Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1989's Bullfrog Productions hit and originator of the God Game genre, Populous. We talk about using the mouse in 1989 and dive into particular strategies and the surprising depth of the game, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Another... 5? Levels

Issues covered: the tutorial just going on, restarting a conquest, having a false sense of security in the tutorial, generating more manna early in the tutorials, games being more keyboard-only at the time, evolving use of home computers for games, adventure games/text adventures and interfaces, figuring out the input interface, hard-to-use mouse input, the Taurus/Torus mix-up that gave us Bullfrog Productions, the PC platform space in 1989, RTS improvements to help navigate, keyboard controls, figuring things out on the second or third game, unanticipated phases to the game, avoiding arcadey controls by indirection, slow manna generation, the costs of raising land, the dangers of flooding, leaving a lone knight errant to decimate the enemy, the enemy flooding himself, unanticipated stories, flooding yourself to kill the enemy, the ways the AI cheats, rubberbanding of a sort, using swamps and earthquakes to disrupt the enemy, papal magnet management, the impact of the map, how to analyze a map for an RTS, developing a simple unit-based AI, the Game of Life/cellular automata approach to AI, focusing on knights, using the gather behavior to make tougher nights, how much space castles take up and the borders around them, the macro around score and how far to advance in the 500 levels of Populous, how would one speedrun Populous, modern descendants of the game, loving having Molyneux in the industry, "to think, it all started with baked beans," machine speed in DosBox, not adjusting for time in old video games, what is an honorific, honorifics and first-person identification in Japanese, observing sexism as potentially embedded in the writing alphabet, gendered particles/radicals and similarities to Romance languages.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Prince of Persia, Civilization, Ultima (series), Doom (series), Quake, King's Quest, Space Quest, LucasArts, Dark Forces, Ultima Underworld, Duke 3D, Amiga, Peter Molyneux, World of Warcraft, 22 Cans, EA, Microsoft, Fusion, SNES, SimAnt, Game Developer, Warcraft, Dune, Command & Conquer, Game of Life, John Conway, Darwinia, WarGames, Introversion Software, DEFCON, Uplink, Prison Architect, Scanner Sombre, Godus, Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube, Dungeon Keeper, Fable (series), Mr. Beast, Chris Corry, Syndicate, Johnny Pockets, Chrono Trigger, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Harry Potter, George Orwell, allthosewhowander.org, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
More Populous

Link:
That Italian translation article I mention

Note:
It is in fact possible to navigate the view window with the number pad. But the number pad does in fact control the viewport scrolling. The problem is, the number pad and the mouse are typically both controlled with the right hand.

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a series on the Bullfrog classic Populous. We set the game in its time and place and talk a little bit about Bullfrog and the different directions simulation games were going, driven by different designers, before talking a little bit about the weirdnesses of this game proper. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Tutorial and First Battle

Podcast breakdown:
0:51 Populous
1:03:48 Break
1:04:17 Feedback

Issues covered: welcoming Tim back and a discussion of his trip, 1989 in video games, a little discursion into Midwinter, creating the God Game, the immense sales of Populous, the Bullfrog game legacy, absorbing smaller developers into a larger publisher, the different directions that simulations were going under different developers, geographic distinctions, creating genres, limitations in processing power and UI representations, trying Populous in 1992 without a manual, the tutorial in the manual, failing the tutorial, the UI representation, performance concerns and filling the space, raising and lowering terrain, overloading icon use, the pause menu, GDC Lifetime Achievement Award, trying to figure out the best way to do a thing, influencing a game vs controlling the game, reading the map, using cartographic techniques in lieu of shading, killing the enemies indirectly, making your leader into a knight, mixing religious iconography, "we" are good and "they" are evil, the macro of the game, the way characters become stronger, overloading the use of the bars on the shield, lowering land to prevent a new leader forming, raising land to create a path for your knight, visual novel recommendations, an update on Pockets the Great, how deep the Civ rabbit hole goes, finding appropriate mentors, not always having the answer, listening to and asking questions of a report, the Socratic method, getting to know your people, setting Phoenix Wright in LA for a Western market, regional dialects, Shu Takumi's dog.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Revenge of Shinobi, Phantasy Star II, Golden Axe, Herzog Zwei, NES, River City Ransom, Castlevania III, Mother (Earthbound Beginnings), Final Fight, Strider, Xbox One, Nintendo GameBoy, Super Mario Land, SimCity, Midwinter, Minesweeper, Prince of Persia, Stunt Car Racer, Commodore 64, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, LucasFilm Games, The Colonel's Bequest, Roberta Williams, Batman, Bullfrog Productions, Peter Molyneux, Fusion, Amiga, Black & White, Lionhead, Microsoft, EA, Dark Forces, Dungeon Keeper, Powermonger, Syndicate, Syndicate Wars, Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Theme Hospital, 22 Cans, Godus, Origin Systems, LucasArts, Maxis, The Sims, Spore, Will Wright, Respawn Entertainment, Sid Meier, Civilization, Ultima Underworld, Warcraft, Rogue, MYST, Richard Garriott, Looking Glass, id Software, Tropico (series), Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk, Ben "from Iowa" Zaugg, Danganronpa, 999, Nonary Games, Jonathan Stoler, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Nolan Filter/irreverentQ, Murder by Numbers, Picross, Johnny Grattan/Pockets, Morrowind/Arena/Daggerfall, Brian, Republic Commmando, Nick Faulhaber, Shu Takumi, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Five (?) more battles?

Links:
Amusingly enough, it *was* a Populous postmortem talk where I first heard Peter's anecdote

Shu Takumi's Pomeranian

Errata:
Thank you for playing... Wing Commander!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our series on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. This week we talk about the final original case, particularly looking at the growing complexity of the story, and then turn to our takeaways and feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Turnabout Goodbyes

Podcast breakdown:
0:48 Phoenix Wright Case 4
59:57 Break
1:00:34 Takeaways and Feedback

Issues covered: being novelistic and weaving through multiple narratives, intricate backstories coming together, wanting the macro arc, ending on a high note, developing character empathy, the impact of one event on many lives, wanting to have a character introduced earlier, feeling a greater sense of the world, the Castlevania-lookin' character, goofy gourds, Edgeworth staying a little too quiet, potential professional embarrassment and guilt and shame, a common setup for a mystery, turning expectations on its head, where is this game set?, Lotta Hart, layers of motivation, getting stuck in a cross, the puzzle of getting to a bit of conflicting evidence and when, when to press and when to present, the way information enters into the world, looking for tells, the localization nightmare when language is so ambiguous, localization as design, animation tells, the case room, the police tools, Missile the Shiba Inu, what the police tools do, finding Larry's CO2 compression canister, working back from the one idea, establishing Yanni Yogi's identity and his own knowledge of it, the Chewbacca effect, economy driving connection, raising the stakes, the boss battle with von Karma, how are you going to get to von Karma, the riddle of the one bullet, von Karma's shoulder-grabbing pose, being careful to work within your constraints, deepening von Karma's "Objection", the screaming and head-banging, "the evidence was in you all along," a possible plot hole, what's "fair," realizing a connection, using every part of the animal to emphasize drama, doing a lot with a little, the hallmarks of a novel, anime/manga treatment of the courtroom procedural, making the rules part of the drama, what you marry to the adventure game to breathe new life in, a different take on the adventure game, JRPG to Western RPG, being careful about what you bring from a genre, asking whether a thing is necessary, Brett's Book Recommendation, a shout-out to a listener, fast-forwarding through random combat, the one-handed version of this game, playing the touch-screen, All Those Who Wander.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: X-Files, Castlevania, Bird Box, Josh Malerman, Sandra Bullock, Star Wars, Hotel Dusk, Secret of Monkey Island, Halo 1, Misery, Shinji Mikami, Resident Evil, Tango Gameworks, Zenimax, The Evil Within, Platinum, Eliza, Danganronpa, Richard Lloyd Parry, The People Who Eat Darkness, Mark Sean Garcia, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy XII, Matt A, Nintendo Wii, Kingdom Hearts, Yakuza (series), Persona 5, Ben "from Iowa" Zaugg, Hollow Knight, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
Tim off on his trip

Next time:
...? We will let you know.

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Capcom's 2001 Japanese GBA title/2005 US DS title Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. We revisit the history just a bit before diving into this next case, talking about "detectiving" and adventure game tropes (and how/whether they work here), as well as various ways in which the game pushes its mechanics before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Case 3

Issues covered: a bit of correction and elaboration, the cost or lack thereof of pressing, the kid with no respect for the law, quick case recap, a slight change in structure, wondering whether Phoenix was defending a murderer, the personal stake in the case, demanding a lot of the legal system, growing the space you investigate, expanding into a detection game, deductions that are there to confound you, tricking the player, having to revisit places just to move characters, rebuilding logic after the fact, being thrown off by details that turn out to be meaningless, wanting fast travel, having clear ideas of what should happen in the game and not knowing what to do to trigger them, text adventure hold-overs, hesitating to change genre design, expanding the use of "evidence," stretching the interface, audio and visual upgrades, the arguments for remasters vs remakes, the high quality music, adding motion graphics in this case, feeling more engaged in the investigation mechanics, using a small amount of character animation budget to good effect, the slide mechanic in areas, missing support for a second stick, good moments with Edgeworth, adversarial legal systems, wanting the truth, adding S-Rank, why did we even go there?, how much we don't know about the legal system, lawyer's badges, more about the sexism, future supernatural stuff, Tim is possessed by the spirit of his wife, being conditioned to apologize for systemic issues, localization issues with various places, generally trying to abide to cultural sensitivity, questions of centrality, wanting to have the conversation and pushback, getting pushback in concept and pushing back yourself, censorship vs companies and creators, the difficulty as a creator of having your work looked at, curating how games are made, shouting into your DS, pronouncing names properly, AllThoseWhoWander.org, Tim's small trip.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Portopia Serial Murder Case, Yuji Horii, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Border of this World, Wolverine, Angela Lansbury, Murder She Wrote, Hotel Dusk, Trauma Center, Matlock, Sherlock Holmes, Capcom, GBC/GBA/DS, Ben "from Iowa" Zaugg, SamSpot, Kingdom Hearts, Gran Turismo, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, Dagur Danielsson, Persona 4/5, Edwin, Matt A, The Muppets, Shaun, 8-4 Play podcast, Star Wars, Halo 5, Dragon's Crown, Judgement/Yakuza series, World of Warcraft, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
The importance of lawyer lapel pins

