DGC Ep 156: David Brevik Interview

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we extend our time with 1996's Diablo with an interview with Condor/Blizzard North co-founder and Diablo lead programmer and designer David Brevik. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:39 Interview
1:21:19 Break
1:21:51 Wrap-up

Issues covered: falling in love with games as a young person, learning how to program, finding out you could make a living making games, typing in programs from magazines, sticking with games, clip-art discs, founding Condor, Diablo pitch document, meeting people at CES, genre calcification and RPGs, working on a fighting game and finding out the SNES and Genesis games were being developed independently, switching to PC games, having the whole gang up to get a pitch, starting with Rogue and adding graphics, the short life of claymation-based graphics, signing as turn-based but Blizzard wanting real-time, getting a 3D0 contract for a football game on the M2, a side distraction into baseball and other sports, cutting turns up fractionally, being all-in on the turn-based/permadeath nature of Rogue-likes, strategy games going to real-time, squeezing more money out of the publisher, getting real-time running in a couple hours, stealing from X-COM's graphics, having a moment when the clouds part and the angels sing, democracy works, having an "I've never seen this before" moment, moving away from D&D tropes and getting darker, having internal hockey tournaments, lowering "time to killing monsters," removing complexity from potions and also verbs, pen and paper requiring character development and games less so, stealing the attributes/requirements loot properties from Angband, getting away from Tolkien and towards the Gothic from the art direction, the contribution of music to the tone, trading player-oriented drama for immediacy, constraints leading to a cornerstone of the series, simplification of the good and the evil, having the stories you get from playing rather than from dialog and designer-written story, running around in multiplayer, getting owned by The Butcher, tackling lots of big new programming stuff on Diablo including networking, having a tutor in Pat Wyatt, inventing Battle.Net, coming in with the multiplayer very late, peer-to-peer model and notifying others, non-deterministic model and rampant cheating, erring on the side of being generous, uniting people on the Internet, the huge impact of Diablo's designs on gaming as a whole, David's latest project, going from CEO to a one-man-show, the huge impact David's had on the industry, transformative games.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Iguana Entertainment, Condor/Blizzard North, Flagship Studios, Hellgate: London, Gazillion Entertainment, Marvel Heroes, Graybeard Games, It Lurks Below, Pong, Apple ][+, Richard Garriott, Ultima, Inside (magazine), Intel, FM Wave, Tramiel family, Atari/Atari Lynx, Gordo 106, Sunsoft, Acclaim, 3D0, Justice League Task Force, SNES, Sega Genesis, Silicon & Synapse, Warcraft, Davidson & Associates, Math Blaster, Reading Blaster, Allen Adham, Mike Morhaime, Pat Wyatt, Chris Metzen, Rogue, Nethack, Moria/UMoria/Angband, Primal Rage, Dune 2000, Baldur's Gate, X-COM, Starfighter, Mortimer and the Riddle of the Medallion, J. R. R. Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, NHL '94, DOOM (1993), Erich and Max Schaefer, Matt Uelmen, Dragon magazine, Amazon, Total Entertainment Network, Daron Stinnett, Dark Forces, Loderunner, Terraria, Starbound, Zork, Don Tomassello (now that's random), Planescape: Torment, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Bill Roper.

Next time:
An additional bonus episode with Diablo III!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 155: Diablo (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our main discussion of Blizzard Entertainment's 1996 classic Diablo. We cover level design in a procedural world, how the tone of the game darkens further in this final segment and then turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Killed Diablo!

Issues covered: quoting oft-repeated lines, last two levels as a more authored experience, strategy for the final levels and killing Diablo, the final cutscene and tying to Diablo II, exposition delivery, over-the-top font, going after Lazarus, missing quest pieces without Leoric, missing exposition when you kill a character out of order, random teleportation stuff, "co-opetition," missing major quests with the random quest selection, lack of in-game messaging about random quest generation, possible complaints if seen as a single-player game, getting the itch to play again because of multi-player, level design and macro tiles, fitting a set up tiles together, seeing the algorithm, having more authoring capability from bigger pieces, purely algorithmic generation, following a table-driven approach, feeling like a real place and good environment choices, not getting drops that fit your character, innovation in loot drops to encourage other styles of play, getting an unique item, procedural everywhere, shifting to real-time, the influence of this loot system, giving an identity to your loot, the cool lighting model, constraints breed creativity, simplicity of the game, multiplayer as a key element of the game, trading in multiplayer, our upcoming bonus episodes.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Star Wars, Jonah Lobe, Bethesda Game Studios, Mario (series, obliquely), Kingdom Hearts (series), Borderlands (series), Planescape: Torment, Gold Box (series), Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic, Ultima, Spelunky, Castle Ravenloft, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Rogue, Nethack, Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Everquest, MUD, Carl Sagan, David Brevik, Path of Exile, Blizzard North, Tanarive Due, The Good House, Stephen King.

Next time:
An interview! And your feedback!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 154: Diablo (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue discussing Blizzard Entertainment's 1996 classic Diablo. We talk a bit about macro pacing issues and how other systems tie into that, changes in enemies as you go deeper, and some tight spot anecdotes. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through the Caves

Issues covered: going after the Lord of Terror with the Horadrim, cutscenes tying together two games (end of one to beginning of next), Brett gives a Kingdom Hearts update, the side games of KH, getting Mickey and Donald and Goofy as you play, limited inventory slots, emotional peaks and valleys in the dungeons, tranquility of the town and resetting your emotional baseline, the loop of magical drops and identify, reducing anxiety, music reinforcing the emotional state of the area, limited resources and resource sinks, how inventory stacks and filling it with gold or potions or what-have-you, encumbrance systems and negative reinforcement, balancing the loot loop with resource sinks, monster reskinning and reuse, converting sculpture into 3D models, using 3D models to make 2D images, having a different walk cycle in town, your weapon palette changing when your armor does, transmogrification and aesthetics in WoW, mixing and matching enemy stats, enemy types and managing mana use, recharging staves, immunity and bosses, how to generate a monster, getting cornered and having to manage your potions closely, continuing to play when UI tabs are up, multiplayer requirement, the best implementation winning history, moving to controller use on the PC, playing widely, inspiring designers from games off the beaten path, drawing inspirations from unexpected places, playing our failures, Diablo on Good Old Games, pacing vs action in town visits, approachability and the need for breaks, Diablo II's ongoing community, being a dad with Pokémon, separating character from save, profile character vs save character, next time.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories (et al), Dominion, Magic: the Gathering, Metal Gear Solid (series), Game Boy Advance, Resident Evil, Jill Murray, Kirk Hamilton/Strong Songs, Dungeons & Dragons, Skyrim, Fallout, DOOM, Dark Forces, World of Warcraft, Dark Souls, Dan Smith, an opinion haver, TurboGrafx/PC-Engine, Dungeon Explorer, N64, Operation Winback, Ultima 8, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Gauntlet, Gears of War, Trespasser, Clint Hocking, Far Cry 2, Richard Lemarchand, Uncharted 2, Dear Esther, LucasArts, Henry David Thoreau, Hearthstone, Andrew Henninger, Jamie Zucek, Pokémon, Warren Linam-Church, Plato.

