The Sandbox.Space Weekly Podcast by GDEX

A new face on the 'cast, Shannon Frechen joined us today! Former MVG intern, 3D Artist and Game Designer, she creates product packaging assets for brands by day, and by night she is a member of Couch Lion Studios, an indie studio that was born and raised in the GDEX community. You can play their latest game, Dream & Sugar, free on Steam! The discussion touched on inspiration and storytelling in games, human connection, and general authenticity.

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260923

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Hanging out with our friend Ross and chatting about the highly volatile legal world of the games industry in an era with numerous hot-button topics. The conversation flows in lots of directions: copyright and fair-use, comparing and contrasting the White House arcade games with the PETA parodies, the new Resident Evil and Golden Axe movies, political leadership in the games industry, GTA6

Ross Hersemann is the founder and lead of Loading Law (@LoadingLaw), an Adjunct Professor of Video Game Law at DePaul University, a leader of IGDA Chicago, and organizer of the Chicago Video Game Law Summit.

Check out the Junction Jam! https://www.junctionjam.org/

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260916

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

A hybrid episode featuring both Tom Allenbaugh and Evan Torner, covering a wide variety of topics from mobile app store policy, to how we define expectations around game genres.

Evan Torner is the Director of the Game Lab at the University of Cincinnati and an Associate Professor of German Studies, Film and Media Studies (with a focus on German Science Fiction), and Program Coordinator for Games and Animation. He's a passionate roleplayer and LARPer, as well as being one of the founding editors of the Analog Game Studies journal and a long-time editor for the International Journal of Role-Playing. You can find him most actively on Bluesky

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260909

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

We had a really cool conversation with the MTGJedi about finding stable income and community while going through the daily grind of rearranging one's life around game development.

Mike "MTGJedi" Lanigan is a man of many talents. Former math teacher turned YouTuber, streamer, and board game dev, he successfully kickstarted his first published tabletop card game "Alaria Quest: The Goblin King's Dungeon", a fast-paced dungeon crawl that sees 1-4 players using a poker deck in brand-new ways, and is bringing it to GDEX. You can find out more about him and his welcoming community of game enthusiasts, The Jedi Academy, through https://mtgjedi.com/

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260902

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

‍Today (58 days from GDEX!) we brought two Chrises together (Volpe and Totten) to discuss the upcoming release of Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends (wishlist it!), the retirement of legendary game designer Warren Spector, brilliancies of narrative storytelling, and more!

Chris Totten is an Ohio-based 3D artist and indie dev with a studio called Pie for Breakfast. He has been in the industry for over 17 years. He is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of the Animation Game Design program at Kent State University and has authored several books on game design, including Game Character Creation in Blender and Unity and An Architectural Approach to Level Design.

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260819

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Brian Crick shares his experience as a solo Unreal developer making a story- and puzzle-driven adventure game. We delve into environmental storytelling, studio-building, working with a publisher, and the artistic consequences of the improvements in hardware over the last couple of decades.

Brian Crick owns and operates Flopsy Koala, a studio working on an adventure game called Tinselfly, which will be released soon under the Whitethorn Games publishing label. He's an Unreal developer working for a company that makes educational games about surgery. He would very much like you to support the Cleveland Game Devs scene! https://linktr.ee/clevelandgamedevs

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260805

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Another Tom-hosted episode, this time with Kent Reese of OM Games, where we chat about finishing major life-consuming projects and how to move on, along with a series of recent industry headlines and topics of interest. Kent Reese has built a game called Duck and the Land of Flightless Birds over the course of the last fifteen years, (as an indie business for over ten of them,) and you can play it now on Steam!

Check out the Rochester Game Festival!

All links featured are listed on the episode page.

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260729

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Hanging out with @ViolenceInVideoGames and discussing the indie dev lifestyle and some latest games industry headlines, including XBOX, unionization, layoffs, Roblox and Meta publishing directly with AI.

John Daly and his brother Jack form the inimitable Violence in Videogames, AKA VIV Games! He and his brother were fresh faces in our Independent/Student/Experimental (ISE) section at GDEX 2025, and they even made a cool devlog of their experience on their YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0unNBxqfQhI

Check out VIV Games' itch.io library at https://violenceinvideogames.itch.io/

The links featured in this episode are listed on the episode page.

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260722

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Getting into the realities of music and sound and the economics of the game production process with Sean Beeson! Somehow, even though he composed our intro/outtro theme, we've never had Sean on the 'cast before.

Sean Beeson is a talented musician and GDEX regular. Over the last 20+ years, he has contributed his music, sound, sonic branding and UX design sensibilities to everything from films, video games and VR titles, to Super Bowl and television ads. (He even composed the intro/outtro theme for the Sandbox.Space Weekly Podcast!) You can check out his website at seanbeeson.com

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260715

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex

Chatting with local legend Jarryd Huntley about all kinds of topics, including Playstation's move to digital-only, price increases across the console world, the destructive effects of short-term profit-maximizing, and how the games industry can navigate these stormy seas by supporting one another.

Jarryd Huntley is a game developer based out of Cleveland, Ohio. He co-authored the book Game Programming for Artists, was Lead Programmer for the award winning game We Are OFK, and is currently Director of DevOps at Owlchemy Labs working on Dimensional Double Shift.

Visit this episode's page and watch the video version at https://www.thesandbox.space/podcast/260708

Watch the show live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thegdex