AllThoseWhoWander.org

Next time:
Case 4

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on Capcom's 2001 Japanese GBA title/2005 US DS title Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. We talk a bit about the year, the visual novel as a form we're not all that familiar with, although we've each played at least one, and then dive into the game properly before turning to reviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Cases 1 & 2

Podcast breakdown:
0:48 PW Discussion
1:02:38 Break
1:03:16 Reviews & Feedback

Issues covered: looking at the history of the visual novel, crime scene base, the combination of visual novel elements with other action elements, companion quests as visual novel, the split between adventure game types from different cultures (like RPGs and JRPGs), the limits of a handheld vs the early 80s PCs, good fit for the DS, the rampant sexism, the distraction of the sexism, stereotypes/archetypes used to involve the player efficiently, lack of subtlety, production realities, dating game history, where you put your development dollars, showing the crime and the killer up-front, dramatic irony, knowing you have to press the villain, scrubbing back and forth and evaluating when you want to present, being able to see the evidence at any point, a brief discussion about the Japanese legal system, similarities to turn-based combat, stripping down the mystery to expose the mechanics, adding in the investigation/adventure game mode, coming up with a theory of the crime, finding the evidence, the burdens on the prosecution vs the defense, adding in the pressing mechanic, seeing characters progressively crack, animating the characters in a way fitting to the hardware, having the fighting game rhythms, using manga aesthetics for pacing, Brett objects to the supernatural elements as unnecessary, would historians really thank us?, making the margin too small for dates, possible localization issues, Brett objects to the lighting in the office vs the hotel room, being open to what the game wants from me rather than what I know, finding what the game wants, seeking out the aha moment, following the wrong leads, red herrings, stuffing too much into the initial couple hours of a game, missing a core mechanic, two old men with their vision issues, exhaustible dialog elements vs a different style in PW:AA, RPGs trying to replicate D&D, verisimilitude of a game's dialog, parser-based early Ultima games, different ways of presenting dialog, lifting into a different level of story space abstraction, the hidden costs of moving to voice, the loss of the parser, money finds a way.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Republic Commando, Capcom, GBA/Nintendo DS, Portopia Serial Murder Case, Enix, Square, Hotel Dark, Trauma Center (series), Professor Layton (series), Policenauts, Hideo Kojima, Bioware, Mass Effect (series), Doki Doki Literature Club, Space Quest/King's Quest, Sierra, Scott Adams, Devil May Cry, Ico, GTA III, Animal Crossing, Civ III, Halo, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Final Fantasy X, Onimusha: Warlords, Shenmue II, Dreamcast, Pikmin, Advance Wars, Starfighter, Luigi's Mansion, GameCube, Xbox, Dream Daddy, L.A. Noire, Infocom, Deadline, Law & Order, Medium, Profiler, Numb3rs, SamSpot101, Ben Zaugg, 999, Danganronpa, Kingdom Hearts, Hunt A Killer, LucasArts, Day of the Tentacle, Sam Thomas, Walker Farrell, Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Divinity: Original Sin, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, Dungeons & Dragons, Ultima, Reed Knight, Ken Rolston, Mark Crowe, Jurassic Park, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Case 3

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we at last complete our series on Republic Commando, with an interview with technical artist Jeremie Talbot, now at Pixar as a Characters Supervisor. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:53 Interview
1:12:01 Break
1:12:35 Feedback

Issues covered: growing up in Canada, going to college in the states, interning for Alias, bartering skills with a weather station, starting at a company that dissolved, joining up with LucasArts, maintaining family relationships through video games, "When you're working on a game, nothing is done until it ships," breaking the game every day, team alchemy, people who didn't fit into silos, the various aspects of character art, "The Puppet Department," specialization, the lubrication that makes it go, the technology in the way, becoming technical to get it out of the way, just wanting to make the thing, "nobody knew what they were doing," losing connection points through specialization, creating tiger teams, agile-style methodology, military manuals for terminology, wanting to dig in and make stuff as well, having technical chops, the pink baby arms, adding raindrops to the head, safe experimentation, animation compression and "we need to," being the communication chain, wanting to also make the stuff, the internal video that was good enough to release, taking things from the game and turning it into the video, doing a whole scripted video to cut together, prototyping through video, the genesis of the prologue, baby hands baby hands baby hands, having some direction for the story, being able to lean into them being clones, reuse to make things feel big, a good team functioning well, building excitement making a thing happen, being inspired instead of checking the box, staying apart from the LucasArts madness, "there's no way they're not gonna release this," scratching a Star Wars itch, thinking back about process and alchemy, the feeling of something accidental that was actually designed, wondering if it's even going to work, the payoff of thinking about team composition, the tension of company needs and project needs, giving people an opportunity gives a burst of enthusiasm, the problems with always filling the container, "the team makes the game," getting along well with people and how that makes the whole thing go, the healthy mix of seniority and new folks, leveled up Jeremie, talking about what Leia and Marcus were, Brett confesses his eye strain, our next game, taking recommendations.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LucasArts, Tippett Studio, Charlotte's Web, Spiderwick Chronicles, Enchanted, Pixar, Brave, Monsters University, Finding Dory, Onward, Dave Bogan, Sheridan College, Maryland Institute College of Art, Alias/Wavefront, Autodesk, PowerAnimator, Maya, Jonathan French, Metrolight Studios, Total Recall, Conn Peterson, Jason Armstrong, Pokemon, Full Throttle 2, Bounty Hunter, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Ian Milham, The Mandalorian, EA, Harley Baldwin, Nathan Martz, Adam Piper, Unreal, Tim Ramsay, Skyrim, Greg Knight, Paul Pierce, Paul Murphy, Brett Schulz, Loren Cox, Rebecca Perez, Daron Stinnett, the one and only person, Luke Thériault, Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, Leia/Marcus, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Ray Gresko, Rob Huebner, Justin Chin, SITH Engine, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Maniac Mansion, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Rebel Assault, INSANE, Ben "from Iowa" Zaugg, Kingdom Hearts, Animal Crossing, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, 999, Hotel Dusk, Ghost Trick, Nintendo Switch, Kotaku Splitscreen/Triple Click, Jason Schreier, Hollow Knight, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, first case

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue to flog the dead tauntaun of our series on Republic Commando, through a pair of interviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:53 Interview One
54:05 Break One
54:17 Interview Two
1:46:40 Break Two
1:45:55 Feedback

Issues covered: starting out as a theater geek, finding a job in the newspaper, faking co-op via phone, QA as the breeding ground for designers and producers, needing to staff a project after folks left, finding management talent in QA as well, the benefits of a theater education in level design, the historical areas of the Indiana Jones game (including the Aetherium), using similar research as for set design, theatricality and 3D spatial design, matching believability with fun, reallocating resources to JK's ex-pack, scripting cutscenes, Leia/Marcus engine, the long crunch of Indy, figuring out how to ship a game, sharing design amongst Daron and programmers, looking into leadership, thinking you'd come in for mission design and having so much people work, leadership vs management, moving into more of a direction role, getting to build on something you knew, choosing pillars around features, aiming for more bombast, tying missions together, wearing a producer hat as well, "90% of the challenges are people challenges," picking people for the project, wanting to work with people, skill sets and talent, diving back into the first person shooter, building consensus and going too far, finding the right boundaries for consensus, using pillars and goals to set the sandbox for discussion, giving respect to others, having the connection of the team, listening as an actor (and as a director), the trust on the stage, physics as a misstep, switching to computer science for grad school, doing military contracting in academia, Caveman Tim lifts his head, learning a million subjects all at once, remembering that first interview, getting a random offer, having no flight simulator experience, starting out playing pure flight sims, programming mission logic, figuring out how a game works from the tools, EvE (the Event Editor), knowing the LucasArts legacy, learning everything about being a professional programmer and a good collaborator, moving quickly into leadership, the internal MMO, working closely with level designers, being asked to be a lead, "the designer's programmer," having a rapport with designers (and building it), fighting for the users, learning to work with people, being able to hold the technological line, a game being too expensive to build, helping shore up technical management, helping the programmers help the designers, Brett makes an Alien reference, not being set up for failure, opportunities for growth, the potential problems of success, the conundrum of what people make sense when on a project, the weird side effects of matrix management, we agree to never do it again, the difficulty of writing squad-style AI for varied potential parties in CRPGs, the goals of action games vs RPGs, differing fantasies, disconnect from expectations of players if you had more independence in CRPGs.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LucasArts, Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars: X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Starfighter (series), Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider (series), Microsoft, 343 Industries, Halo (series), Nintendo Wii, Jason Botta, Playstation 2, Xbox, MobyGames, Tacoma, Skyrim, Reed Knight (nee Derleth), Dan Connors, Jonny Rice, Nihilistic Software, Ray Gresko, Rob Huebner, Justin Chin, Infinite Machine, GT Interactive, Activision, Dan Pettit, Geoff Jones, Outlaws, Kevin Schmitt, Ryan Kaufman, Telltale Games, Hal Barwood, Wayne Cline, Daron Stinnett, Troy Mashburn, Rich Davis, Dave Bogan, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tim Miller, Unreal, Harley Baldwin, Tim Schafer, Full Throttle II, Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout (series), Apple ][+, Colossal Cave Adventure, Macintosh SE/80, Richard Feynman, Pixar, Doom, Quake, Diablo, MYST, Steve Ash, Aric Wilmunder, SCUMM, Steve Dauterman, Garrett James, Descent: Freespace, Chris Corry, Andrew Kirmse, Sony Online Entertainment, Star Wars Galaxies, Jesse Moore, Doug Modie, Reeve Thompson, Force Commander, Tron, David Lee Swenson, Steve Dykes, Malcolm Johnson, David Worrall, Vernon Harmon, Sam and Max: Freelance Police, The Warriors, J. Scott Peter, Alien, Battlefront II, Patrick Sirk, Chris Williams, Harry Potter, EA, Nathan Martz, John Hancock, Michelle Hinners, Ashton Herrmann, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Josh Lindquist, Hollow Knight.

