Info

Dev Game Club

Join hosts and game industry veterans Brett Douville and Tim Longo as they explore older titles to talk about the influences those games had and what we can learn from them even today.
RSS Feed
Dev Game Club
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: 2017
Dec 27, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have a very special, year-end blast where we talk about some top take-aways and interview moments from the past year. And it's been a busy one, with six interviews and ten games discussed. Thanks for joining us this year. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: defeating Darth Vader, the complexity of the world and reflecting that in TIE Fighter, taking a twist on the Chosen One, developing the character of Gordon Freeman and ultimately cutting the cutscenes, having a scene of level designers competing with one another and also with other companies, making single-player content be moment-to-moment excellence, the enemy AI playing against you in X-COM, flying under the radar, adding dynamic difficulty at the last possible moment, Tim loses his X-COM save file, thematic and story integration, holistic design (between control/mechanics/camera/space), less is more, individual effort shining through, homogenization of game development, nailing the 3D camera, shipping your experiments.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Anachronox, Darren Johnson, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Dan Connors, Mark Cartwright, Larry Holland, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Republic Commando, Planescape: Torment, Chris Avellone, Half-Life, Marc Laidlaw, Chuck Jones, Dario Casali, Fallout, Sin, Daikatana, Quake II, Titanfall 2, Respawn Entertainment, Chris Blohm, Julian Gollop, X-COM: UFO Defense, Microprose, Phoenix Point, Star Wars: Starfighter, Fumito Ueda, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Silent Hill 2, Super Mario 64, Battlefront II, Metal Gear Solid, The Last Guardian, Fred Markus, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
We return to Anachronox and go down to the surface of Democratus!

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Dec 20, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our discussion about 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We talk about the writing and humor, how those may have developed, and also discuss the characters and their characterization, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Votowne

Podcast breakdown:
0:45   Segment 1: Anachronox
50:23 Break
50:52 Segment 2: Feedback

Issues covered: etymology of sly boots and other forms of boots, the writing style, broad and referential humor, the quest for a size five helmet, comedic space opera, particular interests in the humor, dark humor, lack of boundaries to the writing, Grumpos's Yammer ability, going back and forth with your party on Votowne, having to have Sly in your party, drifting in space conversations, walking a thin line of humor and menace, hinting at Detta before you meet him, is PAL's voice getting in the way?, lip-synching and fully-voiced cinematics, recording all actors in the same room, length of space cutscenes, edited together machinima, paying off on team and technical investments over multiple games, use of multiple locations, feeling like a television series, political commentary, gaining confidence in comedy, individualism in Votowne and Rho Bowman, use of space and environment in combat, combat speed, stone sentinel fight and combat design, figuring out the JRPG rock-paper-scissors stuff, combat challenge and depth (or lack thereof), enabling character dialog based on quest state, Sender Station Station, NPC state or location changes based on quest, boss battles, jeep battle section at end of MGS 1, marker system challenge in SWRC, air steering in Tomb Raider.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Nathan Bailey’s 1721 Dictionary of Canting and Thieving Slang, Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, SpaceQuest, Sierra, The Beatles, Tom Hall, Jim Jones, SpongeBob Squarepants, Cartman, Buck Rogers, Kingdom Hearts, Nightmare Before Christmas, Cowboy Bebop, Mass Effect, Planescape: Torment, Chinatown, John Huston, Kingpin, Daredevil, The Godfather, Jeff Morris, Jake Hughes, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Uncharted (series), Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Star Trek (television series), Avengers/Captain America, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Trigger, Tomb Raider, Drew Homan, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Panther One/Anthony Vaccaro, Asteroids, Pong, Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Hero Engine, GameMaker: Studio, Republic Commando, Nathan Martz, Tomb Raider (2013), Mario (series), TIE Fighter, Half-Life, Julian Gollop, X-COM, Chris Avellone.

Next time:
To the Surface of Democratus!

Links:
Asteroids tutorial, Step 1: https://youtu.be/7XDcSXVUGsE

GameMaker: https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

Brett Making Asteroids in a couple hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv7L09FOx8E

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Dec 13, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning our new series on 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We set it in its time, and discuss how we decided to play it and then spend a lot of time on its world-building. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Bricks

Podcast breakdown:
0:40    Anachronox in time, Initial discussion
38:36  Break
39:04  Thanks and feedback

Issues covered: Games of the Year, how we came to choose Anachronox, 2001 in PC games, mash-ups, lack of character creator, is the character a Chosen One, possible character antecedents, world-building in simple ways and picking up things as you go, avoiding the lore bombs, dialogue trees vs continuing dialogue, progenitor race tropes, technology we don't understand but make use of, more character antecedents, film noir tropes, Boots as sad sack, layout of the introductory area and not getting lost, mix of architectural styles, moving city blocks around, putting ideas into games more quickly, investing in mechanics to make them pay off multiple times, boat action sequence, mini-games, shifting audience expectations, less forgiving audiences, changing suspension of disbelief, character names, a codex with all the names of stuff, potential fragility of scripting, thank yous, German B-thing, Tim's phone audio, musical touches in Mario 64, Brett's favorite Mario 64 levels, games we replay, Brett and Freud, picking games and timing, interviews, difficulty in getting Japanese devs, next time.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Alien Isolation, Nintendo Switch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed Origins, AC Unity, AC Syndicate, id Software, Quake II, Mass Effect, Silent Hill 2, Max Payne, Clive Barker's Undying, Oni, Bungie, Soul Reaver 2, AVP, Star Wars: Starfighter, Halo, Final Fantasy, Deus Ex, Blade Runner, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, David Cage, David Bowie, Starcraft, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Gateway, Rendezvous with Rama, Babylon 5, Geoff Jones, Frederick Pohl, J. Michael Straczynski, Firefly, Sam Spade, Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Grand Theft Auto III, Dark City, City of Lost Children, Alex Proyas, Rufus Sewell, Unreal, Half-Life, Dario Casali, John Romero, DOOM, Chase Thompson, Super Mario 64, Aaron Evers, MDK, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Good Old Games, Metal Gear Solid, Mark Garcia, Gamer Lawyer, Skyrim, Fallout (series), Bioshock (series), Hitman (series), Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Mario Kart, World of Warcraft, Tim Dore, Sigmund Freud, Thief: The Dark Project, Bullfrog, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Silent Hill 2, Portal, TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Rogue One, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, System Shock 2, X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey, Ashman86, Jason Schreier, Kotaku: Splitscreen, Republic Commando, Chris Avellone, Julian Gollop, Marc Laidlaw, Reed Knight, Darren Johnson, Larry Holland, The Phantom Menace, AddictArts.

Next time:
Up to (and possibly through) Votowne

Corrections:
Arthur C. Clarke wrote Rendezvous with Rama. We regret the error.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Dec 6, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are closing our series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. We start at the end, discuss Koji Kondo's iconic music and finally, our takeaways, before turning to listener feedback. SM64 Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game!

Podcast breakdown:
0:42   Segment 1: Discussion and Pillars
44:35 Break
45:08 Segment 2: Feedback/next time

Issues covered: the boss battle, getting better at the game, getting those red stars, finding a backflip shortcut, throwing Bowser and figuring out a pattern for yourself, listening for audio cues, desperation, difficulty of the final Bowser fight, having a one-up nearby, building that Bowser battle around the controller, training you for that final battle, ending games, weird final cake, the last few levels, Tiny Huge Island and finding Wiggler, Tim learns you can choose one or the other image to jump into Tiny Huge Island, secret stars, sliding down the ramp, the music, our John Williams, adapting simple melodies across multiple titles, the stickiness of a few Mario musical themes, pulling these melodies forward into modern games, comparing film music to game music, limitations of hardware influencing musical choices, the 3D camera working so well with the level design, accommodating a camera in your level design (vs not), the abstraction that allows exploration of 3D ideas and experimentation, decision paralysis, the hub and spoke structure revisited, not holding up as consistently, green cap, variant gameplay should be easy, endings of games are hard, new combinations of skills, appreciating the game as an adult, more developed critical skills, importing an N64 and renting it out, reconfiguring the levels, speedrunning Mario 64, Brett uses the F word, teleporting out of the world, extending the play of the world, getting to the unreachable coin, swimming in 3D platformers, wish fulfillment in games, octogenarians and nostalgia, physical competence, VR potentially having a role when we are old, targeting wish fulfillment to only one demographic, power fantasy, mobile fantasy fulfillment.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Super Mario Odyssey, Portal, Mario Kart, Daron Stinnett, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, John Williams, Halo, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Final Fantasy XV, Soul Reaver, Dan Houser, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sasha Visari, Truffles Mochacchino, SEGA Saturn, Tomb Raider, The Hobbit, Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Bobby Oster, Phil Rosehill, Summoning Salt, Awesome Games Done Quick, Audrey Fox, Mikkel Lodahl, Cribbage, Backgammon, Bridge, Ultima, Richard Garriott, Kim Kardashian's Hollywood, Ready Player One, j-dog33, Fallout 3, Silent Hill 2, Anachronox, Republic Commando, Reed Knight, Deus Ex, Tom Hall, id Software, Jeff Green, Computer Gaming World.

