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
Prototyping Game Design Stephen McGregor 19 "Pick up all the things." 0:05:18
Prototyping Game Design, Tools Ellen Burns-Johnson 187 "A way to farm notions." 0:13:50
Prototypes Game Design Stephen McGregor 237 "The drama of the reveal." 5:15
Project Management Production, Tools Martha Megarry 15 "We are artists and we should be artists." 0:33:26
Programming VR Games Programming, VR / AR / XR Jonathan Jennings 190 Programming VR Games n/a
Procedural Generation Programming Martha Megarry 21 "Mutual butt-kicking." 0:35:40
Problematic Games Gaming Sara Ferret, Ajuawak Kapashesit 20 Co-Op Recap: Problematic Games n/a
Pricing Gaming, Marketing Stephen McGregor 177 "How Quality Is It?" 0:59:56
Press Reset by Jason Schreier Misc. Mark LaCroix 212 "Brainy. Not academic." 0:41:00
Preserving the Dreamcast Hardware Ben Franks 52 Preserving the Dreamcast n/a
Pre-production Production Stephen McGregor 282 "Today’s the day that I screw things up." 0:06:24
Power-ups Game Design Mark LaCroix 243 “The different beams I can do.” 0:23:09
Power Fantasies Game Design, Gaming Stephen McGregor 144 "Explosions!" 0:18:08
Postmortem: "Scrapeboard" Events, Game Design, Hardware Frank DeMarco, Blake Andrews 277 Postmortem: "Scrapeboard" n/a
Postmortem: "LxJamathon" Production Mark Hamilton, Ellen Burns-Johnson 260 Postmortem: "LxJamathon" n/a
Postmortem: "Infernax" Production Hunter Bond, Mike Ducarme 256 Postmortem: "Infernax" n/a
Postmortem: "C.A.R.L." Game Design, Marketing, Production Andrew Kenady 297 Postmortem: "C.A.R.L." n/a
Porting Your Game Hardware, Programming Mark LaCroix 175 "Kapow?" 0:44:11
Polymorphism Programming Mark LaCroix 328 "Smarter, more evolved." 0:04:48
Polish Production, Programming, UI / UX Ellen Burns-Johnson 333 "Am I making a joke?" 0:42:09
Pokémon Gaming Martha Megarry 112 "How would I know that?" 0:54:18
Point and Clicks Game Design Martha Megarry 19 "Pick up all the things." 0:26:28
Playtesting Production Dale LaCroix 46 Playtesting n/a
Playing Outside Your Genre / Difficulty Accessibility, Game Design Adia Alderson, Dylan Skerbitz 213 Evil Games Club 6! 0:05:21
Player Trust Game Design Stephen McGregor 296 "Metroid is very serious." 0:48:39
Player Motivations Game Design, Gaming Mark LaCroix 314 "Salt, in everything?" 0:26:57
Player Friction Game Design, Gaming Stephen McGregor 345 "Everything is everything." 1:08:31
Player Count Game Design, Hardware Mark LaCroix 245 "Gamedev is jazz." 0:08:33
Player Agency Game Design, Narrative Stephen McGregor 87 "Not for me I hate them." 0:48:55
Platformers Game Design, Gaming Martha Megarry 87 "Not for me I hate them." 0:05:55
Pitching to Consoles Hardware, Marketing Mark LaCroix 101 "Don’t start with me." 0:05:11
Pitching Tabletop Games Marketing, Physical Games, Tabletop Peter Yang 231 Pitching Tabletop Games n/a
Physical Releases for Indies Marketing, Production Ryan Brown 283 Physical Releases for Indies n/a
Physical Games Physical Games Martha Megarry 84 "We should go outside!" 0:41:21
Pen and Paper Games Tabletop Mark LaCroix 34 "My computer vapes." 0:37:18
PC Games Market Marketing, Production Mark LaCroix 82 "This is why I subscribe." 0:34:23
Patches and Add-on Content Programming Stephen McGregor 136 "E for Everybody!" 0:15:29