Next time:
A final(?) interview

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we just keep on rolling about Republic Commando, on which both of your hosts worked. This week we talk with lead animator Dave Bogan, about his journey into the industry and what stuck out for him on this project, among many other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:44 Interview
1:19:32 Break
1:20:05 Feedback

Issues covered: our rampant professionalism, stepping in the right potholes, taking an early liking to art, half arts school/half regular high school, finding out you're not a draftsman, learning about animation, having industry professionals for teachers, not knowing you can work in games, putting in the devotion and the time, a little who's who of great LucasArts artists, making a choice based on comedy and drawing, early experience on CMI and other titles, getting a title axed, finding roles for people rather than laying them off, getting involved in a project and working with other people, doing what you have to to ship, not having a plan and realizing: we always need to have a plan, taking on additional responsibility, the limitations of some of early characters, eyes and face and hands for animation, where one of the animators went, looking for an opportunity as a lead, thinking about how characters behave before you see them, getting expectations set, being intimidated by Daron Stinnett, looking at the competition, feeling elevated by Daron, the excellence of the animation team, learning from Joe Bacciocco, trigger discipline, when good behavior meets up with video game needs, how much an expert cared for people, using soldier expertise, composition and correctness, translating the authenticity, a well-integrated and organized animation team, the Trandoshan who runs at you like a gorilla, having to tell Dave no, various games they thought about post-SWRC, being afraid of not doing a Jedi game, being a pragmatist, lacking strife, having real characters, wanting stories at the forefront, Brett's Book Recommendation, being a salve in tough times, the hidden co-op version of Republic Commando.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Obi-Wan, Escape from Monkey Island, Rogue Squadron, Telltale Games, The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, Fame, Degrassi Street, Amanda Stepto, This Is Spinal Tap, Tara Campbell, Sheridan College, Disney, Fox, Pixar, ILM, LucasArts, SquareSoft, Magnum PI, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kevin Boyle, Chris Miles, Graham Annable, Karen Chelini, Sangeeta Prashar, Sega/Secret Level, Starcraft, Jedi Knight, Ray Gresko, SCUMM, Derek Sakai, Mark Overney, Kevin Micallef, Chris Williams, Daron Stinnett, Eric Ingerson, Tippett Studios, Troy Molander, Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner, John Hancock, Chris Ross, Ryan Kaufman, Stephen McManus, Jeff "Pinecone" Kung, Ian Milham, Dead Space, Bret Robbins, Ascendant Studios, Justice Unlimited, Michael Stemmle, Diablo, Patrick McCarthy, Camela Boswell, Afterlife, Sean Clark, Force Commander, Factor 5, Magpie, Bounty Hunter, Armando Lluch, Cory Allemeier, Loren Cox, Matt White, Medal of Honor, Halo, Ryan Hood, Brett Schulz, Rebecca Perez, Jeremie Talbot, Nathan Martz, Joe Bacciocco, Call of Duty, Hulk Hogan, Haden Blackman, Patrick Sirk, Matt Omernick, GTA, The Force Unleashed, George Lucas, Sledgehammer Games, EA, Soul Reaver, Full Throttle 2, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, Chrono Trigger, Mark, Ultima Underworld, Super Mario RPG, Nintendo, Bill, Johnny Szary, Short Circuit.

Link:
Video of training the animators

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we are beginning to come dangerously close to spending longer talking about Republic Commando than we did playing it. This time, we get a look behind art development for Star Wars through the eyes and voices of two artists who worked on the title: Greg Knight, who was the principal concept artist for the game, and Paul Pierce, who designed the look and feel of the user interface. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:45 Interview segment
1:14:39 Break
1:15:14 Feedback

Issues covered: how Paul got his start, web design in the 90s, learning 3D modeling, how Greg got his start, the ubiquity of LucasFilm in Marin, making an important connection and getting an unstoppable recommendation, the importance of art in establishing a game, the design of HUDs and menus, the distinction between UX and UI, how UI art got into the game, iterating the UI in response to the game you're building, starting out as a texture artist, imagining rooms as a whole and getting noticed for your control of tone, an exciting time to learn about concept art, being a force multiplier for the art team, the need for concept art with rising fidelity, keeping cohesive style and flow in the art by use of concept art as well as art direction, differences with film, what immersive experiences mean for content, lacking control of camera, good ideas coming from all over, vs auteurism, putting a burden on UI aesthetics by being always first-person, bringing in the visor pieces, losing visual real estate and that conversation, the impact on design on art decisions, putting the ammo readouts on the guns, marking up renders to figure out where UI elements would go, weapons as characters, running into resistance with the programmers, the ways programmers can... avoid work, the conversation you have to have around iteration cost, fitting into a palette, designing vehicles that didn't exist in canon, coming up with the tone of a more deadly clone story, figuring out who the clones even were, figuring out what the side stories were, imagining beyond the borders of the film, morphing to a different scale, how little a Geonosian means to a Jedi and how much to a trooper, colorgrading and how it sells various tones and moods, giving a different interpretation of Star Wars, seeing something of Republic Commando reflected in Rogue One, focusing on what's important to your characters, the heat and contrast of the Geonosians, pulling on the film's UI elements, avoiding drama on a project, checking egos at the door, how collaborative the game was, the value of technical art, the energy of team members, tech artists as glue and bridges, the value of a demo, Neanderthal Tim, when your level is difficulty, the design ideas behind the hangars and bridge, the knobs you had to turn for storytelling through tone, having to die again and again, failure without excessive punishment, the ability level of the team, where your skills are relative to the game, improving communication between branches of the team, setting a vision without falling to design by committee, being able to deliver a new experience for a Star Wars audience, the challenge of making an AI that keeps pace with the player, "The Squad Is Your Weapon," the debate around the efficacy of the squad, building around the game's goals and how other games might attack that differently, the importance of building consensus, trying to find a way to say "yes" to an idea, "everybody can design," being able to have the squad revive you.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LucasArts, Jedi Starfighter, Bounty Hunter, Galactic Battlegrounds (series), Escape from Monkey Island, Lucidity, Disney, 2K, Transformers, EndeavorRX, Akili, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, The Phantom Menace, EA, Jedi: Fallen Order, NYU Film School, Whole Foods, Cybernautics, Rocket Science Games, Obsidian, Behind the Magic, Haden Blackman, Starcraft, Dan Colon, Lightwave, LucasFilm, Ralph McQuarrie, Hal Barwood, Chris Williams, Unreal, Adobe Illustrator, Peter Chan, Joe Johnston, Doug Chiang, Obi-Wan, Bill Tiller, Jedi Knight, Dark Forces, Nathan Martz, Jeremie Talbot, Hideo Kojima, Metroid Prime, Maya, 3DS Max, Daron Stinnett, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Rogue One, Paul Murphy, James Zhang, Adam Piper, Harley Baldwin, Mafia III, Hangar 13, Top Mix, Kovaak's Aim Trainer, Galaxy of Heroes, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, John Drake, Ryan/biostats, Pat Sirk, Gary Whitta, Book of Eli, Fallout, Nick from LA, Halo Reach/Halo 5, John Hancock, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Epic Mickey, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
YET. ANOTHER. INTERVIEW.

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we welcome another interview, this time with industry veteran and current VP of Design at Schell Games, Harley Baldwin. Harley talks about her path through the industry and about her time especially at LucasArts and Republic Commando, on which she served as a level designer. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:45 Interview
1:25:23 Break
1:25:51 Feedback

Issues covered: how Harley got her start, planning to get into photographic printing, crashing a friend's interview, knowing a tuck-in top from a hang-over top, figuring out technical art challenges, getting a programmer to do some interpolation, emergence of digital cameras, the unsung heroism of technical art, making one kind of data into another kind of data, overlapping art and engineering, figuring out how to blend animations for locomotion, learning from designers via over-the-shoulder watching, the three-point slice, trying to figure out how to build stuff, moving to design, not having to worry about both the architecture and the gameplay at the same time, getting designers to play and talk, becoming a lead systems designer, communicating the use of systems, advocating for designs, VR and location-based entertainment, hard and interesting problems, encouraging design skill overlap, getting the design document on day one, LucasArts using proprietary technology and the internal controversy, believing you need the author of the engine in-house, the conversations between level designers, talking about how to make the bridge moment, building momentum, speaking level designers' language, coming on late and fixing cover bugs and optimizing spaces, figuring out how and whether to do jungle, arguing over the spotlights, trying to find solutions together, level ownership, getting enough distance to see what needs to be real or what needs to be smoke and mirrors, the creepiness of the Prosecutor, giving the designer you once were a talking to, getting stuck on Troy's level, designing to the peak experience, the story of what a designer is trying to say, finishing your own level on hard... over a few hours, QA beating it eventually, lacking storytelling tools and using design tools like difficulty, door breaches and hints, the "doors and hallways engine," how to tackle a dwarf spider droid, still figuring things out as you ship, building to a character moment, being in the perfect spot, the old home tour of enemies, "hey player, you can handle this now," "Brett's favorite room," the energy and communication of that team, "Nobody reads your docs," designers and difficulty, "when do you turn off god mode," watching people play, your applicant pool of user testing players, three things you'd change about project/process, fumbling towards scrum/agile, how seeing where the squad was going changed the game dramatically, VR and its problems to solve, meeting Harley for the first time, the Starfighter pie meeting, Pi Day, Tim delivers a pie to Brett's apartment, "I might worry about a random pie," East Coast geography, the team helping get you through the making of the game, the special atmosphere of LucasArts, good people working with good people, defending Tim's honor, difficulty and Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Boss Keys series, Longo Calrisian, positioning and leadership, lowering ammo and tuning towards the focus fire mechanic, the hot targets, differences between PC and Xbox, difficulty codes, marketing, Starfighter III: Jedi Starfighter II: Starfighter Outcast or Reti Player One, a plea for orbital strikes in more video games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: American Laser Games/Her Interactive, LucasArts, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Starfighter (series), RTX Red Rock, Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider (series), Demiurge, Nihilistic Software, Rock Band, Resistance, Call of Duty, Schell Games, PhotoStyler, McKenzie & Company, Mad Dog McCree, Drug Wars, 3D0, Vampire Diaries, Nancy Drew (series), Debabelizer, Jedi Knight, Reed Knight, X-COM: The Bureau, Jesse Schell, Disney VR, Unreal, Galactic Battlegrounds, Age of Empires, Outlaws, Troy Mashburn, Pat Sirk, Jesse Moore, Juli Logemann, Uncharted, Kevin "Schmitty" Schmitt, Xbox, Microsoft, Jeffrey "Pinecone" Sondin-Kung, I Expect You to Die, Until You Fall, PlayStation VR, GDC, David Collins, Blarg42, Anachronox, Violet B. Trudel, Pokemon, Oliver Uvman, Sokoban, Super Mario Bros 3, Stephen's Sausage Roll, Final Fantasy XIII-2, King's Quest, Gothic Chocobo, Game Maker's Toolkit, Mark Brown, Zelda (series), Leon Buckel, Greg Knight, Sam Thomas, June, Jocko Willink, Leif Babin, Dark Forces, GameSpot, Billy/The2ndQuest, Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Forza, Tetris99, Animal Crossing, Charlie Rocket, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Epic Mickey, Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Another Interview?