Links:
Summoning Salt on the Super Mario 64 120-Star World Record Progression

Summoning Salt on the Super Mario 64 0-Star World Record Progression

Super Mario 64 120 Star Race at GDQ

Super Mario 64 0/1 Star Race at GDQ

Half Button Presses 

The Super Mario 64 coin that took 18 years to collect 

Next time:

Anachronox! Through "Bricks"

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Nov 29, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. Tim intros the 'cast for the first time and we discuss both macro and micro design. SM64 Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to 50 stars!

Podcast breakdown:
0:44     SM64 Segment
42:02   Break
42:33   Feedback segment

Issues covered: likening Brett to a car, increasing difficulty of stars within a hub, Brett getting all the stars for a bunch of worlds and figures out how he got there, red coin challenges, rising frustration but increasing skill, getting access to the second Bowser battle, hub and spoke structure, choices and exploration, building a sense of place by allowing players a bit of choice of which path to follow next, linearity as a review trope, sacrificing narrative for non-linearity, player choice reducing narrative urgency, abstraction of narrative helping with non-linear stories, avoiding stress and soft gating, finding stars out of order, dynamic difficulty built into design, maintaining order for consistency and communication's sake, courses as missions, wanting the clues to the other stars earlier, telling stories via stars, tagging the current star, move set with many possibilities from few inputs, triple jumping in place, gaining height, 100 coin stars, profound impact of the game, finding every way to die in Shifting Sand, adding new stuff that doesn't work as well, swimming in 3D character games, variant gameplay should be easier, the difficulty inherent in the flying controls and not making the transition well from 2D, experimentation, mods and getting in, the paintings and the world of 2D, maintaining some jankiness, leaving bugs in, giants killing you in Skyrim, adventure games and intentional blind alleys, motion sickness, being software driven vs hardware driven, gambling and children, not all characters created equal, matching loot box mechanics to the property.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Cadillac, Super Mario Odyssey, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces, Nintendo, Skyrim, Super Mario World, Super Mario Sunshine, Game Developer Magazine, Uncharted 4, Mike Reddy, Half-Life 2, Adam Griffiths, Dan Pinchbeck, The Chinese Room, Dear Esther, Logan Brown, From Software, Paper Mario, Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Super Mario 3D Land, Halo, Day of the Tentacle, Wolverine, Aaron Evers, PSVR, Vive, Oculus, The Witness, Shadow of the Colossus, Alien: Isolation, TIME Magazine, Ben Zaugg, EA, Madden, FIFA, Aaron Rodgers, Lionel Messi, Star Wars, Battlefront, Piotr/jatyoni.

Next time:
Beat Bowser (finally)!

Links:
I could not find the issue of Game Developer I wanted, but here's the magazine archive

Adam Griffiths's mod 

That One Time It's Different 

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Nov 22, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. We talk about level design, what permits its density, and then fall into a long chat about Nintendo's innovations in controls. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To the second Key!

Podcast breakdown:
0:33   Segment 1: SM64 Talk
43:46 Break
44:14 Segment 2: Feedback

Issues covered: whether or not Mario is a plumber, how many stars to get, "not every star is created equal," the different blocks and where you need them, roomier spaces and how level design is overlaid to have multiple goals in a single space, clarity of options but less clarity of use, gating stars based on preceding actions, underestimating the balance and tuning of the designers, progression of difficulty of the stars, best of both worlds, getting later stars by luck and the sense of discovery, quest-like nature of the stars (and did the names come first), camera setting up where you are, layering exploration in 3D and space and time to play and figure things out, analog nature of space, pulling your attention, getting through a challenge the first time (when you come back), neuroscience digressions avoided, integrating skills with time away, getting over the skills threshold, Whomp's Fortress and level design density, lessons for 3D level design, abstraction vs realism and context, basing design on mechanics and metrics, little digression of Super Mario Odyssey, the 7th star, values of each coin, finding the 7th star, mechanical depth with stealth sections, teaching the player fine motor control, designing to the controller, Wii Sports as a tech demo for the controller, teaching people to use the controller, a list of Nintendo's firsts, game makers vs toy makers, tangibility and holism and aesthetics of the total experience, taking risks with hardware, camera controls making more sense as buttons, camera attempts to work with your intentions based on Mario's facing, 8 red coin elevator and facing, discovering intentionality, partnership between player-camera-level design, mismatching level to camera, camera designers, using camera as cinematography to convey emotion but be playable, claustrophobic camera work in Tomb Raider 2013, centering the camera on a point you're circumnavigating, the first 3D platformer, the horror of children, whether AAA games are sustainable on $60 per unit cost, microtransactions in mobile, the Star Wars tax, IP secondary product monopolies, team size and content scale, boxed product cost, design against used games, closures, generation shifts, hit-driven business, pro controller, Nintendo solves my carpal tunnel problems.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Super Mario 64, Dr. Mario, Nintendo, Super Metroid, Super Mario Sunshine and Galaxy, Super Mario World, Zelda, Tetris, Super Mario Odyssey, Wii Sports, Nintendo GameCube, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo DS, GameBoy, Virtual Boy, Game & Watch, GameBoy camera and printer, WaveBird, Eternal Darkness, Remi Lacoste, Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider (2013), Ubisoft, Prince of Persia, Rise of the Tomb Raider, LonelyBob, Jumping Flash, PlayStation, Tomb Raider (1996), Johnson 'Blue' Siau, Silent Hill, Anatomy, Kitty Horrorshow, Jeremy Fischer, James Roberts, Battlefront 2, EA, Super Mario RPG, Destiny, Bungie, Activision/Blizzard, Star Wars, NFL, Halo 5: Guardians, Battlefield, LucasArts, George Lucas, Bethesda Game Studios, tj_mackey432, Game Junk podcast, Joet74, Smahimus87, X-COM, Inner Space, Fantastic Voyage.

BrettYK: 0
TimYK: 48

Next time:
To 50 Stars!

Links:
GameFAQs about Jumping Flash

Retro-style horror games from Johnson Siau

Back of envelope costs of developing a game


@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Nov 15, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are just beginning a new series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. We set the game in its time and then discuss the big up-front issues, particularly the camera and how new elements and mechanics sometimes require fictional underpinnings before turning to other issues, including listener feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up through the first key!

Podcast breakdown:
0:33   Segment 1: SM64 in time and initial thoughts
47:59 Break
48:28 Segment 2: Feedback