Partnering Up Production Ellen Burns-Johnson 339 "Things just happen, somewhere." n/a
Parasocial Relationships IRL, Narrative Ellen Burns-Johnson 266 "That’s not a friendship!" 0:09:25
Our accomplishments IRL Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 336 Nicest of 2023 0:10:30
Others at E3 2019 News 135 E3 2019 Special 0:54:37
Optimization Programming Mark LaCroix 112 "How would I know that?" 0:04:53
Open Source Software Programming, Tools Mark Mandel 217 Open Source Software n/a
Online Play Game Design, Programming, Tools Stephen McGregor 195 "Human, play Dom-jot?" 0:52:57
Online Events Events, IRL Mark LaCroix 191 "Claps in the chat." 0:10:15
Off-Ramps Game Design, Gaming Stephen McGregor 268 "No referees?!" 0:50:00
Novelty Game Design Stephen McGregor 218 "Kids like cubes these days." 12:27
Nostalgia and the Lo-fi Aesthetic Art Marina Kittaka 141 Nostalgia and the Lo-fi Aesthetic n/a
Nostalgia Gaming Stephen McGregor 82 "This is why I subscribe." 0:06:43
Noble Failures Hardware Mark LaCroix 153 "She also cheats a lot." 0:32:44
Nintendo Switch Launch Gaming, Hardware Stephen McGregor 18 GDC 2017 Special (Part 2) 0:19:48
Nintendo Switch Gaming, Hardware Martha Megarry 24 "I trolled myself." 0:23:49
Nintendo at E3 2019 News 135 E3 2019 Special 0:38:27
Nicest of 2023 Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 336 Nicest of 2023 0:29:11
Nicest of 2022 Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson, Holly Harrison 291 Nicest of 2022 0:04:56
Nicest (2021) Gaming Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 246 Nicest of 2021 0:43:17
Nicest (2020) Nicest Mark LaCroix, Stephen McGregor, Ellen Burns-Johnson 206 Nicest of 2020 0:32:46
Nicest (2019) Nicest Mark LaCroix, Martha Megarry, Stephen McGregor 161 Nicest of 2019 0:08:05
Nice Thinking Notes Game Design Ellen Burns-Johnson 295 Pizza Land n/a
Nice Thinking about traveling to conferences Tabletop 309 The Nice Board Game Industrial Complex, a Nice Games Club Skunkworks Project n/a
Nice Thinking about our future in Board Games IRL 309 The Nice Board Game Industrial Complex, a Nice Games Club Skunkworks Project 0:04:40
Nice Thinking about NiceGameJam Games with Potential Game Design 309 The Nice Board Game Industrial Complex, a Nice Games Club Skunkworks Project 0:46:06
Nice Thinking Events Mark LaCroix 265 A Local Indies Tournament 0:13:12
Next-Gen Console Reveals Events, Hardware 168 "GDC" 2020 Special 0:39:52
Neurodiversity in Gamedev Events, IRL Adam Clewes-Boyne 271 Neurodiversity in Gamedev (with Adam Clewes-Boyne) n/a
NDAs Marketing Mark LaCroix 181 "I’m ashamed, but also so proud." 0:19:20
Navigation IRL, UI / UX Dale LaCroix 156 "All your maps are belong to us." 1:00:52
Nature in Games Art Ellen Burns-Johnson 226 "The Corrupt Goo." 0:54:54
Narrative Pacing Game Design, Narrative Stephen McGregor 266 "That’s not a friendship!" 0:45:21
Narrative in Games Narrative Stephen McGregor 10 "Try it once." 0:13:00
Narrative Design Narrative Beth Korth 132 Narrative Design n/a
Naming Things Game Design, Marketing, Production Mark LaCroix 166 "When in doubt, call it Gan Ainm." 0:17:47
Music for Indie Games Audio Troy Strand 7 Music for Indie Games n/a
Multitasking in Game Development IRL Mark LaCroix 28 "That makes me retroactively nervous." 0:48:33
Multi-Generational Gaming Gaming, IRL Martha Megarry 153 "She also cheats a lot." 0:04:49