Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Dead Rising. Brett finally slays a killer clown a decade after his first failure, and we talk more about weapons, location, and "the run." Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: More hours! Issues covered: defeating killer clown, saving all the survivors, capturing Kent's photo, additional player agency, changing tactics over time, picking up the jewelry store mother, systems coming together, having no way to communicate trajectory, "simple" tweaks to a formula, learning Adam's patterns, throwing cash registers, getting battle axes to take out Adam but not losing the tourists, controller and gun, Carlito's guns, a distillation of the game, getting quick transit between, learning the survivor loops, the big effects of stat changes, survivor uniqueness, personifying mechanics or measures, "the truth has vanished into darkness," story threading into open wor

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2006's Dead Rising, a Capcom game. We talk about the evolving intro, strategies for play, saving those left behind, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: the evolving intro, grinding, the man with the paint can, mastering the level, misreading the map, varying weapon types, the evolving introduction, "I have to restart the game because I want my hair back," bucking the trend of zombie games, a gradually more porous map, keys that are keys, building up the run, skill and level checking the player, finicky quest logic, keys that aren't keys, putting timers on quests, randomly spawning zombies, needing to fail for the game to work, losing survivors, the fantasy fulfillment of the zombie, NPCs unable to traverse like Frank, the game fighting me on pathing, the story going places, being one-shot by a clown, w

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on 2006's Dead Rising, from Capcom. We situate the game a bit in its time and with Capcom and this generation of hardware before turning to the structure and feel of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few hours Issues covered: the early 360 era, throwing lots of enemies on the screen, console wars, an entry into console for PC developers, achievements and GamerScore, coming into a time-limited game, the deluxe remaster, carrying over Prestige Points, limited time quests, production benefits, a controversial structure, pushing your luck, going to the mall, horde management, Tim shows he actually knows more about football than claimed, camp, inventory management, learning the space, the feeling of losing a person right at the end, saving people, Onigokko!, Artimage's charity. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Xbox, Gears of W

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Fatal Frame. We talk about a couple of rough things about the game, some things we loved, 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: Into Night 3 (Brett), End of Night 2 (Tim) Issues covered: ritual - oof, haunted house effects, effective randomness, character reactions, a consistent atmosphere, excellent cinematic control, mask themes and usage, integration of masks into multiple avenues of design, audio and music design, Foley work for footsteps, level reuse and recontextualization, increasing house connectivity, motivating the space, feeling empowered by learning, replanning routes, map visual language, lack of signaling about difficulty, four difficult ghosts, the possibility for grinding, unlocking nightmare mode, extending the life of survival horror games, power ups for the camera, combat is still combat, a high skill fl

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2001's Fatal Frame. We talk about retreading, camera upgrade strategies, how ghosts move and how that impacts level design, and various other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: the strangling places, replaying the beginning of the game, knowing where to go or not, variety of uses for talismans, blocked off paths, pieces and doors and showing locks before you can find the keys, intentional design with controls, creating tension with controller choices, series evolutions, having less fun, feeling frustrating, not unifying movement around one stick, zombies vs ghosts, building levels around your enemies, the outdoor areas and fear, forests and atavistic fears, things not being fully representational and adding layers of fear, the Abyss, lots of lenses to view the same events, the meta of visiting this haunted plac

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2001's Fatal Frame. We talk about the economy of the design, some sticky puzzles and usability thoughts, and mechanical considerations. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: economy and discipline, the warbling space that signifies a ghost, a possible positive reinforcement loop and the score economy, making every ghost matter, high stakes camera use, unsettling your comfort, the disorienting movement and camera shifts popping out of combat, melodramatic and zany, the different movie eras these series connect to, the Mothman, Japanese making Western horrors, Buddhism vs Shintoism, playing croquet with the Old Ones, brute forcing a puzzle, "well there's a note," head-look, wanting a little more from the map, usability issues, the gap in the wall, mechanical inconsistency, seeing patterns that aren't there, the adventure ga