Issues covered: situating the game in 1996, cover shooters, fully integrating new mechanics, carrying forward 2D mechanics to 3D mechanics, the physics implementation, momentum and friction, 3rd person camera and control, animation control vs player control in 3D vs 2D, dust effects, shadow circle for depth perception (not realism), the hedge maze and following a rabbit to develop the camera, putting control on the player and punting on difficulty, Brett's history with 3D Mario and other 3D platformers, waiting for the camera to catch up, micromanaging the camera, centering the camera behind Mario, splitting attention with the camera and easing up on difficulty as a result, simpler levels, fictionalization of mechanics, introduction of the camera, controlling a second person, Hong Kong cinema, other examples of fictionalizing mechanics, the uses of the Force, holograms in RepComm, big transitions in games history, commitment to solving the camera, various framing with the camera, level design of camera control, Tim's OCD approach, hats, snow physics, having difficulty with the pulled out 3D, analog level design, tighter difficulty in more 2D levels, macro loop of setting you back to the hub level, knowing how much the player has played via door gating, masters of onboarding, reinforcing 3D-ness via boss battles, forgiving damage wheel, Tim's theory of red squares, red mirrors mythology, achievements from a developer perspective, optionality of achievements, console ecosystems, not usually driving development, a trend we were forced to implement, trend towards game length, pricing models, Brett's music-deafness, horror music not calling attention to itself, ambient soundtrack vs score, suspending disbelief and buying into horror combat difficulty, repetition in combat, the possibility of threat, Final Fantasy XV block mechanic, P. T. as playable trailer, Maria ending, history of the 120 stars run, speedrunning record breaking.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Silent Hill 2, Gears of War, Kill Switch, Super Mario (series), Fred Markus, Nintendo 64, Tomb Raider, Shadows of the Empire, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Retro Studios, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil, Quake, Crash Bandicoot, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Crystal Dynamics, Soul Reaver, UbiSoft, Shigeru Miyamoto, Daron Stinnett, Star Wars: Starfighter, Wipe Out, Rayman 3, Sly Cooper (series), Ratchet and Clank (series), GameCube, Margot Kidder, Mike Myers, Max Payne, John Woo, Tacoma, Jedi Starfighter, Republic Commando, Prince of Persia (2008), Tomb Raider (2013), Banjo-Kazooie, Yu-Gi-Oh, Blind Guardian, Mike Vogt, X-COM: UFO Defense, Julian Gollop, Firewatch, Uncharted (series), Steam, Good Old Games, Kotaku, Rare Replay, Halo 5, Dan Doyen, Xbox Live, Nathan Martz, Painkiller, God of War: Ascension, Ninja Theory, Visceral, EA, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, The Order: 1886, Eric Kozlowsky, P. T., Akira Yamaoka, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Final Fantasy XV, Hideo Kojima, Mads Mikkelsen, Eric Shields, Kevin Kauffman, Patricia Hernandez, Phil Rosehill.

BrettYK: 1
TimYK: 72

Errata:

Note, the article (in links below) about a small game developer leaning into Steam features appeared on Rock Paper Shotgun, not Kotaku. Dev Game Club regrets the error.

Links:

Real-Time Cameras by Mark Haigh-Hutchinson 

Developer making little games on Steam

Could Visceral have found another way? 

Making of Silent Hill 2 

History of the 120 Stars run

Beating the world record three times in 36 hours 

Next time:
Up through the second key!

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Nov 8, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have made our way to that hotel in Silent Hill 2 and then wended our way homeward. We discuss the climactic events of the game, our theories on who represents what, the multiple endings, and a host of other issues including takeaways and listener feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To the end of the game

Podcast breakdown:
0:43       Segment 1: Discussion of final third
1:07:20  Break
1:07:53  Segment 2: Takeaways and Listener Feedback

Issues covered: the chainsaw and why I didn't use it, Tim's last bit of the prison (getting stuck in the Purgatory room), the dumb keypad puzzle, Tim admits again that Brett is smarter, puzzle opacity, actually moving the room around, puzzles with thematic elements, the gallows area and the scary audio, Brett's play time and Tim's, finding Maria again, attract mode and Maria scene, Tim wanting more from the Maria moment, Brett's theory of Silent Hill and guilt, distinctions in Western vs Eastern horror, Eddie and Angela failing to escape their inner guilt, James maybe getting out, Silent Hill as private hell, Laura as potentially a desired child, psychology of a victim, evidence supporting Angela as molestation victim, the lack of rationality of the space, developers intentions toward surrealism/abstraction, is this room pumping out fog?, Eddie's psychotic break, the weird design choice to have long hallways and empty rowboat sections, James's water plane, similarity of hotel structure to apartments, the shelf and the elevator, the disappearing letter, "They Metroided you," the stealth mechanic, the tin can of light bulbs (and phoning it in), choice of environments across the game, watching the video tape and how Mary died, the use of the radio in the room, overly subtle choices, hotel degrading further, supporting multiple endings, what James needs vs whether Mary is in some sense real, the various endings and how to trigger them, commitment to symbolism and themes, Pyramid Head as most iconic horror figure, economical design, fog and lighting technology vs longer draw distances, flashlights, focusing on a few things rather than longer draw distances, indie games drawing from Silent Hill 2 rather than Resident Evil, Tim doing the intro, difficulty settings and mechanics, surfacing mechanics poorly, resource management, lack of threat, vulnerability.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Winona Ryder, Beetlejuice, Batman, Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Stranger Things, Ron Gilbert, Tommy W/IamtheworsT88, Ju-On: The Grudge, The Ring, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stephen King, The Mist, God of War, Metroid, The Shining, The Naked Lunch, Resident Evil, Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, Metal Gear (series), Unreal, Doom 3, GTA III, Final Fantasy (series), Penumbra, Amnesia, Jonathan DeLuca, Caleb Smith, GamaSutra, Star Wars: Starfighter, Shadow of the Colossus, Half-Life, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Alan Wake, Dead Space, Outlast, Eternal Darkness, Frictional Games, Mikael Danielsson, The Last Door (Seasons 1 and 2), Prisoner of Ice, Sierra Games, Dark Corners of the Earth, Shadow of the Comet, Infogrammes, Alone in the Dark, Bob Dylan, LucasArts, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo 3DS.

BrettYK: 2
TimYK: 49

Links:
Off Camera Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=-K_oM9waKIM

Next time:
Super Mario 64! Check the Twitter feed for info as to how far.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Nov 1, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the middle of our three-episode series on Silent Hill 2. We spend a lot of time talking about the section in the hospital and the potential meaning or personification of Pyramid Head. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up until the Labyrinth

Podcast breakdown:
0:34 Single segment this week!

Issues covered: Tim's Halloween costume, picking favorite moments, Pyramid Head first interactive encounter, his reputation, character design, ninja/tabi boots, wading right off into the water, following Pyramid Head, water as a theme, the drowned people under the lake, possible subtext, anthology rather than series, New England horror vibe, "something's up with that kid," differences between Maria and Mary, madonna/whore complex, James's reactions, the uncanny valley of character motivations, an "adult game," having different versions of Laura Palmer, influence of David Lynch's films, companion AI, game over if you kill Maria accidentally, running into Eddie in the bowling alley, seductively posing Maria in various locations, turning companion AI into strengths, a place more terrifying than the apartments, "ugh, the nurses," discomfort with sexuality, being uncomfortable in a hospital with his dead wife, is it all in your mind?, the doctor's note and the "other side," Pyramid Head as a personification of an idea rather than a character, map mechanics though they could be better, lack of distinction between rooms you must have to visit and those you don't, what's the use of an empty chest or a mimic in RPGs, Maria lying down and the breathing in the other side, the rooftop weirdness, does Pyramid Head trigger the radio, silly keys, best key in a video game: hair and bent needle, James turns his head at items of interest, green goop, RE training you to follow the science, Laura knows Mary from the hospital, maintaining the pieces that fits and dropping the clues that don't, the creature design of the Flesh Lips, tilting camera, how Brett measures space, map reset, production value foul, question of when Maria comes to the other side, Tim kills Maria, losing Maria to Pyramid Head, unnecessary combat working against horror, descending down down down, do you want to jump down the hole?, the weird hotel game show, humor in Asian horror, fidelity in horror games, lethality and vulnerability, embracing style, a handful of scary lo-fi games, less is more.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Winona Ryder, Stranger Things, Final Fantasy (series), Silent Hill: Homecoming, The Collective, Cloverfield (anthology series), Resident Evil (series), Richard Bachman, Stephen King, The Secret World, Hitman, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Halloween (film), David Lynch, John Carpenter, Halo 6, Uncharted (series), Day of the Tentacle, Ron Gilbert, Lord of the Rings (obliquely), Bjorn Johansson, Inception, George Romero, John Romero, Dungeons & Dragons, Lost, Freddy Krueger, Amnesia, Alien: Isolation, Metal Gear Solid, The Host, Shakespeare, Michael Ficus, Cthulhu, The Shrouded Isle, Tanya Short, KitFox Games, Alone in the Dark, Splatterhouse, Friday the 13th, Minecraft, Infocom, The Lurking Horror, Cameron Kunzelman, Epanalepsis, Kitty Horrorshow, David Pittman, Minor Key Games, Eldritch, Slayer Shock, Frictional Games, Soma, Penumbra, Dark Corners of the Earth, H. P. Lovecraft.

BrettYK: 1
TimYK: 50

Next time:
Finish Silent Hill 2!

