It's that season—there's snow on the ground, and it's time for the annual "year in review" episode. Your nice hosts are getting ready to take a break from recording for a few weeks while serving up some of our favorite episodes from the past year. But before we start hibernating, there's a lot to discuss! What did we accomplish this year, and how do we feel about it? What are our goals for next year? Are we taking on any fun projects during our hiatus? And what are we looking forward to playing next year (besides all the Kirby games, of course)?

• Nice Games Club is five years old! That's a solid handful of years. Happy birthday show, and thanks to you all for listening!

• The feeling is real, even if this video isn't.

Your nice hosts (Ellen, mainly) conduct a double-interview, with a consummate professional and a committed amateur, on the subject of game design though the lens of tabletop game mastering. Subjects include the dynamic between system design and session design, the balance between planning and improvisation, and how players can be encouraged to participate in the process.

Three nice hosts, plus two topics, plus three meta topics equals a good time! Listen to Stephen's secret to popcorn success, Mark bringing up the Observer effect multiple times and Ellen's branding plans for her latest game.

• Forever - Endless Runner Engine - Dreamteck
• Flavacol - Popcorn Supply
• The definition of Chrimbo - Lexicon

As the podcast approaches its fifth anniversary, your hosts get a little (more) frivolous. Mark shares some industry news about hardware releases. Ellen prompts everyone to share their experiences of learning development tools and examine their process of learning through the lens of Maximum Whooo. Stephen explores the difference between cooperative and collaborative gameplay, and invents something called a Feedborm. Dang!

• Steamworks Virtual Conference: Steam Deck - Steam
• Steam Deck launch delayed by two months - Jay Peters, The Verge
• Indie handheld Playdate delayed to 2022 - Michael McWhertor, Polygon
• How Long to Beat: Metroid Dread - HowLongToBeat

This week, your nice hosts discuss Star Trek, Star Trek, and Ghostbusters. Plus, Mark talks something out of existence, and Ellen is not even gonna not disagree with Stephen.

NOTE: Early in the episode we promise a picture of Dale's Halloween costume for the show notes, but we did not have one as this episode went to press. Check this episode's page on our website, and/or our Twitter in the next few days...

• Mutant Giant Spider Dog - SA Wardega, YouTube
• The Inside Story of Mass Effect 3's Endings, Finally Told - People Make Games, YouTube
• The suspense!

This week the clubhouse is joined by our second favorite pair of game development brothers - Sami Sati and Erick Sati, developers of Astral Gunners. The Sati brothers talk about staying motivated, when to release early access, and saving some of your heart and soul for future projects.

The Sati Bros. Present: Tips for Early Access

• Make sure you can finish your game if nobody buys it:

• Delaying release maybe is OK for your reputation.
• Cancelling a release will reflects badly on your reputation and will make it tougher to release your next game.

Mark goes over the theory and practice of debugging (in Unity, at least). Ellen gets the gist of it. Stephen considers when a game can benefit from having a silent protagonist, or at least a main character that doesn't say anything. Stay tuned after the outro music for bonus sound effects!

• Wordplay 2021: Celebrating Writing in Contemporary Games - Hand Eye Society

It's Stephen's turn at Nice Thinking, our new episode format where we brainstorm around a single concept someone brings into the clubhouse. Get ready for your first contact with the Sledgehammer Bride!

• Glom will be part of Wordplay 2021, November 13-14 - Hand Eye Society

This week's episode has things getting a little crepuscular in the clubhouse! Mark possibly flubs the intro (jury is still out on this!), Stephen has prepared two rants and Ellen requests all of our best silly noises.

Editors note: I (Stephen) did in fact edit this episode, but it's really early in the morning so I didn't find fun sounds to put in there. There is a fun sound in the episode though!

• What Is a Crepuscular Animal? - Jaymi Heimbuch, Treehugger
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a bummer - Patrick Gill, Polygon

Your nice hosts recorded this episode on an especially-timely Tuesday evening. It turns out that recording on an "off" day does goofy things to a podcaster's brain. Can you improve upon the game of "rock, paper, scissors"? How common are red stop signs across the globe? What noises does a wind serpent make? Do video games really give us choices? How many Kirby plushies does Stephen have? We're asking the tough questions here on Nice Games Club. 

• Wordplay: Celebrating Writing in Contemporary Games
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo.com
• Metroid: Dread - Nintendo.com
• Denver Botanical Gardens
• Rocky Mountain National Park
• Lucile's Creole Cafe (has a GREAT breakfast!)