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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.
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Now displaying: August, 2022
Aug 31, 2022

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on SimCity 2000. We talk disasters and scenarios and of course, our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A new beginning and a scenario

Issues covered: looking at the scenarios, recovering from disasters, plane crash disaster, choosing what disasters you would use, flooding in particular, kicking down the sandcastle, what it models and what it doesn't, wanting to have a conversation about it with your child if they played it, street-level view of community, a fun-house mirror on urban development, various areas of study referenced in the simulation, the books referenced for further study, sicknesses in the modern sim, needing an influx of cash to keep your villages going, looking at the scenarios, reflecting on Flint Michigan, choosing to reflect a real place, eminent domain, being curious about why that was included, finding compromise, focusing on progress, expose/explore/explain your passions, inherent statements in how you win, the huge scope of this game and the wish fulfillment of that, a simulation can't be everything and as a game you have to be careful, urban renewal and SimCity, the Launch arcologies.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: mysterydip, Doug Bowser, Nintendo of America, Cities: Skylines, The Boys, Roger Ebert, Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, David Macauley, Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Disney, Five Nights at Freddy's, Call of Duty, American Factory, Roger & Me, SimTown, Will Wright, Raid on Bungeling Bay, Doom, Civilization, Maxis, Midknight22, Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, Chris, Cyberpunk, High Rise, J. G. Ballard, Crash, Dredd, Megaman, Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Notes:
The 5e book list in the DMG is very different from the 1e list.

Next time:
...?!

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

Aug 24, 2022

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on SimCity 2000. We talk about the lore of SimCity and what Brett and Tim appreciate or don't about sim games these days. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Speed-playing to modern day and beyond

Issues covered: unsung hero CPAs, playing on cheetah speed, taxing different areas at different rates, digging into a hole, being in a deficit spending, the tech tree, the money cliff, what preconceived notions the game requires, what's cheating, experimenting through multiple cities, not caring about what the buildings are, seeing the numbers and ignoring the lore, having to grow the city to survive, changing tastes as you get older, a city in flux, the ant farm (and not the ants), contrasting with Civ, modernizing your city, losing humanity, feeling joy playing it as a younger person, the melancholy of small towns, philosophy, disruption, cities and where you like to live, the game for kids vs the game for adults, missing the sense of human scale, moving to more relatable levels as designers, being conservative/preservative and progressive, the constant churn of capitalism, textile mill porn, the explosion of games, defaults vs choices, how you'd fix SimCity, Tim designing a different game, leaning in to politics, taking an overt stand, finding other local maxima, inclusive design, assuming your audience.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Marc Elrich, Ronald Reagan, Joker, Scarecrow, Civilization, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Sam Anderson, Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum, Animal Crossing, SimTown, MacWorld, Next Generation, Cities: Skylines, The Sims, SimAnt, Dungeon Keeper, UbiSoft, Watch Dogs, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Will Wright, Black & White, Fable, Populous, Ole Sollie, Megaman, 20XX, Super Meat Boy, Fez, Legend of Zelda (series), Dark Souls, Artimage, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More SimCity!

Notes:
The Sam Anderson book Brett was referring to was Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City

Links:
The Secret Ideology Hiding in SimCity's Black Box

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

Aug 17, 2022

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on SimCity 2000. We end up spending a lot of time talking about the political choices that inform the game, as well as other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
More hours?

Issues covered: being the opposite of what rangers or druids do, the San Francisco method, finding natural borders, responding to the water crisis, getting clued by the newspaper, planning ahead for subways, district sizes and ratios, trying to make your city look a certain way, needing that transportation budget, how Europe approaches traffic accidents vs the US, politics in games, procedural argument, where you put your coal plant, cars put in the parking lot, when subways should be built, keeping your commentary out of your marketing, how you make an argument, what appears in the newspaper and its lack of correlation to the history, broadsheets vs tabloids, how do you generate the newspaper content, WillTV, evolving buildings and aesthetic choices around them, Megaman X lore, how the podcast impacts our work, more musical selection, why the metal blades are so useful, Magnasanti.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Will Wright, CalamityNolan, MegaMan X, Dark Souls, cbb2016, DOOM (1993), MYST, Raymond, mysterydip, Judge Dredd, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Links:
Can't Beat Air Man

Countless Memories

Mega Man 2: The Sequel That Saved the Series - Pikasprey

Magnasanti Polygon article

Magnasanti dev video

Next time:
More hours?

