The Drawing Room

Game lighting technology has exploded in complexity and power, but it takes the eye of an experienced artist to fully exploit these systems for dynamic scenes that support gameplay. Fortunately for us, Kip is here to explain how to best light a scene!

Also: The guys talk about Death Stranding (coming in just a few days!). Rob, Kip, and Patrick each give their metascore prediction (this was recorded while the review embargo was still up).

Rob and Kip interview Diego Almazan from Warped Core Studios, who recently released the couch co-op (though perfectly playable in single player) game Aqualungers!

Diego discusses his unorthodox transition from game industry concept artist to full blown indie developer. 

Check out Aqualungers on steam, available now!

Warped Core Studio website

Games have environments, and they have to look beautiful. But is that all there is to it, or is it more? In this educational episode, Rob interviews his co-host Kip Carbone about his views on the environment art profession. A must listen for students!

Check out Kip's Artstation here:

https://www.artstation.com/nervouspixels

Rob's still getting things set up at the new studio location in Indiana, so here's one more classic episode.

Lead World Designer Nathan Cheever calls in to talk about Prey 2, a game he and Rob both worked on and loved! Despite its controversial fate, it remains one of the most popular cancelled games of all time (and our most popular episode overall). Join Rob and Nathan as they discuss his long career, and all the cool stuff in Prey 2 that you missed out on!

With a VERY brief intro added by Rob: you can hear the Grid Snaps moving staff shuffling in the background :)

Kip wasn't qualified to be on this episode because he wasn't an art director himself yet!* Fortunately Rob knew somebody else that could break down the amazing art of Cuphead: Ken Hogan! One of our most popular episodes, Ken discusses why the art in this game is important and gives some insight on how it was made. Once again Rob adds a brief introduction before the podcast begins.

Stay tuned as we get the new Indiana-based Grid Snaps Studio set up! Fresh episodes should be coming shortly!

*Just kidding Kip!

Rob's moving the Grid Snaps Studios to Indiana, so we've prepared some of our best episodes for you to listen to, with a brief introduction added by Rob.

This episode is one of our most popular! We talk about the "real life" level design of Ikea.

This time Rob has big news to share (the moral of the story: appear on the Grid Snaps Podcast, gain great sucess!), but after this, we talk about one of Rob's most popular blog posts, an article he wrote in 2016 called the Elements of Level Design. Kip (now an Art Director!) provides input as well.

The purpose of this article was to break down the discipline of level design into its core parts. Some are well understood by those in the industry, such as level layout and scripting, but other aspects, like world design, is still poorly understood. 

Remember those super fun action RPGs where you could team up with your friends and bash the playstation buttons for hours on end? Environment artist Konrad Honey and game designer Rob Howard dive into Activision/Raven's classic Marvel Ultimate Alliance series. 

Topics discussed include:

-How the camera perspective influences the gameplay and level design.

-How the designers used simple interactions to give pause to the combat. 

-The heritage of these games, going back to Gauntlet in the arcades and Diablo on PC.

A long time ago, Rob read in a magazine about "Service to the Player," but couldn't recall what it was referring to exactly. Over time, he developed this into a theory of game design choices: when to break immersion to deliver something useful or fun to the player (a "service," so to speak).

Often seen in Japanese games, Rob, Patrick and Kip discuss this concept and how it improves games by keeping them player-centric. They also discuss what is *not* service to the player. 

While this is a topic near and dear to Rob's heart, you might notice the crew is a little punchy in this episode. This is because this was recorded shortly before Kip Carbone departed San Jose for another adventure in his game development career (though he will STAY ON as co-host of Grid Snaps, thanks to the wonders of the internet!).

Hey, new Death Stranding stuff! You know the Grid Snaps crew (at least Rob and Kip) drop everything when new information about Hideo Kojima's newest work comes out. 

Kip notices some of the impressive graphics tech. Rob discusses the traversal gameplay which reminds him of Breath of the Wild.

Other topics covered:

How Kojima grounds his concepts, however outlandish, in reality.

The color palette and how it enhances the game design.

The theme of the game: connection.

Check out Grid Snaps' other Death Stranding Podcasts:

https://rohogames.podbean.com/e/gspc-episode-29-rob-and-kip-talk-e3-and-death-stranding/

https://rohogames.podbean.com/e/gspc-mini-episode-4-rob-and-kip-talk-death-stranding/