Nice Games Jam
2025.01.09
It's a gamedev podcast!
The show where nice gamedevs Lydia Symchych, Mark LaCroix, and Stephen McGregor (with friends and guests) talk gaming and game development!
with Ron Gilbert
Your nice hosts welcome famed designer Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island, Thimbleweed Park) into the clubhouse to discuss the virtues of inexperience, friction for its own sake, how it's all about story, and it's puzzles all the way down.
2025.01.02
- Code Libraries
- Game Overs
This week, your nice hosts talk about code that isn't yours and ask about the natural conclusion of the narrative. Mark is handy, Ellen kinda wants to add a note, and Stephen is grounded.
2024.12.27
Nicest of 2024
#378
with Joanna May
#377
We invite Joanna May into the clubhouse to discuss serialization. We get ever so slightly closer to discovering what serialization even is with Joanna's help!
2024.12.12
Nice Games Jam
#376
In this episode Lydia is back in the clubhouse to discuss her first job, and to help make a game about said job.
2024.12.05
with Lydia Symchych
#375
All of your hosts are together in the Clubhouse for a special interview! Lydia Symchych is an impact game designer who has been working with Ellen over the last year.
2024.11.28
Nice Thinking
#374
Your nice hosts chew over a concept Stephen brings into the clubhouse: a series of "game jams" where participants iterate on one specific idea in each session.
2024.11.21
with Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari
#373
Releasing 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.
2024.11.15
Nice Games Jam
#372
In this episode Ellen usurps the normal process for a nice game jam prompt to explore her own idea on tabletop mechanics. Who would have thought the scoring system for this game would be 'Points for the Future War'?
2024.11.07
with Luke Spierewka
#371
"Tutorials shouldn’t feel like tutorials!" Like most aspects of game design, it's an easy concept to summarize but a difficult one to pull off.
2024.11.01
- Runtime Asset Management
- Double Jump vs. Dash
#370
This week, your nice hosts talk a little bit about our civic duty before getting into two very on-brand topics. Make a plan to vote on (or before!) November 5th.
2024.10.24
with Timothy Staton-Davis
#369
We welcome Timothy Staton-Davis into the clubhouse to talk both the broad strokes and the nitty-gritty of combat design.
2024.10.17
- Communicating Difficulty
- Remixed Play Modes
#368
This week, Ellen kicks things off with a chat about how games tell players, “This might be tough!” and how to make that fun and fair. Stephen and Mark jump in with their takes on what makes difficulty settings shine.
2024.10.11
- Scoring 101
- Turning off the Gamedev Brain
#367
This week, learn about what Ellen was like as a student. Stephen wonders if he’s made a huge mistake, Ellen does some work research, and Mark insists that there is no such thing as magic.
2024.10.03