Nice Games Club

#170 "Stephen, his arms wide!" Roundtable 2020.04.14 Ellen Burns-Johnson joins us once again in the virtual club house to discuss Redundancy and Arcades! Ellen teaches us about how we learn, Mark balances the game, Martha only plays the best character, and Stephen has a revelation. Photo Credit: Michelle Bruch, from this Southwest Journal Article about the Donutron Redundancy 0:13:01 Mark LaCroix Game Design UI / UX The Forgetting Curve hypothesis by Hermann Ebbinghous - Wikipedia The Distribut

#176 Gamedev in the Philippines Interview 2020.05.26 Your nice hosts interview Ryan Sumo, Art Director and CEO of Squeaky Wheel Studio, an independent developer and publisher based in the Philippines. Topics include community building, conferences, becoming a publisher through serendipity, and the benefits of being transparent with your development practices. Plus jokes! Gamedev in the Philippines Misc. The Top 50 mobile games of 2006 - Stuart Dredge, Pocket Gamer Spacechem - Steam GDAP (Game Developers Association of the Philippines)

#180 Dark Star Nice Games Jam 2020.06.30 No, your nice hosts aren't pitching an adaptation of the 1974 film of the same name, but returning guest host Sarah Seember Huisken counts it as an inspiration for the solo-play tabletop RPG we workshopped in this episode. Immerse yourself a galaxy of corporate factions, fluid allegiances, and space pirates! Scum and Villainy The 5 best solo board games - Rafael Cordero, PC Gamer Prompt Workshop existing solo-play TTRPG concept. Game type Tabletop game Player count 1 -? Materials Player dossier (player character/ship sheet, notes) Dice (how many?

#186 Mental Health Interview 2020.08.06 Your nice hosts are joined by nice guest Alanna Linayre, founder of the indie studio Team Toadhouse. Alanna (rhymes with "banana") guides the gaming world towards healthier work practices and personal habits. We asked her a lot of questions about best practices in mental health, and about Team Toadhouse's upcoming game Call Me Cera. Also, Mark has a mission for artists, Ellen names a canary, and Stephen learns about "hustle culture." Mental Health IRL Production Alanna’s guidelines on depicting mental illness in games: Ask yourself why you’re putting mental health issues in your game. Make sure to have correct definitions, and not promote stigmas. Try not to use trig

#179 Anarchitects! Nice Games Jam 2020.06.16 Two architects of wildly different philosophies share an office space and compete to influence the design of their client's latest project. It's an excellent sitcom premise, but it's also the subject of our latest Nice Games Jam! Photo Credit: Ian Samkov on Pexels News Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality ends with a stunning $8.1m raise… - Wesley Yin-Poole, Eurogamer For a major Star Trek fan like Mark, this episode is a rather special, if unusual, milestone. When Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode count surpassed the original Star Trek in its 80th episode, it paid homage by including a subtle reference to the

#182 "I will not threaten you with a noogie." Roundtable 2020.07.10 Guest host Charles McGregor starts the episode by getting REVENGE. The group talks a bit about the state of the growing "serious games" industry and what it's like to work alongside family members. Also, Stephen does a good transition, and... no one mentions Star Trek?! In his intro speech, Charles references episode #37: "Ugly and hard to use." The last days of Mixer - Mikhail Klimentov, The Washington Post Twitch Reckons with Sexual Assault as it Begins Permanently Suspending Streamers - Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge Twitch bans popular streamer Dr Disres

#155 Agile Development Interview 2019.11.05 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! 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 La

#175 "Kapow?" Roundtable 2020.05.19 Your nice hosts talk big picture and get deep into the weeds this week. Mark runs Flash at 60fps on the Switch, Ellen makes a Star Trek reference, and Stephen wants more games that aren't fun. Hey you! If you're porting a project, whether it's just to a new Unity build target, or to a whole new codebase, we want to hear about it! contact@noblerobot.com or @NiceGamesClub. GDC’s summer event will be digital only - Megan Farokhmanesh, The Verge Neat things that Star Trek Online did with Star Trek lore - Eliot Lefebvre, Messively Overpowered Fun in Games 0:11:09 Ellen Burns-Johnson

This wasn't a normal year, so in addition to your nice hosts' annual tradition of celebrating the year's "Nicest," and looking forward to the games and the gamedev in the coming year, we do another pandemic check-in, and reflect on the how the show has been one of the stabilizing forces in our lives. PLUS: We reveal this year's hiatus project! Local Releases (2020) 0:20:56 News HyperDot Elemetals Widget Satchel (in Japan) Color Jumper (on Switch) Death Drives a Bus Astral Gunners (in Early Access) Flailure

Everybody's favorite nice host emeritus, Martha Megarry, returns once again to the program to talk with Stephen about 4X games, Ellen delivers a book report, and Mark is disadvantaged as a player. 4X Games 0:05:08 Martha Megarry Stephen McGregor Game Design Gaming What Makes a 4X Game - "Micah ""Marlowe"" Dutro", Explorminate Welcome to CivAnon - 2K, YouTube The Best Scenarios in Civilization 6 - Sam Woodrick, GameRant 'Civilization' and Strategy Games' Progress Delusion - Gabriel Soares, Vice

We have some familiar guests this week! The Korth family (Andy, Beth, and Gabe) join us in the clubhouse to talk about the ways they play games together. Are there games that adults and four-year-olds alike can play together and enjoy? Sure! We talk about flexibility, rules, consent, "PBP," and what gamedevs should think about if they want to "toot around in the kid zone." Also, have you heard of a game called Minecraft?  Families in Games Gaming The first time the Korths were on the show was Episode #2! Steam Greenlight The second time the Korths were on the show was about a hundred episodes ago. Code Comment: "Verdant Skies" And the most recent appearance from the Korths was Episode #132.