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we delve deeper into audio and music on Republic Commando, via our interview with David Collins and Jesse Harlin, the audio lead and composer for the game, respectively. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:48 Interview
1:45:20 Break
1:45:56 Outro

Issues covered: going from film scoring to games, writing a column, dealing with the suits, getting the games at a discount, getting exposed to the hard work of audio and games, interviewing the composer, the turnover at LucasArts in the early 00s, being focused on audio and music in games, Redbook audio, having no one to learn from, having to figure out how to fit all the music on different consoles, parallels to silent film and MIDI, the development of iMUSE and having to replicate it, trying to find middleware for audio, hot-rodding the engine for audio, splitting sound and voice and the history, having lots of departments that had built up their own silos, being a service group at even a greater scale, the costs of switching, burnout and lack of downtime, having to crunch on multiple games at a time, the physical costs of burnout, having to hide that you're working on multiple projects, "see a dog hear a dog" sound design, shifting to being fully involved with one team, integrating departments earlier, having a fully immersive proof-of-concept level with audio, being able to hand off more to audio, still chasing what you'd like from audio, the non-Star Wars Star Wars game, systemic audio vs a more curated experience, the implementation of the Assault Ship, having different musical cues for different approaches, the game finding its own way from the Star Wars musical soundscape, not knowing what the movies would sound like, injecting more personality, having developed based on what we knew, the wonders of the ring modulator, a signature Star Wars sound, having the LucasArts audio available at Skywalker Sound, choosing a language for choral music (and not having Wookiee available), embedding your sister's name in a piece of music, training up the choir on how to sing Mandalorian, having the gall to invent Boba Fett's language, getting away with more because of timeline distance, slipping a thing to be low-key, wanting to use a talking dog, having a thing die because Business Affairs holds onto it for a long time, adding in Russian/Slavic dipthongs, knowing what fans were going to want to know, planning ahead for the meaning of the content, having The Battle of the Trees in Sanskrit for Duel of the Fates, slipping Doctor Who character names into The Old Republic, the audioscape of the "battle beyond," pulling in the audio for a developer diary, having the opportunity to widen the Universe, going nuts with the audio, having time to think about what a space should sound like, "this is my level too," integrated audio storytelling, the invisible art form, people not knowing how to describe audio, "you know, audio's cheap," the small size of the audio team, the high efficiency of audio, where the Ash video came from, having a weird coda to the game like that, critics thinking the game had rock in it, how mistakes happen in reviews, having had a deal, the only rock song ever to be in a Star Wars game, guitars and Star Wars, line items in a budget, Foley as a performance, having raw material for days for blasters and such, having clacky armor in front of the camera the whole game, having a footstep level, having to retag geometry, meeting with a fan, missing out on a multiplayer balancing issue, having networking break the music system, the airing of grievances, making a music map for QA, how to test audio effectively, the problem with music, what these guys are up to now, scores that don't work, knowing that things had to change, iterating on team makeup and process.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Star Wars, Marvel, Mafia, Avatar, Futurama, Counterspy, Yoku's Island Express, LucasArts, Escape from Monkey Island, Star Wars: Demolition, Starfighter (series), Sony, PlayStation, Uncharted 3, Journey, The Last of Us, Celebration, Skywalker Sound, Rage Software, Space Debris, Starfox, Paul Stroud, Game Developer Magazine, Electronic Musician, Larry the O, USC, The 7th Guest, Xbox, GameCube, Michael Land, Michelle Hinners, Unreal, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, The Force Unleashed 2, Troy Mashburn, Kevin Schmitt, John Hancock, Nathan Martz, Dave Bogan, Jenny Huang, Wwise, Daron Stinnett, Alien, Event Horizon, J. White, Obi-Wan, Resident Evil, Philip Sousa, Steve Matulac, George Lucas, Ben Burtt, Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare, Justin Lambros, Cindy Wong, Doctor Who, The Longest Day, Tales of Jabba's Palace/Tales of Mos Eisley Cantina, Creative Audio, Harrison Deutsch, Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn Entertainment, Andrew Cheney, Julian Kwasneski, Bay Area Sound, Aaron Brown, Ash, Chris Williams, Full Throttle 2, The Gone Jackals, Halo, Marty McDonnell, John Williams, Michael Giacchino, Clint Bajakian, Mercenaries, Peter Hirschmann, Jana Vance, Dennie Thorpe, Tony Shalhoub, GalaxyQuest, Battlefront II, ComiCon, Joss Whedon, Riot Games, Valorant, Mafia Remake, Haden Blackman, Matthew Wood, Star Wars Resistance, Galaxy of Adventures, Forces of Destiny, Ahmed Best, Star Wars Jedi Temple Challenge, Jason Sudeikis, Rise of Skywalker, Boss Baby: Back in Business, Netflix, The Soundtrack Show, Ladyhawke, Mutiny on the Bounty, Akili Interactive Labs, EndeavorRx, Metal Gear Solid, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Epic Mickey, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
SWRC Developer Diary about audio

The Battle of the Trees

Next time:
Another interview!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on the 2005 squad-based shooter Star Wars Republic Commando, on which both hosts worked. We talk about some of the difficulty unevenness of the game, some of the process of building the game, a bit about enemy and squad AI, and especially how we came to differentiate the characters and inject some humor. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Kashyyyk

Issues covered: leaving characters behind, the length of development and how it changes your longer-term plans, having George give feedback on your game, the overly grim version of the game, ignoring feedback given once, the difference of dealing with George vs dealing with LF Licensing, caring more about story than lore, the huge impact on production, the value of the feedback, being on each side of the question of whether to push out a schedule, having Robin Williams suggested for the game, needing the balance of comedy, the use of gallows humor, the impact of voice on a game's budget and schedule, RPGs and text vs voice, the additional cost of well-known names, finding actors more in line with characterization, enriching the script by specificity, having an off-site to plus up the game, looking at the game during in production, facilitating discussions, getting ideas from everyone, stepping back from development to get enough distance, going to Kashyyyk, incorporating another film character in General Tarfful, seeing the ragdoll bug, climbing up to the treetops, fitting this game on a Xbox, having good technology internally, being unclear about objectives, not having characters to rely on for storytelling, reusing enemies etc, having only two people write all the AI but carrying other engineering tasks, how you would approach this today, leveraging gaps in time to get across the bridge, delaying the pay-off to force the player to see it, the milestone process, not having enough investment in the product over the process, cutting part of the bridge level, failing a milestone and using that to improve, needing more spectacle and spit and polish, the AIs throwing grenades back and forth, leaning on the linearity of the game to make the squad seem smarter, "bread-crumbing," behavior trees, multiple path voting, AI and level design working together, finding the edge of AI, how you design for roguelikes instead, adapting to the needs of the game as they went, having a little bit of everything at the end, a notable cameo, the interviews, difficulty in games and different ways to achieve it, toy development timelines, the success of the game as a surprise, the team gift, a team delivering a solid first product, the possible follow-on titles, Delta Squad as canon, how tech could have supported the game better, Tim admits that he is a jerk, a good game with a lot of potential, figuring out how to make the game vs making the game, the strength of second titles, the greatness of the team, who gets design credit on the games, having the opportunity to work on different types of games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: George Lucas, Clone Wars (TV Show), Genndy Tartakovsky, Samurai Jack, Dave Filoni, Chris Williams, Daron Stinnett, Robin Williams, Shakespeare, Law and Order, Tomb Raider, Jill Murray, Ken Rolston, Morrowind, Oblivion, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Max von Sydow, Temuera Morrison, Ryan Kaufman, Mike Stemmle, John Hancock, Unreal, Xbox, PS2, Epic, Starfighter, Patrick Sirk, Half-Life 2, Hacky Sack, John Hancock, Nathan Martz, Remnant: From the Ashes, Harley Baldwin, Thief, TIE Fighter, Larry Holland, Reed Knight, Darren Johnson, Blarg42, Raymond Cason, BoxBoy, Curse of Monkey Island, Resident Evil 4, Mark Brown, Dawfydd, Karen Traviss, West End Games, Dylan Thomas, Jim Ward, Gentle Giant, Greg Knight, Battlefront II, Grand Theft Auto (series), Jedi Knight, Fallout (series), The Mandalorian, Dave Collins, David Norton. Mass Effect (series), Uncharted (series), Assassin's Creed (series), Kirby's Epic Yarn, Epic Mickey.

Next time:
Bonus Episodes!