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin our annual spooky series, this time on 2001's Fatal Frame. We briefly talk about the year it came out, its developer/publisher, and why we picked it before turning to other introductory topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: An hour-ish Issues covered: Discord-only going forward, why this game?, photo mode games, changing culture of photography, re-elevating photography, Sony shenanigans, best years of all time, the ubergame, years where genres were introduced or forks were in the road, being able to fit more games in, risk aversion and uniqueness, indie games, too big to feel?, a bit about Tecmo, Japanese horror, based on a true story?, the cover and the possible origins of the game, the correlations screen, connecting up details, following the ghosts, pushing characters in the directions of the horror, using ghosts in interesting ways, pixel hunting with the cha

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Heroes of Might and Magic. We confess that we should have learned more about this game before we tried it, and then turn to takeaways and email. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played:  Some... more? Issues covered: games we've fallen down on, the commitment, why we don't play certain genres, falling short, the possibility of finding guest hosts, game selection moving forward, having a tech tree in the manual but things we missed, board games and picking up strategy, hot seat multiplayer, modernizing the series, the limits of the audience, adding narrative, the heroes off the battlefield, June alert, whether you should do something, thinking about the computer audience, clarity and taste, how you present the information to the player in the manual, ramping up the campaign, "board games can be fun," creating your own space, learning design from board games,

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on Heroes of Might and Magic. We talk about the boardgame of it all and where the vibes are with this one, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Some standard, some campaign Issues covered: hearing the journey and thoughts of our listeners, deep regrets about Megaman, games that scare us, learning the patterns, hearing about the Final Fantasy thoughts, learning about FF15 at two different publishers, a game you can't pick up and play for an hour, seeking out a full game experience, dialing down the map challenge, a more dense map, lots of map options, seeing a new map, considering whether the maps are generated algorithmically, playing a little too disposably, how this game might be played, lack of boardgame clarity, extreme depth, depth of the tactical mode, opacity and complexity, the aesthetics of the time, dormant franchises vs active

Friends from the Discord discussing their recent parallel play of Final Fantasy XV! We return to Heroes of Might and Magic next week. Next time: Another Discord Game Club Twitch: timlongojr Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com

Friends from the Discord provide some audio from back in December, and we've been dropping it in here from time to time when our schedules get tight. (Tim is traveling this week and next and time is short!) We'll return to Heroes of Might and Magic in two weeks. Next time: Another Discord Game Club Twitch: timlongojr Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on Heroes of Might and Magic. We set the game a little in its time, talk about the way the game creates a divergent path from other tactical turn-based combat games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Some tutorial, some standard, some campaign Issues covered: the multiverse/divergent evolution, a game that wasn't copied, long games, setting the game in its time, moving more to real-time combat, finite audiences, action became important for larger audiences, the experimentation in the space, the unexpected battle map, an automated complicated board game, tabletop wargaming, wondering how you get from the main series to this, SSI's path, playing the tutorial, the early game, resources and time and other elements, the city view, generating armies and garrisoning, other things that buildings provide, the hero doesn't fight, choosing your heroes and what unit

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we revisit our series on Trespasser: The Lost World with an interview with Tony Rowe, who did QA on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 00:49   Interview 1:13:20 Break 1:13:55 Outro Issues covered: time to take out the prehistoric trash, getting in, doubling up the QA team, the clay model of an island, having to rebuild the island, cutting a more open level, the empty plantation house, Microsoft Hiking Simulator, the bowling shirt, how long games took at the time, rising expectations, developing a software renderer, length of time and risk, entirely procedurally driving the critters, using a hill to escape a dinosaur, everything being a box, exploding physics boxes, choosing procedural animation, saying yes to too many things, a richer first person experience, locking the arm, emergent gameplay, a different context, building a separate demo level, overtime/double t

