The Debug Log

The boys are back! In this week's episode, the gang reunites and catches up on what everybody has been up to over the past couple of years. We also address the ongoing layoff crisis in the game industry. What does it mean for the future of AAA and indie game development. We hope you enjoy the show!

We all have to start somewhere. If you are interested in game development and hope to get started soon, you've come to the right place. On today's episode, the guys begin with a discussion of their origin stories and how they each got into game development. From there, they discuss how different the landscape is today and what things they would do if they were just getting started in 2021. Thanks...

This week we have a classic game industry news round-up. Ryan and Obinna explain Roblox to Andrew while the whole gang tries to understand the weird new world of NFTs. We've been off the news beat for awhile so we touch on a variety of other topics before finally wrapping up with a deep dive into the Cyberpunk drama that has played out over the past few months. Thanks for joining us this week and...

So after a long, hard talk with a couple of GenZ-ers, we decided to move from only-audio podcasts to both audio and video podcast recordings! This episode marks the first video edit of The Debug Log. Our goal is to post both the audio and visual versions of each episode on our various streaming services (i.e. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and now YouTube). We look forward to diving deep into this new m...

From patches and updates to seasonal content and daily challenges, the ubiquity of live games has grown exponentially in the internet age. What started as an easy way to fix a released game, has grown into 50GB day-one patches and years of expanded content. While the promise of an ever-changing game can be enticing, not all live games are created equal. On today's show, we discuss the evolution of...

Clash of the Titans! Not only is it an objectively great 80's movie, it is also what you could call the current climate between Apple and Epic. Platforms are a tricky business. You need developers making software for your platform to make money, but you also need the developers to be happy with the platform and make money. So, what happens when one side messes with the other side's money? You get...

Pandemics go beyond just disease and viruses. They have the capacity to sneak into the core of our being, society, and yes -- our game industry. The pandemic of racial inequality is at the forefront of the discussion today, which comes at the heels of the latest surge of the Black Lives Matter movement. We would be doing our Debug Log community a disservice if we did not talk about the current pol...

It's not very often that one is aware they are living through history as it happens. 2020 will always remembered as the year we all went into quarantine. Covid-19 has swept across and countries and cultures, changing our lives in ways we could not have imagined just a few months ago. In this episode we check-in we each other and discuss the various ways this pandemic has affected the game industry...

Like the complexities of for loops, switch statements, and allocating memory? Or, do you fancy getting the pixels to look just right on screen? Can't choose?! Well, lucky you, this episode and interview with Technical Artists Andrea Bobick and Razvan Luta is tailor made for you! In this episode we break down what technical art is, what Technical Artist do in their day-to-day, and how the role has...

In this week's episode, we talk to Mira Marquez and Kenneth Woodruff about designing for VR and AR applications! Our guests join Ryan and Obinna to talk design for this new medium. The group jumps into discussions that dive into the challenges associated with designing for VR/AR as well as offer some insights into the future of design as it relates to mix reality applications.   Thanks for joining...

New year, next gen! In this week’s episode Obinna, Andrew, and Ryan discuss the future of gaming in the next year. As some of you may already know there are some big changes coming for the industry next year. The big players have their next generation hardware ready to go for the holidays and streaming cloud services is on everyone’s agenda. We discuss all this as well as some other interesting de...

Everyone has been talking about the cloud… so, we figured we should too! In this week’s episode, we bring in another former Sprocketeer and backend server engineer, Tyler Ohlsen to talk about his experience when developing for the cloud and some of the tools, services, and concepts needed to begin developing games for the cloud. We try out a quick exercise that illustrates how Tyler breaks down an...

The party doesn't stop at 100! We're keeping the train moving right along with another fresh episode In this week's episode, we bring in former Sprocketeer and backend server engineer, Matt Bolt to talk about a series of blog posts that he recently posted. In The Road to Better Concurrency, Matt discusses some pitfalls of multithreaded code and the current APIs that have been built in object-orien...

