Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

#301 Pothole Run Nice Games Jam 2023.04.21 According to Minnesota Public Radio, it's  hot girl sinkhole spring . In other words, we have an insane number of potholes right now in the Twin Cities, and since we can't do anything other than wait for the hardworking folks of road repair to fix them, we made a game about the whole situation. Andy and Beth Korth join for this special Nice Games Jam! GLO...

#298 "One size bigger and red." Roundtable 2023.04.13 Dale learned a lot while editing this episode. She learned the board game ‘Spirit Island’ is about spirits that protect an island, and she is pretty sure that this is the same premise as hit TV show ‘LOST’. She learns that CSS is not a programming language or a mark-up language And she learns that CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets She learn...

#284 "Shiny rocks get me every time." Roundtable 2022.10.28 It's spooky season! Stephen is SO over it, but he can't escape all the scary stuff happening in this week's episode. We start with a lesson on the necromantic arts of branding and iconography, guided by Mark, a master of these dark magics. After the break, Ellen raises a past topic from the dead in order to explore the ethics of manipulat...

#321 Cat Time Nice Games Jam 2023.09.07 It's been a while but your nice hosts come up with a game in roughly an hour, this one for the cat owners out there! After a fairly long meta, we get into the mind of a cat and design a competitive game for them to play. Toronto International Film Festival Renew an adult passport  -  USA.gov Bloor–Yonge station  -  Wikipedia Prompt Create a game my mother ca...

#324 Much Ado About Unity (with Freya Holmér) Special 2023.09.22 Earlier today, Unity issued an update to their controversial "runtime fee" policy introduced last week. What changed? What didn't? How could this have even happened? What does it mean going forward? Can we ever trust Unity again? We get into all of it , from the original announcement on September 12th, to the "open letter" update and...

#282 "Today’s the day that I screw things up." Roundtable 2022.10.13 Your nice hosts start off strong with an excellently performed intro, and it just gets better from there!  The Game Agency  -  The Game Agency Pre-production 0:06:24 Stephen McGregor Production Idle Games 0:31:45 Mark LaCroix Game Design Gaming Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive Review: The Final Fun-tier?  -  Steven Sha...

#293 The Logistics of Moving On Interview 2023.02.22 Your nice hosts invite Zachtronics founder Zach Barth to discuss the closing of the studio and the logistics of moving on from that. In this episode, you'll also hear about ruminations on what success means as a game dev, a theory about how great walking is and exclusive news about Zach's future plans. The Logistics of Moving On IRL Production Z...

This year, Ellen thought a lot about cheating in games. So your nice hosts kept doing episodes about it. Three in total over this last summer. So, to kick off this year's run of Nice Replays, we’ve stitched all three topics together into one SUPER MEGA NICE NEW YEAR’S OMNIBUS EPISODE! Cheating (omnibus edition) Part 1: "What's a little grand larceny?" Part 2: Cheating, Part 2 Part 3: "Sad or fasci...

The clubhouse continues the annual tradition of reviewing the past year. But first they need to talk about Doctor Who and new Minnesota state flag. Ellen makes her first programming joke, and Dale learns to add comments from the editing booth. Finally, everyone shares which games they have been playing the bees out of in 2023. But, wait... there's more: your nice hosts also talk about what they ar...

Will went to school for illustration. After many plot twists—including a bike accident, leading a team of animators, and climbing mountains in Alaska—he ended up working in games. Now, he's a design director and creative consultant, working on games that aim to make the world a better place. This week, Will joins us in the clubhouse to discuss how he's made decisions about his creative career and...

This week, the clubhouse becomes the birdhouse; we're talking pigeons! Dale created a prompt inspired by Ellen's activities as a child and she bombards your nice hosts with a TON of pigeon facts! We somehow designed a game out of it! As a note, Ellen's was still recording remotely but the first 5 minutes she was recording on the wrong mic! We corrected it after those 5 minutes.  Breeds of Pigeons...

Your nice hosts start this episode with some personal updates, and (spoiler) it does not "go quick" as planned, then take on two really fascinating production topics. Ellen puts both drawings on the fridge, Mark recommends a modern Polish masterpiece, and Stephen is a changed man. BONUS: This week's outtakes were much too long to include at the end of the show, so we put them on Patreon ! It's 10+...

In this episode the brothers Rob and John Donkin of BadViking join the hosts in the clubhouse for a frank discussion on goals and expectations, scoping, and setting milestone timelines, and making feedback useful. Scoping for your Project Production Bad Viking talks about Strange Horticulture, their most recent game Best Best review for Strange Horticulture  -  Alice Bell ,  Rock Paper Shotgun PC...

