New Level Cap Podcast

Episode 9 (Recorded on Feb 28)Millennium Blades Kickstarter: https://goo.gl/fk4VqgDISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Co-Op In Games”

Summary:

Marco and Brad talk about cooperative games and how coordination becomes very important in delivering a good experience! Listen to learn more!

Co-op games are usually fully-cooperative or semi-cooperative.

Some cooperative games simply take a single player game and “chop it up” to increase the number of players.

This can be problematic as the full information means that an “alpha player” can step-up and essentially play the whole game for everyone.

Truly great cooperative games require players to coordinate in order to achieve their goals, making “alpha players” less of an issue.

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

You can also just visit our page on some popular podcasting apps: Apple Music, Google Play, and Spotify.

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 8 (Recorded on Feb 21)Millennium Blades Kickstarter: https://goo.gl/fk4VqgDISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYjFollow John at: https://twitter.com/DasBriegerPre-order Cartographers here: https://www.thunderworksgames.com/cartographers.html

“Playtesting”

Summary:

Marco and Brad bring on special guest John Brieger to talk about playtesting and certain practices you should consider when doing it!

Invitation - Getting the right testers and considering your target audience is important.

Direction - As the moderator, it is important that you’re testing with a purpose in mind.

Reception - Understand that your players always give you good feedback. Just don’t take it at face value. Learn how to dissect it and get to the core issues.

Iteration - Playtesting is about doing things again and again. However, remember that big sweeping changes aren’t the only way to iterate. Small changes matter, too!

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

You can also just visit our page on some popular podcasting apps: Apple Music, Google Play, and Spotify.

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 7 (Recorded on Feb 8)

Millennium Blades Kickstarter: https://goo.gl/fk4Vqg

DISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Game Difficulty”

Summary:

Ore no turn! Marco goes full Yu-Gi-Oh while Brad breaks the embargo on Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts in order to talk about game difficulty. How do you adjust difficulty in your games? Listen to find out!

All games will have difficulty in them, to varying degrees. Whether we choose to manipulate and consider it in our designs is up to us. Hint: You probably should.

There are 3 “common” kinds of difficulty: Number Difficulty, Skill Difficulty, and Route Difficulty. Implementing them correctly is important as they could easily lead to frustration.

Your game’s difficulty can be looked at in two ways: are players mean to bump against the difficulty or to ride with it? That is to say: is it Dark Souls or Kingdom Hearts?

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

You can also just visit our page on some popular podcasting apps: Apple Music, Google Play, and Spotify.

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 6 (Recorded on Feb 5)Millennium Blades Kickstarter: https://goo.gl/fk4VqgDISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Matrices & Payoffs”

Summary:

Brad goes full Donald on this new episode! He and Marco talk about Decision Matrices and how they are informed by the various "benefits" or "payoffs" you get from giving certain inputs!

All games make use of this structure. Player inputs are "fed" into the decision matrix and there are assigned payoffs mapped to those decisions.

Matrices & Payoffs ultimately determine how people choose to interact with the game. Certain huge payoffs may incentivize a certain type of play.

This can be a good tool for adjusting the play experience without inherently changing the mechanical interactions between entities in your game.

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 5 (Recorded on January 30)Millennium Blades Kickstarter Preview: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/level99games/1480130203?ref=645213&token=1c9cc4c7DISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Headwinds & Tailwinds”

Topic List:

What are Headwinds and Tailwinds?

What are some examples?

How can they positively/negatively impact an experience?

Can’t listen right now? Download a copy of the show outline by CLICKING HERE!

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 4 (Recorded on January 25)Millennium Blades Kickstarter Preview: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/level99games/1480130203?ref=645213&token=1c9cc4c7DISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Transmedia Adaptations”

Topic List:

What are Transmedia Adaptations?

What are some examples?

Case Study: Batman.

Can’t listen right now? Download a copy of the show outline by CLICKING HERE!

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 3 (Recorded on January 16)

BCO on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/792570/BattleCON_Online/DISCORD LINK (ORGANIZED PLAY): https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Flexibility of Use”

Topic List:

What is Flexibility of Use?

What are some examples?

What are their advantages?

What are their pitfalls?

Can’t listen right now? Download a copy of the show outline by CLICKING HERE!

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover

Episode 2 (Recorded on January 9)BCO on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/792570/BattleCON_Online/DISCORD LINK: https://discord.gg/XKY2aYj

“Branching-Path Mechanics”

Topic List:

What are Branching-Path Mechanics?

How are they used?

What are their advantages?

What are their pitfalls?

Can’t listen right now? Download a copy of the show outline by CLICKING HERE!

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover

On this first episode of the new year, Brad and Marco talk about the show's new format. This week's topic is "Purpose in Design" and we explore how that affects how we make games at Level 99 Games.

Episode 99 (Recorded on November 27)BCO on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/792570/BattleCON_Online/DISCORD LINK: https://discord.gg/XKY2aYjSubmit Questions here: https://goo.gl/forms/7QYgcANChHORLIfF2

"The Cringe is the crave.”

Songs in Japan

Marco and Brad countdown their Top 5 Podcast Moments

Level Cap Podcast will come back next year with a new a format

Your questions answered and our news delivered

This blog supports an RSS Feed which you can add to your podcast app of choice to automatically get each episode as it releases! Here's a link to the feed!

Music provided by Wesley Slover