Retro Developer Paul Nicholas

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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Tales of Games Journalism

Some combination of Zoe Quinn, PewDiePie, and Cuphead have brought games journalism back to the forefront. Here’s the tale of how I found myself navigating game industry journalism as a freelancer at the worst time for it in history.

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Street Fighter II – Hyper Flammable Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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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An Afternoon with Obsidian Entertainment

A road show from Irvine California! I traveled to the sacred ground that gave us Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the awesome new Pillars of Eternity series. Hear about my tour, lunch with the team, and also how my USB microphone scared the TSA and got me briefly detained.

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The Legend of Extreme Paintbrawl’s Mysterious Soundtrack

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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