Game Development

Ray Marek of Apogee Comics

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Comics writer Ray Marek joins the show to talk about his indie publishing group, Apogee Comics, discuss the impending doom of Toys ‘R’ Us, and since Halloween fast approaches and he’s the founder of The Horror Syndicate, we talk about great games for horror fans. We also welcome John Schiber back to the show!

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Retro Developer Paul Nicholas

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Update: Paul is turning heads again with his demake of No Man’s Sky. Check out Low Mem Sky at Itch.io!

This week, UK-based retro developer Paul Nicholas Skypes in to talk about his recent development project, SCUMM-8, a Pico-8 recreation of LucasArts’ legendary engine for Maniac Mansion among other hits from the golden age.

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Street Fighter II – Hyper Flammable Edition

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Capcom is set to re-release one of the most influential video games of all time, not to mention an arcade cabinet that used to live in my house, but it wasn’t mine. Oh, and the new one might burn your house down. Here’s a look at Street Fighter II, past and present.

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Behold the Presale Crunchpocalypse

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In this mid-week edition of the GameDev Breakdown podcast, we examine a chaotic update to the SNES Classic Edition story, Xbox One X goes live with pre-orders of its own, and a AAA game industry veteran promotes his new book and praises crunch time in the game industry.

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Weekend News with John Schiber

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It’s the weekend! A guest from the Next-Gen Nerds podcast stops by to talk gaming news, share ideas, and hear why Todd was nervous around animatronic robots way before it was cool. 
News stories:

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News – August 12

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Time to talk gaming news in another #GameDev Breakdown podcast!

Amazon is having a digital game blowout!

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Max Krieger’s Train Takes Dialogue Somewhere New

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I don’t always agree with my friend Max Krieger. We’ve been connected on Twitter for some time, maybe a couple of years now, but we initially had video games in common and probably not much else. There have been a couple of times I’ve chimed in on a conversation with him to present a differing personal view, but in many situations we just look at things in different ways which don’t affect one of us or the other in a real enough way to cause issues. I respected his passion about the world around him and considered us different, friendly people.

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Cash and Clash Royale

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A Clasher’s poor attitude provides food for thought, leading to an in-depth exploration of Clash Royale‘s business model. Learn what players are spending, what Supercell is earning, and why it eventually may not be enough. This is the GameDev Breakdown podcast!

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The Legend of Extreme Paintbrawl’s Mysterious Soundtrack

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I was talking shop with a close friend recently about OST composition (he’s an extraordinary musician, producer, and almost certainly one of my studio’s future composers) when he brought up a desire to compose a game soundtrack he would really enjoy listening to, even when he’s not playing the game. It’s a noble goal, and in fact, it immediately made me think of Extreme Paintbrawl (Head Games/Creative Carnage, 1998): a game most agree is greatly inferior to its own music. 

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Letter Taps – The Official Postmortem

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A version of this article was also submitted to the go-to game industry shop talk site, Gamasutra.

If you’re not familiar with the tradition of postmortem write-ups in the game industry, it’s not a negative term. It’s the practice of writing about the design, development, and the launch of a game, including reflection on what went right, and what lessons you learned along the way. What follows is the official postmortem for my educational indie game, Letter Taps. 

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