Topics

Your nice hosts have covered hundreds of topics over the years, so we've categorized them here! Select a category, or browse the whole list. You can sort by topic name, episode name, or episode number.
Topic Category Host or Guest # Episode Starts at
Franchises Gaming, Marketing Ellen Burns-Johnson 243 “The different beams I can do.” 0:52:10
Power-ups Game Design Mark LaCroix 243 “The different beams I can do.” 0:23:09
Co-Op Games Game Design Stephen McGregor 244 "Maximum Whooo!" 53:10.0
Learning to Use Tools Misc., Tools Ellen Burns-Johnson 244 "Maximum Whooo!" 14:05
Hidden Information Game Design, Gaming Stephen McGregor 245 "Gamedev is jazz." 0:36:33
Player Count Game Design, Hardware Mark LaCroix 245 "Gamedev is jazz." 0:08:33
Most Anticipated (for 2022) Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 246 Nicest of 2021 1:10:25
Nicest (2021) Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 246 Nicest of 2021 0:43:17
Local Releases (2021) IRL Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 246 Nicest of 2021 0:13:45
Gamedev Resolutions / What We're Working On (for 2022) IRL Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 246 Nicest of 2021 1:26:51
Designing like a Dungeon Master Game Design, Narrative, Tabletop Katrina Ostrander, Jon Kiehne 247 Designing like a Dungeon Master n/a
What We Did On Our Winter Break (2022) IRL, Meta Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 248 "Additional things and stuff." n/a
Joy vs. Fun Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 249 "I got all the moons." 44:00
Games You Get for Free Gaming Stephen McGregor 249 "I got all the moons." 15:00
Adventurer, Please Game Design, Tabletop 250 Game Dev London does Nice Games Jam 0:41:19
Safecracker!! Game Design, Tabletop 250 Game Dev London does Nice Games Jam 0:18:36
Wikis and Guides Gaming Ellen Burns-Johnson 251 “Done enough.” 0:46:47
Milestone Builds Production Mark LaCroix 251 “Done enough.” 0:13:18
Visual Coding Programming, Tools Alina Matson 252 Visual Coding n/a
Ink Engine Narrative, Programming, Tools Stephen McGregor 253 "Source code is viewable." 0:37:26
Building Assets and Plugins Programming, Tools Mark LaCroix 253 "Source code is viewable." 0:05:33
Games With Your Dogs Game Design, Physical Games Ellen Burns-Johnson 254 Games With Your Dogs 0:10:25
Work Weeks Production August Brown 255 Work Weeks n/a
Postmortem: "Infernax" Production Hunter Bond, Mike Ducarme 256 Postmortem: "Infernax" n/a
GDC 2022 Special (Part 1) Events Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Dale LaCroix, Ellen Burns-Johnson 257 GDC 2022 Special (Part 1) n/a
GDC 2022 Special (Part 2) Events Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Dale LaCroix, Ellen Burns-Johnson 258 GDC 2022 Special (Part 2) n/a
Postmortem: "LxJamathon" Production Mark Hamilton, Ellen Burns-Johnson 260 Postmortem: "LxJamathon" n/a
Machine Learning Narrative, Programming Anna-Lena Pontet, Luzia Hüttenmoser 261 Machine Learning n/a
Art Direction Art Mark LaCroix 262 "Start fresh, in a certain way." 0:42:00
Diagramming Gameplay Loops Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 262 "Start fresh, in a certain way." 0:15:20
Teaching Gamedev to Young People Game Design, IRL Truman Simpson 263 Teaching Gamedev to Young People n/a
Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again! Game Design, IRL Chris Totten 264 Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again! n/a
Nice Thinking Events Mark LaCroix 265 A Local Indies Tournament 0:13:12
Parasocial Relationships IRL, Narrative Ellen Burns-Johnson 266 "That’s not a friendship!" 0:09:25
Narrative Pacing Game Design, Narrative Stephen McGregor 266 "That’s not a friendship!" 0:45:21
Gamedev in Peru IRL, Production Daniela Gamarra 267 Gamedev in Peru n/a
Off-Ramps Game Design, Gaming Stephen McGregor 268 "No referees?!" 0:50:00
