The Game Developers Radio

Date recorded: 11/25/2009
Guest: Jesper Juul

On todays show I interview the assistant professor at the New York university game center Jesper Juul  about his new book A Casual Revolution.  We also have a pretty interesting discussion related to video game studies  and academics.  So if you are interested in knowing about what appeals to casual gamers and what a Ludologist is and does then you should definitely tune in.  Also sorry about the  audio quality, I was using my back up mic…  Still good stuff though, anyways hope you enjoy the show.

Opening Music: Garden Party
Closing Music: Stickers

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 09/30/2009
Guest: Tom Higgins

I interview Tom Higgins the Product Evangelist for Unity in this episode, we cover just about everything the game engine can do.  Scripting languages it supports, interface, platforms it can export to, penetration numbers, engine usage, future of the product and so much more!  If you were wondering if Unity was the right tool for you then you should defiantly take a listen to this fantastic conversation.

Opening and closing music: ~Waking Fantasy~ by Isoken

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 10/17/2009
Guests: Ryan Henson Creighton, Iain Lobb, Edmund McMillen and Daniel Cook

This is the second part (about an hour and twenty minutes long) of the Flash Game Design podcast which was posted here…

Closing music: Flash Love Letter (The Remix) by Nathan Germick

Topics Covered:
-How to get noticed as an indie game developer
-Realism in games
-Art direction
-Vector art
-Another tangent, but it’s a good one… Edmund asks his wife about game design
-Making a game that doesn’t look like a Flash game
-Find out where Dan gets his artistic inspiration from…  You will never guess it
-Americanized Anime
-Different art styles
-Innovation and what not to do in a game
-Camera zooming effect and polish
-What it’s like working for the more main stream companies
-Education and game development
-Tools to use when learning game development for the first time
-IPhone games
-Edmund hints at a new device that will compete with the IPhone
-Return to the discussion of multi-player games
-Procedurally generated content
-Letting users generate the game content for you
-Closing it out with advice for up and coming game developers

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 10/17/2009
Guests: Ryan Henson Creighton, Iain Lobb, Edmund McMillen and Daniel Cook

In this truly action packed episode of “The Game Developers radio” I have setup an amazing conversation with a group of skilled and very talented Flash game designers.  For a little over two hours we chat about a very wide range of topics relating to what it takes to design a quality Flash game.  We do manage to go off on some very interesting tangents, but we always manage to make it relate to game design in some way.  Even if you are not into Flash games the topics we discuss really can be applied to designing any type of game, it’s well worth the listen or anyone interested in game design.  Id recommend making a bowl of popcorn, sitting back with some head phones with the volume cranked up and, well, just enjoy

The podcast is about two and half hours long…  If you don’t want to listen to the entire thing in one sitting I have broken it up into two segments…
Part one…
Part two…

Opening music: Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton
Closing music: Flash Love Letter (The Remix) by Nathan Germick

Topics Covered:
-How Flash games differ from console games
-How to approach the design of a Flash game so it hooks people right at the beginning
-Edmund explains why he doesn’t like to implement micro-transactions into his games and why he designs games the way he does
-Everyone tries to understand why Edmund is against micro-transactions
-Dan explains why micro-transactions are scary to game designers
-Edmund goes deeper into why he doesn’t use micro-transactions
-Dan begins to explains what it means to make games as art
-Edmund restates why he doesn’t like games that encourage addiction
-I loose control of the show and our first real tangent beings!
-Art in games and how to make your game stand out
-Discussion on why the Flash game market isn’t actually crowded
-Quality of Flash games
-Why Flash is a good learning tool for designing games
-What steps that everyone takes to get there design juices flowing
-Dan discusses shorter and long form Flash games
-Brief discussion about how clients usually don’t know what they want in a game.
-Social interaction in Flash games
-14 year old’s and Flash game development
-Why more Flash game developers are not using social hooks and multi-player in  their games
-Why developers jump ship and don’t stay with flash for future “real” game development
-Dan’s  prophecy
-What to do when the mainstream companies start making games for Flash
-Using Flash to prototype your game, then porting your game to a different platform
-How to get noticed as an indie game developer
-Realism in games
-Art direction
-Vector art
-Another tangent, but it’s a good one… Edmund asks his wife about game design
-Making a game that doesn’t look like a Flash game
-Find out where Dan gets his artistic inspiration from…  You will never guess it
-Americanized Anime
-Different art styles
-Innovation and what not to do in a game
-Camera zooming effect and polish
-What it’s like working for the more main stream companies
-Education and game development
-Tools to use when learning game development for the first time
-IPhone games
-Edmund hints at a new device that will compete with the IPhone
-Return to the discussion of multi-player games
-Procedurally generated content
-Letting users generate the game content for you
-Closing it out with advice for up and coming game developers

