Pixel Pizza

We welcome game designer Aubrey Rugroden to the show this week to talk about how she's approached designing for multiple genres. Some of her work has been on the GTA/Goat Simulator-inspired Pigeon Simulator, the turn-based strategy game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, and the hand-drawn metroidvania GNAW. (Wow was that a lot of hyphens or what?) Aubrey tells us about her time...

Join us for a shorter Pixel Pizza this week (a personal pie?) as we speak with Armando Webb, half of the Mexico-based indie studio Odd Men In! The team's debut title is the 90's cartoon-inspired metroidvania Oh, My Doug! Armando tells us about the handmade visuals (both drawn and modeled) that went into the game, creating a game world out of the human body, and not saying no to your own id...

Join us this week for a talk with Brazilian pixel artist and game designer Cecilia Santos, better known online as CeciHoney! Ceci has done freelance pixel art for a wide variety of indie games, including the upcoming titles Atomic Owl, Torment Hexus, and One Fenix Down. She tells us about her pixel art method, how tarot cards helped revitalize her career, and her collaborations on character design...

Fresh off his appearance at Day of the Devs 2026, artist/filmmaker/developer Case Jernigan stops by at Pixel Pizza! Case's new game, Bub, is a heartfelt story of inspiration and identity told through real papercraft, watercolor, and other mixed media. We fittingly get vulnerable and discuss some heavy topics including anxiety, bullying, and multiple sclerosis. Plus some talk about real Italian...

Swing into the weekend with a new episode of Pixel Pizza! Stopping by this week are HappySquared and Emlise of the indie studio Minibunnies. They're best known for their work on the atmospheric momentum-based Metroidvania, Rusted Moss. We discuss the development of that game and its post-launch support, and even get into the making of their hotly anticipated successor to Rusted Moss, Iron Bram...

Spice up your weekend with a chaotic new Pixel Pizza! Joining us this week is Slug Glove, the developer behind the whimsical and wildly open-ended adventure game Rhell! SG explains how the game's striking 2D/3D art style came to be, integrating the over one million spell combinations in the game, and valuing yourself in freelance work. Plus, they give more insight into the currently-in-development...

Get a look behind the totally normal worlds of indie creator Tom van den Boogaart on this week's show! Tom's best known for the recent Dutch countryside mystery game Grunn, as well as the cult hit alien walking sim Bernband. We chat about his experimental work as part of the Sokpop Collective, and the Bernband remaster currently in development! Featuring tunes from Missu Kissu 💋 LINKS: ☁️...

Dig your paws into an all-new Pixel Pizza! Just in time for the release of Bubsy 4D, we have game artist Sabaku on the show! She tells us about her early days in the German RPG Maker community, bringing her ideas into 3D with Skellboy, and the process of working with Fabraz on Demon Tides and Bubsy. Featuring chiptune music from Refmaven~ LINKS: ☕️ Sabaku's Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/sabbi_tabb...

This episode originally aired on May 10, 2024. Sorry for two encores in a row, but lots of brand new episodes coming over the next few weeks- promise! This time we're revisiting our talk with Swedish game writer and solo dev Christoffer Bodegård. His latest title, the DnD and Disco Elysium-inspired Esoteric Ebb, came out earlier this year and is one of 2026's best reviewed games so far! We...

This episode originally aired on May 30th, 2025. Swipe right on this week's episode to hear from writer on the hotly anticipated dating sim Date Everything, Jay Choi! Jay tells us about his background in writing for animation and film, finding his way into the industry by being a "LEGO drug dealer", and making wholesome romantic storylines. Music from Epshirey! LINKS: 🌐 Jay's We...

This week we talk about a rarely discussed but essential part of game development: QA! And few people are more well-versed in the field than our guest Paul James. Paul has tested over 30 projects in the indie sphere, including breakout hits like Foolish Mortals and Blue Prince. He tells us about how his work touches on all aspects of game dev, when in the process developers should bring in QA test...

Joining us on Pixel Pizza this week is my fellow CMU alum Lawrence Plofker! For the past five years Lawrence has been a game designer at Simcoach Games, developing educational experiences for players on the autism spectrum. We get into his experiences playtesting, teaching life skills through games, and the wider success of the team's game Tidekeeper. Ft music from Cloning People! LINKS: 🌐 La...