Next time:
Finish the game!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 153: Diablo (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue discussing Blizzard Entertainment's 1996 classic Diablo. We look at tone, discuss art direction, dive a bit into procedural loot and how it has reverberated through games since, with other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through the Catacombs

Issues covered: dark and brooding tone, gothic melodrama, using the palette to your advantage, having to address troubles with art direction to make the game play readable, choosing an unusual palette for the time, diving into the lore in the manual, character design through-lines in Blizzard properties, stuffing the retail box with stuff (including lore), having fewer quests and sticking to the essential quest of killing Diablo, the issue with lack of urgency in open world main quests, "pixel hunt," procedural loot and generation of items, the winner gets the credit ("Diablo loot"), procedural loot invading anything with even light RPG elements, the store, obvious future refinements to the loot drops, chasing the loot, entwining loot and difficulty, buying from the store to refresh it, the audio cues of drops, classification of loot value with colors, adopting colors for relative difficulty as well, the Butcher's Cleaver, having the experience of a gold drop, re-speccing your character around the drop you get, sorcerer changing spell types for the enemies you find, spatial management as the warrior, sub-speccing yourself, associating items with attributes rather than classes, the town music, game musicians learning the town theme, knowing you're safe from the music, Tim's golem spell and who's having the fun, the better implementation winning, clearing an area in Diablo and not being able to in 3, clearing to white in Republic Commando, having the initial experience in SWRC to move data to the hard drive, determining how long the initial scenes in SWRC are, remapping controls and how you do it and why you might not.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Diablo III, DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Aaron Evers, World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Disney, Starcraft, Overwatch, Starfighter, LucasArts, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Tomb Raider, Destiny, Borderlands, Freebird, Stairway to Heaven, Halo, Star Wars, Indiana Jones (a series of only three films I will *fight you* on this), Resident Evil, Red Sox, Lee Davey, Ultima 8/Ultima (series), Gears of War, Kill.Switch, Gauntlet, Raymond, Ben Zaugg, Republic Commando, Matt Alan Estock, Adam Piper, Jeremie Talbot.

Next time:
Through the Caves

Link:
Dave Brevik on moving from turn-based to real-time

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 152: Diablo (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new game: Blizzard Entertainment's 1996 classic, Diablo. We situate the game in time and in the RPG landscape of the 90s before diving into the first quarter of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Levels 1-4

Issues covered: Brett's Ph.D. falls to Diablo, playing in the various pits of LucasArts, games slipping across the industry due to Diablo multiplayer, RPGs of the 1990s, apparent look of Diablo as an isometric turn-based game, tabletop lineage and Western RPGs, limitations on casting, coming from arcade design, the origin of rogue-likes, loot drops, the death of RPGs and the rise of first-person shooter, overturning genre conventions, moving a strategy game reinvention to the RPG, having multiplayer, underpinnings of so many loot systems, screenshot test, limiting down to one character, balancing AI design to allow the player to react, mechanics/dynamics/aesthetics framework, lack of health bars, being pulled in and freneticism and panic, position maintenance and target prioritization, doing everything with one input, lack of numbers, streamlining health/stats, quest selection, saving frequently/infrequently, memorable terrifying boss, simple quest system, multiplayer games, getting a friend to help you retrieve your corpse, lack of game history in the curriculum, DGC timeline, lack of cursing, tenets and pillars of studios as well as for the games, incorporating players into games, fighting each other, Japanese interviews, the show music and production, leveling up spells.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, Doom, Quake, LucasArts, Duke Nukem 3D, Pokemon Red/Blue, Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, PlayStation, Civilization II, Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Mario Kart 64, Crash Bandicoot, Meridian 59, Andrew Kirmse, 3DO, Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Betrayal at Krondor, Sierra Games, Ultima VI, Ultima VII, System Shock 2, Fallout, Elder Scrolls: Arena, Might and Magic VI, Wizardry (series), Eye of the Beholder, Ultima Underworld, Gold Box (series), Halo, Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, Jack Vance, Chainmail, Gauntlet, Nethack, Moria, Rogue, Dave Brevik, Condor Games, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Rise of the Triad, Dune, Command and Conquer, BioWare, World of Warcraft, Fallout 4, Destiny, Dark Forces, Jogsidf, Deus Ex, King's Quest/Space Quest, Johnny Grattan, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill 2, Julian Gollop, X-COM, TIE Fighter, Sakaguchi Hironobu, Ueda Fumito, Kojima Hideo, Suda Goichi, SWERY65, Deadly Premonition, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
The Catacombs

Links:

PC Gamer Diablo Preview

Original Diablo Pitch Document

Dave Brevik Classic Game Postmortem

IGN Interview with Dave Brevik

Arcade Attack Podcast Interview with Dave Brevik

Diablo 2 Office Tour

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 151: Kingdom Hearts (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion of Kingdom Hearts. We talk about the end of the game, a few topics we'd never got around to, and of course, our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game!

Podcast breakdown:
0:47    KH Discussion
56:50  Break
57:20  Takeaways and Feedback

Issues covered: the separation between the sky and the land, Brett playing again and again and again, leaning on Tinkerbell with default equipment, boss escalation at the end of the game, Tim's power problems, Ansem's final form, where we ended leveling up, wanting more item slots, when a game grabs you, Disney moments that pull on the nostalgia, nailing the animation and modeling archetypes of so many varying shapes/sizes/gaits, high degree of developer difficulty, contextual attacks, triggering attacks from menus, differences with the PS3/PS4 version, carryovers from another style of game, transitional games, making sense of the story, Ansem and his reports, relying on the journal or not, losing track of characters, the Gummi Ship construction, finding the Gummi Ship missions, minimal vs maximal design, relying on the Internet or a strategy guide for secret bosses and late-game content, having an ending that sets up a next game, smashing up two franchises, being the last moment in dev history that you could have smashed these together, trying to introduce people to JRPGs rather than billing it as Final Fantasy, mashing up mechanics and systems, bringing people in with action-oriented mechanics, being okay to be earnest, "cool" culture vs "hot" culture, main characters as children, Sora as child vs Ansem as adult, Sora as the stand-in for the child in all of us, canceling Squirtle's evolution to grind him forever, Brett obsessing over a thing, what we're playing next.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Matrix, Alice in Wonderland, Final Fantasy IX, World of Warcraft, Witcher 3, Prey, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metal Gear Solid, Fantasia, MediEvil, Dark Souls, Heart of Darkness, Final Fantasy VIII, Kung Fu, Square Soft, DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Infinity, Elite Beat Agents, NK Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Brian Lam, Pokemon Blue, Game Boy Pocket, Snazzy Snorlax, God of War (2018), Pokemon Let's Go, Diablo, Blizzard, Ni No Kuni.

