Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time . We talk about the Library, our problems with it, how we were misled, and how such things happen, as well as other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to "On the Ramparts" Issues covered: the Prince as a jerk, what did you call me?, feeling hamfisted but trying for the heart, a stepping ston...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our series on Baldur's Gate with an interview with James Ohlen, who was lead designer on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:50 Interview 52:50 Break 53:21 Outro Issues covered: starting a comic book store at 19 right before the market crashed, the origin of Minsc, starting at BioWare, building an IP bible as a way to start, working the...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time . We talk a bit about combat and especially the way the baths area expands the level design, despite a few visual language missteps. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through the Soldier's Mess Hall Issues covered: the physics of ponytails, trying to make the palace feel like a real place, deathtra...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 16 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time . We set the game in its time and studio, and then speak a fair amount about its holistic approach to design, its fluidity, and its contextualization of game mechanics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to defeating Demon Dad Issues covered: 2003 with lots of sequels and licenses, when you launch a ...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 13 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Baldur's Gate . We talk takeaways and then clean up a very full mailbag. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: the long-term quest of the franchise, Baals everywhere, converting from D&D, not every rule translating well, limiting the story to a generic "Gorion's Ward," having different expectations for their other games, a full campaign, fee...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr 33 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Baldur's Gate , the 1998 D&D interpretation that put BioWare on the map, as it were. We talk about the end of the game based on our two approaches to play, some fun side content, and other issues! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the game! Podcast breakdown: 0:48 Baldur's Gate 1:09:35 Break 1:10:06 Feedback Issues covered: nam...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 41 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we celebrate our five years of podcasting by doing something a little bit different. We look at our first Adventures, the Atari 2600 Adventure and Colossal Cave Adventure . Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: why we're doing the adventure games, the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, birds and videos, connecting the printer to the modem, arcade games we played, action games...
Mar 03, 2021•1 hr 24 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Bioware's 1998 CRPG classic, Baldur's Gate . We talk a bit about the structure of the world, the difference between playing straight through on the main story and indulging in side quests, companions, and some about audio and music before turning to your feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Chapter 5 Issues covered: Brett...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 44 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Baldur's Gate. We talk about racing through versus following multiple sidequests, about tactical battling, and about the huge variance in verb sets for different party members, amongst other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Chapters Two and Three Podcast breakdown: 0:57 Baldur's Gate 1:02:11 Break 1:02:43 Feedback Issues covere...
Feb 17, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series about Baldur's Gate , the 1998 CRPG from BioWare that revitalized the genre. We situate the game in time, talk about BioWare as a company, and then turn to a lot of Dungeons & Dragons nerdery. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Chapter 1 Issues covered: explaining Brett's intro, flashbacks, 1998: a great year in games, the setting, 2...
Feb 03, 2021•1 hr 28 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we look back on the podcast year of 2020 (because we'd like never to think about the year in general ever again). We talk over our takeways, largely drawn from our interviews but also bringing in themes from the games we played. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: Tim's non-trip, COVID/US tragedies, playing a bunch of sims, every day is problems, better people mean...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we air our December interview with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines writer/designer Brian Mitsoda. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:48 Interview 1:11:02 Break 1:11:34 Outro Issues covered: wanting to start in screenwriting, playing a game that gets its hooks in you, overdressing for the interview, the low bar to QA entry, starting out testing RPGs, "don't ...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 14 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we explore Ocarina of Time a bit more through an interview with industry Executive Producer Lani Lum. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:48 Interview 1:07:25 Break 1:07:54 Feedback Issues covered: nerd markings, "why are you studying anthropology?", drawing the short straw, transferring into production, unsung heroes, "this is a game about a girl?", video gam...
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr 44 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We talk takeaways and then catch up on our feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:50 Takeaways 48:18 Break 48:45 Feedback Issues covered: the Master Quest version of the game, the 3DS version, transitioning to 3D, coming up with mechanics to answer new questions, the evolution of block puz...
