Ellen’s back in the clubhouse, let’s see what she remembers. Lydia brings a Dungeons and Dragons mechanic about recovering memories called 'Untitled Mechanic,' Stephen feels part of a club that is not Nice Games Club, and Mark brags about playing 2nd Edition in middle school. Untitled Memory Mechanic in D&D Lydia's website Lydia Symchych Oneshot inspirtation ZacSpeaksGiantYouTube Lydia's google doc Lydia Symchych...
Your nice host return to the complex and sometimes underappreciated world of quality assurance in the game dev space, and also explore discovery as a design focus. In this episode: Lydia is still looking for recommendations while at the Serious Play Conference (answer in Discord!), Mark hates on Jira and Stephen finally catches up to the latest gaming trend a couple of months late. Chants of Sennaar - Rundisc , Steam 0:06:27QA Workflows What Is A Kanban Board? The Ultimate Guide Laura Hennigan, ...
We welcome Freya Holmér back into the clubhouse to talk about 3D game development for independent game developers. We get into the specifics of the tools available for devs and why they work and don't work for different teams, but it's mostly an excuse to talk about Freya's new 3D modeling software. Half-Edge - Freya Holmér Shapes - Freya Holmér , Unity Asset Store Shader Forge - Freya Holmér , GitHub 3D Workflows for Indie Devs Game Design Tools UI / UX Valve Hammer Editor - Valve Developer Com...
This week, your Nice Hosts have a new prompt from a new source. Lydia's husband, Ian, draws from a rainy source of inspiration and the Hosts are all-in. We brush up on the water cycle, requisition the equipment, practice our Trans-Atlantic accents, dunk on hot dogs, and puzzle over water-based cloud economies. Big Pharma - Steam Le Ballon Rouge - Wikipedia Water Cycle - Wikipedia Loop Hero - Steam Human Resource Machine - Steam Promptto match the current weather - what goes on inside the clouds ...
Your nice hosts talk about saving both your position in a game and saving your secrets from being spread around. Also in this episode: Stephen's birthday is coming up, Lydia's been presenting in webinars for a while, and Mark's got a new game coming soon! Category Quest - ELB Learning Webinar | Let’s Play! Category Quest: ELB Learning’s Newest Game - ELB Learning , YouTube Webinar | Escape Room Rx: Innovating Game-Based Clinical Education - ELB Learning , YouTube Episode we interviewed Lydia on ...
Mark rushes through the introduction to talk about his two rush projects, one of which, Blippo+ , was announced on Sunday during the PC Gaming Show! You'll hear more about that next week, but until then, Lydia talks about feeling seen in Anime, Stephen laments that his filmmaking class has not only ruined movies for him, but also music, and Dale does a good job editing out Lydia’s coughs. Blippo+, coming to PC and Switch this fall! You Need To See FMV Cable TV Simulator Blippo+ - Wesley LeBlanc ...
This week in the club house Adrian Sandoval describes how video games are speed running art history. Your nice hosts have their minds blown many times and Steven discovers he might actually like history!? Stay tuned to find out where the 90 day return policy came from. Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends - Team Nemo Chris Totten, co-author of Adrian's book, has been on the show Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again! Adrian Sandoval Game Design Hardware Marketing Spacewar! - Wikipedia Adventur...
Your nice hosts all secured a Switch 2 pre-order... from a certain point of view. Then, Stephen examines the body, Mark attempts a vocabulary, and Lydia has recommendations. Chants of Sennaar - Wikipedia Nintendo Switch 2 preorders were a total mess — at first - Jay Peters , The Verge Missed out on a Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order? GameStop and Best Buy will have mo… - Demi Williams , TechRadar 0:22:17What Happened With Future Club Part-Time Hero Campaign Ending Future ClubKickstarter0:48:57Design ...
The clubhouse welcomes Ashley Phipps, producer for the game Clock Out at 2, to discuss the topic of mental health and discrimination. Mental Health and Discrimination Game Design Gaming Narrative Clock Out at 2 Demo - Borderless Studios , Steam What to know about microaggressions - Anna Smith Haghighi , Medical News Today Queerty Gamers - Queerty Gamers Spooktober 2023 Clock Out at 2 Build - itch.io Depression Quest - Zoe Quinn Adventures with Anxiety - Nicky Case Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn:...
In this episode the club house talks about the games that they have been playing. Mark attempts to define the terms good friction and bad friction, declares his distaste of rouge-likes, and talks about friction in his current projects. Lydia shows us how to make scoring sound way more academic. Civilization VII Age of Mythology Retold Blue Prince 0:18:21Friction by DesignMark tries to define some terms: Good Friction - something that was designed into the game, or that could be described as a bu...
