GameDev Breakdown

I'd have to do some detective work to figure out how long I've been Twitter pals with Say and Michael, but I'm sure it's been a couple of years now. One of the greatest benefits of doing this podcast is having the opportunity to go beyond tweets and capture the stories behind the work and the art that we enjoy seeing around the web, and this week's show with the Silverware Games team did not disappoint. Silverware (and Say and Michael make up the whole team, most of the time) is behind the Matchyverse games, including MatchyGotchy and MatchyGotchy Z, both technically tie-in games for the upcoming Matchy Star. That may sound like a lot to take in, but it's as clever a strategy as it is ambitious. The team is spread thin with the parallel projects, but they have substantial momentum and they've achieved solid reach on Steam and social media. In this episode, we discuss Silverware's games, their interesting casual design philosophy, life on Steam, the Epic store, the great difficulty debate, and more. Thanks to

Glad to be back with another podcast and all kinds of news! In this show, I'll go over some development topics from Twitter, we'll talk a little bit about the recent hiatus, and we'll go over some of what's happening over at our shiny new Patreon page. Patrons helped pick the topics for this show, but it wasn't hard to come up with a list. Google Stadia has announced their forthcoming game streaming service, and damn near simultaneously, Apple announced the Apple Arcade service that will probably launch about the same time later this year. You'll see what I mean about people pre-emptively damning Stadia to Hell and burning love offerings to Apple over arcade. The whole thing is quite a spectacle. Finally, if you want to take a look at the Sega dev kit I mentioned before I take time to further write it up, you can do that at the SGDK's GitHub page. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

I first interacted with Reyan Ali over Twitter just about a year ago. I'd just partnered with Microsoft to do a series of podcasts at GDC which was a total blast, but it caused me to miss the Classic Game Postmortem on the legendary NBA Jam. I tweeted out the presentation with great entusiasm once it hit YouTube, and Reyan and I became fast friends, vowing to do a podcast segment together before the launch of his book. Since that time, I've followed with great interest as we inch ever closer to the release of his definitive telling of the game's incredible story, which will be published by Boss Fight Books. Reyan's promotional Twitter account (linked below) is full of incredible memorabilia and history, and that's no coincidence--in the process of writing NBA Jam, he's amassed nearly 70 interviews with the developers, motion capture actors, celebrities appearing in the game, and a woman with a less-than-timely (though damn respectable) tattoo. If you grew up playing NBA Jam, Reyan Ali and his book are the clo

Update: We've had a slow start on giveaway entries, so we're opening it up to everyone! Man, we've had some great guests lately, and you won't believe some of the folks we're going to be talking to in the coming months! With all this action, it was nice to get back on Skype with John for a night, check in, talk a little news, and hang out. We're also dialing in some new recording equipment in the studio, and although my mic was a little hot for this one, the overall show quality is moving steadily in a positive direction. If you haven't checked out the GDC State of the Game Industry survey results for the year, we've got you covered. It's made up of some surprising insights, as well as others that were more interesting in their presentation. If you want to follow along as we discuss the report, you can register to download it for free at gdconf.com. I'm also telling the tale of the rarest, most mysterious piece of gaming memorabilia I've come across in my life. It was a blast getting to the bottom of this thi

Michael Hicks has released more creative projects since his late teens than some folks get to throughout an entire career. His top two game releases, Pillar and The Path of Motus, have been downloaded half a million times across a wide variety of platforms. When Polygon investigated Valve's shortcomings in supporting Steam developers, Michael's sharp criticism for Valve's practices took center stage in the debate. We discuss how I first crossed paths with Michael in this week's episode, but we've been friendly for several years. He's become a prominent indie voice here in the Midwest, and it's been a pleasure to discuss industry happenings with him and follow his career throughout that time. Not only has he developed keen insight into independent console development and learned how to navigate the PC space, but he's also dabbled in sharing his experience with others in the form of his own development-focused YouTube channel. Michael's one of the nicest guy's in the game right now and this was a

Story-driven games are often revered as the height of artistic game development. For as dearly as we all hold Rocket League, it can't match the impact of Mass Effect or tug at the heart strings like Red Dead Redemption. To create a project that stays with your players, you need to design a world for them to experience. When we last spoke with Ray Marek, we casually discussed the downfall of Toys R Us (where he met Todd), the indie publishing experience, and even great games for horror fans. We had a great time, but Ray has much more to offer the indie dev crowd. This time around, Ray shares insight into the creative process of writing for the universes, planets, and characters we love learning about in comic books, using methods directly applicable to next-level game development. And yeah, we talk about our favorite Mexican food. Thanks again to Ray for his time and excellent insight. Ray on the web: Unparalleled Comics on Facebook Ray on Instagram Ray's horror site, The Horror Syndica

