Make Games, Drink Coffee

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]

This week, Aaron chats with Jonathan Jennings, a passionate VR developer with a decade of experience in the space. Jonathan is currently at Owlchemy Labs working on Dimensional Double Shift and is Director of Education at Black In Gaming. We had a wide-ranging discussion about VR development, its progress over the years, how it's different from non-VR game development, why the strengths of video games don't lie in cinematic experiences, Jonathan's labor of love VR game, Galactic Bar Fight, and more.

00:00 Introduction

01:23 The Evolution of VR Over the Last Decade

09:33 Good VR Game Design And Galactic Bar Fight

14:43 Learning From Volunteering With Black In Gaming

16:33 Technical Evolution of Unity VR Support

19:13 Finding VR's "Nintendo Moment"

22:46 VR Can Be Dangerous!

24:27 Loving Words and Simple Explanations

30:03 Wrapping Up

Links:

Jonathan's Personal Page:

http://jjenningsgames.weebly.com/

Galactic Bar Fight on itch.io:

https://weirdkidstudios.itch.io/galactic-bar-fight

Black In Gaming:

https://www.thebigfoundation.org/

Owlchemy Labs (yes, that's how it's spelled, not "Alchemy"!)

https://owlchemylabs.com/

Jonathan's LinkedIn, which has even more links to stuff he's done:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjennings3/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, we're doing something different. Instead of interviewing a guest, I (Aaron Nemoyten) am answering an email from someone who found the reel of my cutscene work on the Madagascar PS2/GameCube/XBox game (2005). So, in this episode, I'll be talking through the process of making cutscenes for a AAA licensed game in 2004/2005, a time when we didn't have timeline editors, motion capture studios, or even dedicated cutscenes tools. For a video version of this episode, check out the Make Games, Drink Coffee YouTube Channel.

00:00 Introduction

00:44 Working at Toys for Bob at 19

04:24 Getting Into It

05:50 Creating the New York Street Chase Ending Cutscene

13:41 All Timing Is Code

17:21 How Do Scenes Even Get Written?

20:18 Celebrity Impersonation VO

21:51 About Animations

24:39 A Look Book

25:45 Finalizing Animations and Music

27:06 Final Thoughts

29:05 Outro

Links:

The longplay I sourced the cutscenes from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPK7gYCGGHQ

My writeup of my time at Toys for Bob on my web site:

https://www.aaronnemoyten.com/madagascar-ps2-gamecube-xbox/

(This includes links to the YouTube reels I uploaded as well.)

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Jonathan Rucker, or just "Rucker," as he's known at work. Rucker is a Senior Game Engine Programmer who has worked on a ridiculous number of games, building tools and fixing bugs, doing some of the least glamorous stuff in game development and enjoying it anyway. This week's show is more of a "hang out" episode, with wide-ranging discussion from working on Nintendo DS game engines to 3D printing to restaurant horror stories, delicious smoked salmon, and even regional Mexican food in California! 

00:00 Intro

01:08 Getting Into Games Because of Your Mom

03:27 Getting Started In The Industry

05:31 Working On Nintendo DS Game Engines

07:35 A Few Minutes On Esoteric Hobbies

12:47 Mexican Cuisine

22:32 Digression: Salmon! Breakfast!

25:04 Restaurant Horror Stories

30:56 And Now: A Positive Restaurant Story

32:20 Wrapping Up

Links:

Rucker's Mobygames profile, because you just have to see all these games!

https://www.mobygames.com/person/300315/jonathan-rucker/credits/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Manuela Malasaña, a graphics programmer, tech artist, indie game developer, and hobbyist opera singer. Yes, I do keep finding guests with unusual hobbies! You've seen Manuela's work in games like Darkest Dungeon 2 and I Am Your Beast, where she helps indie game developers implement their games' distinct art direction and visual identity. We talk about that, studying economics in Europe, creating theater performances in video games, and learning to sing opera in your thirties! 

00:00 Intro

02:39 Visual Style and Consistency

06:41 Studying Economics, Doing Theater, Starting Game Dev

14:04 One Game Jam Starts It All

18:26 Adapting Plays To Video Games

21:49 The Role Of A Freelance Graphics Programmer

23:56 Advice For Indie Game Developers

25:11 Learning To Sing Later In Life

28:12 Lessons For Game Developers From Economics

30:04 Wrapping Up

Links:

Manuela's indie studio (Team Dogpit) Patreon: 

https://www.patreon.com/teamdogpit

Team Dogpit itch.io page:

https://teamdogpit.itch.io/

Team Dogpit on YouTube:

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

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Kyle Holmquist. Kyle is a generalist game designer, writer, developer, and narrative designer with a ridiculous variety of experience writing and designing for indie, mobile, and AAA games. He is also a hobbyist blacksmith and volunteers teaching blacksmithing in his spare time!

00:00 Intro

01:02 What Makes A Good Narrative Designer?

04:44 Horro Games, Horror Movies, And A Bit Of Comedy

11:49 Media Literacy and Subjective Experience (And Helldivers 2)

17:38 What We [Developers] Notice Isn't What Others Notice

20:08 What Developers Get Wrong About Narrative Design

24:59 Getting Into Blacksmithing in 2020

28:53 Wrap Up

Links:

Kyle's Portfolio site:

https://www.kgholmquist.com/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Don Bellenger, founder of the indie game studio The Beauty Cult. We spoke about games as subversive art, Don's experience working at a high-flying company at the height of Facebook games, and the Oakland nonprofit Gameheads, which teaches game development to underserved youth.

00:00 Intro

01:26 Subverting Hard By Drinking Water

02:30 Games as Subversive Art

07:07 In Which We Talk About Horror Films

09:43 Working At Kixeye (At the height of Facebook games)

15:08 Volunteering and Mentoring at Gameheads

20:46 Advice On Breaking In

23:36 "Kids These Days"

Links:

The Beauty Cult: https://teambeautycult.com/

Black Future '88 (Don's other indie game): https://store.steampowered.com/app/751820/Black_Future_88/

Highsidin: https://gameheads.itch.io/highsidin

This game was mentioned in part of the interview that was cut for time but I wanted to link it anyway: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3255890/Relooted/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]

This week, Aaron chats with Benjamin Lindsay, game designer with experience mostly in multiplayer action live service. Benjamin worked for Riot Games on League of Legends and in one of their illustrious R&D studios, then for a startup called Sprocket Games. In this episode, we talk about some of the most topical issues that have ever come up on this podcast, including Silksong's difficulty, what makes 'good' game design, how to design and balance for live service games, and what it's like working on a Riot R&D project!

00:00 Introduction

02:03 "Resource Management Under Pressure"

03:23 Playing Games In Time to Catch the Discourse

04:14 The Silksong Discourse ("Good" vs "Bad" Difficulty, Audience Expectations, etc.)

16:33 Systems Design For Live Service Games ("Give Everybody a Cookie")

25:23 What Even Is "Good Game Design"?

28:36 The Riot R&D Process - Pros and Cons

32:08 Wrapping Up

Links:

Benjamin's person site: 

https://www.lowbo.io/

You can find the podcast at:

http://www.makegamesdrinkcoffee.com 

Questions? Comments?

[email protected]