Link:
Dynamic Difficulty in Resident Evil 4

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on the 2005 squad-based shooter Star Wars Republic Commando, on which both hosts worked. We talk about demoing at E3, some of the design philosophies evidenced by the scavenger droid and tidbits from the levels we played, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through the Prosecutor

Issues covered: getting approval with the Ranch, trailblazing, how clones talk about commandos, showing on the E3 floor, getting a theater presence, E3 as trade show and practicing to present the game, how teams were handling demos, handling rude Q&A, being glad to do it once, being at ComiCon, playing a live demo in the theater, the value of a demo and the predictive power, bug counts, giving you the Star Wars juice, setting up the scale of the environment, making the player feel small relative to the battle, having an assassination that really matters (to the nerds), the massive size of the torpedo launch tube, changing the sniper visual effect in response to the game feeling bad, having to make the weapons feel better, making the games feel not so "pew-pew," going from trigger-to-hit, having a good even basic weapon, having a difficult sections and losing sight of them, the fingers that tap on your armor, having really good Foley, introducing the maneuvers, bringing in the door breach and adding the slice option, object-oriented maneuver design, the team putting in extra things that made the game better, building up the scavenger droid, pulling the survival horror vibe from Alien, getting the scale of the place, the audio and music cues really selling an experience, introducing the scav droid, orthogonal enemy design, overly high lethality, shooting the greebles in case they were scavs, using the scav droid properly and not, embodying the player with the scav, adding new elements to the universe, introducing the brute and selling their toughness, introducing the mercenaries, the mercenaries breaching the room like you did, getting some additional bang for buck, reusing a space, the expense of building spaces, the hangars as tactical areas with lots of options, constant decision-making, the usefulness of a movable monster closet, reexamining our choices there, needing more support from voice or something to help the player know what's going on when they are locked in perspective, trapping the player, having the ship battle behind you, winning and disabling the droids, the impact of games and the humility with which we take that responsibility, visits from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, building a connection that is player-motivated, ikigai and iyashikei, shelf-level events, damage types, putting too much into the tutorial, coming back to a game and having the skills to overcome a challenge that defeated you previously, the Tetris Effect, skill acquisition and sleep. dynamically lowering the difficulty on challenges, wanting to avoid taking away the feeling of mastery, the original Xbox controller configuration, mapping A to squad control vs jump, taking time to accommodate a control scheme, controlling a camera vs controlling a head.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Halo, ATI, Enter the Matrix, Xbox, Revenge of the Sith, Battlefront II, Pandemic Studios, Chris Williams, Matt Fillbrandt, Cat Sheu, Jonny Rice, Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, Daron Stinnett, Starfighter (series), Return of the Jedi, Dark Forces, Ben Burtt, Geoff Jones, Troy Mashburn, Jana Vance, Adam Piper, Jeremie Talbot, Alien, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, Spider-Man, Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero, Gears of War (series), Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Battle for Naboo, Jedi Knight, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Sam Thomas, Animal Crossing (series), 343 Industries, Nintendogs, Mario Kart (series), Luke Theriault, Alan Stevens, Pokemon, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario 64, Bethesda Game Studios, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Tetris Effect, Spider-Man 2, Jamie Fristrom, MobyGames, Chris Gripeos, Jenny Huang, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Epic Mickey, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
Discovering presents from your mum on Animal Crossing

Next time:
Finishing the game!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on the 2005 squad-based shooter Star Wars Republic Commando, on which both hosts worked. We first set the game in its time and also look at the various introductions made in the first part of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
The Geonosis section

Issues covered: revisiting our game and what it was like, a new console generation, HD gaming, embracing online play, the impact of a new generation on the late games of the prior generation, market pressures on Republic Commando, being a late game in a cycle and being held back by your publisher, internal flap over a separately licensed title, tying into the franchise and flooding the market, licensing as a market strategy, the growth of team size, the continuing strength of first-person shooters, presentation and Half-Life, the presentation of real life in shooters, the influence of Halo, having a sense of playing a single-player game that had the feel of playing co-op tactical games, the original high concept of the game, the mechanics of Allied Assault that helped lead to the game, wanting to point to a window and have a guy snipe from there, doing a lot with the game, a shooter for a Star Wars audience, the marines in Halo, letting the level design embrace the maneuver system, borrowing a stance system from elsewhere, why we had an unskippable intro, the strength of the team to just get things done, going above and beyond, delivering under duress, the intro being something you don't see in a Star Wars game, establishing a world, always being in the helmet, a few other influences, eliminating the text crawl, the lineage of LucasArts Logo animations, text crawls leading to the melodrama, choosing military-style introductions, introducing the characters to distinguish them more, moving to the painted armor, seeing unfinished film, giving the characters a chance to shine, creating the idea that the characters are different, having to be flexible about what the commandos can do, throwing down smoke and reflecting it in a mirror, opportunistic design, having characters comment on what they like and don't like, context-sensitive cuing, how later games would introduce a character, "we gave it to the Wolf," maybe being heavy-handed with the tutorial, finding elegant ways to trick the player into learning, difficulty levels, Brett sings a review, how to fiddle with puzzles for difficulty, messaging on a macro and micro level in presenting a puzzle, asking the player to step up, sticking to your goals, managing difficulty by presenting levels of challenge that are optional, knowing your niche and your ceiling of number of audience members, wanting to do GDC all year round, our inspiration for the 'cast, small regular bonuses of Nook Miles in Animal Crossing, letting go of Nook Miles, responding to the dopamine drip.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Morrowind, Fallout, LucasArts, God of War, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Resident Evil 4, Psychonauts, Guild Wars, Civilization IV, FEAR, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Guitar Hero, Mercenaries, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Pandemic, Lego Star Wars, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Forza, Doom 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, DreamCast, Halo 2, Xbox Live Arcade, Starfighter (series), Rainbow Six (series), Rogue Squadron, Daron Stinnett, Dark Forces, Outlaws, Jedi Knight, Half-Life (series), Medal of Honor, Saving Private Ryan, EA, 2015 Games, Jason West, Vince Zampella, Respawn Entertainment, ARMA (series), The Longest Day, Chris Williams, Greg Knight, Kevin Schmitt, Peter Hirschmann, Freedom Fighters, Tim Ramsay, Scott Peters, Adam Piper, Jeremie Talbot, Pixar, Tippett Studio, Brett Schulz, Ryan Kaufman, Mike Stemmle, Telltale Games, Metroid Prime, Full Spectrum Warrior, Laralyn McWilliams, SWAT 4, Ken Levine, Day of the Tentacle, John Hancock, Nathan Martz, Andrew Kirmse, Borderlands, Troy Mashburn, Mike Baker, Kevin Guigere, Cuphead, Super Mario 64, Sherlock Holmes, Call of Cthulhu, Frogware, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Pit Droids, Lucas Learning, Baba Is You, Nintendo, Dark Souls, Super Mario Odyssey, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Ori (series), Sebastian, Vlaada Chvatil, Codenames, GDC, Grand Theft Auto III, Crystal Dynamics, Rebel FM, Jesse, Animal Crossing, Destiny, Epic Mickey, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
The Prosecutor section

Links:
Game Degustation (Czech)

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we cap off our revisit of the unique series Animal Crossing with a bonus episode about it's latest installment, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We talk about the feeling of the new game, the intersection of new mechanics and quality-of-life improvements and how they change the feel of the game, and we give the museum some love in addition to other topics and feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
An hour or so a day!

Podcast breakdown:
0:47 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
57:04 Break
57:37 Feedback & Next Game

Issues covered: the vacation that's not a vacation, observations of humanity and how we use our phones, our own relationships with phones, similarities with Pocket Camp, seasonal events, the evolving mobile game and its influence into New Horizons, explicit vs implicit cooldowns (and being able to pay to remove them), analysis paralysis at the beginning, the things that Brett's not crazy about in the game/Nook Miles tracking, preferring the lack of incentives, worrying about achievements, intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards, stacking fruit, hacking and modding scene, losing the innocence, imagining a world in which the original game appears now, visibility into the indie space, blowing tranquility out of the water with Nook Miles, achievements, the influence of business models on the churn and turmoil of the industry, the changing approachability of games, being able to ask Tom Nook what to do, losing discovery and its accompanying delight, taking a positive lesson from trash, franchise challenges in terms of what you keep and what you discard, tracking multiple economies, revisiting EverQuest or Ultima and not knowing what to do, taking things academically for the 'cast, wanting to stay in the tent, not being engaged by the acquisition loops, losing characters in the original, animalizing changing your look, beauty as a feature, only doing the required crafting, overlap between classic AC/WoW and modern AC/WoW, the fantastic music, Tim captures a flea, the huge impact of the beauty of the museum, Brett's Book Recommendation, having a birthday intersecting with holidays in Animal Crossing, anticipating what will delight a player, being akin to a clicker, why play a game about chores, being rewarded by a chuckle, tend-and-befriend, Scandinavian comfort culture (hygge), ikagai and lagom, thinking about the next generation of hardware, load constraints, being interested in constraints, being curious about genuine innovation, what you can do with a really big hard drive, the expense of building for a new generation, high definition as a feature, pushing up against the constraints, we look forward to returning Geonosis, Brett's screed against YouTube.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Chris Hecker, Ultima IV, Ultima VII, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Death Stranding, Quake, Michael Abbott/Brainy Gamer, World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Hitman 2, Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteredge, Tay if that is his real name, 30 Rock, Mike, Cookie Clicker, Universal Paperclips, Cow Clicker, Last of Us, Mike Baker, LucasArts, Sierra On-line, Edwin, Nintendo Switch, PS2/3, Xbox, Wii, Metal Gear Solid, Pokemon, Fallout 4, Mark Cerny, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Star Wars: Starfighter/Jedi Starfighter, Kotaku, John Williams, David Collins, Epic Mickey, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
Michael Abbott on older games

Next time:
Star Wars Republic Commando: The Geonosis missions

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on the unique Animal Crossing. We talk about the holidays we visited, Mr. Resetti and not wanting to mess with your save, going to the island, and many more, before turning to our series takeaways and feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
An hour a day! (Many in holidays.)