Links To Things Mentioned:

Stackopolis
Zwok
Meta4orce
Bunnie
Andre Spierings
Coil
Grey-Matter
Spewer
Time Fcuk
Interrupting Cow trivia
Bloat
Aether
Gish
Machinarium
Electro server
Cunt (Not work safe!)
Dragon Age: Journeys
Kahoots
Meatboy
Flash love letter
Zombie Cow Studio’s
Guppy
Tyler Glaiel
Closure
Game Maker
RPG Maker 2000
Shark Runners
Spelunky
Disgaea
Love

Thought id also link to Ryan’s blog post on this podcast…  He always makes the funniest posts!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 10/17/2009
Guests: Ryan Henson Creighton, Iain Lobb, Edmund McMillen and Daniel Cook

This is the first part (about an hour long) of the Flash Game Design podcast which was posted here…

Opening music: Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton

Topics Covered:
-How Flash games differ from console games
-How to approach the design of a Flash game so it hooks people right at the beginning
-Edmund explains why he doesn’t like to implement micro-transactions into his games and why he designs games the way he does
-Everyone tries to understand why Edmund is against micro-transactions
-Dan explains why micro-transactions are scary to game designers
-Edmund goes deeper into why he doesn’t use micro-transactions
-Dan begins to explains what it means to make games as art
-Edmund restates why he doesn’t like games that encourage addiction
-I loose control of the show and our first real tangent beings!
-Art in games and how to make your game stand out
-Discussion on why the Flash game market isn’t actually crowded
-Quality of flash games
-Why Flash is a good learning tool for designing games
-What steps that everyone takes to get there design juices flowing
-Dan discusses shorter and long form Flash games
-Brief discussion about how clients usually don’t know what they want in a game.
-Social interaction in Flash games
-14 year old’s and Flash game development
-Why more Flash game developers are not using social hooks and multi-player in  their games
-Why developers jump ship and don’t stay with flash for future “real” game development
-Dan’s  prophecy
-What to do when the mainstream companies start making games for Flash
-Using Flash to prototype your game, then porting your game to a different platform
-How to get noticed as an indie game developer

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 08/13/2009
Guest: Ben Garney; Push Button Engine Developer

In this episode I interview Ben Garney one of the core developers of the Push Button Engine, a component based Flash game engine with a growing community.  We discuss the purpose of the engine, what it can do, what kind of flash developer it is targeting, ways to get started, components, their component store and lots of other really interesting things.

All of the opening and closing music was done by Ben Garney, lovely isn’t it

Opening: Mine Enemy Soundtrack
Closing: Triforce & Rhodes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 07/25/2009
Guest: Terence Lee; Indie Game Developer

In this episode I interview Terence Lee about his game Storm. A physics based puzzle game where you control the elements of a storm to progress through each stage. Through out the interview we discuss both his design and programmatic approach when it came to creating this very unique game. Then he gives his opinion on game development and offers some tips on how others can get started developing games themselves.

All the art, and audio was done by Terence and more of his lovely work can be found at his web site http://www.dev.vg.

Apologies if the audio begins to pop at certain parts.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Date recorded: 03/04/2009
Guest: Brad Borne; Indie Flash Game Developer

In this very casual interview I talk with Brad about his awesome Fancy Pants Adventure series, and Mirrors Edge 2D game. We also get into a few discussions about his game development process, design and general views on the game industry. Not to mention a sneak peek on some details of Fancy Pants Adventures 3 after the interview has finished playing, so stick around after the music has finished playing!

For a more in depth look at Fancy pants I would recommend visiting the video and Q&A page of his blog; http://www.Bornegames.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download