It's a Nice Postmortem! Ellen brings her instructional design colleague Mark Hamilton to discuss the development process behind the LxJamathon, a combination of both a hackathon and a game jam meant to allow instructional designers to practice their skills! Find out what went well and what didn't in this fascinating look into the event.Postmortem: "LxJamathon"ProductionInstructional Design Reddit - RedditInstructional Design Discord - DiscordLxJamathon Website - Ellen Burns-Johnson and Mark Hamilton, LxJamathonLxJamathon itch.io - Ellen Burns-Johnson and Mark Hamilton, itch.ioMidwest Mysteries - The Oscaloose - SoundCloudLxJamathon Entries - itch.ioA Simple Guide to Four Popular Online Learning Formats - Nameera Sallum, CommLab IndiaMark HamiltonGuestMark Hamilton is a instructional media developer and studio manager for the University of Iowa. External linkMark Hamilton on LinkedInEllen Burns-JohnsonYour Nice HostGuestBy day, Ellen Burns-Johnson is a learning experience designer (LXD) and consultant. With more than a decade of experience in the education and training industries, she has crafted the instructional strategy and design for dozens of major initiatives across diverse topics, from classroom safety to IT sales. Emphasizing collaboration and playfulness in her approach to creating learning experiences, Ellen’s work has earned multiple awards for interactivity and gameful design.By night (and on the weekends) Ellen stays as plugged into the Twin Cities Gamedev scene as she’s able to, contributing to game jam teams and local projects. She was a level designer and “explosion czar” on Widget Satcheland a designer/producer for a few different Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam teams.Ellen lives in Saint Paul with her husband Eric and their two dogs, Dante and Pixel. Ellen is terrible at racing games, she always picks the sniper build, and she loves a good puzzle/platformer.External linkEllen on LinkedInEllen on Twitter

Game designer Monica Fan joins us this week for a Nice Games Jam that is extra-mischievous and extra-cute. There's drama amongst the roommates, and we're pretty sure the cat's to blame. But can we prove it? Can your Nice Hosts (and Nice Guest) make a playable prototype by the end of the episode? How many times will Stephen say "meow" before the outro rolls? So many questions!Monica Fan @DesignerMonica - TwitterWait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - NPRHere's the best way to shuffle a pack of cards – with a little help from some m… - Graham Kendall, phys.orgPromptFrom Dale this time: "Design a game where you discover clues and have to solve a mundane mystery. Bonus points if there is a cat in it. EXTRA bonus point if it's the cat who did it!"Game typeCard gamePlayer count4MaterialsStandard deck of playing cardsCoins or tokens to indicate the accumulation of blameOPTIONAL: A real cat to sit in the middle of the game tableSetupSort the deck by suit. Pull out the Aces and Jokers and set them aside. You'll use the Aces in a minute, but not the Jokers.Remove six random cards from three of the suits (Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds) and set those aside for the game.Shuffle the remaining cards into a deck and pull a random card from the deck. Don't look at it! This is the card that determines Who Really Did The Thing. Set it aside and don't peek until the end of the game.Set the rest of the deck aside for a moment.Deal the Aces randomly to determine which players get each suit. Whoever gets the Ace of Hearts is the Cat. Once roles are determined, you can ignore the Ace cards, but it's useful for players to hold onto them as a reminder of what suit they have.Deal each Human player two cards face-down. Deal the Cat player four cards face-down. Players can look at their cards but should not show their hands to the other players.Place the deck of remaining cards face-down in the center of the table. This is the draw pile.Place a pile of Blame tokens somewhere on the table so people can grab them (or throw them) as needed.RulesGOAL: Pin the blame on someone else! Once a player has accumulated 3 Blame tokens, they are GUILTY and the game ends.Go around the table clockwise, taking turns. Each player can take one action on their turn; it's a fast-moving game of blame!Player ActionsCat-only actions:Take a card from a human; the Cat chooses which card to take (without looking at the human's hand)Give a card to a humanMake an accusation by playing three cards of the same suit (the Cat must play three cards to make an accusation)Cat must meow when making a play…or maybe through the whole game?The Cat cannot draw cards from the deckHuman-only actions:Draw from the deckTrade with each other; the player who initiated the trade is the one who selects which card to take from the other player’s hand (without looking at their hand)Play a pair (it's easier for humans to make accusations)Making an accusation:A Human plays a pair of cards from the same suit, or the Cat plays three cards from the same suit. This is the Accusation.The player whose Ace matches the suit from the Accusation receives a Blame token.The first person to accumulate three Blame tokens is considered GUILTY, and this ends the game.Winning the game:Technically, you win if you don't end up as the guilty party, but there's more to it!Reveal the hidden card that you set aside during setup. The whole group wins if the right person got the blame. Yay!The Cat can feel extra good if they were the real culprit, but one of the Humans was found GUILTY.The Humans can feel extra good if one of them was the real culprit, but the Cat was found GUILTY. Congrats; you can all continue to live harmoniously as roommates.StrategiesHold onto the cards that are evidence against you.Play cards that are evidence against others.The Cat, who has the most cards, is likely to know who the guilty party is.

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"ProductionInfernax - TwitterJust Shapes and BeatsBerzerk StudioAs promised, Hunter's PO Box: PO Box 10275, Albuquerque, NM 87184Hunter BondGuestMike DucarmeGuest

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 TableEolia 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 PocketStar 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

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."The definition of truncate is “to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short”  - Dictionary.com“9 to 5” - Dolly Parton, YouTubeWork WeeksProductionArmor Games adopts four-day work week permanently - Brendan Sinclair, GamesIndustry.bizAugust’s previous employer, KongregateAugust is now doing platform relations at Armor GamesAugust was on a previous interview episodeDeveloper/Publisher RelationsJohn Cooney (Armor Games CEO) Twitter thread on the four-day workweek results - John Cooney, TwitterGDC 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, NPRAugust BrownGuestAugust is a Senior Producer at Armor Games Studios. Formerly a Senior Producer for Kongregate Publishing.External linkTwitter

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 GamesIndie Boards and Cards0:10:25Games With Your DogsTreibball (push ball) - giant football for dogs!Naturally Happy DogsYouTubeGetting started and teaching 'outside'FluentPetYouTubeHere's a picture of Ellen's dogs!

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 GatheringYerba Buena GardensIGF 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

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 Coding0:05:33Building Assets and PluginsCharles was last on the show on this episode about Level Editors.Level EditorsCharles destroys his brother on the airRewired Unity PluginGuavamanUnity Asset StorePlaymaker Add-onsHutong GamesManaged Plug-insUnity0:37:26Ink EngineInk EngineInkle StudiosInk Unity IntegrationInkle Studios

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 CodingProgrammingToolsPlaymaker - Hutong Games, Unity Asset StoreBolt - Unity, Unity Asset StoreBlueprint Visual Scripting - Unreal EngineProcessingScratch - MIT10 Most Nostalgic Flash Games From The Early 2000s - Samuel Williams, CBRStephen J. Guy, Director, Applied Motion Lab - University of MinnesotaZebraZappsWe mentioned a previous interview episode with Freya Holmer,Self-education, et al.Alina MatsonGuestBioExternal linkAlina on TwitterFitment websiteFitment Discord serverFitment on Twitter

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).André 3000 on the 10th anniversary of his ‘Class of 3000’ soundtrack - David Dennis Jr., AndscapeHint, hint... - Mike Rose, Twitter0:13:18Milestone BuildsMilestoneWikipedia0:46:47Wikis and GuidesHow to pause Elden RingJeffrey ParkinPolygon