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Oct 25, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are just beginning a new and shorter series on Silent Hill 2. We set the game in its time period, and dive in quickly to the madness that brings us to that quaint little town, Silent Hill. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up through the end of the apartments

Podcast breakdown:
0:37   Silent Hill 2
51:15 Break
51:45 Feedback

Issues covered: revisiting our interview with Julian Gollop, Julian's mum, PlayStation 2 year one, dividing the critical audience with The Room, Konami firing Kojima and turning to other industry, Tim not knowing what the game was, campiness of Resident Evil, walking through the apartments in the dark, the fog and short draw distance, how the game starts, elegant narrative, putting you in the mind of the protagonist, grief, "early walking simulator," immediate tension and danger, psychological thriller and horror elements, the camera -- fixed vs semi-fixed, build-up of tension, no cognitive dissonance between player and character, id/ego/superego, economy of design, bold choices in controls, intention through controls, audio terror and musical stingers, PlayStation technology, fog particles and fill rate, interior darkness, Tim's television environment, complicity, bloody footprints, jump scares in RE vs knowing something's coming (via the radio), learning through failure with a jump scare, Riddle Difficulty, lock and key puzzles, Harry Mildred Scott, case of canned juice, examining objects, save game representation, red handkerchiefs, Pyramid Head's blood and gore, psychosexuality, the enemies with the legs top and bottom, Pyramid Head as Id, Ego in James hiding from the Id, fear of confronting the primal, contra Nemesis or other RE enemies, the other characters, hallway reuse, description of PT, difficulty and usability, building a game for yourselves, wider demographics, more conservative finances, maintaining the young perspective, finding the right difficulty for your goals, size of the space in Souls games, Silent Hill remaster, some technical concerns, horror is about what you can't see, emulating the original experience, streaming stuff over the web, playing on a CRT, having a lot to respond to, layering in unexpected variables in X-COM, picking classics, the stuff that sticks with you, the complexity of the Oblivion leveling system, Skyrim as aspirational leveling system.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Julian Gollop and the Gollop family, Fallout, Konami, Ico, GTA III, Metal Gear Solid 2, Jak & Daxter, Twisted Metal Black, Max Payne, Black & White, Halo, Silent Hill series, Team Silent, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Sam Barlow, Her Story, Silent Hills, Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, PT, Resident Evil, Pink Gorilla, Twin Peaks, Stephen King, Alan Wake, Jacob's Ladder, Freud, God of War, Amnesia, Sega, Nintendo, Microsoft, Star Wars: Starfighter, Koei, Square, Capcom, Alone in the Dark, Gollum, Ingmar Bergman, Halloween, Michael Keane, Ashley Riot, Vagrant Story, Super Mario World, Oblivion, Skyrim, Dark Souls, Demons's Souls, X-COM, Wayne Cline, Dmitry Pirag, Organ Quarter, Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics, PlayStation Now, Cameron Hass, Final Fantasy IX, Planescape: Torment, Shadow of the Colossus, TIE Fighter, Phantasmagoria, Civilization, Final Fantasy VII, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate.

BrettYK: 4 1/2
TimYK: 46

Links:
Brett on difficulty 

Next time:
Up to the Labyrinth

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Oct 18, 2017

Welcome to this special bonus interview episode of Dev Game Club, where we welcome Julian Gollop into X-COM Base Provolone for a chat. We delve into the genesis of the game, how a publisher saved the game and itself, and many other topics surrounding the development of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:41       Gollop Interview
1:05:20  Break
1:05:50  Next time

Issues covered: Julian's ludography, genesis of X-COM, adding isometric rendering, Microprose's demands of the Gollops, interceptions, bolting on a strategic layer atop the tactical model, having more intelligent aliens and reverse engineering, men in black not making it in, intrapublisher competition, tabletop boardgaming and influence, miniature wargaming, simultaneous movement games, division of labor, geoscape rendering, going to the pub with the producer, getting canceled and not knowing about it, being developed under the radar, QA standing up for the game, working in-house, seeing through the cruft, advancing the alien agenda (mission counts), scaling difficulty, game not being played through before ship, small QA team, adding a difficulty scaling system last-minute, the save game bug, enjoying a simulation of intelligence (of an alien nature), how the alien tech tree works, deployment tables for mission types, save-scumming, theorizing about the difficulty curve, difficulty as draw and happy accidents, "When gamers were gamers," QA as a critical team element, explicit research goals, research as storytelling, procedural generation of level tile placement, descriptions of Phoenix Point, 4X with a declining population, explicit story, the Phoenix Project.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: 2010, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mythos Games, X-COM (series), Laser Squad, Lords of Chaos, RebelStar (series), Codo Technologies, Laser Squad Nemesis, UbiSoft, Snapshot Games, Microprose UK, Stephen Hand, Civilization, Gerry Anderson, UFO (TV series), Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, Alien Liaison, Timothy Good, Bob Lazar, Squad Leader, Sniper, SPI, RoboRally, John Reitze, Martin Smiley, Spectrum Holobyte, Chris Blohm, Final Fantasy IX, X-COM: Apocalypse, Phoenix Point, Dark Souls, John Broomhall, HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, FIG, Fallout, Tim Cain, EA, Sid Meier, John Carpenter, The Thing, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Link Between Worlds, Wasteland II, The Evil Within.

BrettYK: 0
TimYK: 43

Links:
Phoenix Point

UFO television series


Next time:
Silent Hill 2 - check Twitter for how far we'll go

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Oct 11, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are quickly going over the beginning of X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Surprisingly, although we both liked it, we preferred the original. Stockholm Syndrome? Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
The first couple hours

Podcast breakdown:
0:39    Discussion of Enemy Unknown
35:53  Break
36:24  Feedback and reviews

Issues covered: Firaxis's recent history, preferring the original, investment bias, hitting a stride in the original, usability improvements, holding your hand a bit, flowchart for learning stuff, complete hand-holding, constant camera cutting, a lot of loss of drama, dynamic cameras, camera cutting and immersion, base management, playing the original right next to the remake, playing chess, the rules you make up for yourself, reducing squad size, increasing depth, subclassing characters, ability trees, how do you determine what class a guy should be, tactical improvements due to classing, reducing the time unit complexity, more intuitive opportunity fire and movement, streamlining and removing the jazz improvisation, how far do you streamline?, discrete time units, making a game more shallow to broaden the audience, being explicit about the geopolitical game, board game nature of panic monitor, you can see interesting decisions coming from the geopolitical game, interesting and hard choices, having to pick one or the other, puzzle aspect of balancing choices and rewards and panic, panic and DEFCON, abstracting time management, hitting a stride with the original, Metal Gear naming, Big Boss on the Memorial Wall, getting into game development, a bit of horror discussion, games not existing in a vacuum, loss of context for the creation of art.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Star Wars (obliquely), Julian Gollop, Nick Gollop, Firaxis Games, Silent Hill 2, X-Com 2, Mario + Rabbids, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy XII, Dragon Magazine, Republic Commando, Civilization, Drake Gens, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Unity, Unreal, Brendan Keough, J K/Justin, RebelFM, Anthony Gallegos, Eternal Darkness, WeyounNumber6, LucasArts, Fallout, Kwakerjak, Jak & Daxter, Mozart, Lpkid641, Jason Schreier, Kotaku, Jordan Staley, Nier Automata.