Links:
Diablo on the Wayback Machine

Next time:
Diablo! The first four levels/up to the Butcher.

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 150: Kingdom Hearts (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion of Kingdom Hearts. We talk about some memorable moments, some about character design, a bit about AI... a whole hodge-podge. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to the Hollow Bastion

Issues covered: Brett playing simultaneously on PS4, televisions, being stuck on the boss, grinding and action combat, navigating in 3D, slow leveling, assigning items to party members and changing their strategies, leaning into tech points and the way the camera and enemy AI fights that, parrying the boss, games that require grinding versus those that don't, leveling via critical path in Pokémon, the Trinity symbols, character design in Atlantica, new Heartless visual and enemy design in different worlds, camera controls in the PS4 version, combination of 3D camera design and level design, difficulty navigating with few landmarks, designing one's house, logical flow colliding with geometric flow, camera relativity and movement, designing your areas and cinematography around what your camera does well, level length with Halloweentown, visual beats from the films, wishing you were the movie character, letting a moment be a moment, the Hundred Acre Wood, minigames in the Hundred Acre Wood, summons, item synthesis, pro-tips for combat and leveling, lock-on and enemy AI design, strategies for using space in combat, camera design for combat, running different programs, Game Dev Club,

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Peter Pan, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, The Wrath of Khan, Final Fantasy IX, Pokémon Red/Blue, Anachronox, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Square Soft, Soul Reaver, Doom, Quake, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, Winnie the Pooh, Bambi, The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo, Dagur Danielsson, Arkham (series), Ben Zaugg, PlayStation, XBOX, ENIAC, EarthBound.

Next time:
Finish the game!

Link:
Brett talks about the end of EarthBound

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

 

DGC Ep 149: Kingdom Hearts (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion of Kingdom Hearts. Tim sings a bit, Brett raps a bit, and we talk about what makes this game work or not work, as well as delving into the combat. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Monstro!

Podcast breakdown:
0:42 Tim sings + Kingdom Hearts
44:03 Break
44:33 Feedback + Brett Raps

Issues covered: birthday, the giant Kingdom Hearts collection, "I think this game might be bad," bizarre linearity, weird triggering, loving some films and not having connecting with others, lack of supporting systems, pushing strategy guides, lack of level logic, IP control and lack of public domain, what films they pair up with the games, being out of their design element with various choices, not connecting with FF characters, how the characters level, the lack of a moment when you level up, lack of boss requirements, zero XP, the camera is bad, paying attention to the technical points, handling the general case for graphics, why are they making this just a button mashy game, going in and out of the Bizarre Room, meeting Merlin or Jiminy Cricket, the occupation of Japan, strength/weakness collection mechanics, when we don't like a thing, enjoying analysis but respecting how hard it is to actually solve problems, applying the podcast day-to-day, designing for knucklehead stealth, embracing chaos and humor, lore in series, finding hooks that service new players, structural choices to bring in new players and opt-in to lore, how films deal with lore, play sets and toy box differences in Disney Infinity, Brett raps.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Tarzan (film), Chris Corry, LucasArts, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hercules, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Pooh/The Hundred Acre Wood, Song of the South, Mary Poppins/Mary Poppins Returns, P. L. Travers, Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks (obliquely), Alfred Hitchcock, Big Hero 6, Frozen, Monsters Inc, Toy Story, Tangled, Disney Infinity, Final Fantasy (series), Dark Souls, Tim Rogers, Kotaku, Vagrant Story, Alice in Wonderland, Cameron Daxon, Boss Key Books, Tim Dooley, Bobby Oster, Pokémon Let's Go, Persona/Shin Megami Tensei (series), Warren Linam-Church, Thief, Dungeons & Dragons, No One Lives Forever, Hitman 1 & 2, Giant Bomb, Mikkel Lodahl, Halo, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls (series), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Saw (series), Disney Infinity, Wabash College, Project Spark, John Lasseter, Skylanders, The Incredibles, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, Tasha Robinson.

Next time:
Up to the Hollow Bastion

Links:
Kotaku's Kingdom Hearts Review

Cameron Daxon's Pokémon teams

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 148: Kingdom Hearts (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series about Kingdom Hearts, the 2002 Disney / Square crossover game that culminates in Kingdom Hearts III this week. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through Wonderland!

Podcast breakdown:
0:38    Kingdom Hearts
42:01  Break
42:30  Feedback & Singing Review

