Wardcast

We bring tales from the Thanksgiving holiday, from PC troubles to Black Friday shopping to Dylan’s newly acquired Wii U and making torture devices in Super Mario Maker. The guys also discuss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and the pure dopamine rush of opening Christmas presents early. The Atlantic’s article, “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, comes up, a...

Dylan’s out of town this week, so Mason brought on two of his Brandcenter friends, Alex Rice and Dan Cotting. They come on to talk about some of the projects they’re working on. Alex describes his productivity software that incorporates gameplay and narrative in the workplace, and Dan talks about his weekly social event subscription service. The guys also discuss some of their favorite games from...

RVA Game Jams: REDUX has been postponed to next spring, but that’s alright! We look forward to working with the RVA Game community in the coming months. In the meantime, we give our continuous updates on Arbeau’s development, and our experience with Unity’s UI system. We talk about favorite classes we’ve ever taken and what it’s like to have novelists as professors. We discuss tropes in fantasy an...

This week, we talk about the latest Nintendo Direct and how everything old is new again: from Twilight Princess to Star Fox to Pokémon Red and Blue. We also consider what Black Friday deals we might pursue this year, including console purchases we may or may not need. We give an update on Arbeau’s development, contrasting the differences between developing a systems-heavy game versus a content-hea...

We have a new podcast for you, recorded under the acrid smell of burning rubber. It’s the middle of the school semester, so we give a school update while discussing learning from anecdotes and the advantages and disadvantages of playing devil’s advocate in a project group. Mason’s been messing around with the Kinect SDK, so we compare the device’s product foibles to that of other XR products in th...

In this week’s episode, we take you further into the sausage making that is editing podcasts. We discuss the development of one of our games, Peak, including our opinions on the game’s logo. Mason gets disgusted by Dylan’s practice of watching video game cutscenes on YouTube, with Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate being his latest victim. Mason gives us an updated impression on the Steam Controller, and...

Our podcast is live on the Internet! But you probably knew that already, since you’re listening to it right now. Mason celebrated by getting sick. We talk about cable television and the fear of missing out, the pull of strategic thinking in competitive multiplayer action games, and the likes and dislikes of sports games of the arcade and sim variety. We also converse about The Flock creative direc...

In this episode of the Ward Podcast, we talk about heuristics, artificial intelligence algorithms, and their application to games. We also discuss Nilay Patel’s interview with Steve Jobs screenwriter and director duo Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle and the effects of abstracting someone’s life through film or celebrity. The new trailer for Far Cry Primal gets us excited for prehistoric hunting, and w...

The Ward Podcast has reached double digits. To celebrate, we talk about creative writing workshops, new superheroes in the modern age, and iterative processes as they relate to product development. We also discuss the first act of Broken Age and the differences between comedic writing and storytelling. Games include Destiny: The Taken King, Broken Age, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Got a question...

The guys can’t finish developing a game, Mason can’t finish playing a game, and Audition can’t even finish recording a podcast. We discuss user experience development and testing, scoping a narrative across an entire game’s series, Halfbrick Studio’s removal of game designer as a job title, the Amazon Fire TV Gaming Edition, and corrupted Super Mario 64 playthroughs. Games include Metal Gear Solid...

On this podcast, we discuss the appointment of the new Nintendo president, Tatsumi Kimishima, and the new titles of Creative Fellow and Technology Fellow for Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda, respectively. We also talk about ideas that receive venture capital versus those that don’t, and we chat about all the hot new third person stealth action games. Games include Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom...

The Fall 2015 Apple Event just happened, and we discuss the new Apple TV and what it means for games. We also talk about the monolithic slab that is the iPad Pro and how Dylan wants a drawing tablet. Lastly, we catch wind of Destiny’s reported story troubles during development from court filings in the Martin O’Donnell suit. Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord...

It’s a new world, one where Metal Gear Solid V is in the hands of the happy masses, and we’ve barely touched it. We talk about our experience from Ludum Dare 33 and the game we created, Arbeau, with the help of Kirby Martin and Sean Harrington. We also discuss scoping and budgeting in games versus film. Games include Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Mad Max. Got a question for the show? Jo...

It’s the end of August, which means it’s the start of a new school year. It’s Mason’s first graduate semester at the VCU Brandcenter, and it’s Dylan’s penultimate semester of undergraduate classes at VCU’s School of Engineering and School of Business. We talk about our classes and things that professors do that frustrate us. Other topics include the Fig crowdfunding platform and their awesome logo...

GriN, developer of Kickstarted game Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries, has unfortunately shut down. We discuss what we can learn from the closing, scoping a 2D game versus a 3D game, and how to approach an indie game marketing campaign. We talk about game ideas we’ve been throwing around, and we further prepare for Ludum Dare 33. Games include Galak-Z, Rocket League, Mercenary Kings, Monster Hunter 4 U...

Knight Life, one of our games in development, is slowly reaching completion. We talk about the development process, difficulties we’ve seen in previous projects, and how Dylan and Mason approach game development differently. We prepare for Ludum Dare 33, the 48-hour game jam. We also discuss Mad Max: Fury Road, our favorite fictional antagonists, and the new World of Warcraft expansion, Legion. Ga...

In this episode, we discuss the topic of indie development brought up by Machine Studio’s Simon Roth in his YouTube video, Killing the ‘Lucky Indie’ myth: How to build a sustainable microstudio. We talk about how to assign monetary value to our games and how our public personae are determined by what we create. Additionally, we tackle the choice between becoming creative leads or business executiv...

In our inaugural episode of the Ward Podcast, we talk about our goals for the show and the influences that lead us to make games. We discuss what we like and dislike about podcasts, and we pronounce our love for Phil Spencer. Games include Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Batman: Arkham Knight, Dirt Rally, and Rocket League. Got a...

Before Ward was Ward, it was nothing. In this podcast, we brainstorm ideas for what to call this new venture of ours. We also discuss what about games that we like and what games we’d like to create. Names include Pink Inc., CloudSpec, Arc Lamp (or just Lamp), Canvas Head, and Paper Engine. Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at contact@ward-games....