BrettYK: 0
TimYK: 51

Links:
X-COM Art Direction Postmortem 

Next time:
Interview, or start Silent Hill 2? Keep an eye on the Twitter feed.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Oct 4, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our third in a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. We wrap up our discussion of the game, covering save-scumming and difficulty, and talk about some pillars and takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Just as much as we could fit in

Podcast breakdown:
0:39     Segment 1: X-Com finale
41:51   Break
42:24   Segment 2: Pillars and feedback

Issues covered: the terror mission that kicked Tim's butt, getting under your skin, "super-gratifying," difficulty curve a bit too steep, quitting the game early, interceptor trouble, plasma clips, the United States pulling out, powered armor, aliens I have seen, experimentation and determining enemy behavior rules, negative connotation of save-scumming, fairness, save-scumming to survive, aggressive play, discovery and save-scumming, setting up the second playthrough, smoke inhalation, planning around the 88% shot, forcing improvisation, figuring out elevations and other rules for line of sight, pacing and rhythm and controls, waiting on research and manufacture, endless learning curve, sending out the rookies to die, how medkits work, motion scanner use, the first two turns, flanking more, chain reactions, multilayered interdependent systems at the tactical level, having to deliver on the tactical combat, alien autopsies, player-driven stories, escalation of the game, invasion story to counter-invasion story, wish fulfillment of being a government bureaucrat, "they said yes to a lot of things," generosity in game design, scaling generosity because it's a sim, why games didn't incorporate time in calculations, Bad Designer No Twinkie, modding in games, unique ability of games to mod, why Vagrant Story is so good, restoring Brett's blog, horror games,

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Alien, Metal Gear, Casablanca, Blade Runner*, Laser Squad, Temple of Elemental Evil**, Troika, Arcanum, Final Fantasy Tactics, Mario + Rabbids, Far Cry 2, Rogue Spear, Rainbox Six, Zelda: Link Between Worlds, Ghostbusters, Rube Goldberg, Republic Commando, V: The Miniseries, Morgan Gray, Super Mario World, Nick Faulhaber, Dungeon Keeper, Ernest Adams, GamaSutra, Joao Vitor Bispo Galvao, Planescape: Torment, OpenXCOM, System Shock 2, Firaxis, Just Cause 2, Skyrim, Thomas the Tank Engine, Patrick Holleman, Losstarot, Kotaku: Splitscreen, Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story, Yasumi Matsuno, Dark Souls, Devil May Cry, JQ (yes, that's my real name), Resident Evil, Don Delillo, Zero K, Emily Ruskovich, Idaho, Hideo Kojima, Drop 7, X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Silent Hill 2, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame, Crimson Butterfly, Amnesia, Condemned: Criminal Origins, SOMA, Cthulhu.

*Yes, I flubbed the quote, it has been quite some time.
**It was 2003 (not 2004) and I was close: it was D&D 3.5.

BrettYK: 4
TimYK: 79

Links:
OpenXCOM: https://openxcom.org/

Kickstarter for Reverse Design, Volume II: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/144457690/reverse-design-volume-two

Next time:

Guest?

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Sep 27, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our third in a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. We talk about our plans of attack for the game, whether the game is reacting to our plans, and how sim games make an argument. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Who even knows anymore?

Podcast breakdown:
0:31 Game discussion
39:19 Break
39:45 Feedback/email

Issues covered: Tim's death of dysentery, Tim's approach and Brett's approach, reserving time for opportunity fire, how time units scale, ranking soldiers and hierarchy, mastery of sims, taking down a much larger UFO, is it dynamically scaling?, algorithms and tables, board game systems, complexity from simplicity, how a simulation makes an argument, visibility of rules and systems, how X-COM promotes anxiety, lack of telegraphing, wasting a player's time, the RNG and drama, strategy and planning and percentages, entertainment vs anxiety, do aliens panic?, flocking/herding/schooling behaviors, learning the AI's rules, looking forward to a modern version, exploits vs learning behaviors, empowerment of setting a trap, naming your troops and telling stories about them, streaming's impacts on games development, increasing player customization as a means of authoring, MOBAs as streaming games, shooters having difficulty crossing over, randomness in games, rewarding success because of the possibility of failure, RNG and the level layout, accessibility vs complexity and depth, transparency and mystery, over-indexing on accessibility working against aesthetics, diving deeper into games, thinking ahead to making a sim game of my own.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Oregon Trail, Ken Levine, Pandemic, Sim City, Mario vs Rabbids, Sid Meier, Randy Quaid, Johan Huizinga, Pac-Man, Clint Hocking, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Ubisoft, Super Mario World, Final Fantasy IX, Dan Hunter, The X-Files, Julian Gollop, RebelStar Raiders, Laser Squad, Dark Souls, Guernsey College (of Further Education), No One Lives Forever, Warcraft, Edge of Tomorrow, Player Unknown's BattleGrounds, Minecraft, Nuclear Throne, Vlambeer, Forza, Overwatch, Lucas Rizoli, D&D, Invisible Inc, World of Warcraft, Spelunky, Bjorn Johannson, Firaxis, GTA III, Recettar, Receiver, Surgeon Simulator, Reed Knight, Trespasser, Jurassic Park, Far Cry, Civilization, Michael Sew, Hitman 2, Hitman 2016.

BrettYK: 1
TimYK: 45

Next time:
Finish the game? (Narrator: They will not finish the game.)

Links:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/05/no-one-will-sell-no-one-lives-forever-so-lets-download-it/

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Sep 20, 2017

That week, the Dev Game Club podcast welcomes special guest Ken Levine, founder of Irrational Games and designer/writer of System Shock 2! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:33     Intro
1:50      Early days of SS2 and Irrational
31:33    Break 1
31:57    SS2 World-building, design, future
1:17:16   Break 2
1:17:29  Quick note about next episode

Issues covered: "Shock" prototype, Looking Glass relationship and Ken's early career there, Irrational Games beginning, business structure, imagining your audience and what you'd like to make, fingering .plan files, emergence and immersion, simulation, persistent world, personal ownership of experience, engine strengths and weaknesses, making fish stew, the benefits of constraints and happy accidents, polish, sense of place, naturalism in a science fiction setting, making the most of minimalism, turning a weakness into a strength, economical design, race track design/nooks and crannies, lack of time for level review, "spreading the butter thinner over the bread," elevator as storage chest, balancing, player skill vs. character skill, the "genius of the novice," story influences and groundedness, leaning on the audio space, writing towards the voices you have, bringing everything you have to the party, single-player squad shooters, letting people figure things out, crunchier design, the pendulum of accessibility, dealing with player frustration as a resource, what next

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Paul Neurath, Looking Glass, Jon Chey, Rob Fermier, Apocalypse Now, Dark Engine, Thief, EA, Origin, Se7en, Doug Church, The Magnificent Seven, Star Trek: Voyager, Hideo Kojima, Eric Brosius, Dorian Hart, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Star Wars, System Shock 1, John Carmack, Ultima Underworld, Choplifter, Defender, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Might and Magic series, Doom, Warren Spector, Bethesda Game Studios, Quake, Todd Howard, Fallout 3, Skyrim, The Division, Republic Commando, GTA series, Starfighter, Terra Nova, Roberta Williams, Alien/Aliens, Kemal Amarasingham, Stephen Russell, Terry Brosius, Courtnee Draper, Sean Vanaman/Jake Rodkin, Firewatch/Campo Santo, Bioshock, Freedom Force, SWAT 4, Tribes Ascend, The Lost, Firaxis Games, Minecraft, Dark Souls, Don't Starve, Fallout 4, Left 4 Dead, Battlezone, Austin Grossman.

Next time:
Hitman 2: Beginning through level 4

@IGLevine, @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Sep 13, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our third in a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. We talk about the ways in which procedural generation and written generation interact a bit, as well as detailing our playthrought a bit. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
In theory, 6 months

Podcast breakdown:
0:38 X-COM segment
35:05 Break
35:35 Feedback segment

Issues covered: opportunity fire cost, reserve time units, how much things cost, how we did on our goals, Brett starting over and why, researching yourself into a whole, games are a a series of interesting decisions, what are we willing to live with, difficulty knowing how you're doing, failure conditions, Tim's rocket launcher opener, alien mental effects, tile generation algorithm for terror attacks vs downed UFOs, procedural generation at its best, an engine for wonderful moments, tuning procedural generation, multiple states for tiles, persisted state of tiles, telling a story via your swath of destruction, screaming deaths of civilians, center of the UFOs, determining when to reload a save, procedural vs written content (e.g. tech trees), Brett's base management, how does science and research work, Monty Haul problem, providing two ways of thinking about/explaining a problem, psychology in game design, tricks in game design, board game popularity.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sid Meier, Civilization (series), X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Darius Kazemi, Superman (obliquely), Ryan, Giant BeastCast, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahnemann, Bobby Oster, PlaneScape Torment, Final Fantasy Tactics, Super Mario World, Bloodborne, Warcraft, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Amy Hennig, Half-Life, Uncharted, Ogre Battle 64, Advance Wars, Tomb Raider, Eric Shields, Kotaku, X-COM: The Bureau, 2K Marin, Republic Commando, Jennifer Scheurle, Starfighter, Nathan Martz, Halo (obliquely), Andrew, Mario + Rabbids, Hearthstone, Pit People, Transistor, Armello, Antihero, Hare & Tortoise, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Qwirkle, Susan McKinley Ross, Chris Ross, Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Pandemic: Legacy, JackBox Party Pack, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Apples to Apples, You Don't Know Jack.