Your nice hosts get a crash course on video game IP law from lawyer and MinnMax cohort, Haley MacLeon. We learn about incorporating, publishing agreements, the difference between a lot of commonly used terms like "copyright", and the joys of contract templates. MinnMax - MinnMax Game Informer Revival - Game Informer Video Game IP Law Marketing Misc. Production The $10 Million Lawsuit That Hinges On An Oxford Comma - Anna King , NPR Video Game Publishing Agreement Market Report 2025 - Kellen Voye...
A new Nintendo is on the way, and your nice hosts talk about both it and the world it's being born into. It kicks off a longer than usual episode where Lydia just wants a way to experience horror games, Mark has an unpopular opinion, and Stephen thinks players have too much agency already. 0:31:57Let's Plays Endoparasitic mizizizizitch.io Let’s Plays: A Copyright Conundrum Alexandra ChampagneSlaw Why I am Hesitant to Declare Let's Plays as Fair Use AquasonReddit1:17:44Responsive Game Design What...
Your nice hosts settle their differences in opinions when it comes to food to serve up a fresh game design document in a new Nice Games Jam episode. PromptCreate a game with one of my favorite things, food! It cannot be about/or have mechanics that are cooking. Think: growing food, pairing foods, making an international food court, menu design, using foods in season, etc.Game typeDesign documentPlayer count1Rules (Stephen note: This is more of a set of notes taken during the episode outlining a ...
Mark is still out sick, so Dale takes his place in the clubhouse and brings a topic! The club makes a prediction that by the time that this episode comes out, Mark will still be sick, and if you are listening on Patreon, that is absolutely true. If you aren't listening on Patreon, you probably should be. The group talks about how often and when to say no. Stephen admits that he is the bottleneck, Lydia talks about things that she finds delightful in video games, and Dale makes a bold admission. ...
Roles reverse as Dale joins Stephen and Lydia for a Nice Game Jam prompted by Mark. The results are an antiques-fueled jaunt through time, and an unexpected win for Stephen. Costcodle - Zak Kermitz , Costcodle Timeline Inventions - Zygomatic , Zygomatic Hypodermic Needles - Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine , Maximum Fun Prompt"Come up with a game where the winner is the player who gets (or gets closest to) a certain amount of points, but that amount changes from round to round. Har...
Beth leads Mark and Stephen through a therapy session. Stephen talks Kickstarter, Mark talks Patreon, and everyone agrees Beth's game Verdant Skies is great. Part-Time Hero: I'm Broke But I Have To Save The World! - Future Club , Kickstarter Dreamsettler - Tendershoot , Patreon 0:06:40Begging for Money0:52:09Quality of Life Quality of Life Michael “Kayin” O’ReillyKayin Works Verdant Skies Howling Moon SoftwareSteam...
Beth Korth, board member of Nice Games Alliance, enters the clubhouse to talk about the purpose of the NGA and how to best fulfill that mission. They discuss how workshops, talks, and conferences fit into their plans. And how they can provide unique experiences and services that the gamedev community can't get elsewhere. They also emphasize the importance of lunch. Nice Games Alliance Workshops
Lydia joins the clubhouse for her first regular episode as a host (it's calendar math)! The clubhouse discusses the release of Civilization VII and how it is taking up all of Stephen's time. Lydia brings to the table the question of how she can learn more games, and how tutorials don't work for her. Stephen regrets not being able to fully develop the world which is the setting for his five-minute student film. Civ VII Civilization VII Switch 2 Switch 2 mouse control - Kyle Orland , Ars Technica ...
The clubhouse gets Cretaceous this week; your nice hosts have been challenged to create a game about dinosaurs and their feeding habits. PromptMake a game about the feeding habits of dinosaurs or of paleontologists, bonus points if all the dinosaurs are from the same era.Game typeDesign documentPlayer count1Rules Cretaceous period Flowering plants evolved here Early mammals here too Velociraptors too! Different sized dinosaurs Name: Dinosaurs of North Dakota Play as big (T-rex), small (dog-sized...
NEWS! New episodes now come out a week early on Patreon!! Sign up to listen to next week's episode now! We talk about why, and the silly reason why now , in this episode, along with another, much bigger piece of NEWS . And of course, your nice hosts continue the show's annual tradition of recounting what they did during hiatus. SO. MUCH. NEWS. Nice Games Club on Patreon What We Did On Our Winter Break (2024-25) Twin Cities Gamedev community Join the IGDATC server Discord Donate to Nice Games All...