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

Aug 11, 2022

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on that classic sim, SimCity. We very briefly situate it in time and talk a little bit about Will Wright before talking over some of the strangeness that is this game (or toy). Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Tutorials or A Few Cities

Issues covered: which version and why, establishing the SimUniverse, Wright and describing his design process, a good representative for our art form, a simulated ant farm toy, setting it in its time, licensed titles, the origins of the game in practice and in theory, a wide variety of influences, industrial design, where other designers get their influences, working in a space with other designers, picking your battles and choosing conflict, different sims being developed at the same time, legacies, a recognizable space, playing with it like a toy, setting your own goals, differences in the motivation for play, a very Western lens, making assumptions and scope, a Christian church as a statement, designing to constraints, what you're building and what you're not, meeting the citizens' concerns, zoning and pipes and infrastructure, how cities grow in reality and the intersection with history, the newspaper as a conduit for information and setting and feel, the weird content in the newspaper, advisors and the pulse of the people, being grounded, the things that are your concern, budgets and taxes and deficits, audio associated with taxes, "Read my lips: no new taxes," being careful with incentives, replaying MegaMan levels, audio budgets, the names and lore of MegaMan, listening to music when you code, generated art, humans as creators and consumers of art, art as conversation and exploration, enjoying procedurally created levels and worlds, AI assistant tools, kudos to the hosts, being humbled by how our games touch people.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Will Wright, The Sims (series), MAXIS, Spore, SimAnt, SimCopter, SimTower, SimEarth, MegaMan 2/X, Prince of Persia, Populous, Tetris, GameBoy, Castlevania (series), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Batman (1989), MYST, DOOM, Day of the Tentacle, Star Fox, Secret of Mana, The 7th Guest, Bill Gates, Link's Awakening, Raid on Bungeling Bay, John Romero, Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, Urban Dynamics, Star Wars, Alien, June Longo, Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin, Legend of Zelda (series), Civilization, Populous, Sid Meier, Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Cities: Skylines, X-COM, Dark Souls, Mrs Reckis, mysterydip, The2ndQuest, NES, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, OCRemix, Metal Gear Solid, Valheim, Minecraft, Parham, Republic Commando, Skyrim, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More hours? Hard to know how to schedule this one :)

Links:
-Mega Man 2 (Original Version) by The Minibosses (metal medley of MM2 tracks)

-Mega Man 2: Tickle My Wily by Star Salzman (kind of an epic orchestral/electronica OCRemix piece)

-Cataclysmic Clash by Game Over (MM3-inspired, but quotes recurring music from MM2- also has lyrics!)

-Mega Man X Guitar Medley by FamilyJules


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

Aug 3, 2022

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on MegaMan 2 and X. We talk difficulty for sure, before turning to our usual takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
More of MegaMan X

Issues covered: the big story turn inside the boss, the tedium of taking out enemies again and again to get drops, minimal loot tables, seeing more of an enemy, the limitations of trial and error and difficulty, playtime and quarters, designing around lives, fighting games, a bad port, the social experience of arcades, shifting marketing, a different design mentality, hot-swapping weapons, other usability additions, reusing a formula, mini-bosses and learning things, simpler patterns, the dash on a button, good boss character design, doing the hard thing, Ornstein and Smough, game structure around bosses and experimentation, having to account for the Buster, getting things from the bosses, variety of environments, the cohesion of the levels, character feel, the mascot, vibrancy of the visuals, accessibility, games and agency, Solaire as an accessibility option, house rules as an accessibility option.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Castlevania, Super Metroid, Dark Souls, NES/SNES, Sega Genesis, Pac-Man, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Nintendo, Sony, Circuit City, Fry's Electronics, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil 4, Shadow of the Colossus, Mario (series), Metal Gear (series), Sam Thomas, The Last of Us II, Ratchet & Clank, Super Smash Bros, Celeste, Dark Forces, id Software, Ninja Gaiden, Tomonobu Itagaki, Candyland, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia, Dog Game Club.

Links:
SSB Mega Man trailer 
Bit Brigade Concert

Next time:
??? Time will tell

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

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