Issues covered: series lore in non-console games, E3 2001, licensing starting to wane, part of the EA business model, working with a license and not making a "play the movie" game, the land grab of licensing, struggling with using licensed titles, schedules not lining up with film, a positive change in licensing, seeing movies in theaters or drive-ins on Disney's re-release schedule, the specialness of seeing one, the lack of home video, seeing cartoons on TV, relationship with the iconic characters, the return of Disney animation in the late 80s/early 90s, bringing in Broadway talent to score the new movies, Disney World and Disney Land, choice of first Disney world, the abstract start, the weird bedroom scene, Destiny Island, bringing in characters from Final Fantasy X and other Square properties, being made for someone else, merging of worlds, fearing the limits of the game, usability problems in Traverse Town, triggering steps by randomly going through a door that had previously been locked, doing one-off mechanics and adventure gamey stuff like a Final Fantasy game, Game Boy constraints and the games they inspired, the evolution of Pokémon mechanics, "constraints inspire creativity," relatability of Pokémon vs Kingdom Hearts, groundedness of mythology in Legend of Zelda vs Final Fantasy milieus, save warnings, informing the player of your mechanics, bucking trends with intent, picking your battles, Nuzlocke style, PvE and PvP in Pokémon and stats buffing and debuffing, singing review.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Jedi Starfighter, Nomura Tetsuya, Square, Final Fantasy (series), Parasite Eve, Ehrgeiz, The World Ends With You, The Bouncer, Disney, EA, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Final Fantasy XI, Metroid Prime, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Dark Cloud 2, GTA Vice City, Eternal Darkness, Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus, James Bond in 007: Nightfire, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Two Towers, The Fellowship of the Ring, Spider-man, Activision, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Warcraft III, Battlefield 1942, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Mafia, Dungeon Siege, Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, SW: Republic Commando, LotR: Return of the Kings, Stormfront Studios, EA Spouse, Daron Stinnett, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Indiana Jones, Force Unleashed, Pinocchio, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Warner Bros, Alan Menken, The Great Mouse Detective, Robin Hood, Sakaguchi Hironobu, Hashimoto Shinji, Super Mario 64, Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, Hercules, Final Fantasy X, Mary Poppins, Marvel vs Capcom, Pokémon Red/Blue, John Lethbridge, Chrono Trigger, Game Boy, Link's Awakening, Metroid II, Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana, Minit, Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu, Jan Willem, Vlambeer, Rami Ismail, Jesse Morgan/seaofmorgan, Pokémon Sun/Moon, Star Wars: Starfighter, Iwata Satoru, HAL Laboratories, Iwata Asks, Nintendo Wii, Legend of Zelda (series), GTA III, Ben Zaugg, Gothic Chocobo, Ryan/biostats, Dave Mason, We Just Disagree, Frozen, Pixar.

Next time:
Through Monstro!

Links:
The GameBoy Programming Manual

Iwata Saving Pokémon

Iwata Asks

 

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 147: Pokémon Let's Go Bonus!

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we extend our time with Pokémon by turning to recent Nintendo release Pokémon Let's Go and tons of Pokémon-related feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
First bit of Pokemon Let's Go

Podcast breakdown:
0:41      Let's Go
37:02    Break
37:23    Feedback

Issues covered: Blue showing up, playing with the Pokémon Ball controller and it making noises, playing handheld vs throwing the PokéBall, whether or not we'd have played this one, playing bonus 3DS games, the feel of a remake, the translation to 3D, positivity of the combat, lightheartedness of Nintendo vs games made in the West, the twenty-year gap of features between what we've played, more connection to the Pokémon, how well the characters come through, representing organic shapes in blocky pixel art, paying homage to the pixel versions, being able to see more of the Pokémon stats directly, improving stats with candy, being able to see all the stats, technical machines and who should use them and improvements, incorporating the type chart into the game, incorporating Pokémon Go mechanics, whether you care about collecting the Pokémon, keeping the game in the rotation, Brett's Book Recommendation, commanding fantasy creatures, not designing deeper depth into the combat, numerous picked nits and game evolution over generations, how information about the game got around, wider audience, avoiding stagnation, growing an audience, Nintendo always targeting a new audience and needing to innovate less, enjoying evolution, balancing creative fulfillment with keeping your audience, design considerations for specific hardware, what are your Pokémon OCs, Brett's monsters type and Tim's espionage and minis types, mods, cosplay in the 501st and 405th, remastering SWRC, looking forward.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Pokémon Red/Blue, Game Boy, Detective Pikachu, Game Freak, LoZ: Link Between Worlds, Metroid: Samus Returns, Studio Ghibli, Level-5, Dark Cloud, Ni No Kuni, Pokémon Go, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Micro, Super Famicom, Earthbound, S. A. Chakraborty, City of Brass, Harrison Wade, Nintendo Switch, Ben Zaugg, Gothic Chocobo, Junichi Masuda, Prima Games, War and Peace, Dark Souls, Threes, 2048, Fallout (series), The Elder Scrolls (series), Final Fantasy (series), Obsidian, inXile, Nolan Filter, irreverentQ, Universal Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, John Lethbridge, Aaron Evers, Republic Commando, Skyrim, Fallout 3/4, Thomas the Tank Engine, Star Wars, Jesse Morgan, Kingdom Hearts (series), Square, Disney, Chrono Trigger.

Brett's Book Recommendation:
S. A. Chakraborty: City of Brass

Links:
Junichi Masuda on the Pokémon series getting easier

Halo Red vs Blue

Malukah's Dragonborn Cover

Republic Commando Remastered

Next time:
Kingdom Hearts: Up through Wonderland

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 146: Pokémon Red/Blue (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our series on 1996 Game Boy classic Pokémon Red/Blue. We talk about the tension of the final battles and then of course chat about our lessons and takeaways from the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finishing the Game!

Podcast breakdown:
1:15 Pokémon discussion
50:04 Break
50:35 Takeaways and Feedback

Issues covered: renaming your rival and Professor Oak chiding him, being less precious about what things are named and such, separating out boxes and pure memory limits, the punk rival, coming full circle, naming your Pokémon, finding the legendaries, our final six, Brett's end-game, whether or not you can buy the elixirs, Tim's Frankensteined Pokémon team, how Brett leveled his top Pokémon, Tim coming down to running out of PP and items to take on the Elite Four, save states in the middle of the Elite Four battles, charging your adrenaline, four color palette, having very tight hardware limitations, squeezing more out of consoles late in hardware lifecycle, dungeons as puzzles, dungeon as palate cleanser and tuning/balancing pinch points, dungeon variety, trainers as gates and auto-grinds and tests of where you should be, map as revealing the order in which you will encounter stuff, the collection mechanics, evolution and collection, unique Pokémon, designing to your hardware constraints, music constraints, the depth of the roshambo, flexibility in supported approaches and player goals, emergent story in individual Pokémon, zany aesthetics of the Pokémon, collecting game play depth, whether playing Pokémon on release would have impacted our design or hardware thinking, most huggable Pokémon.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Metal Gear (series), Ultima Underworld, Final Fantasy IX, God of War, Anachronox, Chrono Trigger, Junichi Masuda, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, Raymond, Ester Olsen.

Next time:
Play some Pokémon Let's Go!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 145: Pokémon Red/Blue (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our series on 1996 Game Boy classic Pokémon Red/Blue. We talk about how widely our strategy is varying both in terms of team make-up and approach as well as marvelling over how well the game supports both, and Brett geeks out over how the hardware of the Game Boy (and in particular the Memory Bank Controller) influenced the design of its games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to having 7 badges!