Podcast breakdown:
0:41 Animal Crossing
1:07:38 Break
1:08:13 Takeaways and Feedback

Issues covered: Brett's gyroids and UFO, Tim's asteroid, the attract mode and seeing outfits you don't have yet, learning about how to play the stalk market, whether the animals talk about things you haven't engaged with, additional visiting characters, how the fireworks work, the tricks on Halloween, how Jack works on Halloween, Tortimer's gifts on holidays, losing items to tricksters, having big scares on Halloween as a kid, how different Halloween is, the evolving nature of Mr Resetti, wanting to protect your town, the animal version of the Windows BSOD, playful shaming, having a dialogue with a designer, emerging design, recognizing what the player is going to do, seeing the things the player will do, encouraging the player to diverge from the intended style of play, weeds everywhere, setting the world state on the clock, having unique sets of animals between us, speculating about why the acre transitions occur, aesthetic choices and whether that translated to movement, Tim's adventures with morning aerobics and sports day, lacking interactions in mini-games, changing up the appointment play, trading off appointment play with real-world tension, theme sets on holidays, moving events to be longer time-framed for MMOs, talking about the new game's egg-onomy, reaching the island via Kapp'n, picking coconuts and wearing island shirts, Kapp'n's songs, the remarkable amount of discovery, Brett finds a coelacanth, the variety of bugs and other collectibles, attuning yourself to the world and being able to read things in the environment, appointment play and mobile gaming influence, the connection to mobile and social games, tend-and-befriend, means of player expression, Brett's gyroid fascination, growing expressiveness of the series, representing everything in the world, mechanically using the things that players interact with as animals and animal interactions, a huge variety of discovery supplanted by shallow interactions, not getting stuck, the potential to generate stories, a singing non-review delivered as a dramatic reading, the role of a designer for longer and larger development (such as AAA), the shifting needs for system design, communicating and holding a vision for an element of a design, advocacy and the narrative or progression of a design, communicating across departments, the complications of enemy or vehicle design, having to put micro pieces together that support the macro, being about more than the ideas, answering lots of why questions.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The X-Files, Auld Lang Syne, Blizzard Entertainment, RoboCop, Starcraft, Asteroids, Gothic Chocobo, Game Boy Player, World of Warcraft, GTA III, Facebook, Zynga, FarmVille, Mafia Wars, The Sims, Pixar, Batman, Waypoint, Metal Gear Solid 4, Civilization, Peyton Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Blarg42, Pokemon, Billy/The2ndQuest, Halo (series), SW Republic Commando, Jamie Griesemer, Ryan Darcy, Elan Ruskin, Left 4 Dead, Epic Mickey, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
An hour a day of Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Errata:
Although I stand by my memory of there being a coelacanth discovered in the Mediterranean in the 90s, the discovery that coelacanths had survived to the modern era dates back to one being caught in 1938.

Also: Brett, what is a "stegalosaurus?" STEGOSAURUS.

The television show Brett was looking for was Melrose Place. Peyton Place was in fact a multi-year running prime time soap rather than a mini-series.

Links:
Five GameCubes and Four Sword

Jamie Griesemer: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3

Ryan Darcy: Designing Spartan Abilities for Halo 5: Guardians

Elan Ruskin: AI-Driven Dynamic Dialog through Fuzzy Pattern Matching

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on the unique series Animal Crossing. We talk about collecting, changing the world, paying off your second mortgage, the many purposes the animals serve, and the fun the developers seem to have had contributing ideas to the game, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
An hour each day!

Issues covered: Brett's growing gyroid collection, Gyroid Orchestra, speeding through your second mortgage, expanding player verbs through mortgage payoffs, stealth training and game expansion, changing perspective in games and in life as your routine is hampered, limiting your verbs by weather and time of play, the metagame of what's worthwhile to have in your inventory, revealing something about you through your style of play, freeing up time by paying off that second mortgage, how a change in inventory management would dramatically change play, being careful of what you incentivize, convenience changes behavior, the choice of your third mortgage, starting to fill in the museum, having few opportunities for insect collecting when you play at the same time each day, the difference between this and a Majestic, allowing you to come to a game vs a game coming to you, having more weeds when you miss a day, using the animals for so many things, subtle tutorialization, replacing real socializing with the animals, asynchronous social, putting everything in the interactions with animals, Brett details his ongoing romance with Bertha and the interactions with Lily and Alli, reading into the characters, the return of Tortimer and bridge placement, unplanned design, banging rocks with shovels, giving your designers tools and making it possible to add whatever they can think of, empowering creativity, allowing the player to make play, pitfalls, customizing your attire or space, added and experimental hardware, using the GBA to go to an island, the eReader, getting another type of fruit, the fish market, the difficulty of the ocean fishing, Tim's cherry tree that lived, terraforming your whole island, a digression into who Snake's Mom is, your Mom guilting you over labor, reflecting nostalgia in Animal Crossing and in anime, speedrunning the rest of the game, potential seasons and holidays to see, localizing holidays, MMO adoption of events.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Resident Evil 4, Majestic, Phantasy Star, Legend of Zelda: Four Sword, The Sims, Lee Meriwether, Metal Gear Solid 4, The Girl Who Could Stop Time, Shenmue, Epic Mickey, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Hitting a few seasons!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on the unique series Animal Crossing. We talk about real time gaming, acquisition loops, how it resembles a mobile game and other topics, before turning to reviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
An hour a day!

Issues covered: pinchy-pinchy and puns, wanting to pay off that second loan, the daily routine of play, filling about an hour, "that fossil belongs in a museum," Tim's routine, lost and found items and the villagers, having more villagers than you can keep track of, chicken varieties, localizing names, Brett playing in a more laid-back way, tranquility, grinding for bells, being trolled by the animals, tying in to the GameCube clock, appointment gaming, mobile touchstones, lacking monetization and being liberating, how many trees you chop down, forest maintenance, weekly events: seagull and fortune teller and furniture seller and rug seller, keeping the player in a rhythm, finding rhythms in MMOs, fighting the mobile monetization mechanics in Pocket Camp, introducing resource loops in later games for crafting, furniture falling out of trees, Brett running out of gyroids, getting the right fruit for you, the difficulty of completing sets, how to know you complete a set, limiting memory use at the time, loving finishing the collectibles, having a nice place to put your stuff, grounding things in the world, the many places you can find a new item, "I got the modern wallpaper and I was pretty happy with that," Brett's torrid love affair with Bertha, punning on your paper type, speedrunning the letter-writing, animals getting cross with Tim for his short mails, theorizing about how the letter responses work, keeping responses vague, wondering about keywords, not wanting to break the illusion, character responses to blowing them off, maintaining the archetypes of these characters, maintaining an attitude, clean conscience gaming, the foreignness of the traditions of Animal Crossing, the normalization of Nintendo in its games, animal identity and jokiness, colonialism in the new title, wanting to see the numbers go up on your Happy Room score, reducing your debt, capitalism and growth, exploitation of natural resources, simulations making an argument, the sterility of weeding vs the messiness of weeding in real life, gyroids and Haniwa (Kofun period), the basis of the Miis, anagram fan, the difficulty of replicating a success like this, not wanting to be the second game in a cornered niche.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Indiana Jones (obliquely), Nintendo's Treehouse, Farmville, Facebook, Gavin Newsom, Destiny, Fortnite, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, EAD, Assassin's Creed (series), Metal Gear (series), Pokemon, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Waypoint, Tomb Raider, Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Violet B Trudel, Scrabble, irreverentQ, NotADoctor, The Sims, SimCity, Cities: Skylines, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Tim's Favorite Things:
Lens flares on cameras with many a jump cut,
CQC combat that shows off Old Snake's butt,
Cute codec calling to save with Mei Ling,
These are a few of my favorite things

When the Vamp bites,
When Pain's bees sting,
When I'm feeling sad...
I simply remember my Metal Gear things,
And then I don't feel so bad

Who is this Raiden and Iroquois Plissken
Invading a snow base I hope you brought mittens
Sons of the Patriots pulling my strings
These are a few of my favorite things

When Gray Fox strikes
When Deep Throat rings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my Metal Gear things
And then I don't feel so bad

Notes:
Tim describes Animal Crossing as having been made by DeNA; it was by EAD. We regret the error.

Next time:
Still an hour a day!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on the unique series Animal Crossing. We situate the game briefly in time before turning to some of the ways the game introduces itself and its mechanics, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
An hour a day!

Podcast breakdown:
0:50 Animal Crossing
1:08:09 Break
1:08:43 Feedback

Issues covered: "this is one of my favorite Nintendo series, actually," Tim uses the 'cast to his advantage, trying to think of forerunners, Daddy, an explosive era of design, the variety of games and the PC/console divide, thinking outside the box, a weird kind of buzz, the Nintendo spin on some genres, having a chillout time, being able to meditatively play, the weird concepts at work and conveying that to a potential audience, Nintendo going its own way, having a lot going on in even this first game, daily routine and tranquility obscuring the systems, heading off player aggression, meeting up with KK Slider, setting and subverting player expectations, listening to KK Slider play guitar, that Nintendo touch, hopping the train to town and meeting Rover, the important Rover connection, committing to characters and making them iconic, social propriety and cell phones, contrasting this with character creation, representing everything in the game (with an inventory as well), chibi/big head character design, attitude with their voicing, character design and presentation being economic but expressive, timing phonemes against the spaces between words, spending a lot of time on the speech system, Nintendo's habit of having everyone in the company try the games, anime/manga idioms for expression/emotion, developing an internal language and sticking with it, Rover the cat, we reveal our town and player names, getting a mortgage and job from Tom Nook right away, establishing verbs early, passing by the dump and into the store, learning how to put on clothes, gating progress on activity, being naturally pushed to explore what the game has, atypical goals and tricking you into addiction, talking to the animals, establishing something like a main loop gently, coming up with your own "quests," random towns (a discovery for Brett), shared characters between towns, we introduce our characters and NPCs, review from Finland, some design choices that a 25-year-old game overcame, leaning on the RNG to some degree, remembering getting into Animal Crossing and the draw of NES games, the acquisition loop and its evolution, Tim having not really analyzed this game before, gyroids.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Sims, Little Computer People, Tamagotchi, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Alex Neuse, Silent Hill 2, Anachronox, Ico, GTA III, Civilization III, Devil May Cry, Soul Reaver, Star Wars: Starfighter, Jak & Daxter, Final Fantasy X, Halo, Xbox, Metal Gear Solid 2, Advance Wars, Pikmin, Black & White, Max Payne, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, PS2, Luigi's Mansion, Peter Molyneux, LucasArts, Starcraft 64, Halo Wars, Resident Evil, Spider-man 2, Satoru Iwata, Wii, Viva Pinata, Pokemon, Happy Home Designer, Amiibo Festival, Mario series (obliquely), Sonic series (obliquely), Final Fantasy (series), Zelda (series), Sailor Moon, Madman, _Dupre/Petri, Commodore 64, Ultima IV, Bitmap Books, Derek from Spokane, Chrono Trigger, Octopath Traveler, Chrono Cross, Sea of Stars, Sabotage Studios, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, SNES Classic, Final Fantasy VI, Ni No Kuni, Dragon Quest (series), Level 5, Dark Cloud (series), Square Enix, Reed Knight, Metal Gear Solid 4, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
An hour a day!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to Blizzard's 2004 classic MMORPG World of Warcraft. We discuss the pace of the game in solo vs group, another dungeon, and make some observations about MMO combat before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to level 30

