Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add to our Portal and Portal 2 discussion with an interview with Chet Faliszek. We cover tons of Valve time. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:45 Interview
1:09:15 Break 
1:09:45 Outro

Issues covered: text-based football, all the early computers, programming for the first time, committing fraud, the first zombie game and losing it all, campaign finance reform, getting an opportunity to practice your shtick, selling gray market games, dissing games you're selling, going back and forth with Valve, petting the dog, thanking yourself for being awesome, the Crab Cracker, walking out, diving in on a team, thinking everyone is smarter than you, iterating on Team Fortress and finding its identity, archetypes/stereotypes, multiplayer silhouettes, game lineages, iterating dialogue systems, pushing against the need for a story and being challenged, not having QA and dealing with cert, avoiding the bureaucracy, picking the vibe, negativity with a replacement, symphonies vs rock and roll, DNFing the bugs, a split code base, supporting the player story, playing with friends vs strangers, replaying the game in different roles, tasks vs moving through a space, having three of everything, moments that stick with you, wanting to play the game, getting roped into Portal 2, splitting responsibilities and not commenting on the other, living a little outside the space, playing couch co-op via over the Internet, game face and social cues, being excited about the song, bodies in the space, shipping all the time, shipping hardware and making an ecosystem, iterating and learning, letting the community support and learn from a game, a great storyteller, the logistics of starting up a company, helping each other out, islands, shifting strategy to console. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Erik Wolpaw, Valve, Bossa Studios, Vertigo Games, Kimberly Voll, Stray Bombay, The Anacrusis, Heath Kit, Stratomatic Football/Baseball, TRS-80, Timex Sinclair, Vic 20, Commodore 64, Amiga, PET, Nintendo, Brandon Lee, Project Zomboid, Zombieworld, Open Secrets, Old Man Murray, Computer Shopper, Myth: The Forgotten Lords, Ultima Online, UGO, Penny Arcade, Pointless Waste of Time, Jason Pargin (aka David Wong), Team Fortress (series), Day of Defeat, Half-Life (series/episodes), Scott Lynch, Gabe Newell, Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock Studios, Mike Booth, Portal, Overwatch, Elan Ruskin, Crystal Dynamics, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, World War Z, Brad Pitt, Counterstrike, Reed Knight, Jay Pinkerton, Mark Laidlaw, Ellen McLain, The New York Times, The National, Thom Yorke, Kim Swift, The Sock Puppet, Steam Link, A View to a Kill, Far Cry 2, Spelunky, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
TBA!

Links:
Exile, Vilify... with sock puppet

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Tim is traveling this week, so we are reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview N0isses, who talks about his streaming, music, music streaming, and lots of other stuff. We expect to return next week.

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Tim is traveling this week, so we are reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview one... Brett Douville, who happens to also co-host Dev Game Club and is the person typing this right now, so all of this is very weird. We expect to return next week.

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Rocksteady's breakout hit, Batman: Arkham Asylum. We freeflow our way through a bunch of combat, put on the visor, and even hit a couple of the villains (and I'm not talking about our emails). Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
More of the game (Brett to Poison Ivy, Tim to first Scarecrow)

Issues covered: Tim's many times dressing up as the Joker, Joker owning the island, having a Batcave on the island, being prepared as Batman, Bioshock vibes, layers of Arkham, layering activities over level areas, seeing things before you can get through them, a Metroidvania for the collectibles, not needing to do challenges for XP, Joker teeth as breadcrumbs to what you should do next, an approachable game for the license, Detective Mode as a little alienating from Batman, seeing how the world is put together, a bit of a cheat for Batman, character vs player focus, predecessor experiences, being mashable and less punishing, having a dozen enemies and being able to lower fidelity, everything working together, dramatic and telling finishing blows, a bunch of knockouts all at once, wanting it to feel like Batman is outnumbered and overcoming it, reinforcing goals and caring about the right things, being able to modularize the combat and change the feel, battle loss taunts, finding ways to show the highest LOD models, the Scarecrow introduction, horror movie scary stuff, the surreal space of the Scarecrow, asking the controls to be more generous, having Scarecrow be over the top and weird, wanting the fear to come from the A/V experience, Daredevil and Batman, centering the Rogues Gallery, pathetic and horrific Bane, a small universe, the Justice League vs the Vengeance League, feeling the impact of freeflow combat immediately, audience and alignment of all the goals, seeing the problem-solving in action, putting all the pieces together, "The Witcher is Just Fantasy Batman," when you don't feel connected to the character, fighting Deathstroke, embracing the multiverses, 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Bioshock, Mark Hamill, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, Joaquin Phoenix, Metroid, Tomb Raider, Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark of Kri, God of War, Tim Ramsay, Republic Commando, Eternal Darkness, Dead Space, Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien: Isolation, Christopher Nolan, Star Wars, The Boys, Watchmen, Bvron Music, Assassin's Creed, Half-Life, Halo, GoldenEye: 007, Jarkko Sivula, Tim Burton, Eye of the Beholder, The Witcher, Call of Duty, Control, Deus Ex (reboot), Jack Kirby, Pokemon, Calamity Nolan, Mark Garcia, Artimage, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. 

Next time:
Even more of the game!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 2009's Rocksteady breakout, Batman: Arkham Asylum. We set the game in its time, as well as introducing its principals, and talk a bit about one man's fandom. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Roughly up to first Scarecrow encounter

Issues covered: introducing the center of the madness, returning to these two, mythology and archetype, the games of 2009, some early Rocksteady history, coming out of the shadows, developing their process, taking on the superhero genre, licensed titles and not overcoming them, replicating game designs to the license, something finally living up to or exceeding expectations, a long digression into superhero cinema, seeing the attention to detail, pre-code comics and other Brett comic history, a small development team, puzzle box, comparing team sizes, a time with fewer new sorts of games, the August window, great voice cast and writing, seeing signs that they really care, narrative design and other writers, getting a lot of mileage from the voice cast, setting up the story, a big plan from the Joker, introducing Arkham as the location, constraining Batman to present the Joker, not your typical Batman universe, exaggerated characters, a simple setup/trope, establishing a new look for Harley Quinn, other influences for the art direction, "I admire its purity," the clear proof of concept in vertical slice, what a vertical slice, solving major production questions, a good tutorial room vs one that works less well, having all the elements, how Batman has stealth, using fantasy in the checkpointing, impacting later Batmen, filling a Pokedex. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons and Dragons, Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, DC and Marvel, The Batman, Robert Pattinson, Sega, Michael Keaton, Batman: The Animated Series, PlayStation, Jamie Fristrom, Insomniac, Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Demons's Souls, Ratchet & Clank, Brutal Legend, League of Legends, Assassin's Creed II, Infamous, Eye of the Beholder, Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Bayonetta, Rocksteady, Urban Chaos, Warner Bros, Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, Jamie Walker, Sefton Hill, Argonaut Games, Ubisoft, Star Wars, Electronic Arts, Lord of the Rings, Godfather, Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan, Tim Burton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Joel Schumacher, Peter Jackson, Superman 64, Freedom Force, Grant Morrison, Dave McKean, Sandman, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, X-Men, Ben Affleck, Metroidvania, Fallout 3, Bethesda Game Studios, Dark Souls, BioShock, Madden, Baldur's Gate III, Larian Studios, Paul Dini, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Arlene Sorkin, Adrienne Barbeau, Half-Life, John Cena, Steve Austin, The Rock, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns, Alex Ross, Gotham Central, Gears of War, Tomb Raider, Alien, Penny Arcade, Sam Fisher, Thief, Flight of the Conchords, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
More! We don't know how much more!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Eye of the Beholder. We talk more about D&D adaptation, spend some time with a sequel, and get to our takeaways before emptying the mailbag. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: which levels count in the sequel, killing lots of beholders, whether you could have killed Xanathar in the original, striation of hit point values, scaling for sense of power, paying off on the quests, finding all the beholders, beholder physiology, having more fun with beholders as designers, bulettes and basilisks, "just keep going," being trained for level navigation, designing towards the player understanding, wanting coordinates, using simple concepts well, modular repeatable and combinable concepts, leaning into the limitations, an onion layer level, "mapping matters," loving drawing maps, sanding off of friction (various ways of telling the player how to get there), being more embodied in the dungeon, the more you take out the less the experience becomes, allowing for abstraction and having to draw you in other ways, translating D&D, why simulate the math, a bad game to simulate, "what is a saving throw?," using video games to inform the evolution of your tabletop game, emphasizing the human, a more elegant system, dice variance, a useless party experience, usability issues, bad games that were influential on us, remembering movie moments but not the gameplay, even bad actors are better than what we could do at the time, digging into all the RPGs, not knowing what to do in SimCity, DOS vs Mac music and early audio, a craftman's respect for audio, warm analog music, hearing multiple versions of the same soundtrack, not playing a lot of real-world games, physics in games and pitting against fun, wanting to get to specific rides vs how you build a park, Tim gets turned off on the CRPG book, building on foundations and the legacies they carry, business concerns, shipping code passing cert, climbing uphill to make changes, maintaining the feel.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Eye of the Beholder II, Winnie the Pooh, The Dungeon Run, Metal Gear Solid (obliquely), Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM (1993), Gary Gygax, PS5, Xbox Series X, Dark Souls, Temple of Elemental Evil, Indiana Jones (series), Far Cry 2, Starfighter, Jurassic Park, Ultima Underworld, God of War, Baldur's Gate (series), World of Warcraft, William Shatner, Vampire: the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, Mechwarrior, Mechassault, Warhammer, Morrowind, Fallout, Diablo, Westwood, Ashton Herrmann, Kyrandia (series), Lands of Lore, Trespasser, Clint Hocking, Assassin's Creed (series), Darkstone, Neverwinter Nights, Kingdom Hearts, Twisted Metal Black, Warcraft II, Quake, MYST, Grim Fandango, The 7th Guest, NextGen, Sam Thomas, The CRPG Book, Skyrim, The Bard's Tale, Disco Elysium, Rogue, Betrayal at Krondor, Cobra Mission: Panic in Cobra City, Andrew, SimCity 2000, GameBoy, MegaMan, NES/SNES/N64, Grant Kirkhope, GoldenEye 007, Metroid (series), Half-Life (series), Rollercoaster Tycoon, The Matrix, Disneyworld, Great Adventure, Canobie Lake Park, Dungeon Master, Chris, Populous (series), Dungeon Master, Fallout 3, mysterydip, Commander Keen, Dwarf Fortress, Metroid Prime, Bethesda Game Studios, Halo (series), Bungie Studios, Tomb Raider, Galleon, Toby Gard, Redguard, Reed Knight, Todd Howard, Starfighter, Grand Theft Auto (series), Starfield, Unreal (series), Gears of War, Republic Commando, Jack Mathews, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Our next game?

Links:
The CRPG Book
Dungeon Master Encyclopedia and video

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Eye of the Beholder. We killed Xanathar! We saved Waterdeep! And we talked about simulation vs game vs narrative and various other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game!

Issues covered: potential NPCs, getting misled by the star, hating the missing buttons, good reveals on secret doors, unmotivated puzzles, brute force, accidentally solving a puzzle, up into a small enclosed space, not finding the Drow, wanting more of a sense of NPC presence, leaning into narrative and game-iness, using game-iness to add drama, simulation elements in D&D, being more naturalistic, spiking a door vs more elaborate narrative elements, having to abstract rest mechanics, having consequences for time advancing, JRPGs and rest mechanics, dying many times to the beholder, getting so much of the map connecting moments, identifying magic items, using enemies as clues via audio, the silent mind-flayers, not seeing the dice and having the opportunity to balance, terrifying appearance of Xanathar, being unprepared, not seeing all of the beholder effects, respawning monsters, not being able to level up your mages enough, running away from Xanathar, mouse panic, using collision audio to know where he was, wand spamming, being teleported into the final room, not understanding the teleporters, portraits and the art style, not knowing when to stop pushing, giving impressions through simple art, adding audio to later games, D&D of particular eras.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Crystal Shard, Ultima Underworld, Temple of Elemental Evil, Fallout, Baldur's Gate III, Pool of Radiance, Star Wars, William Shatner, Sierra, LucasArts, Diablo (series), Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Takeaways and mail bag

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1991's Eye of the Beholder. We talk quite a bit about adaptation and the things that are not entirely.... fun... about D&D. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to level 10 or 11

Issues covered: Discord Game Club, finding the dwarves, the injured dwarf, information as a reward, inconsistent locks, messages you can only read if you have a dwarf, using up keys and not knowing when you should use them, communities below ground, "Xanathar: he's kind of a big deal," history in the built environment, the sewer map, "feelies," wishing the computer would do the rules for us... or not?, translation of D&D, the problems of adaptation, diving into the movie, respawning hellhounds and imagining hell, what's a xorn?, puzzle opacity, good puzzles, holdover concepts that stick around, level connectivity, the pleasures of linking up segments of map, removing useful friction, games where there's not a lot of high hights nor low lows, podcast games, having to learn the world and feeling the mastery, great connections in Dark Souls, landmarking and not wanting a map.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: D&D, Discord Game Club, Artimage, Mark Garcia, BioStats, Final Fantasy IX, Kotaku, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Temple of Elemental Evil, Infocom, Zork (series), Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Republic Commando, Baldur's Gate (series), Diablo, Chris Pine, Ultima Underworld, Richard Garriott, System Shock, King's Quest, Assassin's Creed, World of Warcraft, Dark Souls, Ico, Dragon/Dungeon magazines, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. 

Next time:
Finish the game!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1991's Eye of the Beholder. We talk about using what you've got, contrast it with non grid-based games like Underworld, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Thru level 4 (Tim), level 2 (Brett)

Issues covered: Discord Game Club, getting deeper in the levels, paranoia about missing items or XP, being lost in the spinner maze, avoiding the spinners via runes, the compass flipping, leaving a clear landmark, feeling the need for the hint guide, having fewer games, older D&D puzzles, what concepts did designers use and discover level design in the process, fast traveling to the exit, systemic doors, how to give information to the player, distillation, focus, using a button in a different way, levels having multiple heights, logistically making the space work and having a rail, D&D mage lair fun, needing a little more from spatial understanding, having trouble with landmarks, using what you have for gameplay design, making opportunities out of constraints, finding your way through with a DM, advancing to more systems, how big is your flowchart, THAC0, what you choose to represent, story vs crunchy combat, giving you more options, Tim's spider problem, speedrunning to the potions, how much one saves, the lack of fun in poison and food.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Artimage, Mark Garcia, Ultima (series), Bard's Tale, Double Fine, Psychonauts 2, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, SuperGiant, Bastion, Transistor, Hades, Rogue, Adventure, The Elder Scrolls (series), Diablo, World of Warcraft, Wizardry (series), Baldur's Gate (series), James Ohlen, Chrono Trigger, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
More of Eye of the Beholder

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

The first episode of Discord Game Club - The community appreciation cast for DevGameClub. In this episode, Artimage and Mark introduce themselves, touch on their gaming background, as well as how they got into the cast, before diving into some community provided content for discussion. Additional media: Kotaku Article mentioning DevGameClub: https://kotaku.com/an-insightful-look-at-why-old-final-fantasy-games-were-1777807188 Razbuten - The Problem With Mini-Maps: https://youtu.be/nmzYRT7LBQs Egoraptor - Sequelitis - Mega Man Classiv Vs. Mega Man X: https://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM DevGameClub Discord

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1991's Eye of the Beholder, from Westwood Studios and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. We set the game in its time before exploring its primary mechanics and the feel of being in this world. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
First level or two

Issues covered: knowing who the evil is, tactical top down Gold Box, the opening cutscene, being amazed at how much they get into the Game Boy version of a Metroid game, lots of movie tie-ins, a wide variety of machines, lack of automap, being everything one wanted for a Forgotten Realms nerd, one of the ten games, semi real-time, living inside the depths of Waterdeep, a style of play which continues today, having to rest immediately, gaining information through audio, uncovering the whole map vs racing towards the goal, tournament play, losing is fun, the only way out is through, annotating a later map, interacting with the play space, accessibility and the mouse, contextualization and abstraction in game design, having to throw weapons in the world, how cool the audio is, using items to locate yourself, creating a party, crunchy spells, shout-outs to upcoming work, difficulty in the bosses in Metroid games then and now, games influencing games, getting the green light, justifying the game via the sweet spot of trends, why not just make this a Star Wars game, how green lighting changes with bigger franchises, games that changed our perspectives.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Gold Box games, Westwood Studios, Dune 2, A Link to the Past, Super Castlevania IV, SNES, Mega Man 4, Final Fantasy IV, Metroid II: Return of Samus (and Metroid series), Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Genesis, Battletoads, Rare, Stamper Bros, Civilization, Another World, Space Quest IV, Monkey Island 2, Wing Commander 2, Hudson Hawk, Terminator 2, American Gladiators, Hunt for Red October, The Godfather, Amiga, PC-98, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Apple ][, Spectrum ZX, Amstrad, Questron, Disney, Legend of Kyrandia, Command and Conquer (series), Electronic Arts, Earth and Beyond, Louis Castle, Brett Sperry, Strategic Simulations Incorporated, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Pool of Radiance, The Ruins of Myth Drannor, Ultima (series), Wizardry (series), A Bard's Tale (series), Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest (series), Diablo, Wasteland, Temple of Elemental Evil, Legend of Grimrock, Etrian Odyssey (series), The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, The Tomb of Horrors, Infocom, Ocarina of Time, Rogue, Deluxe Paint, Baldur's Gate, Jarkko Sivula, Single Malt Apocalypse, Sierra, LucasArts, Wierd Tales, Amazing Stories, Tintin, Pippin Barr, David Wolinsky, Game Thing, The Stuff Games Are Made Of, Walker, Dark Souls, Nintendo, Skyrim, Breath of the Wild, Johnny Pockets, Mad Max, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Republic Commando, Sam and Max: Freelance Police, Bounty Hunter, RTX Red Rock, Gladius, PlayStation, Tomb Raider (series), Halo: Infinite, Quake, MYST, Lode Runner, Sabotage, Robotron 2084, Joust, Dark Forces, WoW Classic, Everquest, MUD, Ultima Online, Meridian 59, Adventure, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
more Eye of the Beholder!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add another bonus to our series on Metroid Prime with an interview with Jack Mathews, a technical lead on the title. We cover a lot of ground in this one, folks, which is appropriate for a Metroid game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
1:10 Interview
1:03:17 Break
1:03:53 Outro

Issues covered: scanning for IP addresses, supporting QuakeWorld, bored by anything but coding, the Wild West, the Dallas studio, feeling like a Nintendo series, similarities between the glide renderer and the GameCube hardware, a central technology group, arriving to a bit of a mess, a lot of lost undirected work, taking veteran console first person success and turning MetaForce into it, cancelling titles, unhappy marriages, starting on day one, building data streaming, hardware meant for streaming, pattern AI, dynamically modifying for performance, working on a world editor, "you know, a duck," building practical things, there being a lot of fans, bucking against doing first-person, limitations of the controller, working towards accessibility on the controller, having to be 60 and having to stay there, optimizing for the worst case to avoid a hitchy mess, avoiding performance traps in specular and bump mapping, being unable to choke the memory pipelines, throwing up flashing if you went under 60 ever, taking something away to justify anything else, software is a gas that will expand, limiting the content rather than expecting technical wizardry, testing Nintendo's demos, faking specular, being consistent and polished, having a sytem rather than scriptosaurus rex, planners and not designers, limitations, being a bad engineer or a bad artist, knowing where you fit, seeing the constraints in the game, Tim's crisis of faith, Love and Lemons plug!, targeting games where we know people, giving people constraints, relying on designers too much to accomplish goals, embracing constraints.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: GameSpy, Quake, 3dfx Voodoo, Ritual Entertainment, Retro Studios, Armature Studio, reCore, Dead Star, Bluepoint, Shadow of the Colossus, Demons's Souls, Joe Powell, Tim Cook, id Software, John Carmack, Quake World, Zoid Kirsch, glQuake, Gary McTaggart, Charlie Brown, LucasArts, PowerVR, Ion Storm, Rare, GoldenEye, Andy O'Neal, Raven Blade, Shigeru Miyamoto, MetaForce, Jeff Spangenberg, Iguana Games, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, NFL Madden (series), Twisted Metal, Steve Baum, Steve McRay, Matt Kimberling, Akintunde Omitowoju, Frank Lafuente, Unreal, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Mike Abrash, PS3, Jason Behr, Karl Deckard, Mark Pacini, Mike Wikan, Legend of Zelda, Love and Lemons, God of War: Ragnarok, Sony, Kynan Person, Dave Bogan, Daron Stinnett, Dark Forces, Outlaws, Matt Tateishi, Indiana Jones & the Infernal Machine, Jedi Knight, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
??? Tim and I to discuss

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add a bonus to our series on Metroid Prime by looking into Metroid Fusion, before turning to the mail bag. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Almost all of it

Issues covered: the space jump boots, connectivity with the GBA, Metroid nostalgia, a hardcore game, GBA architecture, moving goalposts, kinship between Metroid and Legend of Zelda, snacking on Dread, an A bug in a final room, code save states, a limited control set and linear upgrades, having keycards/security access, Samus's lack of agency, changing what you think about the character, enjoying the setting, not knowing where to go, not thinking about space in a particular way, host origin stories, roles we've had, leaving for opportunities, burning out, a book club for games, keeping up with technology, learning languages, not being able to share what we're doing yet, how we keep going, hitting versions of writer's block, context shifting, being good with just a small amount of work, project doldrums, mental thinking, sometimes you just need idle time, gaining perspective via sharing, asking why questions, shifting between productivity approaches, disguised linearity, games where the level design pulls you along, trusting the developers and trusting your players, player empowerment, games we didn't get, not enjoying the controller for FPSes but changing later, getting revved up by programming and needing cooldowns.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Blarg42, TheSecondQuest, Game Boy Advance, Pokemon Stadium, Zelda: Four Sword, Crystal Chronicle, PacMan, Splinter Cell, Tingle Tuner, Legend of Zelda, Mercury Steam, Dead Space, Event Horizon, Team Ninja, Tomonobu Itagaki, Kyleanderror13, Republic Commando, Star Wars: Starfighter, LucasArts, Tomb Raider, Jonathan Williams, Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout 3, Mario (series), Rebel FM, Naughty Dog, Looking Glass, System Shock 2, Irrational Games, Soren Johnson, Civ 3, GamaSutra/Game Developer, Sixty Second Shooter Prime, Jamie Fristrom, PlayStation Vita, Commander Keen, Luke, RPG Maker, Bvron, Fumito Ueda, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian, Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past, Arcane Studios, Dishonored, Prey, Death Loop, Planescape: Torment, Castlevania, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dark Souls, Jarkko Sivula, GoldenEye, Demon's Souls, Resident Evil, Nathan Martz, Final Fantasy (series), Dungeons & Dragons, Trespasser, Skyrim, Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders, Valheim, Dwarf Fortress, Joel Burgess, Capy Games, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
TBA!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on a pair of empathy games, Papers, Please and Cart Life. We spend some more time with Melanie and her coffee hut before turning to our takeaways, shared between both games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Several days of Cart Life

Issues covered: the tutorialization in the Melanie story, a whole functioning town, replaying the first few days, real world flexibility, entering a potential failure state, adding parenting into the mix, encountering a bug, reading deeply into the simulation, having a meaningful experience without a systemic backing, supporting the illusion of systems, being forced to have your daughter go to her dad's, bugs and not being sure, losing Andrus's cat, dream sequences, having trouble wanting to play the game, adventure game topics and language, high pressure time, topics in other games, keywords, production economy, words as an inventory, life under capitalism vs authoritarianism, depriving a character of connection, choosing coffee due to life choices, not taking baristas for granted, useful friction and life, min/maxing the simulator vs trying to experiment with it, the horror of retail, opportunities for connection, making the game or life go more quickly, getting OCD with espresso, the physical repetitive tasks, "playing anything," what motivates play and games, being naturally empathetic with the character, choosing an abstract aesthetic, production techniques for lo-fi heart and enabling creativity, being glad that such games exist, tactility of game elements, abstraction and QTEs, Easter eggs. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioStats, CalamityNolan, Samuel Jackson, Pulp Fiction, Twine, The Walking Dead, David Lynch, Dark Souls, Ultima (series), Her Story, Sam Barlow, Hal Barwood, Return of the Obra Dinn, Mad Libs, howling dogs, WarCraft, Gilmore Girls, The Sims (series), Skyrim, Typing Tutor, Sabrina Carpenter, Receiver, Ian Bogost, Play Anything, Power Washing Simulator, Kim Jung Gi, Sierra, The Last of Us, Cleo 5 to 7, Jeanne Dielman, Chantal Ackerman, David Cage, God of War, Outer Wilds, Passage, Brad, Jason Rohrer, N. K. Jemisin, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
BioStats and CalamityNolan's interview with another host

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Metroid Prime. We discuss the visor modes, the pleasing arc of the end game, and other topics before we turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game!

Issues covered: the face of the Metroid Prime core, reflecting the art of Samus in the environment or creatures, seventeen films in five and a half days, vision modes in games, using vision modes for boss fights and other uses, what is that sound you're hearing?, scanning to get the riddles, using this as a blueprint to figure out other things to do, using the Chozo descriptions to find the artifacts, having the sense of empowerment returning to the areas, not needing to move the goalposts, the toppled tower and other setpieces, a game about seeing, scanning the totems as an unlock, the prophecy of the chosen/Chozo one, where these games connect together, Omega Pirate adding visors to combat, love/hate and the Ridley battle, those Switch joy-cons, learning the pattern recognition, not being sure where your collision ends, finding depth in the movement system, having a final boss that's a little easier, Tim totally misses me saying "that's how we roll" in our Metroid series, translating into a new genre and going their own way, excellent art direction, making the 3D work, the importance of craftmanship, the controller matters, making a business model choice.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Mark Haigh-Hutchison, Marvel (film series), Star Wars, Republic Commando, Mortal Kombat (series), Arkham (series), Assassin's Creed (series), Dr. Who, Morrowind, Halo, Eternal Darkness, Brad Furminger, Everybody Switch, Nintendo Labo, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Bonus content!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2002's Metroid Prime. We talk a bit about some favorite moments, the suit design, the visors, a bit of a grab bag of topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: wondering which creatures were in which games, wondering if the music is your canonical music, crab hands with chords, a non-ergonomic system, using the dog-ears, kibbitzing about controllers, being pulled ahead by inherent mystery, camera direction and half pipes, Tim brings up Artorias again, the moment of fiero, charging up the half-pipe, building up momentum, seeing some things with the thermal visor vs the x-ray visor, testing the player's abilities, serving the purpose of reinforcing play modes, the primordial morph ball, retuning game play for versions, the stress of bosses, relative challenge of bosses in Zelda games vs Metroid, lack of grinding, the variety of progression blockers, the stages of water, thinking you'll drain the water, changing water into not water, not keeping track of where there's water, the first person obscuring that water will be traversable, finding a good energy tank, a bit of a bug, peeling the onion as you have additional tools, seeing the grapple points, wanting better map information, map annoyances, a well set-up "puzzle," framing the camera well in the morph ball, opening up Metroid to the Breath of the Wild, desaturated colors, not missing the dual-stick feel, being able to lock on and pay attention to other things, lock-on facilitating guns as tools. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Metal Gear Solid (series), Brainy Gamer podcast, Switch, Castlevania, Hollow Knight, Super Metroid, Dark Souls, Dead Cells, David Wolinsky, Pippin Barr, GameThing, Nintendo, Legend of Zelda (series), Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Alex Neuse, LucasArts, Metroid Fusion, Ernst Lubitsch ("Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever."), Breath of the Wild, Nintendo Wii, Dungeons & Dragons, The Dungeon Run, Steve Martin, Billy/The2ndQuest, Halo, Jonny Quest, Flight of the Conchords, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
More Metroid Prime!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we take a short break from our series on Metroid Prime to catch up on the mail bag. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: GoldenEye, Republic Commando influences, tracking data in games, informing your decisions, figuring out what to do with your data, Arecibo radio telescope, feeling like we're in the game, a favorite multiplayer mode, socially playing GoldenEye, choosing weapons for Dead Space, keeping your enemies closer in Dead Space for tension, what's with all the remakes, why you might do a remake, not enjoying older media, training your new generation of creators, likening GoldenEye 007 to a heist, quicktime events, systemic approaches to spectacle, players knowing they are playing a boring game, feedback through animation, "breaking the game," acceptable frame rates, not feeling the 60Hz, picking a goal and sticking with it, taking a village to fix frame rate, finding the frame rate that makes sense for your game, new funding models, GamePass and 150 million monthly active users, hidden objectives in games, the fun of discovering an objective, cost accessibility and game sales.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: GoldenEye 007, gonsalet, DOOM (1993), Quake, MDK, Outlaws, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Switch, Republic Commando, Halo, Rainbox Six: Rogue Spear, SWAT 4, Irrational Games, Ken Levine, Freedom Fighters, IO Interactive, Star Wars, Unreal, Alex Epton, Deus Ex, The Walking Dead, The Art of Live Ops, Maple Story, World of Warcraft, Steve Meretzky, Infocom, Sam Bates, Sean Bean, Contact, Assassin's Creed, Brett Baptist, Blarg42, Dead Space, Capcom, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, System Shock, Callisto Protocol, Ian Milham, Shadow of the Colossus, Medi-evil, Link's Awakening, Call of Duty, Daron Stinnett, Electronic Arts, Michael, Arkham Asylum, God of War, Dark Souls, From Russia With Love, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Warzone, Fortnite, Rare Studios, Grant Kirkhope, mysterydip, Tears of the Kingdom, Skyrim, Eric Johnston, Starfighter, Breath of the Wild, Microsoft, Activision/Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, Artimage, Jedi Starfighter, TimeSplitters 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Back to Metroid Prime

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Metroid Prime. We discuss the particular alchemy of combining Metroid's formula with the shooter format in a Nintendo vein, with comparisons to other shooter lineages and discuss what it means for level design, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to Thardus (in theory)

Issues covered: getting a power-up and not thinking the ball shape should work, being boneless, structuring the space as a first-person game, the see-lock-discover-power-revisit-lock loop, opening the map too much, both of us having hives, turning off hints, making notes, not hiding secrets in the same way as the 2D games, making the challenges visible, using the map to find negative space in 2D, scanning when you come into a room, the trauma of working on Nintendo, the capabilities of the GameCube and its media, the game holding up very well, managing the art direction, world continuity, gun dimensionality, looking at the world in one way, other shooters that have maybe the one thing, making a shooter that fits the franchise and not following others, going their own way, owning the space, making a system seller, translating enemy archetypes, translating the morph ball into a sort of 2D space, morphing back into Samus and moving the camera, first-person dive rolling, a digression on the music and translating it to a higher quality way, be inspired to play the games from the 'cast, cardboard shenanigans.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, Metroid Fusion, Halo, God of War, Dark Souls, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, Doom, Quake, idTech, Prey, Half-Life 2, Dead Space, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher (series), Assassin's Creed (series), Retro Studios, Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, TimeSplitters, Turok, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Rare, Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, KillZone, Luigi's Mansion, Beyond Good and Evil, Crystal Chronicles, Four Sword Adventure, Obi-Wan, Metal Gear Solid, Star Wars, Super Mario Odyssey, Koji Kondo, Megaman 2/X, DaveK_Says, Morrowind, Warcraft, spock_thoughts, GoldenEye, Calamity Nolan, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Find out in our Discord!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on Metroid Prime, which we are playing via the Nintendo Switch remaster. We set the game in its time, talk a little bit about Retro, and then wall jump into the action of the tutorial area. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Until you arrive on Tallon IV

Issues covered: Tim's purging, Western developers making FPSes for Japanese publishers, basing things on the lock-on, a game set apart by art direction, a ban on 2002, Brett's bookend years, the Capcom 5, the games for GameCube, being in the helmet, attach rate, top sales, reminiscing about a former colleague, the transition to 3D and Mark HH to support, seeing the potential for the game beneath the engine, ripping away ownership of the FPS, returning to the 2D formula, doling out their lesser selling properties a bit at a time, starting with all the gadgets, taking notes when you play a Metroid game, adding accessibility via the lock-on, locking on without a target, scanning as the second thing, good world building and boss teasing, teaching you how to fight with a simple boss, the amazing music and audio design, getting to look through the helmet, augmenting the sense of embodiment, finding community in an MMO, design for addictiveness, having an engaging game and then making something punishing, taking a game too far, the golden mean, ethical free-to-play, game metrics, key performance indicators, costs of people who play a game too much, designing to encourage people to step away from time to time, the humble origins of the James Bond theme, 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: GoldenEye 007, Splatoon, Capcom, Lost Planet, Retro Studios, Halo, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Eternal Darkness, Ratchet & Clank, Morrowind, Animal Crossing, Kingdom Hearts, Timesplitters 2, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, 2015 Games, Infinity Ward, Jedi Knight 2, NOLF 2, BF1942, GameCube, Wind Waker, Resident Evil, Super Mario Sunshine, James Bond 007: Nightfire, Metroid Fusion, Dark Cloud 2, Sly Cooper & Thievious Raccoonus, Splinter Cell, Warcraft III, Neverwinter Nights, Jedi Starfighter, LucasArts, Resident Evil 4, Republic Commando, Metroid Dread, Nintendo Switch, LoZ: Tears of the Kingdom, Geist, Shadows of the Empire, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Jon Knowles, Shigeru Miyamoto, MegaForce, Super Mario 64, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Wired magazine, DOOM (1993), Metroid: Samus Returns, Bandai/Namco, Metroid: Other M, Mario Kart 8, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Arkham Asylum, Unreal, Colin "The Shots," World of Warcraft, Everquest, Marvel Snap, 343 Industries, June, Aristotle, Super Mario Galaxy, Sony, Star Wars: Galaxies, Raph Koster, Ultima Online, Calamity Nolan, James Bond, Guy Morgan, Monty Norman, Bad Sign/Good Sign, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas, John Barry, Grant Kirkhope, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Check the Discord!

Links:
The James Bond origin track

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord: https://t.co/h7jnG9J9lz
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on GoldenEye 007 by diving a bit into the multiplayer and discussing our overall takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Multiplayer (for about an hour)

Issues covered: getting the good old Rare stories, writing music for the Nintendo 64, finding the Donkey Kong pitch, how remarkably easy it was to play it multiplayer, privacy concerns and game services, car horns and dogs, motion sickness, picking the guns, weapon placement, modes versus mutators versus picking your guns, asymmetrical play, house rules, a social multiplayer experience, lower stakes, not shooting if the other person doesn't have a gun, bullet penetration, more depth than anticipated, feeling the depth, rocket explosion use, a feature under the radar, ease of use, convincing the publisher, a humorous multiplayer, breaking the rules of FPSes, a historical development branch, seeing the one-upmanship in action, the multiplayer dark horse, the multiplicity of the modes, a cinematic FPS that uses the license really well, good characterization and escort missions that don't bug you, spending time makes characters matter, friendly AI at the time, objectives and level of difficulty, learning on the easy difficulty so you can play on the more difficult levels, drowning in nostalgia, building the realistic levels, the limitations of the tech and how it helped, the spookiness of fog.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Grant Kirkhope, Neill Harrison, Stamper (family), Donkey Kong Country, Bill Roper, Calamity Nolan, Switch, DOOM (1993), Halo, Unreal Tournament, Outlaws, Quake, Artimage, Biostats, LucasArts, Clorf, Starfighter, Noclip, Gran Turismo, Pete Brubaker, id Software, Time Splitters, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Starsiege: Tribes, Rogue Spear, Mario Kart 64, Steve Ash, Chris Klie, Alan Cumming, Drew, Minnie Driver, No One Lives Forever 2, The 002nd Quest, Shadows of the Empire, Silent Hill 2, Turok, Dead Space, Dark Souls 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Our next game!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we insert a bonus interview into the middle of our series on GoldenEye 007. We speak with Grant Kirkhope, one of two composers on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:58 Interview
1:03:57 Break
1:04:32 Outro

Issues covered: starting at Rare in '95, composing in hex, the imposing approach to programming, fitting in 1 Mb, making a clarinet from one note, limiting your palette, looping your cymbal decay, working within your limits, downsampling from 44.1 kKz and using the EQ, working from good tunes rather than a huge palette, getting a degree in trumpet and living the musician life, the dole and mom's house, sending in casette tapes, having a meg of memory to play with, going to Disneyland, a farm in the middle of nowhere with teams in stables, a family affair, GameBoy in the morning and GoldenEye in the afternoon, limiting who could be in what building, a culture of friendly rivalry, taking ideas and building on them, brilliant bosses, being into the Bond films, the best film releases of every year, not knowing what you're doing, working on the multiplayer in secret, "not pleasing anyone a lot but pleasing a lot of people a little bit" these days, coming up with the idea in the morning and doing it in the afternoon, the indie spirit, small teams, making the engine you need and no extraneous bits, building games like Nintendo, working from two or three sentences, how does this thing sound (spiky things vs forest things), messing around until you hear what you like, instinctual, developing from an emotional sense, delving into Statue Park, trying to find the John Barry magic, being afraid you're going to get fired and instead moving on to another project, getting a chance to film all the sets, having the magic destroyed, a game that just kept selling and selling, the godfather of trap music, pause music becoming the soundtrack of the game, falling into games without training, music living on when the games don't necessarily, things that get into your head as a child, remembering what you've done, making someone's favorite game, having quite a journey, games as not a destination for composers, having a scene.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Donkey Kong, Graeme Norgate, Rare, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Viva Pinata, Kingdoms of Amalur, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Mario + Rabbids, The King's Daughter, Pierce Brosnan, Edinburgh, Nintendo, Blast Corps, Ken Griffey Baseball, Dave Wise, Robin Beanland, Bon Jovi, Billy Idol, Van Halen, Killer Instinct, Keybase, Atari ST, Tim and Chris Stamper, Donkey Kong Country, Microsoft, Mortal Kombat, Faith No More, Duran Duran, Martin Hollis, Shigeru Miyamoto, Captain America, Monty Norman, John Barry, Gregg Mayles, Pinewood Studios, The World Is Not Enough/Tomorrow Never Dies, Sea of Thieves, Thunderbirds, Sting Ray, Tim Schafer, Psychonauts 2, Chris Woods, David Byrne, How Music Works, Velvet Underground, DOOM, Dark Forces, Neill Harrison, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Multiplayer and takeaways

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Discord Invite

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on GoldenEye 007. We talk about the shelf-level event, running towards the end, and some wonky controller stuff. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the SP game!

Issues covered: Moneypenny presentation, illness, leveraging the Switch N64 save states, the scene on the train, using the laser watch, not how trains work, lack of lock-on, camera assist, twenty brackets, getting a head start on the puzzle, the feel of the train, designing for your strengths rather than throwing in something new, the pains of playing retro games, the maximum throw vs the minimum throw, overcorrection due to overacceleration, autoleveling, tuning the sticks before hitting the emulator level, the three Cs -- character/camera/controls, typical Nintendo re-releases vs emulation, leaning into the fantasy fulfillment of being Bond, the diagetic interface of the watch, the health/shields in full-screen and reflecting the watch, being in your face about critical information, levels becoming more linear at the very end, affordances for the game, a survey of the last few levels, trying to reflect the movie, secret agent levels you want to be in, the final setting and a good pay-off, the real dish, scaling the difficulty with objectives, relying on QA, the fantasy satisfaction of relentlessly heading towards the end, not crediting the face scans, evolving crediting standards, playing multiplayer, Tim the spirit animal, the Big Wheel, trying to focus on the thing that's new, taking my retirement in stages, Tim and his dang bandit knife, earning every mile, asymmetrical multiplayer, difficulty and objectives, mutators and other means of changing difficulty, multiplayer customization, arcade transition.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris (apologies to Thandiwe Newton and Ms Harris), Uncharted, Dead Space, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Okami, Dwarf Fortress, LucasArts, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, GameCube, Half-Life, Valve, Deus Ex (series), Halo, Republic Commando, Jedi Knight, Fallout 3, Matt Tateishi, Adventure, Colin "The Shots" Tougas, Shenmue, Dreamcast, Indiana Jones, UbiSoft, Dark Cloud 2, Travis McGee, Dark Souls, Death Stranding, Bounty Hunter, Outlaws, Jeffrey Sondin-King (Pinecone), Troy, Crystal Dynamics, Celeste, System Shock 2, Silent Scope, Dino Crisis, Kingdom Hearts, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
GoldenEye MP 

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord invite
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. We talk about story accommodations, enemy AI, NPCs, and level design concerns and questions. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Roughly up to mission 10

Issues covered: talking to the people who set up the mission, Moneypenny and representation, changing up the briefing, objective structure, "the Dark Nintendo," how Rare got bought, the challenges of adapting a film where Bond isn't in every scene, objectives in a first-person shooter, interpreting the objectives, confusing visual language, arcade action with waves of enemies, feeling simulation-y, pressure on the player, the impact on the game, technical achievement in the level design, non-linear levels and the problems with landmarking, spy fantasy locations, wanting a boat chase, bad telegraphing, blowing people's minds, enemy animation and location-based hits, blood effects, shooting off hats, smoke and mirrors, asking the team what to do, what the player brings to the game, the AI missing you, putting your money in the enemies, projectile speed, being the fantasy guy vs being the guy, pegging the easy difficulty right, superheroes vs realism, finding objectives that aren't objectives, escort missions, using your one verb and puzzling, making mountains out of molehills, what games opened things up for you, the impact of specific MMOs, walking simulators, haikus of stories. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, GameCube, Microsoft, Quake, Half-Life, Duke Nuke'em 3D, Hitman 2, War Games, Monolith, No One Lives Forever (series), GOG, National Lampoon's European Vacation, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Shadows of the Empire, Quiller (series), Sean Connery, Starfighter, DOOM (1993), Rainbox Six, Soldier of Fortune, Shigeru Miyamoto, Last of Us (series), Mark of Kri (really Rise of the Kasai), Collin "The Shots" Tsougas, John Romero, Super Mario World, Devil May Cry, Chrono Trigger, Destiny, Elden Ring, Diablo, Metal Gear Solid, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Gone Home, Dear Esther, Proteus, Firewatch, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Dark Souls, Kingdom Hearts, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Finish single player

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1997's Rare classic, GoldenEye 007. We set the game in its time before getting down to brass tacks, including comparing the experience to the film. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
First full mission (three levels)

Issues covered: the license, a bit about the film and the film series, 1997 in games, the flourishing of the first person shooter, late in a console cycle, disparity between PC FPSes and console FPSes, Rare with a lot of games and a lot of further game studios, missing the original controller, remapping shenanigans, threading the needle on a film adaptation, filling in gaps in the license, choosing your exciting set piece, wide level design, the triple cut, Hong Kong cinema, cinematic choices, contrasting with later cinematic games, how many mechanics will you incorporate, chasing this game, choosing different presentation, showing death the character death, an era of accessibility needs recognition, at last listening to our hate mail.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Nintendo, Fatal Frame, PlayStation, Pierce Brosnan, Nintendo 64, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, Judi Dench, Desmond Llewelyn, Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Craig, Skyfall, Diablo, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Fallout, Quake, SW: Jedi Knight: DF2, Blood, Outlaws, Turok, Shadow Warrior, Hexen II, Raven Software, 3D Realms, GT Interactive, Duke Nuke'em, Postal, Curse of Monkey Island, Age of Empires, The Last Express, Final Fantasy VII, Colony Wars, Wing Commander: Prophecy, Riven, MYST, XvT, Interstate '76, Mario Kart 64, OddWorld, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, Diddy Kong Racing, The Stamp brothers, NES, Slalom, Wizards and Warriors, Battletoads, Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark, Microsoft, Viva Pinata, Banjo Kazooie (series), Donkey Kong Country, Silicon Graphics, Timesplitters, Free Radical, John Romero, Majora's Mask, Minish Cap, Metroid Fusion, The Fugitive, Harrison Ford, Mission: Impossible, John Woo, Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face Off, Metal Gear Solid, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Alpha Protocol, Telltale Games, IO Interactive, Machine Games, Colin "The Shots," Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, Celeste, Luke Harris, Tetris 64, Starfighter/JSF, 343 Industries, Kingdom Hearts (series), Republic Commando, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More GoldenEye 007

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

It's again the doldrums of summer this week, so we are reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview one Timothy Longo, who happens to also co-host Dev Game Club. Funny how that works. We expect to return next week.

