This week the clubhouse is filled with emotions. Lydia was frustrated that she did not recapture the magic of her first escape room game, Stephen was frustrated that finding his critical eye makes for a different movie watching experience, and Mark was frustrated by the acoustics at a football stadium.

In other news, it's time to make your GDC Plans! Mark and Dale will be there, and probably some other nice hosts, too.

• GDC Festival of Gaming 2026: The Industry's Bold New Era Begins - Beth Elderkin, GDC
• Symphony of Seasons
• Paul McCartney "Got Back" tour
• U.S. Bank Stadium Officials Addressing Sound Concerns For Concerts - CBS Minnesota

0:16:06Being Honest With Your WorkLydia went to Chicago to run a escape style game at the Chest Medicine Conference about Eosinophilic Asthma. That was set in the 1920s prohibition chicago.

CHEST Conference

CHEST Medicine ConferenceEosinophilic and Noneosinophilic AsthmaCHEST Journal Podcast(Yes, Dale included that last link because its host is named Dr. Pepper.)

Escape room games

Lydia's first apperance on the show was as a guest to discuss last year's project, inDigital Escape RoomsLater on as a host, Lydia talked a little about this year's project, which was upcoming at the time, in"It's about trust."0:56:30The Critical Eye

Stephen has previously talked about his filmmaking class in:

Episode 367"Numbers go up."Episode 393"I’m intrigued by big door."

This week, Lydia provides all the fun facts about living on a boat while your nice hosts develop a card game based around scurvy management!

• Hoyle's Official Book of Games - Wikipedia

PromptCreate a pirate themed game about food and scurvy management.Game typeCard gamePlayer count2-4Materials

Event deck

Resource Deck

Setup

Shuffle the event deck and the resource deck separately. Deal 5 cards from the resource deck to each player.

Rules

• Card game
  • Set making
  • Need to create as many sets as you can to create grog, while preventing vermin from being in your hand
  • These resources will keep you going in phase 2 when pulling from port of call / event cards
  • Whoever is able to travel farthest (successfully draw the most port of call / event cards) wins
• Beneficial food
  • Grog (face cards)
    • Rum - Jack
    • Sugar - Queen
    • Water - King
    • Limes - Ace
  • Salt meat/fish 
    • Pork or Cod (Hearts)
    • Salt (Diamonds)
  • Hard tack (Clubs)
  • Suet (Spades) (added to meat or hard tack to enhance it)
• Vermin (clogs your hand and could cause problems in events)
  • Weevil 
  • Maggots
  • Rats
• Rules
  • Each turn you have one action. You can either:
    • Draw a card
    • Play a complete set
  • After a certain number of cards (10 as default), you all go to sail and have ports of call events
    • Draw an event card each turn
• Ports of call / Events? - you get a point for every port you successfully make it to. Certain cards when “won” enter your stack and give you extra points or mechanical advantage 
  • Windfall of resources 
    • Everyone draws 5 cards and makes stacks
  • Ship cat
    • The cat joins the most rat-infested ship (removes all rats from hand)
    • OR spend the most salt meat to attract it to your ship
  • Trade with each other
    • Draw 3 cards and give 1 card from hand to the player on your left. Make stacks
  • Injured shipmate
    • Spend water and salt from your hand
    • Spend maggots from your hand
  • Threat of scurvy
    • Spend grog
  • Weevil infestation! 
    • Lose a hard tack for every weevil in your hand. Discard those cards from your hand and stacks(?)

This week features a timeless topic followed by a timely one, both of them pretty important. Lydia prepares for Chicago, Mark shares his slides, and Stephen gonna chill.

• CHEST 2025 - American College of Chest Physicians

• Some of Lydia's escape room props!

0:05:26Naming FilesMuseum Accessioning: Numbering SystemsOklahoma Museums AssociationRice County Historical SocietyMontshire Museum of Science0:43:13Unity Security Vulnerability (2025)"Unity Security Update, What Do?" presentation slidesMark LaCroixUnity Platform Protection - Security AdvisoryUnityUnity Platform Protection - Developer Remediation GuideUnityUnity Platform Protection - Patcher ToolUnityCVE-2025-59489: Arbitrary Code Execution in Unity RuntimeRyotaKGMO Flatt Security Inc.CVE-2025-59489CVE

In this episode, Lydia and Stephen are rubber ducks for Mark as he talks through his ideas for a suite of Unity plugin tools. Buckle up, there's a lot! They also discuss whether to bundle or not to bundle tools, considerations of scope and price, and the deep appreciation for easy-to-use interfaces. 

• Will Mark complete these tools by Christmas?
• Will Stephen get a reprieve from the nagging about his fishing mini game collection?
• Will Lydia ever get over that one client project?

Stay tuned to find out!

• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | Official Trailer - Paramount+, YouTube

0:13:22Noble ToolsRewiredUnity Asset StoreNoble EngineNoble RobotLydia really needs to listen to the episode where Stephen and Mark talk about the localization of Widget Satchel."I definitely thought of that ahead of time."Noble Menuitch.io

Sam! returns to the clubhouse to help your nice hosts decide that Lakitu is no longer a savoir that comes down from the clouds, but since he has a job as a referee, should therefore be wearing a little ref shirt.

