In this episode the brothers Rob and John Donkin of BadViking join the hosts in the clubhouse for a frank discussion on goals and expectations, scoping, and setting milestone timelines, and making feedback useful.

Ellen spoke with this week's guest, Filament Games' chief partnerships officer Jennifer Javornik, at the 2023 Serious Play Conference in Toronto, Canada about game-based learning, but also about commercializing serious games, growing the game development industry in the midwest US, and a whole lot more.

Earlier this autumn, Ellen visited Toronto to attend the Serious Play Conference. It's an event for people who design, develop, and study so-called "serious games" — that is, games used for education, training, therapy, and more. Ellen reports on her experiences in the city and at the conference, and shares some clips from conversations she had with some speakers at Serious Play. Also, Stephen and Mark talk about the weather.

(Note: There were some audio issues with the recordings taken on-site at the conference. We've done our best, but it's not great. Our apologies!)

• Page One Cafe
• Melanistic squirrels in Toronto
• Serious Play Conference - Main Site
• xAPI
• Filament Games (Madison, Wisconsin)
• The Red Bull Gaming Hub at TMU
• Geoffrey Lachapelle - LinkedIn

We welcome Trenton Greyoak into the clubhouse to talk about the vast topic of megagames! Trenton provides a huge amount of insight into the development and play of these games in this slightly more mega-sized than normal episode.

In this week's episode, Mark teaches us to cast polymorph, a 4th level transmutation spell. Just kidding! But Mark does put his high INT score to work helping us understand polymorphism, a useful feature of object-oriented programming. Later on, Stephen talks about the pattern of "save scumming" and considers how it might influence how designers create games. Ellen noodles on things.

• Noodle demo game - Ellen Burns-Johnson, The Training Arcade

Nice Games Club continues to celebrate the Spooky Season with the second-ever “Nice Games Panel”. Our panelists include creators known for their work on horror games: James Pratt, TorpalDork, and Max Kunze. We discuss the using humor and using nostalgia in horror games and if clowns have ever not been scary.

In this episode, the team gets back to all the regular reasons to complain about Unity. Stephen makes a pun, and Ellen searches for elegance through the power of internet research.

• Noodle - The Training Arcade
• Mark and his bike took a train to Chicago.

It's the first-ever "Nice Games Panel," in which we invite multiple guests on the show to discuss something interesting! Our panelists today include multiple creators who are known for their work on horror games: Schera Wyss, Conner Rush, Henry Hoare, Samuel Guglielmo, and Nick F. We discuss the fundamental nature of horror as a genre (or maybe a theme or an "orientation"), and what devs should consider if they're looking to make horror games that haunt players long after the end credits roll.

• Photo credit - Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels

Mark is back from Toronto, and guest host Holly Harrison is back in the clubhouse! Holly completes a topic, Stephen likes that part, and Ellen reads half a book.

• Talking Heads Take Over TIFF As ‘Stop Making Sense’ Reunion Has Crowds Dancing … - Anthony D'Alessandro, Deadline
• 'Lost Ladies' Review: Kiran Rao’s Delightful Hindi Comedy Swings and Wins - Proma Khosla, IndieWire
• 'Robot Dreams' Review: A Beautiful Tale of Friendship and Love in the Hand-Draw… - Tomris Laffly, The Wrap

Earlier today, Unity issued an update to their controversial "runtime fee" policy introduced last week. What changed? What didn't? How could this have even happened? What does it mean going forward? Can we ever trust Unity again?

We get into all of it, from the original announcement on September 12th, to the "open letter" update and "fireside chat" on September 22nd. Your nice hosts are joined by special guest and "Unity Insider" Freya Holmér, who offers some additional context and much-needed clarity about the events of the last 10 days.