GameDev

Looty Christmas

by

The guys convene for a very special Christmas cast to discuss very good and very bad developments from Apple, best entertainment deals for gamers and devs over the holiday break, and we try our hand at designing a couple of Christmas games on the fly. Happy holidays!

Read more

Passion Projects

by

Todd went on vacation and kinda got stabbed upon returning home, a listener shares some less-than-constructive criticism, and we go in depth on smart planning during game design as well as the dangers of getting too weird with it.

Read more

Gone Fishin’

by

Cast your cares away and join us on a wilderness getaway in the form of a show recorded inside a massively multiplayer online first-person fishing game. Yes, really. 

Read more

Confidence and Cash in Indie Games

by

John praises Brawlhalla at length, Todd crowns a diet soda for champions, and we take a look at epic successes and failures in some of the most popular business models for indie studios and their games.

Read more

Bit Shifter Developer Paul Dana

by

We caught up with Paul Dana of Plastic Games to talk history, philosophy, technology, and of course, to find out the status of his longtime indie labor of love, Bit Shifter. 

Read more

It’s All Bad News

by

The sex abuse and harassment dialogue reaches one studio as another is cut down in its prime. Tension between PUBG and Fortnite’s developers nears fever pitch, and one of the industry’s living legends lets loose on anyone who will listen.

Read more

Retro Developer Paul Nicholas

by

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.

Read more

Street Fighter II – Hyper Flammable Edition

by

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.

Read more

Weekend News with John Schiber

by

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:

Read more

Letter Taps – The Official Postmortem

by

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. 

Read more