Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

In this episode, your nice hosts celebrate 100 episodes of Nice Games! We reminisce a bit on how the podcast has been going and go behind the scenes on what it takes to release one of the episodes.Thanks for listening to us 100 times!0:00:27100th Episode Special Our evil counterparts, Evil Games Club, have released two episodes so far...Evil Games Club! and this one Evil Games Club 2!Martha in the recording studio aka "Clubhouse"StephenThe Microphones we use to record.The audio interface (hardware) we use to record

This week’s episode is another edition of Code Comment, where your nice hosts look at the project, code, assets, and design of an indie game in development to see how it’s made.This week, we are joined by Lane Davis, Charles McGregor and our co-host Stephen McGregor to take a look behind the scenes of their cooperative shoot-em-up Fingeance! Lane shows us how he and Stephen design levels for different difficulties, Stephen explains how they use 'Object Pooling' to spawn bullets and Charles breaks down his music tracks to show us how he sets the emotion for each level. It's the episode that is definitely three three three!Video

This week, a listener gives Martha a great topic, Mark establishes a Do-ocracy, and Stephen has trouble with transitions.0:05:48Developing IdeasThe book Martha recommended is "If You Want to Write" by Brenda Ueland. It has been described as "the best book ever written about how to write" but its advice applies equally well to all types of creative work.0:36:10Game Dev Success

This week on Nice Games Club we interview VR Developer Andrew Fladeboe about his dream-like VR experience/thesis project Oneirogen! We explore the infinite and paradigm changing possibilities of VR, learn how Andrew brought his virtual experience into the real world as an installation and get his advice for creating change- make more weird art!Picture is a screenshot of Oneirogen by Andrew FladeboeVirtual RealityVR / AR / XROneirogen on SteamAlchemists - WikipediaJoseph Campbell - WikipediaCarl JungCave of Forgotten Dreams film by Werner Herzog

This week on Nice Games Club your nice hosts discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of Level Design and Heads Up Displays. Mark has opinions about Sonic, Stephen picks his hill to die on and Martha brings in a pinch hitter.Picture from this Reddit thread on MMO HUDs0:14:19Level DesignTen Principles of Good Level Design (Part 1)Dan TaylorGame DeveloperMark and Stephen rant about Sonic the Hedgehog’s level design, but here’s a def…Satchell DrakesYouTubeKoichi Hayashida is the Level Design Director for Mario Galaxy/Director of Mario 3D Land (and lots and lots of other Marios) that Mark mentioned.The Structure of Fun: Learning from Super Mario 3D Land’s Director Christian NuttGame DeveloperBug! gameWikipedia0:53:49HUDsDiegetic HUDs and UITV TropesThe Moon Fields by local dev Lunarsignals

This week’s episode is another edition of Code Comment, where your nice hosts look at the project, code, assets, and design of an indie game in development to see how it’s made.This week, we look at our first non-Unity project (!!!) as Mark walks us though the ActionScript codebase of Metro Nexus, his in-development homage to the classic(?) arcade-era game City Connection. We also look at the art asset workflow Mark designed for the game.Video

This week, Martha admits to piracy, Stephen tells Nintendo to just stop making GameCube controllers already, and Mark tells his favorite video game story which is about buttons because Mark is boring.Amazing Mario 3 Speedrun Is Full Of Setbacks And Sportsmanship - Heather Alexandra, Kotaku0:11:31Language of GamesWhen snarky players still want to give info against the GM’s wishes, you get th…@SeiWotTwitterStop, Drop, and Heal: The history of regenerating health”Jeff DunnGamesRadarAn article from the developers of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst on the new Runner’s Vi…EAThe Sony PlayStation’s buttons get explained by their designer John BrownleeGeek.comThe Japanese Side of the PlayStation Button Confusion Richard EisenbeisKotakuThe passion of the checkpoint: Why gaming's most frustrating failure is so hard…Ben KucheraPolygonWe played the convention-defying game OneShot on our very first Nice Plays episode.Nice Plays: OneShot (2016)Rami Ismail documented his mother’s playing through new games on Twitter.@tha_ramiTwitter1:07:25SequelsThe MIT Dropouts Who Created Ms. Pac-Man: A 35th-Anniversary Oral HistoryBenj Edwards Fast CompanyTV Tropes has a list of spiritual successors in video games.TV Tropes

The clubhouse welcomes back Lane Davis and new guest Gloria Kim to discuss developing and releasing a visual novel in 2018. We talk through the process of creating their visual novel, Ruler by Default, as well as hear their insights about being successful in the genre.Visual NovelsGame DesignMarketingNarrativeTake a look at "Ruler by Default'"'s funded Kickstarter campaign.Buy "Ruler by Default" on Steam now - Steam

This week, your nice hosts cover the topics of Rogue-likes and Crowdfunding while sneaking in a third topic about E3.In this episode, Mark discusses his previous crowdfunding campaigns, Stephen discovers his new love for an old genre and Martha proposes a new E3 uniform rule.[0:00:28] E3Here’s the official E3 recap website if you missed any news.The Real Stories Behind E3’s Glossy Game Demos - Patrick Klepek, KotakuHitRecord, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and the #nospec backlash - Jeff Ramos, Polygon0:29:45RoguelikesAn article on the The Berlin Interpretation of Roguelikes from the Internationa…Game Set WatchWe covered procedural generation in a previous episode: "Mutual butt-kicking." 0:57:47CrowdfundingStar Citizen, I am disappointedRobert PurcheseEurogamerThe Double Fine Adventure! documentary series is available on Youtube.Fig is a newer option for game developers to get funding.Mark loved WHAT THE GOLF?, already funded through Fig!We talked about Steam Greenlight with the Korth family in their interview episode.Steam GreenlightHatchfund has helped many artists become successfully funded as well.

This week’s episode is another edition of Code Comment, where your nice hosts look at the project, code, assets, and design of an indie game in development to see how it’s made.This week, we scamper though Widget Satchel, a mascot-based platformer Mark and Stephen are working on. We took a look at the game right in our Ludum Dare Extravaganza Nice Play episode but the team has done so much more work since then! Learn all about the cool tools Mark coded to help Stephen build levels quickly, how mischief physics works, and more!We took a look at the game right in our Ludum Dare Extravaganza Nice Play episode but the team has done so much more work since then!Nice Plays: Ludum Dare 40 games (2017)Video