In this episode, I spoke with Lindsay Barnett, founder/CEO of Playground Productions, and James Deighan, founder/CEO of Mega Cat Studios, about the return of the Backyard Sports franchise of games. We discussed running a "Blue Collar" studio with 90% employee retention, reviving a dead IP, and how to design accessible games for all ages. This is part 1 of a two-part interview, so be sure to tune in next time to hear more from Lindsay and James!

00:00 Introduction

01:59 How To Approach Accessible All-Ages Game Design

09:41 Learning From What Worked In The Past

13:10 Running A "Blue-Collar" Studio With 90% Employee Retention

19:02 Picking Projects With Your Heart

24:12 Hiring A P.I. For A Dead I.P.

Playground Productions:

https://playground-productions.com/

https://www.instagram.com/playground.productions/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/playground-productionsllc/

https://www.youtube.com/@backyardsports

Mega Cat Studios:

https://megacatstudios.com

https://www.facebook.com/megacatstudios/

https://www.instagram.com/megacatstudios/

https://www.youtube.com/megacatstudios

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

In this episode, I spoke with nine game developers at GDC Festival of Gaming (previously known as the Game Developers Conference). I asked each of them the same four questions: What are you scared about right now in the game industry? What are you angry about right now in the game industry? What are you hopeful about right now in the game industry? And, what are you excited about right now in the game industry? This is the GDC Vibe Check.

Guests: Michael Fitch, Lyn Dang, Dan Gerstein, Nat Loh, Jessica Flor, Erika Mariko Olsen, Thomas Fossgard, Jonathan Jennings, Tiffany Otto

00:00 Intro

01:06 Guest Introductions

02:57 What are you scared about in the industry right now?

10:34 What are you angry about in the industry right now?

16:30 Travel Tips and Non-Ad Ad Break

18:17 What are you hopeful about in the industry right now?

24:06 What are you excited about in the industry right now?

30:08 Random Hot Takes

33:55 Outro

Links:

Michael Fitch's personal web site: http://betterrealities.com/

Lyn Dang's personal web site: https://lynloves.games/

Dan Gerstein's company web site: https://pistolshrimpgames.com/

Nat Loh's personal web site: https://www.natlohdesign.com/

Jessica Flor's developer collective web site: https://www.hexwavegames.com/

Erika Mariko Olsen's consulting web site: https://pixel-strategy.com/

Thomas Fossgard's game announcement: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7229132539276201985/

Jonathan Jennings' personal portfolio: https://www.behance.net/Jonathanj

Tiffany Otto is mysterious and important and doesn't have a web site!

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

Make Games, Drink Coffee is produced, edited, and just generally all-around made by me, Aaron Nemoyten. Please email the Make Games Drink Coffee email address, I'm tired of only getting podcast SEO spam at that address!

This week, Aaron chats with Des Gayle in the second of a two-part interview. Des is a Senior Partner Relations Manager at Unity (day job), Studio head at Altered Gene (his company), and does "production stuff" for a couple of indies. He describes himself as having "Produced one game that won a BAFTA (Life Is Strange) and plenty more that didn't."

In this episode, we discussed Netflix's games strategy and how other big tech companies have tried to get into gaming, as well as so-called "transmedia IPs," like Quantum Break, and adaptations like the Last of Us and Fallout.

00:00 Introduction

00:56 How to Run Games For A Streaming Service

11:28 Game And Movie Adaptations and Crossovers: Knowing Your Audience

16:52 What Has And Hasn't Worked In "Transmedia IP"

19:16 Building Your Own "Transmedia IP"

23:11 Outro

Links:

"There's a Last Time for Everything" Kickstarter campaign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alteredgene/taltfe?ref=9odmgb

Des Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/kid_desimo/

Des Bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/kiddesimo.bsky.social

Des Twitter
https://x.com/Kid_Desimo

"Kidd Copter" Playdate game

https://play.date/games/kidd-copter/

Altered Gene website

https://www.alteredgene.co.uk/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

Make Games, Drink Coffee is produced, edited, and just generally all-around made by me, Aaron Nemoyten. Please email the Make Games Drink Coffee email address, I'm tired of only getting podcast SEO spam at that address!

This week, Aaron chats with Des Gayle in the first of a two-part interview. Des is a Senior Partner Relations Manager at Unity (day job), Studio head at Altered Gene (his company), and does "production stuff" for a couple of indies. He describes himself as having "Produced one game that won a BAFTA (Life Is Strange) and plenty more that didn't."

In this episode, we talk about game publishing and funding, and answer questions about how and why games with narratives focused on diverse protagonists and situations are or aren't funded. We also briefly discuss Des' short film, "There's a Last Time for Everything," for which he's running a Kickstarter campaign.

00:00 Introduction

02:13 Square Enix and Life Is Strange

04:35 Publishing Indie Games At Fellow Traveller

08:37 Why Don't Publishers Publish More Diverse Games?

11:34 The Current Funding And Publishing Landscape For Indies

17:54 Funding Tips and Tricks

22:24 Des' Short Film Kickstarter

24:37 Wrapping Up

Links:

"There's a Last Time for Everything" Kickstarter campaign. (Ends Sunday 29th March)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alteredgene/taltfe?ref=9odmgb

Des Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/kid_desimo/

Des Bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/kiddesimo.bsky.social

Des Twitter
https://x.com/Kid_Desimo

"Kidd Copter" Playdate game

https://play.date/games/kidd-copter/

Altered Gene website

https://www.alteredgene.co.uk/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

Make Games, Drink Coffee is produced, edited, and just generally all-around made by me, Aaron Nemoyten. Please email the Make Games Drink Coffee email address, I'm tired of only getting podcast SEO spam at that address!