Joining us this week is multitalented game designer Osama Dorias! Osama's wealth of experiences extend from mobile games with Gameloft to AAA games like Diablo IV and Gotham Knights to his current independent venture with HeartLoop Games! His small team at HeartLoop is currently working on the roguelike fighting game Poly Fighter. We chat about how developers can bring their personal experienc...

Go out and touch some grass while you listen to this week's Pixel Pizza! We've got Connor Quinn, one of the devs behind the wholesome adventure Lil' Gator Game, joining us this week. Connor talks about growing up with ADD, his core pillars of what makes a good game, and the recently-released "In the Dark" expansion. Featuring music from Spring 🌸 LINKS: 🎮 Mega Wobble Games:...

We've made it to EPISODE 200 BABYYYY! (shhh never mind the encores) I loved what we did last time to celebrate: Hearing from former guests about where their professional and personal journeys have taken them since appearing on the show. So I decided to do it again! Who needs originality anyway? Join the party and listen to what nine super talented game industry folks have to share. Plus heavy meta...

On episode 199 of the Pixel Pizza Podcast (yes really!), our game industry guest is Nitrome's Mat Annal! In his prolific career so far, Mat's worked on dozens of games spanning flash, mobile, and console platforms. We discuss the missed opportunities that ultimately built up his career, collaborating with Yacht Club Games on Shovel Knight Dig, and how the team built their Switch 2 exclusiv...

Settle in for a brand new Pixel Pizza, where we're speaking to Argentinian developer Kenneth Azcurra! Kenneth is the Chief Technical Officer at indie studio GamKat, who just released their cozy puzzle game Piece by Piece (the one with the fox 🦊). Kenneth tells us about his time teaching as a university professor, building a popular Unity plugin, and lessons learned porting/optimizing Piece by...

This episode originally aired on May 17, 2024. It's GDC week, so most devs are out of town! But it makes for a good excuse to revisit an older episode that I've heard a bunch of people say they really enjoyed featuring environment artist Sophie Stübinger. Since this episode aired, Sophie's worked on the recent Double Fine game Keeper and is currently doing environment art over at Anchor Point Stud...

Gear up for an all-new Pixel Pizza with multidisciplinary artist Mark LaCroix! Mark runs the development & publishing studio Noble Robot. He talks about creating animations for the show Parks & Recreation, building an open-source engine for the PlayDate handheld, game design philosophies, and his involvement on previous guest JJ's Blippo+! Plus lots more AND music from Kaskatron! LINKS...

Enter the strange world of the Outer Zone with its Denmark-based studio head Malte Burup! Malte is behind the dystopian psychology simulation Mind Scanners and the grid-based soulslike Death Howl (recently released on consoles)! He tells us about creating haunting pixel art, leaning into the perception of your game, and paper prototypes. With music from KB! LINKS: ☁️ Outer Zone BlueSky: theouterzo...

Draw your sword and SLICE 'em up :P This week we welcome Danilo Barbosa, lead dev at Spanish studio Retro Reactor, to the show! Dan created the high-stakes samurai fighting games One Strike and Two Strikes, where as the titles suggest a single hit or two decides a match. He talks about his previous work on educational games, authentically capturing Japanese history and style, and the inclusion...

Throw some AA batteries into your listening device (it's totally there, I swear) and get ready for this week's show with homebrew Game Boy developer Max Oakland! Max recently released his open-world platformer, Wink & the Broken Robot, on real cartridges. He tells us about all the pieces that go into creating physical copies, his other creative passions like music and claymation, and t...

Get a crash course on all things gaming PR this week from industry vet Stephanie Tinsley Fitzwilliam of boutique agency Tinsley PR! Stephanie talks about her journey promoting games from the PS1 era to launching the Xbox 360 all the way to last year’s award-winning phenomenon Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. She dissects how media consumption has changed (for better or worse) in that time, and how we...

It's a blast from the past on this week's Pixel Pizza as I catch up with my former game development teacher Sam Eng! Sam is a founding member of the NYC developer workspace GUMBO, and the creator of last year's surreal hit Skate Story 🛹 He gives insight on capturing the danger and physics of skateboarding, promoting on social media, the benefits of avoiding reviews, and a whole lot mo...

This week we welcome concept artist, UI artist, and 3D modeler Silvia Lara Blanco to the show! Silvia currently works at Undercoders, the Spanish development studio behind the upcoming high-octane train runner game Denshattack! She tells us about her passion for accessibility in UI, the way Denshattack's exaggerated sense of scale comes to life, and how she's been passing on her gamedev kn...