Your nice hosts talk to Andrew Eiche, COO at Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Cosmonious High) about the state of VR in 2022, and where VR and VR development tools may be going in the coming years.

Andrew talks about how industrial design should influence VR design, why you shouldn't take inspiration from movies, and how ergonomics are important. Also, Ellen takes a hard stand on the right way to use a dial.

VR in 2022 and its FutureVR / AR / XROwlchemy LabsThe Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman, book

Headsets

Pico VR HeadsetPlaystation VR2

VR Engines

VRTK (Virtual Reality Tool Kit)TButt - Turbo Button

Cosmonious High

Cosmonius High on Tik Tok - Tik TokCosmonius High on TwitterCosmonius High on SteamAndrew EicheGuestAndrew Eiche is Chief Operating Owl and Cable Slinger at Owlchemy Labs. Andrew's background is game development and computer programingExternal linkAndrew Eiche is on Twitter @buddingmonkeyOwlchemy Labs on Twitter @olwchemylabsOwlchemy Labs website

It’s Ellen’s 100th episode as a Nice Games Club host! And there’s no better way to celebrate a big day than with a Nice Games Jam. Dale gave us a prompt and you’ll never guess the theme. Can your Nice Hosts come up with a playable prototype in “ruffly” an hour? Enjoy live edits, goofs, special cubes, and piles of dogs taken to the logical extreme!

• Ellen's first episode as a permanent host."Click here for fleet operations."
• "Ameritrash" - Board Game Geek
• Texas Hold'em Poker - Bicycle
• Can Dogs See Color? - American Kennel Club

PromptCreate a game that could be subtitled "The 100 Dog Days of Calendar Math."Game typeCard gamePlayer count2+Materials

Two standard 52-card decks

Setup

First, some additional prompt information. 

The objective is to get your dog pack to exactly 100 members (no more, no less) in 100 units of time. You decide how many dogs you start with, how you add or lose members, and what a "time unit" is. Because this is the special for Ellen, bonus points if the game has a dog or multiple dogs in it.

Now, on to the setup:

1. Shuffle both decks of playing cards together
2. Deal X cards to each player
3. Set the remaining cards aside; this is the draft deck
4. For the first round, assign the "Pack Leader" indicator to the person who most recently played with a dog

Terms

• Turn: One player's action
• Round: Once around the table (each player takes an action)
• Draft Deck: The pile of dog cards you draw from each round
• Dogpile: This is where the dogs that you're able to recruit into your pack will end up
• Pack Leader: An outdated term we're using to describe the First Player in each round 
• First Player: The first player to lay their cards face-down next to the Pack Leader card in each round. The First Player status is indicated with a First Player token that rotates clockwise at the start of each round. 
• Strays: The discard pile.

Rules

Objective: Get 100 dogs in 100 units of time!

How to play

1. Draw a card from the draft deck and place it face-up in the center of the table. This is the Pack Leader card.

2. Without talking about what’s in their hands or what cards they’re playing, all players select cards to lay face-down around the Pack Leader. Each player lays their cards face-down in clockwise order, starting with the First Player.

   1. Players can lay down any number of cards up to the full complement of their hand.

   2. If a player decides to not lay down any cards (skipping their turn, essentially), then skip to Step 3 below. Remaining players’ turns are forfeit. 

3. After all players have put their selected cards face-down, all players reveal their face-down cards at the same time.

4. Once all cards are revealed, determine whether the group of dogs join the Dogpile or if they become Strays. To join the Dogpile, the cards on the table, which include all players’ face-up cards and the Pack Leader, must not breach any compatibility constraints. As of the episode 272 recording, these constraints include:

   1. The cards taken together as a whole must form an uninterrupted sequence of numbers. 

5. Clear the table by placing the group of dogs in the Dogpile or in the Strays. Then, begin the next round.

6. At the start of each subsequent round, players refresh their hands with newly-drawn cards. Draw until your hand reaches X cards.

Continue steps 1-6 above until the timer rings. Did you get 100 dogs in your Dogpile? If so, you win! 

This week, we invite our first guest for Nice Thinking! Adam Clewes-Boyne is putting together an initiative for neurodiversity advocacy and education in the games industry, specifically focused on ADHD. It started as a meetup at a conference, and Adam wants to see where it can go next.

Neurodiversity in GamedevEventsIRLAdam joined us, after a fashion, in a previous episode:Game Dev London does Nice Games JamCoffee with Butterscotch podcast - Butterscotch ShenanigansHow the Gender Gap Leaves Girls and Women Undertreated for ADHD - CHADDStrategic Planning for Nonprofits - National Council of NonprofitsAdam Clewes-BoyneGuestAdam is a co-founder of the Game Dev London community and games studio BetaJester, as well as a mentor with Limit Break and Into Games.External linkTwitterGame Dev LondonBetaJester

In this larger than normal episode, your nice hosts bring a lot to the top of the show with a bunch of exciting news. And there's still two topics to discuss after that! Mark brings his documentation A game, Stephen describes his time at SGDQ and Ellen has complaints to bring to the table.

• Summer Games Done Quick 2022 - YouTube
• Stephen and Charles walking across SGDQ on camera - YouTube
• Dall-E 2 - OpenAI

• Here's a collection of images that Ellen has generated using Dall-E 2!