Hello 2019! We had huge plans for the Christmas show. If you don't believe me, check out the functioning Unity game I made to show off as a joke. But being the family guys that we are, the actual holidays got in the way. So it's back to business here in the new year. I'll be showing you the process of launching my new development company, you'll hear from more expert guests than ever before, and we're even about to do our first giveaway--it's something I absolutely love, and if you're a listener, there's a good chance you'll love it too. For the first time ever, this is a show full of community topics! We got a great question about Epic's new game store, insightful feedback about the game jam issues I discussed in the last show, and we shared the frustration of parents seeking to find the right approach for responsible screen time restrictions for younger players. Finally, we examine the reasons you need to have a real, legal company formed if you're doing business as a game studio, and how to go about i

Following a few discussions on social media in the wake of Ludum Dare 43 (enjoy my photo from LD19), I took an opportunity to gather my thoughts on this revered tradition of ours and ask a few important questions: Why do we do this? Why do we do it like this? Should we still be doing this?  Believe me, I'm far from anti-jam. I've probably participated in a dozen over the last decade, but I do have some thoughts on how we can put them to better use. I don't think we should respect any practice too much to question it, so let's get the ball rolling.  Though I've been thinking on this topic a long time, tweeting with some folks including your friend and mine, Christer Kaitila helped me finally decide to organize what was in my head. If you jam, you should check out his book, The Game Jam Survival Guide. We'll have to pester him to make an appearance here soon.  It was a great week of feedback around social media after a show we were actually worried about for a few re

At last, more than a year after adding him to the show, I sit down with John Schiber to ask him some questions relevant to his expertise: being a life-long musician and internationally-signed recording artist. John's experience producing music with his band, A Dark Orbit, and his personal studies of theory, engineering, and instrumental techniques have left him with skills you'd normally need a room full of people to tell you about. The fact that I hadn't properly grilled him for your benefit before now is a disappointment to us all.  It's hard to just "dive in" to audio production for an hour and come away with all you need to know for your game development endeavors, so we're counting on you to come to us with good questions for John to answer, either on the show or around social media. He's on the podcast all the time, but this appearance was especially important to him and he made clear several times he didn't want to leave anyone hanging. Tap into his knowledge!  John on the Web John's B

It's time for a mini-show full of things to know! I've sort of been bouncing catchphrases like that in my head for the better part of a day, and I've determined there are no good ones--but that may be the fever talking. I was in the throes of a full Man Cold for this episode, but I landed on a topic I liked a few days ago and I decided not to rest until I could be sure the show went out on time.  Teaching players how to play your game is one of the most crucial challenges you face as a designer, and while it may not get fully overlooked (you DO know you have to do it), it does not always get the care that it deserves, and this will absolutely cost you players. In hopes of offering up some solutions and solid guidelines for your planning pleasure, I set out to look at the actual processes of teaching and learning, to see how I might apply it to our jobs as developers and designers. It was during this time that I stumbled across the writing of Scott H. Young for the first time. Scott has devoted

Happy Thanksgiving! In this special holiday episode, we give thanks for tremendous opportunities we've had this year, and for so many kind words from the community. In keeping with tradition, we come up with holiday-themed design concepts and follow them as far as we dare down the rabbit hole. What begins as a good-natured creative exercise quite frankly spirals into a dark place where no vitriol is spared against man's greatest natural enemy: the waddling garbage monster that is the wild turkey.  It's not too soon to be thinking about your holiday designs for Christmas! Your ratings and reviews are the lifeblood of the show. Help us get the word out by subscribing and telling a friend! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

Happy Thanksgiving week! In this episode, Todd shares the story about how two awesome arcade machines ended up in his basement and shares what he's thankful for (in addition to these awesome machines).  There's still time to hit us up with your 1-2 sentence Thanksgiving game design ideas. We'll talk about our favorites on the next episode.  As a bonus for checking out the show notes, here are some photos of the machines!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

At last! We've certainly discussed Pico-8 enough on the podcast to warrant this top-to-bottom look at Pico-8 in general, which includes a walkthrough of my latest Pico-8 project, Letterworks, from design to submission. If you're an audio show listener, you may want to set aside a few minutes to check this one out on our YouTube page, as this episode's video shows the Pico-8 system, the code, the sprites, and even the forum where projects are shared and discussed. I tried my best to ensure the audio track alone made sense as well, so don't YouTube it behind the wheel or anything.  You can get your hands on your own very affordable Pico-8 license at Lexaloffle.com. Search Pico-8 on Twitter to see even more wild and fantastic demos created by the community at large.  As always, you can help get the word out about the podcast by telling a friend, leaving a review, or by subscribing any of the places below. We'll be back with more soon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevb

John Schiber returns for Season 2! For once, we're each playing a new release: John has jumped on his horse and has high praise for Red Dead Redemption 2, I've scratched my Call of Duty itch and downloaded Black Ops 4. For the first time in the history of the show, we've both played (and enjoyed) a battle royal game.  This show was recorded Monday night, so we were still getting bits and pieces about the Diablo Immortal story. It hasn't changed much since that time, but Blizzard has denied that they planned to announce Diablo 4 instead of a mobile title.  As weird as the Red Dead Redemption 2 controversy is, we still wanted to dig in and find a worthwhile way to discuss it. We'll leave it for you to decide how we did. We love your comments and reviews; we're so glad you're playing along for another season.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

Welcome back! Just an informal sit-down to talk about the state of the podcast, how we set things up for Season 2, and some of the cool stuff we're working on in the coming months. Now is the time to subscribe and get in touch! Help make this the show you want to hear in 2019! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

We start with a public apology regarding last week's show. John nears completion on a new studio album and Todd refuses to bother one of Riot's founders with lunch. Finally, we discuss community feedback and topics, including how to recover from burnout. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support

Since we left off, my house was on HGTV for whatever reason, I moved the site to a shiny new server, and I never ended up telling John I was going to go ahead and record this episode without him. Sorry John. John will be fine. If you want to worry about someone, worry about Warner Bros. and Behaviour Interactive in Bethesda's VATS-assisted crosshairs. This copyright lawsuit is going to get uglier before it gets pretty. The PUBG/Fortnite suit, on the other hand, will go no further. We called it, and we'll recap why. There's a more interesting discussion to be had, I think, about Active Shooter--later renamed Standoff, I guess--being pulled from Steam and banished from PayPal of all things. I won't rehash the entire discussion, but I think there's plenty for indies to examine here. Can we effectively police ourselves? Should it be left to us? How can we keep the ball in our own court while continuing to create our way? The key, surely, is balance. As always, if you want to help us o

Since the start of the new year I've focused on coordinating content for our listeners that would improve their craft in a more direct and measurable way. We've hit on some popular topics since that time. Thinking like an entrepreneur, promoting your indie game, and accessibility all seemed to resonate with listeners in a much more real way than our previous reactionary gaming news talk and our other AM radio douchebaggery. And that feels good.  To push that momentum even further, we're wandering out into Indie Land to see what problems we can bring back to the lab and, well, break down. What keeps catching my eye lately is indies (and pros) talking about the wide variety of real life problems that stand in the way of putting in project time. And, oh, I get it. John and I are both dads working full-time with separate side hustles and we both still desperately want to gain traction with our first cooperative indie game. We harp on overuse of the phrase "real soon" in this week's show, but believe me

John returns at last following the birth of his second child! Upon getting back down to business this week, we started in on a topic we should have covered much sooner: accessibility in game design. I've always thought it was odd, some of the political baggage that gets heaped on this topic. If you design or develop video games, you should have a natural appreciation for the people who seek out and enjoy your work, and you probably have a genuine interest in helping them overcome anything that might stand in the way.  I think maybe what keeps us from doing our best work in this area is a sense of being overwhelmed at the thought of designing for any potential impairment from which a player may suffer. This is probably fair, considering how easy it is to overlook whole categories of impairments: personally I'd hardly considered categories like temporary injuries or environmental impairments preventing a player from calling upon their complete faculties while playing. Maybe it's too bright in front of th

We dive deeper into a topic listeners are asking about: freelancing and remote work for game development. You'll hear how Todd left full-time professional software development, and started over in games from scratch with his own freelancing business. Congrats to John on the new baby! If you enjoy the #GameDev Breakdown podcast, we’d love to have you as a subscriber on SoundCloud, iTunes, or Google Play! We love your feedback! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gamedevbreakdown/support