Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Nice Thinking: "Nice Games Alliance Workshops"

Beth Korth, board member of Nice Games Alliance, enters the clubhouse to talk about the purpose of the NGA and how to best fulfill that mission. They discuss how workshops, talks, and conferences fit into their plans. And how they can provide unique experiences and services that the gamedev community can't get elsewhere. They also emphasize the importance of lunch.Nice Games Alliance Workshops

"A Paragraph Signing" Incremental Learning ; Making Science Fiction Worlds

Lydia joins the clubhouse for her first regular episode as a host (it's calendar math)! The clubhouse discusses the release of Civilization VII and how it is taking up all of Stephen's time. Lydia brings to the table the question of how she can learn more games, and how tutorials don't work for her. Stephen regrets not being able to fully develop the world which is the setting for his five-minute student film.Civ VIICivilization VIISwitch 2Switch 2 mouse control - Kyle Orland, Ars Technica0:15:01Incremental Learning Lydia talks about her success learning knitting, and her rectangle projections The club talks about differences between recipes and game development tutorialsTasksxkcd0:54:10Making Science Fiction WorldsThis topic was inspired by Stephen's science fiction student film. You can watch that here:"All Good Things"Stephen McGregorYouTube"For All Mankind"WikipediaWidget SatchelWidget Satchel is a game that Mark, Stephen, and Ellen worked on. Mark developed a lot of background story, including this: "I do not wish that the troubles of the past be carried into the stars. I imagined better for us and expected better also. But we do not realise our whole future in sequence, small futures each after the other. We must go anyway, blind and smiling, emissaries of wonder, explorers. On this day, at this place, together, we launch an expedition for which we are unprepared. Yet we are now even, a collected peoples concerned of justice looking in order to see our whole future, ahead of us. Widget Satchel is on Itch and other platformsAlso check out this episode from when we released Widget Satchel"Space ferrets lift off!" Widget Satchel Special

Nice Games Jam: "Dinosaurs of North Dakota"

The clubhouse gets Cretaceous this week; your nice hosts have been challenged to create a game about dinosaurs and their feeding habits.PromptMake a game about the feeding habits of dinosaurs or of paleontologists, bonus points if all the dinosaurs are from the same era.Game typeDesign documentPlayer count1RulesCretaceous periodFlowering plants evolved hereEarly mammals here tooVelociraptors too!Different sized dinosaursName: Dinosaurs of North DakotaPlay as big (T-rex), small (dog-sized) and medium (triceratops)Survive a day as each of these creaturesOrder of playMedium first (herbivore)Big next (T-rex)Small last (scavenger)Then Paleontologist discovers (eats chicken with a PLASTIC fork)Where you die determines how preserved the bones are during the paleontology phaseIf you want more preserved bones you have to choose to not live as long (due to how the preservation works)GameplayPlay as the different creatures, the player chooses when that phase of the game endsCan also end after a certain time playedThen you swap to a new creature and play as them, choosing when to endWhen you get back to a creature, time has passed and things are different in the world (partly due to player influence from other creatures)Player knocking down trees might be knocked down in future scenes, eating a lot of plants may make the area sparse in the futureKeep playing as the different creature until enough time has passedAfterwards, play as a paleontologist and rediscover what you’ve doneRecord what you’ve done with the knowledge the paleontologist has (and not the player), so it won’t actually be accurate to the player’s playthroughBased on what the player’s done, it can affect what things the paleontologist will be able to say about the state of things after

"More Ellen in the future." What We Did On Our Winter Break (2024-25)

NEWS! New episodes now come out a week early on Patreon!! Sign up to listen to next week's episode now! We talk about why, and the silly reason why now, in this episode, along with another, much bigger piece of NEWS.And of course, your nice hosts continue the show's annual tradition of recounting what they did during hiatus.SO. MUCH. NEWS.Nice Games Club on PatreonWhat We Did On Our Winter Break (2024-25)Twin Cities Gamedev communityJoin the IGDATC serverDiscordDonate to Nice Games Alliance ("no" relation)IGDATC 2025 gamesGlobal Game JamStephenUFO 50Civilization VIILydiaPlay Lydia's team's GGJ game, Meowlogue MittensMeowlogue Mittens - Main ThemeEdison BoerkeSoundCloudLydia's team invited everyone at the event to vote on the name of thier game's main character.MarkPlay Mark's team's GGJ game, GachamariEllenMars First LogisticsSteamMartian ChessLoony LabsRoboCoSteam

Puzzle Systems (with Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari) [Nice Replay]

#373Puzzle SystemsInterview2024.11.15Releasing 2019's "Baba is You" after more than a decade of making puzzle games was a milestone for this week's guest, but it was also just the beginning of his design journey. Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari talks to your nice hosts about the balance between giving players freedom and constraining their expression, the pacing and sequencing of individual puzzles, what happens when a "cool" design annoys players, and more.Arvi's cats make a spirited apperance in the back half of the episode. Here they are basking in the Finnish sun.Puzzle SystemsGame DesignToolsMultimedia Fusion 2 - ClickteamClickteam Fusion 2.5 - ClickteamConstruct - Scirra LtdMP2MP2 Chowdren EngineBring the ice cube to the goal without exposing it to heat. - IncreparePuzzleScript - IncrepareCovechrome - Hempuli, itch.ioYou nice hosts previously discussed what happens to players who become developers in:"Numbers go up."Arvi "Hempuli" TeikariGuestExternal linkHempuli - social media linksHempuli on Itch.io