This is an aspirational part 1 of your Nice Hosts designing their own puzzle room. Lydia guides Mark and Stephen from zero to a basic outline of a Widget Satchel themed puzzle room. Will there be a part 2?
Ellen is in the clubhouse for another week while returning guest Sam Baeseman fills in for Lydia in an episode that's a bit punchy, mostly empathetic, and a little bit educational thankfully.
We welcome returning host Ellen Burns-Johnson back into the clubhouse today for a Nice Games Jam! Lydia provides the other three veteran podcasters with a prompt and helps shape this paper prototype.
It’s spooky month, so before diving into the game jam the clubhouse talks about a couple scary things. Dinosaurs (briefly) and breast cancer awareness month. Lydia shares her experience with the screening process.
Bernie Mattson enters the Clubhouse to talk about researching inspiration as part of the game development process and along the way the Nice Hosts learn a whole lot about Dada. Do you like show notes?
In this episode, Mark has some general notes on Europe, and walks though how he assembled the pitch deck that he brought with him to Gamescom.
Mark returns with gifts from Europe! Then Lydia teaches her nice boys how to make a puzzle room: the ins and outs, the dos and don'ts, it’s an escape room special!
Your nice hosts discuss a previously talked about topic, and also engage in something completely new (though both are an excuse to discuss work issues in reality), with a brief divergence to mention a Star Trek anniversary.
In this episode, your nice hosts welcome Heather Flowers into the clubhouse to talk about math and probability, while Heather insists they should be on Evil Games Club instead. The group reflects on art and the interpretation of art.
Two of your nice hosts are prepping to go to Junction Jam (which already happened, you'll hear about it soon!), but before then the discussion goes over the why players can and should be invested in your game, and how to push back agains
From a floral prompt, a daring caper blossoms. This week your Nice Hosts answer the question: How many flowers to you have to eat to pull off a heist?
In this episode, Mark touts the virtues of commenting, Stephen dreads the topic, and Lydia wishes she could talk about marginalia.
Brian Crick is in the clubhouse to talk about how he intertwines narrative and puzzles in his game Tinselfly. We talk about character motivation, player buy-in, and where you even start with a project like this.
Stephen is still away so Ian Peters uses that as an excuse to talk about rocks and how that relates to storytelling. Also in this episode, Mark is preparing for an exciting trip and Lydia is hype about trains for a good reason.
This week, Ian emerges from the clubhouse vents to fill-in for Stephen as Dale gives us a bare minimum prompt with maximum implications.