We finally did it! After 4 very short years, we managed to reach 100 episodes of The Debug Log. In this episode, we are joined by a very special person, none other than our lost co-host Eduardo Castillo Fernandez! Together, the 5 of us discuss some of our favorite experiences we've had producing this how over the past 100 episodes. Thanks for tuning in this week and we hope you enjoy the show! Fee...

What is better than three episodes about the dark underbelly of software development? FOUR episodes about the dark underbelly of software development!! That’s right depressed ladies and gents. It’s that time YET AGAIN! Put grandma and grandpappy to bed, grab a box of tissues, a tub of ice cream, a random picture of Obinna, and any other items needed to lift your spirits, and sit back and enjoy par...

What is better than two episodes about the dark underbelly of software development? Three episodes about the dark underbelly of software development! That’s right ladies and gents. It’s that time AGAIN! Put the dogs in their kennels, grab a keg of your favorite brew, and sit back and enjoy part three of The Darkside of Development. In this episode, Ryan and Obinna discuss company closures, specifi...

As a game dev, you probably deal with bugs and glitches on a day-to-day basis. Today we are talking about the best kind of bugs, bugs that end up being happy accidents. The history of game development is full of stories of legendary glitches that became profound features, not only for the game being developed but for the industry at large. On today’s episode, we discuss some of our favorite exampl...

Welcome to our 4th annual Holiday Special where we discuss some of the biggest games and stories of the past year. Thank you for sticking with us for another year, stayed tuned for more episodes and content in the months to come. Happy Holidays everybody, be safe, and have a happy 2019! Thanks for tuning in this week and we hope you enjoy the show! Contact us at: thedebuglog@gmail.com

Unite 2018 Los Angeles! In this episode we discuss the many happenings at the annual Unity convention Unite. There was a lot to see at this years conference. Some of the highlights include the Entity Component System, nested prefabs, the Visual Effects Tool, FPS sample, Mega City, and many more. It was an fun time and inspiring to be around so many creative ideas. We would definitely recommend the...

This week we are back with another "Rapid-Fire Roundup" episode. Catching up on a lot of the stories of the past few months, we tackle everything from Microsoft's interesting new Game Pass offerings to updates on the eternal Unity vs Unreal war. All that and more on this episode of The Debug Log. Thanks for tuning in this week and we hope you enjoy the show! Feel free to send any stories...

Another walk down gamedev memory lane with Ryan and the gang! This week on the show we discuss the evolution of networking in games. We cover the growth of the play spaces for multiplayer games such as university networks to linked computers and on to the Internet. We also talk about the networking models to bring these games to life, such as peer to peer and client/server. Check out The Debug Lou...

Double the flavor, double the fun! We've got a pair of Sprocketeers , in Dan Moran and Lisa Hicks, joining us today to talk about methodologies, tools, and techniques used to help optimize games for performance. We take a fairly high-level view of optimization techniques, which makes the discussions in this episode easily applicable to wherever you are in your game development journey. This episod...

We all know making games is hard, but what do you when a project lingers on forever unfinished? Are you working on your grand masterpiece? Will you look back one day and feel proud that every doubt you had, every project delay, every catastrophe was all part of the journey that eventually led to your success? Or, are you trapped in a fool's errand, destined to end up in the scrap pile of game indu...

It’s Interview Time! (to be read in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers voice) In this week’s episode we sit down with industry vet, Geoffrey Nahashon to talk about his experience as a Lead Artist and his approach to building game worlds. He offers up a lot of solid advice and is a wealth of knowledge as it relates to creating the mood and atmosphere for your game. He also speaks on the struggles and gro...

Oh. My. God. Becky. First. It's Zack's Birthday. Second. Unity 2018 Beta is out and ready for all you eager developers out there to get your hands on it! In this week's episode Obinna and Ryan cozy-up and discuss Unity Technologies' latest beta release of Unity 2018, which is jam-packed with new features and fixes. So, if you've been curious to see what Unity has been working on for the past year,...