The Duluth Basement Session
#363
Once again from hilly Duluth, Minnesota! On Day 2 of a game design weekend retreat, your nice hosts tackled rules—writing rules, rewriting rules, and playtesting them.
2024.09.05
Special
Your game has a message... did you write it?
#348
Last month, Mark gave a talk at the IGDATC Gamedev Meeting about what it might mean to take game development seriously as an artistic practice, theorizing that video games are still a very young and immature medium by that stand
with Alyssa Walles and Audi Sorlie
#343
Your nice hosts conclude their GDC 2024 coverage with a pair of interviews they conducted at the show. Mark catches a post-show cold, Stephen gets over his, and Ellen thought everything sounded great.
GDC 2024 Special (Part 2)
#342
And now, the conclusion (sorta!), as tour nice hosts recount the back half of the week at this year's GDC.
2024.04.04
GDC 2024 Special (Part 1)
#341
Some of your nice hosts, plus some nice guest hosts, traveled to San Fransisco last week for the 2024 Game Developers Conference. There was so much to see and do and it ended up being too much for just one episode...
2024.03.28
"The Roboston Sessions"
#337
2024.03.07
Nicest of 2023
#336
The clubhouse continues the annual tradition of reviewing the past year. But first they need to talk about Doctor Who and new Minnesota state flag.
with Jennifer Javornik
#331
Ellen spoke with this week's guest, Filament Games' chief partnerships officer Jennifer Javornik, at the 2023 Serious Play Conference in Toronto, Canada about game-based learning, but also about commercializing serious games, growing the
Serious Play Conference Special
#330
Earlier this autumn, Ellen visited Toronto to attend the Serious Play Conference. It's an event for people who design, develop, and study so-called "serious games" — that is, games used for education, training, therapy, and more.
2023.11.10
Horror Games 201 (with multiple guests)
#327
Nice Games Club continues to celebrate the Spooky Season with the second-ever “Nice Games Panel”. Our panelists include creators known for their work on horror games: James Pratt, TorpalDork, and Max Kunze.
2023.10.19
Horror Games 101 (with multiple guests)
#325
It's the first-ever "Nice Games Panel," in which we invite multiple guests on the show to discuss something interesting!
2023.10.07
Much Ado About Unity (with Freya Holmér)
#324
Earlier today, Unity issued an update to their controversial "runtime fee" policy introduced last week. What changed? What didn't? How could this have even happened? What does it mean going forward? Can we ever trust Unity again?
2023.09.22
Cheating, Part 2
#316
In the second installment of your nice hosts' discussion about cheating in games, we talk about the nature of cheating in contemporary video games: what it looks like, what factors shape it, and how worried we gamedevs should be about it
2023.08.04
The State of "Dogpile!"
#311
(Some of) your nice hosts went to Origins Game Fair last week! Aside from taking in the show and learning more about the world of board games, they were there to attend the launch of their card game Glom.
2023.06.29
GDC 2023 Special
#300
2023.04.01