Jan 06, 2021•1 hr 48 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We talk about a lot of side quests and then turn to the end of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the Game! Issues covered: playing games too fast, the tension of verbs and shortcuts, loss of discoverability, taking note of where things are (or not), where to find remaining skullt...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We talk about the ability to play things out of order and the precursor dungeons and temples of this section of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: through the Spirit Temple Issues covered: the possibility for going out of order to dungeons, being able to get all the tools, how to speedrun ...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 34 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We dive into the Water Temple (see what I did there?) as well as elaborating more about some topics we touched on last time. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through the Water Temple Issues covered: what Tim means when he talks about Hyrule Field, lack of prior art for 3D hub and spoke, the beginn...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 34 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We talk a lot about cluing direction, small keys, and the two dungeons we played. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through the Fire Temple! Issues covered: what brings out the email, developing a relationship with Sheik, having trouble figuring out how to go back and forth in time, getting stuck i...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 29 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We look at some of the snags around the Zora domain as well as its main dungeon, chat about mechanic literalization, and then Tim explodes a Lore Bomb. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Until becoming the Hero of Time Issues covered: the undercurrent of masculine tropiness, the canonical relationship b...
Dec 02, 2020•1 hr 28 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We talk a bunch about mechanics big and small in this one, focusing on things that come up through the first dungeon as well as some audio chat and themes of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Death Mountain Issues covered: adorable Gorons, audio hardware, voice emotes, the unappre...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 26 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on one of the highest-rated games of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . We of course first situate the game in time, but especially start the discussion by talking about how ground-breaking and revolutionary it felt at the time. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through meeting Princess Zelda Podcast breakdown: 0:50 Ocarina 1:...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 25 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our series on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines . We talk about Chinatown, the end of the game, boss design, and then turn to our takeaways! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the game Podcast breakdown: 0:52 VtM: Bloodlines 1:01:03 Break 1:01:44 Takeaways Issues covered: the use of voiceover in RPGs at the time, the whole game Maguffin, some ...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 24 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines . We delve into Chinatown, touch on some of the level design issues, and revisit some of the thinking of how RPGs and genres were starting to bleed into one another at the time. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through Chinatown Issues covered: level design in the Warrens, whether things were fully...
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines . This week we talk a bit about how we're playing the game, what that suggests about its design, and continue to delve into all this vampire mythos. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through Hollywood Podcast breakdown: 0:50 VtM: Bloodlines 57:41 Break 58:12 Feedback Issues covered: how we get from ...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 32 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines , from 2004. We talk especially about level and design density and the world structure, as well as tidbits of our playthroughs and of course, our names! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Downtown Issues covered: picking your character's name, insane vampires, the disposition of White Wolf, joke...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 21 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our annual tradition: a series on a horror-themed game. This year we look at 2004's Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines , the last game from RPG developer Troika. We set the game in its time (and its crowded month) and talk about its license, how that compares with D&D in particular, and the opening moments of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections play...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 20 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Populous with a special guest interview with Glenn Corpes, the original programmer who came up with a little generator for height maps that ended up launching a whole genre; we'll talk about that and tons of other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Interview 1:18:41 Break 1:19:02 Next time Issues covered: how Glenn got in,...
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 31 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we talk about our Populous takeaways and then take a little bonus look at Populous: the Beginning , an RTS spinoff from the original games. We talk about how the game takes concepts from the originals and molds them into something new, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few missions Podcast breakdown: 0:56 Takeaways and Populous: The...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 36 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1989's genre-defining Populous . We take a little more time with the game and then think about how and why and it might have hit so big at the time, in addition to considering its principal designer, Peter Molyneux. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Several more battles Podcast breakdown: 0:50 Populous Discussion 51:30 Break 52:02 Feedb...
Sep 16, 2020•1 hr 23 min
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1989's Bullfrog Productions hit and originator of the God Game genre, Populous . We talk about using the mouse in 1989 and dive into particular strategies and the surprising depth of the game, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Another... 5? Levels Issues covered: the tutorial just going on, restarting a conqu...
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 18 min