• DALL·E 2 Preview - Risks and Limitations - OpenAI

0:21:25Maintaining an Open-Source ProjectGit SubmodulesgitLDocSteve DonovanGitHubMarkdown GuideMark ConeThe Markdown GuideTyporaTypora0:49:50Should we design for Killers?Bartle’s Player Types for Gamification comes up in this previous episode."Mindworm husbandry."Bartle’s Player Types for GamificationJanaki Mythily Kumar, Mario Herger and Rikke Friis DamInteraction Design FoundationBartle's Taxonomy of Player Types (And Why It Doesn't Apply to Everything)Kyatrictuts+MUDWikipedia

Nina Marotta (and Kelso the cat) from High Moon Studios enters the clubhouse to talk about level and interaction design. She showers your nice hosts with bits of wisdom, such as:

"Games are ugly for 90% of their development."

"You have to live your life in order to be a good team member and a good designer."

Level and Interaction Design Game DesignNina mentions the Geam Design program at Kent StateWe previously talked to Professor Chris Totten in episode 264Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again!Nina MarottaGuest Nina Marotta is a level and interaction designer at High Moon Studios in Cincinatti OhExternal linkMrsCheif7 on twitter

How much of the culture around a game is rooted in its design? That's one of the questions that comes up as Mark takes us on a tour of curling—an Olympic sport that's described as "chess on ice." We examine its origins, the Spirit of Curling, and some specific rules that may have a big impact on how players behave towards one another. Later, Stephen considers some questions about off-ramps, the parts of a game that guide players as they end a play session. Should we as designers encourage players to take breaks? 

• Gato Roboto by doinksoft (from Devolver Digital) - Steam

0:10:15CurlingAbout CurlingWorld Curling FederationWhy is this Olympic Sport called Chess on Ice?by user "Pete"Chess.comCurling might be an antidote to our troubled timesKristen GelineauThe Detroit NewsGlossary of curlingWikipediaDeflategateWikipedia0:50:00Off-RampsHow Gaming Breaks Can Make You a Better Player... and Why They're ImportantMichael HarmanMake Use Of

It's part three of our unintentional "Gamedev in..." series! Your nice hosts speak with Daniela Gamarra about making games in Peru. Daniela shares her perspective on entering the industry, making progressive games in a conservative culture, and being asked "how much do you need to make this game?"

• Previous "Gamedev in..." episodes:

• We spoke with Ryan Sumo for:Gamedev in the Philippines
• We spoke with "Game Devs Kenya" for:Gamedev in Kenya

Gamedev in PeruIRLProductionHow Creative Leaders Play the Long Game for Innovation - Ideo UIGDA PeruIGDA Peru - EducationLima Game JamLEAP Game StudiosBamtang GamesDirección Audiovisual, la Fonografía y los Nuevos MediosDaniela GamarraGuestPeruvian game developer and founder of Indaga Studios.External linkon TikTokon LinkedInon InstagramIndaga StudiosIndaga Studios on Itch.io

Your nice hosts bring deep topics to the clubhouse this week! Listen in as Stephen forgets the name of the Uncharted lead character (but remembers the voice actor), Ellen brings up Mass Effect many, many times and Mark describes more interesting tidbits about Widget Satchel's development.

• Serious Play Conference
• LumbearJack - YouTube
• Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer - Steam
• Max's award! - Twitter
• Reed the Robotanist - Steam
• Here's a CableACE award.

0:09:25Parasocial RelationshipsParasocial InteractionWikipedia“The Player’s Parasocial Interaction with Digital Entities” Katrine KavliIT University in Copenhagen“Is It Weird for Adults to Have Imaginary Friends?”Stephen Dubner and Angela DuckworthNo Stupid Questions“Tragic but true: how podcasters replaced our real friends”Rachel AroestiThe Guardian0:45:21Narrative Pacing"Kurt Vonnegut on the 8 'shapes' of stories"Stephen JohnsonBig Think

It's a packed episode this week, with birthdays, illnesses, and some Nice Thinking. Stephen, Mark, and Ellen discuss how the group might put on a tournament for local gamers, featuring locally-made indie games. How can one create a competition that involves many different games of widely different genres? Hopefully your nice hosts are up to the challenge. Either way, you're in for a treat! Plus, we get to finally hear Stephen's TRUE feelings about Star Trek.

• Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV - BBC
• The Man Who Fell To Earth - Showtime
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Paramount
• COVID 19 Quarantine and Isolation Calculator - Centers for Disease Control

• Alternate titles for this episode:

  • "It finally got me"
  • "Lil' Baby Stephen"

• Episode artwork from RODNAE Productions on Pexels.

0:13:12Nice ThinkingElemetals: Death Metal Death MatchWALLRIDESteamAstral GunnersSati BrosSteamHyperDotCharles McGregorSteamSummer Games Done QuickCombo Breaker TournamentEVO Tournament"Challenges and Strategies for Hosting Massive Independent eSports Events"James LampkinGDC

It's a sequel to last week's episode! This week, your nice hosts speak with Kent State University animation and game design professor Chris Totten about formal game design education. We get into the details of theory and practice, and discuss how teaching gamedev is both similar and different from other professional and artistic fields.

Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again!Game DesignIRLAn Architectural Approach to Level Design - Christopher W. TottenKudzu -  Pie for Breakfast Studios, itch.ioLa Mancha -  Pie for Breakfast Studios, Board Game GeekGDEX and Origins 2022, June 8-12Chris TottenGuestProfessor at Kent State University, author of multiple books on level design, and creative director for "Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends."External linkTwitterLinkedInLittle Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends