Dev Game Club

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 [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we in this episode we are lucky enough to enjoy an interview with Greg LoPiccolo, project lead on Thief, and Randy Smith, who was a level designer on the title. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:40 Interview 1:00:08 Break 1:00:50 Feedback Issues covered: World Series, how Randy got his start, psychology and programming as substrate for game design, "Suck it down" and toxic masculinity, cold-calling, the attraction of LG games, how Greg got in, the origins of Thief, competition, seeking limited but rich interaction, being weak, controlling the world from observation, AI with sense perceptions, the success of Thief, working counter to the prevailing winds, writing documentation to think about the space, commodities of space: loud/quiet and light/dark, tools support or lack thereof for those spaces, carving shapes, spaces that are hard to read, the level Escape, experimentation to find how to make a level, inventing sound propagation, dynamic lights impacting game play, player reading the lighting of a space, optimization, pulling back on combat in Thief II, "winging it and doing our best to survive," having nothing until you had everything, "like digging the Chunnel," polygon limitations, how do you build a cathedral with that?, the Emil vs Randy systems of building, designers having to be artists at the same time, putting the systems first, systemically reading space rather than tagging it, leading the team without having the tech yet, directing the narrative, writing lots of narrative to provide background and use it sparingly, people making their own stories, high quality voice acting, the bear pits, dialog as part of the game play loop, witty characters poking through, having to learn how to build a GANTT chart, repossessing the plants, the role of a leader, deep backstory, starting from a 1-4 page document, making up cool ideas and running with them, not being aware you couldn't do a thing, the trend of risk aversion in the industry, the indie spirit, an attempt to be more commercial, object hierarchy of inheritance, being in a submarine in the cold war, debugging console, the fundamental trick of game design: player brain and designer brain, starting testing much earlier, empathy as a design skill, overcoming doubt when innovating, saying yes to everything -> saying no to everything -> it's hard but we can do it, what the guests are doing next, having taste in game design and finding that audience, feeling like a musician vs being a musician, a touching father/daughter story. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Looking Glass Studios, Thief (series), ION Storm, Electronic Arts, Steven Spielberg, Edge Magazine, Tiger Style, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon, Sega Genesis, Bimini Run, Nuvision Entertainment, System Shock, Flight Unlimited, Harmonix, Frequency, Rock Band VR, Tribe, Waking Mars, Nate Blaisdell, MYST, Tim Schafer, Eric Brosius, Rex Bradford, Activision, Tim Ries, Doug Church, Dan Schmidt, Ned Lerner, Terra Nova, Terri Brosius, 2001: A Space Odyssey (obliquely), DOOM (1993), Paul Neurath, Metal Gear Solid, Ultima Underworld, id Software, Tim Stellmach, DromEd, Unreal, Emil Pagliarulo, Bethesda Game Studios, Marc LeBlanc, Stephen Russell, Ken Levine, Tom Leonard, Red Dead Redemption 2, Game Developer's Conference, Kevin Brown, Halo: Combat Evolved, Far Cry 5, Andrew Kirmse, Star Wars: Starfighter. Next time: Another interview! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we in this episode we conclude our discussion of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project. We talk a bit about equipment and gadgets, the story and enemy shifts that happen late in the game, the commitment maybe to story over what was working, and as always, our takeaways from the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through the end! Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Segment 1: Thief discussion 54:53 Break 55:20 Segment 2: Thief takeaways, Brett's Book Minute, and Feedback Issues covered: good ending dialog, using the whole toolkit, kiting enemies to a trap, firing off gadgets immediately on acquisition, gas and fire arrows, having trouble on Escape, leaning away from the core fantasy, being a little too story-forward, other directions that might have worked, an easier last level, having to experiment to take down enemies, making good extensions to the enemy mix vs bad, finding an in-game way to give you information about your tools, the Hammerite mythology and technological disruption, conflicts between technology and nature, Hammerites and the Brotherhood of Steel, the texts before the cutscenes, setting tone, using first-person tools for storytelling, not being able to rely on lore, usability and testing, being a developer and being too good at your game, enjoying little loops of locations and story, missing subobjectives and having to go back, kicking the hornet's nest and having to go back, moving the goalposts too many times, the frustrating Escape level, returning to the Hammerite cathedral and having it changed, one-way gating your way through the final level (vs stealth), changing the tone of the game, how do you end a game?, going to an otherworldly place, Garrett talking to himself, listening to the Trickster do his summoning, heist/switching the idol, committing to the thief fantasy, technology as a feature, writing their own engine, focusing on simulation and systems in first-person, rope arrows and surface types, designing ancillary systems to support your core experience, consequential map, lockpicking vs a minigame, inventory and the store, horror beats, Garrett as a character, Brett's Book Minute, a correction, quiet and loneliness in Tomb Raider, loner vs loneliness, the golden age of the immersive sim, the genre as a success or not, expense of making AAA, level designers' ability to make whole levels, immersive sims at the indie level and procedural elements, flesh levels. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Looking Glass Studios, Everquest, Edge of Tomorrow, Fallout, Monty Python, The Princess Bride, Gone Home, Dear Esther, D&D, JRR Tolkien, System Shock 2, Indiana Jones/Raiders of the Lost Ark, Baldur's Gate, ION Storm, Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex, Thief (2014), Tomb Raider, Tony Cliff, Delilah Dirk (series character), Timothy Hallinan, Junior Bender (series character), Ethan Johnson, Greg LoPiccolo, Vijay Lakshman, Elder Scrolls, Alex Rigopulos, Eran Egozy, Tim Dore, Half-Life, Dan Hunter, Dishonored, Prey, TIE Fighter, Daron Stinnett, Bethesda Game Studios, Zenimax, Arkane Studios, Kotaku, Neon Struct, We Happy Few, The2ndQuest, Contra, Aliens, Predator, Abadox, Alien Syndrome, Halo, Eric Bartoszak, Jill Murray. Next time: Next time we expect an interview! Keep your eyes peeled. Links: Fansy the Famous Bard (CW: homophobia, probably other chat grotesqueries, MMO chat can be ugly) Brett's Twitch Channel Stealth Docs YT Channel (recommended by a listener) Podcast with Looking Glass folks @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of series discussing 1998's Thief: The Dark Project. We talk about map trade-offs, enemy diversity and choices, the levels we played, music and objectives, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to Undercover Issues covered: "disco is my life," longer Thief: Gold levels, DLC before DLC existed, technical issues and level design, experimenting with what direction to take next, being unable to connect the dots, making assumptions about what the sim is saying, satisfying objectives unsatisfactorily, feeling like you'll be able to pick up the collectibles later, making the optional mandatory, intrinsic reward of economy and core fantasy, scaling difficulty being different in modern designs, unnecessary tension, changing up strategies due to the mission preparation screen, identity and tone in the music and audio design, impact of horror film genre on soundtrack choices, NPC dialog, cinematics as reward vs dialog, reward for slow player pace, variety of player choice encouraging stealth in NOLF, using dialog and timing to locate enemies and get into position, NPC dialog as a timer, having all the enemy types in The Lost City, the variety of enemy types, using water arrows on fireballs, crossing a valuable resource over, motivation of enemy designs, reuse of animation and models, technical limitations, character realism vs other games, co-op in SS2, choices in the map, map as opportunity for strategy, an inaccurate map, maintaining the fantasy with the map, map as puzzle, needing to use the compass to get your bearings, the many approaches of the map, flexibility in the uses of the map, seeing the lineage to Dishonored, finding maps as you play, map in an exploration game vs a target game, playing to your game's needs, map as a microcosm of design choices, getting an opportunity to be in disguise, the Eye talking to you, bleeding the natural through the mechanical thematically, MIT Gambit lab podcasts. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Earth, Wind, and Fire, Eric Brosius, Red Dead Redemption, Kirk Hamilton, GB Buford, Jaws, Frictional Games, Amnesia, SOMA, The Chinese Room, No One Lives Forever, Cthulhu, System Shock 2, Soul Reaver, Tomb Raider, Quake, Hitman, Unreal, Doom, Far Cry 2, Miasmata, Firewatch, Prey, Dishonored, Tim Dore, Dan Hunter. Links: Kotaku on the RDR soundscape Podcast with Looking Glass folks Next time: Finish the game! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we look back to Shadows of the Tomb Raider for a special bonus episode featuring Lead Writer Jill Murray. We talk about how the writing gets done -- spoilers, there's a lot more planning than writing -- as well as all sorts of topics that grow from that. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: lacking access to technology, Jill's early career in visual arts/music/theater, staging a big musical, web development and a mismatch of needs, being non-distracted by the Internet, realizing that someone is writing these things, getting in, having to generate a lot of AC in a short time, the roles of writers, the meaning of a lead writer, leading a team vs being a principal writer, focusing on character and voice, writers holding multiple roles, writers working alongside one another vs a writers room, working with designers vs writers, splitting content responsibilities up, sharing a few systems, accommodating multiple styles, the team still tells the story, the impact of the team on the storytelling, choice of verbs impacting possible stories, lack of authorial control, having no sense of the size of a team, out-sourced studios enlarging the team, pros and cons of working with big teams, working with actors, the luxury of performance capture, security of the company being your security, production and collaboration style driving lifestyle, combative styles, smaller games less reliable, working out collaboration afresh, broader responsibilities, figuring out how everything fits to drive the actual sitting down and writing, lots of meetings, working on animatics, prepping for performance capture, multiple revisions with critiques of up to a dozen people, planning to prepare due to cost, attending performance capture shoots, going over the scripts again and again, having a full crew to move equipment/manage cameras/aid talent/feed everyone/set up mocap, observing as a writer, talking with the performance director to avoid getting in the way of the actor/director relationship, read-throughs, doing the cinematography afterwards, having a little more freedom with the character, reaching the end of this first journey, strength in vulnerability, leaning into awkwardness in a scene, being limited in what we're allowed to choose because it having to be badass, adding dimensionality to characters, expanding the medium into new audiences, audience not realizing what they want, community management and development, how game writing is like Gatorade, audience empathy, your responsibility to the player, provoking anger and fear, aftercare, thinking about how we care for a player after we've provoked strong, games as services, seeing yourself represented, being someone else, making games not just for ourselves, bringing other voices into the room, reaching the status of a Lara Croft, dating in a seniors residence, the Star Trek holodeck. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: UbiSoft, Assassin's Creed (series), Writer's Guild of America, Kitfox Games, Moon Hunters, Minority Media, Time Machine VR, Lawbreakers, Tomb Raider, Montreal Fringe Festival, Minesweeper, Xbox, Mass Effect (series), Ann Lemay, WB Games, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012, Richard Farrese, Republic Commando, Jedi Starfighter, Bethesda Game Studios, Darby McDevitt, Eidos, Camilla Luddington, Gray's Anatomy, Virginie Costa, David Hubert, Crystal Dynamics, Gatorade, Kotaku, Skyrim, Kirk Hamilton, Evan Narcisse, James Bond, Batman, Bloom Digital, Later Gators, DreamDaddy, Golden Girls, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Boyfriend Dungeon, Meagan Marie, Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play, Chinese Independent Game Developers Association Conference. Next time: Next time we return to Thief: The Dark Project, through "Undercover" Links: You can find Jill on Twitter at @disco_jill and via her company website, https://discoglo.be. @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our series about 1998's Thief; we talk about the story development of the world, some small mechanical bits, and then dig into the level design of the four levels we played. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through "The Sword" Issues covered: getting shot with an arrow, starting with the day in the life of a thief, establishing a baseline of a life, introducing the Hammerites and other groups, verses from religious texts, things are getting weird, weaving in "The Dark Project," upsetting the balance, the trope of stumbling into something larger, significance of what you're stealing, interludes vs cutscenes, preferring the mundane to the strange in this game, player expectations of story, surprising the audience, industrial/steampunk setting mixing with magic, wanting more from the city, leaning into weird backstory but drifting away, not needing the bizarre framing devices, constructing your story level to level, individual contributions driving story, extending the core fantasy with new mechanics, knucklehead stealth, sword swinging mechanics, complexity of collisions, the efficiency of the blackjack, adding traps and lock picks, slow projectiles, being able to see the mechanisms behind the traps, methodical trap avoidance, player skill in reading the environment, committing to first-person in lock-picking, triggering character skill, adding a lock-picking mini-game to the franchise, being a predator in other games, claustrophobia in narrow corridors, hacking a zombie to bits, the mournful music of the horn, building Garrett's character and placing him in the world, surprise switch objective, a level that is too long, not having the texture budget to support the level design, being lost, picking up things and having them in your inventory, doing stuff in the wrong order, banging up against the banners, being a second story guy, rope arrow mechanics, a weird space, relying on physics engines, level as character building, weird promotions, flipping the script and driving you away. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, Tomb Raider, System Shock 2, The Usual Suspects, Memento, Hitman (series), Assassin's Creed, Dario Casali, Half-Life, Dark Forces, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Hal Barwood, Die By The Sword, Ultima Underworld, Leon: The Professional, Ken Levine, Dark Souls, Pipe Dreams, Kent Hudson, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex, Stephen King, Creepshow, Swamp Thing, Cthulhu, HP Lovecraft, Gothic Chocobo, Fallout 3, Bulletstorm, People Can Fly, EA Partners, Turok, Dante's Inferno, Brutal Legend, Jack Black, The Way, Grand Theft Auto IV. Next time: Through "Undercover" Links: Assassin's Creed's Functional Story @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we now begin our series about 1998's Thief; as usual, we start by setting the game in its time before diving into a few of its systems and technology requirements. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Cragscleft Prison Podcast breakdown: 0:41 Thief 53:13 Break 53:45 Feedback Issues covered: reflecting on 1998, first-person shooter games of the time, having different first-person goals, differing pacing, original design goals, high enemy lethality and comparative weakness of the protagonist, methodical style of play, punishing the player for an action approach, getting sucked into the demo, niche and sales, sticking to a core fantasy vs going to a more action-oriented design, an aesthetic that spreads to other places, going in a different direction with tone, establishing a different fantasy setting, painterly cutscenes, functional lore, quality of the voice acting, the light meter, audio surface changes, lack of direct information about the AI, technology considerations, dynamic lighting, dynamic and attenuated audio, not cheating for the AI, setting an expectation for future games in the genre (particularly with shooting out lights), doing a job at Lord Bafford's Manor, setting the stage for the game, introducing the mission, having alternate routes, picking pockets, level and experiential density, clear level direction (moving up), dynamic goals, turning off transparency and ledges, following the dotted line or not, movement weight, making trade-offs of immediacy vs groundedness, weapon roles, progression and weapon roles working against one another, extending character through weapon choices, making more interesting choices from your systems (including weapons). Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Starcraft, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Unreal, Rainbox Six, Final Fantasy Tactics, Resident Evil 2, Tomb Raider 3, Rogue Squadron, Grim Fandango, Half-Life, Baldur's Gate, Spyro the Dragon, Battlezone, Descent: Freespace, Star Wars: Starfighter, Kotaku Splitscreen, Half-Life 2, Fallout 2, Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, Quake, Epic Games, id Software, Duke Nukem, Heretic, Eidos Interactive, Die by the Sword, Treyarch, Trespasser, Daron Stinnett, System Shock 2, Looking Glass, Hitman, Splinter Cell, Dishonored, Ultima Underworld, Origin, Flight Unlimited, System Shock, Terra Nova, Strike Force Alpha Centauri, Ken Levine, Doug Church, Harvey Smith, Randy Smith, Mark LeBlanc, Warren Spector, Paul Neurath, Underworld Ascendant, Emil Pagliarulo, Lulu LaMer, Crystal Dynamics, Tim Stellmach, Terry and Eric Brosius, Greg LoPiccolo, Stephen Russell, Arx Fatalis, Arkane Studios, Raf Colantonio, Gothic Chocobo, Mark Brown, Morrowind, Skyrim, The Witcher 3, Batman, Dead Space, Rômulo Santos, Monster Hunter (series), Andrew from Cincinnati, Deus Ex, Doom, Halo, Uncharted, Star Wars: Republic Commando. Next time: Through The Sword Links: Is the reboot of Lara Croft more feminist? 10 things (women were doing in Video games in the) 1990's (2:45-4:28) Why Nathan Drake doesn't need a compass. Following the little dotted line @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Hello, and welcome to a special bonus episode of Dev Game Club, where we talk about the most recent Tomb Raider release, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, talking a little bit about where the reboots came from and the thinking that went into them as well as some of the structural differences between the two. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Some of the first few hours Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Shadow of the Tomb Raider 42:18 Break 42:50 Feedback Issues covered: considering the original reboot, discussing the Crystal Dynamics era generally, updating for the modern era, avoiding predictability, exploring character rather than superheroics, reconsidering the world structure, adding side activities for the player, tonal shift, survival action rather than survival horror, not seeing how the character will turn into the original Lara Croft, voice acting, changing set pieces, paying off on minimal player interaction with bigger set pieces, the flood sequence, having moments in the original and the reboot where you're hunting around for what to do, the resourceful explorer, solitude, marrying modern sensibilities and expectations to older game feelings, connectivity constraining globe-trotting, choosing the difficulty, not missing the telegraphing/mark-up, considering how the puzzles might be different, re-using combat AI to create play opportunities, finding repeatable systemic features that enrich a space, leveraging mechanics that you don't need to teach the player, relishing modern design, starkness of the difference between them, Sega Saturn technical concerns, soundtrack differences, resolution differences, lock and key dependencies, the condensing of the original in the remake, a bit about Kingdom Hearts, some insight on the philosophy of TR: Anniversary, capturing the flavor of the original, gruesome deaths, taking ourselves less seriously, real-time raytracing, the uncanny valley, making things more expensive, letting go, whether you even notice, slow adoption by developers, enjoying the smoke and mirrors and the demands of limitations, the run-on costs of even a simple addition, mixing settings and increasing the uncanny valley. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, Noah Hughes, Soul Reaver, CORE Design, Jason Botta, Brandon Fernandez, Toby Gard, Darryl Gallagher, Uncharted (series), Skyrim, The Descent, Indiana Jones, Metal Gear Solid 4, Assassin's Creed, DF Retro, Edwin Crump, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, (Allison By Proxy -- sorry to forget your name), irreverentQ, Game Maker's Toolkit, Super Metroid, Dagur Danielsson, Kingdom Hearts, Half-Life, Ratchet & Clank, Doug Church, Valve, William Rance, Conan O'Brien, Chris Tiemeßen, Xbox/Xbox 360, Republic Commando, Tim Ramsay, Metal Gear Solid, Nintendo. Links: DF Retro on Tomb Raider Boss Keys on Super Metroid Brett on Kingdom Hearts Next time: Possibly Thief? Possibly an interview? Keep posted at @devgameclub. @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we celebrate the triumphant return of co-host Tim Longo with... a discussion of the rest of 1996's Tomb Raider. We once again discuss the levels themselves, but also discuss traps, puzzles, and the use of voice to characterize action adventure avatars in more recent games, before turning to takeaways and your questions and feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finishing the game (Egypt and Atlantis) Podcast breakdown: 0:40 Segment 1: Levels and other discussion 1:04:40 Break 1:05:12 Segment 2: Takeaways and feedback Issues covered: cumbersome controls, traversal-based exploration vs skill-based exploration, traps as playing against expectations in traversal, varying threats with traps, lower stress approach than combat, puzzles, block moving, levels as puzzles, evolving the puzzles and mechanics over multiple games, feature iteration over a series, voice acting in cutscenes vs in-game, preferring solitude, not having a plan for Lara the character, losing the ability to see yourself in the character, using cutscenes as reward, blurring the line between cinematic and game, using FMV instead, thinking of the first two Egypt levels as one level, interconnectedness of the Obelisk, seeing everything you need to do in one room, breaking their rules, climbing all around the side of the Sphinx room, navigation as puzzle, sense of scale, showing you the destination and making you figure out how to get there, water puzzles, contextualization, having your input read in in-engine cutscenes, doors that open and stay open, motivating your puzzles and switches, ancient stuff vs modern, building new mechanics late in the game, central pyramid room, ending in flesh, leaning into a problem, paying off on doing something denied you in a cutscene, leaning into exploration, naming your enemies and therefore making them more important, level as puzzle, strong character design, animation with weight and wind-up, the move set as puzzle, learning the move systems, white paint, branching paths, inescapable abstraction, give me guardrails to find the fun, balancing freedom against direction, MDA framework, interaction of the mechanics with the dynamics, abstraction in AI and physics and other systems, merging mechanics and narrative, VR as an interesting place for this, innovation moving to the mainstream, horror. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Indiana Jones, Resident Evil, Soul Reaver, Stephen's Sausage Roll, Monument Valley, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, Core Design, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Uncharted (series), God of War (2018), Jedi Knight, Westwood, Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Wing Commander, Half-Life, System Shock 2, Doom, Cthulhu, Metal Gear (series), Eidos Montreal, Starfighter (series), Republic Commando, Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex, Michael, LonelyBob K, Tim Dooley, Breath of the Wild, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, Zachary Crownover, Zimmy Finger, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Papers, Please, Limbo, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Inside, Cart Life, Memento, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Switchblade Sisters, Sera Gamble, April Wolfe, Being John Malkovich, Lost, The Magicians, Supernatural, Sharp Objects, Hereditary, American Horror Story, The Endless, Resolution, Thief. Links: Play Tomb Raider in a browser 31 Nights Streaming Screaming Next time: We look a bit at Shadow of the Tomb Raider! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

No show notes this week as we revisit our 2016 interview with guest Janos Flösser; you can find those notes on the website. However, Brett does take a moment to answer a reader email before the show and to talk about next week afterwards.

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have been playing 1996's Tomb Raider. We spend more time on the levels themselves as well as diving into the AI for human enemies, the sense of space and of pace, and having no idea what to do to find a key. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Egypt, in theory Podcast breakdown: 0:41 Tomb Raider 1:00:17 Break 1:00:47 Feedback Issues covered: plumbing, level and puzzle size, nonsensical space and St Francis's Folly, suspending disbelief, squinting and seeing the modern version of a puzzle, erosion of geometry, integrating player knowledge to game knowledge, preparing the player for challenges, knowing your mythology, knowing less mythology in Egypt, having preconceived notions due to myths, climbing down and up the tower, complications and confusions, situational awareness of levels, consistent themes across whole levels, motivating animals, scouring the space, level scale, emphasizing the sense of being underground with clip distance and fog, trusting the player to understand the space, hardware fogging lending to mystery, jumping on the hand of Midas, gruesome deaths and a protective instinct, ratcheting up tension psychologically, justifying playing a female character, the patriarchy, more realistic deaths being more problematic, cartoon plumbers, not relating to characters, hinting at what you're supposed to do, missing areas and not being directed well, industry learning how to naturally direct a player, cutscenes to show what happens, composition replacing cutaways and tracking cameras, order of operations puzzles, coming out at a place you've seen before, tantalizing glimpses of where you might get next, non-linearity vs linearity in levels, lower friction in level/dungeon design, Tim reveals a favorite level of all time, mind-blowing ability to change the level of the water, getting stuck on the shimmy, missing a key and being terrified, matching player motivations to puzzle logic, a realistic functioning space, a thrown switch only needs to be thrown once, making it clear why you should raise and lower a switch, spending a long time in a level, imagining leaving the Cistern for a week, avoiding usability problems by making solutions irreversible, disconnected levels, bursting centaurs, avoiding an unnecessary fight, bringing in the supernatural and Atlantis elements, descending deeper and deeper underground through multiple levels, taking an enemy down with two shots, humans vs animals as enemies, the guy who gets away, "white paint" and usability and directing the player, watering down the sense of exploration, difficulty settings in the new TR, putting more on level design to direct the player, maps making a game into "a map game," composition/visual design/environment art, camera and animation to direct the player, telegraphing where you can go, keeping titles current or revisiting them. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Indiana Jones, Jenga, God of War, Quake, Crystal Dynamics, Mario (series), Uncharted (series), Skyrim, Fallouts 3 & 4, Oblivion, TR Anniversary, Dark Souls, La Bamba, Tomb of Horrors, fulltilted, Deus Ex, Michael, Fable, Andrew Kirmse, Naughty Dog, LonelyBob K, Daron Stinnett, TIE Fighter, XvT, Dark Forces, Tim Dooley. Links: TR in the browser: Next time: Finishing the game! (Always, always, in theory) Program note! We will be taking a little time off so Tim can go explore the real world. @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have been playing 1996's Tomb Raider. We specifically dive into level design, Lara's move set, combat, and a bit about technology here and there. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Greece, theoretically Issues covered: dinosaurs in film in books, level size, level design and events to direct the eye, interconnectedness of areas, distilling the original game to remake it, exploration and order of operations, not knowing when you're done with a puzzle, possibility of going back and forth, looking for secrets and finding a way down to the valley, opening the other two doors, becoming less accepting of more abstract spaces, going for realism vs abstract reality, why you might build levels on grids and with repeated bits, backface culling, lining up animations because the character is on a grid, PlayStation hardware and acceleration, announcing the PlayStation at its price, controls vs fidelity, dropping air steering out and returning it, figuring out the right move to get the right jump, reinforcing character through move set, one-false-move failures, tank controls, trusting the grid, trading fidelity and responsiveness, planting the foot before she jumps, really embodying her in the world, fluid animation, designing with the experience in mind, failure as a valid teaching tool, aligning design and animation intent, increasing realism and trade-offs of feel, introducing procedural approaches to animation, blending in sports games, using inverse kinematics to navigate the world, allowing tech to solve a role, using math to point the head and arms in the right direction during combat, simple gun combat with good character animation, using jump scares to introduce combat, limited AI, limitations in combat systems, auto-lock and camera interplay, lacking sticks, switching lock targets, lack of music during combat, downplaying the combat, good level moments, the T-Rex moment, collision on the T-Rex corpse, pushing scale in environments, correction 0451 code, music genres and game genres, when do game mechanics and narrative mesh together well, "Would You Kindly?", simple stories working better, ludonarrative dissonance, the player being the unique hurdle, comedy in games. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Jurassic Park, Arthur Conan Doyle, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne, Michael Crichton, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Crystal Dynamics, TR: Anniversary, Jason Botta, Half-Life, Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, Silicon Graphics, PlayStation 1/2, Star Wars: Starfighter, Track and Field, Resident Evil, The Matrix, Dark Souls, Demons Souls, Assassin's Creed, CORE Design, Steve Ash, Crash Translation, System Shock, Warren Spector, Deus Ex, dcab11, Zimmy Finger, Beethoven, Tetris, Bioshock, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Prince of Persia (2008), Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Far Cry 2, Planescape: Torment, Chris Avellone, Gone with the Wind. Next time: Through Egypt, theoretically @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are turning our eyes to 1996's Tomb Raider. In this episode we situate the game in its time, paying particular attention to the challenges of 3D and technology at the time. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Peru Issues covered: setting the game in its time, 3D acceleration, "at least they got our names right," having to control a bunch of extra stuff in 3D, camera control in Super Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot or Resident Evil, handling challenges differently through design and technology, Brett fumbles around the PS1 hardware, lack of save anywhere on PS1, designing for console vs PC, "the Indy game that people wanted," starting in Peru and Raiders callbacks, the ambient score supplementing exploration and loneliness, broken keymapping, Lara's evolving backstory, a strong self-sufficient woman, objectifying the character, nude mods, strong character design, British culture, traveling well, amalgamation of clear character archetypes, sensibility of a British icon, setting up a world via simple short character interactions, analogue in Resident Evil, world-building through grace notes, pulp antecedents, pure exploration, exploration as its own reward, finding secrets, doing whatever it needs to do to serve the core fantasy, level construction, Brett becomes a German, wanting more tracked data, stats and baseball, adding more tracking over time, using data in development, digging into his WoW stats, the person Tim spends the third most amount of time with, games that terrify you so much you can't play them, does Alien impact people who don't know the movies. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Jason Botta, Crystal Dynamics, Toby Gard, CORE Design, PlayStation, Crash Bandicoot, Lara Craft GO, Nokia, 3Dfx, Xbox, Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, Diablo, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Donkey Kong Country 3, Resident Evil, Quake, Indy's Desktop Adventures, Duke Nuke'em 3D, Civilization, 3DO, Meridian 59, Andrew and Christopher Kirmse, Game Developer, GDC, Game Programming Gems, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Next Generation, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Batman, Temple of Doom, Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines, Spice Girls, Ian Livingstone, EIDOS, Deathtrap Dungeon, Games Workshop, Warhammer, Peter Molyneux, John Wick, Soul Reaver, Hal Barwood, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, The Producers, Maas Neotek Proto, Final Fantasy, League of Legends, DOTA, Blizzard, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Eric Bartoszak/WeyounNumber6, Prey, Alien: Isolation, P.T., Ico. Next time: Thru Greece @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where in this bonus episode we've turned to a clear descendant of Deus Ex, 2017's Prey. We talk about the first few hours of the experience and note some of its systems and world-building, among other thoughts. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: At least up to the lobby Issues covered: post-it notes, allowing mimics, Tim gets excited, another potential forerunner, using the Goo Gun to get to an apparently unreachable area, analysis paralysis, not knowing which way to go, being surprised that the payoff was delayed, trying to reach beyond the normal market (and people who understand the tropes), the erased whiteboard code, psi hypos in the safe, surprise CryEngine, looking at the map, setting up Alex as a villain, waking up again, room inside a room, commitment to first-person presentation, visual design of the PDA, putting in the neuromod, contextualizing neuromods, use of body horror, mimic design and creepiness, mod for inhabiting any prop, using audio design to enhance creepiness, breeding paranoia, wanting to look at and enjoy the world but anything could be a threat, fighting the bigger typhon, being less inclined to stealth because combat is expected, themes, choice of gender here, going wide vs deep in skill choices, the resource collection mechanics, what can you scavenge, crafting and how far you go in the resources, the origin of 0451 and immersive sims, the A113 Easter Egg, alternate histories, clear lineage in immersive sims, the rough road for immersive sim makers, importance of setting, critical vs commercial appeal, what genre do you put this game in critically, production design choices, living in-between and pushing other genres forward, Hong Kong the shelf-level event, the killswitches, being old as dirt, wanting more guns, maintaining tension through resource levels, hoarding weapons, FOMO. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Legend of Zelda, Arkane Studios, Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax, Bioshock, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Looking Glass, Half-Life, Portal, Dishonored (series), CryEngine, id Software, Raphael Colantonio, Harvey Smith, Groundhog Day, Mission: Impossible, Dead Space, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Republic Commando, Counterstrike, Garry's Mod, Team Fortress II, Source Engine, Alien: Isolation, Fallout 4, Tacoma, Fahrenheit 451, Pixar, Disney, Battlezone, Ricardo Bare, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Origin, ION Storm, Irrational Games, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Viktor Antonov, Philip Staffetius, Kevin Brown, Halo, Wumpus, Hammurabi, Sanders Associates, Ralph Baer, ADVENT.EXE, Pipe Dream, Thief, Resident Evil. Corrections: Turns out, Dishonored II was idTech 5 Next time: For those looking at the show notes, advance notice: We'll be playing 1996's Tomb Raider, the first four levels (Peru). (Looking out for you show notes readers. My people. -B) @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are finishing out our discussion of 2000's Deus Ex. In our fifth episode in the series, we talk a bit about the game's viewpoint(s) and turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the game at last Issues covered: Tim's marathon of M:I, the othering of Anna and Gunther as well as Walter Simons and Bob Page, building a sense of place and history, the inhumanity of JC Denton, a game about the grey area of decision-making, Tim merges with the AI, choosing a little less globalization, wealth operating in secret, playing the good guy, turning off the Illuminati-sicle, pulling the opposing threads back further into the game, the gas station level, Tim finds a prototype AI, mashup of genres, robust optional content, stealthing the end of the game, using thermoptic camo, leveling up the sword, a fully-realized Vandenberg Base, flying the drone and blowing up the robots, using the AI's rules to stealth through, doing the mission impossibly, like we're playing two different games, emergent design, using tools for mayhem vs success, paying off on story choices/the game watching and keeping track of little things you do, the RPG lineage, projecting onto the character because of flat affect, allowing Paul to live, Tim likes the trains to run on time, bringing in all the various conspiracy theories, tracking things and setting up the sorts of things that we track today, choosing story beats instead of being able to fully get through non-lethally, level design feeding into emergence, the saga of BobPage51, adding surrealism to everyday life, the modern Deus Ex games, lockpicking and time, knucklehead stealth and limited playtime, assigned roles vs created roles, player tracking, internal vs external, expectations of privacy, the challenge of interpreting player data, heat maps and ways to tie the data together, justifying any decision, tracking and part of the competitive landscape. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Mission: Impossible, Terminator (series), RoboCop, Peter Weller, The Witcher 3, Fallout, Warren Spector, Far Cry 4, X-COM: UFO Defense, Kindergarten Cop, Jack Black, Nacho Libre, Grand Theft Auto III, Ultima Underworld, Dragnet, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Starfighter (series), Rick Butler, Metal Gear Solid V, Splinter Cell (series), Thief, Ben from Iowa, Clint Hocking, Aaron Evers, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, UbiSoft, God of War, Tomb Raider, Jumanji, 343 Industries, Microsoft, Halo 5, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, League of Legends, DotA 2, Fortnite, Unreal Engine, Unity, Prey. Next time: A big chunk o' Prey @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have finally turned our attention to 2000's Deus Ex. In our fourth episode in the series, we talk about maps, the damage model, augmentations, and more! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through the Paris Cathedral Issues covered: stealth and non-lethal play, hitting your foes with tranq darts, externalizing statistics, the things you track, a decision or a priority, a stuffed UI, adding notes to images, self-motivated play vs auto-mapping, usability, detailed maps, orienting yourself via the maps, feeling in conversation with the designer, map fidelity and playing into the fantasy, leaning on the existence of a map as a designer, leaning on navigation mapping as a crutch, spatial sense, making navigation design choices based on the needs of the game, emergent design and not holding hands, navigation as a resource, taking away mechanics you lean on, sneaking up on snipers, accurate modeling of bullet trajectory, making weapons feel like they should feel, suspected player collision model, accuracy model, difficulty making decisions, understanding the weapons having not using them, the damage model, weapons being more lethal sometimes than others, random vs statistical distributions, seeing the RNG and damage model, tuning and spread and balance, player expectations and numbers, progressive improvement in random chance in MMOs, perception is everything, "it's not a blunderbuss," augmentation choices, not meeting tougher creatures when you make the choices, not upgrading, recycling + healing non-stop, playing into power fantasies of different types, potential "best way to play," being a sum of parts rather than strong at any individual thing, VO issues, player stories in the Dowd level, making weird decisions with guns, audio design, triggering enemies through walls, provoking exploration, more player stories in the Dowd level, scripting interactions and weirdness, clash of script and AI, player feedback, a future bonus episode, proper noun soup. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Fable, Metal Gear Solid (series), Ultima Underworld, Far Cry 2, Elder Scrolls (series), Perfect Dark Zero, Xbox 360, Dead Space, Resident Evil, Dark Forces, Unreal, Halo, X-COM: UFO Defense, Sid Meier, Civilization, World of Warcraft, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Thief, Grehtn/Zimmy Finger, Darren from Ohio, Prey (2017), The Witcher 3, Warren Spector. Next time: Finish the game, no really, really! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have finally turned our attention to 2000's Deus Ex. In our third episode in the series, we talk about the RPG aspects as far as story goes as well as some obvious influences. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through the Paris Cathedral Issues covered: mispronouncing the title of the game, bringing in all the story as you get to Hong Kong, level geometry in Hong Kong and getting lost the first time you played it, hearing the proper nouns, the gigantic conspiracy smoothie, pushing conspiracy theories 75 years forward, not being sure who you can trust, can you even trust Tracer Tong, hitting all the technology paranoia (clones, nanomachines, viruses and cures), having time still running while you're hacking/lockpicking, the final destiny of Maggie Chow, cutscenes and enemy AI, mini-games in hacking and lockpicking, player vs character skill in mini-games in BGS games, when mini-games pull you out of the game and when they don't, making hard decisions thematic resonance with hacking/lockpicking, "knucklehead stealth," giving the player lots of options even just to hack and player agency, getting captured by MJ12 in Brett's version and in Tim's, Anna Navarre and "I can see you," forced greets, procedural camera placement, dialog cutscenes in Mass Effect, revealing that you've been in the UNATCO base the whole time, forking level assets, how Alex and Jaime join back up with you if you choose to have them, finding killswitch codes for others, avoiding lethality, reuse of space, having to propagate fixes to multiple spaces, placing your RPG in the real world, connecting the world, globalization and fear and paranoia, naming post-apocalyptic cities, Tim outs my film choices on the podcast, contextualizing the make-up of the world, replaying games and length, engaging with backstory, what we're on about here. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Harry Truman, The X-Files, Millennium, Deus Ex (rest of series), Assassin's Creed (series), Leonardo da Vinci, The Matrix, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Thief, Bioshock, Fallout 3/4, Skyrim, Dark Souls, Pipe Dream, LucasArts, Anthony Gallegos, RebelFM, Mass Effect, Anachronox, ION Storm, Eidos, Dishonored 2, Tomb Raider, Fallout 1 & 2, Lord of the Rings (films), Obsidian Entertainment, Alpha Protocol, Metal Gear Solid 2, Darren, Konrad the Canadian. Next time: Finish the game! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have finally turned our attention to 2000's Deus Ex. In our second episode in the series, we discuss difficulty levels for different styles of play vs augmentation hard choices and some level systems specifics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through Hong Kong (in theory) Issues covered: trying to get out of the level when you've been in it a while, difficulty levels and combat vs stealth, the paths not chosen, the interaction of augmentations and difficulty, not being a great shooter, motivated level design, stealth and the tranq dart, balancing weapons, the ghost or non-lethal run, the emergent quality vs achievements for ghosting, player choice in play goals, trying to remove all the TNT from a room, punishing particular play styles, how you reflect player choices in the world vs the character, forking paths and the small bugs therefrom, the crowbar vs the baton, making hard binary choices, all active augmentation and resource usage, minimal resources, bioelectric batteries vs colas and chocolate bars, forgetting the skill points, point-based skills vs discrete augmentation levels, not playing completionist, getting rewards for different solutions, Tim's weird way of dealing with the hostage situation, failing for purposes of discovery, visual language, ladders in games, cutscenes and what systems get turned off or not, Tim goes backwards, the difficulty of getting through a door, using a heavy box as a defense, save-anywhere as a critical play system. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Starfighter (series), Halo, Thief, Dishonored, Harvey Smith, Julius Caesar, Warren Spector, Infamous (series), Fable (series), Far Cry (series), Dungeons & Dragons, LoZ: Link to the Past, Mark of the Ninja, Hitman 2. Next time: Up through Paris Cathedral Links: Ben Abraham Plays Far Cry 2 with Permadeath @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are finally turning our attention to 2000's Deus Ex. In our first episode in the series, we set the game in its time but also talk about its many connections to other games we've played here on the 'cast. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to the Airfield Issues covered: ten hours of driving, convergent point in games, early indie dev mentality, formative early career game, a game that became a verb, commitment to multiple paths, merging RPG and action and other systems, branching skill trees, lack of classes, connecting to a more grokkable understanding, creating a subgenre, listening to E3 recaps, setting the game in time, a bunch of engine discussion, multi-route play and accommodating play styles, narrative beats that you can influence, supporting player choice, going super-lethal and being disincentivized, RPGs not tying choices together/mere mechanics, knucklehead stealth, linear tutorial, putting all the plants in the tutorial rooms, bulletproofing a level, blowing off your legs, supporting all the various possibilities, GDC post-Deus Ex, emergent gameplay, supporting a wide variety of player stories in emergent design, engineering around sources generally instead of specific things. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Ion Storm, Ultima (series), Irrational Games, Looking Glass Studios, Warren Spector, Harvey Smith, Anachronox, System Shock, Arkane Studios, Ricardo Bare, Prey, Dishonored II, Austin Grossman, Reed Knight, System Shock 2, Mass Effect (series), Junction Point, Origin Systems, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher, CD Project Red, Diablo II, Baldur's Gate II, Infinity Engine, Icewind Dale, The Sims, Hitman: Codename 47, Final Fantasy IX, Rainbow Six, Quake III Arena (DreamCast), Daikatana, PS2, Dark Cloud, SSX, Nintendo 64, Perfect Dark, Majora's Mask, Shenmue, Timesplitters, Soldier of Fortune, Elite Force, Bioshock, Escape from Monkey Island, Thief II, Unreal, Half-Life, id Software, Eidos, other Deus Ex titles, GO series, Planescape: Torment, Chris Avellone, Grand Theft Auto 3, Breath of the Wild, Oblivion, Dabominic, The2ndQuest, Link to the Past, Super Mario 64. Next time: Check Twitter for details @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club for a second Dark Forces special bonus interview edition. We speak with Matt Tateishi, a level designer on the game, talking about the environment around the building of Dark Forces, process, and leaping into the new. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:39 Interview 1:03:31 Break 1:04:01 Feedback Issues covered: a brief history of Matt, architecture department at Berkeley, starting as art techs, hourly wages, having your Star Wars bedsheets, Master Chief body pillow, thinking about the use of a space, trying to outdo one another, abstract spaces vs real-feeling one, geeking out over the Dark Trooper intro, simulating screen shake, just getting the thing to run, how big should levels be, figuring out production, difficulty spikes and weapon (mis-)balancing, dreaming of work, skill-based challenges, losing sight of your work, some doubt about doing Dark Forces, "puzzles are how we're going to be different from DOOM," throwing everything at the player, saving state mid-level, the pie tin mine, motivating the space, being brought in to be an artist (rather than the technical specifics), being near ILM at the time, everyone coming together to make cool stuff, Brett sings terribly again, an argument for Jabba's Palace, going from high concept to design, productivity and scheduling, Pomodoro, meeting-driven, Brett walks down memory lane, discussion of Mac vs PC in the 90s. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Shadows of the Empire, Jedi Knight, Lucas Learning, Droid Works, Infinite Machine, Nihilistic Software, The Force Unleashed, Dante's Inferno, EA, Visceral, 1313 (RIP), WETA Digital, Impulse Gear, Farpoint, Daron Stinnett, Ingar Shu, Jim Current, Kilani Striker, Ralph Gerth, Winston Wolff, Ray Gresko, Rob Huebner, Brett Tosti, Republic Commando, Troy Mashburn, Skyrim, X-Wing, DOOM, Peter Tsacle, Full Throttle, Double Fine, George Lucas, Tom Payne, Ben Burtt, Dungeons & Dragons, Colette Michaud, Peter Chan, Day of the Tentacle, Forrest Gump, Steve Dauterman, A Knight of Ren, Dire Straits, Zachary Crownover, Zimmy Finger, Quake, Mysteries of the Sith, Marathon, Philip Kramer, Apple, Myth, Kevin Steven. Next time: Deus Ex; up to the airfield @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club for a special bonus bonus interview edition. Justin Stinnett turns the microphones on hosts Brett Douville and Tim Longo, in addition to Daron Stinnett, to talk Republic Commando. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: making a squad seem smart, how to deal with the squad AI, keeping the squad in view, how to control the squad on a console, squad positioning, seeing the sniper, Sev's sense of humor, Fixer's uptight nature, Scorch childishness, making the squad feel even smarter and more connected, markers/maneuvers, more freedom and options for maneuver use, regretting cutting co-op, Delta Squad animated, Republic Commandos as canon, obeying or disobeying Order 66, what we're up to now, Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Halo, Rainbow Six, Nathan Martz, Mike Stemmle, Ryan Kaufman, The Clone Wars, Dave Filoni, Star Wars Legends, 343 Industries, Bethesda Game Studios, Skyrim, Fallout 3 & 4. Next time: Another interview OR Deus Ex, up to the Airfield @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club for a special bonus interview edition. We speak with Daron Stinnett, lead programmer and project lead on Dark Forces, looking at the beginnings of his career before turning to specifics about the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:40 Interview segment 1:04:45 Break 1:05:17 Feedback segment Issues covered: Daron intro, the Stinnett origin story, making houses on computers, Radio Shack, buying a first car, transitioning to having a regular development job, porting Thexder, moving to Spectrum Holobyte, existential threat to the company, becoming a project lead, team lead and lead tester, multiplayer and the 600 baud modem, a Las Vegas con FalCon, modeled cockpit, high-fidelity simulations that didn't exist in the real world, "I knew I had to make Star Wars games," eating lunch at Skywalker Ranch, a room full of prop, Kerner complex, looking out at ILM, crashing a plane in a parking lot, "I want to do a Star Wars Wolfenstein game," the challenge of making Dark Forces, getting a leg up from the DOOM alpha, subtracting from the world rather than adding to it, performance challenge, having a vision of walking around a hangar, expecting to work with Luke Skywalker, Luke belonged to George, adding Ray Gresko as a rendering engineer and Justin Chin as lead designer/story guy, mixing level design and architecture, adding to the palette, specific areas of wish fulfillment, not just a game about shooting things, LucasArts as a place to create new stories, showing the game to George the first time, shooting non-humans in the films, putting together teams to make something no one knows how to build, bringing the conversation around to the car, following up on the interview, getting interviewed ourselves, targeting just one hardware, console exclusivity. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Thexder, Republic Commando, Spectrum Holobyte, Falcon 3.0, LucasArts, Outlaws, Starfighter (series), Star Wars Episode III, Perpetual Entertainment, Star Trek Online, Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, PlayGrid, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rick Lamont, Synergistic Software, Sierra, Microprose, Chuck Yeager, Nintendo, FalCon, X-Wing, Dean Sharpe, Jon Knoles, Taito, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Toshi Morita, Steve Dauterman, Alive, DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D, Faceball 2000, Ray Gresko, Justin Chin, Doug Smith, Lode Runner, Broderbund, Justin Stinnett, Dan Hunter, Terminator: Future Shock, Bethesda Game Studios, Danny O'Dwyer, Gamespot, noclip, Unity, Sony, Sega. Next time: We... think, another interview Links: Space Race Daron's interview on Computer Chronicles NoClip video about BGS Making of Fallout 76 @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are finishing 1995's Star Wars: Dark Forces. We talk a bit about the final levels of the game while punching dragons 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: We finished the game! Podcast breakdown: 0:44 DF Discussion 59:08 Break 59:38 Takeaways Issues covered: the Kell dragon, entirely too much discussion of dragon types, being unsure what to do, not matching up with the fantasy, puzzle elements in fighting, having a role-playing moment in an action game that you don't often have in an RPG, starting as a Luke Skywalker game, lacking a hook for why it's Jabba's ship, enemy types, cuts later in games, the iso chamber maze puzzle, making the level itself into an interesting space, bending constraints to your will, not having anyone to tell you you can't do a thing, lowering risk, shifting towards production realities, the cost of a pivot raising aversion to risk, distinctions between studios (tech-driven vs design-driven vs art-driven), having to compete on all three, "you are fighting Boba Fett, so that's pretty cool," player skill puzzles, executing on a plan that's working, minimal story telling, television vs films, build up and implication, filling in a lot yourself, leaning on the films, the only source of Phrik in the galaxy, unmotivated space, the conveyor belt action bits, gaminess of a level, placing obstacle courses at the end of games, denouement and falling action, climax and the lack of remaining action, remaking the game, level design high water mark, being evolutionary rather than revolutionary, elevating through design and Star Wars bits, gadgetry and secondary mechanics, introduction of the Dark Trooper, high quality music, using Jedi in games, what you choose to build into your design, cornering the market in the Auction House, picking a setting that supports the fantasies, the MDA framework. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Force Awakens, Return of the Jedi, TIE Fighter, Jon Knoles, Mysteries of the Sith, Final Fantasy IX, The Witcher, Baldur's Gate, Rebel Assault, Republic Commando, Ingar Shu, Kevin Schmitt, Reed Knight, Duke Nukem 3D, Steve Chen, Starfighter (series), John Drake, id Software, Epic MegaGames, Half-Life, Unreal, Quake, Outlaws, Jedi Knight, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Fallout, Leonard Boyarsky, Tim Cain, Obsidian, Chris Avellone, Planescape: Torment, Justin Chin, Mario, Ratchet & Clank, Battlefront II, Clint Bajakian, John Williams, @notmyviews, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Everquest, Ultima Online, Raph Koster, Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware, Tomb Raider, Wolfenstein. Next time: Bonus interview! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our second episode about 1995's Star Wars: Dark Forces. We delve much deeper into the level design and themes, talk about fulfilling the Star Wars fantasy, and talk about the tease of future technologies. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through "The Death Mark" Podcast breakdown: 0:46 DF Segment 57:09 Break 57:40 Feedback Issues covered: beating the parsec to death, a favorite moment in games, going down deep through into the mine level, playing the game on different difficulties, how lives and checkpoints work, the ice cleats, taking a break due to frustration, tension-filled obstacle courses, Star Wars fantasy fulfillment, making the places feel like Star Wars, good texture work, puzzling out the level geometry, the balance of combat vs level traversal, getting lost and leaning on the map, atmospheric, pushing the technical boundaries, bleeding through of new technologies, the "golden path," finding secrets, more ornate secrets, extra steps to use your inventory, RPG-elements, a sense of high adventure, Darth Vader says your name, Boba Fett, tools that are unique to a space, Dark Trooper introductions, seeing the enemy side, building the story up a piece at a time, Vader overseeing other enemies, battle droids, motion sickness in games, speedrunning and leaving glitches in, singing reviews. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Terminator, GalaxyQuest, The Rock, Republic Commando, Half-Life, God of War, Pinocchio, Bambi, Jedi Knight, Fable, Wolfenstein, DOOM, Solo: A Star Wars Story, No One Lives Forever, TIE Fighter, Halo, 343 Industries, The Witness, Maas Neotek Proto, David Sullivan, Bethesda Game Studios, Jeff Brown, Aaron Evers. Next time: Finish the game! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning a new series about 1995's Star Wars: Dark Forces. We situate the game in its time a bit and then turn to the first three levels of the game, specifically talking about its level design and a bit about squeezing Star Wars into games. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through The Subterranean Hideout Podcast breakdown: 0:46 Segment 1: Dark Forces 49:50 Break 50:25 Segment 2: Feedback Issues covered: Star Wars character class, Bothan spies, Tim as Dark Forces tester, PlayStation version, credits up front, lots of adventure games in 1995, fond memories of DF, faking co-op by phone, project leader Daron Stinnett, prior Star Wars games, level design, not a discipline, innovating beyond DOOM, grounding the level design in architecture, creating a sense of place, increased complexity, verticality, auto-aim, ducking and jumping, lighting, scale of rooms and levels, grounded vs abstract levels, Star Wars economics, using more detail in rooms being visited multiple times, characters and story lines fitting into Star Wars, hunger for new Star Wars stories, loving and respecting Star Wars, building characters on Star Wars archetypes, bringing in Star Wars elements and fitting them into the game, Crix Madine, flexibility with using a new character, mechanics, vertex lighting, enemies who aren't facing your way, reimagining the Williams aesthetic, seeing Star Wars a bunch of times, controls, differences between GOG and Steam versions, Brett's weird keyboard configuration, sliding movement, pace of play, cover shooters, seeing canonical characters in mission briefings, seeing the hive of scum and villainy side of things, leaning on the existing world-building of Star Wars, polygonal Moldy Crow, fixed point and floating point math, seeing a thing in a cutscene and then in-game, levels getting bigger, resources carrying between levels, Brett delivers a punk serenade to the audience, Tim mispronounces "proliferation," pitch docs, DVD-style commentary on Jedi Starfighter, surfacing unreleased content, lack of bang for buck, not showing things that aren't complete, saving stuff for a sequel. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: George Lucas, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Sierra, The Dig, Phantasmagoria, The Beast Within, The 11th Hour, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Warcraft 2, Blizzard Entertainment, TIE Fighter, Command and Conquer, Flight Unlimited, Looking Glass Studios, Chrono Trigger, Square, Enix, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice, Descent, Marathon 2, Hexen, DOOM, Daron Stinnett, Starfighter (series), Republic Commando, Outlaws, Jedi Knight, Bioforge, D, Super Star Wars, Rebel Assault I & II, Myst, Reed Knight, Darren Johnson, Kevin Schmidt, Ingar Shu, Matt Tateishi, Ultima Underworld, Anachronox, Mysteries of the Sith, Empire Strikes Back, Clint Bajakian, Half-Life, Amy Hennig, DOOM 3, Wolfenstein, Quake, id Software, Unreal, Descent, Brian Taylor, Buttercup Scratchnsniff, The Ramones, The Platters, Bing Crosby, God of War, Daniel C, Andrew Kirmse, Nathan Martz, Doug Modie, Troy Mashburn, Rich Davis, Halo 5, Arkham (series), Fallout 3. Next time: Through The Death Mark @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing the newly released return to God of War. We talk about the way the game has been modernized for current tastes, and how it maintains the feel of the series. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: First few hours Issues covered: modern design elements, combat feel, level linearity with bits of side secrets, combat/explore, chests, pushing technology, ways you can cheat for performance, pixel density, which GoW games we've played, elaborate progression system, camera commitment, camera in combat, thinner combos, epic feel of original from camera, older and more sympathetic anti-hero, more deliberate pace of combat, more psychologically dense mythology, making a character relatable again, more vulnerable heroes, the character of the mother, small story, enriching a character after her death, developing the relationship with the boy through animation and writing, animation-forwardness, craftsmanship, Tim digresses into television, geographic and cultural origins of mythology, toxic masculinity, the jock and the theater kid, high stakes and having to survive, the dad games and the dad feelings, having another character to relate to, having colors and level information on enemies, loot systems and not knowing what sort of player you're going to be, the axe and its economy of design, giving clear direction, more grounded violence, intimate violence, digging into the design problem with the one room, camera having to work with level design, fork in the road level design choices, not doing enough usability testing, wanting more information based on what you're given in a story game, non-verbal communication, difficulty balancing at the end of God of War for explorers vs combo kings, how to deal with balancing, rubber-banding. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Skyrim, Devil May Cry, DOOM (2016), Tomb Raider (2013), Resident Evil 4, PS3, Xbox 360, Cory Barlog, The Vikings, The Road, The Last of Us, Starfighter series, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Gilmore Girls, Diablo, Borderlands, Assassin's Creed, Republic Commando, They Live, Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven, Fight Club, Rocky, Dolph Lundgren, Metal Gear Solid (series), Gothic Chocobo, Zimmy Finger, Ico, Silent Hill, Ratchet and Clank, Mark Garcia, Sony Santa Monica, Spider-Man 2, Jamie Fristrom, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Nintendo, Metroid (series), Mario Kart. Next time: TBA! Links: Ratchet and Clank Level Design The Muse Keys @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are finishing our series on 2005's God of War. We talk about when the game leans into the things it's not great at, the sense of epic scale, as well as turning to our traditional takeaways as we end a series. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the game! Podcast breakdown: 0:42 God of War discussion 54:45 Break 55:11 Takeaways and Feedback Issues covered: dying 20 - 60 times, the downward spiral rage, compounding challenge, adding elements at a good rate, enumerating the elements of a challenge, not earning the challenge, shelf-level events/wall mission, not knowing you're near the end of the game, being stubborn and maybe putting a game away for a while, representing Hades accurately as a Sisyphean task, leaning into disempowerment sections as a mistake, potential for usability testing issues, variant gameplay needs to be easier, getting bored as developers, it's a sorbet not a bowl of hot sauce, positive vs negative feedback loops, rich getting richer syndrome, strategies for dealing with small numbers of orbs, arguing with QA, rationalizing your poor choices, a combo game for the masses, difficulty levels as a Band-Aid (TM), a strategy for spending orbs, adjusting orbs for difficulty, puzzle scale, puzzles for pacing, merging of genres, enjoying geometry puzzle, macro puzzle, puzzles that fit or don't, physics puzzles (buoyancy, momentum), tests of the gods, Tim and Brett forget ballistas, Greek tragedy themes, melodrama being appropriate here, having to work for a more minimal story, overly simplistic motivations, conflating player and character motivations, finding revenge against Ares, never getting to care for Kratos, an unsympathetic hero, tragedy as a character issue vs a plot issue, evolving Kratos and his world, sequence saving the family, Brett confuses who the brothers are, music as the MVP, exotic and seductive soundtrack, pushing Pandora's Box to no soundtrack, full commitment to camera, a technical pinnacle on the platform, embracing spectacle, combo flow, Raiden: the best MGS hero, empowering games, assertion through domination vs self-expression, the opportunity to be clever, using tactics effectively. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Halo, Mark Garcia, Nintendo, Jamie Fristrom, Jak & Daxter, Devil May Cry, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, King Tutenkhamen, Noah Hughes, TR: Legend, Ray Harryhausen, The Bacchae, Shadow of the Colossus, Faustus, Oedipus, 300, Frank Miller, Conan, Medal of Honor, Michael Giacchino, Clint Bajakian, LucasArts, Outlaws, Gerard Marino, Michael Reagan, Ron Fish, Winifred Phillips, Winnie Waldron, Cris Velasco, Marcello de Francisi, Lawrence of Arabia, DarkSiders, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, Platinum Games, Metroid: Other M, Metal Gear: Rising, Metal Gear Solid 4, Mikkel Lodahl, Sierra, Mark Crowe, Jordan Mechner, Karateka, Prince of Persia, Republic Commando, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Everything: The Game, Minecraft, Fallout 3, X-COM, Toy Story 3: Toy Box Mode, Disney Infinity, Project: Spark, else heart:break, The Magic Circle, Kim Kardashian's Hollywood. Next time: We'll figure it out soon! (Almost certainly more God of War-related content) @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are on to the second of our series on 2005's God of War. We talk about what a fully scripted camera allows you to do, where it breaks down in implementation, as well as touching on the over-the-top nature of the game and its light RPG elements. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through the Challenges Podcast breakdown: 0:43 Segment 1: God of War 51:40 Break 52:20 Segment 2: Feedback Issues covered: Birthdays, Sierra interview, the academic/theoretic side of making games, the early days, the Yosemite photograph, cameras and third-person action-adventure, level design and the camera, scripting the camera throughout the game, conceptually 2D in some ways, freeing up the right thumb, flicking to roll, managing the space well for the camera in combat, sewer camera problem, "God of War Camera," altitude in combat, telegraphing the camera through player control vs designer control, exploring a space from multiple directions, being clear about what space you're in and whether you've been there before, not knowing where you can go, were levels and camera being designed at the same time?, lack of telegraphing of direction to follow, not having supporting mechanics to know you've missed things, possibility of thinking you have to do something local to solve a puzzle, sense of scale, having to trust the game, using the camera to hide secrets, gigantic sense of scale, capturing sense of scale with a closer third person, over-the-top violence, combining scale and animation and camera cohesively, pairing button mashes to animation speed, herky-jerky and stop-motion animation, sacrificing a soldier, pushing Kratos's inhumanity, toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity/anti-heroes and pop culture, wanting to play as a hero, lack of choice, light RPG elements, stringing combos together, leveling the Artemis sword, balancing weapons with XP, liking to power up the base weapon, just using the cutting laser in Dead Space, the ranged blades of chaos, compelling weapon design due to flexibility, combo-based games, watching skilled players, playing for stream, power escalation and enemy introductions, adding multiple enemies of a newly introduced type, foreshadowing the moment of Kratos's jump, whiskey-fueled voices, looking at your user experience to support tutorialization, taking the easy way out at the end of production, implicit tutorials and learning, real-time and turn-based tutorials, implicit tutorials and iteration, not hand-holding for experienced players, players don't read, also: podcast listeners don't read show notes, prove me wrong, send us an email :) Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sierra, King's Quest/Space Quest, Mark Crowe, John Romero, Larry Holland, Julian Gollop, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Soul Reaver, Super Mario 64, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia (2008), Devil May Cry, Crystal Dynamics, Tomb Raider (series), Republic Commando, Super Metroid, Ray Harryhausen, Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, DOOM, Cory Barlog, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Dead Space, Bioshock, Rygar, Bayonetta, Resident Evil, Plasticman, Mr. Fantastic, Ninja Gaiden Black, Boy.Pockets, Tom Waits, Gilmore Girls, Zachary Crownover, Chevy Chase, SpaceChem, FTL, Detention, Red Candle Games, The Last Door, Nintendo, Civilization, Fallout. Next time: Finish God of War (2005)! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are lucky this week to be able to interview Mark Crowe, one of the original "Guys from Andromeda" who were the creative force behind Space Quest, as well as working on many other Sierra titles. We talk about those old days, the flexibility of working with a parser, and all the constraints on game development in the early days. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: Mark's history, having a dream job, walking in the door, the hippie environment, local inspiration, first exposure to computers, size of company, meeting Scott and teaming up, developing a core idea and prototyping it, having the split-up environments in the first screens made, getting a picture on the box, taking a pseudonym in fear, dabbling in prosthetics, vacationing from Mars, learning on the job, doing everything at once, adding some humor, a cinematic approach, cinematic inspirations, cramming in references, pushing technology further, side-scrolling environments, not knowing what's possible vs "staying in your lane," the origin of Roger Wilco, stand-in for the player and trying to be in the player's head, the point-and-click innovation, parser as another layer of interaction, additional entertainment value, death and missing things and frustration, signature negative, making the games more player friendly, the needs of your existing audience vs the needs of a growing audience, playing the game pre-release, layoffs and the "cart debacle," throwing pencils at the ceiling, quick prototyping, primitive tools, time lapse rendering, Space Venture development. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sierra, Scott Murphy, Space Quest 1, Ken and Roberta Williams, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Dynamix, Star Siege, The Black Cauldron, Chris Pope, Greg Steffen, Wizard and the Princess, Softporn, Mission: Asteroid, Frogger, Sega, Ultima, Two Guys from Andromeda, King's Quest, Two Guys from Italy, Star Wars, Star Trek, Bernard Kliban, Lifeline, Space Venture. Links: Bernard Kliban's Original Roger Wilco Space Quest III Timelapse Guys from Andromeda Guys from Andromeda YouTube Channel Next time: Next week we return to God of War to discuss everything up through the Challenges @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning our series on 2005's God of War. We set the game in its time, an interesting time at the end of a console lifecycle as new machines loomed on the horizon, and then turn to the game itself before hitting feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to the desert / through Athens Podcast breakdown: 0:44 Segment 1: God of War 50:35 Break 51:06 Segment 2: Feedback Issues covered: the console lifecycle, PS2 install base, the new console generation, learning the hardware over the lifecycle, exclusives, squeezing the hardware over the series, optimizing instructions, iterating on a franchise, juvenile tone, the influence of the underlying mythology, being edgy or over the top, Greek tragedy and the fatal flaw, opening with a bang, narrative device of setting up how the character got to the big moment, setting up mysteries of character and fate, tension between player and character, pacing and balancing on a beam, perfecting the quick time event, the first level as a microcosm of the whole game, the influences of this game, skimming the top of a bunch of genres, adventure games drawing from every verb, explicit vs implicit tutorialization, great mythological moments, a series of yeses. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Broderbund Software, Red Storm Entertainment, Red Orb Entertainment, Riven, Prince of Persia 3D, The Journeyman Project, Santa Monica Studio, Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon Quest VIII, Resident Evil 4, F.E.A.R., Republic Commando, Metal Gear Solid 2, Sly Cooper 3, Guitar Hero, GTA: San Andreas, Japan Studio, Starfighter/Jedi Starfighter, Devil May Cry 3, Gran Turismo 4, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Lego Star Wars, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Tomb Raider (2013), Clash of the Titans, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Richard Wagner, Uncharted 2, Shenmue, Crystal Dynamics, Soul Reaver, Castlevania, Maximo: Ghosts and Goblins, MediEvil, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, System Shock 2, Sid Meier, Half-Life, Dario Casali, Sierra Games, Sebastian Pellegrino, Tim Schafer, LucasArts, Telltale Games, Amanita Design, Wadjet Eye, Daedelic, Edna and Harvey, Deponia saga, The Dark Eye, The Whispered World, Hal Barwood, Bill Tiller, Curse of Monkey Island, Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler, A Vampyre's Tale, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, The Dig, Kyle Vermaes, Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Link to the Past, Manhunter (series), Rules of Play, Eric Zimmerman, Katie Salen, Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman, GamaSutra, Brenda Romero, Challenges for Game Designers, Will Wright, The Sims, SimCity, A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander, RadiatorYang, Ryan, Jason Schreier, Kirk Hamilton, Kotaku Splitscreen, Giant Bomb, Giant Beastcast, DLC, Jeff Cannata, Christian Spicer, RebelFM, Waypoint Radio, Patrick Klepek, Danielle Riendeau, Austin Walker, Steve Gaynor, Tone Control, Gone Home, Tacoma, Idle Thumbs, Important If True, Shall We Play A Game, Chris Suellentrop, JJ Sutherland, Slate Culture Gabfest, Filmspotting, Filmspotting: SVU, The Next Picture Show, Maximum Fun, April Wolfe, Switchblade Sisters. Next time: Up through the Three Challenges @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we complete our discussion of a pair of very early Sierra adventure games with Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter. We finally hear Tim's story about getting stuck on a game so long it drove him to drink and also get to our takeaways before hitting feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished SQ1 Podcast breakdown: 0:43 Segment 1: SQ1 35:35 Break 36:08 Segment 2: Takeaways and Feedback Issues covered: music theft, the Do Not Press button and a return to Daventry, talking to the guards, cross promotion, learning to use your seat belt, the influence of the real world, making jokes out of the topical, Tim's inadvertent hint, inventory objects inside other objects, the importance of looking at things at the right time, getting a hint from the parser, the origin of the pizza orgy, killing Orat with a spider droid, random walk mechanics, hating on the skimmer, Brett gives Tim a pro tip, critical path gambling mini-game, adding in new mechanics, Brett's early skiing game, game play variety, using money in adventure game puzzles, Tim gets stuck, Tim doesn't get a fart joke, being driven to drink, the new verb with the grate, player perspective and the sense of exploration, dramatic/cinematic moments, ignoring the first offer for the skimmer, looking everywhere for a coupon, gadgets and copy protection in the box, story arc and adventure and fantasy fulfillment, aligning the player and the character as far as world knowledge, cognitive dissonance vs ludonarrative dissonance, cinematic presentation, buckazoids in the Longo family, splitting screen spaces as a push for exploration and sense of adventure, where could adventure games go, visual novels and systemic depth, underserved genres, what game would you claim for yourself, games that are hard to get and their influence, buying consoles, has something been lost in change of difficulty, opacity and discovery, finding players who won't look on the Internet, on-demand culture and chasing the next thing, putting the onus back on the game (to keep you enthralled and not searching for answers), creators asking you to not get hints, supporting the right team size. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: ZZ Top/Sharp Dressed Man, Styx, Peter Gunn/The Blues Brothers, Madonna, King's Quest 1, Ken Williams, LucasArts, Secret of Monkey Island, Loom, Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, George Lucas, Anachronox, Star Trek, The Corbomite Maneuver, Sierra, Police Quest, Star Wars, Grimm Fairy Tales, Skyrim, StarGate, The City on the Edge of Forever, Joan Collins, Jar-Jar Binks, Derek Achoy, Broken Age, Thimbleweed Park, Machinarium, Ron Gilbert, Telltale Games, Samorost, Amanita Design, Chuchl, X-Files, Wadjet Eye Games, Dave Gilbert, Year Walk, Simogo, Device 6, Sailor's Dream, Aaron Evers, Souls series, Tom Hall, Ultima, Civilization, Zork, Pitfall, Adventure, Atari 2600, Half-Life, Dark Forces, Daron Stinnett, Jeff Buttaccio, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sega Saturn, Ico, Mario 64, NOLF, Warcraft, Steinar Nedreboe, Jonathan Blow, Braid, The Witness, GDC, Jeff Vogel. Links: Sierra Death Generator Space Quest 3 Promo Space Quest 1 VGA Remake Commercial SQ Docucomedy Panzer Dragoon Saga Next time: Keep an eye on our Twitter as we figure it out! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we continue to discuss a pair of very early Sierra adventure games, now turning to Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter. We talk a little bit more about adventure games and general and talk about some specific ways this game differs from King's Quest, including its use of space. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to Planet Kerona Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Segment 1: SQ1 37:19 Break 37:43 Segment 2: Feedback Issues covered: humor in adventure games, obvious influences, nostalgia for Tim, playing adventure games as a shared experience, getting stuck, linear vs open structure/points of no return, not getting the cartridge, stealth game play, fearing death and rushing through the game, quick beginning to the game, how you measure play time, designing around player death, embracing shorter game length, frustration points, inability to predict puzzle pain points, prodding the edges out of frustration, how you QA or player test a game like this, how to innovate or adjust in light of success, knowing whether you can fail, the market at the time, extending a specific audience rather than trying to grow the whole audience, attention to detail and commitment to a consistency of the world, requiring less knowledge from the player, discovery at the same pace as the character, Guybrush Threepwood, from Space Zero to Space Hero, characters who change or that don't, character development over a series, humor, fish out of water, Tim gives Brett a hint (survival kit), use of screen space, explorable spaces, payoff on finding nothing vs keycard, using splitscreen, economical screen use, text adventure structure, dramatic tension, having fun with death and exploring that, double whammy of enemies you can't kill and a timer, the daily chase of the most recent releases, learning as much if not more from an old game, doing a lot with a small team, legendary games we missed out on, picking between systems, classic strategy wargames, getting a survey vs playing in depth, games history and film history, playing the history at LucasArts, the tip line, ickiness of 1-900 numbers. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sierra, LucasArts, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars, Tacoma, The Walking Dead, Telltale, Deadline, Republic Commando, Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry, Gabriel Knight, Phantasmagoria, Quest for Glory, Al Lowe, Anachronox, Tom Hall, Outlaws, Daron Stinnett, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Super Metroid, Out of this World/Another World, Planescape: Torment, Dan Hunter, Guernsey College, Fallout, Skyrim, Zachary Crownover, Unity, Unreal, Derek Achoy, Aaron Evers, Raphael Cornford, Mikkel Lodahl, Dungeons and Dragons, Temple of Elemental Evil, Keep on the Borderlands, Ultima Underworld, M.U.L.E., Commodore 64, Mario (series), Megaman, Bomberman, NES/SNES, Sega Genesis, Flashback, PS2, Atari, IntelliVision, Vectrex, Chuck E. Cheese, Avalon Hill, Art of War, Panzer (series), Larry Holland, HMS Pegasus, Will Wright, Raid on Bungeling Bay, SimCity, SimEarth, SimAnt, Guy Morgan, XCOM, Soul Reaver, Game Boy Pocket, Link's Awakening, Discworld, Psygnosis, Activision, Infocom, Vivendi. Next time: Finish Space Quest! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we continue to discuss a pair of very early Sierra adventure games, beginning with 1984's King's Quest: Quest for the Crown. Having finished the game, we discuss the ways in which different puzzles work and what aspects are frustrating and how it might all have gotten that way. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finish King's Quest 1 Issues covered: getting through without hints, remembering puzzles and forgetting stuff, rule-breaking and rocks, leaning into fairy tales, thinking about the game away from it, the better manual, verbs with rare usages or no usages, the Rumplestiltskin puzzle, good for streaming or not, dying from the rock, timing and waiting, the difficulty of the game Deadline, things not appearing on screens, characters that don't appear all the time, not knowing what you're not seeing, the well and figuring out what to do there through dying, dealing with the dragon, solving puzzles multiple ways, timing your throw at the dragon, using water in the pail all over, supporting lots of weird choices, finding the use of the bucket and not experimenting further, verbs you use only once, looking at objects in your inventory, XYZZY, piecing together a series of steps, the Leprechaun puzzle, multiple solutions as a usability issue, losing the goat, giving treasure to the troll, fallback solutions, being able to ignore various obstacles, encouraging exploration, no RPG-style combat, the Fairy Godmother spell, dealing with the witch, lack of mapping between manual and game, eating the witch's house, the fullness of the world, climbing the beanstalk and being high on the foliage, fighting the parser, thinking the pebbles might be for the wolf, sick fairy tales, a sleeping giant, navigating the beanstalk, differences in world structure between different adventure games, proving out the capabilities of a new engine, showstopping spots in an adventure that's more linear, playing a game together, ARGs and the appeal of playing with a crowd, breaking Tim Sr with Space Quest, giving away carrots, goat eating your carrots, top-down design vs bottom-up design, 500K copies sold, relegislating the sexism, The Boss, aspiring to be Solid Snake, getting interested in real world topics via games, creators who are drawn to real-world issues, not fully embracing a difficult topic, having a hard time getting that stuff funded, various examples, escapism in entertainment, fun MGS bits. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Roberta and Ken Williams, Deadline, Infocom, LucasArts, Ron Gilbert, Edge of Tomorrow, Wizard of Oz, Advent, Grimm Fairy Tales, Space Quest, Day of the Tentacle, Zork, Two Guys from Andromeda, Mark Crowe, Scott Murphy, Reed Knight, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Metroid, Quest for Glory (series), Manhunter, Betrayal at Krondor, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Blarg42, Final Fantasy IX, Metal Gear (series), Bioshock, Tom Clancy, Far Cry 2, Hideo Kojima, This War of Mine, Papers Please, Cart Life, Valiant Hearts, UbiSoft, Far Cry 5, Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin, Firewatch, Gone Home, Wolfenstein, Star Wars, Yoji Shinkawa. Next time: Play until you reach the first planet in Space Quest Links/Notes: Note - the XYZZY Awards still exist! Dialog with Campbell et al about your mono TV @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing a pair of very early Sierra adventure games, beginning with 1984's King's Quest: Quest for the Crown. We talk a bit about Sierra and its early contributions to games as a whole and the specific form of the adventure game, setting it in context and discussing taste. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: "About half" of King's Quest Issues covered: crossing a drawbridge, being top of the game food chain, the rise and fall and rise of adventure games, establishing a formula early on, being unable to get games, hint lines, IBM funding, sweet development deal, four-color video cards, reusable engines, general-purpose machines vs custom machines, leveraging programming work, local-ish company, building a string of franchises, first developers whose names you know, typing in directions, diving into the manual, how to make an adventure game map, the need to restart, lack of direction, number pad, playing with a parser, getting source code for text adventures, verb usability in LucasArts vs Sierra, finding parser edges and the sense of discovery, one-use verbs, having visual feedback in addition to the parser, open world exploration in the parser, different taste in adventures and animation, a brainy game, experimentation, engineers vs pure designers, character mechanics, timing element, hint books, using friends like a hint line, pen and paper similarity, willing suspension of disbelief, blocking off inaccessible areas via art, the wrap-around map, connected world, usability decision?, multi-use puzzles and inventory items, waiting for things, relying on fairy tale lore. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LucasArts, Day of the Tentacle, Apple ][, Infocom, Wizard and the Princess, Roberta and Ken Williams, Egghead Software, IBM, Out of this World/Another World, Karateka, Dynamix, Vivendi, CUC International, Havas, Andromeda, Zork, ADVENT/Colossal Cave Adventure, Ultima, Tetris, ExciteBike, Marble Madness, Montezuma's Revenge, Commodore 64, Ancient Art of War, Ballblazer, Archon, Lode Runner, Disney, Pixar, Ubisoft, Dark Souls, Felix the Cat, Warner Bros, Ralph Bakshi, Mystery House, Manhole, HyperCard, Cyan, Myst, Enchanter, Lost Treasures of Infocom, Activision, Dungeons and Dragons, Greensleeves, Ultima Underworld, Pac-Man, Lucas Rizoli, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Daryl Gates. Note: It might have been more accurate to say source might have been "assembled" rather than "interpreted" Links: Duncan Fyfe on PQ4, writing for Waypoint Next time: Finish King's Quest @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing 1992's immersive sim classic Ultima Underworld. We talk about how the game comes together at the end and the interconnectedness of it all before we turn to our pillars and 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: 0:42 Segment 1: finishing the game 44:23 Break 44:59 Segment 2: Takeways and feedback Issues covered: serviceable weapons, Tim realizes he never beat the game before, reuniting pieces of key, going in between levels, breaking down a door, getting a little help from your friends, cup talisman, the taper being a different piece of art, the writ of Lorne, killing all the trolls, Tim finds nine talismans, the crux ansata, Tom and Judy quest, themes of loss throughout the game, the lost world of Cabirus, thematic storytelling here vs larger open worlds, usability issues and keeping track, missing clues and having to scour levels, having an unbreakable sword, worrying about the final room, anticlimactic final room, the final maze and its length, hallucinatory images while running away, dream sequences in Max Payne, wearing the special crown, the moonstone room, Brett ends with a ton of scrolls, wondering about other skill possibilities, finishing at level 15/16, clip of the ending screen, interconnected quests and dungeon, being nervous about a game being broken, QAing this game and finding workarounds, hinting at how to move around the dungeon space, getting frustrated to the point of exploring the non-obvious, the game that justifies the inclusion of quest journals, the wane that proceeds the RPG renaissance, full commitment to simulation, simulating the staleness of food, leaving bloodspots, pushing forward to any idea you could think of, supporting the core fantasy of being in this place, interconnecting systems, focusing on one dungeon, committing to a motivating idea, balance, interconnected levels, pen and paper games, fallen utopia, old rotten and seasoned, choosing enemy types, borrowing from the main games, using archetypes, picking characters based on their abilities and lore, orthogonal design in enemies, varieties of damage types, top-down vs bottom-up approach, potentially bad tropes to take into here, lack of random monster encounters, balancing for different sorts of characters, separating systems, iterating on numbers, leaning on QA, changing enemy behaviors based on weapons, putting the onus on the player, cheating on behalf of the player, GDC and planned interview, parser games. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Ultima (series), Mark Eldridge, Max Payne, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Origin, Baldur's Gate, Gold Box games, Martian Dreams Ultima Adventure, Wolfenstein, Doom, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, H. P. Lovecraft, Icewind Dale, The Witcher (series), Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeons & Dragons, Underworld: Ascendant, Mark *Sean* Garcia, Tader Chip, Maas Neotek Proto/Keane, Republic Commando, Halo, Diablo, Brian Taylor, Metal Gear Solid, Skyrim, Deus Ex, Sierra Games, LucasArts, King's Quest, Space Quest, Day of the Tentacle, GOG.com, Wizard and the Princess. Next time: King's Quest I, "About half" @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing 1992's immersive sim classic Ultima Underworld. We take a deeper dive into the leveling system and the magic system and talk about the intersection of RPGs and immersive sims and the various analog elements of this game in particular. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Levels 4-6 Issues covered: rotworm stew, taking notes and having too much to sort through, keeping track using the map, space for a legend, cartography, how the leveling system works vs other games, strengths and weakness of a leveling system, ceding control of the player experience to the RNG, rewarding the finding of mantras and pushing you to search for them, awarding of XP, pushing you to other skills via randomness, sticking with the Sword of Justice because it doesn't break, the intersection of two very difficult genres in terms of balancing, encouraging you to fully explore the map, finding an angry ghost and a talking door, mixing runes to come up with spells, the consistency of 8 virtues and 8 races and 8 talismans, role-playing your decisions, embracing the pen and paper origins, combat pacing and space with magic and weapon timing, swinging a weapon and hitting a wall, weapon mechanics, the tale of Sir Rodrick, essential objects and the possibility of losing the game, sources of weird rendering artifacts, potential optimizations to avoid clipping, Longo Rooms, low fidelity games, using the silver seed for resurrection -- Tim teaches Brett a trick, tracking ownership of objects, identifying AI state using the look button, analog fidelity of systems, inter-level connections of quests and objects, adventure game elements, finding a moonstone and other favorite moments, Tim confesses his hacker past. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, Warren Spector, Planescape: Torment, Gold Box games, Eye of the Beholder, GURPS/Steve Jackson Games, Wolfenstein 3D, Mark Eldridge. Next time: Finish the game! (Levels 7 & 8) @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are discussing 1992's immersive sim classic Ultima Underworld. We discuss the specifics of levels two and three a bit, but also tackle inventory, encumbrance, taking notes on paper, and the delightful map and how those have changed over the years. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Levels 2 and 3 Podcast breakdown: 0:43 UU Discussion 48:46 Break 49:12 Feedback Issues covered: Brett learns some Lizardman, chatting with goblins and the many civilizations, relationships between factions, killing a she-spider, being fully engaged, the mystery of Sir Cabirus, Tim falls down a hole, leveling up quickly, Brett loses some chain mail, taking paper notes as you play, making lists of details like clues and mantras, physical keys vs logical keys and design trade-offs, imagining player stories, keeping track of key rules, attributing influences to this game vs prior games, annotating the map, drawing a dungeon as you went, automapping and writing on the map, writing a legend, player agency on the map, some map games, the shadow of the map pin, handling inventory, bags within bags, putting inventory responsibility on the player, respecting the player's intelligence, anxiety from previous play-throughs of losing objects, having help from viewers, needing encumbrance space and dropping objects to make room, asking a lot from the player, return of older styles of gameplay to support usability, jankiness of erasing, adapting map to a controller, rules that you discover along the way: leeches and spiking doors, using player tools in Bethesda games, game developer view on objects that you have, dwarf section: beginning middle and end, sense of place, the gazer shooting a beam at you, looking for Shak, repair skills, potential for overspecialization, level cap of 16, the eight virtues and corresponding classes, Joy to the Underworld, playing music on stream, being a completionist and hoarding everything in the hoard room, fixing the audio, podcasts/interviews, level design as a discipline, level design for stealth gameplay, onboarding stealth mechanics and their combination, avoiding overwhelming player (and designer), fantasy fulfillment in Thief, a little goes a long way, designing from moments and working backwards, having vignettes to implement towards, client-facing programming, merging geometry and systems and mechanics, tension in Thief II. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons and Dragons, Eye of the Beholder, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, UbiSoft, The Witcher, Far Cry 2, Miasmata, Joe and Bob Johnson, LOST, Etrian Odyssey, Nintendo, Brian Taylor, Mark Eldridge, Dark Souls, Looking Glass Studios, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Ultima Underworld 2, System Shock 2, Ultima series and classes, Final Fantasy (series), JohnCaboose/Bjorn, Makendi, MaasNeotekProto, Tom Francis, Heat Signature, Floating Point, Gunpoint, PCGamer podcast, Crate and Crowbar, Aaron Evers, Thief, Paul Neurath, Mark Allen Garcia, Metal Gear Solid, Chris Mead, GAMBIT/MIT, Irrational Games, Bioshock, Phillip Staffetius, Final Fantasy IX, Kotaku, MSXII, Gamemaker, Game Developers Conference, Metal Gear Solid 4, John LeCarre, Mark of the Ninja, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Nels Anderson, Thief II, Alien: Isolation. Links: Tom Francis on emergent narrative GOG forum link for audio care of Mark Eldridge Paul Neurath on Thief c/o Aaron Evers GAMBIT/MIT on Looking Glass c/o Chris Mead Next time: Levels 4, 5, and 6 @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning a new series on 1992's immersive sim classic Ultima Underworld. As usual, we situate the game in time a bit and in the Ultima series as a whole, before delving into the first few hours of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Level 1 Podcast breakdown: 0:40 Underworld 54:54 Break 55:22 Feedback Issues covered: Brett gets hooked, first person game and a lot of clicking, getting over the initial hump, taking a long time to finish a game, 72-hour game benders, epilepsy and flashing, firsts of their kind year, seeing the walls of the design, branching out with the Ultima series, Ultima Worlds of Adventure, adding simulation to the point of view, not being alone in the first-person space, vector wireframe rendering in the first Ultima dungeons, feeling the presence of the developer, exploration of controls, limited verbs in FPSes, free look, overdesigned mouse interface, not reading the manual, coming full circle to analog controls in the modern day, fine-tuning movement, "this will never catch on," clarity in input, instinct was right but implementation was wrong, poll rates, mechanical mice vs optical mice, Trish the Bard, 80s looking character portrait, innovating on taking a thing from world and dragging into the inventory, the Trello of inventory systems, adding too many things to a bag, UX nightmare, convergence game with systems coming together, top-down design vs bottom-up design, RPG differences between player skill and character skill, gesture-based combat, idea to implementation, fewer barriers to implementation, lack of level designers, taking more risks because of lower costs, dark side of games, using a key in a door, verbs and similarity to adventure games, where the three hours went for Brett, fearing dropping something that you'll need later, traipsing all over, jumping difficulty, factions as an underpinning of the underground society, lack of quest log/journal, does dialogue hint at actions you can take, clarity of the rules, fading fortunes of SSI, playing MGS vs remembering MGS, coloring what follows a good moment, CGI cutscenes painting in the player's impressions of fidelity, the legacy of Lara Croft's portrayal, avoiding blind spots through diverse representation in your development team, preferring Twin Snakes. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Chronicles of Narnia, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Origin Systems, EA, Ultima (series), Richard Garriott/Lord British, Wizardry, Dungeon Master, Gold Box, Eye of the Beholder, The Bard's Tale, Dark Corners of the Earth, Elder Scrolls (series), Looking Glass Studios, Warren Spector, Doug Church, System Shock, Marc MAHK LeBlanc, Tim Stellmach, Deus Ex, Harvey Smith, Randy Smith, Prey, Dishonoured (series), Paul Neurath, Underworld Ascendant, Dune II, Warcraft, Ultima VII, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Hal Barwood, Ecco the Dolphin, Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, Flashback, Another World/Out of this World, Martian Dreams, Savage Empire, Quake, Wing Commander, Space Rogue, id Software, Stonekeep, Final Fantasy (series), Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest (series), Ogre, Quake, DOOM 2, Terminator, Planescape: Torment, SoundBlaster, Fallout 2, Elder Scrolls: Arena, SSI, Thief, Kupo1256, Christian Schuster, Metal Gear Solid (series), Fallout 3, Todd Howard, Jonah Lobe, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy VII/IX, Travis Grasser, Symphony of the Night, Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider, Jason Schreier, Kirk Hamilton, Michael, Final Fantasy XV, Christianne Meister, Skyrim, Jeff Buttaccio, GameCube, MGS: Twin Snakes, Shigeru Miyamoto. Next time: Levels 2 and 3 @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are are just finishing our series on 1998's Japanese stealth classic Metal Gear Solid. We talk about the end of the game and some narrative choices there that we like and then discuss our pillars for the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: To the end! Podcast breakdown: 0:41 End of MGS 1:00:48 Break 1:01:22 Pillars and feedback Issues covered: 100 episodes, Tim moving out, extravagant endings in the series, intercutting action scenes, turning codecs into cutscenes later, economic storytelling through codecs and audio diaries, conversational audio diaries, utilizing VO in interesting ways, Brett's new keyboard, the interesting dynamics of the Vulcan Raven battle, cat and mouse, Brett forgets the word "claymore," multiple ways of defeating Raven, using the AI's rules against them, boss/level design/camera synergy, Brett skips a cutscene and has to redo the battle, backtracking and stretching time, cool alloys, keeping a balance between being cool and usability, camera shot of Revolver noticing that Solid is outside the room (sort of a double reversal on the player), hanging out in the cold or hot rooms, Master Miller and throwing Naomi under the bus and yet still being Liquid, Tim recants his feeling that there should be a MGSVI, small universe problem, Chewbacca effect, Naomi and Gray Fox, the Ocelot effect, Ocelot and Liquid reunited, Liquid monologuing outside of Rex, going toe-to-toe with Rex, RoboCop vs ED 209, forcing you to be bold, Liquid as the boss who never dies, Gray Fox confessing his sins, hand-to-hand fighting with Liquid on top of Rex and the uncertain fate of Meryl, the reveal about FoxDie, cloning and the relationship between multiple characters, Dolly the cloned sheep, being the soldier of the century, James Bond themes, Snake Eater, The Man Who Saved The World, two more monkeys jumping on the bed, differences in the endings, jeep battle, low turn rate, tracers, having a third big battle, end-game balance for normal difficulty, Jim Harrison (the politician behind it all), Meryl and Snake riding off into the sunset on their snowmobile, wrapping up themes of love blooming on the battlefield, different endings, juxtaposing the scientific/techy stuff with the philosophical talk, Hal and Dave (joking at the end), post-credits sequence and the Iditarod, writing yourself into corners and cliffhangers, retconning to fit story stuff together, comic book writing and story structure for serialization, commitment to narrative and cinematic presentation, in-engine cutscenes, hardware-acceleration on the PS1, bilinear filtering, best B movies, letting your freak flag fly, all of ones loves and fears being in a game, being generous as an artist, committing to stealth gameplay, high lethality, voice acting, fictional context, experimentation with mechanics, bringing you back through the evolution of mechanics, adding mechanics from a competing or more recent game into a remake, upsetting the balance, new game plus mechanics, new game plus plus and a tuxedo, immersive sims. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: System Shock 2, Metal Gear (series), James Bond, Star Trek, Ron Gilbert, Star Wars, RoboCop, Halloween (Michael Myers), Spy Who Loved Me, The Last Samurai, 2001: A Space Odyssey, George Lucas, Indiana Jones (series), Empires Strikes Back, Final Fantasy VII, Voodoo hardware, Anachronox, Thief, Death Stranding, Guillermo del Toro, Silent Hills, Silent Hill 2, P.T., LeraAtwater, Michael Baker, Silicon Knights, Shigeru Miyamoto, Denis Dyack, Ben "from Iowa" Zaugg, Christian, Travis, Michael, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Looking Glass, Origin Systems, Warren Spector, Doug Church, Ultima VII, Good Old Games, Prey, The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Next time: Ultima Underworld Level 1 @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our third episode of our series on 1998's Japanese stealth classic Metal Gear Solid. We talk about a big choice in the game and the things you're not taught, particularly considering how fourth wall breaking it can be, as well as topics like UI choices. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: To Vulcan Raven (II) Podcast breakdown: 0:41 Metal Gear Solid 58:54 Break 59:26 Feedback Issues covered: Brett's carpal tunnel, Decoy Octopus and the DARPA Chief, animals chosen for code names, keeping Octopus in the game, submitting to the torture, big story splits and Dragon Breaks, tone variety in Eastern action cinema, weird untaught mechanics, negative vs positive reinforcement in teaching, blood tuition (learning through death) vs soft failure, gameplay telegraphing vs realistic environments, the staircase section, contextualizing rather than breaking systemic knowledge, rappelling down from the roof, having to do things too many times in boss battles, player skill vs stretching time, using vector art in various weapon UIs etc, grounding and science fiction, Otakon and the guys in the elevator with you, CQC'ing the guys around the elevator, multiple ways of dealing with Sniper Wolf, love blooming on the battlefield, respecting the soldiers, professionalism, catching a cold, Naomi's grandfather and adding layers of random research, using the codec for storytelling, a sequel for the West, Metal Yorke Solid, stealing time on the PC, lessons from Metal Gear Solid to teens, when some of the audience wants one thing and a larger audience wants something else, evolving with the industry and your player base, bands selling out vs finding a wider audience, having games find their own voice in a changing environment, changing characters with actors, Kojima's prequels, expanding the histories of characters. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: other Metal Gear games (Solid and otherwise), Elder Scrolls (obliquely), Jackie Chan, Park Chan-Wook, John Woo, Nintendo, Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, James Bond, Die Hard, Hideo Kojima, John Carpenter, Tom Clancy, Linda Nagata (the Red series), The Incredibles, Bastion, Ashton Herrmann, Splinter Cell (series), MSX2, Konami, Philip Yorke, ISS Pro '98, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Ploppy54, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, The Rock, Tomb Raider (2013), Halo (series), Fallout (series), Star Wars: Starfighter, TIE Fighter, X-Wing, Republic Commando, Rogue Squadron, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Daniel Craig, Star Wars prequels, Gothic Chocobo, Bleem, Connectix's Virtual Game Station, Aaron Giles. Next time: Actually finish the game Links: Bleem and VGS @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are midway through our series on 1998's Japanese stealth classic Metal Gear Solid. We talk about frustration, the various bosses, and a bit about one-offs. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through the torture scene Podcast breakdown: 0:40 MGS 1:03:10 Break 1:03:45 Feedback Issues covered: the history of "snake style," sources of frustration, Brett's psychological makeup, frustration in boss battles, the point of no return, finding the mine detector, using the cardboard box, getting through the lasers, using first person, smoking to reveal beams, gadget use in espionage movies, suddenly encountering a tank, stealth mechanics and the tank, tropes and cultural appropriation, 80s movies, elevating a bad B movie into a good B movie, committing to your melodrama, geopolitical themes and the military-industrial complex, subtext about game development, difficulty and frustration with Cyber Ninja, wall boss, human-sized bosses, grounding the game even in its strangeness, bosses can be characters, breaking the fourth wall with Psycho Mantis, reading the memory card, psychological warfare, cutscene leading up to his face reveal, ridiculous backtracking for the sniper rifle, beating Sniper Wolf and getting captured anyway, limited control in the cinematic, Revolver taunting you, focusing on scenes, voice acting video (link in the notes), briefing cutscene, taking joy in our lives despite their problematic elements, assuaging our guilt, carpal tunnel issues, posture issues. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LucasArts, Star Wars: Starfighter, Chris McGee, Andrew Kirmse, Matty Alan Estock, Portal, Day of the Tentacle, Dave Grossman, Tim Schafer, Samus Returns, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, The Wrong Trousers, Nick Park, Metal Gear (NES), Hideo Kojima, James Bond, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Batman, Escape from New York, The Great Santini, Brawl in Cell Block 99, S. Craig Zahler, Bone Tomahawk, Kurt Russell, Death Stranding, Eternal Darkness, Magneto, Hellboy, Darth Vader, The Incredibles, GoldenEye, Mark Garcia, Ben Hanson, Game Informer, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Drew/Tim Homan, Jeremy Blaustein, Silent Hill 2/3, Anachronox, Björn Johansson, Peacewalker, William Rance, Bleemcast/Dreamcast, Aaron Giles, Revengeance, John Yorke, Pro Evolution Soccer, Phil Yorke, Zone of the Enders, Derek Achoy, Super Mario Odyssey, Nels Anderson, Lyndsey Gallant, Tacoma, Mass Effect 2 & 3, Xbox, COBOL, Thief. Links: GI The Inside Story of Recording Metal Gear Solid MGS Briefing Call Me Snake Errata: Brett was confusing Matt Zoller Seitz with S. Craig Zahler. We regret the error. Aaron Giles was in fact involved with the Connectix software Virtual Game Station. Next time: Finish the game! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning our new series on 1998's Japanese stealth classic Metal Gear Solid. We first situate the game in its time, including some personal reminiscences of how we first came to the title, before turning to the stealth gameplay, the cutscenes, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up through Revolver Ocelot Podcast breakdown: 0:48 Segment 1: MGS in time, Beginning of game 1:03:54 Break 1:04:27 Email/Feedback Issues covered: crawling around in ducts, constantly reaching for your phone, previous games in the series, Brett's first year in the industry, good years in games, influences in American film and TV, melodrama and pulp, wholesale commitment to stealth, demo disc for the gaming, preferring systemic games, pre-rendered cutscenes vs in-engine, Carpenter influences (percussion, minimalistic, and synthy), constant camera movement in the cutscenes, choosing CGI vs in-engine (pros and cons), design considerations for streaming video, pixel density/differences in cutscene vs gameplay, being able to tweak a cutscene until right before you ship, setting mood and art direction, camera choice and having a sense of your surroundings, fitting the map to the camera, comparisons with Thief, tactical espionage and choosing the camera to fit, committing to stealth as a primary mechanic, creative risk in the commitment, high lethality and bouncing off, softening failure, unfortunate sexism, Asian influence as far as character choices, introducing the Cold War/extended peace issues, melodrama and big story choices, divisiveness of exposition, tapping walls as a mechanic, good level design choices, out-sized boss characters, solid introductions, allowing the industry to ask whether we can put ourselves forward in this way, breaking the fourth wall puzzle for the CD case, level design writing checks that your camera can't cash, nostalgia as a factor in appreciating a game, hunting through history for Brett's crazy memory, the cut worlds from Anachronox. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Die Hard, Hideo Kojima, NES, Alex Neuse, PlayStation, Half-Life, Starcraft, Fallout 2, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Rogue Squadron, Thief: The Dark Project, Rainbow Six, Spyro the Dragon, Final Fantasy Tactics, Kotaku Splitscreen, Kirk Hamilton, Kurt Russell, Michael Biehn, Terminator, Randy Smith, Ken Levine, Daron Stinnett, Atari, Sega, Nintendo 64, Final Fantasy VII, Tomb Raider (1996), Anachronox, LucasArts, John Carpenter, The Thing, Jackie Chan, Alan Stevens, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Sunshine, Game Informer, Aaron Evers, Tom Hall, Planet Anachronox, GameSpy, Jake Hughes, Ronald Railgun, Phil Rosehill, Awesome Games Done Quick, MGS: Twin Snakes, GameCube. Links: Promo video for Anachronox Speedrun description of Anachronox Speedrun of PC MGS Errata The PS1 did indeed have some hardware support. Next time: Through the first Sniper Wolf encounter @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we present our interview with Tom Hall, Project Lead of 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We talk about the team, the labor of love, what got left on the cutting floor, and various other bits and bobs. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:35 Interview segment 55:28 Break 56:00 Mail/outro Issues covered: the game's science fiction underpinnings, JRPGs and adventure games, the surprise of having the adventure game elements, the lore bible and map of the Universe, generating the background information to make characters sound consistent, creating alphabets, the black and white pirate world, PAL-18's digital home world and cel-shading, knowing what happens next, writing and cinematic direction with tools (PLANET), programming the mini-games (APE), in-depth cinematics and facial animation and mitten hands, getting a story in the bathroom (and starting with the name), talking process with Terry Gilliam, little ideas coming together to unite a concept, having a poisoned past, Nick Danger and radio plays, coming up with the most surprising things you could think of, Democratus having its origins in John Carmack's D&D campaign, a planet walks into a bar, playing with expectations, feeling episodic, making characters come first to drive those episodes, loyalty missions in Mass Effect, hidden content, having different levels for different choices, renaming characters, origin of Paco's and Rho Bowman's names, Stiletto Anyway's origins, crunching too much and team size, team cohesion, structure of ION Storm, Dream Design, doing one take of Walton Simmons, thirty years into the industry, being just a bit ahead of time for mobile, directing Gordon Ramsay, missing the big references to Hitchhiker's Guide, talking about the black and white world, talking crunch, potential achievements for Anachronox, adding achievements to remastered adventure games. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Tom Hall, SoftDisk, John Carmack, John Romero, id Software, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, DOOM, Apogee, Rise of the Triad, Terminal Velocity, ION Storm, Monkeystone Games, Hyperspace Delivery Boy, KingIsle Entertainment, Loot Drop, PlayFirst, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Monkey Island, Lee Perry, Epic, Fornite, Jet Set Radio, Borderlands, Richard Gaubert, Jake Hughes, Joey Liaw, Brian Eiserloh, Crystal Dynamics, Watchmen, Terry Gilliam, Monty Python, Brazil, Firesign Theater, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Mass Effect, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy IX, Peter Marquardt, El Mariachi, Robert Rodriguez, Band of Brothers, Eidos, Deus Ex, Murder One, Daniel Bengali, ngmoco, JAMDAT, gluMobile/PlayFirst, Cooking Dash/Restaurant Dash with Gordon Ramsay, Diner Dash, Eric Zimmerman, Jeff Green, Marc Laidlaw, Half-Life, Valve Software, Quake 2, Jedi Starfighter, MaasNeotekProto, Day of the Tentacle, Aaron Evers, Metal Gear Solid, Thief, Revolver Ocelot, PlayStation, Hideo Kojima, Peacewalker, PSP, Brandon Fernandez. Next time: Metal Gear Solid: Up thru Revolver Ocelot @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are having our fourth and final discussion about 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We talk quite a bit about the specifics of the end of the game, with a diversion into ION Storm, and then talk about our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through to the end! Podcast breakdown: 0:42 Anachronox! Issues covered: that final battle, splitting up the party, Rho Bowman's adventure on Democratus, Stiletto Anyway's adventure on Democratus, Tim mansplains Star Wars to Brett, we do no work in figuring out the Elementor, Paco's adventure makes a mockery of the military, locks and keys through a million variations, Paco's minigame, party variety, why have unique levels for party members, end of the credits sequence, replayability as an issue in early 2000s games, ION Storm history, splitting off to be a rebel developer, how did this get made, game development rock stardom, Brett's film nerddom, going to Limbus and getting historical and religious context for the whole Chaos/Order thing, character design on Limbus, going to talk to Rowdy, circularity in the story, facial animation system, splitting up the party, heist movie, long car chase scene and Fatima's death, Kuleshov effect, what can and should games notice about player behavior, the final battle, how the Elementor crosses over or whether it does, area effect abilities, post-battle walk out scene, letting your freak flag fly, keeping players guessing, focus on writing and characters, being more playful, humor in games. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Aaron Evers, Legend of Zelda, Tomb Raider, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, Tom Hall, Quake, Warren Spector, Deus Ex, ION Storm, Daikatana, John Romero, Unreal, Image Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Eidos Interactive, EA, Gathering of Developers, Masters of DOOM, New York Times Magazine, id Software, Epic Megagames, Peter Lorre, M., Fritz Lang, Dark Crystal, Time Machine, Die Hard, Sly Cooper (series), Max Payne, Metal Gear Solid (series), Reservoir Dogs, Star Trek, Moby Dick, Christopher Nolan, Batman, Jeff Green, Computer Gaming World, MaasNeotekProto. Links: Computer Gaming World issue where Jeff Green talks about the company and game Next time: Interview...? (If not, see the Twitter account) @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are having our third discussion about 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We talk quite a bit about the specifics of this section of the game, including the combat elements and leveling, before turning to feedback. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: To the surface of Democratus! Podcast breakdown: 0:43 Anachronox pt III 1:05:15 Break 1:05:47 Feedback Issues covered: resolutions (or lack thereof) and taking stock, flying towards the Hive and having a railgun shooter, abstracting away from player skill in RPGs, hybridization, lack of loot, finding new offensive stuff in the environment, using the Elementor, colored bugs and finding them all over, the Hive Queen, saving Democratus and having it... join your party?, tonal shifting every couple of hours, movie tone management, no shackles, could you do this today?, indie studios doing widely different games, how would you do a sequel to this game?, drug missions in Far Cry 4, optional nature of diverse gameplay lending them less force, whether a pure episodic model could work, theoretical possibility of continuing the series, choice between Hephaestus vs Red Light District, Pumping Station, broader humor, introduction of Stiletto Anyway, Stiletto's special ability, tricky design problem -- locking off areas, Rho's description of what's going on quantum physics/astrophysics/temporal physics, moving mass between universes, incorporating the game's ideas all the way down into the UI, the Hephaestus mystery, characters moving around in the environment apart from you, useless randomization, getting the elementor, Krapton comics universe and Rictus the villain, storytelling with comic panels, hologram puzzles, the weird hero capture room, committing all the way to a planet as a party member, the electoral college mockery in 2000, hyperdiegetic lore issues, content coordination, the "dragon break", content coordination and licensing, listening out of order, book club. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Aaron Evers, IrreverentQ, Matty Alan Estock, Makendi, MaasNeotekProto, Ryan (Stats_dr), Jackbox Party Pack/Drawful, Rebel Assault, Descent, Final Fantasy, Witcher III, Aliens, Soul Reaver, Star Trek, What Remains of Edith Finch?, The Unfinished Swan, Vlambeer, Year Walk, Beat Sneak Bandit, Device 6, Simogo, Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal, Square Enix, Eidos, Outlaws, The Terminator, Ron Gilbert, Rob Howard, Grid Snaps, Star Wars Republic Commando, Ben (from Iowa) Zaugg, Al Gore, Logan Brown, Halo, Jason Schreier, Blood Sweat and Pixels, Halo Wars, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, 343 Industries, LucasFilm, Haden Blackman, Hangar 13, Mafia III, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Ryan Kaufman, Star Wars Galaxies, Bethesda Game Studios, tshokunbi, System Shock 2. Links: Podcast episode about SWRC Next time: Finish the game! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we have a very special, year-end blast where we talk about some top take-aways and interview moments from the past year. And it's been a busy one, with six interviews and ten games discussed. Thanks for joining us this year. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Issues covered: defeating Darth Vader, the complexity of the world and reflecting that in TIE Fighter, taking a twist on the Chosen One, developing the character of Gordon Freeman and ultimately cutting the cutscenes, having a scene of level designers competing with one another and also with other companies, making single-player content be moment-to-moment excellence, the enemy AI playing against you in X-COM, flying under the radar, adding dynamic difficulty at the last possible moment, Tim loses his X-COM save file, thematic and story integration, holistic design (between control/mechanics/camera/space), less is more, individual effort shining through, homogenization of game development, nailing the 3D camera, shipping your experiments. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Anachronox, Darren Johnson, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Dan Connors, Mark Cartwright, Larry Holland, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Republic Commando, Planescape: Torment, Chris Avellone, Half-Life, Marc Laidlaw, Chuck Jones, Dario Casali, Fallout, Sin, Daikatana, Quake II, Titanfall 2, Respawn Entertainment, Chris Blohm, Julian Gollop, X-COM: UFO Defense, Microprose, Phoenix Point, Star Wars: Starfighter, Fumito Ueda, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Silent Hill 2, Super Mario 64, Battlefront II, Metal Gear Solid, The Last Guardian, Fred Markus, Aaron Evers. Next time: We return to Anachronox and go down to the surface of Democratus! @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our discussion about 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We talk about the writing and humor, how those may have developed, and also discuss the characters and their characterization, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Votowne Podcast breakdown: 0:45 Segment 1: Anachronox 50:23 Break 50:52 Segment 2: Feedback Issues covered: etymology of sly boots and other forms of boots, the writing style, broad and referential humor, the quest for a size five helmet, comedic space opera, particular interests in the humor, dark humor, lack of boundaries to the writing, Grumpos's Yammer ability, going back and forth with your party on Votowne, having to have Sly in your party, drifting in space conversations, walking a thin line of humor and menace, hinting at Detta before you meet him, is PAL's voice getting in the way?, lip-synching and fully-voiced cinematics, recording all actors in the same room, length of space cutscenes, edited together machinima, paying off on team and technical investments over multiple games, use of multiple locations, feeling like a television series, political commentary, gaining confidence in comedy, individualism in Votowne and Rho Bowman, use of space and environment in combat, combat speed, stone sentinel fight and combat design, figuring out the JRPG rock-paper-scissors stuff, combat challenge and depth (or lack thereof), enabling character dialog based on quest state, Sender Station Station, NPC state or location changes based on quest, boss battles, jeep battle section at end of MGS 1, marker system challenge in SWRC, air steering in Tomb Raider. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Nathan Bailey's 1721 Dictionary of Canting and Thieving Slang, Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, SpaceQuest, Sierra, The Beatles, Tom Hall, Jim Jones, SpongeBob Squarepants, Cartman, Buck Rogers, Kingdom Hearts, Nightmare Before Christmas, Cowboy Bebop, Mass Effect, Planescape: Torment, Chinatown, John Huston, Kingpin, Daredevil, The Godfather, Jeff Morris, Jake Hughes, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Uncharted (series), Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Star Trek (television series), Avengers/Captain America, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Trigger, Tomb Raider, Drew Homan, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Panther One/Anthony Vaccaro, Asteroids, Pong, Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Hero Engine, GameMaker: Studio, Republic Commando, Nathan Martz, Tomb Raider (2013), Mario (series), TIE Fighter, Half-Life, Julian Gollop, X-COM, Chris Avellone. Next time: To the Surface of Democratus! Links: Asteroids tutorial, Step 1: https://youtu.be/7XDcSXVUGsE GameMaker: https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker Brett Making Asteroids in a couple hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv7L09FOx8E @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are beginning our new series on 2001's quirky Western-built Japanese-style RPG Anachronox. We set it in its time, and discuss how we decided to play it and then spend a lot of time on its world-building. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Through Bricks Podcast breakdown: 0:40 Anachronox in time, Initial discussion 38:36 Break 39:04 Thanks and feedback Issues covered: Games of the Year, how we came to choose Anachronox, 2001 in PC games, mash-ups, lack of character creator, is the character a Chosen One, possible character antecedents, world-building in simple ways and picking up things as you go, avoiding the lore bombs, dialogue trees vs continuing dialogue, progenitor race tropes, technology we don't understand but make use of, more character antecedents, film noir tropes, Boots as sad sack, layout of the introductory area and not getting lost, mix of architectural styles, moving city blocks around, putting ideas into games more quickly, investing in mechanics to make them pay off multiple times, boat action sequence, mini-games, shifting audience expectations, less forgiving audiences, changing suspension of disbelief, character names, a codex with all the names of stuff, potential fragility of scripting, thank yous, German B-thing, Tim's phone audio, musical touches in Mario 64, Brett's favorite Mario 64 levels, games we replay, Brett and Freud, picking games and timing, interviews, difficulty in getting Japanese devs, next time. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Alien Isolation, Nintendo Switch, What Remains of Edith Finch, Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed Origins, AC Unity, AC Syndicate, id Software, Quake II, Mass Effect, Silent Hill 2, Max Payne, Clive Barker's Undying, Oni, Bungie, Soul Reaver 2, AVP, Star Wars: Starfighter, Halo, Final Fantasy, Deus Ex, Blade Runner, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, David Cage, David Bowie, Starcraft, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Gateway, Rendezvous with Rama, Babylon 5, Geoff Jones, Frederick Pohl, J. Michael Straczynski, Firefly, Sam Spade, Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Grand Theft Auto III, Dark City, City of Lost Children, Alex Proyas, Rufus Sewell, Unreal, Half-Life, Dario Casali, John Romero, DOOM, Chase Thompson, Super Mario 64, Aaron Evers, MDK, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Good Old Games, Metal Gear Solid, Mark Garcia, Gamer Lawyer, Skyrim, Fallout (series), Bioshock (series), Hitman (series), Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Mario Kart, World of Warcraft, Tim Dore, Sigmund Freud, Thief: The Dark Project, Bullfrog, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Silent Hill 2, Portal, TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Rogue One, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, System Shock 2, X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey, Ashman86, Jason Schreier, Kotaku: Splitscreen, Republic Commando, Chris Avellone, Julian Gollop, Marc Laidlaw, Reed Knight, Darren Johnson, Larry Holland, The Phantom Menace, AddictArts. Next time: Up to (and possibly through) Votowne Corrections: Arthur C. Clarke wrote Rendezvous with Rama. We regret the error. @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are closing our series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. We start at the end, discuss Koji Kondo's iconic music and finally, our takeaways, before turning to listener feedback. SM64 Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Finished the game! Podcast breakdown: 0:42 Segment 1: Discussion and Pillars 44:35 Break 45:08 Segment 2: Feedback/next time Issues covered: the boss battle, getting better at the game, getting those red stars, finding a backflip shortcut, throwing Bowser and figuring out a pattern for yourself, listening for audio cues, desperation, difficulty of the final Bowser fight, having a one-up nearby, building that Bowser battle around the controller, training you for that final battle, ending games, weird final cake, the last few levels, Tiny Huge Island and finding Wiggler, Tim learns you can choose one or the other image to jump into Tiny Huge Island, secret stars, sliding down the ramp, the music, our John Williams, adapting simple melodies across multiple titles, the stickiness of a few Mario musical themes, pulling these melodies forward into modern games, comparing film music to game music, limitations of hardware influencing musical choices, the 3D camera working so well with the level design, accommodating a camera in your level design (vs not), the abstraction that allows exploration of 3D ideas and experimentation, decision paralysis, the hub and spoke structure revisited, not holding up as consistently, green cap, variant gameplay should be easy, endings of games are hard, new combinations of skills, appreciating the game as an adult, more developed critical skills, importing an N64 and renting it out, reconfiguring the levels, speedrunning Mario 64, Brett uses the F word, teleporting out of the world, extending the play of the world, getting to the unreachable coin, swimming in 3D platformers, wish fulfillment in games, octogenarians and nostalgia, physical competence, VR potentially having a role when we are old, targeting wish fulfillment to only one demographic, power fantasy, mobile fantasy fulfillment. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Super Mario Odyssey, Portal, Mario Kart, Daron Stinnett, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, John Williams, Halo, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Final Fantasy XV, Soul Reaver, Dan Houser, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sasha Visari, Truffles Mochacchino, SEGA Saturn, Tomb Raider, The Hobbit, Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Bobby Oster, Phil Rosehill, Summoning Salt, Awesome Games Done Quick, Audrey Fox, Mikkel Lodahl, Cribbage, Backgammon, Bridge, Ultima, Richard Garriott, Kim Kardashian's Hollywood, Ready Player One, j-dog33, Fallout 3, Silent Hill 2, Anachronox, Republic Commando, Reed Knight, Deus Ex, Tom Hall, id Software, Jeff Green, Computer Gaming World. Links: Summoning Salt on the Super Mario 64 120-Star World Record Progression Summoning Salt on the Super Mario 64 0-Star World Record Progression Super Mario 64 120 Star Race at GDQ Super Mario 64 0/1 Star Race at GDQ Half Button Presses The Super Mario 64 coin that took 18 years to collect Next time: Anachronox! Through "Bricks" @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in the midst of our series on 1996 3D platforming sensation Super Mario 64. Tim intros the 'cast for the first time and we discuss both macro and micro design. SM64 Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Up to 50 stars! Podcast breakdown: 0:44 SM64 Segment 42:02 Break 42:33 Feedback segment Issues covered: likening Brett to a car, increasing difficulty of stars within a hub, Brett getting all the stars for a bunch of worlds and figures out how he got there, red coin challenges, rising frustration but increasing skill, getting access to the second Bowser battle, hub and spoke structure, choices and exploration, building a sense of place by allowing players a bit of choice of which path to follow next, linearity as a review trope, sacrificing narrative for non-linearity, player choice reducing narrative urgency, abstraction of narrative helping with non-linear stories, avoiding stress and soft gating, finding stars out of order, dynamic difficulty built into design, maintaining order for consistency and communication's sake, courses as missions, wanting the clues to the other stars earlier, telling stories via stars, tagging the current star, move set with many possibilities from few inputs, triple jumping in place, gaining height, 100 coin stars, profound impact of the game, finding every way to die in Shifting Sand, adding new stuff that doesn't work as well, swimming in 3D character games, variant gameplay should be easier, the difficulty inherent in the flying controls and not making the transition well from 2D, experimentation, mods and getting in, the paintings and the world of 2D, maintaining some jankiness, leaving bugs in, giants killing you in Skyrim, adventure games and intentional blind alleys, motion sickness, being software driven vs hardware driven, gambling and children, not all characters created equal, matching loot box mechanics to the property. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Cadillac, Super Mario Odyssey, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces, Nintendo, Skyrim, Super Mario World, Super Mario Sunshine, Game Developer Magazine, Uncharted 4, Mike Reddy, Half-Life 2, Adam Griffiths, Dan Pinchbeck, The Chinese Room, Dear Esther, Logan Brown, From Software, Paper Mario, Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Super Mario 3D Land, Halo, Day of the Tentacle, Wolverine, Aaron Evers, PSVR, Vive, Oculus, The Witness, Shadow of the Colossus, Alien: Isolation, TIME Magazine, Ben Zaugg, EA, Madden, FIFA, Aaron Rodgers, Lionel Messi, Star Wars, Battlefront, Piotr/jatyoni. Next time: Beat Bowser (finally)! Links: I could not find the issue of Game Developer I wanted, but here's the magazine archive Adam Griffiths's mod That One Time It's Different @brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub [email protected]