Podcast breakdown:
0:36 Pokémon discussion
59:17 Break
59:50 Feedback

Issues covered: Happy New Year, real Pokémon name or not?, our current team mixes, dominating in combat, allowing for widely different approaches, misunderstanding the depth of the game, cultural signifiers of the game, experimenting and sense of discover with Pokémon, more RPG than anticipated, the world opening up, more than just a collection landscape, fearing the end of the game, "Gotta Catch 'em All," the zaniness of the Pokémon, opacity of some of the Pokémon, Brett uses brute force, switching when things don't work, referring to the type chart, the underground tunnels, starting linear and opening up via guardposts/skills/bicycle, allowing a kid to follow his star, the differences of playing alone vs on stream, leaning on stream chat, not expecting RPG quests, efficient design of the Pokémon Flute, running away from the Snorlax, paying close attention to the abilities, layers and depth of information, designing your own Pokémon, HMs as critical path, connecting the overworld to the Pokémon, Tim and Brett playing against type, allowing so many varieties of play style, a healthy amount of slop, increasing numbers of Pokémon, commonalities of types to give you a hand-hold, Butterfree as a cornerstone of Tim's team, not doing much collecting, level cap and traded Pokémon, avoiding collecting to avoid the cap, not finding much to collect, trading in-game, using the GameLink, Game Boy technology, the Memory Bank Controller, virtual memory paging, having one program that runs on multiple sets of data that are lined up in a specific way, structure staying with the franchise afterwards, forcing particular patterns, coding in assembly, specifying how the music works via five hardware registers, timing the music, cultural differences for JRPGs, writing different programs to run on the hardware, all in on the singing reviews, is the computer having all the fun?, different kinds of fun, the appeal of different kinds of fun, the computer doing some of the work for you, not having the social engagement, losing your D&D players due to the excessive die rolling, hyper-specificity in Rolemaster, diceless RPGs, very slow evolution/conservative approach to the series.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Game Boy, Final Fantasy IX, Dark Souls, Let's Go Pikachu/Evee, A Link Between Worlds, Link to the Past, Tetris, Metroid 2, Apple ][, GamaSutra, PlayStation, Ester Olsen, Dungeons and Dragons, Bruce Shelley, Marc LeBlanc, World of Warcraft, Gold Box (series), Rolemaster, SAGA system, Ben from Iowa Zaugg, Björn Johansson, Pokémon Go, Niantic, System Shock 2.

Next time:
Finish the game by defeating the Elite Four!

Links:
Doctor Ludos on GamaSutra -- Making A GB Game in 2017

8 Kinds of Fun / Marc LeBlanc

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 143: Pokémon Red/Blue (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1996 Game Boy classic Pokémon Red/Blue. We talk quite a bit about the early game, the way it solves age-old RPG problems with random encounters, and of course, our current mix of Pokemon before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up through Saffron City (in theory)

Podcast breakdown:
0:45    Pokémon
55:48  Break
56:14  Feedback

Issues covered: Bonnie Ross's induction into the AIAS Hall of Fame, our current Pokémon rotation, a few specific attacks on various Pokémon, some strategy talk, domesticating animals, how the game treats the Pokémon, random encounters and the grind, randomness and the disincentive to explore, the randomness as a loot box sort of mechanic, randomness as strength in collecting, Japanese cultural conservatism, whether or not they were deliberate in their random battle approach, the television show, sweetness and innocence and getting attached to particular Pokémon, transcending as a franchise, characterization and evolution, meta-strategies, the immensity of the game and multiplicity, rock-paper-scissors and simplicity of grasping it, the periodic table, learning the type table by osmosis or by study, talking about inventory management, a game where you are rewarded if you put your Pokémon into a flow state, running out of PP, finding ether in the wild, providing items based on need, getting into the strategy, an index of the creepiest trainers, memorable characters and repetition, trainers are great for previewing Pokémon, getting pushback and inviting it, talking about the Yakuza series, game preservation, games as a business, fighting preservation, poor preservation, emulation, improving on an old game, hidden numbers in RPGs, Pokémon as loot and as units, wanting variation, being based on games with dice, figuring out exactly how many hit points a thing has, the role of the Internet, a user corrects Brett on shiny Pokémon and on what level he was.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Bonnie Ross, 343 Industries, AIAS/DICE, Bungie, Halo, Microsoft, The Game Awards, Game Developer's Choice Awards, Waypoint Radio, Final Fantasy IX, Pokémon Go, Legend of Zelda, Pokémon Let's Go, Nintendo Switch, Breath of the Wild, Miles Truss, GTA III, LA Noire, Mike Vogt, Yakuza (series), MGS V, GameBoy Pocket/Lite, Giant Beast Cast, Chris Tiemeßen, PlayStation Classic, Sega Classics, SNK 40th Anniversary, Pink Gorilla, Virtual Console, Xbox One, NES Classic/SNES Classic, Zimmy Finger, Nintendo DS, PSP (PlayStation Portable), Diablo, Dungeons and Dragons, Ben "From Iowa" Zaugg, Gothic Chocobo.

Next time:
7 Badges (after our end-of-year 'cast)

Link:
My Little Golden Book About Zogg

Note:
Although Brett said he hadn't worked on an RPG, what he meant was he hadn't worked on a JRPG. (Brett of course worked on Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4.)

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 142: Pokémon Red/Blue (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1996 Game Boy classic Pokémon Red/Blue. We situate the game in time and spend a fair amount of time discussing the Game Boy itself as a handheld system, before turning to the game itself. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to Pewter City's Gym Leader, Brock

Podcast breakdown:
0:40     Pokémon discussion
55:02   Break
55:35   Feedback & Review