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we catch up on our mail bag and tackle a ton of different topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: catching up on the mail bag, kind words, jumping down onto back of a Chardalyn Dragon, the most important bowling bowl in the universe, frames for playing games, when are you playing the game, going deep on a game and joining its community, moments of discovery, reflections on the 'cast, how we approach our play, what you miss when you play and what you look up later, communities around game, responsive move sets, where you put your investment in development, learning the move sets, invading and being invaded, having a manager, getting way deeper into the game, the stress levels of the game, adventure mode, the Very Pouty Bard, the stress levels of this game, sunk cost fallacy, the weight of continuing a game, expecting not to get too deep in the game.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dwarf Fortress, Kodie Martin, Super Mario 64, John Romero, Vampire: The Masquerade, Brian Mitsoda, Collin "The Shots" James Tiberius Tsougas, Diablo, EverQuest, PlayStation, David Brevik, Dungeons & Dragons, Troy Mashburn, 343 Industries, Brian Taylor, Alien, Final Fantasy IX, Nier: Automata, OliverUV, Jason Grinblat, Freehold Games, Boatmurdered, Dark Souls, Kruggsmash, Tarn and Zach Adams, Eve Online, Frog Fractions, Brenda Romero, Train (board game), Sea of Thieves, Valheim, Roll20, Johnny "Pockets" Grattan, Minecraft, Legend of Zelda, Jeff Cannata, World of Warcraft, The Dungeon Run, LucasArts, Game Theory Group, Harley Baldwin White-Wiedow, The Walking Dead, Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds, Assassin's Creed, Luke Caspar Pearson, Sandra Youkhana, Keza MacDonald, Jason Killingsworth, YOU DIED, Michael Justice, FROM Software, Namco Bandai, Skyrim, Jeffool, Artimage, X-COM, Pong, Kingdom Hearts, Demons's Souls, Civilization, Magic: The Gathering, Flight of the Conchords, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
New game series! 

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Dwarf Fortress. We tell a couple more stories, get into how this would or would not eat up our lives, and turn to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Another 10 hours (Brett) or two hours (Tim)

Issues covered: withdrawing from society to create an heirloom, failing your ghosts, feeling the wet walls, watching the water spread around, creating a well by flooding your lower level, getting stuck in the morass vs learning, the continuing sadness of the Very Pouty Bard, the looming tension in other games, the complexity of some of the systems, diving into other menus, finding the mission system, sanding down difficulty edges, running into the system friction, losing is fun, the pleasures of recovery, so many ways of failure and the time to failure, every happy family, the real boss: the happiness scale, getting further away from the paint can, layer of abstraction, play intensity and life mismatching, the strength of the theme, the amount of iteration and being able to see them, driving design and iteration, the profit motive vs archiving, it's okay to be unforgiving, the presentation allowing for opacity, procedural generation, generating a lore bible or tome, becoming the go-to example for a mechanic, zeitgeists, dead drunken cats, seeing the chain of events that leads to a bug.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Populous, Civ, SimCity, World of Warcraft, Spelunky, Dark Souls, Leo Tolstoy, Ratchet & Clank, BattleCruiser 3K, Firewatch, Colin "The Shots" James Tiberius Tsougas, Kingdom Hearts (series), Super Mario 64, Jumping Flash, Halo, GoldenEye, Kill.Switch, Gears of War, Cliffy B, PlayStation, Daron Stinnett, PacMan, DOOM (1993), Gothic Chocobo, Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Links:
Tarn Adams NoClip

Next time:
Maybe the mailbag?

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Dwarf Fortress. We turn to the Steam version of the game and especially talk about how a more graphical presentation changes the feel of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
2 - 8 hours (Tim - Brett)

Issues covered: starting over, an unhappy bard who you just can't make happy, the necromancer who injured himself in a ravine and who raised an undead to defend him, exploring the game's systems to try and make her happy, goals that arise indirectly, the accomplishment of making her happy, abandoning saves, letting the simulation run, walling in your staircase and the art being unclear, 500K events, the history of the world, watching the world be built or discarded, being curious about a smaller world, resource pressure, task management, a relatively frictionless first year, the leap of graphics, zooming up through the canopy, seeing your floors, realizing what things represent, going narrow so you can go deep, generating stories, hidden personality variables, dating sims, adding pressure by adding a bunch of new dwarves, meeting areas, a starving cow, so many timers and spinning many plates, the evocative melancholy of the music, games from our childhood.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Animal Crossing, Black & White, Chris Corry, Andrew Kirmse, Valheim, Minecraft, Kitfox Games, Starfighter, Chris Crawford, Rimworld, Populous, SimCity, Tarn Adams, Colin Tougas, Pokemon Red/Blue, Wizardry (series), Ultima (series), Eye of the Beholder, Etrian Odyssey (series), King's Quest, Space Quest, Tetris, Lode Runner, Ultima Underworld, Docobron, Final Fantasy IX, Super Mario World, Metal Gear Solid 3, Chrono Trigger, The Witness, Artimage, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
More DF and our takeaways

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Dwarf Fortress. We talk about working on a thing for a long time, the refinements of the latest version, and a host of other small issues. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Several hours of the latest version of the game

Issues covered: rendering different glyphs, working on a thing for twenty years, the historical record, preservation, iteration, a game of saying yes, being able to leverage systems to other purposes, adding to the interface, modernizing their UI, experimentation and direction, setting goals, greater clarity, when a dwarf can't do a thing, doing more planning due to exposure to the systems, intuiting where things should go in relation to one another, the presentation of UI, the depth of the emotional state of the dwarves, world generation and fantasy elements, amount of space determining how dwarves will act, hotkeying to views, elevation levels of the world, planning ahead, the responsiveness of the dwarves, increased tick rate and the way it impacts play, communicating state of what the dwarf is up to, how the game might do on Steam, the appeal of life simulation games, emergent stories, a child playing with the trash, adding dialog for trade, giving goals or quests without a quest system, making a thing out of the trade panel, the tradeoff of fidelity and simulation, the benefits of Moore's Law, games we have a hard time playing now, liking problematic things, the sign that a thing is a problem from another's perspective, simple mechanics that work, increasing the fun.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Halo, World of Warcraft, APEX Legends, Fortnite, SimCity, Lynx, Lexis-Nexis, DOS, Linux/Unix, Emacs, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Minecraft, Populous, Civilization, RimWorld, The Sims, Will Wright, DOOM (1993), Cities: Skylines, Fallout, Farmville, Skyrim, Flight of the Conchords, Colin Tougas, GTA III, Pokemon Red/Blue, Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid, Dragon's Lair, Tron, Death Stranding, Jarkko Sivula, Rogue, Dark Souls, RPG Maker, Unity, Godot, Uncharted, Mainichi, Mattie Brice, Microsoft Powerpoint, Sierra On-Line, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
The Steam Version

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2006's Dwarf Fortress. We explore our failures by telling some stories about our experiences, and describing what that tells us about what this game is and what its systems might be. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Our first Fortresses

Issues covered: needing a Trade Depot, changing state of a building, feedback on buildings, iconography challenges in a game of this scale, the emotional state of your dwarves, seeing a melancholy dwarf, a dwarf wading into a pond, state vacillation, being aware of the passage of time, building a really good fortress that fails anyway, the underground river, a drowning cat and a shaking room, enjoying the failure, maybe having to plan ahead for the failures, storytelling as a vessel to understand the game, being unable to attach to dwarves as individuals due to cognitive load, gaining attachment to particular dwarves, developing your game in public vs private and the dev story attached, what language its in, moving to Simple Direct Layer, the feral cat and its bad seed kitten, the jaguar battle and post-traumatic stress, going in and out of a bedroom, the confluence of so many systems and story generation, messing up my first trade, the arrival of additional dwarves, wanting some kind of save states, "Happiness is a thing," wanting a chair, early strategy tips from Brett, not knowing how to farm, hunting vermin, intent in design choices, the actual interaction vs the way we talk about it, movie recording and wanting to share, wanting a bit more information about why things aren't happening, wanting a game to be the entire presentation, short runs and roguelikes, judging for the IGF, accidentally summoning a bunch of zombies, layering in more stuff with text and leaning into subverting your story.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sophie's Choice, Sim City, Civilization, Virginia Woolf, Rogue, X-COM, Battlecruiser 3K, Tarn and Zach Adams, pfs:Write, DOS, Dark Souls, Sam, Spelunky, Nethack, A Dark Room, Frog Fractions, Zachary Crownover, Plundered Hearts, Thief II: The Metal Age, Dishonored, Prey, Dead Space, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
The most recent Windows version

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our themed series on the flexibility of text with 2006's Dwarf Fortress. We set the game in its time and then start delving into the play of the game, and the steep cliff of learning how to play it. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A couple of hours

Podcast breakdown:
0:46 Dwarf Fortress
54:36 Break
55:13 Feedback

Issues covered: an early early access game, ASCII vs glyphs, setting the game in its time, lack of simulation games at the time, similar games we've played, not knowing how to categorize the game, failure to launch, not playing the game but playing the learning of the game, exploring the game's systems, bouncing off tremendously, in-game help, "losing is fun," being different from the mainstream, an opening cutscene and music, fictional grounding and world generation, the depth of the dwarves, getting clues from the help and discovering how to do those things, the minimal interface, the combinatorics of choices made, being in a jungle vs a pine forest, having a sad dwarf and building for them, reassigning dwarf abilities, balancing for combat by what the fortress produces, thinking ahead and attracting attention, invading raccoons and a miasma, losing a sense of scale of time, seasons and weather, a flowing river, the little stories you see play out, the tamed feral cat, a cave-in, the ant farm appeal, moments of discovery, levelling up, turning someone into a recruit, games getting shorter if they are level-based, eyes bigger than stomach, scope creep problems, overstuffing a game, systemic expansion, reactive planning in Rogue vs grinding in Diablo, increasing player agency, customizing TTRPGs to react to the players, running the games in our brains, a framework for storytelling, dabbling in game design without having to do it from scratch, accommodating flexibility and adaptation, having a lot to keep in your head, simpler rulesets, designing for physical vs digital, designed scarcity.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Artimage, Bay 12 Games, Zach and Tarn Adams, Rogue, Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, Gears of War, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, New Super Mario Bros, TES: Oblivion, Final Fantasy XII, Dead Rising, Okami, Zoo Tycoon, Thrillville, Civilization, The Sims, Populous, SimCity, Skyrim, Minecraft, Kamil, Branden, Assassin's Creed, Fallout (series), Morrowind, Rogue Legacy 2, Star Wars: Starfighter, Murray Lorden, Diablo 2, Nintendo Switch, Nick Miller, Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Joel Gifford, Marvel Snap, Hearthstone, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
More Dwarf Fortress!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Plundered Hearts, the pirate romance text adventure, and also turning to a short bonus discussion about Twine games. We mostly discuss our takeaways before turning to the bonus discussion. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:18 Takeaways
51:02 Break
51:12 Bonus Discussion

Issues covered: text adventure length, an introductory adventure and the audience it sought, being unable to market, a diversion to Rogue Legacy 2, finding a parser bug, game pack-ins, losing a thing to the parser, a garter on a crocodile, waiting and responding to player choice, playtesting internally, not knowing to wait, inventory combination vs revisiting every location you've missed, failure-driven games, piecing clues together through trial and error, choosing your verbs carefully, whether there are multiple solutions, the hostility of a trial-and-error design, subverting your genre through mechanics, Tim's life as a series of flow charts, a structure still used today, flow charts for puzzle steps, working back from a problem to the solution, responding to your players, using good writing to provide a rich experience, interesting work coming from diverse sources, being playful with text, Twine as an environment, what you can do with good writing and simple tools, text effects, the approachability of the tools, personal games, an experimental game and interpretation, the structure of "howling dogs," simulation aspects, commentary on games, the default response and the "that's interesting," poetic/evocative/allusive tone, being in a browser and the affordances, a commentary on the games industry, the anxiety-provoking games, feeling seen, being exactly spot-on, a learning tool, the value of constraints.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dark Souls, Zork, Infocom, Byte, Nibble, EGM, Nintendo Power, Rogue Legacy 2, Halo, LucasArts, Day of the Tentacle, Emily Short, Counterfeit Monkey, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Dungeons & Dragons, MYST, Space Quest, King's Quest, Reed Knight, Ron Gilbert, Peter Pan, Errol Flynn, Geena Davis, Cutthroat Island, Matthew Modine, Activision, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Chris Klimas, Hypercard, howling dogs, Porpentine, The Writer Will Do Something, Matthew Seiji Burns, Tom Bissell, Game Developer magazine, Magical Wasteland, IF Comp, Andrew Plotkin, Meg Jayanth, Richard Hofmeier, Papers Please, Hot Pockets, Mountain Dew, Warhammer, Frog Fractions, Universal Paperclips, Frank Lantz, HP Lovecraft, Melville, Shakespeare, Mark Laidlaw, Eliza, Zachtronics, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Errors!
It was not Papers, Please (which is also excellent and by Lucas Pope), but Cart Life that was by Richard Hofmeier

Links:
When You Say One Thing and Mean Your Motherboard

Next time:
...?!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our mini theme of the flexibility of text. We examine the Infocom era by playing a late title, Plundered Hearts. We discuss some of the rougher aspects of the game and the mechanics of text adventures, including the facilities of the language and some of its modern descendants. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Tim (all), Brett (the first section)

Issues covered: setting the game in its time, graphic adventures in the time, the death of Infocom, the variety of Infocom's game, Tim pulling his hair out, the cinematic nature of the game, some digressions on Deadline, extending the play through difficulty, saving the game, puzzles and wordplay, exploring the parser, accommodating the player, playing with tropes, Tim misses the boat, a bit of description of the parser and virtual machine, rooms and inventory, fore and aft vs north and south, abstraction and flexibility, restrictions, great graphics via visualization, the perfect run and the perfect score, the modern text adventure market, trigger warning for adult themes, a female protagonist, failure states, "a fate worse than death," a commentary about the dangers for women in the world, a game that she wanted to play, the context of the medium and the inherent danger of the world, having an impactful victory, Vermin's SL1 of Dark Souls, Pippin Barr and experimental games, Break Out and performance art, from Rogue to Diablo.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Rogue, Calamity Nolan, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Aaron Reed, Maniac Mansion, Sierra Online, Space Quest 2, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Nintendo/NES, Punch-Out, Final Fantasy, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Day of the Tentacle, Cornerstone, Zork, Deadline, Deathloop, The Lurking Horror, Ballyhoo, Moonmist, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Activision, Sea of Thieves, Amy Briggs, Agatha Christie, Murder She Wrote, Sleep No More, Colossal Cave Adventure, Apple ][, Volkswagon, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Dark Souls, Tomb Raider, Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy, Sir Ian Livingstone, Ink/Inkle, Around the World in 80 Days, Sorcery (series), Heaven's Vault, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Suspended, Brian Moriarty, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Dark Souls, Emily Short, Elsinore, Pirates of the Caribbean, verminthewepper, Pippin Barr, David Wolinsky, Marina Abramovich, The Artist Is Present, Kill.Screen, GameThing, Breakout, don't die, Father Beast, Diablo, Ragnarok Valhalla, Glenn Wichman, The Eggplant Show, Dave Brevik, Moria, Nethack, Oliver Uv, Brogue, Caves of Qud, Cogmind, Rogue Legacy 2, Mark Garcia, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
A bit of a bonus and takeaways!

Errata:
It's a babelfish, I can't believe I couldn't remember that

Brett confused Astrologaster with Heaven's Vault (he was referring to the latter)

Links:
Interactive Fiction Database

GameThing podcast!

Pippin Barr's site
Don't Die by David Wolinsky

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we elaborate our series on Rogue by looking at one that continues its legacy, that is, Rogue Legacy 2. It's right there in the name! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few hours (well, about a dozen for Brett)

Issues covered: Rogue-likes and Rogue-lites, comparing it a bit with Spelunky, the journal in Spelunky, games like it Tim has played, getting something out of runs, unlocking character types, bespoke levels vs tiled spaces and level generation, kitchen sink design, the clarity of the legacy, the punishment of starting over from scratch, not feeling like I got any further, quality of life improvements, the many ways you can make choices, terrific music, seeing your life flash before your eyes, humorous traits, saying yes to everything, sequel polish, the verb mix, grinding here vs JRPGs, improving skills, wrapping Rogue elements, multiple currencies, maintaining the Rogue with taking the gold, psychology of gold, removing a pillar and losing some enjoyment, knowing someone who beat Rogue, beating Darth Vader, an emergent property of Rogue, making a game you could play yourself, the cleverness and wondering how deep it can go, the punishment of Dark Souls and the progression layer, preferring an endpoint, long-term commitment, other Rogues to check out, a discussion of kit-bashing, kit-bashing and the art department, model kits and the origin of the term, kit-bashing in film, learning to parry.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Spelunky, Clue (obliquely), Colin Northway (obliquely), Dead Cells, Castlevania, Darius Kazemi, Oliver Uv, Cellar Door, PlayStation Vita, Dark Souls, Hades, Humphrey Bogart, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Darren Johnson, TIE Fighter, Derek Yu, Boss Fight Books, Sebastian Deken, Final Fantasy VI, Civilization, Paul Pierce, Haden Blackman, Diablo, njallain, Roguelike Celebration, International Roguelike Convention, Brogue, Caves of Qud, Gamma World, Cogmind, Michael Brough, 868-HACK, mysterydip, Maas Neotek Prototype, Ian Milham, Dead Space, Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout (series), Skyrim, Republic Commando, Star Wars, Industrial Light & Magic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Bloodborne, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
TBA!

Links:
Darius Kazemi on Generating Spelunky

Caves of Qud and Wave Function Collapse

Brogue's Mechanisms

Michael Brough on Roguelikes

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord: https://t.co/YVZOe7ZygI
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our brief series on Rogue, though admittedly if you want the full experience, cut up the two episodes into one minute pieces and randomly select fifty to eighty of those pieces and play them in random order. This week we talk about strategies, life lessons from Rogue, and of course give our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few more hours (Tim) and way too many (Brett)

Issues covered: a visit by June, meeting a griffin, lack of physical damage in creatures, desirable item assessment, changing how you play by what you find, combinatorics, not knowing how many good wands there are, Brett's many strategies, traps and their impact later, the importance and pressure of food, inventory management, having to level up as you go, invisible creatures, regeneration, information is power, constraints dictating the design, treasure rooms and teleportation, the anecdote factory, whether items are weighted, iterating the design, monsters carrying items, fearing the kryptonite ring, the loot factory naming scheme, your first cursed item, life lessons learned from Rogue, resting too long, throwing potions, confusion, multiple dice games and scalability, the profound impact of constraints, someone oughta make a genre out of this, efficient for development, finding my exit strategy, simple objects creating depth, making the most of mechanics, yes and, the power of iteration, grinding as a failed strategy, always having a chance you might win, signing up for the experience, the supreme flexibility of text, comedy and the roguelike, retention and the roguelike, incorporating RPG elements, resetting a space.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Valheim, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Dark Souls, Colossal Cave Adventure, Infocom, Space Quest, King's Quest, MYST, Spelunky, Diablo, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, Storyteller, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Shadowrun, Solitaire, Hunt the Wumpus, mysterydip, Ron Gilbert, Goat Simulator, Zach Gage, Deus Ex, Prey, Dishonored (series), Deathloop, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Bonus game!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on empathy games, returning to discuss a little more about Papers, Please before digging into Cart Life a bit. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A bit more of Papers, Please and a little bit of Cart Life

Issues covered: thanks for the interview, a bit about Twin Suns Corp, showing earlier versions of the game, a vertical slice with all the game play, getting fired, building up through the systems, was this my run, tactility in games, citations and the space they take, space economy, inventory management by comparison, encumbrance, restriction on space, card games and space, making citations bigger, where's the money coming from, thinking about decisions, the save system, leveraging the save system to have space for warnings, a generous save system, you have to make the whole game, the spread of subversion, not playing through multiple times, an unfortunate bug, GDC and the IGF, festival games on the show floor, a history of game issues, the two storylines we're playing, a dark story of divorce, differences between the cart stories, more adventure game than expected, having a hard time getting a cart and also being too late to pick up your daughter, difficulty and opacity, a film equivalent, Brett's fantasy recs, Papers Please and authenticity, controlling your population in authoritarian regimes, stereotypes in games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: CalamityNolan, BioStats, Kaeon, KyleAndError, Project Octavia, Harley Baldwin, Republic Commando, Choose Your Own Adventure, Mark Garcia, The Room, SpaceTeam, Gorogoa, The Elder Scrolls, Marvel: Snap, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Netrunner, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, The Last Express, Nier: Automata, Spelunky, The Walking Dead, Richard Hofmeier, howling dogs, Porpentine, itch.io, Ad Hoc, Telltale, The Wolf Among Us, Adventure Game Studio, The Sims, Tow, Rose Byrne, Max, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Raymond Feist, Riftwar saga, Piers Anthony, The Belgariad, David Eddings, Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan, Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin, Dave Duncan, Ursula K. LeGuin, Tales of Earthsea, Robert Jackson Bennett, Divine Cities trilogy, Founders trilogy, Terry Pratchett, Discworld, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shadows of the Apt, Robin Hobb, Farseer trilogy, Martha Wells, Murderbot Diaries, Books of the Raksura, Lois McMaster Bujold, Vorkosigan saga, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, John LeCarré, Lee Child, Jack Reacher, Claudiu, Chernobyl, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
More Cart Life

Oops:
What I was going to say at the end there is that This War of Mine caught some flak for not accurately representing how people would come together in times of strife (though generally the critical reception was very positive)

Links:
First look stream of Project Octavia 

Twitch: timlongojr and Twin Suns Corp 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1980's seminal and genre-naming title, Rogue. We set the game in time and talk about what constitutes the genre before diving into some particulars. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few runs

Issues covered: buying the game in a box, being disappointed in the ASCII, being turned off by procedural games, the differences in later games, the lore of the game, playing on a mainframe, the roots of so many games in text format, a top 50 achievement in games, the elements of the Rogue-like, procedural generation, inventory, randomized items, permadeath, getting over the hurdles in types of games, a chain reaction of bad things, clicking with a specific experience, simulating the rogue-like, a long shadow, playing to get a feel, being terrified of letters, trying things at random, a voyage of discovery, knowledge, renaming everything, consistent descriptions, thinking about strategy, the cumbersome bow mechanics, more depth than expected, the possibilities of emergence, anecdote factory, "wait, there are bear traps?"