Ellen recently gave an engaging and informative presentation at igdatc's monthly Gamedev Meeting! Plus: audience participation, bad passwords, and (if you stick around) a second dog! Also, please enjoy Mark transposing the letters "G" and "D" in "IGDA" each time he says it. He will never learn. International Game Developers Association, Twin Cities Watch other past igdatc meetings on YouTube Tips for Designing Games for Learning Ellen Burns-Johnson Events Game Design UI / UX igdatc's Gamedev Meeting for November 2020, cued up to the start of Ellen's presentation.

Holly extends her stay for another week to help your nice hosts interview Tiffany Otto, freshly sprung from government-mandated quarantine to bring her "slimy" wisdom and experience into the clubhouse. Tiffany, the Director of Partnerships for IndieCade, is over-indexed in business, but she wants to raise the index for everyone. If preparing pitch decks, scheduling business meetings, and networking with your peers seems daunting, you won't want to miss this one. Just be sure to stick around for Ellen to swoop in at the end to button it all up. Business Speak Events IRL Marketing What It’s Like to Be Quarantined on an Island Over Coronavirus Fears - Isabella Kwai, The New York Times IndieCade's "Playing TogethAR Showcase"

Holly Harrison is back in the clubhouse as Guest Host for a wide-ranging discussion on new consoles, fail states, and worldbuilding. Stephen gives a weird example, Mark makes a funny noise, and Holly invites us to Join Lobby. Plus, we only mention Star Trek once! Join Lobby - Video Game Culture Feed - Holly Harrison, Twitter Bugsnax is Dale's current game of choice Ubisoft’s toxic culture problems allegedly span more than a decade of abuse - Megan Farokhmanesh, The Verge "My dad gives his initial impressions on the PlayStation 5" - Josh Du, Twitter Why Cheaper Next-Gen Gaming is Key to Growing the Games Industry - Alysia Judge, IGN Image Mark found a way to hide his PS5 on a

Your nice host emeritus Martha Megarry returns to the (virtual) clubhouse, along with Dale LaCroix (of Evil Games Club) to celebrate 200 episodes! Each of your nice hosts have picked an episode from the past 4 years and pulled clips to listen to and discuss, expanding on the original topics. We also talk about the past, present, and future of the show, and and and... well, it's a double-length episode, so listen and find out! Did we mention we now have a Patreon? 100th Episode Special (revisit) 0:11:42 Mark LaCroix IRL Meta You heard right, we've got merch! Get your Nice Games Club t-shirt today! Favicon (pronounciation) - Wiktionary

This week: Stephen starts out British, Mark gets all the references, and Ellen makes octopus noises. We talk high-level about what it takes to make (and market) games for young children, and Mark shares some insights about comedy in games—can it be more than silly memes? Maybe! COMING SOON! PATREON?!! EPISODE 200??!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!! Games for Young Children 0:10:42 Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design Marketing Designing for Youth - Making Games for Players Under 14 - Extra Credits Designing Apps and Games for Kids (The Right Way) - Paul Armstrong, Carly Gloge, Jim Nichols, Alex Bowman, GDC Vault

The clubhouse is packed in this episode, as your nice hosts discuss the Kenyan game dev scene with developers Alila Omondi Wekoto, Denis Odero and Shyam Shah! We talk about the importance of community, the value of higher education and also argue about Xbox vs Playstation (vs Switch, slightly)! Alila brings up the episode where we interviewed Chel Wong, award winning composer who recently worked on KINE. Game Audio Tools and Workflows KINE is out on Steam now! Gamedev in Kenya Misc. Social Media: Website Twitter Instagram Games: COVID Killer Mentioned in the episode: Game Devs Kenya is running another boot camp on November 7th! Kenya has a co-working space for game developers called Nairobi Game Development Center. Here are some pictures! Image

Your nice hosts return to Roboston in a first for the program, revisiting and expanding upon on a previous Nice Games Jam game! Ellen conjures some frightening scenarios, Stephen and Mark work the numbers, and everybody loves conditional formatting. See the original rules in the show notes for Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020) Check out our cool spreadsheet of game cards and notes! Astral Gunners is available in Early Access, go get it! random.org Weird Alchemy - Board Game Geek Bagger 288 - Wikipedia Prompt Create a game where you are working together to construct a robot, but each player has a secret task they are trying to get the robot to complete along the way. Game type

This episode bops! Our guest on the show this week is Chel Wong, an award-winning game composer who has worked on several published and early-access titles, like Watch This Space and Kine. Her work on Kine earned the game the award for Best Audio at Reboot Develop Red 2019. From composing to mastering, we ask Chel to describe her preferred tools and workflows for creating music for games. Also, there is a tense debate—Galaxy or Sunshine? Meta Reboot Developed Red Conference Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) Awards   Mark mentioned that once upon a time in a previous episode, he also talked about using Reaper. "She also cheats a lot." Game Audio Tools and Workflows Category Audio   Games Kine (out on Steam October 19!) Lab Rats (a satirica