Issues covered: the series as a whole and its stewardship and popularity, 1996 in games, Tim's start in the industry, our histories with handheld systems, the Game Boy as a movement, the convergence of handheld and console in the Switch, the Game Boy launch, a side business that exploded on them, sales of the Game Boy, iterating on the hardware then and now, mobile gaming, pacing on mobile gaming, naming your hero and adversary and Pokémon, "all boys leave home," dropping you right into the world, lack of quest, trusting the player, knowing the other's Pokémon choices, Tim bouncing off the series, limiting the player's options early, a pastoral/nostalgic feel, basing it on childhood memories, JRPG structure and games of the time, exploring JRPGs and how they differ at the time, elemental battling, leveling your critters instead of your character, managing tone, chancing into destroying Brock's rock Pokémon, anime quality of the characters, rock-paper-scissors battling, persistent effects and strategy, the Pikachu that got away, "shiny" types and rarity, gamers grinding, Tim wanting to collect everything, the cast of characters/Pokémon, the experience of having a pet, domesticating pets, generational games, a new singing review!, gamer memory, gatekeeping, growing the audience, Oral History of Republic Commando, Game Boy peripherals and licensed gear, collecting and trading Pokémon, encouraging different kinds of city simulation behavior, the memory card.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Game Freak, Nintendo, NES/SNES, Sega Genesis, Creatures, The Pokémon Company, Pokémon Let's Go, Ni No Kuni, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Tamagotchi, Skylanders, Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Nintendo 64, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Final Doom, Marathon Infinity, Diablo, Mario Kart, Kirby's Block Ball, Donkey Land 2, Nintendo Switch, Metroid 2, Link's Awakening (+ Legend of Zelda series), Nintendo 3DS, Virtual Boy, Super Mario Land, Tetris, Game Boy Light, Game Boy Micro, Game Boy Advance, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin, Final Fantasy IX, Super Mario RPG, Dragon Quest/Warrior (series), Ultima (series), Eye of the Beholder, Phantasy Star, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Anatole France, Jeff Cannata, Christian Spicer, DLC podcast, Dungeons and Dragons, Reed Knight, Infocom, Zork, Gilmore Girls, Where You Lead, Carole King, speakyclean, GTA III, Lucas Rizoli, Cameron Kunzelman, Republic Commando, Xbox One, Kieron Gillen, Thief, PC Gamer UK, John Williams, Kotaku, David Collins, Starfighter/Jedi Starfighter, PS2, PSNow, Ester Olsen, The2ndQuest, Pokémon Stadium, Nintendo Wii, Scott Richardson, Streets of Sim City, Maxis, EA, Crazy Taxi, Sega Dreamcast, LucasArts, Lego City Undercover, Andrew Kirmse, Ben from Iowa.

Next time:
Get into Saffron City

Links:
PLAYER/KNOWLEDGE Gamer Memory and GTAIII
Kieron Gillen on Thief, 20 Years On

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 141: GTA III (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion about Grand Theft Auto III. We close out the game by picking a couple favorite moments, talk about some of the difficulty at the end, and of course, do our takeaways before turning to feedback, of which there was much. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game! (If you're Brett, anyway)

Podcast breakdown:
0:39    GTA III discussion
59:06  Break
59:46  Feedback

Issues covered: Tim gets demoralized, timing and bad luck, wall missions, time and patience running out, being indifferent to the player, one's changing taste, getting better at the driving (and falling into the ocean), 'cast being non-conducive to this style of game, being okay with not finishing it, feeling comfortable in some areas of the game, imagining giggling devs, timing missions pushing you to let go of stuff and learn the city well, lower mission density, running off the drawbridge, doing the coffee carts the second time (and rubbing it in), getting the bulletproof Patriot, everyone shooting at you around the world, stuff in the disc case (RTFM) including a good map, heist mentality, planning and executing your heist, cheating, moments of grace, fiero, triggering a stunt at the end of a mission, movie moment, side missions Brett tried, the cost of adding more on top of the simulation, other ways to scale the timing missions, making a big commitment to the story, likely low completion rate, wanting to care more about the characters and being pushed against the stereotypes, the high quality of the radio stations, adding flavor and life through radio, car damage model, running to the Pay and Spray, juking the police cars at high wanted level, punishing system countering the player's goals, inner turmoil, considering the game's impact, the freedom of this open world, loading times on PS2, opening up open world games and establishing the possibility of many franchises, committing to style, fantasy fulfillment of crime, media influences, realistic setting (as opposed to fantasy), pushing towards transgression, pushing the player into just getting things done and letting things go, expert frustration, running over pedestrians, running around the streets and bumping into people, dehumanizing pedestrians, Brett's favorite moment, the chaos engine, getting into the cartel area to go after the "oriental gentleman," switching into game development later, whether to get into QA, having useful skills, buying a developer lunch or a beer, company sizes, getting into game jams, what's punk rock (Brett has no idea), calling something virtue signaling and what that means, taking a risk in talking GTA, learning the map vs being directed, appeal of missions vs driving around shenanigans, player-directed vs designer-directed behavior, what people showed when they showed you the game, side content and achievements, how much simulation is too much simulation?, what brings people in, recognizing film-style realism, sports games looking like television broadcasts, inviting mechanics, the arcade driving model, forgiving damage model, listening to whatever radio station comes on, scratched disc and other reminiscences.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Gone with the Wind (obliquely), X-COM: UFO Defense, Final Fantasy IX, Deus Ex, Rockstar Games, Robert Loggia, seaofmorgan, djmurgatroyd, Kyle MacLachlin, Homo Ludens, Huizinga, Red Dead Redemption 2, PlayStation 2, Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Assassin's Creed (series), Spider-Man (2018), Halo, Metal Gear Solid, PacMan, The A-Team, Jesse Morgan, Dungeons & Dragons, Miles Truss, Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, MaasNeotekProto, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, Joe Carnahan, Mark Garcia, Shenmue, Harry Potter, Scarface, The Godfather, The Mechanic, Miami Vice, Christopher Wright, Don Winslow, Dan Simmons, Pokemon Red/Blue, GameCube.

Brett's Book Suggestions:
The Winter of Frankie Machine, by Don Winslow
Dan Simmons's "Joe Kurtz" trilogy: Hardcase/Hard Freeze/Hard as Nails

Links:
Global Game Jam

Next time:
Pokemon Red/Blue, up to Viridian City

Mea culpa:
"Fiero" appears to be a term popularized by Nicole Lazzaro, in the 4 Keys to Fun. We regret the error.

Dan Simmons's "Joe Kurtz" trilogy is actually set in Buffalo, NY, not Albany. We regret the error.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 140: GTA III (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion about Grand Theft Auto III. We talk a bit about mission structure, failure states, learning through failure, and a host of other things. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
About a dozen missions into Staunton

