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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: May, 2023
May 24, 2023

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on Metroid Prime, which we are playing via the Nintendo Switch remaster. We set the game in its time, talk a little bit about Retro, and then wall jump into the action of the tutorial area. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Until you arrive on Tallon IV

Issues covered: Tim's purging, Western developers making FPSes for Japanese publishers, basing things on the lock-on, a game set apart by art direction, a ban on 2002, Brett's bookend years, the Capcom 5, the games for GameCube, being in the helmet, attach rate, top sales, reminiscing about a former colleague, the transition to 3D and Mark HH to support, seeing the potential for the game beneath the engine, ripping away ownership of the FPS, returning to the 2D formula, doling out their lesser selling properties a bit at a time, starting with all the gadgets, taking notes when you play a Metroid game, adding accessibility via the lock-on, locking on without a target, scanning as the second thing, good world building and boss teasing, teaching you how to fight with a simple boss, the amazing music and audio design, getting to look through the helmet, augmenting the sense of embodiment, finding community in an MMO, design for addictiveness, having an engaging game and then making something punishing, taking a game too far, the golden mean, ethical free-to-play, game metrics, key performance indicators, costs of people who play a game too much, designing to encourage people to step away from time to time, the humble origins of the James Bond theme, 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: GoldenEye 007, Splatoon, Capcom, Lost Planet, Retro Studios, Halo, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Eternal Darkness, Ratchet & Clank, Morrowind, Animal Crossing, Kingdom Hearts, Timesplitters 2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, 2015 Games, Infinity Ward, Jedi Knight 2, NOLF 2, BF1942, GameCube, Wind Waker, Resident Evil, Super Mario Sunshine, James Bond 007: Nightfire, Metroid Fusion, Dark Cloud 2, Sly Cooper & Thievious Raccoonus, Splinter Cell, Warcraft III, Neverwinter Nights, Jedi Starfighter, LucasArts, Resident Evil 4, Republic Commando, Metroid Dread, Nintendo Switch, LoZ: Tears of the Kingdom, Geist, Shadows of the Empire, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Jon Knowles, Shigeru Miyamoto, MegaForce, Super Mario 64, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Wired magazine, DOOM (1993), Metroid: Samus Returns, Bandai/Namco, Metroid: Other M, Mario Kart 8, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Arkham Asylum, Unreal, Colin "The Shots," World of Warcraft, Everquest, Marvel Snap, 343 Industries, June, Aristotle, Super Mario Galaxy, Sony, Star Wars: Galaxies, Raph Koster, Ultima Online, Calamity Nolan, James Bond, Guy Morgan, Monty Norman, Bad Sign/Good Sign, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas, John Barry, Grant Kirkhope, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Check the Discord!

Links:
The James Bond origin track

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord: https://t.co/h7jnG9J9lz
DevGameClub@gmail.com

May 17, 2023

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on GoldenEye 007 by diving a bit into the multiplayer and discussing our overall takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Multiplayer (for about an hour)

Issues covered: getting the good old Rare stories, writing music for the Nintendo 64, finding the Donkey Kong pitch, how remarkably easy it was to play it multiplayer, privacy concerns and game services, car horns and dogs, motion sickness, picking the guns, weapon placement, modes versus mutators versus picking your guns, asymmetrical play, house rules, a social multiplayer experience, lower stakes, not shooting if the other person doesn't have a gun, bullet penetration, more depth than anticipated, feeling the depth, rocket explosion use, a feature under the radar, ease of use, convincing the publisher, a humorous multiplayer, breaking the rules of FPSes, a historical development branch, seeing the one-upmanship in action, the multiplayer dark horse, the multiplicity of the modes, a cinematic FPS that uses the license really well, good characterization and escort missions that don't bug you, spending time makes characters matter, friendly AI at the time, objectives and level of difficulty, learning on the easy difficulty so you can play on the more difficult levels, drowning in nostalgia, building the realistic levels, the limitations of the tech and how it helped, the spookiness of fog.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Grant Kirkhope, Neill Harrison, Stamper (family), Donkey Kong Country, Bill Roper, Calamity Nolan, Switch, DOOM (1993), Halo, Unreal Tournament, Outlaws, Quake, Artimage, Biostats, LucasArts, Clorf, Starfighter, Noclip, Gran Turismo, Pete Brubaker, id Software, Time Splitters, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Starsiege: Tribes, Rogue Spear, Mario Kart 64, Steve Ash, Chris Klie, Alan Cumming, Drew, Minnie Driver, No One Lives Forever 2, The 002nd Quest, Shadows of the Empire, Silent Hill 2, Turok, Dead Space, Dark Souls 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Our next game!

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

May 10, 2023

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we insert a bonus interview into the middle of our series on GoldenEye 007. We speak with Grant Kirkhope, one of two composers on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:58 Interview
1:03:57 Break
1:04:32 Outro

Issues covered: starting at Rare in '95, composing in hex, the imposing approach to programming, fitting in 1 Mb, making a clarinet from one note, limiting your palette, looping your cymbal decay, working within your limits, downsampling from 44.1 kKz and using the EQ, working from good tunes rather than a huge palette, getting a degree in trumpet and living the musician life, the dole and mom's house, sending in casette tapes, having a meg of memory to play with, going to Disneyland, a farm in the middle of nowhere with teams in stables, a family affair, GameBoy in the morning and GoldenEye in the afternoon, limiting who could be in what building, a culture of friendly rivalry, taking ideas and building on them, brilliant bosses, being into the Bond films, the best film releases of every year, not knowing what you're doing, working on the multiplayer in secret, "not pleasing anyone a lot but pleasing a lot of people a little bit" these days, coming up with the idea in the morning and doing it in the afternoon, the indie spirit, small teams, making the engine you need and no extraneous bits, building games like Nintendo, working from two or three sentences, how does this thing sound (spiky things vs forest things), messing around until you hear what you like, instinctual, developing from an emotional sense, delving into Statue Park, trying to find the John Barry magic, being afraid you're going to get fired and instead moving on to another project, getting a chance to film all the sets, having the magic destroyed, a game that just kept selling and selling, the godfather of trap music, pause music becoming the soundtrack of the game, falling into games without training, music living on when the games don't necessarily, things that get into your head as a child, remembering what you've done, making someone's favorite game, having quite a journey, games as not a destination for composers, having a scene.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Donkey Kong, Graeme Norgate, Rare, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Viva Pinata, Kingdoms of Amalur, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Mario + Rabbids, The King's Daughter, Pierce Brosnan, Edinburgh, Nintendo, Blast Corps, Ken Griffey Baseball, Dave Wise, Robin Beanland, Bon Jovi, Billy Idol, Van Halen, Killer Instinct, Keybase, Atari ST, Tim and Chris Stamper, Donkey Kong Country, Microsoft, Mortal Kombat, Faith No More, Duran Duran, Martin Hollis, Shigeru Miyamoto, Captain America, Monty Norman, John Barry, Gregg Mayles, Pinewood Studios, The World Is Not Enough/Tomorrow Never Dies, Sea of Thieves, Thunderbirds, Sting Ray, Tim Schafer, Psychonauts 2, Chris Woods, David Byrne, How Music Works, Velvet Underground, DOOM, Dark Forces, Neill Harrison, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Multiplayer and takeaways

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

Discord Invite

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