Design

News, State of the Pod, and Philip Molodkovets of Wargaming

by

Welcome back! Here are some updates–including the scoop on Inside Video Game Creation in the latest deal at StoryBundle–a word on the state of the podcast, and an exclusive interview with Philip Molodkovets, Wargaming’s executive producer on World of Warships.

Read more

Star Citizen’s Senior Lead Gameplay Engineer Goes Indie – Chad and Curtis McKinney of Bit Rot

by

Chad and Curtis McKinney, Ph. D. (yes, both) call in to discuss Chad’s experience with Cloud Imperium working on Star Citizen and their collaborative indie efforts on Recursive Ruin, a “kaleidoscopic first-person narrative puzzle game” not quite like anything else you’ve likely seen.

Read more

Mat Bradley-Tschirgi Returns Again

by

Industry author, journalist, and developer Mat Bradley-Tschirgi returns to discuss his indie game collaboration with notorious filmmaker Uwe Boll, his interview with legendary Sierra Online founder Ken Williams, getting his first article on Polygon, and more.

Read more

Disasterpeace and Casey Lucas-Quaid of Dinosaur Polo Club

by

Co-host Matt Hill enters the chat! Community manager Casey Lucas-Quaid and famed composer Rich Vreeland (AKA “Disasterpeace”) of Dino Polo Club hang out to discuss their hit indie games, Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. We discuss the Apple Arcade program, keeping the indie spirit alive, navigating Steam Workshop, and more.

Read more

Fay and Martyn Maillardet of Imaginary Friends Games

by

Former Nintendo employees Fay and Martyn Maillardet call in to discuss life after the pro industry and the creation of their first proper indie release, Shindig.

Read more

Weekly Round-Up: Godot Go Fast

by

Welcome creators! I want to say it right up front: this round-up is not usually going to be overwhelmingly focused on the Godot engine. Since I brought it up last weekend, however, the Little Open Source Engine Who Could (Maybe) surprised us all by jumping into the mainstream news. We’ll get into just what happened and what it might indicate for the near future. Also: developing for streamers, classic arcade talk, and more!

Read more

Retro Space Ball Developer Rik Oclon

by

3D Generalist Rik Oclon calls in to discuss his project Retro Space Ball, how he navigated a huge debacle with a major games publisher (and received no payment), and he gives us some great data about his player base as well as some insight into his marketing and community management research.

Read more

Triple-A Veteran Luis Alonso

by

Luis Alonso of Recombobulator Games calls in to walk us through his experiences contributing to series like Need For Speed and Mass Effect–or if you prefer, Hannah Montana and VeggieTales–before going indie with his wife (accomplished writer Michelle Franklin) to realize a creative vision that’s stayed with him since childhood.

Read more

Christopher Arnold of Crowned Daemon Studios

by

Christopher Arnold of Crowned Daemon Studios calls in to talk about the studio’s mental health-focused game, Syntherapy, the inspiration behind its development, and its reception in the community.

Read more

Our 5 Unanswered Questions for Buildbox

by

Game dev folks across social media expressed surprise this week as Buildbox announced an upcoming overhaul of its pricing tiers, including a new tier that will leave creators with just 30% of their game revenue. CodeWritePlay covered both the announcement and comments from Buildbox CEO, Jonathan Zweig, that seemed to raise even more questions.

Since that time, Zweig reached out to CodeWritePlay offering direct contact information as well as a discussion about the company’s strategy moving forward. This post is an open record of questions forwarded and received on Wednesday evening, unanswered as of Sunday afternoon.

Read more