Podcast breakdown:
0:47    GTA III discussion
55:12  Break
55:45  Feedback

Issues covered: homophones, the intermediate position between cartridges and hard drive, saving when you're "done for the night," tension between mission design and world design, building up your arsenal, adding to your mission setup loop, memory cards and the hardship of working with them, choosing your save spots in an open world game, Vita Chambers vs save spots, the weakness of the PC port, "quality of life stuff," the assassination of Salvatore, learning through failure, escalation missions, individual mission stories, sniping on the PC, aim assist for consoles and stealing from a common place, learning the map, playing the radar game, eyes being drawn low for the radar but being unable to follow landmarks as a result, the cool moment of knowing a place, usability to support the story missions, putting yourself back in 2001, wishing you could program for the PS2 again, being frustrated by timers, using the systems and tools you have rather than building new stuff for every mission, getting janky because of having few tools, bending tools to your will, capture the flag mission from humble beginnings, Rube Goldberg machines, how far can you bend a system before it's no longer in line with what your game's about, timers don't support the chaos engine that the game is, punishment for being poor with the controls, finding your lanes and staying in them, maybe missions aren't really the point, the player type that pushes the boundaries, using achievements or trophies to push you in directions you might otherwise miss, the cars being much better on Staunton, being put off by the driving model, world systems fighting your driving, fingers deep in Cheetos, no one in the game fighting for anything, finding a character you can hold on to, the value of Aristotelian structure, putting different points of view around an issue, needing stakes and counterpoints, punk rock requires an opposing authority, punching down, wanting more meaning from your choices, examining what games should be trying to do, our super-fan, host-appropriate T-shirts.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Banjo-Kazooie, Rare Replay, Nintendo, PS2, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, Hitman (2016), The Terminator, Halo, Starfighter, PS3, Thief, Unreal, Republic Commando, Jedi Starfighter, John Drake, The Incredible Machine, Casey's Contraptions, Rube Goldberg, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dark Souls (series), Ninja Gaiden (series), GTA V Online, Crazy Taxi, Batman: Arkham (series), The Witcher 3, Mazirian the mag, Mikkel Lodahl, GTA San Andreas, Bojack Horseman, Waypoint, Austin Walker, Patrick Klepek, Danielle Riendeau, Rob Zacny, Natalie Watson, Baldur's Gate, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, Microsoft, XBOX, Bill Gates, Dreamworks Interactive, Far Cry 2, Clint Hocking, Aaron Evers, Dungeons and Dragons, Tomb of Horrors, Star Wars.

Links:
Seamus Blackley and Trespasser

Sorry, I could not find Clint Hocking's Trespasser talk... :(

Next time:
Finish the game!

https://twitch.tv/brettdouville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 139: GTA III (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our discussion about Grand Theft Auto III. We actually spend a little time talking about the counter-argument, that this game extends a middle finger to the moral scolds who wanted to cage video games, and then talk about specifics about its streaming, and talk about the dissonance between its systems and mission design, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through "Last Requests"

Podcast breakdown:
0:32   GTA III discussion
57:07 Break
57:41 Feedback & reviews

Issues covered: voice actors who don't quite work and those who do, rough combat, dreading combat, avoiding alternate and secondary missions, moral scolds and violent video games, critical and player response to a finger extended at the establishment, punk rock, rap in the 90s in Oakland and LA, skewering American culture, handling your satire around certain topics, madonna/whore divide and stripper/nun divide, treatment of women in games, being in the right place at the right time, freedom of speech issues in film (and games), systems vs skinning, positive benefits of skinning and negative, consequences for actions, forcing player behavior by being unable to continue otherwise, pushing the boundaries when there are numbers, seamless streaming, systemic support for the streaming, parallel mission structure, flight sims as streaming, streaming in with media storage much larger than the available RAM, streaming in topography for flight sims, doing quest lines with multiple characters at once, intertwining mission structure, parallelizing and TV's subplot nature, RPG influence with quest lines and side quests and optional quests, putting various skill challenges into missions, skill challenges in opposition to the chaos engine, failing due to flipping your car, freedom fighting the missions, chilling with an open world, being able to exploit systems, suffering for the art of the exploit, exposing options, janky grenade throwing, finding simulation limits to exploit, our occasional lapses in knowledge or research, the hooker/health/money method, making horrific behavior palatable, "protagonist doesn't mean hero," punching up and punching down, hearing more of the radio because you're better at the game, double standards and hypocrisy, treatment of minorities, narrative framing, representation matters, liking to play the good guy, what freedoms do you actually have, lack of consequence for death or mayhem, limits of failure, upping the ante on police response, lack of a strong female lead in Rockstar games, playing a game when there's nothing like it and how that impacts you and returning to it later and seeing its flaws, abandoning World War II games because of a personal connection, feeling weird about war games where the only way they touch me is through entertainment, licensing term, lifecycle of a music license, unionization aspects and agent culture with music licensing (inheriting from film), complication of rights even for scores, personal soundtracks, save systems and using engines, choosing the wrong engine for the game you're making, writing all your game code.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Michael Madsen, Frank Vincent, ESRB, Jack Thompson, Paducah, Columbine, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Mortal Kombat, Joe Lieberman, South Park, Bonnie and Clyde*, the New Hollywood, The People vs Larry Flynt, Hustler, Penthouse, Playboy, Woody Harrelson, Ed Norton, Milos Forman**, Oliver Stone, Thomas Was Alone, God of War, GTA Vice City and San Andreas, Super Mario 64, PlayStation 1, Spyro the Dragon (series), David Jones, Elite, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Derek Smart, BattleCruiser 3000AD, Star Citizen, The Sopranos, David Murgatroyd, Red Dead Redemption (series), Spider-Man 2, Jamie Fristrom, Joseph Krull, Fallout (series), Grant Goodine, Manhunt, Kevin James, Thief, Silent Hill 2, Hitman (series), Black & White, The Sims, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Call of Duty (series), Medal of Honor, Ethan Johnson, Dylan Cuthbert, Q Games, Pixeljunk Sidescroller, Xbox/Xbox 360, Underworld Ascendant, Mark Eldridge, Unity, Unreal, System Shock 2, idTech, CryEngine, Dishonored (series), Prey (2017), Tacoma, Lulu LaMer, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Tim Sweeney.

Next time:
12-15 missions into Staunton Island

Corrections:
*Bonnie and Clyde was released in 1967.
** Milos Forman did in fact pass away in April of 2018.