#373 Puzzle Systems Interview 2024.11.15 Releasing 2019's "Baba is You" after more than a decade of making puzzle games was a milestone for this week's guest, but it was also just the beginning of his design journey. Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari talks to your nice hosts about the balance between giving players freedom and constraining their expression, the pacing and sequencing of individual puzzles, what happens when a "cool" design annoys players, and more. Arvi's cats make a spirited apperance in t...
#368 “That’s way too many pawns.” Roundtable 2024.10.11 This week, Ellen kicks things off with a chat about how games tell players, “This might be tough!” and how to make that fun and fair. Stephen and Mark jump in with their takes on what makes difficulty settings shine. Then, Mark thinks about the practice taking familiar game mechanics and twisting them into something fresh. Think pacifist runs or limited equipment modes. Why limit yourself to one way to play when you can remix the whole game...
#366 Optimization Interview 2024.09.26 Entering the clubhouse this week is our the third Owl (employee of Owlchemy Labs) and first Peabody Award winner (as lead developer for We Are OFK ), to talk about the "dos," "don'ts," and "good enoughs" of optimization. Cleveland video game designer Jarryd Huntley wins Peabody Award for ‘We Are OFK’ - Joey Morona , cleveland.com We are OFK - Peabody Awards Cleveland Game Developers - Linktree Optimization Hardware Production Programming Is Using LINQ in C#...
#349 Dialogue Through Goals Nice Thinking 2024.05.29 Stephen brings a half-baked thought into the clubhouse for this Nice Thinking episode: how can we improve dialogue systems? He's got some opinions, which Mark and Ellen immediately debunk, but it leads to some engaging conversation. Dialogue Through Goals Stephen McGregor Game Design Narrative...
#361 "The lensing effect of the window." Roundtable 2024.08.22 It’s hot in the clubhouse and hot in Ellen’s greenhouse this week, so your hosts are eager to crunch through some discussion. Ellen introduces the concept of the MDA framework, and the differences between Theming and Aesthetics, and Stephen comes to a major conclusion about parrying. Theming vs. Aesthetics0:06:40 Ellen Burns-Johnson Game Design The MDA Framework - Wikipedia Ellen promised Dictionary.com definitions, so here you go: A...
#371 Tutorialization with Puzzles Interview 2024.11.01 "Tutorials shouldn’t feel like tutorials!" Like most aspects of game design, it's an easy concept to summarize but a difficult one to pull off. Luke Spierewka and the team at Afterburn Games have mastered it, using their charming approach in successful titles like Golf Peaks and Railbound. Come learn the arcane secrets of the puzzle game tutorial! Also featuring some great room sound . Afterburn Games (studio) Tutorialization with Puzzles Ga...
#347 "A slow meat computer" Roundtable 2024.05.16 In the episode, Mark, Ellen, and Stephen talk local events, including (don’t worry everyone’s fine) a fire in the clubhouse’s building, construction, and the games they are playing, so if you are just here for the topics, go ahead and skip to minute 23. Ellen learns about King Making, Stephen humble brags about being good at Smash Brothers, and Dale plays kingmaker in naming the second topic! News Masu Fire - Paul Walsh , Star Tribune Bus Rapid T...
#338 Eddies Nice Games Jam 2024.03.11 The clubhouse is caffeinated and ready to jam, game jam that is. The clubhouse is giving a prompt where air movement is the main mechanism of action and they create a physical game for a tabletop (in the style of 'Hungry Hungry Hippos'). The notoriously unpredictable 'Eddies' of air movement gives this game it's name. The main challenge for the team - a more sanitary air blower mechanism than drinking straws: a tiny bellows, small whoopie cushions, slide whi...
#354 The Intersection of Puzzle and Story Interview 2024.07.05 Narrative designer and pal of the program Beth Korth fills in for Ellen as guest host this week and next! Your nice hosts welcome famed designer Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island, Thimbleweed Park) into the clubhouse to discuss the virtues of inexperience, friction for its own sake, how it's all about story, and it's puzzles all the way down. The Intersection of Puzzle and Story Game Design Narrative Production Return to Monkey Island will ...
#353 "The super-powerful beam or whatever." Roundtable 2024.06.27 This week, your nice hosts talk about code that isn't yours and ask about the natural conclusion of the narrative. Mark is handy, Ellen kinda wants to add a note, and Stephen is grounded. It looked so easy in the brochure, but the brochure lied - Antony Ingram , Hagerty Code Libraries0:07:41 Mark LaCroix Production Programming Tools Best practices for writing code comments - Ellen Spertus , Stack Overflow Blog Declare namespaces t...