Ellen spoke with this week's guest, Filament Games' chief partnerships officer Jennifer Javornik, at the 2023 Serious Play Conference in Toronto, Canada about game-based learning, but also about commercializing serious games, growing the game development industry in the midwest US, and a whole lot more. Game-based Learning Events Game Design Production Serious Play Conference Wisconsin Games Allia...

Earlier this autumn, Ellen visited Toronto to attend the Serious Play Conference. It's an event for people who design, develop, and study so-called "serious games" — that is, games used for education, training, therapy, and more. Ellen reports on her experiences in the city and at the conference, and shares some clips from conversations she had with some speakers at Serious Play. Also, Stephen and...

We welcome Trenton Greyoak into the clubhouse to talk about the vast topic of megagames! Trenton provides a huge amount of insight into the development and play of these games in this slightly more mega-sized than normal episode. Megagames Game Design Gaming Physical Games Megagame  -  Wikipedia Model United Nations  -  United Nations Watch the Skies!  -  South West Megagames Origins of Megagames...

In this week's episode, Mark teaches us to cast polymorph, a 4th level transmutation spell. Just kidding! But Mark does put his high INT score to work helping us understand polymorphism, a useful feature of object-oriented programming. Later on, Stephen talks about the pattern of "save scumming" and considers how it might influence how designers create games. Ellen noodles on things. Noodle demo g...

Nice Games Club continues to celebrate the Spooky Season with the second-ever “Nice Games Panel”. Our panelists include creators known for their work on horror games: James Pratt, TorpalDork, and Max Kunze. We discuss the using humor and using nostalgia in horror games and if clowns have ever not been scary. Horror Games 201 Game Design

In this episode, the team gets back to all the regular reasons to complain about Unity. Stephen makes a pun, and Ellen searches for elegance through the power of internet research.   Noodle  -  The Training Arcade Mark and his bike took a train to Chicago. 0:07:41 Composition over Inheritance Composition over inheritance Wikipedia 0:33:00 Elegance Elegant Program PC Mag 10 Things Elegant Woman Wea...

It's the first-ever "Nice Games Panel," in which we invite multiple guests on the show to discuss something interesting! Our panelists today include multiple creators who are known for their work on horror games: Schera Wyss, Conner Rush, Henry Hoare, Samuel Guglielmo, and Nick F. We discuss the fundamental nature of horror as a genre (or maybe a theme or an "orientation"), and what devs should co...

Mark is back from Toronto, and guest host Holly Harrison is back in the clubhouse! Holly completes a topic, Stephen likes that part, and Ellen reads half a book. Talking Heads Take Over TIFF As ‘Stop Making Sense’ Reunion Has Crowds Dancing …  -  Anthony D'Alessandro ,  Deadline 'Lost Ladies' Review: Kiran Rao’s Delightful Hindi Comedy Swings and Wins  -  Proma Khosla ,  IndieWire 'Robot Dreams' R...

Earlier today, Unity issued an update to their controversial "runtime fee" policy introduced last week. What changed? What didn't? How could this have even happened? What does it mean going forward? Can we ever trust Unity again? We get into all of it , from the original announcement on September 12th, to the "open letter" update and "fireside chat" on September 22nd. Your nice hosts are joined by...

We continue the recent production talks this week as we welcome Julia Keren-Detar into the clubhouse! The discussion topic is "working on a bigger team" but we also somehow talk about rain water barrels at some point? It's relevant, I swear. Mushroom 11  -  Untame ,  Steam Working on a Bigger Team Production Work: A deep history, from the stone age to the age of robots  -  James Suzman ,  Penguin...

It's been a while but your nice hosts come up with a game in roughly an hour, this one for the cat owners out there! After a fairly long meta, we get into the mind of a cat and design a competitive game for them to play. Toronto International Film Festival Renew an adult passport  -  USA.gov Bloor–Yonge station  -  Wikipedia Prompt Create a game my mother can (and wants to) play with her cats, wit...

This week, Stephen and Ellen catch up with Mark about his (and Dale's) trip to GenCon. There is a happy minor Glom update, and then it's down to business. What's grind? What purpose does it serve, and what are the mechanics of it? Your nice hosts attempt to come up with some definitions & guidelines—you decide whether they succeed. And feel free to share your opinions on Discord :) Gen Con 06:08 G...