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 138: GTA III (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we are beginning a new series about Grand Theft Auto III. As always, we spend the first episode situating the title in its release time frame and talk a bit about the history of the studio and creators associated with it before turning to the game proper. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through "The Fuzz Ball"

Podcast breakdown:
0:37 GTA III discussion
58:48 Break
59:16 Feedback

Issues covered: perspectives from Lulu about production, games of 2001, bringing the mafia back into popular entertainment, grabbing the zeitgeist, how to deal with the anti-hero, commercial plays with the gritty follow-up, freshening up a franchise by going dark, not being sold on playing this game, mature with a capital M, still being under the shadow, starting and abandoning GTA IV and skipping GTA V altogether, DMA Design founders, programming-centric company, the top-down camera view, introduction of the Houser brothers, British gangster cinema, writing style and tone changes, film-style credit sequence, iconic characterization and key art, having a gritty New York of the 70s and 80s genre films, blaxploitation, the New Hollywood, leaning into character archetypes, impressive voice cast, using Hollywood-level talent, not needing to use them, unsung high-quality voice talent, cinematic representation of the credits, ambition vs genius, going big and not apologizing, putting the developers forward rather than the actors, making their own myth, a voiceless main character (Claude), voiceless being better in first-person, empty vessel to fill, limited representation, defining characters more as time goes on, the risk of changing the character out from under the player, undirected game, tension between genre and character and story, playing a low-level thug in The Godfather, playing your own sort of character, do players care about the tension, do you have to like the character, the chaos engine and the strong cinematic style, player exploration of the possibility space, separating the chaos and the nihilistic stories, dehumanizing women, punching every which way vs punching down, Brett messes up his punching directions, creative decisions, choosing the ones you put in and don't, presenting a boundary that is itself commentary, choices players can't make due to lack of systems, prostitution in multiple media, the crassest flattest two-dimensional representation of sex work, being a target in the industry, disposable human beings, hope for humanity, craftmanship and talent and lack of responsibility, representing themselves, pushing the player to a nihilistic viewpoint, pushing the player to psychopathic driving, spawning cars to gum up the works, diametrically opposing success and responsible citizenship, not overcrediting them with thinking it through, tongue-in-cheek or not, what if it were visually amazing but everything else was the same, how you get the talent, Brett and Tim the ASMR guys, first-person camera, console-centric development, head bobbing, couch vs monitor, motion sickness and movement and FOV, more complicated than you think, stick movement and aim assist, what's the walkin' around like, frame-dependency, noticing something and being able to describe it, reticle, GTA III memories, returning to GTA III, corrupting the youth, killing jaywalking pedestrians, unexamined biases, kitsch, the first draft and tropes, editing a story due to current events.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Lulu LaMer, Thief, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, System Shock 2, Ico, Silent Hill 2, Anachronox, PlayStation 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, SSX Tricky, GameCube, Super Smash Bros, Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, Max Payne, Black & White, Diablo 2, Xbox, Halo, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Rare, Jak & Daxter, Game Boy Advance, Castlevania, Oni, Bungie, The Sopranos, Scorcese, Coppola, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Prince of Persia, Jedi Starfighter, Republic Commando, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V, Rockstar North/DMA Design, Acme Software, David Jones, Russell Kay, Steve Hammond, Mike Dailly, Crackdown, Lemmings, Take Two, PS1 Classic, Reagent Games, Cloudgine, Epic, the Houser brothers, The Krays, Bob Hoskins, Ian McQue, GTA: Vice City, Robert Loggia, Frank Vincent, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Rapaport, True Romance, Debi Mazar, Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Nolan North, Leslie Benzies, The Godfather: The Game, GTA Online, Eve Online, South Park, Klute, Jane Fonda, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Jean-Paul Sartre, Dungeon Keeper, Jigsaw/Saw, Michael Madsen, Lars from Hamburg, Hitman, Giant Beastcast, Tacoma, Steve Gaynor, The Stanley Parable, Nels Anderson, The Witness, David "Heavens To" Murgatroyd, Fallout, Ray Liotta, Brian Moriarty.

Next time:
Through "Last Requests"


@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 137: Interview with Lulu LaMer

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we in this episode we are lucky enough to enjoy an interview with Lulu LaMer, who started out her career at Looking Glass as QA on Thief, and went on to be a producer, including on some of the Tomb Raider games at Crystal Dynamics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:00:39 Interview
1:10:24 Break
1:10:48 Next time

Issues covered: a quick list of the uses of a degree in French, quitting your job and bleaching your hair and tossing your business casual, early introduction to games, getting away from games and coming back, QA as an engineering discipline and player advocacy, buying into the development philosophy, becoming QA, level designer differences and tester differences, pairing designers and testers, moving to full play-throughs with specific builds, being a sympathetic tester/regulatory capture, naming a play style for forum users, too much intimacy with forum users, influencing the game's economy, the benefits of Looking Glass on a résumé, the help of data-driven design, inheritance and object model, a lot of territory to cover, trying to get outside the level, Randy's voice acting, ignoring a player who's being a dick, transitioning to associate producer, lack of communication at LG, going on press tour, having unsympathetic press, going to the pub, having a company abruptly close, the role of a producer, having a core of people to work on Thief: Deadly Shadows, taking an engine and trying to make it work for their sort of game, using Unreal to make levels, lacking shared understandings, needing to create a culture, lacking direction and mentorship, the abstraction of being a producer, avoiding micromanagement, quitting to become a midwife, "you don't deliver the baby, the mom delivers the baby!", coming back into the fold better prepared for the job, feeling you had been terrible at the job, the last game she played as a Tomb Raider, the sense of being in a place, additive vs subtractive rendering and tools, moving from a story game to a more systemic game, having trouble communicating the ideas, Uncharted taking a big leap forward, distilling down Tomb Raider's essence, remaking vs remastering, preferring the updated levels, a schedule all of out of whack, playing through the levels and streamlining, distillation of memory and emotion, building to alpha and then moving to agile, triage, ranking what needs to be fixed, compromise and choices, ending pressure, guidance for players, Daydream the "product area," augmented reality project, Immersive Arts, augmented reality, spaces and games and reading and space.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Looking Glass Studios, Thief (series), System Shock 2, Flight Unlimited, ION Storm, Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, 2K Games, Spec Ops: The Line, Borderlands, Bioshock: Infinite, Borderlands 2, Funomena, Robin Hunicke, Daydream Studios, Google, Randy Smith, Pong, Vic 20, NES, Bethesda Studios, Dorian Hart, LucasArts, Greg LoPiccolo, Marc (Mahk) LeBlanc, Harmonix, PC Gamer, Kieron Gillen, Eidos, Telltale Games, Jon Chey, Irrational Australia, Warren Spector, Emil Pagliarulo, Terri Brosius, Doug Church, Freedom Force, Chris Carollo, Tom Leonard, Deus Ex, Unreal, Tim Sweeney, Epic, Game Developer's Conference, Tomb Raider, Soul Reaver, Uncharted, Richard LeMarchand, Naughty Dog, Jason Botta, Ratchet and Clank, Project Snowblind, Nate Wells, Nate Schaumberg, Kyle Mannerberg, Google Pixel, Playground, Iron Man, Kindle, GTA III, GTA Vice City, Resident Evil VII, Thief (2014).

Next time:
GTA III, the first several missions

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com