Curling Game Design Mark LaCroix 268 "No referees?!" 0:10:15
Level and Interaction Design Game Design Nina Marotta 269 Level and Interaction Design n/a
Should we design for Killers? Game Design, Gaming Ellen Burns-Johnson 270 "Killed the flightmaster, killed the griffin..." 0:49:50
Maintaining an Open-Source Project Programming Mark LaCroix 270 "Killed the flightmaster, killed the griffin..." 0:21:25
Neurodiversity in Gamedev Events, IRL Adam Clewes-Boyne 271 Neurodiversity in Gamedev (with Adam Clewes-Boyne) n/a
VR in 2022 and its Future VR / AR / XR Andrew Eiche 273 The State of VR in 2022 n/a
Inspiration from Behavioral Economics Game Design, Gaming Ellen Burns-Johnson 274 "I’m not coding your game, y’all figure that out." 0:40:58
GameMaker for Unity Devs Programming, Tools Stephen McGregor 274 "I’m not coding your game, y’all figure that out." 0:06:01
Broken games Game Design Mark LaCroix 276 "Always be the banker." 0:24:00
Support Systems IRL Stephen McGregor 276 "Always be the banker." 53:57
Postmortem: "Scrapeboard" Events, Game Design, Hardware Frank DeMarco, Blake Andrews 277 Postmortem: "Scrapeboard" n/a
Indie Game Credits Production Mark LaCroix 278 "Insert interesting car here." n/a
Verisimilitude Art, Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 278 "Insert interesting car here." 0:05:23
Designing a Spiritual Successor Game Design, Gaming, Production Dmitry Samartsev, aka Special Bread 279 Designing a Spiritual Successor n/a
Bringing Other Media into Games Art, Game Design Stephen McGregor 280 "Two bits of goop." 0:54:36
Keeping a Game Design Journal Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 280 "Two bits of goop." 0:16:16
Pre-production Production Stephen McGregor 282 "Today’s the day that I screw things up." 0:06:24
Idle Games Game Design, Gaming Mark LaCroix 282 "Today’s the day that I screw things up." 0:31:45
Physical Releases for Indies Marketing, Production Ryan Brown 283 Physical Releases for Indies n/a
The Ethics of Engagement Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 284 "Shiny rocks get me every time." 0:36:22
Branding & Iconography Marketing Mark LaCroix 284 "Shiny rocks get me every time." 0:10:10
Rhythm Rumble Game Design Stephen McGregor 285 Revisiting Rhythm Rumble n/a
Bug Tracking and Triage Production, Programming Ellen Burns-Johnson 286 "I realize you were making a more point thing?" 0:31:52
Cameras Game Design, Programming Stephen McGregor 286 "I realize you were making a more point thing?" 0:09:27
Fusing Genres Game Design, Marketing Millie Walker 287 Fusing Genres n/a
Hypertheticals Physical Games Ellen Burns-Johnson 288 "Time is just a search bar away." 0:49:47
Where Should We Begin? A Game of Stories Physical Games Ellen Burns-Johnson 288 "Time is just a search bar away." 0:08:49
Interdisciplinary Communication Production Stephen McGregor 289 "You lost all your dragons." 48:44
Save Data Programming Mark LaCroix 289 "You lost all your dragons." 0:08:46
Characterization in Pet Management Games Art, Game Design, Gaming Sarah Yu, Beth 290 Characterization in Pet Management Games n/a
Most Anticipated of 2023 Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson, Holly Harrison 291 Nicest of 2022 0:49:28
Nicest of 2022 Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson, Holly Harrison 291 Nicest of 2022 0:04:56
What We Did On Our Winter Break (2022) IRL, Meta Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 292 "Leveling out the table." n/a
The Logistics of Moving On IRL, Production Zach Barth 293 The Logistics of Moving On n/a
Minigames Gaming Ellen Burns-Johnson 294 "Layers and layers of hair." 0:39:45
Visual Composition Art, Game Design, UI / UX Mark LaCroix 294 "Layers and layers of hair." 0:17:12
Nice Thinking Notes Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 295 Pizza Land n/a
Player Trust Game Design Stephen McGregor 296 "Metroid is very serious." 0:48:39