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Adventure, Atari 2600, Colossal Cave Adventure, Dungeons & Dragons, Egghead Software, Moria, Nethack, Jamie Fristrom, ADOM, Angband, Zork, Infocom, Mystery House, On-Line Systems, Sierra Online, Ken and Roberta Williams, Hunt the Wumpus, Star Trek, Pac-Man, Battlezone, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Activision, Taito, LucasArts, Space Quest/King's Quest, Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, Ken Arnold, DARPANET, World of Warcraft, Mario (series), Dark Souls, Rogue Legacy, Epyx, Spelunky, Oblivion, Morrowind, PSP/Vita, Andy Nealen, Diablo, Calamity Nolan, Dead Cells, Eggplant (podcast), mysterydip, Clint Hocking, Patrick Redding, Mark Garcia, Artimage, LostLevels, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. 

Next time:
Get that Amulet of Yendor!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord: https://t.co/YVZOe7ZygI
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we look back at the interview that were, relistening and highlighting some great bits from our conversations with other developers this year. We again extend our thanks to Jaime Griesemer, Clint Hocking, Patrick Redding, Rosie Katz, and Ian Milham.

Thanks too to our perennial thanks: Kirk Hamilton, who composed our intro and outro music, Aaron Evers who sponsored it, and Mark Garcia for our logo and our store.

Finally, thank you also to our listeners, for bringing up interesting questions each week, for supporting the things we do, and just for listening.

Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Next time:
On January 4th, we return with a new game for a new year.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our bonus episodes about Dead Space by chatting with Ian Milham, who was a former LucasArts colleague of the hosts and the Art Director on the space horror classic. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
00:47 Interview
1:15:32 Break
1:16:02 Outro

Issues covered: the cost of getting in, the set top box, an homage, getting an internship on the basis of a lie, getting in on the appeal of LucasArts, having the timing, having opportunities, getting the parts to make something for Xbox, learning on licensed titles, having to prove yourself right away, being paranoid, making lots of key art, living survival horror, living and breathing your game, promoting yourself to avoid cancellation, building with the team you have, complementary skills, "tomorrow is a good idea," the alchemy and identifying how people work together, deferred rendering, finding the compelling aspect of the world, finding the tone, using gothic churches and buttresses to hold the world together, requiring interesting surfaces for the lighting, removing the scares with UI, making the UI cool because of the warmth of the environment, getting fixated on the solution you want and finding something better, the game telling you what it is, keeping the train on the track with real-time Stagecraft, adding a cloud in the sky, problem-solving in the moment, getting to know what the team can do together, being fine with a remake, "the team makes the game," working within the constraints of technology or that you set for yourselves, end of year show.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Microsoft, WebTV, Shadow Madness, LucasArts, Star Wars: Obi-Wan, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, EA, From Russia With Love, Battlefield: Hardline, Crystal Dynamics, Industrial Light and Magic, The Mandalorian, Thor: Love and Thunder, Disney Animation, The Little Mermaid, Bomberman, Bad Bad Bunnies, PlayStation, Final Fantasy VII, Annabella Serra, Renderman, Nintendo, Rogue Squadron, Grim Fandango, Tim Schafer, Infinite Machine, Nihilistic Software, Dan Connors, Chris Ross, Xbox, Rosie Katz, The Two Towers (game), Everything or Nothing, LotR: Battle for Middle-Earth, Glenn Schofield, Striking Distance, Callisto Protocol, Road Rash, The Simpsons, Godfather, Renderware, Ben Wanat, Sledgehammer, Chi Wai Lao, John Bell, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Bioshock, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Unreal, Tron, No One Lives Forever 2, Dark Souls, Calamity Nolan, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
End of year roundup!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we present an interview with Rosie Katz,. who acted as a level designer not only on Dead Space, but the Call of Duty series (and with whom the hosts work today). Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:47 Interview
1:03:30 Break
1:04:00 Outro

Issues covered: starting in central tech testing, getting in through QA, using Maya as a level design tool, bringing in the internal tech tool, easiest level design test ever, picking between games, switching to new IP, feeling the pressure to be more action-oriented due to sales potential, looking at competitors, not needing the vision to be communicated, the classic schism, games needing the room to be what they are, a room that has everything, a complicated set piece, what you do as a level designer on Dead Space, managing streaming, importing references into the tools, having setups provided, focusing on combat scenarios, doing real level design, understanding pacing first, putting the lock before the key, building in polish from the beginning, foreshadowing with audio early, moving to wide linear level design, getting to make multiplayer levels and play them internally, modding, playing many many levels, shifting meta and player creativity, less work and greater reward, making stuff that you wouldn't normally play, consistency in a single game, learning from the experienced folks with your own experience.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Tiger Woods 2007, EA, Godfather 2, Sledgehammer Games, Visceral Studios, Call of Duty (series), DICE, Ubisoft, Michael Condrey, The Simpsons, Ian Milham, Glen Schofield, Resident Evil (series), BioShock, Gears of War, Star Trek, Star Wars, Crystal Dynamics, Noah Hughes, Nintendo Wii, Infinity Ward, Titanfall, Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
... another interview?!

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our main series on Dead Space. We talk animation and audio support for player state, economics, the ammo balance, and how the game shifts more to shooter than horror towards the end, before turning to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Tim (Ch7), Brett (finished)

Issues covered: it's always the doctors, the resource economic loops, kinesis energy as combat use, level 5 suit, many types of resources, the assumption of replayability and discouraging experimentation, tuning knobs via the sellback value of items, progression availability and not knowing when you'll get the last gun, balancing more towards shooter at the end, orchestration of moments, dynamic spawning, perception of progression being off, cutting off limbs, bespoke enemy placement, stasis + punching, not being sure conservation is paying off, knucklehead horror, Knuckle Head is the worst boss, leaning into power fantasy, feeling Isaac's health, breath changes and our sympathetic neurons, accessibility issues with various channels of information, stomping heavily on one's enemies, camera closeness and seeing what you're doing, lacking the payoff for killing human enemies, building up a villain and lack of payoff, good section to use kinesis with an unkillable enemy, making the humans monstrous in other games, self-seriousness and killing civilians, representing systems in characters, seeking redemption, diagetic everything, the UI in the 3D space, the feeling of a real space, efficient direction, embracing the tropes, using genre to set the expectations, audio and music design, enemy design that fools with the zombie mechanics for shooting, competence porn, digital archaeology.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioShock, Final Fantasy VI/IX, Resident Evil (series), Ratchet & Clank, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Calamity Nolan, The Callisto Protocol, Xbox, Alien (series), Paul Reiser, Far Cry 2, Iron Man, Star Wars, Silent Hill, Space Quest, Prey, System Shock, mysterydip, DOOM (1993), David Baggett, Crash Bandicoot, Daron Stinnett, PlayStation, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Spyro (series), Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
TBA

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2008's survival horror in space, Dead Space. We talk about the ways we are maybe breaking the game a bit, art design, level design and camera framing, and sometimes... how it doesn't work. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Into Level 7 (Brett) or 4 (Tim)

Issues covered: unkillable aliens, alien encounter tropes, taking themselves seriously, unknowable cosmic horror being taken seriously, dying again and again in a turret section, managing a lot in the asteroid section, being unable to learn a pattern, silence accentuating strangeness, building up to turning on the turret, the increasing grandiosity of set pieces, making set pieces last longer through difficulty, replaying areas in games and allowing that richness to carry you through, set pieces with cutscene rewards, the right mix in a set piece in the centrifuge, putting the character in unlikely places, breaking the game with the pulse rifle, the expectations of the space marine, good achievement design, getting rewarded similarly to a headshot, using stasis to learn where to shoot, fearing running out of upgrades, the suit design and the skeletal vertebrae, making Isaac look like he's in the same space as his suit, not feeling space, extra layers of geometry, repeating spaces to make things feel artificially familiar, framing doors so that you can see what you're doing next, not needing the breadcrumbs.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Visceral, Star Wars: Starfighter, Alien (series), Independence Day, Resident Evil 4, Event Horizon, Tom Cruise, Asteroids, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Dark Souls, The Last of Us II, Uncharted (series), Tomb Raider (series), Killer 7, Suda 51, Grasshopper Manufacture, Platinum, H. R. Geiger, Mystery Dip, Blarg42, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Our last episode of play

Errata:
Brett was in fact on suit level 3. He regrets the error.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2008's space survival horror game Dead Space. We talk about the fantasy of competence and the grounded elements of the tasks, and contrast that a little bit with the spells. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few more chapters

Issues covered: a weird D&D one-shot, the player insert character, rebooting Space Quest, being in the right place at the right time, hitting all the tropes, set dressing to make a space feel lived-in, Tim makes an unintentional pun, diagetics around the map, committing to the level load, audio design, a sense of game development craft in earlier survival horror vs a more polished modern game, set pieces with slight difficulty spikes, learning the hard way that goop slows you down, a natural way to put timers in, perfect feedback, in space no one can hear you scream, everything coming together in one section, hearing the centrifuge in the outer hallway, the player recognizing his changes, paralleling the original mystery and narrative design, the hallway with the banging, changing the light levels as you pass into an area, delivering the space walk under constraints, teaching you that you can only go short distances, being deflating, landmarks and their lack, getting disoriented and having a moment of not knowing where to go, power nodes as keys to rooms, only soothing my OCD brain, designers liking the psychology of giving up a thing, unnecessary and manipulative friction, spells/Jedi powers, motivating the science fiction, "I slow the enemies down to make it easier to cut their limbs off," getting better at the player skills, a remote worker butcher, maybe breaking the game, echoing the monsters in the static of video communication, Drunk Souls.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Extra Life, Dungeons & Dragons, Child's Play, Half-Life (series), Star Wars, Liam Neeson, Space Quest, Alien (series), BioShock, Event Horizon, Mass Effect, Alien Isolation, Resident Evil, Republic Commando, Star Trek (obliquely), Lance Henriksen, Ian Holm, Nintendo Wii, Patrick Redding, Prey, Skyrim, God of War, Pipe Dream, Artimage, Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
A week off, then more chapters!

