Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit joins us to talk about the process behind his excellent series on game design. We discuss his recent video on randomness - diving deep on input/output randomness - as well as roguelike progression, and much more!

Things we discussed:

Game Maker's Toolkit

How (And Why) Spelunky Makes its Own Levels

The Two Types of Random

Michael Brough's Imbroglio "brog"

Characteristics of Games

Playing at the World

Sid Meier's Psychology of Game Design

Geoff Engelstein's "pink noise" talk

Roguelikes, Persistency, and Progression

Let's Game it Out YouTube channel

The Best Games from GMTK Game Jam 2019

Ryan Clark of Brace Yourself Games (Crypt of the Necrodancer, Cadence of Hyrule) sashays in to chat with us about how he hit on his rhythm roguelike formula, layering in depth to make his systems sing, and how he's found - and repeated - indie game success.

Some things we discussed:

Brace Yourself Games

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Industries of Titan

Phantom Brigade

Bard seeded speed world record

How to Consistently Make Profitable Indie Games

Dwarf Fortress

Meteorfall

Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated

We get cozy with our own Zach Gage to talk about his just-released SpellTower+, the follow-up to the puzzle game that put him on the map. We discuss making word searches interesting, the design of letter distribution, and making the Westworld of word games.

SpellTower+ zachgage.com Kinnijup's new eggplant run world record Kinnijup's new low% hell run world record Puzzlejuice Letterpress The history of Tetris randomizers Typeshift

Jan Willem "JW" Nijman (Nuclear Throne, Minit) sits down with us to help us fix mini golf, before we dig into some of the design thinking behind Vlambeer's amazing catalog of action games, how he approaches prototyping, and being the self-proclaimed "Jamie Oliver of game feel."

Things we discussed:

Vlambeer The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

Ribbit King

JW's The Art of Screen Shake talk

Samurai Gunn

Monolith

Immersive puzzle designer Laura E. Hall joins for our big GOTY show, as we each share our Top 5 games of 2019. We also hear many of YOUR picks (thanks!), and stick around until the end to hear picks from several of our 2019 guests. Happy New Year! 

Things we discussed: Laura E. Hall Katamari Damacy by Boss Fight Books Every Game in This City podcast Sleep No More Trolling as an Air Traffic Controller in Flight Sim X

Our GOTY picks (SPOILERS)

Laura: Heaven's Vault Elsinore Lianna Fled the Cranberry Bog: A Story in Cootie Catchers Shenmue III Storyteller's Secret

Zach: Call of Dury: Modern Warfare Slay the Spire The Pinball Wizard Apex Legends Vagante

Doug: Slay the Spire Disco Elysium Return of the Obra Dinn A Short Hike Petscop

Andy: Lonely Mountains: Downhill A Short Hike Sekiro Song of Bloom Auto Chess

Nick: Ape Out Painter Detective Pilgrims Remember Our Trip Earth Defense Force 5

With the help of our friend Bennett Foddy (QWOP, Getting Over It) we consider Spelunky as the Game of the Decade - we discuss what influence it's had (or hasn't had) in and beyond its genre, its distinct connection to Dark Souls, and experiencing the external narrative of modern gaming. Things we discussed:

Bennett Foddy's games

Ape Out

TIGSource

Tim Rogers Presents The Games of the Decade

Finishing a Game by Derek Yu

Vagante

Characteristics of Games

Assassination of Lord British

Reasons and Persons book

Put Your Name on Your Game GDC talk

Song of Bloom

Terry Cavanagh (Super Hexagon, VVVVVV) joins us to talk about his fantastic roguelike deckbuilder, Dicey Dungeons. We discuss the thread of generosity in his game design, the challenges of working across genres, and what might be next for Terry!

Things we discussed:

Terry's distractionware.com

Dicey Dungeons

VVVVVV

Super Hexagon

Tiny Heist

Stephen Lavelle

Dream Quest

7 Day Roguelike

Naya's Quest

The Long Dark

Super Hexagon playthrough at Fantastic Arcade

Hearthstone Battlegrounds

We're taking a much-needed week off, but please enjoy one of our favorite episodes from early on. We'll be back in two weeks with guest Terry Cavanagh to talk about his new roguelike deckbuilder (dicebuilder?) Dicey Dungeons - check it out and send us your questions! Anyways, on to our show:

Jay Ma of Subset Games joins us to discuss the design of her excellent sci-fi strategy game Into the Breach, from its Spelunky-inspired high/low-level design, to how they cracked its time-driven gameplay, to why throwing away 80% of their work...worked.

Things we talked about:

Jay Ma

Subset Games

FTL

Into the Breach

Input / Output Randomness

'Into the Breach' Didn't Click Until I Played it Like an EMT

Into the Breach - Fantastic Arcade 2017 Developer Commentary

Stephen's Sausage Roll

Return of the Obra Dinn

Frank Lantz (Drop7, Universal Paperclips) stops by to tell us about his new party game for smart speakers, Hey Robot. We discuss fun ways to engage with rigid AI - and the privacy issues inherent to doing so - before taking a wild detour into the taxonomy of paddle boats. Things we discussed:

Frank Lantz

Hey Robot

Breakfast Spelunky

Shiren the Wanderer

ClemmyGames' Top 10 Best Underrated Roguelike/Roguelites

NYU Game Center

Pac Manhattan

Drop7

Universal Paperclips

Everybody House Games

Antigrams

SmileBot

Lodden Thinks

Paddle Boats

The history of Tetris randomizers

Frank's How to play Cinco Paus

Hanabi 

Free of guests or a "plan," our crew of intrepid hosts dives into a bounty of stimulating listener questions! We discuss our personal roads into game design, the challenge of procedural generation in AAA games, and the game design of reality shows.

Things we discussed:

Kirby703_'s World 23 correction

Demon's Souls

IndieCade

Game Design Deep Dive: The creative camaraderie behind Wilmot's Warehouse

Kate Compton's 10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal

Drop7

Noita

Conan Death Stranding video

Classic Tetris World Championship

Deadwood

Are You The One?

The Stormlight Archive

Pilgrims

Machinarium Remixed

Card of Darkness