BrettYK: 0
TimYK: 44

Links:
Kotaku article: http://kotaku.com/game-developers-explain-some-of-their-favorite-ways-to-1798749279
Board game stuff:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/25/board-games-internet-playstation-xbox
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9bkj7z/rise-of-board-games
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/38121/tabletop-games-driving-2017-kickstarter-growth

Next time:
In theory, a year?

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Sep 6, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. This week, we talk about terror attacks, game tension, gratification, and a bit of base management. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few hours past the first ground mission

Podcast breakdown:
0:38 Segment 1
41:18 Break
41:47 Feedback

Issues covered: managing the clock speed, difficulty of the game and having to get better, failure screens, terror attacks, meeting different alien types, starting over again and getting more ground missions, learning the dynamics of covering one another, being unable to understand line of sight, infiltrating an UFO, contributions to tension, researching tech tracks, being unable to capture an alien alive, the use of radar dishes, recruiting scientists and soldiers, base building, the research loop and discovering what's out there, weapon lists, no storage of time units, energy costs, soldier stats, deep management, saving mid-ground mission, AI difficulty balance towards fairness, developing difficulty more towards numbers changes than behavioral ones, real-time flight combat, finance game, QAing a game like this, QA and developer skill and having trouble identifying how difficult to make your game, gratification of mastery or partial mastery, pin and fork moves in chess, fire propagation, learning how to use grenades, losing bodies and artifacts to grenades, alien deployment curve, tutorials, incorporating lessons without folks knowing they're being taught, underestimating tutorial building time, taking your time to build skills over multiple small levels, layering in simulation.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Twilight Zone: To Serve Man, The Naked Gun, TIE Fighter, Fallout, Cryptosporidium-137, Destroy All Humans!, Nintendo, Ultima, Super Mario World, Julian and Nick Gollop, Reed Knight, Darren Johnson, John Yorke, Half-Life, Halo, Republic Commando, Starfighter, System Shock 2, charles F. george, minatorrent, Final Fantasy IX, Nickname_Placeholder, Aaron Evers, Ducky Shirt.

BrettYK: 1
TimYK: 73

Next time:
Play six months

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Aug 30, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. This week, we set the game in its historical context and discuss the beginning of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up through first ground mission

Podcast breakdown:
0:38       X-Com Segment
1:06:28  Break
1:06:51  Feedback segment

Issues covered: business model of early Wizardry, DOS Box, perils of the back catalog, 1994 in games, turn-based games history, war gaming, X-Com as shorthand and a genre definer, tutorial in the manual, pure sim, "Suit up son, you're going to Mars," tracking your first UFO, placing your first base, destroying your base and losing the money, simulation depth, usability issues, getting outrun by UFOs, don't shoot it down over water, placing your base in Australia, air combat, time units as primary resource, line of sight, random number generation and probability, managing player expectations, switching from math to psychology, how we've used probability over time in design, nailbiting moments when the RNG goes your way, end of month ratings, Tim loses, high skill and exploration.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Wizardry, The Witcher (series), Mass Effect, Ultima, Bard's Tale, Night Dive Studios, Meridian 59, No One Loves Forever, Julian Gollop, Super Metroid, TIE Fighter, Warcraft, Final Fantasy VI, Doom ][, Earthbound, Earthworm Jim, System Shock, Heretic, Megaman X2, Jazz Jackrabbit, Master of Magic, Beneath a Steel Sky, Burn Cycle, Richard LeMarchand, Fallout, D&D, Avalon Hill, Axis & Allies, Chris Crawford, Eastern Front, TankTics, Koei, SSI, Panzer Strike, Laser Squad, Mario vs Rabbids, Firaxis Games, Jake Solomon, Klei, Invisible Inc, Oxygen Not Required, LucasArts, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Chess, Nintendo, Famicom Wars, Gameboy Wars, Advance Wars, Jagged Alliance, Panzer Generals, Final Fantasy Tactics, Castlevania, Chainmail, Gary Gygax, Star Trek, Morgan Gray, Ron Gilbert, Ken Shoemake, Civ II, Dunkirk, Sid Meier, Oblivion, Skyrim, Ross Hadden, Super Mario (series: World/Sunshine/64/Galaxy), Ben Zaugg, Jason Schreier, SNES Classic, Redwunder, Idle Thumbs, Important If True, ChrisLaBs, scootermm, Micus_Ficus, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ausy19, Kotaku Splitscreen, Spirit Tracks, Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds.

BrettYK: 5
TimYK: 60

Next time:
A few hours more

Correction: I believe the "Suit up, son, you're going to Mars" quote actually came from a Mark LeBlanc talk. DGC regrets the error.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Aug 23, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we currently playing 1991's Super Mario World. This week, we finish Super Mario World and talk about our takeaways, including some deep dives into modern design sensibilities and constraints. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To End of Super Mario World!

Podcast breakdown:
0:37    SMW Discussion
44:19  Break
44:57  Feedback/Next time


Issues covered: Bowser's Castle, introducing mechanics in a critical path way, picking up the mecha-Koopas and tossing them onto Bowser's head, relentless pace of new stuff, player-motivated triggering of boss state, boss patterns, using Yoshi (or not), timer platforms, setting your own goals then and now, speedrunning origins, milking more out of levels by choices, keeping people interested via new level design tricks, expense limiting new gimmicks and reinforcing reuse, abandoning the lessons of the past, production realities, combinatorial depth, great base rule set where adding single elements extend in surprising ways, virtuous cycle of exploration and mechanical depth, RPG-ification of games, achievements, intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards, turning off notifications, notification and FOMO, achievements and the platform ecosystem, trading cards, Switch voip weirdness, focusing on the games, collecting every category in Breath of the Wild, tension-based enemy design, finding the rhythm in jumps, playing off up vs down, Eastern design sensibilities, yin/yang, opposition in Eastern design, subtractive vs additive design, punishing mechanics, save states against learning/mastery, apocalypse in Hyrule, lock/key vs player expression in Breath of the Wild, Mario as theater, variance among early Mario games, Luigi through the years, theater and games, comics, VHS of Legend of Zelda, cyclical nature of games, web of games, text adventures and scores.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Justin Timberlake, Sonic Mania, SEGA, Legend of Zelda (series), Shadow of the Colossus, Starcraft II, Half-Life, Warcraft, Mario (3D games), Giant Bomb, Breath of the Wild, Chris Hecker, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, Origin, UbiSoft, GOG, Switch, Ratchet and Clank, Pikmin, Shigeru Miyamoto, Jonathan DeLuca, Game Informer, Tacoma, Halo, Bjorn Johansson, Star Wars (obliquely), Inception, Mario RPGs, Mike Vogt, Super Mario All-Stars, Cameron Daxon, Sleep No More, True West, Sam Shepard, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard, Gone Home, The Scottish Play, Punch Drunk, The Antenna Theater, Kublai Khan, The Dark Knight Returns, Vertigo Comics, Wonder Woman, Nick Tapalansky, Skyrim, Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Final Fantasy IX.

BrettYK: 3
TimYK: 67

Interstitial Music from OCRemix.org, artist N4L4

Links:
Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!

Next time:
Ultima III, Wizardry III, Bard's Tale "Introductions"

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Aug 16, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we currently playing 1991's Super Mario World. This week, we talk about how the difficulty of the game more and how it interacts with the exploration of the space. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.