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we revisit our series on rotoscoping with a fun chat with Jordan Mechner, of Karateka, Prince of Persia, and The Last Express fame. We also talk about his new graphic memoir: Replay, Memoir of an Uprooted Family. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 00:50   Interview 1:01:50 Break 1:02:03 Outro Issues covered: his history, train trips, caricatures and making stuff, not living up to the greats, improvising into his games, animation not holding up, filming his mother's karate teacher, his father, and his brother, handcrafting for rotoscoping, taking silent film classes, cross-cutting and wipes, the moment it came to live, the power of abstraction vs the uncanny valley, the impact on what we wanted for animation, caricature and capturing someone, finding the essence of a person, specialization and stepping into direction, drawing ten real people and getting into the graphic memoi

Taking another tricky scheduling week as an opportunity to run this second interview by BioStats and CalamityNolan, this time of KyleAndError13. See you next week. Next time: An interview, we hope! Twitch: timlongojr, Twitter/Threads/Insta: @devgameclub Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on 2000's The Sims. We give some anecdotes, Tim builds his own from the ground up, and of course, we turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: losing the alien, making the middle-of-the-road character, pecs and glutes, not being able to hire, having to have someone work on the house full time, the light bulbs need replacement, building a house from scratch, a one-room apartment, getting to know your Sim by them walking around, the dread setting in, finding a daily schedule, the newspaper, managing one of the Sims, the chaos of several Sims, figuring out the daily morning routine, getting repeatedly burgled, fighting for detente, finding perfect synchrony, a lonely Sim existence, proactive socialization and obligations, preferring the remove of fantasy or science fiction, how you feel about this game at dif

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on The Sims. We talk about a dark spiral, read some poetry, the problem of having enough time, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: alien life, Windows snippet tool vs print screen, not saving, random seeds, introducing a chaos event, theorizing about end games for careers, Tim's persistent chip bag, forums and forever games, games you can play daily, free-to-play mobile games, appointment-based gaming, min/maxing psychology, selling the kids' doll house for food, Dianne being negative, "I'm too depressed to even look at myself," lack of weekends, two Sims having a day off, a podcast first, multiple burners, having to closely manage Bob's fun, the Sims for therapy, externalizing developer feelings of 21st century life, using the room meter to understand what needs to be done, the ultimate plate-spinning ga

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2000's The Sims. We spend a little time on the gender normativity of the title, sprinkle in some stories about our various households, and also fit in some reader mail! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours! Issues covered: satire and farce, Timmy's toilet troubles, Betty's rapid rise in scientific circles, sexual orientation and the Sims, dark times for Bob, Jeff in the military, whether the game is conforming to gender biases all the time or not, Diane and politics, how Betty got her job, thinking about design decisions around careers, the value systems that the game systems express, working with smaller spaces and the difficulties for game development, the American Dream qua Nightmare, being in the 1950s and the music, "None of my good points are inadvertent," opacity of systems in other simulations vs this game's clarity, a toy vs a

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series on 2000's The Sims. We first set the game in its time, and then turn almost immediately to what happened with our Sims. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A couple of hours Issues covered: spiders and ant farms, last few episodes, our interview with Michel Ancel, games from 2000, all-time sales by brand, an expansion-pack driven business model, games that don't end, a precedent, building up to simulating people, our memories, jumping in without the manual, following the tutorial, talking about Bob and Betty Newbie, a little shade on the console version, what you learn in the tutorial, getting a job, roleplaying the newbies, being visited by the Goths, an interview with John Romero, another visit from the Goths, Tim diving into level design, making messes, options for reading, promoting experimentation, people eating all over the place, Bob and Betty divid

Friends from the Discord provide some audio from back in December -- sorry to get to it so late, I admit I forgot. No show notes as I'm just back from vacation and settling in. See you next week. Next time: New series! Twitch: timlongojr, Twitter/Threads/Insta: @devgameclub Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com