Game designer Monica Fan joins us this week for a Nice Games Jam that is extra-mischievous and extra-cute. There's drama amongst the roommates, and we're pretty sure the cat's to blame. But can we prove it? Can your Nice Hosts (and Nice Guest) make a playable prototype by the end of the episode? How many times will Stephen say "meow" before the outro rolls? So many questions!

• Monica Fan @DesignerMonica - Twitter
• Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! - NPR
• Here's the best way to shuffle a pack of cards – with a little help from some m… - Graham Kendall, phys.org

Standard deck of playing cards

Coins or tokens to indicate the accumulation of blame

OPTIONAL: A real cat to sit in the middle of the game table

1. Sort the deck by suit.

1. Pull out the Aces and Jokers and set them aside. You'll use the Aces in a minute, but not the Jokers.
2. Remove six random cards from three of the suits (Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds) and set those aside for the game.
3. Shuffle the remaining cards into a deck and pull a random card from the deck. Don't look at it! This is the card that determines Who Really Did The Thing. Set it aside and don't peek until the end of the game.
4. Set the rest of the deck aside for a moment.

1. Once roles are determined, you can ignore the Ace cards, but it's useful for players to hold onto them as a reminder of what suit they have.

GOAL: Pin the blame on someone else! Once a player has accumulated 3 Blame tokens, they are GUILTY and the game ends.

Go around the table clockwise, taking turns. Each player can take one action on their turn; it's a fast-moving game of blame!

Player Actions

Cat-only actions:

• Take a card from a human; the Cat chooses which card to take (without looking at the human's hand)
• Give a card to a human
• Make an accusation by playing three cards of the same suit (the Cat must play three cards to make an accusation)
• Cat must meow when making a play…or maybe through the whole game?
• The Cat cannot draw cards from the deck

Human-only actions:

• Draw from the deck
• Trade with each other; the player who initiated the trade is the one who selects which card to take from the other player’s hand (without looking at their hand)
• Play a pair (it's easier for humans to make accusations)

Making an accusation:

• A Human plays a pair of cards from the same suit, or the Cat plays three cards from the same suit. This is the Accusation.
• The player whose Ace matches the suit from the Accusation receives a Blame token.
• The first person to accumulate three Blame tokens is considered GUILTY, and this ends the game.

Winning the game:

• Technically, you win if you don't end up as the guilty party, but there's more to it!
• Reveal the hidden card that you set aside during setup. The whole group wins if the right person got the blame. Yay!
• The Cat can feel extra good if they were the real culprit, but one of the Humans was found GUILTY.
• The Humans can feel extra good if one of them was the real culprit, but the Cat was found GUILTY. Congrats; you can all continue to live harmoniously as roommates.

Strategies

• Hold onto the cards that are evidence against you.
• Play cards that are evidence against others.
• The Cat, who has the most cards, is likely to know who the guilty party is.

It's a Nice Postmortem! Hunter Bond and Mike Ducarme talk the making of Infernax—an old school adventure platformer with puzzle elements, unholy curses, and lots of old-school awesomeness. From its earliest conception to playtesting, promoting, and publishing, what did they do and what did they learn?

As promised, Hunter's PO Box: PO Box 10275, Albuquerque, NM 87184

Settle in, because we could only trim the 5+ hours of interviews we recorded last month at GDC down to 2 hours. Of course, if you want to hear all of it, there's always the Patreon... 😉

• The game Mark has been working on, "Dreamsettler," was officially announced on April 5th!

What does your work week look like? Are you locked into a 9-to-5 the way that Dolly Parton described it, or are you free to set your own schedule? What about your team as a whole? 

• The definition of truncate is “to shorten by cutting off a part; cut short”  - Dictionary.com
• “9 to 5” - Dolly Parton, YouTube

Dog lovers are in for a treat this week as we discuss ideas for games to play with your dog! Mark and Ellen enthusiastically bring many ideas to the clubhouse, while Stephen has a unique perspective on the topic. 

Also: Ellen beats Metroid Dread! (There are spoilers for the game in the episode.)

• Turns out Stephen was wrong, there are credits in the most recent build of Fingeance!
• Peter Yang was on previously to discuss his work on pitching tabletop games.Pitching Tabletop Games
• Indie Boards and Cards

Your nice hosts, plus Dale, traveled to California for free bagels (and other reasons) in this first part of our yearly GDC special.

This week your nice hosts are joined again by Alina Matson in a fun roundtable episode! Join us as we continue through Ellen's Metroid Dread journey, Stephen's newest discovery, and Mark's potential bonus side hustle.

• Alina was previously on the show to talk about visual coding!Visual Coding

This week we're joined by Alina Matson, developer of Fitment—a microworkout app designed with cozy gamers in mind. Alina talks about how she has used the popular Unity plugin Playmaker to kick-start her transition from a career in mechanical engineering to gamedev. Positive vibes abound. Plus, surprise singing!

It's a day of celebration in the clubhouse as Ellen finally starts Metroid Dread. Meanwhile, Mark delivers, and Stephen looks it up (but isn't happy about it).

• André 3000 on the 10th anniversary of his ‘Class of 3000’ soundtrack - David Dennis Jr., Andscape
• Hint, hint... - Mike Rose, Twitter

For our 250th episode, your nice hosts play a few rounds of a pair of games made by the folks from Game Dev London as part of their very own Nice Games Jam! Ellen makes fun sounds, Mark counts all his Jefferies Tubes, and Stephen is reliable as the morning sun.

• We talked about big episode numbers in:"A Spark Plug." 200th Episode Special
• Stephen's grumpy tweet.
• Game Dev London