Podcast breakdown:
0:53 WoW Talk
1:06:32 Break
1:07:08 Feedback

Issues covered: blasts from the LucasArts past, "a gaming miracle," XP bonuses galore, Westfall culminating in Deadmines, quest storylines culminating in a dungeon run, extending the storyline into the Stockades, elegant design of these quest lines, breaking someone out of Stockades in modern, instance dungeons getting better over time, grey setting and repetitive play, hit point sponges, lack of boss mechanics, similarity to tower defense or EverQuest, dungeons with wings, the game as a group experience, having less down time, having a better balance in solo vs group experiences in modern, getting better at the types of roles warriors can fulfill, separating into tank/healer/DPS and some stagnation in the MMO space, the effect on D&D and being better to go the other way, having stances per character later, finding the right challenge level, the types of quests in Redridge, good critter variety, more verticality, introducing the Black Rock orcs, starting into the long game of end game quests, having deep lore and organizational structures in your setting, loving the Duskwood art design, hating the Duskwood quest design, lacking a culminatory dungeon, a wandering abomination, the pfffft of the Stalvan quest line, getting cursed repeatedly, enjoying the Raven Hill cemetery, reviving the Embalmer, snitches get Stitches, introducing the Worgen, the process of recruiting and traveling to an instance, evolving the theme park, the technicality of aggro and pulling and enemy awareness, using tactics against the technology, lacking saves and structuring strategy around that, seeing the top-down view in your mind's eye, using simple representations (planes and circles), running a combat system on a single machine for everyone in the zone, the costs of scale, using line of sight against the enemy, exploits as game-play, Brett's Book Recommendation, New Game+, the cost of additional development, paid DLC, checking NG+ off the list, block quotes from Woolsey and Slattery, a book club for books about games, finding all the endings, Frog and Robo's themes, being impressed by what they get from music hardware, "It's Not Easy Being Green," soundtracks we loved, lots of Chrono Trigger details, Janus/Magus as the main character, an update on Tim's trip.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Gladius, LucasArts, Mike Terpstra, Tippett Studios, Alex Neuse, Jedi Starfighter, Chrono Trigger, Activision/Blizzard, Makendi, The Goonies, Warcraft III, EverQuest, Dungeons & Dragons, Guild Wars 2, Reed Knight, Dark Age of Camelot, The Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Reanimator, Bride of Frankenstein, DisneyWorld, The Witcher, Diablo, Ultima Online, Dragon Age, Stephen King, 11/22/63, Sam Thomas, Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Gabe Durham, Boss Fight Books, Ted Woolsey, Tom Slattery, Michael Williams, Skyrim, Elder Scrolls, Dave Fort, Earthbound, A Christmas Story (obliquely), Mikael Danielsson, Phantasy Star, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Mass Effect (series), Halo (series), Brock Holt, Red Dead Redemption, Kirk Hamilton, Shadow of the Colossus, Peter McConnell, Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, Clint Bajakian, Outlaws, Ryan/Bio, Ryan McPherson, Final Fantasy VII Remake, James Roberts, Chrono Cross, Nintendo Switch, Wasteland 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Animal Crossing (2001)! An hour a day!

Link:
The Audio Design of RDR by Kirk Hamilton

Magus as the Main Character

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series playing Chrono Trigger. We discuss the handful of remaininig quests in "The Fated Hour" and defeating Lavos (as an afterthought) before turning to our takeaways and feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finish the game!

Podcast breakdown:
0:48 Chrono Trigger
1:27:22 Break
1:28:05 Feedback

Issues covered: reforestation with Robo, being aware that certain characters have to be in your party, Robo's world sprite, seeing Robo on the world map, being able to have player theories, not deploying Robo as a player verb, Robo's theory, a Gaia hypothesis, the double-edged sword of optional content, time travel wish fulfillment, having trouble saving Lara, a moment by a campfire, Robo's evolution, Lucca's mini robot and the progeneration of the robots, collecting the highest power loot, hunting the moon stone, Tim discovers there's an in-game map, the Sun Keep boss and randomly selecting, hitting the right flame, having a different tactic to deal with the boss, clearly telegraphing the Sun Stone, the mayor whose kids hate him, the consequences of your actions, Sins of the Father visited on the sons, how you open up a game, open worlds vs Chrono Trigger, the stifling linearity of the early game of FFXIII, losing narrative cohesion, telegraphing important decision, how your game's goals close off other opportunities, replayability vs feeling the impact of player choice, doing everything the designers want you to do, freeing Cyrus's ghost, hating on Crono, Prometheus and Robo and Atropos, pouring one out for Toma, the court scene, bursting through the stained glass, the many endings, the developer ending, the bridge ending to Chrono Cross, the Dream Devourer and Lavos and Schala, the advent of New Game+, the various final weapons, Tim's water level theory, fighting science fiction elements, supporting the party as being important, supporting party experimentation, limited party combat vs full party combat, deepening characters, subverting the tropes, letting the hero die, strong female characters, a world structure that works, not worrying too much about paradox, The Three Wise Men and Magi vs Magus, Magus's lieutenants' names, the strengths and weaknesses of the combat, splitting Chrono Trigger into two games, tragedy vs comedy, goals for translations, the richness of this game and being able to investigate it over and over, squinting and seeing Frog as the hero of the game, silent protagonists in JRPGs, a story of a killed game, the strength of this game's New Game+, systemic games and story generation.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: James Lovelock (obliquely), Rio Bravo (obliquely), Final Fantasy XIII, The Witcher 3, GTA III, Wasteland 2, Alpha Protocol, LMNO, Steven Spielberg, David Cage, Doug Church, Randy Smith, Breath of the Wild, Final Fantasy IX, Pinocchio, Boss Fight Books, Michael Williams, Akira Toriyama, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Chrono Cross, Silent Hill 2, Fallout, Persona 5, Kingdom Hearts, Earthbound, Mass Effect, BioWare, KotOR 2, irreverentQ/Nolan Filter, Warren Linam-Church, Patrick Holleman, Shakespeare, Ted Woolsey, Tom Slattery, Rick Butler, James Roberts, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (obliquely), John Webb, Final Fantasy VII, Breath of Fire 3, Walker Farrell, NieR: Automata, Zimmy Finger, Civilization, Dwarf Fortress, The2ndQuest, Johnny "Pockets" Grattan, Marc LeBlanc, Ron Gilbert, X-COM, World of Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid 4, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Link:
The 1UP article about LMNO appears lost to time, but here's a contemporaneous Kotaku article reporting on that article

Reverse Design: Chrono Trigger

Dwarf Fortress

The Hamlet of Tyranny

Errata:
Brett referred to Tom Slattery as "Shepherd." We regret the error.

Next time:
Another WoW Checkin

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series playing Chrono Trigger. We hit the story notes first and doing things in your own order before turning especially to where the game goes once we reach "The Fated Hour." Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up into The Fated Hour

Podcast breakdown:
0:50 Chrono Trigger
1:08:35 Break
1:09:07 Feedback

Issues covered: the chapters at the end, the monomaniacal immortal queen and her daughter, underdeveloped queen nemesis, the cast of characters surrounding the queen, a battle with the Golem Twins, having bosses that are puzzles rather than slugfests, bringing in cosmic horror, fighting Lavos early, finding the locked chests organically... and not, finding the blue pyramid, a brief digression on the Ultimate Weapon, the revelation of the prophet, Chrono struggles to his feet and is obliterated, the fall of the floating continents, the party reacts to Chrono's death, choosing a new leader, losing and retrieving your stuff on the Blackbird, looking through grates, similarity to an adventure game, crashing the time ship after defeating Dalton, leveraging the history of the characters, Brett blows Tim's mind, "the black wind blows" and telegraphing Magus's identity, learning how everything came from one event, the gurus help you out, having an object out of order, bringing you full circle, having trouble with a mini game, more frustrations, QA being good at a thing, designing to the controller you have, another difference between the two versions, Brett and Tim talk about time paradoxes, whether you always have to have the main character, finding Ozzie's fortress by accident, assembling all the ingredients to fix the timelines, monsters and humans living in harmony, Brett theorizes about how to finish the desert quest, advice from the Civ 3 political advisor, modding and Civ 3, updates from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the appeal (or lack thereof) of developing a 4X game, worrying about the spreadsheet and chaos, not being sure you could go the distance, being able to tell a story about your game, replaying a JRPG and length, having more or less grind.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Timothy Dalton, James Bond (franchise), X-Men (series), Brian Taylor (obliquely), Final Fantasy (series), The Sneetches, Dr. Seuss, Metroid (series), Pulp Fiction, Wii/Virtual Console, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Xbox, Back to the Future, James Roberts, BioWare, Civilization 3, Wild Weazel, Soren Johnson, DOOM, Johnny Grattan, Sid Meier's Beyond Earth, X-COM, Julian Gollop, The2ndQuest, Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior, Shakespeare, Wasteland 2, Persona 5, World of Warcraft, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Finish the game! For real, this time!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series playing Chrono Trigger. We talk about new modes of exploring the game, the tone of the translation between the two of us, some of the boss battles and go over the story bits for the week. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to "What Lies Beyond?"

