Johnnemann Nordhagen, founder of Dim Bulb Games and creator of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, joins the show. Having recently displayed his game at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Arcade, we discuss the honor of being showcased as a piece of American art and the uniqueness of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, including its vignette storytelling style.

We also talk about Jonnemann’s popular postmortem for the game, leading to a greater discussion about the importance of creating postmortems to help your peers, setting up proper expectations about the success of your game, and Johnnemann choosing to move from San Francisco to Santa Fe due to the Bay Area’s rising cost of living and loss of character over the decades.

Lastly, we converse about the importance of independent and experimental games in pushing the medium forward.

Games include Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

This week, the gang is joined by local comics creator Brian Clevinger — of 8-Bit Theater and Atomic Robo fame! He joins us to talk Epic’s backpay, making ghosts, and the NEXT No Man’s Sky. Ludum Dare 42 is also upon us, so we discuss our plans for the upcoming game jam as well as our favorite past themes.

We also chat about what independent game devs and independent comics creators can learn from one another, the state of games Kickstarter versus comics Kickstarter, and the Atomic Robo tabletop RPG.

Games include Part Time UFO, Titanfall 2, Vampyr, No Man’s Sky, God of War, Just Cause 3, and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

Joining Dylan is Anya Combs, senior outreach for games at Kickstarter, as we live commentate the World Cup finals.

Anya dispels Kickstarter myths and shares how to build a community when running a Kickstarter, even when you’re unfunded.

We also share con experiences, food spots in the Bay Area, Anya’s sax side hustle, and more.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

Riding our segues into oblivion, we switch between talking about BTUs, people hogging DDR machines, advanced gungeoneering, and light gun games of all shapes and sizes.

Ancient food mascots are coming back in force, and we find out what games everyone feels the strongest about so far this year.

Games include The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, Yo! Noid II: Enter the Void, Trials Fusion, Enter the Gungeon, Spider Ponds, Butterfly Soup, Splatoon 2, Tetris, Mario Bros., Battletoads, Killer Instinct, NFL Blitz 2000, Time Crisis III, Frogger, Galak-Z: Variant S, Caves of Qud, and Overwhelm.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

This week, Dylan is joined by Phil Tibitoski, CEO of Young Horses, developers of Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

Phil joins us a week before giving a talk at the game dev program at his alma mater, DePaul University, about his experiences in helping build Young Horses. We talk about the proper advice to give to aspiring developers for their post-graduation life and providing context for how Young Horses achieved success.

For those wishing to go into independent development, we discuss creating proper expectations, indie dev’s pros and cons, transitioning from a student project to a business, and learning from others, such as Microsoft and Rochester Institute of Technology’s analysis of Gamasutra postmortems.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

This week, it’s all about stolen APCs, flixel-likes and flixel lites, making music with Beepbox, using our P-balls, and also: video games! We exchange gripes we have with some of our favorite game franchises — from Monster Hunter to Fallout — and go in deep into some new games we’ve been trying out.

But the biggest topic of discussion is of course the firing of ArenaNet employees Jessica Price and Peter Fries, a controversy that merges sexism, toxic fandom, harassment, and workers’ rights all into one. We discuss how this affects the relationship between players and developers and how it shows how the games industry still has a long way to go to combat harassment.

Games include Monster Hunter Stories, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Overwatch, Mario Tennis Aces, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Batman: The Enemy Within.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

The hot summer doldrums roll on as we ponder games both video and tabletop. This week, we’re joined by local character artist and SCAD alum Val Hawes, here to educate us on roguelikes and more.

We gather around the smoldering embers of the once mighty E3 fire to see if there were any announcements we missed, and speak our piece on seasonal game sales, aggressive fandom wikis, and multiple gaming lawsuits.

On the game dev front, Will is fast at work on releasing his new game Wobolob; Val talks about her contributions to Team Dogpit’s Red Star Azimuth; Alex’s game, Woodsy, reaches new heights after being showcased on a Markiplier video; and Dylan is busy with Peak housekeeping.

Games include Mario Tennis Aces, Overwhelm, Fugl, Wizard of Legend, Tangledeep, Kingdom Death: Monster, Agony, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, Fallout 3, Hitman, Dusk, Wobolob Classic, and Wobolob.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

This week, we’re joined by Amanda Hudgins, creator of the 1000 Button Project and managing editor at Unwinnable.

Dylan and Amanda discuss game dev in the South — the stigma that comes with it as well as only being associated with the nearest AAA publisher, even if it’s in another state.

Amanda also chats about the indie dev scene in Lexington, Kentucky, supported by RunJumpDev; game tastes influencing criticism; the TED Talk Simulator; and balancing game dev with full-time editorial work. Oh, and we discuss Amanda’s love of food trucks.

Lastly, we speak on the continuing effects of GamerGate and harassment in game development and games journalism, Amanda’s thoughts on the matter, and how no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

Joining Dylan this week is Andrew “Dicey” Shouldice, creator of tiny fox adventure Tunic!

Together, we talk hats: with Andrew working on many different aspects of Tunic’s development — from modeling to animation to level and game design — we discuss what it’s like to wear so many hats, how to decide which hats are best worn by other people, and how to transition from one hat to another without losing your groove.

We also discuss building a relationship with Finji, some Puyo Puyo Tetris strats, country-exclusive holidays, and a rabble-rousing discussion of Canadian time zones.

Games include Dark Souls III, Puyo Puyo Tetris, and Celeste.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 has come and gone, so Dylan brings along Nick Nundahl, Joe Wetmore, and Kenny Kim to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this year’s show.

We’re excited about:

Games include Pokémon Quest, Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido, and Mario Tennis Aces.

Got a question for the show? Join us on Discord at ward-games.com/discord or email us at [email protected]!