This week, Aaron chats with Monica Fan in the second of a two-part interview. Monica is a game designer currently working at Pipeworks on an unannounced AAA game, but they consider themselves an eccentric creative at heart, having worked in entertainment media including newspaper, radio, theater, and film.  

In this second half of our two-part interview, we went DEEP on just a few topics: The importance of consuming more media to broaden your knowledge (even if it means playing games you don't like), short vs. long-term thinking in life and in your career, and the value of unconventional protagonists in games and how they could contribute to helping people love themselves as they are.

00:00 Introduction

00:59 Hot Take: Consume More Media, Even If You Don't Like It

10:25 Short Vs Long-Term Thinking

17:24 Unconventional Protagonists And Loving Yourself

29:49 Outro

This week, Aaron chats with Monica Fan in the first of a two-part interview. Monica is a game designer currently working at Pipeworks on an unannounced AAA game, but they consider themselves an eccentric creative at heart, having worked in entertainment media including newspaper, radio, theater, and film.  

In this first half of our two-part interview, we talked about Monica's supervillain origin story (the world's worst Tinder date, I'm not kidding), who gets to create underdog narratives and why, the importance of creating games that fulfill fantasies other than typical male-driven power fantasies, how Roblox is driving a new generation of game design, and more!

00:00 Cold Open

00:30 Intro

03:05 Monica's Supervillain Origin Story (AKA The Worst Tinder Date Ever)

09:24 Dopamine Slinging As A Career

12:13 Slop And The Fantasy of Creating Art

18:03 Roblox And Game Design For A New Generation

20:59 The Elder Millennial Teenage Boy Power Fantasy

23:23 Diverse Fantasies For Diverse Audiences

25:38 White Men Can't Introspect(tm)

32:13 ...But The Video Game Industry Is Still (Relatively) Small

34:25 Outro

Links:

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

Make Games, Drink Coffee is produced, edited, and just generally all-around made by me, Aaron Nemoyten. Please email the Make Games Drink Coffee email address, I'm tired of only getting podcast SEO spam at that address!

In this short bonus episode, instead of interviewing a guest for 30 minutes, I talk politics, unions, GDC, and Doom: The Dark Ages... for about six minutes. Why no guest? You'll just have to listen to find out!

Links:

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Daniel McLaren. Daniel has been making games since 2005 and has worked on everything from MMOs to mobile games. While he has held a variety of roles over the years, from Game Designer, Producer, to even Product Manager, his primary focus is Design and Team Leadership. Daniel has a passion for reading books, laying on the ground, watching the San Diego Padres mismanage their team, and Path of Exile. Daniel and I worked together at EA on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, and that's how we know each other.

We spoke about Daniel's philosophy of humility in game design, what it was like briefly working in Finland, how we should take sports seriously as lessons in game design, and more.

00:00 Intro

01:39 Humility As A Game Design Philosophy

09:43 Finland's Game Development Culture

11:50 Learning Game Design From Popular Sports

19:19 Spending Time With Friends Is Its Own Hobby

21:50 What Games Are You Playing Right Now?

Links:

Daniel McLaren doesn't have much of an online presence, so here's a link to the game he's working on at Stoic, Towerborne:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2458830/Towerborne/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Nat Loh, a game design and leadership consultant with nearly 20 years of experience, including character gameplay design on every Skylanders game, mobile free-to-play, VR, and more! We spoke about designing characters in Skylanders, the need for better leadership training in the game industry, how to run better meetings, and why game developers need a seat at the table when big companies discuss the use of AI. This might be the most simultaneously topical and timeless conversation I've had on the podcast!

00:00 Intro and Industry Start

02:21 Character Gameplay Design in Skylanders

07:35 Leadership and Leadership Training In the Game Industry

12:41 More On Masking

15:02 Having A Seat at the AI Table

17:42 A War Story That's Not A War Story

19:10 The Importance of Asking Questions

25:00 Current Projects and Future Excitement

Links:

Nat's web site:

https://www.natlohdesign.com/

Toys for Bob's website from 2005 on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040224212701/http://toysforbob.com/

Dragon Sweeper on itch.io:

https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, we'll be listening to some bonus cut content from the first and third episodes of the podcast. These were answers that were both too long to include in their respective episodes, and too interesting to cut down into smaller pieces. First we'll hear from Kay Purcell, currently a Brand Manager at Konami and previously a community manager at DeviantArt and at Red Bull's gaming division, about TTRPG influence, scenarios, and subverting expectations. Then, we'll hear from Sahil Bajaj. Sahil is a writer and narrative designer on indie games he can talk about (such as ValiDate: Struggling Singles In Your Area), and AAA titles that he's still under NDA about. He's also an Indian living in Dubai who loves Western media, and I'm glad I finally have somewhere to put this interesting discussion about the history and current state of the movie industry in India. 

00:00 Intro

00:47 Kay Purcell on TTRPG Design, Influence, and Subversion

05:34 When Kevin Eastman Likes Your Hair

11:41 Silksong? No. Farming? Yes.

13:21 "Ad" Break

14:13 Sahil Bajaj: The State of Movies In India

22:58 Outro

Links:

Sahil's web site: 

https://sahilbajaj.dev/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]