H HuPro Camera 2DLuís Pedro FonsecaUnity Asset Store0:31:52

Bug Tracking and Triage

Parkinson's LawWikipediaResponsible Bug Reporting and TriageSmartbearAuction-based serious game for bug tracking"""Çağdaş Üsfekes,Eray Tüzün,Murat Yılmaz,Yagup Macit,Paul Clarke"""The Institution of Engineering and TechnologyBug Triaging PrinciplesBugsnagGame Development Essentials: Bugtracking (or how we ended up writing our own bu…Andre WeissflogThe Brain DumpProduction Testing and Bug TrackingJamie FristromGame DeveloperWhat makes a good bug report?Nick BarrettGamesIndustry.bizAzure DevOpsMIcrosoftEllen mentioned Agile Development in this episode.Agile DevelopmentWe also talked about Bugs in one of our first episodes."Bananas, from here to eternity."

Nice Thinking: "Revisiting Rhythm Rumble" Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

It’s everyone’s favorite rhythm fighting game that doesn’t exist yet, ‘Rhythm Rumble’, back for more discussion in this week's NiceThinking Episode. Ellen learns a new word, Mark rants about Unity’s PlayerPrefs, and Stephen admits that he still hasn’t learned to take good notes. They all agree that you have to spend more time researching than you want to, and that Dale is awesome.

Rhythm Rumble

Stephen leaving an old employeer for a new job also leaves him room for improvement on a rhythm fighting game. The main problems with the old prototype: not rhythmic enough and too simple. The beats the player had to match were up to the sixteenth note (quarter beat) which left players not understanding which beat they were playing to, and an impression of the game feeling sluggishSome thoughts from the discussion -Use beat patterns rather than make people keep the beat -Being able to store (and playback) beats to conjure special moves -Give the instruments personality to the fighting moves they can make -Make the game into a metaphor, give it personality - these beats might control instruments, which control rock-em-sock-em robots, rather than making the avatars hit each other with a very expensive bass clarinet. They mention Sukuri's youtube video about the influence '90's fighting games had on the design of SmashBrothersSuper Smash Bros. [Game Concepts]MasahiroSakurai on Creating GamesYouTube

Photo of a complex board game (Star Trek: Ascendancy) spread out across a tabletop. The game has many different pieces, cards, and connecting pathways made of cardboard. — **"Shiny rocks get me every time." Branding & Iconography; The Ethics of Engagement** Oct 28, 2022
Show notes

It's spooky season! Stephen is SO over it, but he can't escape all the scary stuff happening in this week's episode. We start with a lesson on the necromantic arts of branding and iconography, guided by Mark, a master of these dark magics. After the break, Ellen raises a past topic from the dead in order to explore the ethics of manipulating players' brainnnsssss. Also mentioned: candy corn, houseplants, and—you guessed it—*Star Trek*.
Star Trek: Ascendancy
0:10:10
Branding & Iconography
Smash TVWikipediaThomas Was AloneBithell Games0:36:22
The Ethics of Engagement
Egg, Inc.Auxbrain, Inc.Idle AcornsAleros LLCBeReal social media
***A little learning is a dangerous thing***
***Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.***
This is a line from Alexander Pope's *Essay on Criticism* (1711). The Pierian spring is a fountain in Pieria, a district round Mount Olympus and the native country of the Muses. You can read the full text for free here on Project Gutenberg.

Physical Releases for Indies (with Ryan Brown) Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

This week, we talk with Super Rare Games' "Head of Words," Ryan Brown, about his company's approach to physical game distribution for indie games, and what it takes to get your game not just on a Nintendo, but on a Nintendo cartridge.

Physical Releases for Indies

Marketing Production Super Rare Games Super Rare Games - Twitter Super Rare Games - Developers & Publisherspublishmygame@superraregames.com The Criterion Collection International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) - Wikipedia Strong Museum of Play The Centre for Computing History

"Today’s the day that I screw things up." Pre-production; Idle Games Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

Your nice hosts start off strong with an excellently performed intro, and it just gets better from there!

