Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

#15"We are artists and we should be artists."Roundtable2017.03.13A day late but worth the wait! In this high signal-to-noise roundtable episode, each member of the club picks a topic that they are particularly passionate about:Stephen shares his wisdom and guidance about playtesting your work early and often, Martha helps you get your act together in a practical discussion about project management, and Mark tries to explain the obligation he feels as an artist, but picks a weird hill to die on as he wrongly insists that Portal 2 isn't really about anything.We're trying to make the show even better and we need your input! Be nice and visit our feedback form to tell us what you think!Ice Cold Games@zacharyjohnsonNIce Games Club Feedback FormDemoing and Playtesting0:03:27Stephen McGregorProductionProject Management0:33:26Martha MegarryProductionToolstrelloAgile Development - WikipediaWaterfall Development - WikipediaKanban Development - WikipediaThe Blue Yarn - 99% Invisible - The Blue Yarn, 99% InvisibleNUMMI (2015) - NUMMI, This American LifeDavid Megarry's Three Questions all project managers should ask: “Do you have all the resources you need?" "Do you have any roadblocks or impediments?" "Are you on schedule?”“A project manager (PM) is more of a problem solver than anything else. If you don’t have the resources, the PM finds them. If there are roadblocks, the PM helps to find a way to get around them. If not on schedule, the PM alters it or adds more resources or changes scope. Above all, the PM communicates with management as to the state of the project so they can make proper decisions and not be blindsided or surprised.” -David MegarryMessages and Meanings0:52:56Mark LaCroixGame DesignSummerland - Michael Chabon, NovelA Closer Look at How Three Assassin's Creed Games Have Handled Slavery - Evan Narcisse, KotakuFor Honor's accidental alt-right connection - Allegra Frank, Polygon

#42"You can see the cabbage in it."Roundtable2017.08.30It's a slightly experimental show this week, as we try to see what a two-topic episode looks like. Also, Martha defends her love of coleslaw, Stephen still doesn't really like VR, and Mark has almost completely lost his voice.Discuss this week's episode on Reddit in r/gamedev here.Video Game Immersion0:05:54Stephen McGregorGamingOur pal and VR innovator Andrew Fladeboe.Representation and Embodiment in Virtual Reality - Jorge Albor, PopMattersWould You Kindly Read This Article on Gaming’s Greatest Plot Twist? - Mike Diver, ViceOur recent episode of Nice Plays: OneShot - Nice Games Club, YouTubeEnhancing VR Immersion with the CPU in Star Trek: Bridge Crew - Cristiano F, Intel DevelopersCognitive Flow: The Psychology of Great Game Design - Sean Baron, Game DeveloperWhy Sonic the Hedgehog is awful, and always has been - Ryan Brown, MIrrorRequiem, a “roleplaying” mod for The Elder Scrolls: SkyrimMark is up to 118 shrines in Breath of the Wild. Stephen is not happy.Main Menus and First Impressions0:39:27Mark LaCroixUI / UXWhy do console games require a button press before showing the main menu? - StackExchangeGame Design: Splash Screen - Jesse Freeman, MediumThe Ten Commandments Of Video Game Menus - Kirk Hamilton, KotakuWe didn’t get a chance to talk about it in the episode, but here is a cool brea… - Mike Fahey, Kotaku

#88The Gaming PressInterview2018.05.29Stephen is away showing off his games at the Anime Central convention, so we're also joined this week by our new permanent guest host and self-proclaimed "mean old lady," Holly Harrison, who was a guest on a previous episode!For an episode 18 months in the making, Ben Hanson, video producer for Game Informer and host of the excellent gaming podcast The Game Informer Show, finally enters the clubhouse for a wide-ranging discussion about which games and developers get the attention of the gaming press, developing games for modern audiences, and creative leadership in both AAA and indie teams.The Gaming PressGamingIRLMarketingHere is the fabled tweet that started the long road to this episode.Subscribe to The Game Informer Show via RSS (podcast) or on YouTube.Get more of Ben's unimpeachable wisdom on Twitter!How A Japanese Reality TV Show About Nothing Became A Global Hit - Mia Nakaji Monnier, BuzzfeedBen mentioned a clubhouse favorite game by a local developer, Color Jumper (on …Enjoy Martha's famous crab dance!Where the Water Tastes Like Wine Postmortem - Johnnemann Nordhagen, MediumBen mentioned the Easy Allies podcastAlan Alda's Experiment: Helping Scientists Learn To Talk To The Rest Of Us - Lulu Garcia-Navarro, NPR

#10"Try it once."Roundtable2017.01.30Our 10th(!!!) episode has your nice hosts teetering on the edge of not-so-niceness as they each describe something they just don't get (or don't quite like) in gaming, and hope the other two can bring them around.Watching Games0:01:28Mark LaCroixGamingIRLEVO Fighting Game TournamentThe Controversial Dichotomy Between Sports and eSports - Jesse Aaron, Huffington PostAchievement Hunter - Rooster TeethThe Best of Modern Warfare Mythbusters - Defend teh House, YouTubeContradiction: Spot the Liar! - Giant BombHer Story"On Let's Plays" - That Dragon, CancerNarrative in Games0:13:00Stephen McGregorNarrativeLudonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock - Click NothingHow many times can you enter the cell? - Batman: Arkham Knight - YouTubePortal 2 - funniest quotes - ultrasoftcore, YouTubeThe Stanley ParableBrothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Ending - Epilogue - YouTubeBoard Games0:29:27Martha MegarryTabletopDungeon! (created by Martha's dad, David Megarry)Animal Town Games: Save the Whales, Dam Builders, Nectar CollectorEvolutionStar Trek: AscendancyPuerto RicoPandemicFlashpoint