Podcast breakdown:
0:53 Chrono Trigger
1:14:42 Break
1:15:17 Feedback

Issues covered: bowling balls and sashimi, slipping in jokey references, tone in translation, finding places for the game to be heavier, being caught off guard by differences in tone, the consequences of your actions, getting more information on Lavos and getting a sense of cosmic horror, being a little lost on the timeline, focusing on the linear story vs the ripple effect, other games dabbling with time travel, Tim moves to Wait mode, Wait mode and feeling like a better fit, using Marle's Haste ability and having her as a utility player, having many options for party make-up, what other JRPGs do with character roles and XP, the impact of the past, Tim moves to Wait mode, Wait being better balanced for menus and for exploring abilities, leaning on Marle's Haste ability, allowing the player to explore party makeup, XP side-leveling, party members as utility players, mixing in the characters you want to play with, Brett's long game, the spooky tone of the Magus's Castle, all the NPCs being faceless, controlling pacing, chasing Ozzie from room to room through traps, fighting a part of the environment, fighting the Magus and shifting elemental attacks, having a role for the whole party, Tim having the benefit of auto-combat, not being clear on why you go back in time, Lavos being summoned and learning more about his history in the world, finding and riding pterodactyls, exploring the world and finding breadcrumbs for later, Brett gets over-geared, Tim asks Brett about jerky things, stepping on buttons in the reptite castle, starting in on dual techs, fighting Nizbel again and being allowed to pass but not really, the arrival of the red star, portaling to our last time period, taking the bifrost, getting a new trope, a quick review of the royal house of the Enlightened ones, being sent away by Schala and powering the amulet Marle wears, coming back to the scientist who is building the ship, coming full circle with time, recordings from the Guru of Life, going through the Beast's lair to ascend Mt Woe, strategies for defeating Giga Gaia, the dragon counting down, ATB in various Square JRPGs, later exploration coming, a full Final Fantasy ATB survey, Tim getting a JRPG itch, the way tech conveys character, how you learn techs and prerequisites, the trade-off of a multi-character technique, forgetting where the magic chests are.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Final Fantasy (series), Avengers: Age of Ultron, Memento, Looper, Primer, Time Lapse, Rear Window, SNES, Ultima (series), Earthbound, Eternal Darkness, Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Ocarina of Time, Shadow of Destiny/Shadow of Memories, Shenmue, Ni No Kuni, Pokemon, Errol Flynn, Ron Gilbert, Day of the Tentacle, Thor, Walker Farrell, Chrono Cross, Eric Anderson, Kingdom Hearts, Stardew Valley, Reed Knight, World of Warcraft, James Roberts, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenara, Obsidian, inXile, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
Finish this game!

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series playing Chrono Trigger. We talk exploration vs following the story threads, delve deeper into the combat, chat about the game's difficulty and accessibility, along with story recaps and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to the Magus's Castle

Podcast breakdown:
0:52 Chrono Trigger
1:30:48 Break
1:31:22 Feedback

Issues covered: why Tim hates JRPGs, why Tim took a little longer this time, irascible exploratory Tim, getting to the top of the mountain and finding nothing, feeling discouraged from leaving the main path, what the rewards of the game are, having the prototype of what additional interactions would look like, exploring party make-up, when Ayla met Bobo, the blandness of Crono, being able to put yourself in the character, characters who start at the beginning of their story vs somewhere in the middle, party members standing out more, where you decide to spend your development time, swapping out party members and when you can, the pressure relief valve for difficulty, what is the real set of defaults for this game, having a more dynamic combat with Active Time Battle, developing your menu-diving skill, being forced into repetition and limiting ability exploration, wait mode as being more accessible, having higher highs in active mode, feeling like active mode is an experiment, having menu difficulties with Kingdom Hearts, the burden of memorizing key sequences, the timer as animation tell, having too many characters to manage to memorize things, escaping combat, using run as a means of skipping combat, dealing with status effects (Heal/Panacea), cutting out the searching for specific status healers, using specific attacks for elemental weaknesses, generally not needing to worry about weaknesses, using lightning to remove defense, fighting Spekkio, needing to restore the timeline, returning to a changed Medina, not knowing what we changed in the past, having weird interactions with monsters, localizing using stuff based on your real life, turning assumptions on their head, translation barriers, looking for Masamune, starting to subvert tropes, a kid who's no hero, a good boss battle, going to Melchior with both halves of the sword, meeting Ayla and having a big party, making Crono dance, echoes through time, losing the dreamstone via Kino, fighting Azala and the Megasaur, learning the history of Cyrus and... Glenn?, echoes of Tolkien, making a significant commitment to characters, having calls to action, integrating Glenn into the main quest, getting to equip the badge to Glenn, an update on Tim's hike, the responsible thing, stay safe and healthy, cultural references, beating up robots, variations in the courtroom and jail scenes, localization and emotional intent, the business case for localization, the high costs of localization, making choices about what content to keep in Yakuza and a design which accommodates players ignoring it, friction between an original market and a new market, growing to appreciate the underlying value of the business end, looking to journalism to fill in the gaps.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: irreverentQ, Chrono Cross, The Outer Worlds, Fallout (series), Prey, Earthbound, Final Fantasy (series), Kingdom Hearts, Batman: Arkham (series), Pokemon (series), Ray Bradbury (obliquely), Narnia, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Ultima Underworld, Minecraft, The Two Towers/Return of the King, Mass Effect (series), Sam Thomas, Short Circuit 2, Westworld, The Terminator, James Roberts, Patrick Holleman, Gothic Chocobo, Persona 5, Andrew Dice Clay, Yakuza (series), Kotaku, Robert Downey Jr, Iron Man, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Wasteland 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Links:
Short Circuit 2

Hitchhiking Robot Beheaded

Robot falls into fountain

Reverse Design: Chrono Trigger

Yakuza: Judgement replacing actor

Next time:
Up to "What Lies Beyond?"

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin our series playing Chrono Trigger, the beloved 1995 SNES classic. We cover a lot of ground with this one, including the story, some of the combat, the way the game pays attention to you... all sorts of topics for a corker of a game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to The End of Time!

Podcast breakdown:
0:51 Chrono Trigger
1:31:07 Break
1:31:41 Feedback

Issues covered: COVID-19, SpaceWorld and E3, the year 1995 in games, the creative team, character design in hand-drawn art and intro, the Dream Team, the top-down look of a 16-bit era game, companions following around, combining the background and the foreground in the PlayStation era, the quality of the art direction, running right into combat vs modal play, lack of random battles, choice of battle mode, Active Time Battles, differences between active and wait styles, the overworld and entering spaces, influence of other games, the basic menu presentation, the "Sakaguchi style" and its culmination, being able to approach things fresh, getting on with it, the bouncy playfulness of childhood, Chosen One tropes, Mom waking you up trope, relatability, the princess incognito trope, mixing up a trope, feeling more surprises in FFIX, short-term goals vs long-term/Chosen One goals, signposting the Day of Lavos, whether or not we're able to choose to come back, having another JRPG pay homage, seeing the change in various timelines, enjoying our time with the Frog, the evil Chancellor, the Cathedral and Yakra's minions, having a moment of talking with the monsters, the juxtaposition of drama/horror and comedy, space for Japanese vs letters, returning to the present with Nadia and having a trial, referring back to things you did at the fair, the designer noticing you, the game is safe, the theme of our choices mattering for our future, wanting to be the paladin, the courtroom as setting, escaping the dungeons, a little scene in the warden's office and telegraphing importance to the player, possibly a stealth mechanic, the Dragon Tank on the bridge, affine transformations in the background, using atmospherics for setting tone, the computer telling the tale of Lavos, recruiting Robo, having to pass through Lab 32, the flamboyant Johnny, racing Johnny in Mode 7 to the end of the Lab, Johnny the Biketaur, Robo getting beat up by the other robots, the valiant robot who sacrifices himself for you, Brett gives Tim a hard time for ST: Nemesis, humanizing the non-human characters, gunbows and floral horrors, Tim's big hike, renaming in the new translation, the difficulties of translation, localization as its own art form, adding difficulty with IPs, machine translation, recognizing the great translators, testing your focus as much as your execution, repetitive learning, playground of moves, looping in failure to the style of play, board games and failure, higher highs, rubbing death in your face, worsening the traditional model, obfuscatory, dealing with people who wave their brains around, being open to looking foolish, "Caveman Tim" and being self-deprecatory to diminish status differences, asking simple questions repetitively, active listening, reflection as a means to learning in the moment, being in the moment, being okay with vulnerability.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Ted Woolsey, Tom Slattery, SNES, Dark Forces, TIE Fighter, LucasArts, Full Throttle, The Dig, Phantasmagoria, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Warcraft, Command & Conquer, N64, Dracula X (Castlevania: Rondo of Blood), Twisted Metal, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Bomberman 3, Kirby's Dreamland, Earthbound, Dragon Quest (series), Trials of Mana, Tales of Phantasia, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy (series), Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball, Shonen Jump, Masato Kato, Xenogears, PlayStation, Shiren the Wanderer, Ninja Gaiden, Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, SquareSoft, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts, GameBoy, Ni No Kuni, Ultima (series), Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, The Witcher (series), John Romero, Fallout, Wasteland, Enix, Activision/Blizzard, Dragon Warrior, Dungeons & Dragons, Jason Schreier, Chrono Cross, BioWare, Ocarina of Time, Aladdin, Diablo, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon Ho, Day of the Tentacle, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Mass Effect, Super Metroid, Super Castlevania IV, Wall-E, Shenmue, Mario Kart, The Mandalorian, Planetfall, Isaac Asimov, Star Trek: Nemesis, The Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed, James Roberts, Stretch Armstrong, Boss Fight Books, Michael P. Williams, Republic Commando, Star Wars, Cyrano de Bergerac, Roxane, Douglas Hofstadter, Un Ton Beau de Marot, Love in the Time of Cholera, Edith Grossman, Margaret Jull Costa, Odyssey, Emily Wilson, Warren Linam-Church, Jeff Morris, Civilization, Mario 64, Dark Souls, Demon's Souls, Super Meat Boy, Beyond Earth, DOOM, Batman: Arkham Knight, Soren Johnson, Maas Neotek Proto, The Turbo Encabulator, Obduction, MYST, Metroid Prime II: Echoes, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Next time:
Up to The Magus's Castle

Errata:
Brett said RPGs when clearly he meant RTSes. We regret the error. (It's Tim's fault.)

Links:
John Romero on Chrono Trigger

Tim's Charity Webpage

Pacific Crest Trail Association

Big City Mountaineers

The Turbo Encabulator 

Anime Intro Movie

Twitch: brettdouville, instagram:timlongojr, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com