Dev Game Club

• DGC Ep 453: Bonus Interview with Ed Fries

  Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we try something a little different. Unattached to any particular game, we chat with Ed Fries, a long-time video game developer most well-known for his work  shepherding the early days of Xbox and Microsoft Game Studios. We talk about five games of his early years that particularly affected him. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 1:16:35 Break 1:16:48 Outro Issues covered: a new model for interviews, productivity software wars, a child of engineers, Lunar Lander on a calculator, 6800-based kit computer and programming in assembly, cardboard computer, jumping from BASIC to assembly language, using a print terminal, modem sounds, competitive Asteroids, the first real video game, oscilloscopes and radar, complaining to the dentist, inspiring a generation of programmers and engineers, learning by typing from magazines, the 8-bit microprocessor, getting a 6502 square root routine from Woz, using a computer terminal, an intro to Rogue and its procedural elements, a things-going-wrong simulator, "there were not that many games in the world," building a game for different player types, the D programming language and other alphabetic languages, a short remembrance of Dani Bunten Berry, Multiple Use Labor Elements, how M.U.L.E. plays, screwing your buddies, similarities to Euro strategy games, the auction phase, crystite mining, a literary game, the first original IP character in a video game, moving from real caves to fantasy, some connections, album covers from EA, expensive personal computers. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Frogger, ROMox, The Princess and the Frog, Ant Eater, Sea Chase, Tom and Ed's Bogus Software, Tom Saxton, Sucker Punch, Microsoft, Ender's Game, Phil Spencer, Xbox, Bungie, Ensemble Studios, Rare Limited, World of Warcraft, Gabe Newell, Atari 2600, Halo, 1Up Ventures Fund, Psychonauts, Keeper, Tim Schafer, Boeing, Digital Equipment Corporation, Lunar Lander, CARDIAC, Nintendo Labo, Apple ][, Atari 800, Space Wars, Asteroids, Nolan Bushnell, Ampex, Ted Dabney, Computer Space, Nutting Associates, Computer Trivia, Pong, Homeworld, Steve Wozniak, Rogue, Defeating Games for Charity, Dark Souls, HACK, PDP-11/VAX, Epyx, Walter Bright, Sid Meier, Civilization, Bruce Shelley, Age of Empires, M.U.L.E., Dani Bunten Berry, Seven Cities of Gold, Settlers of Cataan, Diplomacy, AJ Redmer, Maxis, Will Wright, Dungeon/Zork, Don Daglow, Tim Anderson, Colossal Cave Adventure/Advent, Infocom, Frank Cifaldi, Video Game History Foundation, Kate Willaert, Will Crowther, Don Woods, Mike Haas, Andrei Alexandrescu, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Populous, The Bard's Tale, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: TBA! or more Pikmin TTDS: 40m 6s Links: Ant Eater source  Princess and Frog source Sea Chase source  Nitro source Errata: I misspoke with respect to the co-inventor of D, it was Andrei Alexandrescu. We regret the error. Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp  YouTube  Discord  [email protected] 

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• DGC Ep 452: Pikmin (part one)

  Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 2001's Pikmin. We set the game in its time and then spend a lot of time talking about putting Nintendo's spin on the RTS on a console. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: The first few days Issues covered: a well-trod year, some MMO history, the GameCube at LucasArts, playing PC vs console, playing PC RTSes of the time, history with Pikmin, keeping an eye on Nintendo making and entering genre spaces, making a thing on controller first rather than jamming in a KBM game, Tim talks about his favorite controller again, inspirations, being embodied in the world vs the god's-eye view, the simplicity of the ship pieces and setup, Nintendo's open world game, meteors vs meteoroids, the puzzle RTS, making the environment more of the enemy than the creatures, lightly building an army, trading pikmin for time vs the heavy pieces, task-based challenges, spreading your army but limitations due to movement and level design, the Forest's Navel, moving to avatar-based RTSes and MOBAs, wanting to play the prototypes, forks in strategy games this year, the simplicity of verbs due to Olimar's centrality, limiting your verbs due to the controller, the cognitive overload of the PC RTS, diversions into Valve, where we're playing, letting go of accuracy and min/maxing, chunky buttons. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Calvin & Hobbes, Reed Knight, Halo: Combat Evolved, GTA III, Silent Hill 2, Ico, Civ III, Anachronox, Animal Crossing, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, Devil May Cry, MGS 2: Sons of Liberty, Final Fantasy X, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Super Smash Melee, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, Jak & Daxter, Game Boy Advance, Advance Wars, Max Payne, Black & White, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Matt Firor, Zenimax Online Studios, Shigeru Miyamoto, Eternal Darkness, Baldur's Gate II, Andrew Kirmse, StarCraft, Blizzard, Halo Wars, Ensemble Studios, Microsoft, Homeworld, Paul Pierce, Haden Blackman, Behind the Magic, Starfighter (series), Republic Commando, Nintendo64, Warcraft (series), Legend of Zelda, Super Mario 64, Splatoon, Metroid Prime, Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, GoldenEye, Nintendo Switch, Deadly Premonition, Blade Runner, Alien, Star Wars, X-Files, Twin Peaks, Breath of the Wild, The Witcher III, Assassin's Creed, Command & Conquer (series), Company of Heroes, Orcs Must Die, Dynasty Warriors (series), Calamity Nolan, Satoru Iwata, Peter Molyneux, Populous, Total Annihilation, DotA, Valve, IceFrog, Chet Faliszek, Wii, Chris Hecker, Outer Wilds, Far Cry 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: More Pikmin (or possibly something else) Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp  YouTube Discord  [email protected]

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• DGC Ep 451: Portal Bonus Interview with Chet Faliszek

  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  [email protected] 

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• Discord Game Club Ep. 12

  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  [email protected]

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• DGC Ep 450: Deadly Premonition (part four)

  Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our series on Deadly Premonition. We talk a bit about the main story, the life sim, how we get around and more before turning to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: To Ch 21 (Tim) and only Ch 8 (Brett) Issues covered: Cry-baby Timothy, pre-show announcements, the game coming more quickly at the end, prime time television and Twin Peaks, describing an actual puzzle, the feeling of a web of connections between people both surface and hidden, the Ingram twins and their grandfather and Kaysen, dialogue with characters on their life sim paths, having the spatial awareness of the town vs not in television, you get to live in the town, the limitations of the driving model, wanting a simpler driving model, having conversation while the character is being driven instead, an unpolished gem, when time pauses vs when it will advance and keeping you unsettled, dealing with open world games with day/night cycles and running into the time problem, being unclear what other games this inspired, a different kind of mature, leaning into the quirk (and your constraints), stunt comedy, not getting enough of this sort of game, integrating the player into the town, inspirations with a twist. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Video Game History Foundation, Rocksmith, Twin Peaks, David Lynch, Mark Frost, Resident Evil, Yakuza (series), Breaking Bad, The Last of Us, Nick Offerman, Gilmore Girls, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, L. A. Noire, Mars Attacks, GTA 3, Shenmue, Dungeons & Dragons, Tolkien, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, Artimage, Cult of the Lamb, Angie Nash, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.   Next time: Discord Game Club interview with N0isses Links: N0isses Twitch channel  Pancreatic Cancer Action Network  Apply for Defeating Games Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp  YouTube  Discord  [email protected] 

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