Brain Arcade

We're taking a break for the holidays and will be back in the new year with a brand new season and new content! We'll be doing more topic deep dives so let us know what you want to hear about!

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Game Industry veteran Chris Schroyer (The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands) stops by Brain Arcade to dive into DS wild-west creativity, mechanics as storytelling, and early-career origin stories. We unpack healthy (and unhealthy) indie dev rhythms, and explore how feedback, emotion, and weird ideas shape unforgettable games.

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Leadership matters even more on tiny teams. Coach and trainer Andy Coley shares how to communicate clearly, set expectations that stick to keep scope and moral under control so you can actually ship.

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Writer Chris Knauer joins Brain Arcade to talk about his leap from writers’ rooms into Unreal Engine. We dig into what it means to treat games as a conversation with players, how art and interactivity collide, and why learning to manage scope might be the most creative act of all.

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Nathan White, founder of Threeclipse Inc. joins to talk about building opportunities for juniors in game dev through mentorship and real shipped projects. We dig into what it takes to break in today, finish what you start, and build a sustainable creative path.

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Returning guest Mark Netter and I dig into the business of play. From mergers and layoffs to AI-driven development and the shrinking middle class of indie studios.

We look at how money, creativity, and technology are reshaping the games industry and what developers and players alike can learn from it.

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Stephan Bugaj (Pixar, Telltale, Genvid) joins me to explore the real reasons games succeed and why traditional marketing no longer cuts it. We dig into the saturation of the games market, the myth of “build it and they will come,” and how authentic communities are replacing ad campaigns. We also look at discoverability from a dev’s perspective, how to find your audience and why word of mouth still matters.

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Chris chats with Producer and previous VP of Production, Arthur von Nagel (Ubisoft, Genvid, Telltale), about how small teams build community-driven hits like Vampire Survivors, Balatro, and Cult of the Lamb. They dig into fandom, identity, and why marketing isn't what it used to be.

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Chris sits down with longtime friend, animator and filmmaker Joe Ksander, to trace his path from dorms of UCLA to EA’s Medal of Honor and from Hollywood VFX into making films. They talk about crunch culture, learning animation on the job, and how they shaped each other's storytelling skills. Joe and Chris have a heartfelt chat on perseverance, media production, and 30+ years of friendship through games.

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Emmy-nominated comedy writer, Author, and Comedian Mike Drucker (Nintendo, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Tonight Show) joins Brain Arcade to talk about punching up the comedy for everything from games to TV and film. He brings his years of experience and success to shed light on the difference between comedy games vs. comedy in games and why not every character should have the same punchlines. Plus, he talks favorite funny games, formative titles, and how video games helped shape his comedy taste.

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