Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Latest Episodes:

Postmortem: "Infernax" (with Hunter Bond and Mike Ducarme) Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

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"

Production Infernax - Twitter Just Shapes and Beats Berzerk Studio

As promised, Hunter's PO Box: PO Box 10275, Albuquerque, NM 87184

GDC 2022 Special (Part 2) Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

Settle in, because we could only trim the 5+ hours of interviews we recorded last month at GDC down to 2 hours. Of course, if you want to hear all of it, there's always the Patreon... 😉

The game Mark has been working on, "Dreamsettler," was officially announced on April 5th!

GDC 2022 Special (Part 2)

Cat Cafe ManagerRoost GamesStrange Horticulture, a game about selling plants, is one of the best games thi…Nicole CarpenterPolygonSmall LifeyueqiWUPuzzles for ClefWeasel TokenDune: Spice Wars launches in early access in AprilOli WelshPolygonInfinity Game Table Eolia Is A Fully Hand-Tracked Follow Up To Rhythm Of The Universe: IoniaJamie FelthamUploadVRMidnight Protocol is a cyberpunk hacking RPG that cuts out all the fillerAdi RobertsonThe VergeNeurodiver, sequel to 2064: Read Only Memories, is headed to PS5 and SwitchChris MoyseDestructoidCusco ParadoxIndaga StudiosAi ApaecSatoshi WakuBugaboo Pocket Star SalvagerA-Game Studios[I] doesn't exist - a modern text adventureLUAL GamesPatchworld from PatchXR brings you a novel way to create music with your Meta Q…Micah BlumbergMediumYou Suck at Parking™Happy VolcanoAgent InterceptPikPokMini Motorways and the delicate art of marrying complexity and minimalismGame DeveloperBroken PiecesElseware Experience, Benoit Dereau, Mael VignauxMail TimeKela van der Deijl

Work Weeks (with August Brown) Apr 15, 2022

Show notes

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."

Work Weeks

Production Armor Games adopts four-day work week permanently - Brendan Sinclair, GamesIndustry.biz August’s previous employer, Kongregate August is now doing platform relations at Armor GamesAugust was on a previous interview episodeDeveloper/Publisher Relations John Cooney (Armor Games CEO) Twitter thread on the four-day workweek results - John Cooney, Twitter GDC 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, NPR

Credit screen for Fingeance, featuring Stephen McGregor, Lane Davis and Charles McGregor — **Nice Thinking: "Games With Your Dogs"** Apr 07, 2022
Show notes

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
0:10:25
Games With Your Dogs
Treibball (push ball) - giant football for dogs!Naturally Happy DogsYouTubeGetting started and teaching 'outside'FluentPetYouTubeHere's a picture of Ellen's dogs!

A picture of Pixel and Dante, Ellen's dogs. — **Nice Thinking: "Games With Your Dogs"** Apr 07, 2022
Show notes

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
0:10:25
Games With Your Dogs
Treibball (push ball) - giant football for dogs!Naturally Happy DogsYouTubeGetting started and teaching 'outside'FluentPetYouTubeHere's a picture of Ellen's dogs!

GDC 2022 Special (Part 1) Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

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)

Games Industry Gathering Yerba Buena Gardens IGF Accepts Over 400 Entries for GDC 2022Independent Games Festival'Unpacking' and 'Inscryption' Lead in IGF 2022 NominationsIndependent Games FestivalInscryption wins the IGF Grand Prize and GDC Game Of The Year Award 2022Jai Singh BainsRock Paper Shotgun

"Source code is viewable." Building Assets and Plugins; Ink Engine Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

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

0:05:33

Building Assets and Plugins

Charles was last on the show on this episode about Level Editors.Level Editors Charles destroys his brother on the air Rewired Unity PluginGuavamanUnity Asset StorePlaymaker Add-onsHutong GamesManaged Plug-insUnity0:37:26

Ink Engine

Ink EngineInkle StudiosInk Unity IntegrationInkle Studios

Visual Coding (with Alina Matson) Mar 17, 2022

Show notes

This week we're joined by Alina Matson, developer of Fitment—a microworkout app designed with cozy gamers in mind. Alina talks about how she has used the popular Unity plugin Playmaker to kick-start her transition from a career in mechanical engineering to gamedev. Positive vibes abound. Plus, surprise singing!

Visual Coding

Programming Tools Playmaker - Hutong Games, Unity Asset Store Bolt - Unity, Unity Asset Store Blueprint Visual Scripting - Unreal Engine Processing Scratch - MIT 10 Most Nostalgic Flash Games From The Early 2000s - Samuel Williams, CBR Stephen J. Guy, Director, Applied Motion Lab - University of Minnesota ZebraZappsWe mentioned a previous interview episode with Freya Holmer,Self-education, et al.

“Done enough.” Milestone Builds; Wikis and Guides Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

It's a day of celebration in the clubhouse as Ellen finally starts Metroid Dread. Meanwhile, Mark delivers, and Stephen looks it up (but isn't happy about it).

0:13:18

Milestone Builds

MilestoneWikipedia0:46:47

Wikis and Guides

How to pause Elden RingJeffrey ParkinPolygon

Game Dev London does Nice Games Jam Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

For our 250th episode, your nice hosts play a few rounds of a pair of games made by the folks from Game Dev London as part of their very own Nice Games Jam! Ellen makes fun sounds, Mark counts all his Jefferies Tubes, and Stephen is reliable as the morning sun.

We talked about big episode numbers in:"A Spark Plug." 200th Episode Special
Stephen's grumpy tweet.
Game Dev London

0:18:36

Safecracker!!

Nice Games Club's 1hr Game Jam Challenge - Part 1Game Dev LondonYouTubeCreating "Safecracker!!" in part 1 of Game Dev London's 2-part episodeThe Lockpicking LawyerYouTube0:41:19

Adventurer, Please

Nice Games Club's 1hr Game Jam Challenge - Part 2Game Dev LondonYouTubeCreating "Adventurer, Please" in part 2 of Game Dev London's 2-part episodeMark's Beverly Crusher t-shirt Jefferies TubeMemory AlphaUnplugged Independents: Weave: Storytelling RedefinedSeamus Conneely Cannibal Halfling Gaming

"I got all the moons." Games You Get for Free; Joy vs. Fun Feb 26, 2022

Show notes

This week, your Nice Hosts talk about "games you get for free" on various gaming platforms. Also, the trio explores the relationship between "fun" and "joy"—and where does "engaging" fit in? Ellen won't tell us the grade, and Stephen is told he has to yell at Mark.

15:00