• Sam Baeseman is a member of the IDGATC board, the Nice Games Alliance board, and founding member of JAMA Jam.
• Nice Games Alliance
• IDGATC
• JAMA Jam
• Sam! joined us last week to talk about:Creative Peer Communities

• Blippo+ (Mark's game) released, and you can buy it:

• Blippo+ on Steam
• Blippo+ on Switch
• Blippo+ on itch.io

• Lydia:

• Why Learning Is So Hard for Adults (And How Games Can Help) - ELB Learning, YouTube
• Before becoming a host, Lydia joined the clubhouse as a guest to talk about:Digital Escape Rooms

• Stephen is:

• not going to talk about his fishing game
• doing a game jam, Ludem Dare

0:15:30HealthCalculate your pet's HPPolygonYouTube

Your nice hosts talked about these health systems:

• Subnautica - oxygen/food/water
• Dave the Diver - oxygen
• PEAK - stamina
• Gauntlet - time
• Super Smash Bros. - percentages
• Star Trek Adventures (TTRPG) - stress
• Doom (1993) - health packs
• Doom (2016) - enemy damage
• Super Mario Bros. - mushrooms (2D) / coins (3D)
• Bloodborne - dignity
• Sonic the Hedgehog - rings
• Call of Duty - regenerating health
• Blades in the Dark - "harm"

42:31Developing for Speed RunnersWe talked about normal players vs. speedrunners in:Ladder Game

Your nice hosts welcome 3D artist and Nice Games Alliance board member Sam Baeseman into the clubhouse to talk about how online Discord communities become available and how to become a part of or lead such communities.

• Blippo+ (Out now!) - Panic

Creative Peer CommunitiesIRLMisc.Sam's Social Links - skrimbus, LinktreeJAMA Jam - itch.ioInternational Game Developers Association, Twin Cities ChapterGrape Juice City -  Splashworks Studio, Steam

It's been awhile, but it's time for another video episode! This week, Mark's colleague Mike Lasch enters the clubhouse to build a digital prototype live on-air!

Ladder GamePlayable "Ladder Game" prototypeMichael LaschConstruct 3Kuru Kuru KuruinWikipediaRoundaboutNo GoblinSteamSokobanWikipedia

We invite Joanna May into the clubhouse again in this supersized episode to design a game about stowing illicit goods into spacecraft as it's being built!

(Note: Minor hiccup with the audio recording in the first 2 minutes, so Lydia is off mic briefly but it fixes itself.)

• Tangrams - Wikipedia
• We mention Dogpile!, a game we made in a previous game jam.Dogpile!

PromptDesign a puzzle game about loading passengers and/or cargo into various spacecraft (or other transport).Game typeTabletop gamePlayer count4 or moreRules

• The ship is a pad of paper with outline of ship (legal pad sized)
  • The interior is blank, what you draw is the interior spaces
  • Each turn, the freighter captain draws the modules
    • False walls, freezers, to shape what you can put in there
    • They have their own secret goal
  • Each turn, the other players are smuggling things (they don’t know about what others are doing)
    • Contraband
    • Each turn they can put one thing in there or move a thing
      • Maybe you have to slide it only, you can’t pick it up after it’s been added
• Each game has an ending determination and then also a scoring system
  • Everyone loses if ship gets caught
• Hidden role game?
  • Freighter Captain
    • Makes the ship
  • Contraband smuggler
    • Tries to add the most of contraband as they can
  • Honest worker
    • Wants to add the most of the goal as possible
  • Inspector
    • Wants to find the smuggler

Joanna May returns to the clubhouse as a guest host! Your four nice hosts chat Tetris, knitting, and CSS, but also have a pair of actual topics to discuss...

• Mark's game Blippo+ is out NOW! Go buy it on Switch and Steam!

0:13:36Role-playingComplete History Of The Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of TetrisPig with the Face of a BoyYouTubeTetris (film) - Historical accuracyWikipedia0:35:27To Rebuild or Not to RebuildJoanna previously joined us as a guest to discussSerializationGodot 4.5 release notes - SDL3 gamepad inputGodotNoble EngineNoble RobotGitHubThe Slow Way Is the Fast WayMark Samples

Joanna and Mark debated a concept called "Utility-first CSS"

A Year of Utility Classes (Pro)Michelle BarkerCSS { In Real Life }What is Utility-First CSS? (Anti)Heydon PickeringHeydonWorks

Your nice hosts Lydia and Ellen are on a seriously playful adventure in beautiful Rochester, New York for the Serious Play conference! They discuss game accessibility, D&D therapy, lexical gaps, validation, and more.

In addition, Lydia beats the pavement and gets the hot scoop on what attendees learned at the conference and the games that shaped them.

Many thanks once more to: 

• Serious Play for Lydia's press pass.
• Ellen for the cute little lavalier microphones that made interviews possible.
• Ellen and Nikita for being the best travel buddies ever.
• Interviewees for sharing their thoughts with our nice listeners.

• Serious Play Conference
• Ellen's previous trip to this conference was recounted in:Serious Play Conference 2023

Serious Play ConferenceXbox Adaptive ControllerXbox.comPlayStation Access ControllerPlaystation.comQuadstickAble Gamers