Sections played:
Through the Forest of Illusion

Podcast breakdown:
0:33 Segment 1 (SMW Discussion)
34:35 Break
35:11 Feedback

Issues covered: finding a key, picking things up mechanic, directing the player, repeating use of mechanics, picking up and placing objects, difficulty controlling the cape, progression of mechanical complexity, building on fundamentals, doing new things with hardware, similarity of modern consoles and PCs, meta infrastructure, controller changes over time, what do you add and remove with sequels, serving old fans vs serving new fans, helping you to be a completist, incentive to explore, discouraging exploration, exploration and requirement for high skill, lag in the Wii and switching to emulation, mastery as a design choice, user experience of difficulty, joy of playing as an incentive, "every level you find is a gift," precision of Mario play, lack of collectibles as proof of mastery, seeing other games in Nintendo games, the picture of Brett in Nintendo World HQ, taking Yoshi or the cape through every level, getting corrected on lore, retconning the lore, trying to make sense of long series, films and world-building, disconnected ("title-related") series, paying down the Wii points, alternate reality games, adventure games being dead, archiving server-based games, appreciating the fleeting experience, Jen's Majestic experience, reflecting on the podcast through a review, eavesdropping mission in Thief II, user experience in literature/theater/film/comics/etc, different every time, role-playing vs boss battles.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Star Wars Starfighter, Prey, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Assassin's Creed, Shadow of the Colossus, Metroid (series), Tomb Raider, Halo, Super Meat Boy, Wolfenstein 3D, Skyrim, New Super Mario Bros 2, Link Between Worlds, Ben Zaugg, Mighty Joe Young, King Kong, The Giant BeastCast, Skyward Sword, Marvel Cinematic Universe, John Wick 2, James Bond, Casino Royale, Final Fantasy (series), Wizardry (series), Ultima (series), The Witcher (series), Metal Gear (series), C. J. Zimmerman, Super Princess Peach, Chrono Trigger, In Memorium, mym1nd, Blade Runner, Eternal Darkness, Discworld (series), Reed Knight, Majestic, The Black Watchmen, The Secret World, Antioch Scarlet Bay, Republic Commando, Computer Gaming World, Andrew Kirmse, Meridian 59, Chris Kirmse, 3D0, Star Wars Galaxy, The Matrix Online, Giant Bomb, KaiN - if that's my real name, Half-Life, mjwaz, AddictArts, DocBrutals, Soul Reaver, DreamCast, Thief II: The Metal Age, Looking Glass, System Shock 2, Ken Levine, Ultima Underworld, Origin Systems, Deus Ex, Warren Spector, Dishonored, Raph - some artist guy, Diablo II, Final Fantasy IX, True West, Daron Stinnett, Hitman 2, Tacoma, @giant_rat/Ficus.

BrettYK: 6
TimYK: 52

Side note: What the heck is a "pedi-stool"?

Correction: Super Princess Peach was a Nintendo DS title.

Links:
Bananas and Gigantism

Next time:
Finish the game!

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Aug 9, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are taking a quick break from our Super Mario World series. This week, we talk in person about the first couple of hours of Breath of the Wild. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
First couple of hours of Breath of the Wild

Podcast breakdown:
0:39     Seg1: BotW
34:10   Break
34:42   Seg2: Feedback

Issues covered: setting up mics, how Zelda is it?, influence from other games, Shrine "modules" and puzzle rooms, pinning spots on the map vs being shown on a map as space is uncovered, lack of metagame (cheevos), checklist approach to design, world design problems with line of sight, ordering of challenges/dungeons, running into different Zelda elements, do things relate to the macro quest, tackling Ganon immediately, tilting towards exploration, materiality of the world, climbing perfection, masters of contextual animation, player engagement via many inputs, player skills, designing to the controller, mapping the N64 controller, influences, the difficult of mixing ideas, technology vs magic, Guardians in prior Zelda games, a new generation of Nintendo designers, lighting things on fire, speedrunning report, number of exits in SMW levels, jailbreaking SMW, Cheese Bridge, save state, identity politics in Mario games, damsel in distress trope, video game characters being defined by what they do or can't do, getting into game development, game jam to meet people, make a thing all the way through, difficulty with just the jump button, reaching for higher level mechanics to adapt to difficulty, choosing hardware to support game design, making things too difficult because you could load, save states changing psychology, streaming data changing design, bigger and lazier games with save everywhere.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Twilight Zone, Jennifer Lopez, Tacoma, Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, Wind Waker, Minecraft, Portal, Assassin's Creed, Miasmata, Bethesda Game Studios, UbiSoft, PS3/Xbox 360, The Witcher 3, Disneyland, Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, Wayne Cline, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Nick Pavis, Soul Reaver, Tomb Raider, Ultima (series), Patrick Hollemann, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Super Mario 64, Ray Gresko, Firefox, Clint Eastwood, DLC podcast, Jeremy Fisher, SNES Classic, Shadow of the Colossus, Halo (series), Alien, The Last Guardian, DarkSiders, Prey, Desmond Miles, Star Trek, Hayao Miyazaki, Shigeru Miyamoto, Super Mario Odyssey, Phil Rosehill, Andy Laso, Patty/pcull44444, James Roberts, Jason Schreier, Michael Sew, SethBling, Red Dead Redemption, Sleeping Dogs, Rob ot, King Kong, Chris Suellentrop, New York Times, Mario Run, Super Mario Galaxy, Mickey Mouse, Stefan Soc, Unreal Engine, TIGSource, iOS, Steam, Space Invaders, Edwin Crump, Dark Souls, Super Mario Bros 3, Brian Taylor, Myst, Shadows of the Empire, Half-Life 2, NES Classic, God of War, Super Meat Boy, The Game Informer Show, Ben Hanson.

Next time:
Through the Forest of Illusion!

Links:
Swordless Zelda : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSkrK0-EIVY
96 Exit Race : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajPjBaG3p5c
Super Mario World - Credits Warp in 5:59.6 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14wqBA5Q1yc
Jailbreaking Super Mario World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixu8tn__91E
Sullentrop article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/opinion/super-mario-runs-not-so-super-gender-politics.html?_r=0


@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Aug 2, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we currently playing 1991's Super Mario World. This week, we talk in more depth about the level design and the ways in which its open nature influences difficulty. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Vanilla Dome

Podcast breakdown:
0:29     Game discussion
48:10   Break
48:50   Feedback

Issues covered: In-depth discussion of saxophones, respecting the game as a work of art, potential tech issues, character momentum, ways in which 3D platformers might be different, preparing for a run, mental state for play and muscle memory, player physics, going back and forth in a level, the ghost levels, how Brett preps for a run, Brett learns thing that Tim doesn't, having levels you can't get past and then the next one being easy, frustration with reaction time, Nintendo design pillars, combining elements for complexity and depth, introduction of mechanics in Donut 3, onboarding players/teaching without them knowing, what is the Nintendo practice to tune these levels?, being prepared for a level rather than coming in fresh, learning through failure and accident, imitating Nintendo but not doing it well, visual fidelity, learning through failure as a trope, our decisions should make the players' lives easy (regardless of the cost to us), "fun does not mean challenge," no room for error, "digital failure," high-lethality shooters and skill, blaming yourself and getting frustrated, overworld, making certain things necessary to prepare for because of the overworld, balancing the game around an ability, getting your money's worth, multiple paths and having your mind blown, hint lines, not being a phone person, help line as crunch, ROM hacks, why not a 3D platformer.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Edward Herrmann, The Lost Boys, Koji Kondo, Link to the Past, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World 2, Rayman Legends, Half-Life, Cave Story, New Super Mario Bros, Super Metroid, Breath of the Wild, Shigeru Miyamoto, Valve, Blizzard, Demons's Souls, Tomb Raider, Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios, Rogue Spear, LEC-Quake, Patrick Holleman, Anthony Halderman, GTA series, James Roberts, LucasArts, Alexander Graham Bell, Wizard and the Princess, Sierra, Apple ][, Mario Maker, Eric Anderson, Mario 64, Mario Odyssey, System Shock.

BrettYK: 8
TimYK: 37

Interstitial Music by djpretzel, find him at OCRemix.org
Outgoing music by Ficus/@giant_rat

Links:
Patrick Holleman's link 1 and link 2
Super Panga World 

Next time:
Through the Forest of Illusion!

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Jul 26, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are kicking off a new series on 1991's Super Mario World, a SNES pack-in title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Yoshi's Island

Podcast breakdown:
0:40    SMW Discussion
48:36  Break
49:18  Feedback

Issues covered: Tanooki suits, the ubiquity of Mario, the console versions of the game, Tim's history with 2D platforming, recognizable characters, overworld presentation, confusion, choosing right rather than left, being able to trust the level progression or not, starting over with each level, making a poor choice, having all the skills from the very beginning, ability set, replaying things to gain skill, game over, time limits, Brett's strategy, ways to get extra lives, mastery, the many rules and abilities you learn in just this first world, tutorial blocks, enemy hints, power ups, being unforgiving, game over screen, game value and arcades, tolerating different aesthetics of play, Tim's preferences in play, speculation about a Half-Life 3, small universe problem, AI challenges, Ico and Yorda, Super Games Done Quick, motion sickness, games that didn't get their due, HL2 crowbar moment.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Tomb Raider, Square, Donkey Kong, Nintendo, Doki Doki Panic, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, Civilization, Monkey Island 2, Wing Commander 2, Another World, Mega Man 4, Final Fantasy IV, Super Castlevania, ToeJam and Earl, Super Ghosts and Ghouls, Alex Neuse, Mickey Mouse, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, Candy Crush, Halo, Daniel Craig, James Bond, Dungeons and Dragons, System Shock 2, Half Life, Counterstrike, Nintendo Power, DLC, Crash Bandicoot, GTA V, Dark Souls, Shigeru Miyamoto, Koji Kondo, nambulous, Portal, Chewbacca, Yoda, Star Wars: Episode III, Empire Strikes Back, Marc Laidlaw, Mark of Kri, Rise of the Kasai, Ico, Valve Software, Jonathan DeLuca, Ross Hadden, LucasArts, Jedi Outcast, Ratchet & Clank, Earthbound, Undertale, Super Meat Boy, Christian Spicer, Jeff Cannata, RebelFM, Raven Software, Quake III, The Witness, Aaron Evers, Shogo: Mobile Division, LithTech, No One Lives Forever, Loom, The Dig, Rise of the Dragon, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Realms of the Haunting, Anachronox, MDK, Hexen, Heretic, Reed Knight, Daikatana, Deus Ex, David Perry, Shiny, Earthworm Jim, Sacrifice, Planet Moon Studios, Sly Cooper, Commandos, Eidos, Tribes, Majestic, EA, Neil Young, John Riccitello, LMNO, ngmoco, Jedi Starfighter, Republic Commando, Vagrant Story, Sean Donovan, Mr. Merlin, TakLocke, BattleTech, MechWarrior, TIE Fighter, Zone of the Enders, Kojima, MechAssault.

BrettYK: 35
TimYK: 54

Links:
Swordless Link to the Past run
Jedi Outcast speedrun

Next time:
Donut Plains
Vanilla Dome

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Jul 19, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have been discussing Valve Software's 1998 classic Half-Life. This week we do a little bonus work and turn to its sequel, Half-Life 2, released at the end of 2004. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to Water Hazard

Podcast breakdown:
0:36   HL2 Discussion
40:05 Break
40:35 Feedback

Issues covered: the airboat: digital input/analogue output, E3 demo, face technology, glossing over the interlude between the two games, characters as connective tissue, establishment of setting, building of tension, commitment to first person as production concern in HL1/creative commitment in HL2, waiting in line for food dispenser, art direction, the oppressor vs the oppressed, masks in Antonov's art direction, disempowering the player, physics technology, influence of 1984 on City 17 (the proles), multiple instantiations of characters in HL, playing on nostalgia, domesticated head crab Lamarr, everything goes haywire, Alex's introduction, fully realized space (HL1) vs fully realized characters (HL2), being unable to break the scene, humor in the scenes, humor for exposition, humor as humanity, interaction of all the physics systems, real world rules, buoyancy puzzles, inspiring Tomb Raider design, linearity and looping back on goals, pacing working against non-linearity/goal puzzling, lack of ability to return to places, the Vortigant member of the resistance, reintroducing the HEV suit, self-awareness, audio for Combine, EKG death sound, the audio equivalent of screenshake, Marin County Fair, licensed engines and internal engines, avoiding dependency, amortizing development cost, what a game engine provides, changes we made to Unreal to support Republic Commando, additions to Source engine in HL2, making your game not look like other games made with an engine, having access to source code, prototyping vs making things perform well, evaluating pros and cons, economic reasons, changing engines mid-stream, remastering and rewriting renderers, marketing reasons for sequels and leveraging existing technology and knowledge base, design documentation, game design documents (GDDs) vs scrum, documenting for your own sake, documenting tech features, producers as living documents, using a document as a tool for yourself, visual tools, on-screen is king.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Marc Laidlaw, Dario Casali, The Last Guardian, Halo, Daron Stinnett, Republic Commando, Soylent Green, Carl Wattenberg, Viktor Antonov, Dishonored (series), Arkane Studios, 1984, William Shakespeare, Tomb Raider, Batman, Kelly Bailey, Alex Farr, Rebel Assault II, X-Wing, Quake, Unreal, Frostbite Engine, EA, Battlefield, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Battlefront, Mass Effect, iD Software, Ubisoft, Snowdrop engine, Rayman Legends, Michel Ancel, Activision, UbiArt Framework, Gears of War, Sea of Thieves, Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, Bethesda Softworks, Wolfenstein, The Evil Within, Unity, Tacoma, Bethesda Game Studios, Starfighter (series), Full Throttle II, Mysteries of the Sith, Chris Klie, LEIA engine, LucasArts, Jedi Knight, Crystal Dynamics, Bungie, Duke Nuke'em Forever, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank (series), Fallout 3, Skyrim, Goldeneye, N64, Rare Replay, Dan Hunter, TIE Fighter, Troy Mashburn, Stone Librande, SimCity, SNES Classic, Nintendo, Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Alex Neuse, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Odyssey, Nintendo New 3DS, Wii, Yoshi's Island.

Stats:
BrettYK: 23
TimYK: 40

Next time:
Super Mario World: Play through Yoshi's Island

Link:
Stone Librande on One-Page Game Designs

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Jul 12, 2017

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing Valve Software's 1998 classic Half-Life. This week we welcome Dario Casali, a level designer who worked on Half-Life and is still with the company all these years later. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:39       Interview with Dario Casali
1:04:41  Break
1:05:03  Feedback segment

Issues covered: current status of Tacoma, games in 1993, connecting with a serial cable, newsgroups and Usenet, bundling up levels to sell, connecting over the early Internet, getting into Valve, the magic of Seattle weather, describing how your levels work as part of the interview, an interview between peers, having only the pieces and pulling them together, technology coming online and throwing away a lot of levels beforehand, creating structure by drawing with charcoal on big pieces of paper, having a central focus for a level because designers came up with their own ideas, unifying the design, setting core hours starting from 11am, integrating a new mechanic, competing with one another's levels and with other companies, not wanting long stretches without something new, paranoia and passion and terror, Quake Engine Licensee Cold War, level transition technology, hokey conventions, maintaining complete control of the character, having doors to begin and end the level, having to implement your own stuff even up to save and load, mixing and matching mechanics, not confusing the player: show them a puzzle clearly and then layer complexity for them to figure out, not stopping the player, playtesting was number one, creative autonomy, single-player vs multi-player design effort per second of play, level design and programming interactions, corrupting the Borg-like purity of programmers' work, how level design has changed in two decades, the products should change but the people shouldn't have to, maintaining the culture, doing a thing every day, getting less terrible day by day, finding the thing that undergirds a new Half-Life, having access to the source, analysis paralysis, constraints in engines, Hackathon weeks, bending engines, you can't shut him up.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Tacoma, Starcraft (obliquely), Milo Casali, Quake, Doom, LucasArts, Chris Klie, Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield, id Software, Shawn Green, American McGee, Ted Backman, Marc Laidlaw, code name Quiver, Kelly Bailey, John Guthrie, Fallout, Sin, Daikatana, Jay Stelly, Unreal, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, 343 Industries, Microsoft, Gabe Newell, Bethesda Game Studios, Brian Robb, John Webb, DotA 2, IceFrog, Narbacular Drop, DigiPen, Counterstrike, Forge, Halo, June, Jonathan DeLuca, SuperGiant Games, Greg Kasavin, Bastion, Transistor, Amir Rao, Zelda, Metroid, Shovel Knight, Brian Taylor, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Skyrim, Starfighter, Rich Davis, Jedi Starfighter, Andrew Kirmse, lucasrizoli, TakLocke, BattleTech, MechWarrior, MechAssault, TIE Fighter, Steel Battalion, Trent Polack, Steel Hunters, Joy Machine Games, FASA, Shadowrun, Jordan Weisman, Haden Blackman, Crossbones, Bachs, Fernandez, Chad Barth, Shibby Train, Fallout 3, The Last Guardian.

Next time:
We will play and discuss a bit of Half-Life 2

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

1 2 3 Next »