Links:
Artimage's Twitch and Extra Life challenge

Karrokay on the Heath One-Shot

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 2008's EA space horror game Dead Space. We position it in a change in Electronic Arts at the time (having just done another game from 2008) and then get into the spookiness of it all. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Chapter 1

Issues covered: Halloween Longo shenanigans, doubling down on 2008, the limits of the podcast, Electronic Arts at the time, shifting to new IP and building creative teams, conservatism as a publisher, building the IP and then owning it, starting with the horror, being direct vs being baroque, overly antagonistic actors, setting up the story by using existing tropes, the janitor, another version of diagetics, excellent character design, a third-person character who doesn't speak, cohesive character, picking science fiction influences from places, rough spots on the onboarding, being cohesive with character and setting, constraints driving their design and resources, a single location story, fish out of water but using the tools you have, building survival horror into the bones, holographic UI, technical benefits, who was the innovator, stealing like an artist, committing to the bit, a short but sweet review, hearing your language in a game, permadeath and Far Cry 2, Extra Life.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Jean-Luc Picard, Aw Jeez, Dark Souls, Lord of the Rings, EA Spouse, Star Wars, Bioware, John Riccitello, Mirror's Edge, Dante's Inferno, Harry Potter, Warner Bros, George Lucas, Resident Evil (series), Bill Paxton (RIP), Far Cry 2, BioShock, Visceral Entertainment, God of War, The Evil Within 2, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Callisto Protocol, Alien, Sunshine, Event Horizon, Glen Schofield, Ian Milham, Prey, System Shock 2, Republic Commando, Gears of War, Kill Zone, Kill Switch, Max42357, Raymond, SimCity 2000, Masuhiro Sakurai, Jeffool, Clint Hocking, Manveer Heir, Ben Abraham, Extra Life, Artimage, Lani Lum, Ocarina of Time, Monolith, Dungeons & Dragons, Joel Gifford, Troy Mashburn, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Chapter 2-5

Links:
Masuhiro Sakurai's YT English link

Destructoid on Far Cry 2 and permadeath

Ben Abraham's FC2 Permadeath

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we turn to a second bonus interview with Patrick Redding, credited as Story Designer on Far Cry 2, though we would tend to call that a Narrative Designer today. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:45 Interview
1:16:50 Break
1:17:20 Outro

Issues covered: happening to start listening at the right time, a background in physics, avoiding computer programming, applying problem-solving skills, hearing about new media, exploring story and design through tabletop, thinking about how to incorporate story into existing games, coming on to an existing team, getting thrown into the deep end, why you'd drop the PS2, string of pearls, wanting to reinvent the wheel, tearing apart the macro structure of the game and piecing it back together, moving from camera designer to narrative designer as a field promotion, shipping another retail game while joining a second, not designing the story but tightening the linkage between authored content and player-driven play, waterfall vs iterative and maintaining consistency, making a shooter and not an rpg, systemically reflecting the choices of PCs and growing out that modularity to the whole game, hitting thresholds and dealing with levels of chaos to expose the Jackal, freedom being required in time *and* space, anteing up your buddies, counterpressure and infamy, analog parameters becoming indistinguishable from random, the main wager of putting your buddy in play, a real deal-breaker for the PC, carrying through everything to achieve a pressure dynamic, having far more underlying variables to affect, the simulation of sensibility, offloading computation to the player brain for narrative meaning, creating a narrative from a sports team, the difficulty of getting parseable human interactions in games, thinking about the approach and where the tension is coming from, pie-slice approach and shells of interaction, the emotional whiplash of going from closing mode and tempo to passivity, the big switch, enjoying the camaraderie, narrative design vs writing, the emergence of narrative design in the industry, changing expectations when you ship.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Clint Hocking, UbiSoft, Splinter Cell (series), Gotham Knights, Apple ][e, Dungeons & Dragons, GURPS, Xbox, PS2, Greg Gobbi, Jeff Hattem, Tuque Games/Invoke Studios, Hasbro, Nic Eypert, Richard Dansky, Tom Clancy, Red Storm Entertainment, White Wolf, Republic Commando, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Black, Jean-Francois Dugas, Eidos Montreal (Onoma), Guardians of the Galaxy, Deus Ex, Heart of Darkness, Yojimbo, Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett, Call of Duty 2, Battlefield 1942, Jonathan Morin, Watch Dogs (series), Thief, The Walking Dead, Telltale Games, Metal Gear Solid V (or V), Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol, Glen Schofield, Striking Distance, Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Dead Space (2008)

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we discuss Far Cry 2 with none other than Creative Director Clint Hocking. We talk about his early career before getting into the game proper. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:43 Interview with Clint Hocking
1:07:12 Break
1:07:37 Outro

Issues covered: starting out in writing, taking a terrible pay cut, good fortune, taking on many jobs, tough development cycles, making a perfect version of the first game, making the game in the last six months, reacquiring a brand, finding something fresh in the prototypes, open worlds and RPGs, taking new ground, fertile ground, "of course there's a game here," what you do when you don't have a corridor, playing on a harder difficulty, a world that's hostile wherever you go, forward pressure, enjoying playing your own game, making the better movie in the game than what's in your head, surfing the wave, the anecdote factory, playing at concert speed, the PC version vs the console versions, committing to the game, punctuating the sentence or the musical phrase, going all the way as developers, everything working together to create a physical bond that works towards just one or two moments in the game, holistic design, picking the place, reading up on colonial issues, not knowing if you'd make the game again, the exigencies of the medium, the difficulty of approaching some topics, a game that sparks different sorts of questions, bringing topics and concepts to an audience who might not encounter them, an actually mature game, the future creeds.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Splinter Cell (series), Assassin's Creed (series), Ubisoft, LucasArts, Valve, Amazon, Watch Dogs: Legion, Edge Magazine, Unreal Tournament, Crytek, Crysis, Prince of Persia, DOOM (1993), Castle Wolfenstein, GTA III, Morrowind, Oblivion, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942, Half-Life, John Romero, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Tomb Raider, Alexandre Amancio, Black Hawk Down, Trespasser, Legend of Zelda (series), Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

It's the doldrums of summer this week, so we are reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Kaeon interview Calamity Nolan, a member of the Discord and usual interviewer who is also an independent developer. We expect to return soon.

Twitch: timlongojr 
Discord 
DevGameClub@gmail.com 

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Far Cry 2. Brett describes to Tim some of the buddy system stuff he missed, and then the hosts look at later installments before turning to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Far Cries 3, 5, and 6

Issues covered: a cry too far, buddies dying and having to choose how, variants on missions and why you might not do one, being able to replace some buddies, punishing moments and impact vs lack of control, a false sense of agency, making a safe area dangerous, wanting to get to the Jackal, your buddies turning on you at the end, how much the weapons and enemies update, always having a fresh gun, real things in the world as progression items, the fork in the road, quality of life and usability and the loss of the commitment to useful player friction, becoming the "list game," automated gaming, caring more about why you're doing what you're doing, missing immersion and discovery, watching the minimap/playing the UI, increasing enemy variety and using damage types, stealth improvements, playing in a dark way, going campy, leaning on cultures and claiming not to be political, diagetic design/character embodiment, healing yourself or your buddies, the right feedback at the right times, the feedback in the world, audio design communicating so much, greater depth of simulation, useful friction and leading to interesting encounters, what games iterated on these ideas?, open world checklist, dealing with the "real world."

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: STALKER, Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now, Crysis, Arkham (series), Assassin's Creed (series), Ghost Recon (series), Metal Gear (series), Ratchet and Clank (series), GTA III, Metro (series), Just Cause (series), Saint's Row (series), This War of Mine, Dark Souls, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
?? Spooky Game ??

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Far Cry 2. We talk about some more systems in the game as we plan to play the descended versions and present our takeaways next week. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Midpoint (Brett) and more (Tim)

Issues covered: gun loot and such in the ongoing series, the elimination of friction, putting the objective marker far from the quest giver, the efficiency of taking out a checkpoint, intrinsic rewards vs other intrinsic rewards, the gun aspects, everything being diagetic, driving with the map in your lap, everything is entropic including you, consistency of vision, cars and physics, the pinging audio in a Datsun-like car, putting the systems in the game, the length of system loops, wanting degradation/negative feedback to be because of something you did, forcing dramatic moments, the distinction of player initiation, malaria mechanics, progressing the game, pressures on the player for styles of play, being trained by faction gameplay, living your best murderous life, "No Russian," feeling black and white about the Jackal, a bold commitment to a backdrop, mad libbing the missions, a game meant to be played once, endangering your experience, everything is may-mays, early dynamic storytelling, slurs about the player, being edgy and gritty, not being able to feel the impact, thinness of representation, the limit of lived experiences, the messaging around Mass Effect, feeling too derivative, sci-fi soup, lack of ideology/motivation, resonating with the structure, player insertion, lack of narrowing of options, the series of grey decisions, being able to identify a franchise from just one scene.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Ghost Recon (series), Diablo, System Shock 2, Fallout (series), Breath of the Wild, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War, Reed Knight, Tim Ramsay, Republic Commando, The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger, Call of Duty (obliquely), Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, The Witcher, Patrick Redding, Skyrim, The Walking Dead, Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, The Lord of the Rings, Ian McKellen, Rocksteady, Arkham (series), Papers Please, Lucas Pope, Return of the Obra-Dinn, Dark Souls, The Honorable T. H. Isismyre Alname, Mass Effect, KotOR, Bioware, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jeff Cannata, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Far Cry 2+

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Far Cry 2. We talk about the extreme friction of the game, landmarking and open world layout, and touch a little bit on the buddies. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Several more hours

Issues covered: variations on the same song, high degree of friction, a simulation of a place, allowing for authorship within the simulation, clashing of systems, not mattering which side you choose, making your choices matter, not spending your time doing what you want to be doing, running into natural boundaries, playing jazz or the jam band, having to switch up weapons, not having to switch weapons, not quite getting the recipe right/seeing the proof of concept, the noodling before the chord changes, time of information spread in this vs deeper stealth games, not having the clarity of information, leaning more into the power fantasy, running out of resources in the friction, game scale opposing stealth, engaging with the buddy system, buddies personifying ways of improving, losing some buddies, expendable buddies, boosting Japan's quality control, balancing stability and forward momentum in development, the impossibility of keeping your politics out of games, having to have a theory when you are out past what is known, having to make decisions in development, the nonviolent ending, having to feel balance in games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sim City, GTA III, Ghost Recon (series), Metal Gear Solid V or V, Thief, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed (series), Patrick Redding, biostats, W. Edwards Deming, Square Enix, UbiSoft, Sam Thomas, mysterydip, BioShock, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia, "The Blink."

Next time:
More hours/Finish?

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com