#8"Will you be the best with me?"Roundtable2017.01.23Some firsts in this episode: Our first iTunes review (thanks, Abdiwak!), our first episode of interconnected topics, and our first big ideological disagreement (ooo, drama!).Gaming Mastery0:01:33Gamer Motivation Profile quiz - Quantic FoundryStrategy Guides and Wikis0:20:45Martha MegarryGamingTools(Martha) Pokemon Crystal guide - Nintendo Power(Stephen) Donkey Kong Country 2 guideNintendo Power's Dragon Warrior giveaway - Press the ButtonsDesigning Party Games0:38:30Mark LaCroixGame DesignUltimate Chicken HorseWe Didn’t Playtest This At All!SpaceteamJackbox Party PackSave the WhalesSushi Go!Overcooked

In this week's episode, Mark tackles optimization and Martha attempts to Catch 'em all.Widget Satchel is coming to PC and consoles!TASCAM stands for "TeacAudioSystemsCorporationAmerica."0:04:53OptimizationAvoiding Unity Update LoopsBrad KeysMark put his Timer class on GitHubGitHubUnity editor Extensions -The power of OnValidateCJF incStatic Constructors (C# Programming Guide)We talked about the Widget Satchel in a Code Comment EpisodeCode Comment: "Widget Satchel"McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!@mcclure111TwitterVerdent Skies Code CommentCode Comment: "Verdant Skies"ExecuteInEditMode will run your script in edit modeThe Knights of UnityMark was able to quickly find this animated GIF in his archives. He made this 3D model of a lizard creature in the Summer of 1998 (it pre-dates Pokémon's arrival in the US!) using a Windows 95 program called Micrografx Simply 3D.Renaming Serialized FieldsLeonardo CarneiroUnityTexturePacker - Code + Web SoftwareCode and Web0:54:18PokémonPokémon dual-type charts.Pokémon Y Nuzlocke Challenge PolygonYouTubePokémon Snap was ahead of its timeJenna StoeberPolygonDr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean MachineWikipedia23 Of The Weirdest Pokémon Kyle HilliardGame Informer

This week on Nice Games Club we talk all about the labor of love that is making games for a living: how it can be great, how it can be not-so-great and how it could get better. Mark reports back from a conference, Martha gets on her soap box and Stephen realizes this podcast has been about documenting his career journey this entire time.Joggernauts by local developer Space Mace is on Steam and Switch!Joggernauts soundtrack by Robert Frost IIIAdobe MAX0:11:44Game Dev as a Day JobStephen works at Gamesmart!Glitch Jobs BoardGamasutra Jobs BoardGame Developer0:38:53UnionsTwin Cities Labor ChorusTelltale hit with class-action lawsuit for breaking labor lawsSamit SarkarPolygonInside Rockstar Games' Culture Of CrunchJason SchreierKotakuVox UnionGame Workers UniteIt's Time For Game Developers To UnionizeJason SchreierKotakuOpinion: Now is the time to unionize the game industryKatherine CrossGame DeveloperMyles Horton - 20th Century Union OrganizerWikipediaUnions Must Address RacismIan Haney LopezAFL-CIO Blog

Freya Holmér, co-founder of Neat Corporation (makers of VR stealth game Budget Cuts) and creator of Shader Forge, joins the clubhouse remotely from Sweden, while your nice hosts join Freya on her regular gamedev Twitch stream.Freya outlines her theory of gamedev self-education, touching on themes from her Glitchcon 2018 keynote presentation, but wait, there's more! It's an episode that ends half-way though its running time but keeps going anyway, as we branch off into a wide range of topics,  including (but not limited to): the social habits of American vs. Swedish game developers, the difference between "duck" and "crouch," accidentally building a LGBT community, and the evolutionary advantage of believing in ghosts.Self-education, et al.IRLMisc.You can also find the livestream of the podcast on Freya’s Twitch here!

On this week’s episode, your nice hosts talk with local artist/developer and VR Creative at Pixel Farm, Krista McCullough, about VR workflows and a lot more!VR WorkflowsProductionVR / AR / XRPixel Farm VRJoyce Minions on Twitter - @minionsart, TwitterSculptris (free 3D sculpting software)Mike Blackney's exploration of spline-based modelling - Twitter

This week your Nice Hosts turn the Club House into a time machine to discuss 90s consoles and listen to some wicked video game soundtracks. Mark teaches us about LaserDisc, Martha is an 8-bit jukebox and Stephen ignores sick burns on jazz. Radical!90s Slang - Bustle0:06:3590s ConsolesSolving the Zelda Timeline in 15 MinutesPolygonYouTubeBBC Domesday projectWikipedia0:38:30Video Game SoundtracksKingdom Hearts InsiderPortal (jump pad song) VideoYouTubeLouie Zhong’s BandcampPolygon Sims jazz piano videoClayton AshleyPolygon