The Game Agency - The Game Agency

0:06:24

Pre-production

0:31:45

Idle Games

Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive Review: The Final Fun-tier?Steven ShawDroid GamersHow to make an idle game: Everything you need to know about incremental mobile …David HarteryAdjustIdle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing GamesAnthony PecorellaYouTube“It Started as a Joke”: On the Design of Idle GamesKatta Spiel, Sultan A. Alharthi, Andrew Jian-Lan Cen, Jessica Hammer, Lennart E. Nacke, Z O. Toups and Tess TanenbaumCHI PLAY

Nice Games Jam: "StorySlide (with Osama Dorias)" Oct 06, 2022

Show notes

Game designer Osama Dorias returns to the clubhouse to help design a game that can be played remotely, and provides some (much needed?) structure to the Nice Games Jam process. Stephen is obsessed with Bananas, Ellen contemplates her mystery banana gift, and Mark realizes some of these concepts might be too complicated for small children.

Osama previously joined us for episode 211:Building Blocks of Design
This isn't the first time we'd had a guest join us for a Nice Games Jam:Blame the Cat! (with Monica Fan)
Osama on Twitter
Osama's podcast is "The Habibis"
Playtest Materials
The slides we created for this episode's playtest.
The Noun Project

Prompt"Design a game that can be played remotely with (Osama's) children (and ideally is still fun for adults)"Game typeTabletop gamePlayer count3-6Materials

Electronic system for sharing slides (such as Google Slides)

A voice connection with remote players

A set of slides or icons/drawings/clipart to create the set of slides

A system for privately messaging players

Setup

Create a set of slides (12) with icons, drawings, photos, or clip-art, if not using a pre-made slide deck. Each slide should contain 3 items. Pick a Game Master (usually one of the adults playing the game).
The Game Master comes up with one group objective with two parts:
- A protagonist/hero.
- A conflict for the protagonist.
The Game Master comes up with one secret objective for each player:
- Each secret objective should start with the phrase “The hero should...”
- Ideally these will be randomly assigned.

Rules

Player order goes to the left and does not change
The game ends when you run out of slides
Each slide should be a simple phrase or sentence

Gameplay

Play starts with the Game Master describing the first slide, starting with the phrase “Once upon a time..”
Play continues to the player on the Game Master’s left and the slide progresses.
This player chooses one of the three pictures on the slide to incorporate into the story with a phrase or sentence.
Play continues to the left with a new slide. And continues around the circle, with each player getting a new slide (the Game Master may now sit out of the storytelling), until there are no more slides left.
The Game Master may provide an epilogue (and explain what an epilogue is to the children playing the game) as desired.
- Note: Defining 'Epilogue' will not be out of character for this game, as in this episode's run-through Mark would have had to explain to kids: headbanging, Ska, life in 1998, mosh-pits, micro-cassettes, and a reference to 'Spaceballs.'
At the end of the story, players try to guess each others individual objectives.

"Two bits of goop." Keeping a Game Design Journal; Bringing Other Media into Games Sep 30, 2022

Show notes

In this slightly-longer-than-normal episode, we start with a pandemic check-in. (Bivalent boosters are available! Go get 'em!) Ellen leads us on a journaling journey, sharing the embarrassing evidence of past attempts. Stephen challenges us to think through examples of adaptation, or maybe translation, or transcreation...well, we mostly figure it out by the end. Mark is extra-sharp with the one-liners.

0:16:16

Keeping a Game Design Journal

"Mark's Home Office" 11/11/2021Nice Games ClubPatreonBeanstacker: Reading tracker appGoogle Play StoreContraindication (definition)WikipediaThe Complete Guide to Video Game Genres: From Scrollers, Shooters, to SportsGameDesigning.orgList of video game genresWikipediaOctalysisYu-kai ChouOctalysis GroupChronicle of the Movies: A Year-by-Year History from the Jazz Singer to TodayLeonard MultonBiblio.comGames I've played (Ellen's journal v1, with new entries!) - Google sheetEllen Burns-JohnsonGameplay journal (Ellen's journal v2 input form) - Google formEllen Burns-JohnsonGameplay journal (Ellen's journal v2, responses) - Google sheetEllen Burns-Johnson0:54:36

Bringing Other Media into Games

Fan Shows Us What A Frasier Game Would Look Like… HecticSean MurrayTheGamer.comSingle-Camera vs. Multi-Camera TV Sitcom Scripts: What's the Difference?Ken MiyamotoScreen CraftThe Project Gutenberg eBook of "Goody Two-Shoes"AnonymousProject Gutenberg

Designing a Spiritual Successor (with Dmitry Samartsev, aka Special Bread) Sep 22, 2022

Show notes

We welcome our first pseudonymous guest to the clubhouse to discuss what it's like making a game to carry the banner (and serve the community) of a previous title.