Surviving Remote Work

Game development and its specialties have a ton of potential for remote work, which is awesome, but has a unique set of challenges only you can solve for yourself. Do you have to agree to sit on calls with clients? How do you navigate project changes? How can you avoid conflicts? In this episode of GameDev Breakdown we’ll drill down deep based on real world trial and error.

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Game Designer Richard Rouse III

Richard Rouse III calls in to talk about his new indie title, The Church in the Darkness, and treats us to some stories from his fantastic career including the design of The Suffering, writing Game Design: Theory & Practice, and some interesting creative projects we never got to see.

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Legendary Game Designer David Fox

LucasArts Employee #3 himself, David Fox joins to talk about his fantastic career contributing to some of the most iconic graphic adventure games of our time, chasing the technology to create location-based interactive experiences, and his philosophy on positive change through design. Topics include VR, interpersonal issues in the modern game industry, politics, electric cars, and more.

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Exception Game Developer Will Traxler

Will Traxler of Traxmaster Software discusses his new game, Exception, his first commercial release following years of solo development. Will shares insight into his unique post-launch mindset, his solution to investing in his development, and the dynamics of outsourcing PR responsibilities as a one-man studio.

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The Access Revolution

A look at the lowered barriers that have changed game development When Panic recently revealed their upcoming experimental handheld, the Playdate, community feedback was all over the place. A few folks used it as an opportunity to lament the “nightmare of capitalism”—I trust none of them will be upgrading to the new Nintendo Switch. Personally, … Read more

So You’ve Asked Someone to Work on Your Game for Free

So You’ve Asked Someone to Work on Your Game for Exposure/Profit Sharing also links here.

Hi, aspiring designer! If you’ve been sent to this page, there’s a good chance you asked someone–or maybe many people–to work on your game for free.

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Blake J. Harris, Author of Console Wars and The History of the Future

To help us close out Season 2, Blake J. Harris makes a surprise appearance to reflect on his early life and career, the success of Console Wars and the upcoming television adaptation from Legendary Entertainment with producers Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg. We also discuss his new book, The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution that swept Virtual Reality published by HarperCollins in February. By necessity, this leads to a discussion of Palmer Luckey and the political whirlwind surrounding his departure from Oculus in early 2017. Finally, Blake teases what’s coming up next in his incredible writing career.

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Rob Hewson of Huey Games

Thanks to some gracious networking help from Patreon supporter Mark Feller and Indie Gamer Chick, this time we’re hearing from LEGO games veteran and current Huey Games CEO/Creative Director Rob Hewson! As has become a beautiful show tradition, we open up by discussing what everyday game development is like in the guest’s part of the world. Rob’s team has won a grant from the UK Games Fund which is helping his team carry on the family business–his father and co-founder is UK game industry legend Andrew Hewson, whose game products in the 80s and early 90s are the inspiration for some of the very games they’re publishing today.

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Kamil Krupiński on Game Industry Production Work and Community Management

“A lot of problems that you can have in organizations that have 120 people can also be found in organizations that have like 12, so you manage at a smaller scale, but those problems tend to be the same.”

Kamil Krupiński gained a following as a games journalist and editor before moving into the development space. He worked in narrative and quest design on the Dying Light series alongside noteworthy designer Chris Avellone at Techland before moving into a producer role at Draw Distance. He is now a game director and producer for Awaken Realms.

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Draw Distance Producer Kamil Krupiński

This show was a couple of firsts for the podcast: I think it was probably the first time we’ve had on an industry producer who wasn’t also responsible for several other jobs (at least no more than any producer is) and it was also the first guest we’ve had phone in from Poland–I trust you’ll excuse the occasional dip in audio quality.

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